Nocturne

This room is a dungeon
Swinging light, your prison cell
The bars I see
Rusted yet mighty
Haunting the dark side
Of my eyelids

This city is a forest
Of marionette dolls
Countless strings ascend
Yet all eyes fall
And a soft breeze leads to
A subtle clattering
False teeth and
The incompleteness of time

This silence is a narcotic
Sold as a symptom in the whistling hours
Fearless cockroaches crawl
Across my skin
Invisible yet more apparent than you
Couldn't be my fault
Yet I blame myself again
And shutter...
Shutter

This absence is a cold blade
Suddenly warmed
By the shock and the bite
And the taste of my flesh
In my chest
Where it's warmest to hide
I don't blame it
Out here it is, after all,
So very frigid in fragility
But poor knife
To find only a hollow
And the beating echo
Of a skipping tape's
Magnetic laser loops
A tripping escape
Of hidden hoops
Which must be jumped through
Then remade again
In the likeness of
The one I miss
The one I love...

(This sigh is too scripted
This breath too rehearsed
This sleeplessness too familiar
This discomforting bed
All empty and waiting
For use it receives
Only in early morning
When exhaustion
Finally overrides
The conversation
I grow less and less
Able to hide)

Bless the Rain (or The Subtle Differences Between Good Dirt and Precious Soil)

I don't mind;
I just walk the line
Between loneliness and
Self-inflicted isolation.
I'll be fine, and you'll soon find
You've forgotten about me entirely
And that day at the train station.

It'll fade into history
Like the black and white mystery
It resembled.
You'll move on
As we both grow up
And get reassembled,
Two lonesome souls,
but you're better at pretending.

Since you never cared much,
'Cause I never really let you.
Don't think I'll forget you,
Just 'cause I try my hand at mending.
Pricked by needless needles,
Partially just to see if I still bleed,
But what comes out can leave no doubt that
You're still very much a part of me.

Sitting here in the dark and cold,
Pain meds and voices
Reassure me I'm not alone,
But without you it's almost too hard to believe.
The part that I played for you,
I promise that it stayed for you.
No matter how much I prayed for you,
Felt like you practically begged me to go.

All I wanted was to dance with you
On the cobblestones
Of my once forgotten home.

But I guess I knew it all along.
We heard two very different songs,
And now they play from far away
As breaths fall far apart.
And I'm okay, but where you'll stay,
Always in my heart,
Is simply an illusion of memory.

I wonder if you still think of me
From your world I could never really touch
Without this catastrophic guilt
Not unlike a fruit punch stain
On childhood carpet spilt.
When we both looked down in shame
And waited for the harsh reply.
But no one ever spoke a word,
And retribution never came,
So now I
Wonder why
That's all we ever heard.

I remember when you wrote
That life would suck without me,
As I'm contemplating why
You never spoke it aloud.
Sitting here silent
In solemn recognition,
Unsure of my own breath,
'Cause I can see your reasoning
So clearly now.

Finally free to feel again,
Just hoping I don't fail again.
Trying to reach out to
Anything left that's real within,
I can see the treads on this trail I dread.

Each step is consequently a stumble
Through the nothingness
I can only hope you're filling too.
I know so much the pain
We've both been going through.
I know so much the mud
We've both been wading in,
And now I pray every day
You too can learn to bless the rain
And love again.

Corinthians 13 (New International Version, ©2010)

1 Corinthians 13

1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

my wall, yours too

you say i have it held in the palm of my hands
but my bleeding palms have been so empty for years
and on this side of the wall i've built and painted
with colors dark and wild
i assumed you couldn't see any piece of me
from the other side
but you know what they say
about assumptions
mine are usually wrong
and today
somehow
you were standing right next to me
holding me tightly
with your own healing hands

i really am.

don't cry in the valley
in the crater, in the crevice
don't cry in the alley
in the trench, in the foxhole
don't cry in the canyon
in the riverbed that's dried up
don't cry in the gap
the divide, or in the space
don't cry in the in between
the disconnect, the hollow space
don't cry in the ripping seam
the pothole, the drop-off

this is not a cliff
this is not an edge

nor is it a cup
nor is it an emptiness

not something to fill
not something to satisfy

this discontentment
this dissatisfaction

erosion is the anthem
pierce these paper-thin walls
egoism is the solace
catch the crisping ashes
the only tears a fire can shed

don't cry in the valley
your tears can't flood these mountain tops
the monuments will burn
and perhaps that will be enough

to convince you i'm not among the bodies
they'll count and place a flag in each of their shirt pockets
a mocking cross o'er each their graves
as shadows as long as the sun get bored with haunting
and cribs become stock markets

yield to your dreaming
and let my wishing
not harm your hoping

Dilotted

Beep!

There is something wrong!
I'm cut!
Cold!
Hungry!
Screams more like screeching!
All the tiny animals inside have been let out!
You're far away now.
You were, only a short time ago,
Right next to me...I want to stay by your side...

Beep!

Cheesy jokes on popsicle sticks.
Waiting for the vibration of a message.
Pain med highs lift veins but leave the pain!
I could go for pancakes! Kidnap me in your purse.
Or let me hide by your heart. Your hair spins one last
Time as you turn the corner.

Beep!

Everyones shift ends early and yesterday,
For a few minutes, I was a drunk irishman.

Beep!

"You're driving yourself?"
>grunt<
"Okay then. We'll give you directions."
?

Beep! BEEP! BEEEEEP!!!!

Rm.354

What is this dream I dream
Of fire and water
Dancing in the starlit
Pathways of the night
A racing clock, a hurried glance
That longing look
And fleeting moments
Where this weakened form does rise
Enough to catch a glimpse of joy
Entertain the kindness of a dear friend
And stranger
While my own blood counts my days alone

What is this dream I dream
Of prison cells line in neutral hues
Dulcet tones to while the hours
Which fade disharmoniously
Catching strained reflections
Of streetlights I may have
Imagined into being
Perchance they imagined me
And drifted off

What is this dream I dream
Of castle walls to climb
A Princess like a prism
Would separate and unite all spectrums
And begin to show a humanity
To her crystalline form
At the scattered shades
Of a Jester’s muted jokes
Among a court of colorless judges
And portraits
Of now shrouded princes

What is this dream I dream
As I drift off to night
Serenaded by machinations of medicine
In the place of my two-time birth
While shadows crawl on campus corners
And wars without winners mock the midnight whine
Of moans from other rooms
Small animals trapped in unfair bodies
And my own delusions of distance and fear

What is this dream I dream
Do you share it in your own head
Far off in your own bed
As I lie alone
Waiting for the white count
Waiting for the waking