Bound in chains by cyclic affairs
Patterns of the past - my chrysalis
Has ceased, complete paralysis
From language's malicious pair-
      what if?
The edge of a cliff,
Or solidly on land
I'm unable to distinguish on which I stand
One step will disclose all
*But what if I fall?

In this house
Where the walls exhale softly
And the bed does my sleeping
Like the door does my leaving
Where the rain is my beating heart
And the roof does my weeping
I am little more than a fixture-
Collecting dust, a glass figurine
In this house

I watched what you did to me
In the hotel’s bathroom mirror
I didn’t want to run even though
I had nowhere left to go
As you delivered a fist
my naked stomach received your fist
I was trapped between the sink
And your hands
one two   three      four              five
Like the amount of rings you wore
I dropped, my face found the counter's edge
On the way down
Your grip found my neck
I couldn't make a sound
White turned grey turned black
The hotel floor was so cold
I woke up
To gift shop flowers.

On the ride home
I placed each over a bruise

You remind me
(twice daily)
of your existence
As you ride low on your
motorcycle
               Problem Child
Wild in our street
Exhaust clouded lungs
choking me (up)
Memories collect
in my wrecked collar bones
Little pools of oil,
where you used to park those
dead lips


                                Silence


has never been so deafening
I loved thy neighbor
but faith is no substitute
for fuel
I am broken down
My rusted engine heart
refuses to turn over
But yours, yours
seems to be running
fine

Today is the anniversary of nothing
The birthday of almost
And could-have been
On this fence post,
Balloon heads hang in shame
Their white faces
Grimly fixed upon the ground

Full of wasted breath

you did not recognize me
I am glad you did not  
maybe you did not see me,
standing by the salad bar,
sentry over the slaughtered greens
but I think you did,
when your blue eyes met mine
they did not pause  
surely they would have
if you knew it was I  
my blonde hair about which you wrote verse
is now as gray as the winter sky
the same sky that gave us cause
to hide in your cozy room
roll in each other’s arms
and believe those silky moaning moments
would last forever
forever, though we never said that word
I  w h i s p e r e d  it, watching you sleep  
knowing your dreams were not of me,
perhaps they were of the mountains you climbed,
the men you had to ****, the mother you never had
whose ******* my own could never replace
but you cradled and caressed them
like they were treasure,
like you had supped from them
and they sustained you
and allowed you the exquisite vulnerability
I saw in your young eyes
forever, I must have whispered
but  
you were of another time,
barely older than my spawn
and now under florescent  firmament
with other anonymous dreamers drifting by
pausing only long enough
to choose their own fruit or bread
I watch you become smaller with each step
watching you again with a w h i s p e r  
forever,
forever,
though you did not know
who I was
on this...winter's eve

I’ve overslept
I’ve smoked too much
My house is unkept
And my body's wrecked
My heart's a mess
And my head is worse
The doctor said
I over think
So I sought a cure
In the form of drink
That didn’t help, so
I turned to men
They let me down
All of them
My daily pills
For various ills
Don’t work so well
I’m starting to believe
That life is hell

The sea—
a place where turquoise silk can cut like a thousand daggers,
where souls are lost and subconscious is sought,
where granite is broken and dissolved,
where one gazes into the Nietzsche’s abyss,
where the dawn spills and day
sinks.


Bodies are kissed by foam and lifted by the wave’s crescendo,
caresses from an emerald lover, salty
diamonds reflect light off of lashes,
eyes like lighthouses spanning across the cerulean plain of forever, searching,  
Searching
for deliverance,
for solutions,
for forgiveness,
for escape,
for what is lost,
for something, anything, to find.  

The long interstice between solidity.  
A beautiful monster, a terrible magnificence, a mercurial cure.  
A paradox of temperamental consistency

—the sea.

The tunnel is for those of us who can not see the sun
It's not that we are blind, or that the sun isnt shining
it's that we chose to see the truth

A tunnel of hiden pain
secrets, stories that make us,
A tunnel so deep and dark only few survive the fall
The spiraling fall to the depths of our broken minds
our minds so torn, the things we think could ****
In reality we come across as your average teen,
but mentally and emotionally we are so much more
our thoughts and our minds torment us
if the things in our head came to life no one would survive.

And so the tunnel was made,
a tunnel for only the special ones to enter,
a tunnel where there is no light,
a tunnel of our true self.

Hard cold sweat beads dribble down the frame of my face
My mind in a frantic race against time.
Will I make it?
Will it be too late?
My body rounds the corner at full force,
smashing into nurses,
the contents of their trays now sprawled throughout the hallway.
No time to stop.
I must keep moving.
I make my way to the elevator,
too crowded, I head for the stairs.
Never stopping,
faster! faster!
Fifth floor.
sixth.
seventh.
eighth.
As I reach the ninth floor, I begin to sprint.
Not stopping.
All heads turn in my direction.
I am almost there.
Room 201.
202.
203.
As the spray painted silver numbers 204 flash in front of my face,
I bound through the door.
I am instantly numb.
The sight of you in a hospital bed,nearly lifeless, pale, and fragile, brings me to my knees.
Just a couples weeks earlier you were so full of energy, so.. happy.
As I walk closer to your bedside,
the full image comes into focus.
Laying there so still, so quiet, any slight change of breath would be noticed.
You have no hair.
A place where once my fingers loved to graze,
a place filled with endless complements,
Hair so blonde it would make the sun jealous.
I weep at your bedside.
Memories streaming down my cheeks,
drowned in the salt water flowing from my eyes.
I take your hand.
So cold, but yet so normal.
The one thing untouched by the cancer.
Your long fingernails, perfectly painted just the way you like it.
I gently kiss your hand.
You dont move, or even open your eyes.
But sure enough you smiled.
Not your big cheesy grin you always do,
but a smile so small, only few would notice.
A smile just for me.
And with that smile,
I whispered "I love you."
And you, the love of my life, so young, and so beautiful,
took your last breath.
With your last breath came a small draft of air.
And in that moment,
I swear I heard your voice carried through the room,
The soft tone of your voice whispered back;
*" I love you too."

what grand abstraction
lies behind your words,
word weaver extraordinaire?
I see only a concrete grid,
a stenciled number, and glass bulb tears
some evidence of your years--tire tread trails, a pothole here and there
a worn fence to keep intruders at bay
but no cars resting
is that why you weep?
does being alone
with your number take its toll?
if I stroll your pages,
will the answer be revealed?
or will I yet be wandering
on an empty asphalt plain
trying vainly to gain, access
to some invisible door?
could you not have named your tale
with more banal words?
could the hero not have been
a John Doe sweeping the weeping lot
or a Mary Doe painting a happy ending?
was not to be,
I see, for
when I begin to absorb the light
of your pages,
I forget the tome’s beguiling name
and what the crying lot once had to say

Unfinished sketch
                                                          ­                                              in my mind
following each encounter
                                                                            with carefully drawn details,
a face                                                             ­                      without expression
a body                                                             ­                     without definition
a title                                                            ­                               without "you"
grant me
the right to continue
until the colors resonate
your name
                                                                                              *off the portraiture