Windows rolled down to catch the hint
Of the first faintest salt-tinged taste
Of air as it rushes into our eyes and ears and noses.
It arrives long before the destination,
Expectations increasing as sandy patches
Begin to burst into view.

Never before witnessed by eyes of these occupants
The palm trees, seashell shops, and forever blue expanses
Plaster our faces and finger-pointing hands to windows.
A flying fish breaks the surface as we skim our own sea
Curving and turning the contures woven for us.

The stop is long-awaited, long-sought, long-debated
But soon, as in a dream awakened, our feet touch
Something other than carpeted floorboard.  Sand
Gives us one second's pause until shoes are discarded
Where they lie unguarded as toes touch the sandbox.

Hot sand guides us quickly to water where white waves
Rush on its newcomers, greeting with kisses the blue-white
Eyelashes of the ocean eye.  Splashing and crashing
Waves beat us down, then again pick us up, lifting
And twisting till our faces wear red-sun masks.

Collapsing in sleep, energy spent by ocean's leaching
Reconvening in silence as bed's teaching leads us
To dream and desire, the new advantages of energy
The ocean, with no ride to slow us, wakes us with calls
"Rush on! Rush on!" as every wave turns.

The one day of driving, seems so long compared
To the week of fun flying sooner than thought.
The best trip, this trip, had come unexpected,
And its end, abruptly so.
A trip discovered with the flip of a coin,
heads: east, tails: west.

(the reconvening of my mind)

It's always the extremes
that bring me back to center,
but it's the trips I take on purpose
that remind me its time to go home.

Today it was the thought of blood.
I cannot stand the sight of it,
and neither would I brave a plunge
in icy depths this time of year.
I’d rather gather sunlight
and convince myself there are
no ghost revivals,
only blood reprisals from
daddy's DNA.

I tell myself
I need to get away
to where I can pray
again, to quit giving in,
to stay and fight wars,
the black, the white,

the gray fluttering darkness that
comes out of nowhere swooping
past my ear, scaring the **** out of me
as if it never happened before
but it has, its just been a while.

So I call for a council of angels,
then prepare for the riptide
of demons that join the fun when
my cranial convention convenes.

The left against the right,
The east against the west,
The pros against the cons,
all the ups and downs,

I don’t give a **** what it is
just give me back my wars.
Give me back my reasons to live.

Give me Nietzsche
Give me Brennan Manning
Give me Sam Harris
Give me Frederick Buechner
Give me Bertrand Russell
Give me Henri Nouwen
Give me Daniel Dennett
Give me Gerald May
Give me M Scott Peck
Give me Pia Mellody
Give me Dante
Give me Jane Kenyon
Give me the Marquis de Sade
Give me Dostoyevsky
and that should just about do it.

Within these names exist
enough controversy,
enough conflicting views
on life, on love, on God,
enough heresy,
enough truth,
enough lies,
enough knowledge,
enough beauty
to keep me waging wars
inside my head until the day I die.

Give me back my wars.

Please God
Don't make me prove I can live without her
I'm tired of plot twists
Of separation and reconvening

I couldn't make sense
Out of losing her
This love is immune to lies

I don't ask myself where life will take me
Anymore

I just want to know if she'll be there.

how come you and me
two who’ve
never met nor swapped sentences manage
to share snark remarks
restless in our respective heads
with no respect for one another’s existence
only contempt
it’s not so with any of the others
strangers acquaintances or lovers
we share something so rare and more special
absolute oblivion untainted by rumors or manufactured societal whispers

i know you reel your bridge wobbly bridge up
when i can feel the joints in me grow feeble
as i sit crippled fixed and fixated facing my window
rear
view mirror pointed at my own picture
in constant and consistent self reflection
conquering me and who am i but my self image
the glass always did manage
to drive me insane while as i drive away
never knowing where always lost
and failing to distract the tailgating tears
that fixate on me in a manner familiar to the see through glass protecting and destroying me simultaneously
when so often as i do
i set my gear in rear to feed my view
with the daily purpose i succeed to achieve as i creep routinely
sealing
concealing
you
my blinds always convened at the zenith near the ceiling but me
blind as can be at the mastermind in my head that never doesn’t lie to me
perhaps on my deathbed if it’s cruel as me
she’ll ever so gracefully reveal
the futility of my mastery
existence
sat in the same seat
villains use for immortal rule
or so i believed
until she interrupts flashes of my life as it reels transiently
and i hear white noise
precede pictures of my enemy
not the one who consumed every day and week
but me
last in line
in the rear
like the rectangle red as my hand is
that i’d moved foolishly
when it came on the four wheels  
voluntarily convincingly and connvivingly
propelling my apathy as i tell havoc i wreaked to thank me for sloppily reconvening pieces of piece but only if they come to me at a time of conveniency

and as i let the last breath leave
i weep in agony
it tells me won’t cease lest i voice humility
and in the ashes of my pride
and defeat
i stand mistaken ready tremblingly

and as the last breath leaves me
i am forced to face myself for the first time truthfully
despite the absence of shards or glass  
i wheeze my insignificance
and its ancestors i ungratefully inhaled for years on end
leaving the atmosphere with nothing but negative air
known to devils as credit
and the naive indebted
i move it to check one last time
the status of the pests i’d see whenever i took one second to check if i’d yet received my privacy  
and it returns the gesture by in turn moving me

and as i lie here
losing touch with reality
and the air you breathe
absentmindedly
i burden chooses to leave me
and i know i defied physics
because until now
never have i truly breathed

and as you lie to me
blind that you are not me
but i am you
foolish
in the fake truth
that i lie here
when i no longer do

one day you too as i have
will have learned the lesson
taken the final
passed
and finally
as i have now
passed
you have yet to meet it
but there is a heaven

in time
you too
like me
will see it:

sleep.

We are not a close family.
We do not share positive relationships.
Our parents tried, but then they stopped.
Outwardly we were making the attempt;
We shared meals,
Took trips,
Posed for Christmas cards.

There was no trust.

There was no confidence.

There was obligatory love.

(The love that compels you to remind your suicidal daughter that her death would make you die in pain from sorrow. Despite your situation, and lack of attempts to resolve it. You think about solutions, but you never act on them. And I have been in trouble of becoming you.)

There was established peace.

(If you count each person retreating to their respective rooms until reconvening for dinner then inevitably dispersing once more, this time to go cry and lick their wounds from the encounter.)

There was a democracy.

(Assuming that a democracy consists of two dictators and multiple, consistently irritated rabble rousers.)


And there was free speech.

(That was regulated for all offspring; excluding, of course, the youngest. He had to be heard somehow. )