it’s curious the turns we take when wishing we never knew the mistake that came when you left for the sake of others carrying on and wishing we could bake one last candle into that cake with a song 
where do we stand with the ones we’ve touched do we listen enough to know the truth the place where spirit lives and isn’t removed that sweet spot in every soul needing ears not hand shake goals the way we communicate to get our needs is it good enough to continue to feed this real human being bouncing in all of us to succeed as people who fight and fuck and bleed can’t we see one another for what we are reflections of the whole who have gone too far into their own place trying to erase this magical string you could weave and trace through humanity without forgotten souls i am all of you a fraction of the whole humming and moving through evening strolls knowing our time will come when we will roll through to the next plain i hope i leave a legacy like you to explain that love is key, and emotions aren’t to feign. 

Methods used to light the fuse for
adolescent views that were often confused 
really needing a person like you to use 
they turned, knowing you would swivel and
hear them for who they were not just
another voice distorting to a blur
How many people did you touch
a supporting crutch
yearning to help understand with your
nodding head and a ‘hey man’
everyday you’ll come to mind
someone to keep me from going blind

how could i forget running around with a candle stick singing with elton about the blues or flexing my muscle in deep synth tussles discussing my sweet dreams with annie, then along came bob who planted the seeds of lyrics transforming a society, with lou shuffling by telling me why it’s hard to give a shit but that everything will be all right with the sound of tea while a cat dissected the reality of family and needing more than a smile to get by, robert leaned in the perfect spin for when my preteen heart got broken, so jane says when perry sold me to addiction and what to think about in the shower with mould, jr. dinosaurs, forberts, psychedelic furs, chains of jesus, mary and monks sliding into a jam band phunk with dead souls not gogol’s but bobbing heads and clothes made with our own thread a panic sometimes traversing the country to feel sublime until we were stroked back to reality with icelandic melody, national pride welcoming three minute songs and tearful car rides while miles benjamin anthony robinson dug in and died and palmer played to the tide of being bigger on the inside i stretch these days sometimes in a kid bop station though i’ll be damned they’ll know the relation of crosby, young and NWA to a nation. thanking the four as i close this door knowing there are so many more who helped me when i hit the floor with minor threats and cirlcle jerks that made me not go berserk. a handful of eminems transformed my body to me again away from the sin of every country anthem i swayed away yet go back today to tammy, haggard, williams and cash. that’s my last dash, i thank you all i’m here today because of your gall to share your experience as i traverse mine. Yes! there are so many more of you in line. 

he looked across the hall and noticed a tiny speck of something on the wall. it was nothing and he moved on, dragging his umbrella and whistling your wedding song …

thursday afternoon it was brought up too soon how you’re going to regulate my use of the moon knowing that’s not something we should talk about around elf ears and shuffling feet the tension rises with the heat they hear ridiculing roars that funnel through floor boards and echo around picture-less walls and down stomped halls huddling at the top of stairs where do we go from here. start stop go stay it’s night morning wednesday friday easter i see the wear on faces that tare away at bunny suits we thought were cute until you pushed mute on my pursuit 

my lips moving you’re filling in words running around dotted lines you dashed with yourself years ago now go and guide other guilds that need to build something you’ll live in even though you told them you were free and i’ll stand in the shadow cast by that sight seeking to get into one last fight to feel the push of your breath poisoning my face the last taste of common ground that can’t be found when we know we shouldn’t be around areas aching with another angry shoe tie it’s how we get by if death came easily then it was hard to wake and understand the more you take tickles every trader ever touched by that time you knew the words i shared were ours and i heard them bouncing, echoing in the courtyard where we first saw the day wasn’t too much.

you used them with someone else now

why’d you look, after i called?

stand inside the ring of sound and tell me without blinking where I can be found on rooftops slipping without a rope or a hand 

…

teetering to stay sane in this land of sheltered egos and backpack plans stealing a map from that worn out man with wrinkles set from questioning without sound doubt shriveled his face yet he still comes around to see what you are doing 

carry along this road without hope a desperate terrace lays outside this yolk walking the fields full of consciousness that you have been through to see your son or your brother’s family and cronies collect on cool fall days when he is willing to take and say the words you need to keep rolling through this cell that captures every situation you could detail in shitty pen ink that stops and goes 

mostly drawing circles and then you froze is it worth the time to pencil you in to sharpen this blade razor thin on the edge of your feet we meet. strip yourself tonight i need to think

…

she didn’t care if i laughed

it was a stupid joke i must admit if i stared straight faced she’d still replace the reaction i should have had or she thought should be there with a shrug and that cold pupil stare lifting my senses while deadening my lenses fogging my better self while continuing to engulf the whole rest of what we found on the shelf 

Over analyze these quick lies that polarize and stigmatize the faulty sense of kitchen table size and who sits next to you when the day is done wishes and dreams that weigh a ton as i look in their eyes and come undone with what is illuminated by the sun yet it’s not time to get up and run i’ll be here sunday afternoons blowing balloons to celebrate being and new phases of the moon i’ve been too quick lately judging your seeking, peaking through ideas and finding an identity. we’re butting heads, i need to stop and nod have patience and plod through this period with you that’ll bring about a whole new way to communicate about laughter and your first date accepting what you reflect in the world and those who’ll be influenced by and seek our little girls. i watch you move, listen and think it’s hard to imagine you with your own kitchen sink blinking at the mirror and seeing quite clear the beauty you have in every dropped tear and smile received and heartache grieved, who can believe what trail you’ll walk and who you meet know we’re there with a waiting seat at that table you knew with your little feet 

thankfully, we all have time to revel closely in you two. just preparing. 

i think i found your keys 

they were left under my couch and must have slipped out of your pocket when you got up yesterday afternoon after telling me goodbye too soon and destroying that pop tune we listened to as sunrise hit our room it was the way i thought about shakespeare you said i had a limited view i knew names just not who did what and when where truth stood still and where to begin if fighting in back alleys was something i’d consider it made me uneasy the way you’d figure when we’d meet, which candidate to unseat and the tempo crash of our first dance beat as if to tell me there’s something not right a tiny angel sat to the right while i watched my mind finally drain into that pool of sundries and washed away rain insane i thought i’ve lost it again then i found your keys

so i ran downstairs

suspended belief for the sake of getting through the day is giving my tree top goals a new way to sway and explain to a room full of people i admire that a name change will rearrange the concepts and change their desire from the past as we fuse to one another there is no co-pilot we’re working to create this room where curiosity walks through the door daily with questions of wonder, who is bill bailey and why should we welcome you home from the places you visited to report back that there is a world out there under attack it’s our duty now to educate children to understand that it’s not weird it’s something they haven’t been around and if we create a culture where safety is key they’ll leap off every page into infinity and humility should take center stage listening listening listening to someone else’s rage as the light glows and lives we should continue to give a chance that we may see the stream stop and witness all of eternity. 

please, take a knee it’s a sign of respect 

our flag is confused as we resurrect the rhetoric brought back by a heretic who is just a derelict 

bring us together is not his fad it’s going after jersey clad dad’s with hashtags and Sads! 

history is my sister see cause we have all fought to explain some mystery attached to rights of race or sex and heaven forbid you’re one of them mex – i can continue to spew about text books that skew though today i’m not a montague or capulet let me set the stage for half of this scrawled on page i’m not on my knees for you 

that’s your daydream sage

i bend my knee for the world to see it’s them not me who’ll stand by idly while you fuck with math and divide our nation like moses the sea reaching for tablets to trade your twitter station

never hoping to reach that mythical honalee where puff would greet you with a mighty roar and just like that show you the door so we can heal the gash that you salt with every assault on our national vault of treasured movements and chocolate vanilla malts mixed at lunch counters to counter the taunter who pokes and prays on ways we display that humans are one and not yet done fighting for future daughters and sons. 

I can’t breathe a black t-shirt filled with shoot around sweat and kneeling now is some sort of threat to thunder clap ignorance that brought no rain and they’re blinder than melons though headed that way all the same 

‘what you’re scared of’, as i point this finger of shame, isn’t an excuse anymore for shoving aside solidarity and laying claim, that isn’t the point, we can’t let you off that easily. explanations expounding excuses are exercising educated thought wasting what i bought, they need to be caught and we give them legs to keep running. filtering through memes while watching and cursing the entertainers on your team, spending the day praying away gay and pressing screens. what does this mean? it’s making me mean it’s creating a space inside my bean that can’t stay fat feeding on lean. nested people that can’t seem to be seen. the distress you press into that green bellied art called seek and destroy is a ploy to toy with washed away boys and militant compasses guiding our light though day time television isn’t an escape anymore except for reasons to clean your pores and that boils down to a subservient crown of thorns on my chest he’s crying i comfort though i’m not his best yet maybe now i can resurrect this town to see again the way we were found wandering in pacts of pleasant sounds, stinking and eating our skills were found. the lenses are focusing, blue spinning into red confusing yellow the clarity of black distorted by minions it all turns to white with a march to march against march and the ides plays out everyday, we walk around backwards hoping to splay wide open one another today and roll in our innards easing away this awful five act play. wasn’t it all over a bowl of bitter beans anyway? 

It all seemed so silly as sunrises ate another day with you yelling and thinking it’s ok to shelter our minds like bob the storm i relentlessly all the while am torn that torture devices are still being used and you captured my hurt and left abused 
…

The clock was something i never wanted as the ghosts are gathering for another year stirring and whistling my attention they have that threat grabbing moment i left sincere wishing you were nothing but a mirror wiping me clean that cat jumping on my chest and making me mean a nauseating purr a congested stir the claws digging just rip my flesh and leave me alone the catatonic nature of my movie and the phone a place is reaching out a voice so soft and serving me 
…

Stop burying my lines and kicking the dirt this is where i stand where i hurt where sunken shadows survive in a time of need and bleeding is a sign i can still see a measured pace when walking to you i shouldn’t have to think my hair unglued horses pulling her now she’s nothing new a darker tan and these words i slew street lamps lost leaning and forgotten tomorrow may blister pop and shotgun rallies will hear our cry the sincere absolving my last lie will you listen to me before i drowned will you kiss my forehead the wrinkled crown a sometimes serious situation calls for class glass shattered and breaking its time to go make sure you listen before the show 

…

insecurity raised his hands i called on him and made different plans we won’t play today but mom please i shut the door walked across the room and…blank