Poetry turns to work

Work turns to lists.

Lists.

Not so bad.

Depending on the sort.

I go for a run to clear my head.

The steep hills of the city trail leave me feeling alive–the skyline of mountains a familiar refuge.

My blood pulses through my limbs, pushing me to a discomfort I fully embrace.

The physical challenge is the only thing that quiets the voices in my head holding tight to frustration and confusion.

I crave the sweet sense of clarity that replaces the unknown.

The run works to ground me–forcing me to connect to my breath. It is all that is real.

At the close of fall, the cold and darkness hint towards the coming winter. There is death in winter. A final dying away of all that was.

I wonder if my final breath will take place during a winter?

At the close of fall, I go for a run and hope I will survive one more winter.

All the words I can’t say.

The temptation to respond to the blinking cursor reminds me to only write to the ghost of you that lives on my paper.

The public eye shows me you are well, so my concerns are merely vain attempts to be your friend.

I’m doing well in most things

I am loved.

I love.

I wake up–

And I can move.

My dearest treasures are safe,

But you are not my friend and I grieve your loss.

If it had been been me, I’d have made you crazy.

I’d sit in front of fires and cry my guts out for those I had loved and fucked up. Those who have gotten close, but I’ve managed to toss by the way side, and somehow I still convince myself it was them.

I saved you from that.

I didn’t kiss you, and you didn’t kiss me. We rode three hours home though, and we talked. But I was dreaming unrealistic hope when I brought you muffins and thought you’d be excited to see me again.

But you tell me I’m the one who messed it all up.

Like the night I asked you to your second concert, but you backed out last minute and sent me a picture of the wings to a plane as you flew across the world.

But I really did mess it all up. I honestly did my part. Playing the game of check mate.

And now I’m a plastic piece of trash in the delete bin. Fuck me, trash bin, begin again, 100% sin…

But, count your blessings.

Same kind of blue.
My dear descending Dad.
I am You. You are Me.

As you reach to throw
My mind is with the birds-
Motion of the waves-
My little boy—

I am behind the camera.
Or somewhere behind my wall.

I had a good time seeing you.
It’s always nice to remember our life.

As I go to leave
Standing in your driveway
We got to talking about God.

And there we were again,
Hand in hand in our hearts.

The Unconditional—
The Love we know within Us All
Radiating the almighty Light.

None can deny.

Same kind of Blue
My dear ascending Jude,
You are me. I am You.

I don’t know how to get through the dark clouds of autumn that are filled with rain. They drag me into the numbness I use to shut down all the pain of you. The pain coming from the story you told that I now know was a lie.

I repeat my mantra over and over again-You were a lie. You were a lie. A figment of my imagination. A mirage in the desert.

I can live my whole life with you tucked away in the deepest drawer of my heart because what I believe of you isn’t real.

Upon my cat’s ears…
I tell her all my feelings.
I tell her I miss you.
I tell her I lost a best friend.
I tell her my heart is still aching.
I tell her to go to bed.

She paces back and forth for a moment, and then settles on a blanket beside me.

I tell my cat to find you.
She’s the only one that hears.

The notes and chords that you strummed across my heart strings have turned to flesh-eating arrows. The punctures go so deep that my blood slowly drips down my side. Welcome to my slow death.

The grenade you hold is a lie. There is no promise of a swift end when you pull the pin. You are a hunter whose aim only causes suffering. Luring me to your circle, and leaving me to die.

There is no sweet ecstasy of release.

It’s the night time that brings the grief.

I have to acknowledge that you are dead.
I’ve buried you. Put the wreath on the casket. Lowered you into the dirt. Watched the fresh red roses at your grave turn into dried up petals.

Yet sadly, you’re in the same town as me. Walking.
Breathing.

It’s the night time that brings the grief.

Welcome to the panels of my collection.

Where dust cannot gather on the pages, but the pages turn all the same with your memories and those of others left behind.

You’ve made the cut from me with the full reckoning force of your inherent ferocity.

I often wonder of your bellicose nature. Did it come to you by way of your ancient nordic bloodlines? Did the captors of your youth—those who ridiculed or tried to reshape the lens through which you see the world—awaken the coding of your genes?

Remember the day you took me to your childhood home? I looked out and saw a peaceful, green field, with a creek running alongside her. Did those thieves and their cruelty condemn the way you drew on the security of all that you ever knew? Did the disruption of her serenity lead you to seek out battlefields in which you learned to fight?

As a man, did the sorrows you faced as a rejected husband, lover, and protector bring you to a girl with a shadowed heart? Were you intoxicated by the way she moved—like a silk ribbon gracefully floating in air—defying gravity? Yet when you tried to hold it you found it wasn’t intended for grounding.

I pictured the boy you once described on the day you took me to your field. In that place, I felt the safety of the land and the water you once knew.

And it was there that I saw a wounded buck with blood-stained, rust-colored fur. His broken antlers forming points of sharp weapons.

His restless pace was unsure and he contemplated whether leading me down to the banks of the stream was worth leaving the solace and healing of his field.

Reaching out my hand to him, I made too quick of a movement. And with the stealth of his inner fighter, he turned away leaving me on the other side of what feels like an ocean.

And as my heart breaks, I drop down to my knees, tears falling into the creek that guards his heart. Forever unknowing if they can be welcomed as an offering of my love.