her soft eyes held
a quite suffering
a delicate pain
a strange beauty

I wanted to reach out  
to offer a comforting hand
a quite moment
to let her speak
to let her fall apart
to break down
to let her be alone
without being alone

but who was I
other than a shy child
trembling beneath an aged body
scared of what I admired
terrified of what I might love

so I sat motionless
hiding beneath silence
planting seeds of future regrets
that will bloom  
into the words I will
have wished I had spoken

How am I suppose to read the warning signs
when I am emotionally illiterate
what I'm trying to say is
that I have never learned
how to deal well with heartache  

I know how it feels to have a weightless heart
when ever thing is measured by gold
my ribcage has a collection of nothing
but rusted pennies
sitting at the end of a bottomless dread

wishes that come true
sometimes have a way
of exploding like a dandelion

days of good intentions
can tumble unexpectedly
no matter how well
they are stacked together

the future is never certain
everything has an expiration date
wether it is printed in black ink
or a secret only the wind
and the leaves know  
it could be something as warm as death
or as cold as betrayal
or something far simpler
than we make it out to be

our own stupidity comes to mind
our careless behavior motivated by ego
and the ego does as much damage
when under inflated
as it does when it burst from its own pride

months and years of silence and solitude
has turned loneliness
into a comfortable home
a safe haven
free from the fear of things going wrong
a place I have no need to regret
the things never said
the people I never said those things to

and somewhere between memory and fantasy
things that once may have been
and things that never were
there is a strange place
that feels happy enough
what is love other than a feeling
a feeling of comfort
of warmth
of dreams
what makes it more or less real
if the heart is fooled
why not play the fool

something real imagined
imagining something real
if I whisper a name
I do not know in my sleep
or dream of kissing a name
I fear to speak
what would be the difference
when I wake in an empty bed
surround by the cool comfort of silence
if the feeling remains the same

maybe if I had read the warning sign
I would have known that
I don’t deal well with heartache

she handed me back my heart
without making eye contact
there was still a tenderness
in her fingertips
an unspoken apology
for letting go
a slight quiver in her voice
carried the words
that pierced through
the hollow of my chest

the tale of our forever
abruptly ended
the chapter cut off mid-sentence
the remaining pages left
longing for the echo of words
waiting to bounce back
from eternities edge
for any words to break
the uncomfortable silence

I cracked and I crumbled
until there was nothing left
but rubble and smoke and ash
and a pain as heavy
as it was empty
a pain that stretched
from the weak tremble of my heart
past the unknown year
of my inevitable death

I don’t remember much
of the pain in detail
or how sleepless the nights were
how bad the dreams got
I remember it hurting in a place
I believed it would never hurt again
hurting in a way
I never thought would go away
a hurt I never thought
I would be able to live with

time passed slowly burning
what would never be again
her ghost was on every corner
in every line
in every car at ever stop light
my body kept going
through the motions of life
but I was...

I was...

I really don’t recall
what or who I was
some fraction of who I use to be
and nothing of who
I thought I would become

eventually I flew out
to visit my parents for four days
to try and regroup and recollect
and rebuild and distract myself
those four days turned
into a week and then a month
and the idea of going back...
back to where both she
and her ghost lived...
well...
the month turned to years
and those years are still pilling up

I tried drinking
no....
I drank
I drank a lot
the days became blurs
and it stopped hurting
on the nights I couldn’t recall
or remember
but the pain was still there
still empty
still heavy
when my blood
was absent of *****
and my head full of longing
for the things that would never be

and time crawled

I fell in love with a new face
a new heart
and it was wild and turbulent
and short lived
and another hand reached
into my wreckage
and pulled out my heart
and held it for a moment
and it felt like love
and we played pretend
until one day my heart
was handed back again

and I remembered
the tender touch
of an unspoken apology

and life went on
and it hurt
but the hurt wasn’t the same
the pain was different
not quite as heavy
not unnecessarily empty
it bloomed in
the shape of lilies and orchids
and the air smelled
of a lost love
that wasn’t lost
and I breathed in
and exhaled

I opened a book
I once thought had ended
and I started to read the next chapter
that picked up mid-sentence
and love was still there on the page
though different
somehow farther away
and yet still deeply rooted
in the pulse and rhythm
of the blood living and flowing
in the chambers of my heart

I’ve seen you sitting quietly in the corner
of coffee shops and bookstores
watching the world turning all around you
I’ve heard the nervous shyness
in the soft sound of the words
you rarely speak and the words
that never quite make it past your throat

I know how scared of love you are
I can feel that fear in my own heart
we both carry that heavy weight
of having a plethora of love to give
and no one to give it to
or more specifically
being to afraid of giving it
whenever we find ourselves
desperately in love

why do we let fear sit so closely
to our hearts
if we never take the risk
of our hearts breaking
how will we ever know the joy
of our hearts being seen
I see your heart
I have seen your heart for so long now
that I can’t remember a time
of not knowing what it looks like
what it sounds like

I’ve been there ever time
it has pounded against your chest
trying to break through your ribcage
so it could give itself away
to the people you wanted to tell
that you use the letters of their name
to spell the word love

when you weren’t looking
I snuck through your sketch pads
I’ve read their names and all the poems
you were to shy to share
I’ve been that person for my whole life
unable to share through an unbearable shyness

I know how long you have been alone
I know how comfortable solitude has become
I know the comfort of silence
in a world that is big
on the ceaseless chatter
of small talk

I know you have a lot to say
I know you keep those words
locked safely in your heart
I know they are weighing your heart down  

If its not too awkward
you could let me share your corner
and we could read some books
and forget about the coffee we ordered
until it is too cold to drink
but drink it anyway
and sit still enough to feel the earth
turning all around us
and we could trade our hearts
for a moment

or a lifetime

and talk without saying a word
and learn each other’s language
and then I could show you
that I spell the word love
with the letters of your name

I can see how poorly
you have been sleeping
maybe your need a new mattress
one with more foam
and less memory

or maybe its the blanket
you have weaved
out of the ghosts
you can’t stop yourself from haunting
maybe its time to make a new one
from the days you
haven’t lived through
the nights you haven’t dreamt of
the names you haven’t spoken
the days you could walk
through doors instead of walls
the nights you could walk
with your hands empty
of your rattling past

maybe its the pillows heavy
with the salt of tears
filled with oceans
maybe your head would stop
drowning in its sleep
if you slept on something safer
something lighter
maybe let the past
sink in its own wreckage
use those old pillows as tombstones
at the bottom of the sea
you can’t forget
but you can let go of

let go

let go

and lets go to sleep

we stumbled through the dark
not knowing who
or what we were
swimming towards a finish line
we didn’t know was there
winning a prize
we didn’t ask for
or know what to do with

then for nine months
we grew in the blessed soil
of our mothers body
completely unaware
of being completely unaware

until a pair of hands pulled us
form the days of then
into the days that staked
into these days of now

once so small
we were not visible
to the human eye
how oddly we formed
in the ocean of our mothers belly
what strange things we become
(do you ever miss your tail?  I do...)

time seems a mischievous trickster
a dishonest magician
one minute a nascar driver
the next hour a lost snail
circling the same path

it seems we would remember
more of our first breath
the first time we saw
our mothers face
felt our fathers hand

we are far too old
by the time we can appreciate
how beautiful it was
to be an age where
we knew so little
yet believed in so much

how horrible it is to look back
and witness the ****** of magic
we once carried
in such great abundance

we are tricked into
this idea of growing up
horse pickles to that ship
I wont be sailing
on that boat anytime soon

adults are tragically misinformed
what they have gained
is not worth
what they had to give up

and it’s not that I still believe
in Santa Claus
its that I know the truth
of how he really is

its unfortunate how many parents
are too busy trying
to teach their kids
the this and that
of the that and this
of the world
too few know
how to sit still long enough
to listen and realize
how much their children
have to teach them
to remind them
of how precious and wonderful
it is to believe in the things
that are worth believing in
to remind them that magic
is a gift of love
and love is in everything
that is magic

how carelessly we fail to notice
the magic all around us
how willfully we waste
this short life
how many unnecessary
burdens we carry
how shamefully
we pass them down

growing old is inevitable  
and that in itself is a good thing
time maybe mischievous
and dishonest
the cuckoo clock may always
speak in fibs of hours
and fairy tale minutes
for the only time we have
is the only time it ever is

a brief pause of eternity
as we unknowing stumble
through this now
hardly aware of who
or what we are
or what to do
mistaking life for something
less than magic
instead of feeling how much
of it is filled with love

The sun wept marigold tears
  and we were too busy
   in the toil of our own grief

     to notice

     to pause

     to ask her why

nor did we bother
  to pay attention
   to the splitting seam
    in the sky
or how all the colors
  bleed that day

but Death in all her gentleness

   paused

sat quietly with the sun
  gently wiped the tears
   from her cheek
    held her hand
and waited while the sun
  mourned what needed
    to be mourned

then Death pulled a thread
  from the fabric of her robe
   and stitched the tearing seam
    in the sky

and then with all
  the bleeding colors
    painted a long overdue sunset
     on the never ending horizon