It is a quarter past June, and
          already it seems like a record setting summer.
Sprinklers and the scent of chlorine filled pools,
          as I walk in my street-worn shoes to my sanctuary.

The lifeless blacktop park where
          my will and the heat-embracing pavement meet.
A well-manicured backyard tree hangs its verdant leaves
          just over its owner’s fence.
Like a lifeline for life reaching out to me.

I stick and I move,
          as the sweat cleans the dirt and despair from my face.
Like a sunshine superman, I drink UV rays into my bones.
          Alone I feel whole.
The disinfecting flames of summer
          have begun to melt the cold rot encasing my soul.

If there is one thing I have learned on my travels,
it is that
the currency of eternity is the fingerprints you leave on the fabric.

The slow imprint of a million miles walked. Set free your timid heart and
leave behind an outline of an essence.

An amorphous mold that denies the shape of the world around it.
Be a surprise.
Let them label you a miracle or a sickness.

In time they will come to realize
the edge of the world is a place to dance.
Reach forward, and gift sound to silence.

I remember cooking for two. Last Sunday afternoon,
the stove light hit the fritz. Same bulb I ******* in the night before you called it quits.
By Tuesday, the burner I simmered onions on
had begun to rust away.
Wet metal tears,
as I sacrificed the dish we loved to the microwave.
Round and round it went. Watching, as the plastic peeled and bent;
remember treating you with the same contempt.
Left with soggy slop and goo; starved for love,
I eat my heart out with a spoon.

The ******* is bashful only when he lacks control
Vulture poaching ***** as his victim
Hands like constrictors, slither up your clothes
Hidden smile, scaled, behind a venom veil
He talks in toxins, and when the will has rotted;
Ties in knots; consuming whole a struggled “no”

A brokenhearted boy dangles his legs over the edge of his pain-soaked bed
Pulse slowing as angered rain thunders down below him
Acid sadness erodes his calm devotion

An absent hearted boy pens his name as Hopeless
Swallows’ days in minor doses
His river ******, and doomed to meet no ocean

A weary hearted boy seeks to make amends
Trades his soul to suffer silence from a friend
The sun for him, hides itself just around the bend

A truehearted boy never minds the hole inside his chest
He writes his story in the flesh
Chords of open wounds he plays his music through

Each day is a face with two sides
      Do or die
Failure is an ointment
      Swarmed by flies
Lies birthed from larva
      Contempt bred from pride
The caterpillar cocooned is consumed
      Blind to the future
Either monarch or moth
      Led astray by the flame