this

inside of this quiet world of wordless thought
i am certain i am the only thing left awake
but the walls creak and they ache as i rest
against the clouds and the air, the night is gliding by
above trees waving, shifting, swaying with their leaves
shining behind the clouds a star spins and disappears
orion leans against a roof and i smile
how blue the dark sky appears against glowing leaves
the wind is a voice as it whispers through these
a police siren moans, the night breaks completely, a phone rings
through a window, a voice speaks "i lay down on the floor..."
a car door opens but i can't hear it close
my blanket hangs loosely and the lamp light pierces it
i stand with my shadow on the wall, which reminds me
the only certainty left is
this is this is this is

i might have drowned but i held my breath and kicked my feet and moved my arms around.

there are days when i am quite certain that my heart is going to fall right out.

lately, days have been going by without me noticing a thing. i lay in bed at night and try to recall a beautiful thing that happened but only the mundane and the usual, the steady tides and the setting suns reveal themselves to me. i can't even remember a beautiful thing that i saw this week, or the past 14 days, or perhaps more. if there is nothing to recall then there is nothing to learn from, nothing to gain, nothing to ramble on about. not so long ago i believed it was only passion and ruination that could inspire me to evolve, but this mediocrity fuels me more than anything else ever has. the more quiet my life becomes the more effort i put into building my escape-boat. the destination it will bring me to is still unknown but the drifting between there and here is the only beautiful thing i desire to see.

can hope ever be separated from fear and doubt?

loer & lower

still and resting tirelessly within the armor her heart has wrought bitterlie
bound and taunted continuall to and by the sea
watching the stars fall and extinguish gentle amongst the waues through which he wades
hidden as she waited for another, adamant, a mistake of groning ghost for loe was made
for whatsoever from one place doth fall is with the tide unto another brought
is there nothing lost that may be found if sought?

without want, with need

i can hear thunder and see lightening spasming through the sky... but where is the rain? there are warm and cool gusts laced between the branches which clutch the swollen and pulsating clouds. down here the ground is dry and exhausted. i am laying in the sand staring up with my mouth gaping. everything is stirring about me, lifting, twirling, aching, surging. i fear it will all pass too soon and i will not taste a single drop. or has it already come to pass?

if it falls upon them

there is an inability to speak honestly that has covered my mouth and eyes and hands. this dishonest veil is being lifted slowly and carefully, for though it has been unwanted and frustrating, its fragile dejected state must be respected and cared for tenderly. if it were to be removed too quickly or violently, its fragments could not explain the purpose it served for so long.

as i lay in undisturbed solitude i find my body is rupturing in anticipation of something inconceivable and unreachable while my mind is lucid and still. i look to the future for clarity and direction but can't see past the low and lofty clouds. no matter how infrequently i call upon it, the past can still visit and fill me like a match being lit. the only difference in its illuminations are their ability to be extinguished in a simple breath. what i have now is surrounding me at this moment. it is all right here and i can see it and taste it, however foul or sweet, i have it to know now, not later or prior to, it is it is and it is. i am returning home very soon, changed only slightly, still baring the same foolish heart. i barely recognize my own reflection at times but it is not because i am so different, it is myself that i can see now for the first time.

there are still words building up in my chest and i have no where else to put them but on the stale summer air. they are lost and surreal in the pulsating heat, but i know you are still finding them when you want to, and this does bring the same foolish smile and waves through my soul. i savour and cherish these moments as i would upon watching a stag and a doe contrasting against white white snow.

who orbits who

lungs soft as moss
black thread and tired eyes
skin pulled tight across veins and weathered stones
warm mouths breathing softly and separate
bony fingers interlaced and sleeping
sour stomachs, frowns, jagged teeth
fractions and divisions, adding and subtracting
staring boldly then timid
inhaling the stars with raised arms holding nothing and everything
tangled and beautiful and missing and complete
dim light shattering through dense wood
if not now then never
it had to be so it goes on forever

this morning as i watched the sunrise:

i asked the chattering birds, the swifting clouds, the paling sky, the shadows, the damp air, the dying night "please come with me to bed, let us pause and dream for a while. there is no need to rush into today when we have already had so many days and have so many more days ahead..."

i wanted to reach out and grab everything and hold it and have it. but i soon realized, or more so remembered, there was not a bit of reality in my desires. today had already begun and parts of it were already gone, perhaps lost forever.

this week has sent my head spinning. i can't help but be reminded of life's ability to not only progress and digress down certain pathways very quickly, but also its tendency to hop onto other paths that we have never known before, often leaving us lost and frightened. there is a fragility in everything we are and do that we all tend to ignore, which always flashes before us in the most unexpected moments.

not everything always "works out" and hardly anything we expect to happen ever happens. never are the most horrible things that happen to us fair or anticipated, but we can endure so much more than we can imagine. we can watch a sunrise and a nightfade and remember the most amazing things. we can keep these things with us forever if we want to. we can not ask for the birds to pause in mid-flight, or ask a person to stay in our lives who is leaving or already gone. we can not pause a day or pretend the world stops while we dream. life is always moving, changing, fleeting, revolving. we can move with it and we can be a part of it. as long as we are living we can always smile, breath deep the air, taste the water, and fill our hearts with love.

as my own life advances and changes i can not help but see all of your lives moving so freely beside mine. you amaze me and give me the courage to smile and feel secure in my role as a living breathing loving thing.

i am absolutely sure that all of you know all of this, i just feel they are things that can always use some reiteration.





xo

what a little blood can do

bled to the point that your veins feel thin, they ache, they churn, they still seep
there has been a loss or a gain, you are not sure which
should you laugh madly or scream silently?
until you pass out
but you can't do either, any
no dear nothing, you are dry
you are too aware, too close to
and too many things too far from
there is a nothing that devours what is left of you
there is a nothing that still seeps scentless from you
you would be better off dead but this you are not
you would be better off without and so you are
you are dry, but you are, you are, you are, you are
see/say it again so this time you will believe it
then forget it again so this time you won't see it

my mouth has gone

the dark wound where sap dripped so constantly from has not healed at all. rather, there has been a sever at mid-trunk; only my uprooted legs and feet are left to wonder loosely through humid midnight. i am drawing letters in the dirt with my toes, but these are letters who won't associate with the frivolity of bright and astonishing words. these letters are bleak and without passion. they are vulgar in their simplicity. they are meant only for the other nocturnal beasts who roam separately, bound only to amnestic oblivion and to their own dim shadows. they are for the indifferent and illiterate. if you were to stumble upon this wood, and if you were to hesitate upon one of my letters scribbled in the dirt, you would not recognize it as mine. it would spell out nothing. you wouldn't care for it, it wouldn't care for you.

there isn't a word left to write to you, but here i am: still rambling. here i am atop this abandoned mound of words and punctuations, i am the ruler of beginnings and middles and ends which are as tangled/confused/useless as they were when they were living. there you are, the incessant empty space between every piece tangible. the dark matter not at hand. you touch nothing but surround it all. you are no longer among the stars, you are the clouds that blot them.