reminder

You remind me of my loneliness,
You come with the air of allure,
Drawing me,
Beckoning me.
Your presence pulls at my
Abdomen,
Seizing me.
You remind me of the time's passing,
The weight of waiting:
Desperate.
Even the mere brush of your hand
Across my tender spine,
Exposed,
Sends me,
Throws me
Into the deep pools of your eyes.
Knowing,
The depth of knowledge.
You remind me of my loneliness,
In your comings
And as soon as you’re going
I am gone.

i am an list of unfinished books; i am impatient hunger.

three years, one week.

Is it because the air is changing?
That can't be it, I'm still wrapped up to cover from the biting cold.
A week ago marked three years ago.
Going home, going east.
I didn't understand, walking through the highlands, that I was seeking your Glory.
I was simply seeking.
Three years and one week ago today.
Now I long to go back,
To go home.

moving

moving feels all together like falling in love.
i leave this town with little more
than the stress of cold water
lapping at my feet.
i spent my autumn looking back,
at the lady shining in the river,
welcoming us to come in,
or telling us to go back.
i look back beyond her,
and strain my eyes to see if i can
see the highlands in the distance,
and know what it means to
walk home.

that was all apart of my youth, and i am not young anymore.

moving feels like a last chance at love
before disappointment seeps in
to where hope lived
in fantasies and magic dust.
i will change course,
about face from east to west
into another ocean
whose waves are stronger
and full of allure that crashes over
my best posture.
i will bow under it,
aware of all its grace.

take cover

i recognize it:
the slow burning layers in the air,
the lingering pedestrians gathering supplies,
the stillness.
take cover, take cover.
those of us who have been here long enough
only need to step outside,
to know that it's the wrong way.
take cover, take cover.

at some point as i lie
beneath my covers,
the flakes will burry
our ashes & disaster.
letting us forget, for an hour or two,
that we're black & marred,
shamed into taking cover.

good

good winter, good riddance,
good-bye.

like arrows,

hearts like arrows point
and pierce.
there isn't time to mend
what's been broken.
there are only hearts,
tattered and torn,
towing what our
jagged edges caught
along the way.

i maintain a simple prayer
in the midst of blubbering
and running away:
be near.

going west

I miss the ocean,
Frozen,
I miss the sunrise,
Hope unties all my jugements comprised.

my hands

I do not know what could be, or even should be.
I vaguely see what is.
Shadows reveal empty spaces,
Faith left undone,
Hope unrealized.
People are left to meet
Expectations.
To be one is to be the lonely one.
I do not understand life, its windings and sorrows.
I know the weight of pain stacked on my shoulders.
I know the ease of a hand along all my graces.
I drink your blood as
Atonement,
Salve,
In my wine glass.
My stagnent blood ferments
Inside caverns.
I breathe,
Hoping to reconcile
The right and the left hand,
The two who have never met.
Dependant on their individual responses,
The two shall become one.
In a handshake,
A melding,
A synthesis.

the morning.

lately, i've only been waking up with a start.
my whole body jolts with energy,
muscles seize.
i gasp.
its as if i am too far gone, and the force is the only way to get me back.

Jared

He is saponaceous, unctuous with no follow-through. He slips by sputtering scores of apologies after I raise my eyebrow once, convincing me of his reform. Only, as soon as I relax my face he resumes his disobedience. It is as if my facial expressions act as a traffic light directing him. I would like to have my eyebrows permanently raised: botox for a nanny, stoplights for his living. Like a traffic cop, I pace the hallway, catching him playing with matches, cursing on the phone, bingeing from his stash of candy. I am the nark. I spend the vacation pacing.

He is soft. I often wonder if there are bones underneath his layers of fat, three inches deep all around. His anger may be his only support. Barging through the door one day, he yells on repeat, “Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus!” He still doesn’t have it memorized, even after the loud minute. The rest of us just stare silently, waiting for the episode to pass. “He’s a bad kid” his sister remarks phlegmatically without looking up. When he leaves we resume where we left off in The Great Gatsby.

Concluding the chapter, I go to check on him. He is slipping like always. This time, it is on his chair as he sways back and forth trying to maintain a forty-five degree angle with the ground. He falls instead. I sigh. The whole scenario tips his mother, who has stationed herself in the room, over the edge. “Jared!” she yells, “you are nothing but a failure!” Other loud vulgarities erupt from inside of her. Jared, still lying in the position he fell in, has been reduced to exactly what she accuses. He doesn’t bother getting up.

Jared has a science test the next day. He does not do well in science. In fact, there aren’t many areas in which he excels. I can list them: sautéing zucchini, playing video games, catching a cab, and doing algebra in his head. Despite the meager list, I argue that he is the smartest of the three children. His mind, when engaged is sharp and intelligent. Engagement is the problem. There are several problems.

Jared’s dad is gone. He moved out of the house about six years ago, as soon as the divorce was announced. He only moved three blocks away, but the distance between them hasn’t stopped growing. I wonder if one day they’ll be completely estranged. Something split apart inside of Jared that year. He did his best to let everyone know how he felt. In school he was violent; he stabbed a girl with a pencil. At home, he was miserable; he walked around threatening to kill himself. His mother got him help, but the laws of physics remain: what is severed can never be fused back together. I wasn’t there then, but I live with the effects. I see the shards of anger come out of the very place where his heart is broken. I’d like to remove them all for him, healing him instantly.

Instead, I watch the scene unfold a little longer, lingering in the doorframe trying to dodge the shots from each loaded artillery. Mother and son get their ammunition from the same source of pain. They have both failed one another and themselves. Only a few hours ago, I found Jared hastily gleaning all the answers to a study guide from an anonymous online source. I asked him if he knew any of them himself. “No”, he retorted as if it were obvious. This is not the first time that he has approached a science test claiming he knows nothing. I reminded him of this pattern. I said, “It must end”. Apparently, my voice was bent with annoyance, and his mother caught wind of it. She rushed in, demanding to know what he did, and the war between them took over.

His mom finally leaves, feeling she proved her point sufficiently. Jared pulls out some candy from his stash defiantly and for the next hour we review Archimedes’ principle, “an immersed body is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces”. He recites the acronym SCUBA with confidence. He seems to get it, after all. It’s late when I tuck him into bed, nervous. His happiness for the next weekend is contingent upon his success. “Goodnight”, I whisper, “good luck, tomorrow”. Jared nods, half asleep, and calls “I love you” as I leave the room, loud enough so only I can hear it. “I love you too Jared”, I think to myself, knowing he already knows.

Cannot

I CAN NOT TAKE MYSELF OUT OF THIS.
i cannot remove any part of me from this existence.
i cannot stop nerves from burning, leaving scars, shriveling.
I could say I want alive,
But this is it.
i have it. we all do.
Alive is real life. the throwing up out my window, hoping it doesn't fall on someone's head, wishing to forget inside of the murmurs of sleep, until the next punctual rape, until six a.m.

hurt

People hurt.
Within themselves, people hurt.
But that isn't all.
People hurt others,
They spread it.
Sometimes with malice,
A vandal destroying your craft.
Oftentimes, people hurt without intention.
I do not know if it is worth the distinction, but the moot point is made.
I hate the latter.
I despise it in the very places where I hurt, unintentionally.
I suppose I hate the former as well, but it doesn't sneak up on me, disguised in smiles and laughter.
That's the problem with the latter.
It hurts you in the very places you expose,
In trust,
In love & cheer.
Anyway, people hurt.
And I am one of them.

the hope.

my hope, in saying all of this, is that love wins. not in some grandiose crusade, but in the my very own hidden, intimate corners where the bile of hatred stains like mildew in the cracks of a bathtub. the game of catch ends, a victor is decided, and i may go home safe in his hands.

in-between.

i'm convinced that human experience lies somewhere in-between what ought, and ought not be.

"here is my bright standing young man", a mother proudly presents, "and here, are his inconsolable failures:
intelligent, genteel, faithful, bellicose, a liar, scum.
i love him."
the juggernaut of irreconcilable differences knocks me over; it flattens me.
i am suddenly two dimensional, a irregular oval, laid bare for all to see.
it's too much. the surprise surprises me every time.
he is, in fact, both wonderful and evil, practically simultaneously.

the mystery begins my love affair with human nature:
that i can look at another and see both wretchedness and beauty. that i can know the tug-of-war (and it is a war) inside of my heart, which is also beautifully wretched. or wretchedly beautiful. or both.
that the most eternal capacity in all of our being is the very thing that allows us to be torn apart.
that the same surprising game of catch, throwing me from love to hate to love, can bring me to equilibrium.
to forgiveness.
to a third dimension.

competing forces

i hate it.
competing forces
trying for king.
the yelling,
the fear.
i see it in him too.
i watch it get the best of him,
take over,
take him down.
it beats him and
the bruises, ripe and swollen,
send the rest of us a message:
we're next.

i know, i can hear them search for me.
and i go to sleep feeling the weight of war.
i know the regret of choice,
of love,
missing what was all together never mine,
needing what was never meant for me.

caught.

caught.
the glare on the window pane
bursts
surprised lemon lyrics-
dance.
behind the window pane
is a man in his library,
frozen,
caught in the contagious
meandering &
wandering eyes.
pupils follow the
drifting beat,
pulse pounds angry
and drives it home.
drive it home.
caught.

skeleton

a window frame,
a windowsill,
a window box.

so much can be done with a skeleton.

it's late again.
it's always later than i except.
but i haven't fallen behind-
he is always on time.

The queen finally lays her head.
Say goodnight to the King.

I want to be woken by the clamour of life, the sunrise, beads of sweat dripping off the windowframe. I don't want to miss out on the steady pulse, the rhythm, the brand new.

Fresh juice will be squeezed like the promise found in dew.

good-night.

the sweetest breath comes over me
i take it all in, like water turned into wine.

yes's

moving into new places does new things to me,

i don't hope for what i used to.

simply kites flying at midnight.

it was the first kiss that started this mess.

robed, draped in the feeling electric.

(i sing the body electric)

the glory of sitting in the midst of it

robed, draped in your glory.

one thousand yes's

resound in the kiss that started it all.

hold tight.

what is free other than
the most costly of all glories?

(at night i tremble.)

the wind takes us like
satin grace into new space

(armies of wolves follow.)

you spread your arms
and drink it all in, head back.

(thunder bellows in echos)

what is free other than
the most costly of all glories?

(do not let the theives in.)

hunger

my feet tap the floor:
restless rhythm.
the pulse throbs, beats in me.

as soon as it hits, i get impatient.

a pool, deep & hardly uncovered,
starts to stir.
the rumbling echoes
against the cavern.

i roar, like a lion or a dinosaur.
(i want more)
if all goes according to plan,
i will be consumed.

ebenezer

what will happen to our monuments
when they lose their momentum?
the horse and his boy no longer stir me,
i pass dimly by the icons.

here is new york.

i will travel up to the frozen ocean,
trapped in the hudson
and get lost trying to
follow the course of the atlantic -
occasionally throwing stones
to build an ebenezer below,
at the bottom of the sea.