We both have felt like charred trees,
Tearing out each other's roots and
Setting each other's roots on fire.
We've fought
Tooth and nail
Clawing out each other's eyes,
So we can't see.
But today you smiled.
And for once I felt bad.
You were alone friend.
And yet I left you.
I meant to be nice.
But what to say?
Reconciliation.
We need to replant our
Scorched roots
And hope that the seedlings
Sprout in the wake of our
Beautiful disasters.

From the Azul sky a diving sparkling speck,
An unmatched beautiful creature without circumspect,
The golden leaves of spring like soldiers on parade,
Dip and make way for this fair winged maid.

I have so much longed to be first bite of this season,
To be touched and blossomed to perfection by your reason,
I grow juicy, soft and ripen as I fall for you.
Tumbling into your soft Cashmere hands on cue.

Salivating, I’m tasty, savour me between your teeth,
Sink deep in without remorse, how delectably indiscrete!
Say my name with a smile it’s so safe in your mouth.
I’m tingling the roof of your brain with my flavours coming out.

Take me away! as we fly, I’m cast about like an enchanted spell,
Moistening your soft syrupy lips of caramel.
I’m drained to sustain the iridescent colours of your gilded wings,
Moved by the high passionate notes as you sing.

Your smooth, probing tongue, my flesh diabetically sweet,
Leaving streaks of sienna nectar on fates smeared cheeks,
Wipe away before staining fabric from our black and white lives.
They keep returning, stubborn like long goodbyes.

Surprise! New emotions enveloping, hypnotic like Night Jasmine,
Mimicking a rainwater spout so bubbly, escaping, and exciting!
Your caught hopeless as a fish fly rod with a glass eyed trout
Choking while love swoops silent from heaven to pluck it out.

That’s when you look at my seed and you can tell.
I’m good for your ego but as bad as a toadstool’s spell.
So I’m placed in the first mound of mud you come across,
Where you replant me sprinkled with fairy dust.

To the woman who scolded me for moving on with my life after my assault at age 13:

"Your life didn't skip a beat, you went to school and hung out with friends and everything," is what she told me.

Yes my life did not skip a beat when I was entirely uprooted.
What happens to a plant if it is uprooted? Can a plant survive if it is pulled up out of the soil?
I have found that just as with any other situation involving injury, there as some steps you need to take in order to repair it.

First you need to assess the damage. Broken stems and wilting leaves are obviously very noticeable symptoms of distress. What is important is the condition of the main stem and the roots. This will determine whether or not the plant can survive. The sooner you can take emergency steps the better.

The next step is performing first aid. The plant benefits from little additional trauma as possible. Torn branches need to be cut back, to avoid any additional tearing. Keep in mind that any cutting done should be gentle and done with sanitized tools to prevent disease in the already weakened plant.

One of the final steps is replanting. The plant can now be replanted even deeper than it was before, and watering it regularly can reduce its stress.

Lastly, monitoring the plants success is important. The key to restoring a plant that was uprooted is patience while waiting for it to adjust through a period called transplant shock. Note that the situation may look worse before it looks better. Large leaves may wither or drop. Transplant shock can last several months or even seasons. Provide persistent care to the plant, and do not judge it until the next season of growth, usually during spring. It is usually worth the wait.

So, yes. I did not skip a beat.
I did not skip a beat after I was ***** and my life became uprooted because the sooner you can take emergency steps, the better. I learned how to replant myself instead of letting my life wither away. And do you know what? It was surprisingly worth the wait.

you nourish relationships that don’t want to grow
maybe you should leave, you should just go

you put energy into so many people
that in reality sting you like a needle

they can’t give you anything in return,
nothing that sets your heart on fire
or makes it burn

and if you only would know
that those people don’t want to glow,

or at least not with you,
then maybe you should
adapt your crew

so stop watering death plants,
maybe you should just replant.

- gio, 10.04.2020

Aborigines in the Australian outback  
Among starving dingoes

A drug deal going on behind the bowling alley
And a butterfly knife waiting to be put into someones gut

Show some skin
Then maybe you will get somewhere at the customer service desk
Buyer beware, consumer keep cautious
Lay waste to that place and get your money back

They sold you an amphibian and told you it was a marsupial
The clerk wrote your inconvenience off as null

Off in Puerto Rico there's a cockfight
Pass the bug replant
Dos cervezas por favor
It's a steel cage grudge match
Brought to you by the courtesy of some man who's name I cannot pronounce
I got my invitation to this thing in a basket of tropical fruit
Someplace near substructure homes

I see a man in a bandanna looking at me
He turned out to be a free lance astronomer who has a thesis on starry quadrilaterals in the sky
He thought by betting on the bigger rooster he would hit pay dirt
But it was I who met pay day when I bet on the smaller, faster one

The astronomer had so much hate in his eyes I thought his corneas were going to burst
Be pulled out a blade and chased after me and all my winnings with the intent to puncture my torso and pillage my pockets

But had to go see a man about a horse named "Nunya"
Luckily I got away clean to tall the tale

This is a true story of ******’s ally

The old man carried a cello and a stool
Bullets divided wind
So many straight lines he could see them like sheet music

He sat the stool down in the middle of the street
Held his cello
And played under the gunshots
Until everything was quiet

And in the outdoor acoustics
Made by apartment buildings and the morning cold
He played a fifteen minute rendition of heartache
On a cello tuned to the key of thunder

His high notes were so much screaming
And the deep low notes bellowed his hunger
It was the simple sound of savagery
When people needed another way to know what pain sounds like

They could hear it in the way that the strings
Absorbed the rust from his arthritic fingertips
Scraping the sound of struggle

It was the most painfully beautiful music
He played to the soft continuous metronome click of reloading
Beauty like a rose that dies in the hair of a girl
Whose own rose is a blooming ****** chest wound

Thought maybe he could replant her
Like the earth might give her back

Anything plucked from the root dies shortly after
He played for her
He played for courage
He played like a prayer to be shot doing what he loved

We all wanna die doing what we love

She was shot picking roses

He played cello
On a playground of bullets
A song that begged
**** me

Where is your god now?
When all you wanted was to be a casualty of love and music

He finished
Beads of sweat like ***** diamonds
As the morning sun mocked him for living another day

Some of us get to walk away from this
Without a single scar
Even if we wanted one

He walked away

And shortly after

The bullets began to do what bullets do
When they pierce flesh

Shall I wither and fall like an autumn leaf,From this deep sorrow – from this painful grief?How can I go on or find a way to be strong?Will I ever again enjoy life’s sweet song?Sometimes a warm memory sheds light in the darkAnd eases the pain like the song of a Meadow Lark.Then it flits away on silent wings and I’m alone;Hungering for more of the light it had shone.Shall grief’s bitter cold sadness consume me,Like a winter storm on the vast angry sea?How can I fill the void and deep desperate needTo replant my heart with hope’s lovely seed?Then I look at a photo of your playful smiling faceAnd for a moment I escape to a serene happy place;Remembering the laughter and all you would do,Cherishing the honest, caring, loving spirit of you.Shall spring’s cheerful flowers bring life anewAnd allow me to forget the agony of missing you?Will spring’s burst of new life bring fresh hopeAnd teach my grieving soul how to cope?Sometimes I’ll read a treasured card you had given meAnd each word’s special meaning makes me see,The precious gift of love I was fortunate to receive,And I realize you’d never want to see me grieve.Shall summer’s warm brilliant sun bring new light,And free my anguished mind of its terrible plight?Will its gentle breezes chase grief’s dark clouds away,And show me a clear path towards a better day?When I visit the grave where you lie in eternal peace,I know that death and heaven brought you release;I try to envision your joy on that shore across the sea,And, until I join you, that’ll have to be enough for me.For all the remaining seasons of my life on earth,There’ll be days I’ll miss your merriment and mirth,And sometimes I’ll sadly long for all the yesterdays;Missing our chats and your gentle understanding ways.Yet, the lessons of kindness and love you taught me,And the good things in life you’ve helped me to see;Linger as lasting gifts that comfort and will sustain,Until I journey to that peaceful shore and see you again.

A Lily never lies
unlike a neighbouring plant
where shrub and grub
are given a rub
like lavender to enchant
A Lily never lies
like your eyes
even if you tried
you can’t recant
you send a scent
and as soon as it’s sent
like lavender you replant

We have bulldozed the Garden of Eden;
we are nothing more than a parasite with an unending appetite
for destruction in the name of civilization.

Our monstrous monumental achievements can be viewed from space;
we are the cataclysmic legion, the unbeaten ******, the demon of freedom
with the desire to demolish and impoverish the last bastion arboretum.

We are mad and frenzied in our passion;
we are the phantasm assassin choking the very lungs we use to breathe
the misanthrope who carves materialistic thrones to sit on and wait for exalted death while we replant trees in self-centered glorification of hope.

We are doomed and we know it, but we still don't care;
we question science and bemoan nature for wreaking havoc, stare into the microscope looking for answers in the reverent appliance of defiance waiting to find the sparks to eternal life there.

We are the envy, the mistrust, the sadist and the snake;
we squabble over the scraps of apple peel and douse ourselves in ice cubes
whilst far away some African child walks 50 miles for a sip of clean water
we are the plague of mistakes broadcasting hurricanes to entertain.

We have bulldozed The Garden of Eden
now only the snake remains and there is no escape
freely offering the apple peel to those who obligingly accept

our epitaph will read:
humanity stepped back
to be overshadowed by an ape.

I've reached the house that once was a speck
within thick layers of a forrest no longer visited.
Its red clay walls were cracked and crumbling,
ready to become a pile of dust and ash-
remnants of a place ignored and long forgotten.
The roof was caving,
tiles missing or rank with mildew,
and consumed by tiny holes that let flashes of sunlight break through.
The foundation of this red clay house
was weak and tired,
barely able to support the deteriorating red clay walls.
A cobblestone pathway,
walked upon daily many moons ago,
led me to the door.
Of all the decay and ruin that plagued the red clay house,
the door remained firm,
and the lock thick and strong.
It's been long since entered.
Such a strange little key hole,
such a foreign yet familiar place.
I circled, circled, circled
the red clay house,
searching for the key,
or any way in.
So barren the space around the red house,
just dirt and little pieces of fallen clay.
Not a place to hide the key,
not a crack big enough to enter.
I went to my knees, and prayed for an answer,
     I knew this was my home.
Tears fell from my eyes
as I pleaded for my life.
They hit the sweet Earth,
and I watched a miracle occur.
Where my prayers had fallen,
I found the answer.
A pool of wet red clay had formed of my tears and Earth.
I took the hands which have shaped my life,
and dug them deep inside.
I carried that red clay to my home,
and began repaving the cracks in the wall,
carefully examining the damages,
finding the causes,
and forgiving myself for all the years I spent without a single visit.
The cracks take long to repair,
consistent care,
touching directly the spaces that hurt.
From the foundation, to rooftop I work and work,
watch the house reshape day by day.
Still,
I must fall to my knees and pray for the answers,
let my tears fall to the Earth
and create medicine.
Everywhere I step now,
flowers sprout from the ground,
vibrant colors shining in the sun,
I water them daily,
the work is never done.
I am still reaching my hands in pools of red clay,
and paving the cracks that will always
find their way up from the depths.
I have unlocked the front door,
found the key under my tongue
the day I prayed to be let in.
Oh, how the light shined so bright inside,
not through tiny cracks in the roof,
or cracks in the walls of red clay,
but in my hands
when I stepped through that door.
The hands that paved the cracks,
the hands that reached up to the Sky
and asked for rain
on the days that my tears could not create enough clay
to fix the cracks that threatened to tear down
all the work I had done.
The hands that replant the seeds after a harsh winter,
and unlocked that front door.
The hands scarred and callused
that will never stop paving the cracks.
These cracks are no longer ominous,
no longer chooser of my homes destiny,
for when the home is found,
it can not be forgotten,
and when the door is opened,
it can not be locked again.

My tears turn into spiders
Swiftly running down my face
Racing straight into my mouth
And I really hate the taste

My words turn into sparkles
As they quickly leave my lips
Soon then turning into stars
And greeting the sky with a kiss

My dreams now become liquid
And flow into the sea
Turn to waves and rapids
And splash back into me

My fear turns into flowers
And I collect the seeds
But then when I replant them
They just turn into weeds

This is a true story of ******’s ally

The old man carried a cello and a stool
Bullets divided wind
So many straight lines he could see them like sheet music

He sat the stool down in the middle of the street
Held his cello
And played under the gunshots
Until everything was quiet

And in the outdoor acoustics
Made by apartment buildings and the morning cold
He played a fifteen minute rendition of heartache
On a cello tuned to the key of thunder

His high notes were so much screaming
And the deep low notes bellowed his hunger
It was the simple sound of savagery
When people needed another way to know what pain sounds like

They could hear it in the way that the strings
Absorbed the rust from his arthritic fingertips
Scraping the sound of struggle

It was the most painfully beautiful music
He played to the soft continuous metronome click of reloading
Beauty like a rose that dies in the hair of a girl
Whose own rose is a blooming ****** chest wound

Thought maybe he could replant her
Like the earth might give her back

Anything plucked from the root dies shortly after
He played for her
He played for courage
He played like a prayer to be shot doing what he loved

We all wanna die doing what we love

She was shot picking roses

He played cello
On a playground of bullets
A song that begged
**** me

Where is your god now?
When all you wanted was to be a casualty of love and music

He finished
Beads of sweat like ***** diamonds
As the morning sun mocked him for living another day

Some of us get to walk away from this
Without a single scar
Even if we wanted one

He walked away

And shortly after

The bullets began to do what bullets do
When they pierce flesh

to replant or relearn
like they're the same thing
that to swallow a seed
is like eating the tree

water feeds worry
& words tell me
n o t h i n g

but you told me that you loved me
& it is all I can believe

tonight i'm finding poems
in every place you stood
& I am digging deep in gardens
busting knuckles over wood

the grace to understand, my love
is doing me no good
it is the way you burn inside of me
I wish you understood

Sparks, imperial journey to the great gold
     it's day for shining
     dark for crying
     and pining
     deciding
     where to go? in this great blue world
I see lines
     better to remove the dust and
     grab whatever's floating

How would we stay alive for ourselves?
          Tell me what a real person is.
          Ask me what a real human is.
Green, I feel green
     in the face and the toes
     because green grows
     what the heart knows
Safety is gone
     but i feel alright. Just because it might go away doesn't mean I have to hold on harder, or bite down stronger.

Everything slips, because
     everything slips.
     Hang me on a string
     and rid the town of my modern making
They wanted a puppet
     but they gave me the wrong color
     the mismatched wood
     uneven cards and googly eyes
     that see too much.

Maybe the sun could bleach me
     back to a perfect dolly
     on the windowpane
     for your pleasure and my disdain
We could avoid the mess
     of dancing under Vega
     Aquarius is finally here
     and it only talks this way
     in the summertime
But I've learned to listen:
     love sets in after time, and distance is quickest.

I sent a letter admitting that it's partially my fault
     for losing myself in the hanging orb
     but internally I knew that distance is quickest
I sense a change above our hearts
     and it wants
     an audience
Maybe the stars know what to do?
     Down here it's not true
     to say we have any clue

If there only was a way to learn that Sparks in the sky
     are opportunities to try
          and lie less
          to be great and honest
     Learn that distance is quickest

Green: the spaceship of our baby dreams
     and quilt seams
     begging us to replant
     and re-*** and re-hash
     for a brighter future
     a lighter day
Wringing on my knees in the end
     to believe that distance is quickest
     and harmony's not already dead

Finally.
I know that Sparks exist
for me to recharge and rebuild.
They're green and they live in the sky
that we filled
they live in my art and the world's heart
so if safety existed: Sparks would not.
and the distance would look like time.

So tell me why I should be human
when I run so much better as a
shiny
porcelain
battery
backup
mind

Go find for me in all of botany;
The rarest green amidst the sweetest mire.
That blooms of petals white like cottony,
Of growth 'twas serenaded by a lyre.
Replant with gentle skill by window's sill
Repose the eye that sunlight does not steal.
The blondy gaze, so fixed herein and still,
Unless the breezes kiss corona's seal.
Then flowered dance shall sway to hymns of bay
And whom shall follow trance'd with steady eyes;
Be titled botanist, of beauty's play.
Degree that yields each morn' when sun does rise.

Find that and glimpsed what fair does lay this bed,
But 'pare her side the flower, flower's dead!

Jasmine although your embedded scent is faint, I'm still stuck here with a headache when all I want is rest. My sinuses is a mess. I don't know if I'm crying or lying. I tried cinnamon, turns out subconsciously I was looking for a synonym. I didn't get the same adrenaline. So now I'm lonely again. Wondering why did you leave, missing your semievergreen leaves, bless me with your presence as I sneeze. I want you to bloom, replant yourself back into my room.

Can you help me find a remedy for this swollen heart?
She says it's just a side effect of all the alcohol.
"If you let me have my way, I swear I'd tear you apart."
She says I'm getting my aching organs mixed up,
and it's the liver that's in need of a detox.
****'s all out of context.
I told her to forget it.

"One of these mornings will be the loudest you'll hear,"
but my head's still ringing from the echo of ten years spent ignoring alarm clocks.
I can see the too-bright light at the end of the tunnel,
but I'm getting off at the next stop,
and I can keep hopping these cars ad infinitum.

"A long time ago, we used to be friends,"
but I've broken half-a-hundred promises since then,
and I'm in no condition to up and replant these seeds of doubt that my family tree dropped nearly three decades ago.

This ain't the song to end it on.
And these aren't the words either of us ever wanted to have to regret not saying,
but why can't you just say what you mean?

"We met one day in wet cement,"
and our swollen hearts have been slowly hardening ever since.

the way
your life
blossoms
depends not
in the way
that you water it

but in the way
that you replant it
over and over in
different mindsets.

in different soils
and environments.

seeing what suits
your characteristics.

seeing how much
the sun touches your leaf.

and how you release
oxygen back to the world.

I saw the land
Crazed in a glory of dry Earth
Blistering the soles of my feet as
I tried to replant my roots
Gingerly I stood
Wanting to sink in
Wanting to be engulfed by that which birthed me

I stood at the gate of a home that had forgotten forgetting me
Hearing it branding me with the name that could only be mine
Calling me with the name that should only be mine

And I birthed three children then,
Out of my guttural reserves I echoed three
And laid them bare to the wind
If it pleased to carry them
To an ear with the heart to listen
I tried to replant my roots, as if these feet recognized this soil
With saltine tears I water my roots and lay them out to bake.

There are layers existing deep
in you,
parts long forgotten,
parts yet to be found,
they call, but you have never known
how to listen.

They can no longer wait.
The Gods make sure of this.

Someone or something will come
and burn you down to nothing.
Burn down your faulty armor.

It will hurt. And it should.

On the other side of this hurt,
who will be there, but the charred seeds
of your soul.

Find them. Only you can replant them.

Only when you have stopped looking for yourself
in the hands and at the feet of shallow statues,
look down to the soil at your own feet, that ground
you walk upon, there,
plant those seeds, and begin again.
Grow stronger.
Grow wiser.
Reborn.

I rarely edit my work
I prefer the fresh
green
words that sprout in the moment
There is something disingenuous to me
about letting someone
even a later self
uproot and replant my ideas

My mother wants me to
let the editors inside
she wants me to open my sanctuary
to the norms
the opinions
the pen
of the world

I'm afraid to touch my own words
because god loves ugly
because
I
love ugly
what would happen
if I let
them
touch my thoughts?

I think therefor I am
so if they help me think
am I still?

give me your downcast, your ugly, your broken
the grit and the grime of your teeming mind
I lift    my       pen, I peel back the wool
this is life, there is no golden door of escape

complacency is sickness
have I found it
of from it do I flee?

The Games we play

This is not an English poem, the fear of showing
emotion, look at my stiff upper lip, wrapping
words of love in cotton wool. The truth is, my
Dear, I don't care for you, but my cowardice is
a deep river so profound I can't come and say:
I don't love you anymore.

Flowers sent, the ring I gave was out of pity
and guilt hoped you would sense the chill
behind the gift and frigidity of feeling.
Under a cloud of pusillanimity, we'll wed, live
near a hairdresser salon for you, and a park
bench of Autumnal leaves, for me.

Unbridgeable the distance between us, I will
go on dreaming, and you will scream at, my
passivity till there is no reason left,
the useless wind brings no seed to replant.
This is how it will end because I lack the gut
to say simply. “I don't love you anymore.”

I know exactly what this looks like.
Cold, grey, and understated.
It's the bruised piece of fruit at the bottom of the crate;
the one everyone sees but won't commit to buying.
He thinks he won't buy it either,
but when she drops him,
the loneliness consumes, it envelopes,  
and the grasping begins.
He grabs... anything.
He grabs the bruised fruit.
He sinks his teeth into its soft flesh;
juices sweet;
texture pleasing.
He forgets the superficial imperfections.
After he's enjoyed it down to its bare core,
it knows.
This was only temporary.
He won't replant the seeds to watch it grow.
He won't thank it for the nourishment
that got him by.
He will drop it, without regard,
as he admires
the polished pieces placed at the top of the crate.
When he's hungry, he'll choose, carefully, this time,
without letting on he knows exactly what this looks like.
Seeds by a trashcan;
unfulfilled potential strewn across the floor;
a rotting purpose.

When I was sixteen
I picked up my life
And moved across state lines
To a town full of strangers
And emptiness

And though the emptiness seems cliche
There is nothing as full and rich as your home town
With its familiar faces
And places
And ways.

And so that first summer there
I floundered
I slept too much
And I ate too little
And I ached for a home that didn't even want me
Or so I thought

But it's not that I abandoned it
It's that I was taken from my home
And told to replant and cultivate roots in impossible soil
But my roots have not cracked the surface of this new "home"
But when I go back to my real home
I go to visit my roots
Where I could have grown strong and sturdy
And maybe not lost the boy I loved
And the family I'd cultivated
And the memories I missed.

If absence makes the heart grow fonder,
Then maybe I've fallen too hard for my home.

But love is love is love is love
And I love and miss my home.

Your beautiful mind is shrouded by our abyssmal surrounding
The jarring ruckus composed of voices with nothing to say, comitting lustful and spiteful acts just as confounding
You buzz around the gun shots in the night from the heated exchanges of the afternoon, and relish spreading the news in the morning
Yet we all hate the mourning

Your thoughts float along a tributary of violence, carrying too much weight not to be dragged under by the venomous current
And you love it

If only one ambition I could bring to fruition, if only one purpose I would be a leal servant
It would be to abruptly uproot you from this concrete savannah,
this rolling plain of debauchery,
this collaboration of skullduggery,
this tundra of treacherous trollops

And replant you firmly in view of the sun,

Mother
I see the sadness in your eyes
The uncertainty
The fear of solitude
I saw it the first time I told you I was leaving
Spat out in awkward silence during one of our quiet dinners
I told you that I was leaving
Going across the country
Moving 5,000 miles away
To where the air is always warm
And sun is in abundance
Leaving
To experience real life
For the first time
Mother
You took my haste decision to go
As nothing more than a reason for abandoment
To leave you
Alone
And longing
Just like my father did
But you see
Mother
I am not leaving to spite you
I am not leaving because I no longer need you
I am not leaving in attempt to forget every memory built in the drywall of this home
Mother
I am not leaving
To solely leave you
I am leaving
Because the roots I've planted refuse to grow here
I can not bloom into anything more than weeds and grass in an environment like this
In constantly cold weather
With bitter neighbors
In a town surrounded by people whos only intention
Seems to see you fail
I have failed too many times
To want to give up
I have lost myself on too many occasions
And am just finding out
Who I am
I know that
There is a longing in my heart for ocean
And sand between my toes
I want nothing more
Than to risk everything I have ever known
To be able to see through a different lense
I would rather lose it all
Than condemn myself to a life of unhappiness
Of wondering what could have been
Mother
I have never been one for small towns
And I have lived here long enough to know
That I don't want to come back
Mother
I know that
You're afraid
To be on your own
The typical story is usually about letting your little girl go
But there is no need to
Mother
I want you to hold on
And one day when you've pinned down the demons you've wrestled with for so long
The crippling anxiety that has left you confined to this house
The depression that has kept you prisoner to yourself
One day mother
When you finally overpower fear
And befriend adventure
You will join me
We will replant ourselves
Grow all of the petals we never before could
And become something beautiful
Mother
You have made me who I am
And regardless of where I go
You will always
Follow
Mother
I am leaving
So that one day you can
Too.

So much of me is him.
I tell people that endlessly,
Until the words lose meaning,
Until I lose myself.
So much of me is her.
I tell that to anyone who will listen
To my sad, sad story.
But when does that end?
When do I stop being with someone
Without morphing into them?
Without giving them the freedom
To dig up what is there, and to replant
The garden that I have grown for twenty years?
Before I met you, I was me. I walked, and I talked,
And I thought. I thought, and I felt, and I loved.
I loved before you. And now I hurt. I hurt beyond
The usual sting of disappointment because
So much of me is you.
I see you in me daily, like a drop of red wine
In a glass of crystal water.  Spiraling, spinning,
Twisting until it contaminates the whole thing.
You color my habits, my actions,
My words, my thoughts, my emotions.
I tug at the thread, and it unravels into you.
You think you’ve cut the tie?
You will never severe this bond
Which I labored so hard to build up.
I am not a loose string to pluck, and
You were never that for me.
I cannot shake you; I cannot free myself.
How could you wind around me so tightly,
Cut into my bones and leave your mark
Like the aftermath of some beast’s jaws?
I cannot separate me from you. This is
What you’ve done to me. This is
Whom you’ve made me.
This is me.

humanity will survive only if we are rooted closely to the earth

unbridled technology will lead to our demise

our tools come from nature but we cannot let our tools poison the soil

the neon screen that you are reading

like the pages of man’s great canon of books

grow from the ground

precious conductive earth metals

more valuable than gold mines

when those are gone

no more text messages or Twitter

no more blogging or wind turbines

we will return to primitive communication

land lines, letters and talking

i wonder how our grand kids will make the transition

from rare earth metals and petroleum

to whatever is next

will they discover a revolutionary pearl of knowledge

that we cannot yet imagine

or will they relearn forgotten technologies

and replant in their ancestors’ livelihoods

or will we leave the land sapped and useless



humanity will survive only if we are rooted closely to the earth

we grow from the ground

shine from the sun

blow in the wind

flow in the water


**originally posted to my blog https://sublimeobscenities.wordpress.com on 5/2/2014

I've been in this nightmare for far too long,
I've explored every corner of this world,
And what I've found isn't that great,
There is misery all around.

There is war,
There is hatred,
There is jealousy,
And the worst there is, is corruption.

The oxygen we breath is polluted,
Our ocean is contaminated with oil,
People cut down the trees of the forest,
and no one bothers to replant them.

Disease is all around,
People go mad,
People get drunk all day,
And people abuse there bodies.

There is killing of innocent animals,
There are murders of innocent people,
There is crime committed every day,
And people rob each other no matter if they're related or not.

I've wanted to wake up from this forsaken nightmare,
Go back to my life,
See how it is...
For I've forgotten after so long.

I think I'm finally waking up...
One by one, objects started to disappear,
And objects started to form in my room,
I think I've finally awakened from my nightmare.

Joy spread across my entire body,
I ran to my front door to see the world,
And what I found...
Was a meessed up world filled with misery and pain.

You a man
I a man
We walk very different paths

You walk the path of the mind
To seek knowledge that may mold your wit
Into a crown of crystal jewels
Which when acquired
Shall grant you access to the royal court
Of well-known scholars and fatal geniuses
You seek to be a tragic figure of brains
And at the end of your path
A crowd of followers will weep for you
Cleansing you for your entrance to Heaven

I walk the path of the body
Strength on my conscience
Protection my aim
The ability to fight back is what I seek
But in this strength is weakness
My emotions run marathons
My head is constantly loosely ******* in
The two creating havoc for me
And causing me to roll in pieces
The end of my path
I fear
Has nothing
But a sign that reads
‘No Exit’
For when you go to hell, there’s no turning back

Our paths lead to such opposite destinations
I to the east
And you to the west

But

Our passion is one
And we dig up our paths
To replant them intertwined
No one offers you a lover that you really want
You find your own on a path
Or make your path to fit
The way you want to go

Though we’re not meant to cross
We do it anyway

You a man
I a man
We walk very different paths

I think we forgot
Or I think there was an occurrence
A time that the door swung open
Where it slipped, almost quietly out
Fell up into the night
For others, perhaps
Or for nothing

Or maybe
Between those days, streets, dinners
Those afternoons thieved behind closed curtains
Between the hands and the highs and the denials
In those lulls of mind, or lacunas of the trials
We forgot to look
Unrepentantly inattentive
And like a naughty child
Like yesterday's confetti to a storm  
It fled
And we,
Indispensably inattentive
Rolled forward
Smooth wheels on rough ground
But maybe it didn't
Didn't flee after all
And we merely
Rolled forward
Rolled towards

Do I scream from the windows?
Or replant, in the same plant ***?
Do I pound my thighs along lanes after it
With all that naughtiness
Of the troubled child?
I wonder if this is the sentence
For the crime of easy reliance
I wonder if belated repentance
Can push palms into the past
I wonder if tomorrow
Changes's hurricane arrives

you think that
you do not matter but
you are my everything

and even if
the glass stars in your eyes die
and the flowers in your smile wilt
only i can replant them

so, my dear
these battles you fight inside
please let me
protect you

and i know that you don’t want
to let me in so easily
but i
and i alone
am willing to pick up the pieces of your heart
and sew the pieces
into something stronger

Share me the light you’ve won with efforts
Not lazy; I'm just too weak to learn anew
My bones crack, my brain's old, my spirit dims out
I don't have the strength to replant what once grew

These screams in my ears are too real
This pang of pain, this grief; excruciating
“Just jump into it,” they say, with no feel
They’ve never lived, yet keep advising

I set up my own path, a line of antique bricks
It ran from my backyard to the village temple
And ruined it was, by men hunting for relics
While I was on a trip to preach and fix a muddle

I built a new path in the next following days
A stronger one, lined with fine wooden fences
And I left again to dispel lies and hearsays
Protecting strangers from possible offenses

Coming home to find my soul path torn down
I reminded myself, "They knew not what they did"
I fixed it once more, then went to a sacred town
All prayers to gods to take care of what I built

Years after blessing mortals and doing good,
I returned to my lovely birthplace and cried
Seeing my house flat on the ground, my path removed
I told myself, “This slight unease won’t take my light”

I could weave wisdom from unlikeliest sources
Stones, mountains, a witch’s curse, a ghost’s wail
I've turned many wounds into revered forces
A weakling to strength, a stuck ship to sail

Too busy with other people’s plights
I thought my light was self-sustaining
It was not eternal as I was told—it died
Had to pretend it was there and burning

The sun of my youth has set in the west
Under the dark, I’m now awaiting stars
Despite its howl, I’ll force my heart to rest
None I can teach it, but accepting its scars

Share me the light you have learned
This passing time I cannot back turn