arms shaking in preparation

i see it, i smell it

i can feel it pulling away from the body

where i stand is where i fell

20 years ago but i'm back on my feet

you can't hold me, you can't burn me anymore

the skin is too tough for that now

the growing shadows surround

i feel their cold breath

i smell the saliva at my feet, the sweat on their backs

i hear the arms shaking in preparation

but i'm still standing

where i fell

20 years ago.

they can't hold me down

they can't burn me anymore

neutering the wolves at the door

drop that headstone

silence the wolves at the door

silence the church bells incessantly ringing

i'm not done.

not by half.

i've got so much to do

more lines to draw, more lines to cross

more loves to wreck and their bridges to burn

more friends to make

and the reasons to make them want to forget me.

these tired bones and aching muscles

still have nervous electrical energy flowing through them

reaching and wanting

to strike out at me and others for mistakes

we may have never made.

i'll go one more round

i'll last until the bell

i'll fall a hundred more times and get back up

a little worse for the wear

but not buried. not yet.

i understand the angels have left me for the last time

i'm at the old house i grew up in

the bathroom is on more of a slant than it should be

it's painted heavily in shades of blue

light blue, dark blue, slate blue

the walls are rickety

the floor creaks and the joists wobble more

than they should safely

i am my current age

but interacting with my family in the age they were

when i lived there.

i dive into the closet that "hid" pornography

likely my father's. likely.

this doesn't go well, and

i am disciplined like i would have been then.

there are also cassette tapes in the closet

that shouldn't be there. there should be a collapsable play pen.

the cassette tapes are ones i owned later

as we go outside

an old man stands in the wind storm

he is withered, wrinkled, darkened by years in the sun

with no protection.

no protection.

no protection.

he stands at a profiled angle holding his arms out

at right angles to his body.

all the right angles. right angels? right?

his hat protects him vainly from the elements

the wind and flying debris.

he's talking to me as the house sits in a windstorm

pieces are fly off like dried tree bark

the colors are all in shades of brown outside

i see billboards that remind me of tanned leather

i am yelling at him and telling him how much i miss him

how much i miss that house

and the life i had then and how it was so simple.

so simple, so magical. so bright the sun in the summer

the days lasted forever. for.ever.

my heart pounds as i write about it and my eyes are welling up

i've had this dream before. i know it.

i know the words that are coming up

scratch that.

i know the tone of the words coming up

i know the gestures.

as i plead my case to him

he barely turns his head to talk to me.

he cuts me off and begins to scream back,

"fuck that time.
fuck those people.

fuck those rosy memories of what may have never happened.

fuck the bad times as well.

fuck it all,

and fuck you too."

i respond exasperated with my heart pounding on my sleeve,

"what?
but those were the best times i ever had.

those days seem so long ago and seemed to last forever.

i haven't had anything near the good times i had then.

my heart dies off a little more everyday that i'm away."

He turns. i know i'm failing.

it's at this point i realize that the withered man in the weather

is two people at once

he is my father and he is me

he turns to me and tells me

with debris flaking away from the house

the house is disintegrating to a skeleton of rotting wood

he turns to me and tells me

with smoke in the air

there's a fire somewhere

he turns to me and tells me,

that its gone.

"nothing then is now. everything has changed, as it does

as time goes by, time goes by too.

your neighbors are older. your neighbors are dying. some already have.

your friends are older. your friends are dead. most don't remember you.

your family is older. your family is dying. some already died."

"remember your grandfather?"

i'm stunned. i can't even twitch.

"the house is someone else's home. it houses someone else's memories now.

it doesn't look the same. the tree is gone. your school is gone.

the family car burned down. the buckeye tree is chopped down.

you don't get mail there anymore.

you don't live there anymore.

so fuck it all. it is gone.

no one is still living there. not you, not your family, friends, neighbors.

no one."

flattened, i wake

the room is completely silent.

absolutely and completely silent.

no sound of breathing, no sounds from my lover,

no animals outside. nothing.

i am so incredibly alone in that moment.

it seems a hundred miles to my lover

sleeping 2 feet away.

in their silence
i understand the angels have left me

for the last time.

i should be 40 miles out already

come on over, i need your help

help me get the courage to be the change

the changes i want to see

help me get the courage

to burn the house down

the embers falling will be the impetus

to get out of the hole these walls hide poorly

i don't want to be around long enough

to see the ashes falling lightly

i should be 40 miles out already

no one wants this more than me. except you.

or so i am hoping to hear.

open the door and let me fly through

my feet are so sore already from the waiting

my heart is so tired of being torn and waiting

the match is lit and the papers are set

the matches lit and the papers go up first

warming the fuel in my head, in my skin

answer the call i send out daily to you

filling the answering machine daily for you

i still feel the fire in my skin

i still hear my lungs screaming for
oxygen deprivation

i get from running
so hard

(i'm) still afraid of ghosts

i know i should have no regrets

but i'm afraid of ghosts again

why won't you shut the bedroom door

i want to keep out the ghosts that haunt me

they lie in wait under my bed, hungry, invisible

they know when no one else is around

they know when to come out with silverware

i now know i sounded so stupid on the phone

after how much i'd been drinking

and how much i've been thinking

why did you tell me to come over?

why did you tell me to come in?

i tried not to smile too hard at you

as i shook off the rain and half the booze

i tried not to be proud right then

of what we knew would happen

you should have locked that door

i should have lost that quarter

none of what i was feeling was true

as i spoke to the former ghosts of you

in my mind you never changed

time stood still as time went on

but i was wrong of course as 

both our lives are run their courses

so we stepped back 10 years in just one night

we ignored the reasons we weren't together

the times we should have forgotten

when we stepped into your room for the last time

we remembered in the morning why

why we should have kept looking the other way

we should always look the other way

we should always look the other way.

untitled

if i sit still long enough

will they mow the grass around me?

maybe we'll have this talk again

i have left home on my own 

but now i'm lonely

i know you'll say you told me so

but that's not helping

so save all your snappy comebacks

and let me just take some time to think

i'll clear out a space on the floor

i'll find something to eat and drink

even if just for the night

can i pretend that nothing changed

i'm only seeking shelter

no pleasantries need be exchanged

i'll tell you in the morning

that you were right as always

or maybe i'll disappear again

and maybe we'll have this talk again

men tall as trees

after the rain

steam like ghosts rises from the pavement

as i drive through them

i feel their stories, i know their lives

men tall as trees used to live here

carving the land, plowing fields from forests.

where have the giants gone?

where are the lives we look up to and try to replicate?

i can only see where i am

and the stock i come from by standing

on the shoulders of these giants.

we live in a small world

connected in too many ways at times

shrinking chances of being alone

save for being alone in a crowd, unnoticed.

in this sea of faces

inches from each other

there is little new to do or find

large numbers of small people

on a small planet shrinking

personal space is inner space

failed attempts at clarity

i tore down my walls

and put up new windows

so that i could see out

but i can't.

now i am exposed

now everyone knows

and i can't see a thing

i can't change anything.

sunburned

untitled

its almost the same dream over and again.

it's the last day of school and i have to clean out my locker

but i can't seem to find it.

the locker numbers change as i look at them

or the combination never works

or the locker is too full to carry all of it home

if i do get the right locker

and get the combination right

and i can carry all of the stuff with me, 

the yellow busses are pulling out and i miss mine.

this is when i have to take public transportation home

and wind up getting shot.

giving up and going on

so pretty, so alone

growing and changing, no one to notice

follow the eye path, follow the composition lines

down to the roots

made up pretty

right hair, right shoes, right look

went out nightly

empty streets, empty shops, empty town

can't stand to be at home

can't find anything to do outside

can't stand to be alone

can't find anyone to call at night.

predatory dating signs

DB7093 palevioletred

always the last one left on the playground

always the one to see the overhead lights go out.

too late to expect the chaperones to stick around

too many times, too many times.

both forced to grow up too fast

and too scared to grow up at all

walking in one direction facing the opposite

pushing chains, using brakes up hill.

stuck firmly in what was, forgetting how bad it was

looking through rose filters

changing the actual picture, smoothing lines

becoming the bottom of the water

rising waters 

coming over the high hills

how can these rains add up so fast?

flash flood like a slingshot

the water surface raises to the skies.

weighed down at the ankles

and i can't swim

someone turn off the hose

someone turn down the fans

the skies are black and the sound is deafening.

waters are rough and rushing
and i am sinking

i can only panic for so long

before the water enters my lungs

my throat is so hoarse from screaming so hard

my head is so cold from the water in my ears.

left all alone to sink to the bottom of the water

left all alone to sit at the bottom of the water

left all alone to breakdown at the bottom of the water

left all alone to become the bottom of the water.

the failing of the house of my family's name

the storms come in and blacken the skies

lightning strikes and illuminates the night

for a flashing split second, brighter than daylight

the witch's finger pushing me around.

i'm running out of time. no way out this time.

this shrinking heart of mine

tornado.

the failing of the house of my family's name

losing the doors and windows and walls.

i can see the shingles become shrapnel

penetrating buildings in the dark.

the floor is a mess of red

hail.

the yard is a mess of brown.

on angel's wings the reckoning comes

on devil's spears the reckoning stays.

retribution for sin, paying in advance

lightning.

in the path of the railroad of air

snaking across the yard.

whipping me too hard

ripping me apart

running out of space and time

coming down on this core of mine

silence.

freight train.

(implosion)

the names of people i used to kiss

headless angels

armless saints

rundown cemeteries

rundown faiths.

forgotten gravestones of weathered marble

forgotten lives and forgotten contribution.

how long will it take to completely forget someone?

when the ground consumes the coffin and body

when the weather has reclaimed the marble and granite stones

when the family has long since changed it's name.

is it then alright to remove the data on spreadsheets

that someone was there?

15 minutes of fame sound great but it doesn't get remembered.

i'm already

forgetting the names of people i used to kiss.

as the blood pools, the blood pulls

falling, failing, forfeiture.

freedom, farce.

showing one the door and pushing them out

into the cold are two different things.

the snow drifts are drifting up to my neck

as the blood pools, the blood pulls

the arms can't stop the shaking

and the arms are stretched to breaking.

feeling like i'm the only one to be so alone

as i am the only one alone in the streets

is reassuring.

the footsteps echo across the street

their delay betrays the silence.

no signs to point my way, no way to go anyway

with no where in mind i suppose i can't ever be lost.

the weights on my legs are slowing me down.

the weight on my shoulders are weighing my down

the wait i am hurrying up to get to is pointless yet inviting.

i can't drink you off my mind

i can't ask enough people to beat you out of my mind.

on the lonely streets, on the bloody steps

on the piss-soaked walkways i am falling fast into a daze

hurting myself for holding on so hard

to what i could never touch.

so far away, so hard to reach

so cold the night, so slow the time.

i've seen your new wings

full.

full to bursting.

communication complications

what was it that you said about space and time?

you wanted more of both? isn't there enough?

that was then, this is forever.

you promised forever, you promised.

that was then, this is never.

picking up the shed feathers

that landed everywhere in your flight

i've seen your new wings,

large and sepiatoned

they carried you far and fast

this cage is rusted

the one that i call home

my view never changes

with my head caught in the bars

it always wins in the end

i saw the heavy axes breaking the ground

defeating the cold rocks and frost

the soil greedily accepted the boxes without words

still seeming to ask for more

it is hungry, it always wins in the end.

there is nothing unnatural; all death is natural.

inescapable hand of fate typing out obituaries.

every day my feet get heavier

and my blood turns a shade darker

after a long night of running in circles in my sleep

the lead sinks hard to the bottom.

penitence for a life of waiting for the right moment

i failed myself so long ago

and i promised myself "never again"

but here i am

so here i go

getting up off my knees

getting to my own two feet.

planters

ironic how beautiful cemeteries

and crematoriums look.

the parade. the theme park of the dead.

the trees, the landscaping

feeding off of the dead we plant. human plant spikes.

cancer, heart disease, industrial accidents:

the horrible suffering and despair we fight and defend against

yields blossoming trees, chirping birds, swirling fishes;

remind me what we are fighting for?

laying with our heads by the stones

i remember growing up

with the cemetery behind the house

making up stories about how we lived and died

laying with our heads by the stones

pretending we were the ones beneath the grass.

every november the crows would flock

the noise was audible so far away

the awful cawing, the twitching movements

both animal and somehow human

picking at the shiny trinkets

the families left for the dead.

we would escape, run free

trip over head stones and bleed profusely

time was black enough, sunlight was all

blood was proof of freedom gained

under the watchful eyes of angels with broken arms.