How can I greet you like
the corner of a leaf?

[when] like the edge of
a thistle, I meet you.
awkward, abrasive.
I'd like to be like a leaf
and let the wind carry me
until the fall
            of you and me.

Whether I open my mouth and
doves fly out
or broken beetles,
black as
ink,
whether you hear it as a
song or as a
woe
as a cage being open &
40 wings flying out

I'll open my mouth and let it out
and you'll be there to listen,
or to cry,
and I'll finally be able to tell you
show you
the animals
that stir in me

you can watch them fly by-
be haunted by their
blur
or you can slow yourself
pace yourself
hear yourself
watching a telltale herd

Whether you take it as a song
or as a woe
at least the corral will be
unleashed and
you will finally
know.

I'm so tired.
tired of all the broken glass,
we dance around.

And waltz to.

I've never been so scared to say goodbye,
to you.

I think I'm
busting up this frozen
sea
because I
danced to the glow

Inside a wish
subsequent,
where the
sun melted
the snow

where snowflakes
fell
and angels cried
existing in a bird

and you put your
holy bible down
and threw away
the word

and you stepped into
a world of white
closed your eyes to
all you knew

then you took my hand
and waltzed with me
and found the Devil's Blues.

I had a dream there was
a giant
outside my window.
His hair was
made of yarn.

He was walking
And stalking
He did not see me there.

And you were
there
right next to me.
I saw you there
lean close to
me
but the room was dark
it was morning.

Where’d the giant go?

I felt your breath draw near to me
I heard the beast walk near to me
I felt your lips press up to me.
close to me
spontaneously

your lips
they touched so
fervently
so warmly
and so they fell
so softly

I’d cross the giant
To feel
to touch
you
With me
Like that
Again.

Tonight,
underneath the sooty
sweeping sky
where my
amber lights
all blossom in their
honeyed, brilliant
blaze,


I'm no longer
lonely


how do people
do it
where they fall in love
and push ahead
they reach rapture and
keep going,
they reach the height
of ecstasy and only
move on up

It means the world to me,
that for me,
to me,
with me
you've found the edge of
rhapsody  
where you
balance on the
threshold of a
romance ever-
lasting

I want to stand
on the edge of
a tall
building-pressed against
the steely bars, the wrought-iron
coils of metal,
icy on my
legs

I want to stand
on the edge of
love, with
you

hold my arms above
my head
let you absorb
all that I
am

drunken and
stupid-
hesitant and
wanting

the creamsicle
orange of a sunset-
the brilliant pink
smear of a
sailor's-trouble-sunrise
with you.
Everything with you.
Standing on the
edge of
everything,
you.

Tell me
you want to
stand with me
too.

They say
you chose to live
this way

that it's your own
**** fault

but where's the
fault in feeling
and not having
one to turn to
and needing someone
in the night
where your demons haunt you

where's the
fault in hoping
that white will take
the pain away
the pain that won't
stop scratching
pulling, tearing
where your demons want you

and where's the
fault in running
when you were
never told where to go
no hand to guide
no hand to follow
no hand to touch
or hold

They say you chose this path
that it's your own **** fault
that you don't deserve a human touch
of love
because you chose to live this way



I know where the fault is.

Oh.
Oh is all
that I could say as
you turned your chair
and I saw your hands scribbling fast
incoherent words
on medical
sheets.

Oh.
diagnosed.
diagnosis is all
that keeps repeating
in my head and in my sleep
and dreams you
diagnosing
me.

Expect to get your blood drawn
every visit.
You're a new patient.
The first one's the hardest.

Oh.
I am scared
and no one knows
what I am going through
the thoughts where I don't know
if my body will betray me
lay me down
and go to
sleep.

Oh.
is all that
i could think to
say and feel and where
have all the words gone when
he stares back at my face
and i can't even muster
a questions to this
diagnoses.

Expect to get a call
tomorrow or the
next day for
your next appointment.
the first one is the hardest.

It's one of those days where nothing make me happy.

No chocolate, no paint, no clanging of the bells
that usually bring me joy.

And it's the first snow in a year.

the heater's on, covered in blankets
and wrappings.
Adorned with shoes and sweaters and things.
Hair in two braids, my glasses are clean.

And the snow, it falls,
in large white clumps.

It's one of those days where nothing seems
quite
right.

Too many questions, indifference, I sit and stare
at the pasty white wall.

I need to get out.

my nails are pink and my stomach is full. And I know
that I'm loved beyond reason.

It's one of those days where nothing makes me happy.

The flower of once was
the leaves of all the grown.

The leaves and petals and stems and stuff
of all the things I own.

And what is it
I own on Earth?
If not the lakes and sea?

The flower of
my time on Earth.

A time
that own not me.

It's the funeral
and your old soul
has crept away
while mine still sleeps
in your hospital bed
in the darkest shades of
grey

of charcoal 3 a.m.'s where
the clock's green glow is
haunting
and the fading sound
of your failing voice
is teasing and it's
taunting

where the piano keys
are quiet
and I want it to be heard
that not a song is being sung
and silent,
are the birds

I feel like it
was yesterday
that you told me
you hate my
wig on
Halloween
and you gave a
flashing basket
to a little
girl who
won't even
recall
the things you did
the ins and outs
of every ounce of
love, you are
it will feel like
yesterday
tomorrow
and the next
and in ten years from now
when I can't
quite recall
your voice,
I'll think to how
you said my name
on the last
voicemail you
left me.

Bring roses to me by the grave
Of everything we used to have
Every hope i once felt flourishing,
Flowering within me.
Abolishing every glass animal in me –
Shattered and busted.
Broken by the burdens
That once buried your
Soul.
Would you bring lilies to
Me?
Dripping with the nectar of my
Once blossomed truth.
My truth was just a lie in you.
And for a moment,
I can’t catch Spring.

I haven't made
the mistake
in so long.
the mistake of watching
you move
and twist,
lit like a cigarette.
I haven't let my eyes follow you,
wander to you,
search for you,
like the way
they naturally
do
[I haven't let them find you]
in so long.

This was supposed to help me heal.

You were standing,
a silhouette against
the icy blue of
a northwest bay-
the most beautiful
shoreline you've seen,
you said,
and love, do I
agree.

even standing
by this ocean,
in this dew-drop
forest I
call home,
overwhelmed
by Oregon's
beauty once
again-

I'm taken aback because
you're so beautiful.

and all I can possibly
see
is you.

It's been days out
in the desert
in the no-end
summer
when I wish
now was
then
and then was
always
keeping up with
later

It's funny now,
looking back to
November
September,
back to August when
I was so unsure and
put my faith in
idols

I keep looking back to
Vienna,
to Istanbul,
to charcoal eye-liner and hanging lamps,
Morocco

and here I am:
where I never thought
we'd be
where I have no idea
where I'm going and
there's a cloudy, veil of haze
protecting and
desisting me

I didn't know my worries wouldn't
redesign my days

so here I sit:
the coffee's hot
and I've started Ballet,
again

and I know that after the longest Winter
under trees,
spent on my own
that even though the next stop is
the desert
that you'll be there
and I won't be
alone.

If only India weren't
so far away
so I could touch
the yellow streets
the orange, the red
the muddy water
(the print of
an elephant)
where I could hide
in tall grasses
by deadly snakes
and wait to be
pinned by a
tiger
the orange, the red.

A temple where i can't
even remember your
name
because all I
hear is Hindi.

where all my problems
would be solved, alas,

a cup of tea
my feet stained brown
the orange, the red.
I'd never wash the jungle
off my hands.

And this I know:
when I am out
  and I can see the end -

I'll never approach the cliff
and give myself
              the other side

and that
   from far away
I can pretend
it's all
a free fall
into
nothing

The problem with
hats
is that when
you wear them
for awhile
your head is
hot,
but held
and
you almost
forget they're there

The problem with
hats is
that when they sit
there for
awhile
and when you
resign to the
weight
on your head-
you take them off
and you can
still feel
them there
for awhile

That's the problem with
hats
and the problem with
you,
here,
with me
now.

And I knew there was no place
better than here

more air than here
that I could [free fall
in]

and swim through
endless pastures of gold
pure gold
[a thread through a sequin]
and tiny shards of glass
where I can see my face
sparkling

there is no you
no individual you
or me
or dust devil to destroy us
[a volcano]
to melt the gold

you and I and dust and coal
and that strip of pink
in the sunset's sky
we're all made together

And I know there is no place
better than here.

There's music
in the whistle
of the kettle
in the morning

and the sun,
who rises in the
east and gently
whispers
"you must wake up,"

in peeling an
apple and letting
the blade touch
your hand,

music in the restraint of a cut

music
in the slow inhale
when the town
beats you down
hard

and your hands
are holding your
head against
collapsing in
bed again

And there's music
when you put
your head down
in the shower
and the water
feels like fire
and you're drenched
in sweat and nightmares
and the jealousy of days

There's music in collapse
or cadence in you,
anyway.

How can I walk in
to other cities like they're
my
castle too
like they welcome
with their arms outstretched at the end
of a race
a finish line from start to
finish
go to start

I thought I couldn't
love someone
new
and
at the ribbon,
I'm finding I'm wrong

Everywhere I read
I see that
"this is
the right
direction."

But how is it
I feel so
unsure
of where I'm
going and
of who I am and what
I need within my
aching fire
of a soul

they say that
life's the journey
that every
turn has
purpose
that in every single
moment,
pulse,
I'm heading towards
the sun

My soul is
sitting in a tree
the highest branch
in ecstasy's confusion
where I don't know how to climb to
either end
to
fall like
fruit or
hug the weathered  
post and hold on
for my life

they say this is
the right direction
but I want to see it
with my eyes.

In orange light,
and October's amber
flood
it's the first time I've felt my pulse, my bones, my hands, my heart,
my blood

In a room
awkwardly shifting in my
chair
I'm noticing my body moving, it's the first time I'm awake and
I'm aware

For years I've lived,
trapped in a haunting
plea
It's the first time I've been pulled out and seen that she's in the room
with me.

all I ever wanted
was to
know
the vast
unknown

isn't that
the human
drive,
to search
without
aversion
but to look
in requisite
despair

so we're born
out of a planet
called the womb
& ******
into
breath
without
explanation
or
even cost-less
perseverance,
but with
the
incessant
need to
find
the moon.
to meet
the end,
but also live
without
cessation.

and that is why I look up at the stars.

I'm easy-
I'm as predictable as a bud
about to bloom before
the summer sun strikes her
heavy blow and smokes
the flowers with a

deep inhale, a canon.

When I come up and
I go down
so quickly, I know that
I'm easy
and I know that I
must be a fool

a coward,
conversed in the pull back
the push ahead of
a tide I'm
cultivated in
conceding when
my toes can't touch the
ground and I'm feeling
my familiar fear

I
know
   that
      I'm
         a
      fool

and I'm telling you that
                              there's a war,

there are wars,
there are THESE wars:

where I'm the soldier
I'm the commander,
I'm the nurse,
and I'm the civilian,
the gun and
the sword:

I lie like a flower
in the trenches of
civil war.

I heard your violin
swoon
and the sand on my back

I'm sinking

the cold wind
feels colder than
last summer
and more familiar
all the same.

and I can write symphonies to your sounds
to the waves
to the crackling of the fire that went out

(long ago)

and I heard your violin play
and I heard it cry
and I heard it reaching for me
as I waited for the waves
the tide
to touch my legs

a
crash

of cold

and the waves hit my knees
and there's salt in my eyes

and I can't stop laughing.
hysterically laughing
and crying
(it's all the same,
Pacific
Atlantic)

I heard your violin swoon and
it kissed the stars
and me.


I'm
  sinking.

Where were you
in days of
endless rainfall
when the sun
wouldn't
touch a soul?

and the curtains were closed
and the dust had settled,
tell me you know,
that the dust
has settled

in that room
that's
looked the
same for seven years.

You have to know
it's killing me
to watch you
collapse in
the rocking chair
and lull your mind
to sleep
with the pain
of all you've taken
back
all the postcards
and cigarette cartons
that you've brought back
for thirty years

You're not the same
and I'm not
who I was
then
as well

the dust has settled
the spiders have come
and the sun has
finally set
over us.

I'm working the trade
of
tethered souls
where it won't stop
raining and I can't
let it go.
Where thunder never seemed so soft against
a field of buzzing strings in an
orchestra it's like the
plague
and even when
my hands are
black from all the digging
this ensues...
I'm working the trade of
tethered souls
and I've
chained
myself to
make do.

Love is a sculptor
taking me into
her gentle hands
and pushing, pulling
molding me into
a shape I've never
seen before

She's kicking her leg and her heel
is spinning the wheel
and her fingers are pulling me up
into a tower of
hope, hovering, always
hovering
against her bare hands
on the edge of collapse

I've spent a lot of time
in the pottery room
and a lot of hours
near the kiln
but love is modeling me
into her portrait


laughing,
all this time I thought it was I who was the artist

It's been a year
since your secrets
flooded out
like a dam burst open
like I was hit in
the chest
by a cascade.
like you thought
i could look at you
the same.
like walls of water
destroy nothing
like cities filled with
water
like broken dams
like lies
aren't hard to fix.
I'd like to see you
contain a river of water
and try to stay
afloat.

This is it.

With you.

Fitzgerald's end and beginning
end and beginning of everything
next to you

There's no more sorrow

no more fear

no more of longing for you,
it's clear.

This is it

I've fallen in that ivy
patch where fireflies
romance

and every single breath with you
is the universe in
dance

this is it
and I've melted
into a swirling,
violet-blue

a pool from the heat of your burning
heart
and my unending
love for you.

There's a moment
I keep
going back to.

Where we're sitting
just you,
and I,
in front of the
Clarence Carter
record
turning.

And you reach to touch
my hand,
softer than
before the
day you told
me this was
nothing.

In every moment,
I'm not with you-
and where you tell me
I'm just a
good friend

I'll keep going back
to this place
where we're sitting
on the floor,
laughing,
holding
hands.

Oh beautiful soul,

there are so
many things
in this world to
adore-

people running when
the rain begins to fall,
shaking off their umbrellas and
laughing at the
downpour -
waiting in line for
a handful of
coffee to keep the
biting
cold at bay
or watch the steam rise,
the cream satiate the
bitter black for a moment
with a cloud-
looking out from
within at
grey and drippy
streets where
cars are pushing through
the weather
to
get to where
they're going

Oh beautiful soul,

there are so many things
in this world to
love
and I'm beginning to
see
you're one of them.

The moment between
the end of your
cigarette and the
clutch of
your knuckles

the three inches of time
of inhales and
exhales

the moment between the
ash and
your inspire:

where you're standing outside,
and I'm in your
coat
for three minutes,
three inches,
a cigarette,
I have
you.

It has been
3 years since
some
        thing
buried me

3 winters
3 falls
3 summers
3 springs

I've felt so
guilty
  since I left
everything

The people
the places
and most of my
things

It's been 3 long years
and 12 mind-numbing
    seasons

But I think I am back
and that life has
  a reason.

You're my
best kept secret-
a rippling stream of
hazy blue inside
my mind, my
heart,
a glow of light
above my head
absorbing into me,
the color of the color
of "to heal"

You're my best kept
secret:

rivers change with time,
with the deepening of
banks and the falling
trees of winter-but you.
oh,
but you
You're the sediment
on which I flow,
that I keep hidden
deep within the
tributaries

                I love you,
and that's my best kept secret.  

         And I'll carry you
              for all of the
                Tide-race.

Sometimes,
for a moment,
time escapes me.
When I am alone at night
With the tv on
A forkful of noodles in an empty hand

Where has all the time gone?

When did I become unable
To keep track of the ticking clock?
flashing in front of me
memories of a distant vibrancy
I once held in my palm

Now ,
[without hesitation]
the remote control
A loosely clasped fist.
An empty dish
And a burnt out awareness of time.

I see you every
now and then
and it hits me
in the gut
how two lovers
aren't supposed to
cross paths again,
watch it fade to dust

I know that we
are strangers now
but it wasn't
always so
you used to smile
when I arrived
and frown as
I would go

but now your smile
is pleasant,
demeanor,
too polite
I know that you
have lost all
love,
but, oh, to be
with you tonight.

I'll be some
              where tomorrow

and the sky will change to
grey

and even if I close my eyes
the thoughts won't go
    away

and even when I
   fall asleep -
at the end of
every
    day

I'll keep waiting for
  tomorrow
and I'll be
  stuck in
         today.

When the women held their
signs with marker smeared like
lipstick on the neck of the man who
didn't let me go -

I saw colored shapes against a
wet, grey sky
and a thousand women full of
    togetherness & gold.

I peeked out
from the tomb
that seemed to have
built around me,
trapped inside
and failing to grow

I reached my
hands up like
there's something
stirring within me

after my heart stopped
beating
    months
        ago.

I'm not sure if
drinking the poison
of other men is
helping me
dull the burn
of missing
you

if taking the glass of
red elixir to
my lips, holding my nose with a
pinch of my fingers,
closing my eyes, throwing my head back
and hoping the
blackened scorch of
you leaving me is
gone when I open
my eyes
with someone new
is working

I'm not sure
if waking up
with someone else's
pain-filled
core
who has
loves to forget,
hopes to nurse,
people who have
died and left them
behind is
adding to the
graveyard where
thoughts of you are
being pushed so deep
into who I am
and added to the
ground that
I call my body

My life is filled
with tombstones
of you and no other
man has been able
to dig you out
of me.

It's 3 a.m.
it's only
you and me-
your boat bed
high above
ground,
floating on pain
abandoned days
ago

there's a glint of
sunrise
opening her arms,
stretching out her hands,
throwing her head back and
taking a breath
of tomorrow's
today,
  today...

But for a second-
for another moment,
a pause before the sun
conquers
the clandestine sky,

I'll be
engulfed in you
I cannot catch my
breath,
in you-
we're in the dark
encore
and you

are
carved out of
daybreak
shadows like
a statue
been set free