On greater than that

Your sum of regrets

will not be greater than that

of a life unlived.

On heeding

And when you deign to 

listen, which voice do you heed?

The head? Or the heart?

On the way I loved you

And somehow I still

love you the way I loved you

in the beginning.

On breaking down

Life: the practice of 

building up then breaking down

all you've ever learned.

On the woman you found.

Somehow I fell in love 

with the woman you found out I wasn't: 

the woman you left me for.  

I loved her
for all the reasons you left.

I am enamored with the woman you left me

stronger than before.

On life feels

You are made of stars.*

Remember that when life feels 

dark.  You're still shining.

*Are we really made of stardust?

On seeing

Our weaknesses are 

conduits- through them we see

just how strong we are.

On whenever you are near

Our love must be the

sun.  Whenever you are near

we are radiant.

On visiting you

Time repaved the place

my heart went to visit you-

once a novel view.

On all

This view, up from the

bottom, though scary, is all

a part of the wave.

On making some

Your tears are a tool,

an emptying, to make some

space for some new feels.

On the shape of a woman

There is no beauty

like the shape of a woman:

all falls and rises.

when those in power fail you.

when those in power fail you
and your feet are bleeding because you're still standing
on the jagged pieces of broken hearts shattered all around you
and your cheeks are wet with anger 
and your eyes are dry with an emptiness
they never thought they'd reach,
and your ears ring with cries
that you wrestle with in nightmares
and your memories turn to strangle you
in the same arms you sought for solace 
and your mouth begins and fails to speak- 
remember that they lived
and remember how they died:
because those in power changed their practice
from preaching for our profit
to profiting from what they preached
they sold themselves to murder,
in loud and sponsored silence they held the keys
and watched as children walked to war,
to classrooms where the ghosts of teachers teach.
They watch as children walk to war
they watch as children walk to war
they watch as children walk to war
through corridors to classrooms.
They watch as children walk to war
soldiering toward a graveyard:
their classroom.

On if they're red

Sometimes your cheeks will

speak in colors.  If they're red,

your heart's speaking too.

never mine.

you slipped right off. like somehow you were never mine. like somehow you never belonged to me. like somehow you were borrowed.

you fell back bleeding. but you were already gone. and we were no longer connected. but you still bled.

i felt no pain. but it felt, awkward. it was hard to explain. you became a phantom pain.

you slipped right off. like somehow you were never mine. like somehow you never belonged to me. like somehow you were borrowed.

like somehow you were never mine. 

stream of consciousness.

"Will they stay with you forever?" She asked to no one in particular.

"Yes, yes they will."

The voice surprised her.  She couldn't tell if it was because it was so loud or because it was hers.

On being a contradiction

To be a woman's 

to be a contradiction. 

Woman: hard and soft. 

On the hardest

Sometimes true friendship

is letting go. The hardest

love you'll ever know. 

On being comfortable*

The secret to love

is being comfortable

farting togther.

*collaboration

On your heart

Love's a universe -

for just when you think your heart 

will break, you expand.

On poems you'll never know

Every person is 

a poem you'll never know

until you listen.

On more than you

Trust yourself, and trust

your heart.  It knows more than you

give it credit for. 

mercy springs road.

i think of you as the minutes pass
on the roads past
Mercy Springs Road.

i see it now, the posterior view
in a mountains hue,
Mercy Springs Road.

in the days after the start
i knew you'd always have my heart,
Mercy Springs Road.

and though the roads seem to wind me
around your memory to kindly lie to me.
Everytime,
i'd still drive
Mercy Spring Road.

On pebbles polished

So we turn, jagged

to smooth, like pebbles polished

by sandpaper time.

unknown.

She

The silence was oppressive. So was the expanse. If she unfocused long enough the prosaic, unremarkable yellows and browns of dry brush and fallow fields weaved themselves into something almost beautiful.  The only thing this magnitude of desolation serviced was her insignificance.  She really wanted a cigarette.  

He

There she was again.  She always seemed on the periphery of his thoughts and just before he could think her away, there she was.  Walking into the framed landscape beyond his classroom window.  Framed by freedom, she wandered.  He wanted to know where her mind went.