Who do you call when your brain is on fire?
When sunshine strips
begin to fade from the bed sheets,
And you find, yet again,
That you've allowed a day's worth of stability
To deconstruct itself.
For a while, a silhouette you will remain,
Chasing the origin of light,
Only to fall into the one thing blocking it.

What happens when a brain is burnt out?
Drawing out breaths that latch to the cold air,
When you stand with weary muscles,
A title wrapped around your forehead,
And a frustration festering.
Holding close to the last remaining memories,
Of security, of solidarity, of purity.
Losing yourself to yourself,
Costs less and less each time.

When do you decide a brain needs fixing?
When the ride home is full of regret,
And your legs cannot stop shaking.
A miserable night will be swept under the rug,
So dogear the scripture you spoke belligerently,
And the world will suddenly seem small.
A breakdown happens when most needed.
A breakthrough happens when least expected.

How do you fix a brain?
Probably, the day without questioning it all,
Will be the day you figure the most out.
If we can get a mixed up mind to settle,
Then the first thing to learn would
Be the acknowledgment of a new, better life.
We will all survive our demanding brains,
if only someone will show us the way,
Will someone please show us the way,
Before another brain is ignited?

Razor on the bathroom sink and the smell of pine and aftershave
Calloused hands
Dirt fingernails
You packed and formed the soil like clay
Like paint
You were an artist, silent in the morning
Coffee before work
One beer after
One beer after and a warm dinner she made
Pine and aftershave
on the stairs
on the carpet
on the carpet on the stairs
Lean in
Lean in, kids
Lean in and I’ll tell you about them
You said,
You are an artist,
Silent and coffee in the morning
Loud and beer on the stairs,
on the carpet in the afternoon
Leather seat
Newspaper dogear
Brewers turned on
In the leather seat,
‘Turn it up,
They’re winning!’
They’re winning
They’re winning
Screen porch
Wooden door
Screen porch through the wooden door
Sitting
Bumblebee Boompa
Bumblee Boomps
In the garden
On the sink
In the kitchen
On the stairs
In the living room
On the porch
You are an artist
Silent in the morning
Loud
Loud
Loud in the afternoon
and winning

For all the goodness this screen provides;
for its instant gratification;
for the evolved digital relay of self-published creativity;
for the immediate responses and comments
from half a world away.
For its space saving mastery.
I long to hold all your words, verses and rhymes intimately
within glossy or plain protective coat of hard card
Your spine dunked in the cup of palm
headcap to tail resting in crux of arm
or nestled like a lover upon lap.
I could take you to bed.
I want to thumb through your pages
Pages once mashed and pulped and pressed to dry.
I long to feel the weight of words physically
to smell the freshness along each hinge crease,
and caress the texture.
To return to those most fond
charactered with dogear
underlined with ballpoint
and pencilled margin notes.
Even the mild smudge of finger tip dirt
when I simply could not wait to picking you up before washing.
If only this screen was a page
One of millions ever changing
I could hold all your work close
and fall asleep with your words
waiting in rest beside me
always
beside
me....

i want to be someone
who you want to
experience
not a person who
you can lose interest in
like a record you've listened to
too many times
without pausing
to truly listen to the lyrics
i want to be someone
you want to be around
add my laugh
to your favorite soundtracks
and appreciate
my company
not just flip through
my pages and skim a few lines
but actually dogear pages
and highlight your favorite parts
i want to be
worth something to someone

I'm starting to not remember how you looked.
But I remember little things,
like how you'd fold half the page to dogear
your place in a book.
The smell of old canvas
which you stretched when you were manic,
and watched it turn whiter
as you grew depressed thinking of how to paint it.

The grinding of your teeth in your sleep, ******* it
it drove me up the wall. Still does, because
as I sit here writing it from memory I shuddered.

The smell of your shampoo whose brand name I forgot.
Because if I could I'd have a case of it.
Just to be nearer to you.

You used to smile when I'd read you something I wrote.
Now I've found a website where I can post.
You always told me I had some type of talent to capture
moments nobody noticed,
a photographer with words instead of apertures.
But aren't they meant to be worth a thousand more than mine?
I think you held for me a little bias.

You told me I'd end up as a paragraph in an essay
of some American Literature student's midterm grade.
She'd ace it, and I loved where you placed me.
In the middle of everything better than I was,
in this future of whimsy where I kept writing
just because.

I can't tell you what you gave me for those years, as short as they were.
All I can do is tell other people that any confidence or talent is all due to her.