we talk as if our words matter
as if our tone could change
or add meaning to a language
tired and old, we talk
and listen and do not hear
our emotions unintelligible-
our thoughts run on legs
we do not own, and when
we stop, love, we are
but useless sound, murmurs
of hope that bring us home
night after night after night.
Never Have I Ever, A List
I have never kept a clean house
or mind, clutter is matter;
never rooted myself entirely
to someone, a barren tree;
never used my hands
for harm, for a bed, yes;
never swallowed the day,
the bitterest pill, hot and stinging;
never carried the wounded,
except my own mind, tangled in thought;
never opened up, never,
not once, a jar: sealed;
never been completely honest,
lie and lying, and liar;
never knew who and when,
nor why and how, always questioning;
never flew, not a jump or a leap,
I am too heavy for leaving the ground;
never wanted (like I do now),
desire, need, lust, like, love: want;
never cried like rain, in torrents,
no drowning of cheeks or lips or inner ear;
never went where I was supposed to,
don’t know whose feet I should wear.
(Source: inkstained.net)
Never saw you walking barefoot,
never saw you looking at the moon
with your night sky eye
Never saw you on a Saturday
morning, naked and asleep
your dark hair fighting the dawn’s light,
never saw you searching
for sheets, wondering
about those awake somewhere.
I don’t think of you tonight,
of the way my words are no longer
on your tongue, nothing
about this moment seems right.
We were a misdiagramed sentence,
our nouns in place of our verbs
we were the subject and object
our time together a preposition-
we were always over, upon, despite,
except: our rhetoric lost.
The ocean gives birth to the eternal:
Upon beaches awash with bottles
seamen kneel, pray, and break.
They are complacent in their requests
like the ancient crabs who lost shells
and give into death, easily; haphazardly.
Messages don’t last long in salt air,
they wither and are lost to history.
to be the key
to her lock
& open doors
I’ve only peaked
through, to be
the hinge
and the handle,
complete.
to touch and not feel
to sing and not sound
to run and not move
to soar and not fly
to love and not like
to want and not have
to know all of that
and still want you
is to think with no thought.
tonight, let me be
the wind and sky,
let me be silence,
sand, the sea
let me be distant
shores,waves
let me crash deep,
tonight, let me be
sleep and dreams,
a fluttering lid, heavy,
minutes tick slowly
when at the end
of a hallway
with nowhere to go
but down; time
doesn’t stand
a chance
but chances come
one at a time,
these days.
