We cannot write silence.
The beats.
The pause.
The breath.
The way it aches
and persists

and begs that,

if only for a moment,

our consciousness is only a whisper.
our bodies,
our lips,
the air that passes through falling chests
and stillness.

A melody of emotion.
Sleeping in the quiet of a heartbeat skipped
a word lost to the wind.

The wickedness of reticence
Encapsulated in air and time.

The moment stretched too long.
Hesitation perpetuated in the grip of fingernails
pressed into palms.

We cannot write silence,
but we can try.

to find a way to immortalize emotion
to create space
in the ceaseless drone of words that speak and spin.

I cannot write silence. But I can write
tears and years
and the burn of long-stretched lies.

I can write goodbyes and hellos
And dozen ways to say
I love to hate you
Or
I hate to love you
and sometimes
I cannot tell the difference.
Silence.
The space I have upheld for myself.

I love to hate you
Heart.

I hate to love you too.

I cannot write silence.
But I know it.
and I have held it in my hand.

Can you tell me
please
which way now is home
I used to know, my dear
The way was clear
There was no fear

Tying my walking shoes
I knew I needed to get clear of here
thought I'd find
all that was dear

The road though, it is narrow
The cliff it is shear
My balance is
woozy

Can you tell me my dear

which way is home
which way do I go from here,
I think I oughta know
But the hills they are wavering
The ocean is in turmoil
The mountains are slick
far too dangerous

The desert has no mercy

I know something and with this knowledge
I think I must be cursed
I think I have it
Peace & Home
goes and comes
and comes and goes.

Mere mention of his name
makes me want to dump...
donald chump
Flush him down and flush again to keep him in the ground.

Ashamed to claim my citizenship be a
laughingstock like him
the tyranny keeps growing
the future's looking grim
won't even wear my Yankee cap and hide under the brim

the problem is it's
not just him but also
those that grant him power  
they smell like shiza
and don't speak for me
so I decree they all need
a NiceAssZIppy shower

I'm terrified of not having at least one secret that only I know.
Saturn moves into capricorn
as  conqueror
rather than lover.

I keep drawing the tower card.

Space has no boundary.
Down is relative.
We know, then,
that it is entirely possible to
just
keep
falling.
Indefinitely.
Devils roam free in the sixth house.

I've been drawing the tower card.
I keep drawing the tower card.

The snake I am is not the snake I was.

Tower card. Tower card.

"Mama, some pieces are missing from this puzzle."
"Only the piece with the eyes printed on it, baby."

Drawing from memory, now.

Come on and touch
this broken husk
before it crumbles
away to dust, and
something different
is left sitting
at the foot of your bed.

Inevitability.

Might be
that there is no Heaven,
but
there are certainly heavens.

People only ever want to ask me about
the poetry -
those verses about
busted up noses in outer space;
about the pros working
way down passed
the corner of Broad and Main;
about fistfights and hard, hard drinking.
But I built a flowerbed this weekend...
Twenty two tastefully irregular stone blocks
in a crescent moon shape,
filled with the blackest of soils.
The sweat of toil.
The digging.
The planting.
Exotic grasses. Asian maybe?
Purple and yellow flowers.
Zinnias or some **** thing.
All covered in a thick blanket of brown mulch.
It's a fine thing to have dirt on your hands
instead of blood.
No one ever asks me about flowerbeds.