For You

on this lonely night,
smoke rings fill the air

like thoughts of you fill my mind

what can be done about the untouchable

figment of my imagination that seems too real

to ever let go of

to let float back into this unforgivable universe?

with hands tied behind my back

and blind eyes leading my footsteps

i guess at the trail that lies ahead of me

and trust that the bounding trees of the redwood

won't get in my way

but rather, surround us on that unforgettable day

of you and i

you and i baby,

you and i....

my thoughts get tangled in circumstantial words

and bound by influential perceptions

of denying eyes

but then, perhaps that's a good thing

for i could never be arrogant enough to assume that

your eyes

and my heart are connecting

for all i know its my presence alone

that you're rejecting

and that's fine.

all i need you to hear are my words that speak the following:

you, all of you

your heart, your eyes,

your body, your being,

your presence,

your essence,

is more than much of this world will ever fully grasp

and understand

in the most beautifully tragic sense

but for me....

to me....

you are everything i want and can never have

you are the spirit of the earth

that pulls me from my deepest nightmares

and into my most beautiful dreams

you are what i know to be...

what God himself...

created for me.

I love you

Direction -Less

My amazingly wonderful friend Nikki presented me with a little challenge yesterday. She dared me to take a word from each line from my post "Habit (21 lines)" to see if I could make a poem out of those 21 words. Well, I kind of misunderstood the assignment and went a little crazy on it. I did as she instructed and pulled 1 word from each line of the poem. But instead of creating a poem out of those 21 words (which she actually did beautifully) I created a new poem in the "21 line" format but with a completely new focus and direction, ironically called "Direction-Less." The poem still follows the theory that doing something 21 times can create a habit.

Direction – less

1. i locked the door inside my house like I locked myself inside this habit
2. my habit that has no windows to break through
3. walls to hide me, fire alarms to sound. The one that drowned down
4. a far reaching dream that my heart still screams to at night
5. and implores me to spend more time with
6. rather than chasing lost thoughts around promises and possibility
7. fate knocking and destiny. So I took a moment to lie on the ground beside
8. the footprints of honest experience and effort that had walked before me
9. derived from a language injected with resolution and fight
10. and I saw images of intentional prints that were leftover from the strong and steadfast
11. individuals that stayed focused and surpassed those still wrapped inside indolent ideals of what should be
12. as opposed to what could be. Images that invaded my soul, marched around my heart
13. and left their own prints, indentations down my spine
14. each and every one indicating who I’ve been in past lives and who I am yet to become
15. who I will become if I follow my own journey, live out my own dreams
16. dreams my heart has been dying to transform into habits
17. and just then I realized how terrifying such thoughts, such sentiments used to be
18. habitual love, freedom, thought….habitually living life had never been me
19. but my time pressed to the ground must have been a wish made by my heart
20. because those prints down my spine now surround my body with peace
21. and my footprints are now pointing intentionally and in a new direction, and that direction is East

Rearview

i tossed my unwanted baggage
and packed only what i could hold

in the passenger seat....

where you used to sit

it was going to be a long trip

with the west in my rearview

a long, winding

binding

road back to a familiar

new place

full of long lost memories

and those yet to be made

it wasn't easy to say goodbye

to present connections, intentions

and i fear it may be even harder to say

hello to the past

but it's something i knew had to be done

something larger than me

pulling me

reminding me

of future goals

i'd never made

and i fear there will be mixed emotions when i go

of immediate affliction

that will quickly transform

into long term listlessness

which is the very reason why

i think i've overstayed my welcome

I'd painted over the truth for far too long

with surface level assurances

that i thought for sure could last...

forever

but the last thing i remember

was lost and delirious activity

full of intoxicating conversation

filling a 22 ounce glass that i chugged

every day before work without hesitation

focusing intense dedication

to wild nights

in wild desperation

while i watched

and waited

for the next bedside destination...

to get wild on

i loved and learned

grew deeper

and deeper connections were later made

upon rocks

upon sand

upon my hands

that held hearts

i was destined to unfold

and others i was never fully equipped to hold

my heart sat upon her hands

and she broke it

some of these memories

are in the passenger seat where you used to sit

while the others sit in a trash bag

on my old street corner

the salt from the pacific

resonates on my tongue

as i watch it disappear

in the rearview

and lingering gratitude

dances upon my heart

and soul

as you disappear too

Habit (21 Lines)

1. I’ve got 21 lines to become a habit
2. you won’t want to break
3. so let me break it down for you like this
4. my love, I dream about your lips, your smile
5. pressed against mine. I dream about time
6. transferred from thoughts of you
7. to time beside you, inside you, time that takes 21 lines
8. to slide into the future of me and you. Because let’s be honest, you –
9. you carve one solid line across my chest in a language that I don’t speak and you got me
10. you got me wrapped around your finger. So I’ll take your 20 leftover lines, add ‘em to mine
11. and perhaps double my chances to wrap myself around your energy,
12. your essence, your presence that invades my daydreams
13. and seems to fire me up and cool me down all in the same thought.
14. It’s now become a responsibility of mine
15. to attempt to write myself out of these 21 lines
16. and into your heart. A responsibility I’ve been dying to take on cause you
17. you’re the one that stays on my mind and keeps me alive. A stunning and terrifying thought.
18. a thought that reflects off the moon when I look into your eyes. My love,
19. my muse, try not to confuse these lines with anything more than a wish,
20. 21 complicated thoughts that surround a desire, a response to some kind of sign
21. pointing in your direction, 21 times, in hopes to become your habit, in 21 lines.

Reason Why

theres a reason why I’m gone
and you’re still there
(Inspired by the lyrics of Rachel Yamagata’s “Reason Why”)

baby….
looking back with no regret
and my heart in debt
to receiving
all you could give at the time
I’m just wondering if you’ve figured it out yet
the way I figured
and didn’t forget
it was my heart I chose to bare
in an effort to share
the oh so familiar
along with the silently rare
sides of me

baby I tried to make you see
the degree
of the crucial sincerity
locked up inside of me
and how you effortlessly
opened me up
when you talked deep
made my thoughts come cheap
and allowed me to sleep
inside of you

but baby…theres a reason why I’m gone
and you’re still there

my intentions became my actions
while yours fluidly waxed and waned
contained
in your unexplained
frame of mind
while I never complained
and by the same token
I simply patched over the unspoken
broken
movements
with lilies and lavender
dope little ditties
and praising your pity
every chance I got

every chance became my seconds.
minutes.
days.
until I eventually forgot the ways
you could make me laugh
and all those other fun and silly clichés
that all fades
into an unrecognizable haze

now baby…theres a reason why I’m gone
and you’re still there

those eyes that began to appear
overridden with fear
glistening through each and every tear
that fell down your cheek

confessing your love
confessing the internal war
expressing your love
expressing it behind a closed door
and now suppressing your love
cause I just couldn’t take it anymore

you
there
unable to claim the identity desired
because it was unappreciated by the masses
clinching to the hope that the discomfort of living a lie
it passes
telling yourself that the grass is
always greener
in the pastures where the mind is the majority rule
over the heart
and baby…that’s all that sets us apart.

theres a reason why I’m gone
and you’re still there

Here We Are Now

here we are now
years
after drowning tears
and hearts full of discouraging fears
here we are now…

together

do you remember how scared we were?
how unsure
uncertain
unassuming…
or so we thought

you understood me
you got me
and I wanted nothing more
than to get you….
out of her world
and into mine

circumstances that revolved within our universe
have become but drops in an ocean
now flowing freely
between your heart and mine

the reality of turning our secret meetings
into consistent
passionate
embraces
seemed unattainable

the opportunity to articulate
eternal emotion
in a decoded language
seemed idealistic

and as I glance down at you now
laying in my arms
so peacefully
so stunningly
I’m taking every opportunity
to say thank you
I’m grateful
I’m indebted
to the person you’ve allowed me to be
to the reality
you and I have come to see

here we are now…

together

Start where you are....

and be patient

I laid in a wish
closed my eyes
and hoped to wake in reality

it was still just a wish

I wrapped my arms around hope
gripped tightly
until the only thing I could feel…
was me

it was still just hope

I made love to a dream
penetrating minds
and hearts dancing
until I came….
back to life

it was still just a dream

patience is where i am.
constantly practicing patience
with the pace
at which my heart and mind race

patience is where I am….
patience with my world….
with my reality….

and i’m doing my best to be patient…
I’m doing my best to just be.