I’m redefining a number of words
and concepts I learned first growing up
but now realize are woeful wrong
or oversimplified to a criminal fault
 
Love, for example, is more than a word
more than feeling
more than an instinct or singular act
It is looking and choosing again and again to see the very best
version of someone and consistently
fanning that flame in them to help
bring it out
 
It is filled with compromise and fear
high highs and low lows
It is adventure and joy
as well as sorrow, you know?
And you have to let each day die with the sun
You have to let each morning begin on its own
Let things go and give into the millions of second chances
nature naturally gives us
 
No one is perfect—and sometimes we are worse
than our average
but if you commit your love to another person
you should consider that you’ve committed with it
the promise to keep searching for that spark
of brilliance in them
You should commit to keep pushing their best parts
into the sun
So that no matter what happens, at the end of everything
you’ll each be the better for having loved
each other
 
and to me, as of now,
that is what it means
to love

In this diaphanous slime
that is the after-math
of terror and horror
When we who are miles
removed from the direct
path of those swimming in the
seas of the bloodbath
High on our mountains of pious triumph
and illusory perspective
Call down across the caverns
that our feet have yet to touch
And condemn a whole of
bleeding men, women, and children
because “we have our own”
And because the rotten in their apples
must have surely contaminated them all
Even as, with our own, we can
easily differentiate between the
seeds that were led astray and
those who produce fruit
The filth of these pompous claims
brings me to my knees in shame
And makes me question why we don’t look to find
the human unity that can be used
to bind us all together
rather than look for reasons to exclude
as we beleaguer ourselves
into a fine frenzy
we become less able in our
forbearance and so
violence breeds violence
and our ears go unused
and our empathy unpracticed
atrophies at the cries
of those whose lives we could
have been a part of bettering
but the epiphany to try out love
to dig deeper into understanding what has
been so far unfamiliar
proves to be just out of reach
And then who will be left to teach
these lessons when we’ve
obliterated each other because
our precious egos could not be swallowed
in time to look inward and out to find
our similarities beat more strongly
together than our differences
If it was you…?
What would you hope to find?

when it was dark
on the crowded street
and everyones screams
seemed to conflate into
dreams that we could not wake
from;
    oh, and our dalliances
were crestfallen, forgotten in demesne land
you were still near to me, and dear to me but so
demure;
    and the denouement seemed to never come
desultorily, i tried to run
but the earth was mixed up in a dissemble spiral
“my God!’ “No, my God!” and “My country!” also
the effervescent memories of waking as a child
gone;
    all hope for eloquence suddenly just evanescent
ephemeral and
gone;
    your felicity, also,
gone;
    our forbearance as people suddenly furtive to
the threats and bombs;
    still, I must ask you: do you remember, before the fugacious fog,
when we would gambol in the gossamer’s glamour
headstrong with halcyon, high as a kite on the harbinger’s song
glad to be alive with moonshine and daylight and even the bees
seemed reason enough to sing for…
before our ineffable soured losses turned us inured
before we were lachrymose, labyrinthing in sticky moss
we had lilt and leisure and still I urge you as you 
try to move on
that the old mellifluous murmur
still, she sings on
you may have to look under the palimpsest
to the first and dirtiest draft
where love was loquacious and saccharine
and maybe it has become less so on its journey to be more wise
but still, i encourage you to find that what has not changed
in love, in us
is the sempiternal spark
yes, there is still heart
beating
seeking to make sense of it all
casting soliloquies in the dark hoping
to find the right words to say
to bring us all back into
unity again—but better than we’ve ever been
because it is not just the one we lost
that had a dream
we all carry on with this same dream
when we, with child’s eyes, first saw the earth
and gasped at its wonder
so many amazing things
such power in the morning’s renewing peace
so, I am reminded as I struggle with sleep
that even the darkest nights
cannot stay the morning’s light
it comes for us
with nary a care for our deservedness
with more chances than seconds
and more warmth than the coldest
of hearts
--
do you feel it?

when the sadness comes in
like a winter storm in june
and just sits there on your chest
until it tears apart the mood
and your thoughts cloud into poetry 
that just will not stop
and every emotion comes
without explanation
making you impossible to spot
(“what’s wrong?” gets asked a lot)
but there is no response
and it feels manipulative
but the truth is: there just is no response
the black cloud will sit there
until it’s through being black
and then just as suddenly as it came
it will go clear away
and it will not care what bits of earth
it has sucked up into its atmosphere
or what it’s left you bare of
no, it does not care
it steals your words and makes you
think you are just better off
bloodied, dirty and alone
“don’t get attached to anyone,” it says
all is temporary, death looms
pain comes, fear your perceived failures
as they are the only assured things in life
tremble and give up…
when the sadness comes in
like a winter storm in june
unexpected, uninvited, utterly encompassing
in its force
just take up shelter in the most stable part
of the room
and when “what’s wrong” is asked just
play along and say
the morgue has stole your groom

with you
everything becomes
quite quintessential
to my being
and for keeping
my heart alive
it is your redolent
spice-freckled odor left
on my pillow in the 
dim lit mornings that I most
feel your love as a
leftover
but just as full with flavor
And the pastiche
that is your rag-tag soul
half torn and well worn
and often too tired to go on
but still with squirts and bursts of
brilliance now and then that I
find so winning
yes, it is a scintilla
lighting fire in my eyes when
I see yours spark and I remember
the summery love
that flew out your words
at me 
before

some t i m e s
things just don’t f e e l right
and it can be the
t i n i e s t
of things that
sets a whole
avalanche into
d i s o r d e r
like a word
unsaid or
a reaction not met or
an expectation 
unfulfilled or
a taking back of
something given or
an unreturned gaze
when it used to
go all the way
to your heart
and come back 
a million times
stronger but
suddenly just
falls flat
and deadlines
like a leaf floating in
water
unable to ever reanimate
into the sky
to levitate, fly or
even falter
some t i m e s
it’s just a strange feeling
a reminder from around the
corner of the future
a dog-eared page in a book
that reminds you with 
spidey-senses foreshadowing the future
based on what you’ve seen in your past
that pain lies ahead
that maybe you’ve revealed too much of your heart
that maybe you’ve been just a bit too loud
that maybe you should just shut-up
that maybe you should cover-up
and maybe you should dim-down
and maybe you should not share so much
or care so much or 
be so much
or just
stop
some t i m e s
it is so very hard
to stand your ground 
in love, in life
to say you deserve to stand here
to say what you want
to feel how you feel
to share all your heart
to care
to create and let it be 
(perfect or not)
to live as you are
and not let the actions of others 
make you take back your words
because your life is your own narration
and you must tell the story truthfully
and in your honesty there is a beauty
that may not be agreed upon or seen by everyone
but this is the wonderful diversity of humanity
you are the only you there is
and your thoughts and feelings and fears are valid
and the love you give is added 
to the blood bank of good things in this world
so never take it back and
never regret your creative expressions
for they too are now a part of the history of the wonders
of this incredibly unique earth we've been given