midnight’s hand tells me to love

while morning says to walk alone

my mind’s a scattered bookshelf

and all my authors out of place

there are so many boxes of me

each marked with a failing pen

and all these faces that I read

it’s strange, but somehow I know

that each stranger understands

so when the sun comes out

I know I’m lucky

having a car that starts and

friendships to ignore—

the irony is I think of them so much,

though they’d never know because

my heart’s a Vegas Strip

where something or someone

is always getting in the way,

so when the purple neon calls

and midnight’s hand loosens its grip

I walk breezy until dawn,

in love with love but only

if poison is preferred.

only in the deepest corner of the night

do i see what i’ve become

delicate as a flower that

has dried under the sun

sympathy has left me with a

trembling empty hand

that child i’ve forsaken for this

clamshell of a man

it’s only in the deepest corner

curled up in the night

that i see this distant window flicker

soft with golden light

i know it’s not my time to go but

it’s getting hard to see

beyond the deepest corner where

the night has taken me

what will you do then lie down?

accept this void of fate?

or reach for what’s been flickering

beyond that golden flame

Farmers Market.

Sunday afternoon,

it’s quiet here

with families and their friends,

faceless in a crowd—

no one to disappoint

with no one to let down—

feeling everything at once

I whistle with myself.

i’ll never have the answer for

the reason i can’t stay

the plan i had’s discarded for

i know no other way

so if by chance, remember me?

in all the many ways

it’s time to feel nothing when

there’s nothing left to say

some bonds

no matter how hard we try

just aren’t meant to be broken.

people i mean—

aren’t puzzles

we aren’t toys

our hearts are not

two curved red lines

that connect to form a V—

people are fragile.

we are delicate,

far more delicate than we could ever perceive.

but we are not porcelain,

we are not china dolls.

we are flesh, blood, and tears.

we are love, lust, and glory.

we are fear, faith, and scandal.

we weren’t, nor ever were

made or meant to be broken.

but even though we bend

some bonds

no matter how hard we try

just aren’t meant to be broken.