A Touch In Bad Weather

Some people can’t be reached no matter what you say,

Who probably wouldn’t care to feel your touch anyway,

And for all those who need, in some way, to be reached,

Our fingers might wave but they rarely ever meet.

In a dark windy heart there’s cracked glass in the rain,

Palms still untouched can be cut all the same.

Quieting the air with a gesture, I find

It helps, when you reach, to shield your hands with mine.

Those stinging cold moments with warmth underneath

Pour lakes into places overridden with dead leaves,

An Autumn-stained blush from a spring-tinted gaze

Briefly turn skies that were black back to grey.

When Summer Never Ends

A neverending summer is coming

And then, will all of us live authentically

With space to grow?

On a transformed planet

How deeply will we confront ourselves

To become something more?

Our chaos, our need, drives far ahead of our rationality,

And rationalizing our needs only breeds further chaos.

The narratives we believe in feed the roots of our beliefs.

Skies burning, tensions rising, anger, anxiety, malaise.

Nature pressures us from every angle,

Guiding us forward to communities of love and

Societies of strength.

Flaws and preferences notwithstanding,

Will we shape ourselves to live abundantly or

Apply pressure to stay restrained?

They say love conquers all as strength enslaves.

Compassion may carry us through tumultuous times

As Egoism may grind us through arduous days,

And how will we console ourselves when the hot breath of summer comes to stay?

 

What I Want

I want to brew a cup of tea
And let it go cold,
Forgetting it amid our busy hands
And lips consoling one another.
The rain spatter on the window
Being the only sound
To accompany our growing hunger
In the darkness of our room.
Lighting flashes throw light
In our eyes and against our bodies
As thunder breaks
Like the sudden quiver of a pleasant touch.
The storm pummels on and on,
And we’re drawing each other out
Until we’ve consumed every drop
And we drown into sleep, solemnly spent.

Ode To Dystopia

Idealism and romance raised me to care,

But authority raised me to be compliant and indifferent.

What forces us to conform and behave

Breaks our hearts and deadens our empathetic sentiments.

When you choose to live for love,

You’re at odds with all those who will take whatever you can give.

The Ideas you cherish like equality and justice

Only matter to them as weapons to be selectively implemented.

We take an unequal share of the world’s pain.

You can carry it as your own or you can choose to inflict it.

But the totality of human suffering

Rarely moves individuals as much as all the pursuit of satisfaction.

To us, who’re ruled by those who don’t love one another,

You’re more an idea or a number than anything like what we’d call “a life.”

You can’t lie when you’re reduced to an integer,

But you can’t assert yourself as anything worth cherishing either.

 

 

Between Us

Slow connections,

The kind that sink into you like a sickness,

Innocent conversations

That grow into hooks strung between our chests.

We understand our world

By seeing it through each other’s words,

Our gazes and movements

Imparting wisdom only we can comprehend.

Reason and purpose,

They’re ours as disciples of one another.

In peace or war

We’re formidable as fortified emotions.

Tragedy is our past.

Romance is our blissful tragic future.

With cake and tension

We unload and collapse in each other’s voids.

Our dresses complimentary,

My blue, your red, wrapped in purple sheets.

We own our faults,

Our secrets our own to whisper in confidence.

Shameless desire,

Alive and secure within our bounds.

Love Like Introspection

Could I ever be loved as completely

As the honesty of your sincerest introspection?

 

Mortality and eternity,

Subjects so situated in time

That occupy my emptiness

The way I wish I was admired.

 

Could I fill your mind

And terrify your sense of being

In such a way as to change

The reality of your inner quiet?

 

People are like night skies,

Shifting their position and meaning,

So when you gaze at me

I hope you think of what you’re not seeing.

 

We are mysterious and complicated things,

Too important for casual recognition,

And if I’m ever to be loved again

It must be worth our fullest attention.

Divinely Strange Comfort

These clouds, this wind,

My habits and mood swings,

Cigarettes and coffee,

Half-finished conversations,

Guarded hearts, tender connections,

Horror movies, memories,

Kissing in your parent’s basement.

October, yes another,

Let’s do nothing in October

But stay warm and witness death.

Nature wants to sleep.

I’m cold, but you’re warm.

Nevermind the ghosts,

They make the air more profound.

Encroaching sleep,

A pleasant sensation,

No better way to fall

In this moment.

Cold is coming

To swallow us up again.

This quiet anticipation

Makes a comfort, divinely strange.

Beneath Unseen Things

Under the willow roots

A skeleton lays, looking up,

Wondering what it means

That he cannot be known.

All the living things

Above the surface earth

Perceive their present moments

Unaware of what’s below.

An impaled heart

Over which the willow weeps,

And dusty bones

Snuggled firmly in the dirt.

Unbroken silence,

The tree’s buried shelter

For secrets of its regions

That no one could know.

Dirt for the dead,

Commotion for the living,

Hollowness to follow,

Vacancy of thought.

Lovers, ash to dust,

Marrow is to bark.

Love without a light

To illumine what they are.

 

A Loud Night

July, late at night,

Fullest of expression,

Dance and open-ended,

But still separate.

One little touch,

A thrill and delight,

While falling so short

Of what I need.

Pleasant distraction,

These tortured revelries

Like simple remedies

For bored nothings.

Smile while laughing,

Not disingenuous,

But a lingering sadness

Sits in my brain.

Merely a touch,

One hit from the pipe

Of animal comforts

To top off the night.

 

 

Vibrancy, The Shadow Unraveling

A braver me

Once hungered for the most radical,

The depths of pain and heights of pleasure,

Arts forbidden and obscene.

Looking for shadows,

The silhouettes of hidden meanings,

In music, words, and old philosophies.

All or nothing, or perhaps just me.

Everything to know,

To intercept as we compete.

Learning to express my ailments

Devoid of my identity.

 

A wiser me

Found meaning in shattered pieces,

Learned respect for my flaws,

And earned the rites of restoration.

Feeling through my being,

Pursuing dreams to their bitterest end,

Swallowing whatever lurks there,

And tasting something sweet.

Unraveling an eon

Of silent fears and insecurities,

Traversing the deathly path of nihilism

To know what I truly love.