If you didn't know already

I sent my heart in a letter
to a friend.
A person who uses words like rage as a verb
and thinks that rollerskating drunk is
an unbelievably great idea until
the next morning when bruised knees sting.

I keep my mind half on a girl
I met in a square-a box
that was much too small for anything
she could imagine while simultaneously
holding a pen

Near one-thousand miles away
somewhere in the snow flanked
not-chicago-side-lake-michigan banks
there is a bit of my soul-split by love in my heart and not blood on my hands
that walks around and thinks and laughs

Here in all that is me
a nice mixture of what I am is
her.

The best of what a person becomes, is a friend.
and I can only hope as she is to me I am to her

These People, my closest friends

To think that a person so devoted to the givings of others
can hardly count the social dimes in her own cup
Leaves my standing confused and wondering
why people like this should have the burden to exist
To be some sort of jester,
once a fair princess or prince
of a fair unpretentious kingdom
only to one day-early on- be captured,
and painted mockingly in gay colors
-still dancing for the laughs.
because even in this sort of dispare
there is some sort of value to them in serving the
simple, yet destructive, purpose of pleasing

And to think I have the courteous pleasure-the cursed pleasure
to have two of such serving people in my heart, close to it
never far from my sometimes overwhelming sorrow.
yet, I keep hoping beyond reasonable hope that one day
I can liVe to please them.

I've been Tamed.

worry

it was blinding when i drove, but
that sunshine was wasted on the day
that god deemed to brim with tears
collecting on the edges of coffee cups.

i came like i knew i would
like a rescuer, a sort of savior
even with holes in my palms it
turns out i can give a fuck.

later on i kicked the dresser until
it gave way, or maybe until my toes did
i was angry at being helpless to help
and afraid of being afraid of being afraid.

so we learn that nothing is as stoic,
nothing as toxic as compassion.
lifting and carrying and carrying on
through everyone's cracks -
even your own -
forcing you to face yourself
when you just aren't enough.

Time

A new adventure
A new hobby
A new life of sorts

All wrapped up in time.
tImE.
TIME.
time.

it is the currency of our life
and with it we measure our lives.

we:
buy it.
sell it.
trade it.
steal it.
sleep through it.
harass it.
Mistake it for something else.
we THROW IT AWAY.

and, jesus, if we could stop it.
if only we could stop it. pause it. reverse it.

well, Jesus would still be alive.
and not just him
-Every hero that ever died.

Struggles (and fighting the undertow)

There is no real relief in
releasing these things that cause me strife

but,

there is a confidence in being able
to look into her eyes and know
that she knows my deepest struggle

There is no one-stop cure,
Just endurance and Learning
and trust
-you know you have it when
you look into those eyes

and you see love

the side of a bed
it's quiet and cold outside the sheets
heart leaks

the inside of my head
thunder and lightning fighting in turns
stomach churns

the palm of my hand
so delicate and childlike, ever curious
mind furious

the height of a plan,
carefulness, confidence disolved by a look
world shook

my legs and the strides underneath

these are my arms, this is my mind
and i am my own body.
the cotton on my skin acts as a shell
and it won't tell you what's behind my eyes
or why i'm slouched in coach class seat E
watching the great American plain
roll away beneath me.
there's just something i have to try and fix
or at least hold in my wrinkled palms
until the bleeding has stopped.
the tapping anxiety in my feet
makes it clear this is urgent
but i'm no surgeon, this is no ambulance
and a thousand miles can't be trifled with.
so i rest my weary head on my knees
to let the time slip away
until my hands find the wound.