we are most alive in dreams

i was brilliant once.

-once.

vibrant and alive
like summer’s sun.

crispy as fall leaves
under, your
weathered
tennis shoes.

i had ideas and
hopes, and dreams.

i had friends
who loved me. we would
talk and drink and
smoke and hug
and laugh and cry.

all at the same time.

then one day it all changed.

i changed.

callouses replaced
my heart and i wasn’t
as bright or as crispy.

i was dull and stale.
i am dull and stale.

i think you happened.

I worry sometimes.

You’re always starting fires in
the back of my mind. Auctioning
off your heart to the highest bidder.

Smoke signals bring all of the sinners,
from their rock walled caves and I,
am caving in. Saving my skin for
the day I put out your fire.

Keeping my grin for the way you’ll
make me retire to moon colored sheets,
where we’ll undress each other.

Just tell me stories. Speak with the smoke
sitting in your lungs. Peel back your flesh,
so I can descend the rungs of your ribs.

Because I know this bed can’t hold you forever.

No matter how strong its sails stay or
how many times you claim “never”.

No, I won’t keep your heart forever.

The smell of smoke will stick between
the fabric of my sheets, and I’ll
remember the warmth of your heart.

All the space we shared will grow cold
and stay the color of the moon,
still always missing you.

You’ve got on that dress. The one, that stops
just below the hips and hugs tight around,
your perfectly formed torso and leaves shoulders bare.

And so I will leave you bare.

Because I know it’s the attention, pushing you
forward into the jaws, of carefully placed bear
traps meant, for your bony ankles. To snap
them in half. We’ve got bread crumb trails
of cocaine and snifters, full of whiskey and wine.
Saunter through tall buildings and from
this bar, to that club to this house on 5th and Cherry.

Where I’ll lay it all down in front of you, those
gorgeous eyes lighting up like burning christmas trees,
when the snow falls heavy on tables and couches,
left for the wolves to inhabit.

So let’s drink up. Let’s toast to this night where I am
your bad influence. Have another cigarette- have
another drink- have another pill- have another
line- another hangover, another night.

Days clouded in picture faded memories
piecing together, in typewriter fashion:

One stroke at a time.

I’ll be your prestige,
and you can be my muse, stripped
naked in the street
and fucked like an animal
because we both know,
it’s only when the sun comes up
that anything really matters.

Wind swept and bits
of bone, scattered ashes
and a crimson tone, set
against the background of life-

Bitter Taste married a wife,
named Sea Salt Air, and their
Children wept along
prayer after prayer,
words lifting through clouds
without breath or a shroud
to guard against,
bleakness or despair.

What is the price we all pay,
to have our skin stretched
like a death dance of ballet,
spinning and twirling like
the sun scattered rays?

I refuse to answer such pleas-
Bringing myself upon
two knees, shattering the caps
and my wanderlust would snap
only to relapse, back
to a time and place
where the hands of the clock
will laugh in my face,
counting the time til my death-

Well, as long as we’ve got
at least one breath left,
sharing it seems like a test.

I’ve been
having trouble sleeping,
all the way
through the night.

Until sunshine
asks me kindly,
for one more day
of a steady heartbeat.

Maybe,
it is all the questions
that bounce
around in my mind.

Or maybe,
it’s the holes in my feet,
throbbing-

The loss of blood
making me weak,
from where my shadow
got loose,
of the nails
I placed, in my soles
to keep my childhood close.

                                                                                             But it’s gone now
                                                                            and I don’t know what to do.

I’ve been stuck
inside this hurricane
and my ship,
won’t stay above water.

I can promise you that.

I’ve been chasing
these tides
with whiskey,
instead of water

I’ve been chasing
my past
with a pen,
instead of acceptance

     I feel like I’ve been here before.

     Slipping into a tomb, gray and white washed. A sky with a ceiling and trees covered in swallows. I swallow hard as they coat a tall maple off in the distance, stripped of the leaves piled high under its arms.

     And those birds sit steady. So still and quiet that they look like leaves, slick black and tiny by themselves. But together, as they flock form a swarm and return the tree to glory. And then all at once they are gone. From either gunshot or screaming children. I don’t know.

     Just like me I suppose. Always chased off by loud noises. My skittish heart has me sleeping inside wheel wells and truck stop bathroom floors. I am the memory belonging to the janitor swatting at my legs with his wooden broom.

     Like a travel receipt, crumpled and torn and forgotten, in the back pocket of someone I once knew. A possession not worth keeping. Or remembering.

     So I’ll join that flock of birds and float towards the sun. Or maybe another city. Where I can sit upon the skeleton of another forgotten tree shedding its blanket, and help keep those naked branches warm with my small form.

     A small price to pay to stay warm myself. If I’m lucky that tree, will remember my name.

We sat down,
under a willow tree
and planted our roots
between, turning pages
and flickering eyes.
Breathing life,
into words being spoken
through a voice,
never heard by our ears.

Falling asleep, to
Spring’s faint culling song.
Broken and battered
by a lazy afternoon:
We believe,
that our dreams will
take us far, far away
to places only seen
by fortunate eyes.

We read our books
and the willow tree hooks
under our arms, sheltering
us from the outside world.
Showing us,
that the sacrifice
from his brothers
and sisters,
will educate us on imagination.

                                                                    Are we the reader
or the writer,
of this wonderful place?
Do we save face
by accepting the spaces
in our minds, ready
and ripe for time,
to grow and wonder and salivate?
If we relinquish
these pages, for
the stages
of mediocre influence
and hollywood issuance,
will we falter
and sink, into the mires
of petulant fires?

We sat under that tree,
before our bodies grew
and our minds knew,
what was important
to the world. Forgetting,
what made us real.
And that willow tree
took back the gifts
we were given:
Wrapping us up tight
until our eyes, grew dark
and the circle of life
began, all over again.

When the last drop of sun
crossed your weary eyes,
I held back emotions and needs.

Just to watch you,
even for just a moment.

So I talk to myself,
when the weather is just right.
Sun or moon low,
against buildings. The cars,
drive blindly
through empty streets.

I talk about you and
sometimes us. And,
my cheeks flush.

I almost embarrass myself
but then: remembering those
empty streets and cars
filled with ghosts,
my eyes finally close.

And I can remember you for you.

And you, are truly gone.