Assumptionless we drift
through days, weeks, more,
brought to each other in
an arc over the bottomless
sea
where the horizon is met
with words hanging from
our lips.

Florid skies paint
the thoughts we hold
safely,
given in the midst of
rain falling along
the misty trails
where we entrust
a life to another.

You appeared in another dream -
this time we said goodbye.

You run through my thoughts
like rain,
creeping, seeping,
soaking
me
through.

I don’t want to be left drifting again,
compared to shadows when
there’s no comparison
to you.
We speak truth in our actions,
and we have found ours
in the patterns
we behold to the other,
somewhere in the space of
the morning air and the starry night,
we place our whispered thoughts
into the universe to be heard
so that we can ease our troubled minds.
Be mine,
and I’ll be yours,
and let’s run from stepping stone
to trails covered in pine needles
where we bed for the night,
only us,
under the stars and heaven
above.

It is in these Winter months
that I tend to grow.
When the ground is barren
and the leaves have fallen,
in the sodden soil,
amongst the muck
and silver snow,
where love toils
and the past makes mockery,
as if the acknowledgment of
my old home, cold and damp,
is not enough to take
seriously where I'm from.
Where floorboards creak,
sighing from the weight of
heavy steps throughout
the years,
the pipes freeze, then burst,
then freeze again,
and we wrap them in blankets
we would otherwise wrap
ourselves,
victims of harsh months,
cold air and throats sore
from yelling into the
weary night.

Runway
Strutting legs

Walking out calligraphy
      Write down your girl

Pout and pace the crowd

                   You're a model

Shake those bones
Everyone is looking
                          At you

  Checking you out
To see how perfect
        You could look

Posture think tall
    Hips sway dolls

Let your arms swing natural

              Attitude

              And never look down

        Slide those heels on
And stride the cats walk

You're not just any pen
                 You're a model

I went to a wedding yesterday.
Saw some brothers and old friends.
A brother asked if I had
quit drinking, after denying his
pressure multiple times.
I said yeah, he immediately stopped
pressuring and asked "why?"
I told him,
something I wouldn't have done before,
"You know, I just didn't like myself
with alcohol. Plus it fed into my
depressive issues, and the cycle just
kept happening. I'm just done with it."
I left out that I'm currently in one,
no reason to explore that on a happy occasion.
But he understood, probably more than most.
Another brother and I dipped off
to have a "GTT" or
"Garbage Trash Talk."
Something we made up years ago that's
code for a brother-heart-to-heart.
We talked of loves present and past,
and what we hoped for the future.
Significant happenings.
I told him that she left for a while,
how it tore me up,
and how she's back now. He said,
"Do you think she'll do it again?
At this point I'm just
looking out for you, bro."
I told him, I said,
"I don't know, man, but
I'm willing to find out."
He accepted, knowing how I felt.
I admitted to him that I'd
"given myself up to God."
He beamed and recounted a time,
a conversation we had had some years
ago, outside of Sonic, drunk.
I had cried to him,
struggling in my faith, trying
to understand how God fit into my
life, even then.
He thanked me, it's always meant
so much to him.
I thanked him as well.
I was struggling on my drive home,
stuck somewhere between meaningless despair
and hopeless loneliness.
I had prayed.
He called me, drunk,
about to pass out,
just to say,
"Keep up the good work, man"
to which I responded,
"I'm doing my best, man."

You are my morning coffee
and my fade into dreams.

Cool comfortors on a chilly night
and body heat to soothe,
a lazy morning but a busy day,
a kiss goodbye and a kiss
to sway
into the night below the stars,
a warm and crackling fire
where Winter air meets
our skin.
A sharp word or retort in
loving candor,
an encouraging nod in the times
of doubt.
The pain and loss and the shakes
that come inevitably, and
the joy of gain and new
smiling faces.
This life with all its
complicated grief about,
these things I’d share with you.

I am aboard
a rudderless ship
completely lost
in your ocean eyes.