Things that fall

A Leaf
A Petal
A Teardrop

A Snowflake
A Footstep
A Tree

A Bomb
A Soldier
A Nation

A Lover
A Fighter
And Me

I went running

I went running tonight.
The weather was optimal for memory.
I was one with the dark moist air.
My footsteps were soft,
my breath silent.
But my soul was on fire,
and my left knee screamed
inside its cage of flexing tissue.
My mind raced ahead,
snapping forward against the taut leash of flesh,
willing my age to catch up with youth.
I felt alive, if only half-way so.
The other half in memory.

Impression

You left a print, not a story.

Beauty paints an impression,
a thing pressed into the soul,
not a time-line of events.
I bear your mark, your print.

Despite my dark nature,
I have in me small lights . . .

and you are there.

memory games

I would say I'm sorry.
Given the chance,
I would say I'm sorry.
But that's because it's now.
In an hour, maybe even a few minutes,
I won't care.
I will emerge from memory
numb again to past decisions.
But right now--
these minutes of aftershock
from a triggered sense,
the sound of a song we claimed "ours,"
or a letter I found
with a picture of you--
I would say I'm sorry
and ask you for a second chance.
I'm in the past.

Not for much longer . . .
I'm re-reading now,
fighting the urge to edit, now erase.
And now laugh--
"He wishes the past different!
As though his wanting now
could be his wanting then!"
I chastise the me of five minutes ago,
chastising the me of five years ago,
a fool to play with time.

trickle down blood
trickle down rain
embrace the curse
of living in pain
the sanity
of going insane

nothing consoled

When in love's pain,

there is
nowhere to go
nowhere to be
nothing to say
nothing to free
your soul from suffering.

It's drifting in space with claustrophobia
or motion sickness from the earth's spin.
It's freezing at 100 degrees Fahrenheit
or burning at the other end.
It's death by wanting
yet forced to live each moment more.
No search can end the suffering
nor find the right in every sore.

If at least it were the noble thing
If at least I sensed some glory
If at least I were the martyr king
in some heroic story

But it's none of these,
not ev'n at least.
In simplest terms it's boring.
For sits the man restoring
nothing by his sitting
and nothing by his spinning
of the harshest words--
the ones meant for his ridding
of the pain.
Not even rain
can drown his sickness whole
and leave him sleep, that peaceful role
of happy men, of kings extolled.

The suffered sits, nothing consoled.

before their time

those first tulips
early to the season
pioneers of spring
the sacrifice of unborn colors--
will freeze to death before they see it

they die for living too early
for being passionate
wearing winter down
they fall in final gusts and flurries
before daybreak

then was I born
awakened to sunlit seasons
alive upon the graves of seers

walls

The walls are tumbling faster now
and I watch, hands empty and dry.
I hear wind and rock,
the grind and tear of ancient layers of wisdom.
When it falls I may look at it for a long time,
stare at the words that no longer exist,
the feelings that no longer are.
And turn and walk on.

The Many

We don't want pity
we don't want answers
we don't want you to fix us

We just want to talk
to say it
so that it's said

We are not famous
we are not photogenic
we are not gorgeous or handsome
no one follows us around
we have blemishes, big ones
our hair is falling out
there are red marks on our face
we age
we stumble
we fall
and no one knows
no one writes about us
no one follows our existence

We are the normal
the many
never the one
the idolized
We do the idolizing
the wishing
the wanting
the dreaming
and we wake up normal

Someone said love ourselves
spend the time learning our worth
our own brilliance
our own smile
but when we stand there with our groceries,
our same as everyone else food,
those magazines stare at us
and we're not enough

She doesn't love me
he doesn't like me
There is always someone more exciting than us
and we can never love ourselves enough to make up the difference.

bring me the cold

Bring me the cold.
The anger in my bones is warm.
Too warm.
It needs a rival.
It needs the Northwind and her delegates
piercing deep,
blinding the intake at my eyes,
deafening and suffocating the inlets at my face.
My soul is hot and seeks a challenger.
Bring me something worthy of fight,
of reaching fires within.
Bring me something that will make me smile,
something that meets the blaze in my eyes
and releases the will inside me.
Bring me the cold.