Set This On Fire

So I guess I'm supposed to forget
About you.
Is that what people who once remembered each other
Do once they decide they don't want to
Remember each other anymore?
I don't know.
I have no idea.
Maybe it's one of those things that's
Supposed to "get better in time".
Bullshit.
How can the loss of someone who once
Lived in the spaces between your breaths ever be reconciled?
Someone who unpacked the cardboard boxes
In your heart.

You let the sunlight in and it felt like
An honest to goodness smile.
The kind that can't be forced, it just
Knows how to spread itself out.
You woke me up.
You were ice water on my face in the
Groggy morning.
An urgent dream that struck me with a
Beautiful fear.
And the hushed but present glory of it
All was you didn't even have to try.
You left your seal on my letter of a
Heart and I will never be quite the same.
I suppose I should thank you for that.
But I can't talk to a ghost
And there are no ears to hear on the
Cold side of a bed.

Winter's Widow

I listen to those sad poets as my brain melts
And what are left are thoughts of the only one
And he is gone.

The sun shining on the back of a neck.
Tired eyes and tired breath
Wrapped up in the sheets of a summer nest.
Grass stains from lying outdoors for too long.
Words and ideas, shared and exchanged,
Lit by the glow of a dashboard.
Time did not know us and we paid him no mind.
One human hand stitched upon another human hand.
Pressed so firmly but still with a gentleness
That the smallest of the animals would understand.
I would hold you at the worlds breaking if it came to that.

The small grains of sand pushed their fists up to hold us safe,
The ocean beat against itself,
Singing at our feet while we read the minds of those older than us.
Minds who have walked and thought and braved it all
Far longer than us, then dared to write about it.

I remember when the twang of country music
Swept over our heads and you held me close
Amidst the swirling whirlpool of others.
We had such awkward steps
But it didn’t matter,
My heart was exploding.
My God, it was so real.
I never wanted to be anywhere else.

I thought it was the earth’s trembling causing
My knees to shake like this
But it was the world inside of me
and I had lost control.
I tried to hide it,
cover it up with a mound of dirt and stone,
My own burial ground.
But instead it broke and flooded over.
What is truly tender cannot appear to be hardened forever.
And now the streets are sinking with the weight of it.
And I may drown,
But dear, I would drown for nothing less.

June On The West Coast

I'm no singer, or guitar player, but i haven't been able to rid myself of this song all day.

I said i never wanted to take prisoners.
But here they are
Lined up like corn in the field begging
For their sickle
Rotting in disbelief
I am frozen in fear
The not knowing
The inexperience
My blundering stupidity.
Yet this soil is mine
Those were my seeds
And I paid dearly for them
Heartbroken kernels.
And these are the calloused hands
That tend this field
I never left its side
I would cut you loose,
But I'm no reaper.

Under Our Hearts

These dreams, these capes.
What we fear most is twisting our arms
And tying them in bows behind our backs
To leave us in the despondent streets.
A rotting gift for some poor hero to find and unwrap in horror
As the truth slips out.
Then we will know.
Then we will stand motionless at the oceans edge.
And only dark will be left.
And these dreams that we dream so well
These capes that rest on our shoulders,
blades and scales on our backs.
They will rule supreme
And be the black truth,
The leather fist at our throats.