pheonix blood

If only you could see me now,

could see the flashes in my eyes
like slashes deep in purple skies,
the golden streaks, the piercing cries
from cutting blades . . .
the new sunrise

You wouldn't have called me wasted.
You'd have stood up and you'd have faced it,
the storm that then erased it,
the care we started with.

But from your eyes once giddy
came eyes that burned whole cities
to the ground.
My world turned upside down.

Then left you did to find you'd rid
yourself of phoenix blood,
the stuff you left in ashes,
the stuff they call true love.

And now when I am coming out
renewing hope, doubting doubt,
I feel the flashes in my eye,
but this time birth can't make me cry.
I am the apple of my eye,
not you, not her, not girls plus guys.
I've unlearned romance, unlearned why.

If only you could see me now
back when our youth knew how.

For Sara, because she listens

I need to find you again.
You were the sweet bread
I ate before my meal--too early.
And now the plain bread is too plain.
My taste buds know the difference.
They can't be fooled for lesser things than you.

For Jessica, because she's there

Sitting on a lonely chair
atop four floors of memory,
I sit at night among ghosts.
I watch them run from door to door
across the roof-top.
They play the night games I once played for real.
I won't play them again the same--
the people are gone who taught them to me.
And with each leaving, left a ghost to play
unfinished games.
I am the last to leave
and sit alone in the shell of past happiness.
I wish you filled the hollow places,
the emptiness that haunts ghost faces.