.
I’m just a lonely traveler
   on this earth
Sometimes it feels as if I'm
waiting for the sky to fall
with each passing breathe
       of wind

   Standing alone,
   a windswept tree
   leans downwind;
conspicuously wrought,
   naked and bowed
   by the grinding
      silent forces
  at nature's whim

Rootless tumbleweeds
roll by randomly:
    broken off,
spinning clockwise,
never looking back,
timeworn and tired
of resisting the prevailing
    high desert wind
and its unheld temper

Rattling the tinder
   dry sagebrush
like songless wind-chimes;
    voiceless fugitives
wreathing a bellowing silence


    Jesse Stillwater

Lightning Strikes 323 Norwegian Reindeer

Hunters made the discovery, stealth and *****
dabbed anoraks all for nothing not to mention
a critical downwind approach and camo blend

that rendered Frode and Jørgen or Ove and Anders
invisible against rock and lichen and cloudberry
but offered little protection against thoughts sublime.

Ove, perhaps, cursing God for poor sportsmanship,
the divine equivalent of dynamiting fish, while Anders
gave silent thanks to fortune, a freezer full of steaks.

Life moving fast
Like storm cell rain
Washing, running
Torrent and quickly
Through the drains.
Some daze,
In this cold and constant place
I wish I were a folded paper boat
Tipping, curving crests, afloat
And chasing the stream
Downwind.
Away and washing clean
A waxed vessel
Escaped
Pouring through
Concrete flooring.
I would steer for the sea
On waves awash with
Urban weeds
Detritus sweeping across
The deck
Of my paper boat built
For one.
I would run
With the water
A creased and soggy me
All folded and falling apart
At the seams.

Poppies blossom like open cuts.
Ripe and red, they fill the air
With a cloying sweetness
So potent anyone downwind
Must shut their eyes and breathe
Through open mouths.  Tasting
The breath of flowers, they grow
Nauseous and afraid.  

The fields sway in the hot breeze
Until they resemble an ocean aflame -
It is here, among these poppies, I have
Found the blood of the Earth.  
It is moist and toxic, an acid eating away the soles
Of all that wade through it.  
How many gaunt, pale bundles of bone
Rest below these soft, red petals?
No one dares to count.  

People do not fear such
Lovely things - if they’ve only seen
Pictures.  How nice it must be
To know nothing of poppies
But their color, their shape.  
They seem almost beautiful -
But you know better.

You have stood waist deep in the
Malignant fields, breathing the air
That slowed your limbs -
Turning your arms and legs into pendulums
Swaying to the beat of the buds
That encircle them -
Until you knelt, weighed down,
Nearly submerged by saccharine terrors,
And cried, hoping the water leaking from your heart
Would put out the fires you find yourself embracing.  
After all, during the darker hours
Any light is better than no light at all
(Or so something whispers in your tired ear).  

You know the horror of poppies -
But  still you have yet to plunge
Past the black eyes of those red beasts -
For when the wind blows clean, cold
Air to you what do you do?
You raise your arms and let yourself
Feel as though you can fly -
And one day…one day
You will look down
And see yourself above
A ground free of poppies.

I used to live downwind of the slaughterhouse,
the one below the high bluff where the state pen towers,
commanding the best view of the marsh lands
and the stink ponds making lime outta ****
for the crops not meant for human consumption;
by the dry grass parks with the broken backboards
and the netless hoops that never slow a ball down.

I used to live downwind of the rendering plant
where the bubbling lard becomes aerosol
and the air reeks of freezerburn bacon and feces,
below the high bluff where the trustees cut grass
in the clean air not meant for the locals
mixing with the immigrants and loser folk
who have knots in their shoelaces that
press against bone when chasing a loose ball.

This town never grew up. Doesn't need to.
There's plenty of ground for the taking.
Plenty of farmers selling out to the downtown club
who cobble the streets in past time fashion,
netting big gains from the professional set
lining the smooth roads annexed to the east.

I used to live downwind of the closing in stink
of renewal, where the cheap rentals and struggle
stores with the marked-up Walmart brands
lining the shelves - expired but still edible -
bide their short time compressed and diced
up like leftovers for dogs.

But this is America. I don't live there anymore.
I got myself a cush gig with a padded ladder
to the top. Did everything I needed to do
for that sure climb out into a cleaner air,
only to find myself bruise-faced and reeling
when the profits didn't match the dream
and the ladders were sold for scrap.

innuendo sushi is usher asking Sienese disowns shown plops aside ask dud
                    NCOs debs downwind UBS mayo Iowa. Laos Nissan seis *** so enemies Sandusky snails used iOS somehow Owen haikus eye owl ensues diss worsens skinned unique.
     ushers witted hub woman's newish naval cavity sis wish lend USB

[rage typing doesn't work with auto correct]

we try
to love again but
if we
listen to
our spirit
in
the downwind
believe in it and
i'll let you in

I met an old man today
I was trying to write in the sun
and was sitting downwind from him
and judgung by the smell
I thought he may have soiled himself
He was sitting with his wife
and they had about fifteen teeth between them
he heard me speak
and asked me If I was from England
yeah, I moved here seven years ago
we're from New York
that's cool, I've always wanted to go
Oh you have to,
There's no city like it in the world
So why are you in Richmond?
New York Is too **** expensive
I remember one time
I was held up by a .38
the poor ******* didn't know
I only had 75 cents in my pocket
Let me give you some advice, kid
If you ever go to New York
Never look up
only tourists look up
you gotta keep on looking forward
oh yeah
and if you have a ***** pack around your waist
and a camera around your neck
you might just get your *** kicked
oh and if you ever get lost In New York
all you gotta do is ask a mailman
they're like the kings of the city
they know everything
I wished him a nice day
told him It had been a pleasure talking to him
and walked home
only looking forward
because I'm no tourist

Biting your flesh in the darkness
How it yields

I am primal
Downwind from you
I am longing

'Us' is just a whisper, thick with liquor

But I have heard the note in your laugh,
That comes too easy

Clinging, lingering like lucid cigarette smoke
My dilemma

- For I cannot discern,
Who the fool is
You or I?

You said to me
Stand strong and firm
And by mast you would
Set sail.
Stay and sate
Our love would prevail
The rampant hunger
That swells
The tide
and draws
The moon
Baited and starved
Into the night

Yet here I am
Alone at sea
With only the breeze
For company.
A seagulls song
And the sound of calamity
Lapping and slapping
At my ego.



Like bounty
Lost And found
In darkness and depth
And heaving chests
With rusty locks
And ghosts
Stirred and stricken

I cry silent and taken by the deep
I am green with envy that you might want me.

I am left to the birds
Stark at my post
And sailing single
In this boat built for two
I need you
To want me
Navigate and steer
And plot the course
Of my flesh
Saline sweat and brackish
Brine.



I am not a ****
Cast upon shore
A ***** to the
Land-walker
No more.

I am ballast
And tempest
Uproar.

Downwind
I wait for your
Scent/
The descent
Of your body in mine.

I have time
And rhyme
And sailors song
To while the time
In which I long
And sailing alone
You will find me
Your boy lost at sea

Tapping the vein
at the section of upper and lower arm
striking the needle deep,
jagged and rough,
upon notice that Second
isn't a one-way street anymore.
Must have changed while I was gone.

My Malibu,
swerving viciously to avoid the old Grand-Am
finds its way into the right lane
the only lane
fitting like a glove on the wrong hand.

Ahead, 475 dictates my exit.
A detour, the sign says,
with little ostentation,
even more accuracy.
The highway vomits me away,
chewed and confused,
an exit before my usual.

Though the path ahead
veers straight as a needle,
it's two miles downwind.
Two miles behind.
Great symbolism,
I tell myself,
pressing ******* the accelerator.

there is no middle of the night
     only a beginning,
endlessly recurring,
     waked
by the body's vigilance
alert, for that hint of pain
like a woodland deer downwind
from his hunter, wary, agitated

woke last night at two am
walked out into the woods
down the drive to the intersection
all aglow from the blue moon
i can feel you in the muggy air tonight
     in the blue of the corona
and in the weight of the moon

when the new day dawns
we will seek visions
fully splendid with glory
but harder to hold, and
we will recognize each other
perhaps for the first time
for what we really are

but for now in the moonlit
street, standing here alone
all losses reassessed
to become as nothing
     inconsequential
in the weight of the moon
in the soft blue
night

Downwind


On a day such as today I’d

never contemplate urinating

au nature behind what could

also be, the front of a tree.


On a day such as today I

would never contemplate

hanging out washing on a

line from the above branches.


On a day such as today I

would never contemplate

leaving any of our windows

or doors open, even ajar.


On a day such as today I

would never contemplate

going outside because of the

nuclear power plant upwind.

Watch Bush.
Watch him push,
Metropolitan moods
Farther towards
The Atlantic and Pacific.
What issue was the key?
Gay marriage to be specific.
Forget our foreign policy,
Although the future looks horrific.
Ask all our allied countries,
Our president’s terr(or)ific.

He’s watching our country’s back.
(A side note: Reasoning for attack;
Some big weapons in Iraq).
This war is justified,
Our government’s convinced of that.
But waging full-out war
On a country and all its people,
Where only terrorists act?

If my sail has gone downwind,
Please advise me to tack.
But I strongly believe,
Our reasoning’s that wack.
I wish our president had the nerve
To bring our soldiers back.

It was a brilliant diversionary tact,
And advisors guessed well on how
The United States would react.
Bring fear and resources to the forefront, while hiding the facts
And legislatures and voters have a worthwhile contract.

So while I’m sitting here, still trying to figure out
Why we can’t implement more help in Somalia or the Sudan
Our leader has emerged on the world’s stage again,
Yelling “Can I get encore, do you want more?”
And ethics continue to slide off track,
While our diplomatic virtue fades to black.

Bush Jr. won the election “fairly,”
It’s clear for all to see.
But it’s sad to watch how easily
Politicians, Fortune 500 companies, and lobbyists
Have learned to exploit our Democracy.
An adept political machine,
Our government has no trouble raising the green
For our defense budgets and campaign schemes.

And it seems we forgotten about
Rescuing underfunded education,
How our country hurts collectively as a nation.
Left most of New Orleans’ poor and down-trodden
To the heroic efforts of local police, the coastguard and firemen
(At least those who weren’t part of the 1300
Which the water levels reached higher than).
And it makes me wonder,
Like 7 years ago, on the 11th day,
In the ninth month of our calendar year:
Through the wake of another major
Catastrophe and time of tears,
Did we miss the lesson, again?

See, we’ve made it a routine
To apologize after the fact -
One overzealous scream,
And the media makes
A joke of a good candidate,
Sorry, Howard Dean.
John Kerry’s record,
“Too sparkling clean.”
But accusing ANY politician of flip flopping
On the world’s political matters,
I hardly call that keen.
“We” had many grounds
For initially invading Iraq,
But to this day, have any been gleaned?
Our President lost 90-9,
In Washington D.C.

The President Elect
For 365 more.
In fact 365,
365 times four.
And with a majority in senate,
A “mandate” (a.k.a. a wide open door).

Time to get some things changed.
Instead of patching up wounds,
Of countries estranged,
With all the ambiguity of the election,
And the issues that ranged,
One thing is certain -
The President reigns.
Under the heat of the world’s glare,
Our burning Bush remains.

For twenty four years I've
been living next door to Alice.

Though it never bothered me,
because she was a vegetarian.

She never had Barbecues, but
now, a carnivore has moved in.

I'm downwind, in a terrace of
people, with whom I've no parallels.

All we have in common, is, their turds
and ours, go to the same  treatment plant.

I watched her disrobe from afar,
mesmerized was I
hidden amongst the papyrus
as she stood bathing
in the cool Nile crystal waters.
As beautiful as all the Heavens,
her skin glowed milk
below her burnt
cocoa ringlets.
Goddess cheekbones
graced a delicate smile
of teeth like fine jewels.
The curves of her hips
were finely shaped,
sculpted from
the prettiest Roman marble.
Beautiful acorn-*******
adorned
her delicious
apple-shaped *******.
A trace of dark wool
enveloped her flower
blossoming
between fine firm legs,
made from
the stoutest of cedar.
I stood silent,
watching in awe,
as her delicate
fingers circulated
her moist fineness.
And when she sighed
in bliss,
I released
my own satisfaction,
kissing the air &
swallowing her fragrance,
trembling
downwind
from her sweet Jasmine scent.

It is ok to be
not
what you are
still
becoming. She said
"you're not special." Grinding teeth and sodden rails. My car is exhausted--
downwind, held in the air like branches of birches and pines
humming with each blatant engine-stroke
which fall onto that bleakening
icedock and curl-- culled passengers tossed to sea;
unavoidably
sharp veer left, beyond surreptitious and frantic spectators
and through a once-pearl snowdrift straying into my mind.
M
C
M
L
V
Turtlenecks can't keep us warm and soup can't clear my throat.
I choke on
sliced rubber, seatbelts cut halfway-- from
Spring. pluck us like cattails
amongst my marshy solubles.
Exposes my larynx she-- ubiquitous sonnet spews forth.
What contrite aberration, wears Kalapodi temple dress
made of rose petals blown in beneath love's column
and presses with her thighs my vision?
There is nothing more to say-- meals served
raw on Winter holidays. Steaming
spoonfuls dried up on her palate--
Special in the way I left you there.
Special in being the same as I should have been.
And I, no-- I!
I can not talk any longer! The clouds I thought to taste
won't allow me to
rain
be-- once dangling from the ceiling, my dripping prevented
with a pale, cotton daub.
You see
the paramedics
even as they sheath my torso
and hold your head with thorped sieves:
The driver steered his vessel wrong
an action which robbed his passenger's breath.

Today is a stream on a still day.
The water moves, but only just.
No land eaten, and nothing rearranged.
Not stagnant, but nothing changed

Yesterday is a roaring torrent.
Landslide filth that washes out progress.
Inking pages to sepia tones-
with better days owned by the ghosts and bones.

Tomorrow is a shallow frog pond.
Stench overwhelming, and constantly avoided.
Build your cities downwind-
out of sight, and out of mind.
Come to your future ignorant,
and yearning still for yesterday.

I bled to be the rainwalker
Talking downwind, stalked by shadows, the night periodically erupts abruptly disrupting peace of mind and leaves behind the ears of corn that would expand with **** to what we now know as the sacred substance, understand this and we'll move on from this station, the hatred that makes us complacent, no directions can bee seen in green painted on the inside of our eyelid
But we did see them, when inner illumination activated the
Glow-in-the-dark properties that so impressed us coming down from the frozen mountain
Into the valley of golden fish worship,
Demons manifest in gargoyles,
Speaking through sages
Becoming animated in the full moon
Loony Toon ecstasy destroying bridges back to the sun worship
Which sees itself reflected in an empty black sky

It was a day like this,
in March; smiling blue sky,
cheering wind, chill and brisk

A day like this, on the Charles

It was a good day
for sailing, hiking out
side by side, racing upwind
‘til feathers by the bridge
rocked us like babes,
laughing verses of Rimbaud
lamenting Milton
and the Arch-Fiend

We sailed circles round the eights
sculling their way to Henley;
we called them slaves
and gestured like Merry Pranksters

We tacked and jibed, glided downwind,
and on a broad reach, we saw Prufrock
standing on shore, downcast,
as mermaids slipped on board
and sang with us:

A verse for Nausicaa
A chorus for Eidolon

downwind of world events
a small hand to help along
prayer to banish hate from hearts
(your own especially of course)
is oftentimes all you have got.

tidies up his clothes
seemingly unaware that
he still looks homeless
his eyes smile in petition
doesn't have to ask—you know

breeze shifts to downwind
smell of beer and cigarettes
he's run out of *****?
his one gray sock is holey
skin grimy, chafed and bleeding

turn away my gaze
to my everlasting shame
give or not to give
it's not even a question
he needs more than I can offer

while you were eating
cherry pie that sunday
after i reached for your
hand and your fingers
didn't curl around mine--

i took to the trees behind the cabin
and stayed the mossy grove buried
in this golden scratch
the neighbor's conversation downwind
about the mountain lion they'd spotted
and the spiritual sort of fear I felt with
my eyes closed, the mechanical click
of my own heartbeat, how things
used to flow and now they only
swarmed,
always
swallowed.

i was singing songs to call you out,
like you did the first time, when you
came up around the hillside and
followed me a ways out--
softly at first and then no more,
replaced by the force that came
upon me, where suddenly I was
uprooting trees, picking the most
desolate, gnarled aspens--unhinging
their roots to press my heel into their
soft bases, hulking forward and watching
them stretch out and out and out--

I found old yarn and tied
it for later, to find, to untie
to hope for second chances
I left the copse and you were


eating cherry pie on the porch
rummaging through coolers
oil sloshing through your bones
dragon fire in your blood
hard-headed over puerile matters
over your time, over the weeks
staunchly grounded into your own
wild western ways,

The duck's back, the bear's pelt
You've been roaming alone in the forests
As the beasts do, the lost, the frightened,
Admiring the darkness of your own shadow
The way it draws and casts away,
Doubly conflicted of your nature that
Mostly takes and takes and takes
Bears and
Men and
You.

I am really not stupid.
You would think
I should know by now,
after a million chances
a few failed
heart experiments,
I would be content.
Every time I think I've got
a handle on my life,
I fall into the downwind
scent of jasmine.
But always pachouli
& soft silky-skin
& a pretty smile
with sparkly-eyes
that laugh
and speak of love.

tender tendrils of
affection find their
way back to
wrap around my
fingers, some
remnant of last
december when we were
knocking teeth and
locking limbs.

notion clocking in:
if i hold this feeling
up to the light,
will i see it as
counterfeit or
genuine?

how precarious,
i pop bubbles
without knowing
whether more will
blow downwind to
my anxious hands
reaching up to
make them mine and
losing them in
palm-touch time.

A warmth, a blanket of darkness covers me, holds me in the night, until the sun at daybreak wakes me with it's forbidden light.  And by me, I find a human sitting there, warming herself by a fire's glowing light.  She looks at me and smiles as I gaze back with horror and fright.  I sit up, scared of what she wants, and think to run from my plight.  "You should know," my booming voice rumbles, "I do not wish to fight."  She looks at me merrily, and steps closer, my large shadow looming over her.  She understood not a word I had said.  She smells of a floral odor.  For a reason unknown, she dresses my wounds and feeds me herbs and clover.  I cannot comprehend her feelings towards me,  but she'll stay in my sight.  Something in me has snapped, an ember self-ignites.

She follows me, sticking close to my side, back into the cave where I always hide.  In there, she heals my broken heart and soul from the inside.  Does she understand my feelings?  A monster's feelings?  Or is she someone with whom I am temporarily allied?  Over time, my midnight blue fur returns, my fangs, claws, and horns still growing back.  But she is special compared to her brethren; she knows and feels something they all lack.  Courage and empathy.  You and your kind would only attack, wishing me dead, to boost your pride.  And by the devil's law, you began to abide.

I have given this woman everything, and she gave it back tenfold.  I danced with her in the wilderness, and clinging to my fur, she rode.  How could I repay this woman, for whom so much I owed?  Then, one fateful day of exploring led me to a road, a human invention leading to their towns.  It was by chance I came alone.  I would retrieve a gift for my friend; so, through the shadows of the forest, I travel, following a ditch where the great river once flowed.  It leads to a village, a small and humble place, infected by the humans and their spiteful race.  Quickly, I grab a tool they use outside, and I run away, ready for a chase.  But no one notices, no one knows of the tool I have borrowed.  I speed back to the cave where we stay.  Once far enough from the village, I slow my pace.

These chimes ring joyously in the wind, and cannot be silenced no matter how hard I try.  It reminds me of my happiness sounding, like the waves of the ocean coming in the tide.  I want this feeling to never end.  I want her to stay with me all my life.  I search for our cave, our home, this place of mine.  Something is wrong.  A stench of smoke burns in my nose and clings to the area of the forest I'm in.  I'm so close to the cave, not far downwind.  I panic and run as fast can through this maze of trees past the great river bend.  And, at the mouth of the cave, torches lay scattered, a fire burning, glowing hot, set to light by ruffians.  The smoke stings my eyes as I look high and low, trying to find where the fire begins.  Blood of smaller game covers the ground, sacrifices to the human god of wrath, traced to corpses and animal skins.  I rush into the fire where my friend has once been.  Nothing in there is left, and I leave the cave, mystified.  I find only one clue nearby, written in blood on a sign hidden under the rotting flesh where maggots had begun to reside.  It reads, 'We've caught the witch!  Let us purge her, make her cry!  She brought forth the demon, she who is satan's bride!'

I wanted to write a poem about you
But I forgot how to say your name.
You see, it is slashed into my skin
By your razor sharp claws
But it hides itself inside the **** in my tongue
Twisting itself into knots
I fear the sound of your name out loud
Because someone might hear it
It might hurt someone who knows you
It might hurt my friend who dates you
She will claim that she loves the way your name billows out of her mouth
Smoke from a freshly rolled cigarette
Until she discovers it is laced with poison
Each time she takes a drag
It chokes me
I stand downwind, still
Eager to take you into my body
That's why I still feel your kiss sometimes
From before your hands carved a crucifix into my wooden flesh
My body became a dead tree
It loves lurking in dense corners
Searching for sunlight
I can't feel anyone's touch
Without believing I will be harmed, now
But I keep searching for love in dark places
I keep reaching for hands that don't look like yours
My tongue keeps saying the names of other people
But it cannot vocalize the phonetics behind each letter
Four letters
One syllable
Zach.
I said it, and it feels
Like taking back my own body
I write it, and it looks
Like I could call you Hell
Call you evil
Call you vicious
Sometimes I wish you were any of those things
Then maybe people would believe me
In reality,
You're just someone else
With a case of whipping tongue.

Concealed and camouflaged in the long savannah grass
He waits downwind as still as a sleeping flamingo
Careful not to make the slightest sound
This valley is the richest in the land
Teeming with a mouthwatering selection of the most robust
Game under the African sky
He draws back his bow and sets his quiver aflight and with a powerful ******
It lands dead in the heart of the beast he has marked
The hunter collects his prize

Dinner was good tonight
The villagers dance around and adorn him with melodies of their praises
‘We swell with pride and plenty, we pride ourselves with plenty,
Plenty by the skilled hands of our most cunning hunter’
Only he is not at all present at this celebration for his honor
His heart and mind are fixated on a craving
That the liver of this buffalo did not satisfy
In fact it was as good as gall to him because the liver he longs for
The one which has him engulfed in a fog of insanity
Can only be likened to food that is fit for a god

Ah! He knows how the gods delight to dine
The terror of this revelation should be revolting enough to end this craving
But no
His eyes glisten wildly in the glare of the fire
Looking up they dart from person to person as he broods contemplatively
Over each one like a predator sizing up his prey for weaknesses
In their innocence the children rush to embrace him
Joyfully oblivious of his cruel intentions
And under the cover of darkness he slips away with a naïve child

The roasted liver melts in his mouth like fat in a hot cooking ***
He savors every morsel of it, indulging himself slowly
So that his immersion in this little paradise might last a little longer
No thought comes to mind of the little girls terrified whimpers
As he slit her throat and bled her before extracting her tasty liver
Only the splendid musky sweetness of it now has him in an indulgent daze

Now that he has found the desire of his flesh that eluded him for so long
Weeping and keening will echo through the village and those beyond
Women will wane and sing of loss and sorrow
Old men will dull with woe as the laughter of naïve children slowly ceases
Young men will search far & wide in futility for the monster amongst them
Yet they will not find it
And until his fall the land remains afflicted by the wake of his craving

Flash-to-bang times
was my specialty,
I can predict
the downwind
conditions of fallout,
move you across
the contamination,
administer slurry.

I know the symptoms
& what can happen
when you sniff
VX, VG or AK.
It doesn't matter which one,
it ain't pretty.

I can don a mask,
know all about MOPP,
can fight 'till I drop.

I guess that qualifies me
as an expert on the Apocalypse.

Forced cogs tinkered to
We manufactured our weariness, you and I
Cut from the same cloth evenly

Burst seams on our paper-slim Bedouin souls
Footpaths crossed by happenstance
But it was called a different name

Dampness from corners of eyes torn
From mediocrity to mediocrity
We hung ourselves from pendulums
We aged heavy as boulders do
And the voice of our clock drowned hours into static
Like the half-assed shoves of breath
That carried our wishes downwind in the summer

Our clock was a mirror then
With all those spinning parts
I only saw my own arms moving
Saw them heaving so
A mechanical Atlas, bearing upward the load
Salvation gained by loosening grip on it all

These haunts, these woes resurface
These selves of mine so cleverly buried
But never very deep

Only within the cloud of our story
And all the pretty little words that comprise it
And whichever inflection chosen
One voice at a time
Like painting with a single color

Symptoms from this mechanism grind time, low on drive
One wonders if the operator remembers how to feel alive
Dissect my mighty molecules or drop me from the sky
Ill be forced to attempt to reconnect otherwise have to learn how to fly

I almost want to cry
Feeling so alone with a trying mind
Wondering why my dad had to die
The lack of never having that almost breaks through my shell to the inside.
But Maybe I need to fall apart
Break the rib cage away to expose an already pained and vulnerable heart
There comes a time when we all must depart
Some shattered den with frayed wire ends beg to see a new start
Smile sank below the surface and slowly fades into the dark
Barely breathing treading water waiting for a shark.

Will these teeth be my friend or help me to meet a salty sea end? 
Now conjuring up questions like, If we indeed are eternal, what is there then to defend?
It's almost crushing knowing there is an inner guidance.
I want what I never had, signed up for life before reading the fine print.
Emotional glimpse, seeing your face behind my closed-eye timelessness.
I bare witness, but can anyone else see you beyond the physical finish?
I'm trying so hard to listen.  
Self-defeating prophecies take away all that has been given.
Cynical shoulder demon got me too scared to make decisions
Downwind tailspins find me coming after the fool in the mirror with a head on collision.  
I guess stress showed up to the test
I have to reassess my vision, and take pride in my mission.
It's my purpose to serve words to the unheard before we bleed with further division.
Just then a tear started to glisten, fishing incessantly for my soul.
A drop full of reflection makes me wanna lay on the floor and relinquish all control.  I tend not to let my emotions of what my ego perceives as weakness take hold.  But if it never rains how the funk will I ever grow?  This changing stranger had high vibes in the sunshine but now I feel so deeply low.  

Buried below the cold snow meat coat is a shine that's been trying to show.  
Will the world ever see it's light? 
Another beautiful, heartbreaking mystery, I speak to mirror man again stating simply, "who knows."
When just then in my head,
"It'll be alright."

No "upgrading the nuclear arsenal", as President Trump has promised;

No more threatening the world with nuclear war, as he has done.

"...We(e),...", are all downwind from nuclear war, accidents, waste.

'An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure'.  A bird in the

Bush is worth two in the hand, at least.  'A stitch in time saves nine'.