All Lost - 04/13/2020

Halfway home from the grocery store
Having never walked this way before
Wishing I hadn't bought 6 pounds of fruit
Or worn my heavy leather boots

Sighing along to the only Clash cover
I'll ever play over and over
Parking lot to dirt then back on the street
As thawing dark cherries drip to the beat
I'm all lost

A heavy breath of pollen-sick air
And sweat-slicked, too-thick navy blue hair
Take a break in the shade, another delay
But with the change of the song, I'm back on my way

The roll of my shoulder, the heat of the sun,
The humidity and pollen polluting my lungs
Have me dreaming of smoothies when I'm off my feet
Lemonade sour and dark cherry sweet
I'm all lost

I'm all lost in this cherry smoothie
Drinking it so happily
I made it for its special offer:
A decrease in anxiety
I'm all lost

You Can't Kill Your Way To Peace - 01/21/20

You can’t kill your way to peace

But you can burn your effigies

You can’t bring back the deceased

But you can write them eulogies

You can’t avoid all your friends

But you can embrace your enemies

You can’t stop the ascent 

But you can curb their zealotry

You can’t hide your wounds and scars

But you can go to therapy

You can’t escape or run that far

But you can welcome refugees

You can’t get back what you’ve lost

But you can spend efficiently

You can’t redraw your card

But you can make a new treaty

You can’t go back and restart

But you can change the melody 

You can’t unbreak my damaged heart

But you can still kiss me

Perks of Insomnia - 08/29/2019

 My legs shake, my head spins
My stomach turns, I can't win
Stuck at my desk or resigned at home
Waiting for the sunrise alone
It's not love, it's not that deep
It's just nights when I can't sleep
But it's okay, now and then
Like when it gets to 6 a.m.
There's no one up but birds and me
And the morning's possibilities
I could sing or I could scream
I don't worry what I might dream
There nothing else quite like
Dancing in the day's first light
No one to ask "Are you okay?"
No need to think of things to say
Yeah, it's okay, now and then
The world's so quiet at 6 a.m.

There are some perks of insomnia
Like a certain euphoria
Got me singing “Jesus of Suberbia”
At the bus stop as the sun comes up
With no fear of who might hear or of
An onset of egomania
No hallelujah, no gloria
It’s just the perks of insomnia

It’s okay, I promise ya
There’s no need to worry because
There are some perks of insomnia

Haylie - 7/28/19

You know, I don’t only like
Slow, sad songs
And I wish,
Oh, I wish
You were here
To listen to all of the
Fast, happy songs
Playing
In my ears.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry
That I’ve gone so far
And I wish,
Oh, I wish
You were near
To witness each
Faded scar,
Stumble, catch,
And cheer.

You know, I still love you
Every day
And I wish,
Oh, I wish
You could hear
That your wisdom
Keeps me strong
Each year.

I’m sorry, oh, I’m sorry
That I don’t text,
That I can never
Think of what to say,
That I keep my love
All to myself
Instead of telling you
Every day.

June on Kalliope - 12/07/18

Here in September,
Fall takes an eternity.
A spark, then an ember
Ignites that old injury.
The Apokine's lance,
Fished from antiquity,
Is given the chance
To rewrite its history.
The shadow of one,
Or two or infinity,
Can't be undone
Once meshed so perfectly.
A bent antenna,
Broken off quietly.
Symbols to come,
New kinds of divinity.
The voice of the idol,
She rings out for liberty.
Righteous and prideful,
there's a new discovery.
When this war is won,
Chimes signal our victory.
When the rigour is done,
We'll dance
In June
On Kalliope.

I Want My Blood Back - 01/16/18

I want my blood back

I've been feeling like a heart attack
got these grey eyes lined with black
hearing nothing but the buzz of feedback
crashing better than a Cadillac

I want my blood back

Get me off these shifting sands
shattered moments clutched in sweaty hands
words and shadows filling up wastelands
catch the memory and the wound expands

I want my blood back

Lightning beats and paper veins
somehow traveling through these hurricanes
that wind howls, it bites, it strains,
sleep it off but the pain remains

I want my blood back

I want my tears back
I want this year back
I want my time back
to take these rhymes back
I want
my heart beat
my sleep schedule
new sheets
my potential
steady hands
a hopeful heart
louder bands
a fresh start

I want my blood back

"All You Do Is Burn" - 06/01/17

I 
Every time I get a tooth ache or a piercing infected or wake up with a random bruise
I find myself poking, prodding, playing with the source, as if i can make the pain ooze
out on command, feel it all when it's convenient and leave it when it's not, use
up all the sensation when it's under my control so I never have to worry I'll lose
that little bit of confinement that keeps every flare from sparkling the nearest fuse.

II
You're playing with fire like Portia:
pretending that coals don't hurt ya,
that holding this rage won't burn ya,
that there's no stopping your inertia.

After everything you overcame,
scorched and charred and torn and maimed,
still blazing forth, still in the game,
they'll remember this when they speak your name:
Prometheus couldn't hold your flame.

III
How many rhymes
and how many lines
and how many songs
played how many times
do you think it will take
to erase
the sores on your mind
and stifle the flame lit
by your pain
enough to recage it,
enough to contain it?
For how many days
and in how many ways
and with how many
ambiguous things you say
do you think you can
hold off the decay
of your delicate,
flammable veins?
Is your blood red
from oxygen
or the magma held
just below your skin?

IV
"All you do is burn."
"All you do is burn."
"All you do is burn."
"All you do is burn."
"All you do is burn."

"All you do is burn."

Nuclear Fusion Reactor - 02/15/17

Tell me how you lit a spark
in this sea of gluons and quarks
and sent these protons scattering
at relativistic energies,
colliding into something
new.
Hydrogen to deuterium,
iron down to helium,
each radiated positron, neutrino, or neutron
that keep the reaction going on
can't compare, no, they've got nothing on
you.

Tell me how you lit a spark
in this cold brown dwarf star of a heart,
reignited this reaction,
filled my life with passion, and
changed my course like diffraction
of light.
You are color-confinement, simply captivating;
radiant, like electrons decelerating;
your smile seems to keep time dilating
my nights.

I'm warm, I'm soft, I'm bright,
and I think I might just be alright,
each time you call me "Starlight."

The Universe Says Goodnight - 01/11/17

These bitter bites
don't belong buried
among the bright blossoms
that bloom here now.
Be free,
coarse tension,
clenched jaw,
caged breath.
Let limbs and eyelids
fall like
lilting lullabies
while lingering sorrow is lifted.
Leave it in the past.
No supernova stirs the skies,
no comet crashes,
no nebula nips at nearly-napping minds,
not a photon falls out of place.
Release your weariness and sleep.  

Raining Champagne - 12/07/16

It was raining champagne
and glitter,
bottles and papers
littering the ground,
precipitation pitter-pattering,
smoke intertwined in embraces,
my sense drowned in wine,
but all that chaos shattered
when you came around,
droplets pausing in the air
to applaud
your heart-stopping entrance,
haloed in the sunlight
you brought through the clouds.

And now,
seasons have passed
and a shroud of soured memories
covers each spec
of glimmering dust.

And now,
the heavens part for no one,
the taste grows dimmer,
and this pain has dulled
to a stiffness.

And now,
maybe my heart isn't broken,
but is still doesn't work the same
as it did when we first kissed while
it was raining champagne.

QFT - 09/18/16

In a breath
between intense
presses of lips
and hips,
the end of your kiss
rips the heavy
stiffness
of stress
from my limbs.
In the skip
of hearts beating
chest to chest,
in the voltage spike
between firing neurons,
in the hollow space
between nucleons,
I almost feel
as if any of this
is real
and not just
excitations
of some
abstract field;

as if your touch

is more than just

the Coulombic force

between us;

as if this moment

is enough.

c - 09/05/16

You and I
are in such tremendously,
terrifyingly different
universes.
I find it impossible
to believe
we ever
could have been close.
There is nothing
in the cosmos
that moves
that fast.

Letters to the Stars - 08/20/16

Even riding on a light wave,
it'd take a couple hundred thousand days
to deliver this communique,
which is really just to say
"I love you"
a couple hundred thousand different ways,
as if that's all it would take
to set things back to the old ways
to clear the haze
and free the radio waves
no longer transmitting all the things I want to say.

All I want to say
is:

"I love you;"

"I knew
the minute I fell into
those blue eyes
that the skies
would never be as clear as
your smile;"

"I realize
the distance between us
is more than just miles;"

"There are galaxies
in my memoies
of us,
but I can't seem
to show them;"

"My words belong
beyond poems
and I know this now
but the only way to show this now
is poems
so I wrote them all down
and they all say 'I love you;'"

"I love you;"

"I miss you,
but can still hear your voice,
still taste your kiss,
feel the twitch of your lips.
Each imagined laugh
has me gasping
and grasping
for a reality
that disappeared
the last time I ran
my fingers through your hair.
Wherever I go,
you seem to be there,
in equations and textbooks
and ribbons and stars
and every time I look up
again
how far away you are
because it's still so hard
to believe
this much has changed."

Perseid - 08/19/16

Would that I could
slay monsters,
fight evil,
unspool injustice
like twine,
ride daring
to the rescue,
stand honored
with pride,

but here I am,
glowing briefly,
falling swiftly,
crashing silently
over the lake.

Maybe A Sunset - 08/18/16

rising like
an exploding star
over the horizon
obscuring
anything
else from my vision,
petrified,
terrified,
spellbound by blue eyes,
filled with
too many hurricanes
to translate
to text.