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.

restless

To touch a small piece of the world
then another piece
and so on
until I touch all the colors
and all the spaces--

is to be a small piece of it.

Until then,
I am the smallest piece of nothing,
uncounted by the whole,
unknowing and unknown

restless for the rest of the world,
unsatisfied with unknowledge,
unsettled by the satisfaction of here,
my search is for deeper colors
and deeper shapes.

Give me Nepal and Tibet,
Samarkand and Baikal,
and let me change the way I see
by the memory of things seen.
Create me anew
with things already created

sameness

I wanted it to work,
wanted something to crack my hardened routine of sameness,
wanted life to take a sudden turn,
to pivot away from the familiarity of me.
I wanted something different than being single
just for a little bit, just for a moment.

But I missed the train to somewhere else,
the gravitational pull to someone else's orbit.
The close encounter spun my world
with the energy of magnets barely escaping attraction,
and I spin wildly readjusting to former orbits of sameness.

luxury

Friendship--

that permanence of peace,
that trust forged in trial,
that security for secrets,
that last laugh at adversity,
that comfort of consistency,
that depth of devotion,
that faith when failing
and light when losing--

is a myth.

Friendship is a luxury
as permanent as pearls
and dependable as diamonds.

There are no candles after dark.

homecoming

i get tired of being me,
of not being what fits you.

i spend my time away, fitting,
preparing a new mold to step into.

but the new structure is never ready,
and forces me home.

and when i'm home,
i weep, and never want to leave.

i get tired of not being me.

I've lassoed the moon and let it go,
I've ice-climbed in a thaw,
I've sun bathed in blackness,
and walked free an outlaw.

I've sung in muffled halls,
I've crushed diamonds with coal,
I've eaten liquid things,
and cauterized a soul.

I've eaten hunger,
I've run on empty,
I've slaved for freedom,
and starved on plenty.

Some people lose,

Some people win,
Some are confused
And many give in.

When opposites reflect,
and good men kill,
don't forfeit your honor
for something you feel.

new heat

Some nights are wombs,

nine months of waiting for sound
on new strings

new-born from the old things,
and soft like the new beings

just hatched from the shell.

I worshiped my frozen ways, counted on yesterdays,

those with the vacant rays—all light the same.

Each day that same morning light, ripened from oversight,
coated my throat with night—drunk I became.

And soon light was empty, bare; shine of the devil’s glare,
I lay beneath despair, writhing in pain.

Nine months in a dark cocoon, wrapped in my linen tomb,
I broke the ninth full moon, screaming my name.

New heat from the morning star, beams shot in golden bars,
I stood without a scar—Hope was my name.

I bathed in the morning dew, dressed in the morning hue,
All this in front of you—birth has no shame.

This one beam I waited for, one spark to light ten more,
Ushers me through the door, time and again.

And I hope for tomorrow:
It too could be new if I part with today,
let go of the manna I’ve hidden away.

floating grass

The need to reach out to someone, anything
is quieted by the emptiness, the no one.
When you never give back,
your outlets decay
and grow elsewhere.
Like a candy machine asking no coin,
they've sold every ear that listened,
every piece of sincere caring,
every scrap of wanting you to be happy,
for nothing.
Your coins were never theirs to keep;
you bought their love for nothing
and investing nothing, saved nothing
for today,
for the need for someone today.
With nothing sweet to abate your need
to feel understood,
you wander through meadows of floating grass--
a bed of squandered roots--
seeking something unspent.

My fortune useless,
I wander the sties and stalls
for somewhere to sleep.