Pre Cambrian

There is an emptiness 6 years long
when I wallowed in the mire
when you lit a fire
1000 times over
One thousands time
your beautiful smile
over a thousand times
the colorful dresses
and tan skin
curly hair
short
straight
curly
I feel like i didnt exist
in those 6 years
and there is very little evidence
that i have existed since i was 14
and the 11 year break
from visibility
was exhausting.
And now im trying to hold on
trying to grab the hem of your garment,
save me
to bring me back to life.

The fog last night
was a soothing dream
muffling any human sounds
it was just me
and the chirping of crickets

we all sang the same song.

A laker loss

This is hard
beyond understanding
to the old me
the one who ached
for it so deeply

It must be pruned
it must be fed and dressed
and painful
It was said that every rose has it's thorn
but I say

Every thorn must break skin
to keep the rose so red with blood

And deep oxygen rich blood
the kind which runs out
like a well
gushing and life giving

You cut hard,
grating me
challenging me to leave
you fear my absence
and nearly push me away

You are the rose who does not sit idly
but shoots her thorns like arrows

But i wont let go
I can't.
It hurts
Im sorry
if it hurts you too

But every second is so worth it.

Wart

Warts
cover my hands
my finger tips
a dull pain

Scratchy, bloody
expanding cancers
they hurt
and never find relief

Mend the wounds
my secret
little wounds

At night
a cracking leaf is
a death sentence
so is the lingering stench
of cigarette butts

Put them out
hid them
my little warts
my little cancer

So many things to cover up
so hard to rid
for every one
i've killed
three more have taken root

Weeds
unwanted
unfair, and fair
consequences natural
and artificial

I have a hard time holding it in
the little tumors are building up
inside of me

I'm way beyond medicines
of a traditional sort

Stay quiet
for the day of reckoning approached

The little electric swirls
spinning violently in my sleep

The warts are but a visible tip
of a rotted iceberg

Flighty warm happiness in january

I heard a leaf
Scratch on pitted asphalt
On a thirsty
Night

Tonight and you were that leaf

My arms grab both of your sides
While the future
Embraces mine
Our lives scratching the ruble
As we are blown this way
And that.

Better to love you
Than pluck you from the branch
And I do
Despite my pruners
Gloves

You make me face the day

Sometimes I am impossible to find
I feel the urge
to shrink
to dissappear
like dust, i long for blissful
glide on sunbeams
but just out of sight

I feel your hand
And i still want you
but I dont want the hand

Sometimes I freeze myself in the mirror
and wonder what my body
looks like
underneath my body
like i'm in a shell
or a cocoon waiting
to step up into full
healthy maturity

I think to myself
some days it's better to stay in bed
than face the day
but since we've been together
i've faced everyday
regardless

You make me face the day
and I'm suffering
waiting for
my metamorphosis

You cascade around me like a pure stream
and face the day with me
And tomorrow
again.

Coins

The hand and pen
together to death
shall they never part

But you paused them

We are two coins swirling
round
the yellow plastic
basins
at Walmart

Charity without
thinking of it

A small thrill
for alms

I will write again some day
soon
I can feel it
pushing against the cages of my
consciousness

Until then
All the beautiful things
I can say
are yours
are spoken and not written
are free versed

I will return to metaphorical
pen and page
But not yet
not
yet

Like clarity

I'm looking at you
In the drivers seat
In blue
In contentment

Your smile widens
I don't believe we are here
You say something to me
And I mentally pinch myself

We embrace
Passionately
Like folds in a blanket
Soft, random
Warm

I am not here
I cannot come to acceptance
This is it
I am a fool sometimes

I want many things
But I never want to be
An intellectual
Or an artist
For neither

Will capture the beauty of this moment
With anything
Like clarity

The tired ones

Heaven and Earth shall pass away
but the tears in your eyes
will stay
with my immortal soul
for all eternity

For longer than the dust on the ground
all of the stars that ever were
and ever shall be

You cried in your car
because your
body wanted to
betray you unto death

I held you
warmly
but conscious that I shouldnt
put you to sleep

there was water on the ground
the earth was weeping too
you and earth
together
cascading your feelings
upon me

You said it
I said it
We'd been feeling it for longer than we
were willing to admit

The water on the ground made a slapping sound
like tiny whips
cracking as they touched the asphalt

And your tears will
last longer
than any of this.

In the greener grass

It was past
three in the morning
I was smoking
I kept smiling

It was cold
tomorrow was supposed to be warm
I rested at a stoplight
and took a drag

And lauged

So this is what this feels like,
I thought

and I was suprised to see
that like sadness
it was not a static
emotion

And unlike sadness
it built
strongly
and I could feel it building
and I smiled more
and I took another drag

These cool early morning drives
on the freeway,
I never go faster
than 65

It doesnt feel like betrayal anymore

Warm and silent
as close as possible
water on the windows cover us up
and I grabbed her
held her firm
and as close
as I could

I wasn't crying
but the sweat on
my brow
may as well
have been tears

We don't know what
we're doing
and I don't know
to what end

But it doesn't feel like betrayal anymore
and I like that

Stronger swimmer

It's good to be a strong
swimmer
And it was so difficult
because I was always
drowning

My limbs thrashed
into cool liquid
trying to keep my head above water
so I could just
talk

Salt water rushing up my nose
and filling my mouth
that horrible salt
burning my eyes

I could have been better maybe
but everyone seemed to swim away
farther than I was ready
and I wanted call out
"Slow Down!"
but the thunderous water, pummeling the beach
the commotion of so many people;
sound at the beach just gets
lost

And my toes could barely feel the topmost layer of sand
the most unstable base
I wonder what I could have done
if I'd ever been able
to set my feet


Eventually I'll get out of the ocean
i've already taken some steps toward the beach
to the sticky moist sand
and then fiery
dry which isn't kissed by the tide
to towel off

and don't you know
that when you dry yourself off at the beach
you've conceded victory
to the ocean.

All I will be able to do is watch
and let the sun
beat my shoulders

I could've gone 3 more minutes

Losing a ball over the fence
with a snarling dog
sends chills
down 10 year old spines

but without the ball there is
no fun

You are on the the other side
of the fence
And I think you don't want me to come over

but without a ball there is
no fun

When will 10 and 24 year old's alike
realize
that fences
and snarling dogs
are not challenges

but clear signs,
meant to keep us out?

There were feathers all over the lawn

One time
I watched my cat
capture
a pigeon

He immediately pounced
on the bird
taken over by a blood lust

The next day
there were feathers
all over the lawn

I loved my cat
but I felt bad
about the doomed bird

I think before the poor thing
had its life drained out
of the gushing wounds
it,
well that is I think
it fell in love
with my cat.

The pigeon's face
was flush
and peaceful
eyes half closed
and would not break gaze
with its assailant's face

It was a horror
to behold
and though the cat felt no guilt
I did.

Now the feathers are gone
and so is my cat
I am alone
in my
guilt.

With reluctance, being realistic

Everything had a beginning
the universe and time
and matter
the opposite of matter
all began
even if it feels like there was nothing before

There was a time before I liked her
before the massive explosion
since then
since time began

And we try to understand everything
that happened since the beginning
it's so difficult
to have perspective

The smartest men
have wrestled with the concept of origin
of there being a starting line
even if it felt like an infinite time
ago

And in my case
much less than forever
yet still so lacking in perspective

I remember when it was just you
just another girl
but the end
is certain and firm
it will come

Maybe that's why we struggle with
the beginning
it forces
us to accept the end
when all things will break apart
will spiral out of control and
go cold

I heard a science program say
the end of the universe will
be a cold and dark time
like as such as has never been known
except before the beginning

It seemed so far away
but someday
maybe
someone will have to come to terms with it

And with her, I don't have that luxury
I will watch
the sun and galaxy
dim
and cool

I will see the end
because I saw the beginning
I remember what you were like before
and will once again be

Two minds, one for who wont have me and not having the one who will

Don't share what should be only
yours
with me
with anyone else
but especially
not with me

I can't handle it.

I become a predator
playing with its food
or a dog
eating when it is full

I don't deserve any attention
when I can't give you
affection
in return

Selfish is a good word
self serving
throughout
I want to give
but not to you
so for now I cannot take

I'll just destroy you
or bury you

I am the grim reaper
of heartfelt gestures
death become
decadent.

The one who deserves is rarely the one who receives.
It was a gloomy afternoon and I saw groups of people crossing the street while i tried to make a U-turn in my truck
Instead I road into a parking lot and turned around. I scuffed a car mirror with my own and left it there. This was all because,
I had someone else on my mind.

People sitting in the shade

It has to be okay
I thought
sweating
pulling my dry
hair through my fingers
knotted and gross
from sand
and sun
blasting

A kid and his girlfriend
ran up
drunk and young
living a song
but also just acting
doing what they think
they should
making the wrong decisions
for the sake
of someone else's
wrong decisions

So young
so purposely lost
in an age where it is so hard
to be lost
by accident

The gas station employees
must stair at their
dusty maps
longingly
because nobody ever stops
to ask for direction

The two kids
in love
will not be who they are today
in 3 years time
I'd bet they wont even know each other

But a part of me
envied them

I looked at people
sitting in the shade
and I thought of you

Idly, i said i wanted my heart broken so i could lose weight through depression

Endless track.
Am I behind
or in front?

The pursuit
tightens
I feel the air
stirred

I can hear footsteps
I can feel
the warmth
of
possibility

I was not sure
if I was following you
or now
you me

and what it all meant.

Joy can be found
in knowing
and even more so
sometimes
in not.

Gift exchange

Beauty
oh faded red joy
Her legs were pointed
to the sky
toward heaven

Smooth
and tapered
running your hand up your thigh
speaking to me
as if it were nothing

It was nothing
but it was your gift to me

I sat across
bent somewhere above
the midpoint
sunken
sullen
not quite comfortable
trying to be unfazed
by the elegant display

I wanted to tell you
but I never will

that is my gift to you

Bunker hill and the music I can't hear

Rush of newness
of contact
of realizing early on
that she is most likely into
me

Of any flame at all
I think
This is happening to me
and what do I think?
at first

I feel tingle
excitement
I feel her eyes on me
and when I mention something
that she loves
I can see it in her eyes
the recognition
of compatibility

But it never lasts long
Like the tunnels under bunker hill
I enjoy them
maybe I even love them
But they are so short
and I can see the end before I even enter

I feel like it can never work
like i'm broken
like i'm meeting my soul mate in
multiple vessels
and I keep forcing them
out
of mind, of anything that would remotely
make either of us happy

There is always a melody on my mind
faint
less than negligibly audible
and I want it
I want it more than all the other songs
I'm already singing
the tunes I already know
the new ones I already like

I want what is plausibly deniable
but infinitely more desirable

The faintest, tired sweet harmony
in a dry summer breeze
I am chasing the ocean inside
of a sea shell
while ignoring the ivory margin before me

Love is
the glow
from a cheap firework
Brief and dull
smokey
and it seems so much
weaker
than it did last year

The park behind my first home

The bubble gum
eyeballs
of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
ice cream
from the ice cream
man

Was all anyone could ever dream of

I stared at the sticker
of an approximate copy
of the real thing
Like it was
a treasure map

"That one"

I said, staring up at the ice cream man

While the other kids around me shouted their orders
as well
He reached back
but stopped

"Oh he's not with us"

said the mother of the children I met at the park
She said it like
I was
trying to steal
but I was only confused

I was still very young
maybe 4 years old

we had played
with no problem
we would not eat ice cream
together

My skin flushed
I felt
embarrassed
apart
dejected

I felt,
different than all the other children

I ran
there was nothing else I could think to do
than get as far away from
it as possible

My mother sat under a tree on a blanket
tears ran down my cheek
The sun was lower in the sky
it must have been past
midday

That moment plays in my mind
every so often
ever since then

It was the smallest I felt when I was small
and sometimes
When I think I am apart of something
with somebody
and I realize they never saw me the same way

I am that little boy
again.