Don't toss me away
Like any empty bottle
I'm vintage
With a stamp from
The ancient royals

Keep me please
I don't want to join
The other piles of
Tainted-colored glasses
I want to stay here

I've filled you up
And I've kept your promises
Now, keep mine
Keep me as a collector's item
Let me be there for you

I want to be found
Not by any other stranger
Only by a friend like you
I want to be treasured
And not broken

Not shattered to pieces
On the curb of a sidewalk
To be recycled
Into the consumerism
Again and again

Let me have a home
In your heart
So you can physically greet me
And we'll acknowledge
Each other

Like old friends
I've kept you alive
So don't throw me out
Like yesterday's jam
Like any other old thing

Guess believing in the past
Gets harder when you approach
The future
So, I'll take my fate
And get lost

Yes, we can talk in secret
You brought me flowers?
Thank you

No, you're not like them
Not like the other guys
Yes, you're special

Why?
Well, you got a mole right there
No, the one on your forearm

Serious, though
I like your mindset
Open-minded

Oh, more?
I think you have the prettiest eyes
You blinked

Yes, I love them
Close my eyes?
Now, me

Really? Kind?
That's lame
Okay, fine

I do believe you
Cool, I'm cool
You, too

I'm down
We can go now
Yeah, just us

Every time I cross the pond,
My leap takes me into another path
My world is switching up again
And starting in new place
A new time-zone
And my home away from home
Feels cozy like a bird’s nest
As I am in a tree of skilled, fearless flyers
So, I have found my people

Her trojans in my head
Even when she’s out the door
My body inside my bed
Outside, the rain starts to pour
I see her polka-dotted rain coat
And I long to call her phone
My fingers don’t do what they’re supposed to
Paralyzed by those **** trojans
All in my head, attaching to other nerves
My thoughts crowd around her
The image stark in my mind
She remains so fine and beautiful
But, all I want is to forget
Erase, delete all the regrets

I blame you for making me write all these sonnets
I tried to make the best of it, but five?
How in the ******* world am I supposed to write five?
Doesn’t each sonnet take the course of a week?
And it definitely seems that we don’t have five weeks
To write five pristine perfect sonnets
I’d rather read fifty poems than write five of these stupid things
I’d like the meet the man who decided these poems
Had to be fourteen lines, stylized rhymes
I’d say, go to hell with you and this torturous format
Instead of making me write these many poems
All in the same style, all droaning on in my mind
Like an endless treadmill of poem-writing
I say I’ll do better on the next assignment, but truthfully
I’m improvising

You’d think that demons and devils don’t exist
And that humans, once passed, would lay asleep
You can come to my office and see for yourself
But, my patients love visitors that they can keep
I don’t want to alarm you, but it is true
These patients crave souls, not pills
I can’t get them to swallow chemicals in oblongs
They can’t be satisfied with just prescription refills
You might think I’m doing honorable work
Maybe not, but at least I can deal with them
So you don’t have to,
That sort of behavior, I always condemn
Who were you wanting to visit again?
Oh, I forgot, you were the one with symptoms.

skin covered in shadows
a dead winter leaf bouncing against a flourishing summer tree
                                    catching the handle of a spider string
holding onto the living as if
                     it can escape its crumbling burial
             only can a field of soft, mumbling earth
                             call sleep more swiftly than a mattress
within the green and blue sphere are textured tints that release
            wifts of genuine air spilling into half-filled industrial lungs
                      can art be felt when eyes don't open?
as closed eyelids fall humble to the glowing yellow light
            answered silently with a curl of the lips