Eleven

A ding alerts me

Doors sliding open

quick to follow.

My eyes are not greeted

by the usual plane interior

but rather by a silent beauty

apparently come from above.

The surprise joins forces

with my pressing shyness

and subdues my tongue

as the initial moment

of acceptable greeting passes.

The doors slide shut behind me

trapping us in a six by six

cell of endless opportunity.

Yet with every passing moment

Shyness tightens its grip.

Ten

We stand on opposite walls

divided by several feet

of seemingly impermeable

space

avoiding each others eyes.

Nine

Eight

Seven

Six

This speed seems

faster than normal.

Five

All hope is lost

and is replaced by desperation.

Four

I pray for a jam.

Three

I curse my shyness.

Two

I resort to last minute glances.

One

The pleasant ding

Once more,

Although now announcing

Another failed opportunity.

The doors slide open

Silently mocking,

And she leaves me

With only a trace

of her perfume

drifting over me

and flirting with my

insecurities.

<September 18, 2005>

Faltering Steadfast Hope

Life’s tribulations render me helpless

Like a lone raft on a vast,

Churning ocean.

My spirits lifted high

On the peaks of the waves

And subsequently crashed down

Then tossed about so much so

that I lose all bearings.

This world, this environment

Glorifies the blasphemies

Of the things I hold dear,

And implants in my soul

The desires to follow suite

This conflict, this dissonance

Weakens my spirit

Even as I fight to overcome it.

I fall to my knees

And lift my voice

To the Heavens

And choke out words

Of repentance and Humility

Even as my Faith in Him

Falters.

Stay with me God

I cannot stand alone.

Make your presence known

In my soul,

Even as my desires

Claim the antithesis.

Flee

I run from Faith

As if it intends to entrap me

In a solitary pit

With lions standing by

Should my mind wander

Towards blasphemy.

I give into

The desires of this Earth,

And with these things clutched to my heart,

I flee.

This dissociation

Of what is right

And how I act

Freezes the air in which I run.

It burns my throat and lungs

As I attempt to breathe.

The indulgences in which I partake

Have become part of me

And are the saliva and mucous

That I frantically swallow

In efforts of easing

My burning heart,

But this remedy proves only temporary

And the pain only increases

As I continue to run.

Perhaps someday

Life will offer a root

Ensnaring my foot,

And thus prostrating me

Face first on the ground.

Perhaps then,

As my body mercilessly

Skids to a stop,

Will I regret,

Then,

Will I surrender.

But now,

In the heat of the moment

The glory of fun

Somehow surpasses

The glory of God.

I know I should stop running,

And end my sad flee,

But I cannot.

<1/4/06>

Forgotten Lives

Remember the days when we thought we had perfect lives?

Everything was fun, and our happiness never denied

We enclosed ourselves in an idealized world with nothing wrong

we’d never believe it if told it’d soon be gone.

This is a tribute to struggles fought

and a memoir of days when prayers were not

how to make it one more day

but the hope that there would be a way.

One by one, our perfect world fell apart

The realization set in that life would be hard

Insecurities, death, and depression started filling our minds

we began to notice that comfort was harder and harder to find.

<Chorus>

What happened to the joy that filled our hearts?

It’s bound by pain and sorrow and fiery darts

How can we release it to save ourselves?

From a life that isn’t far from Hell.

<Chorus>

Remember the days when we thought we had perfect lives?

we’d never believe it if told it soon be gone.

Gone.

Killing the hormones didn’t turn out right

Killing the hormones didn’t turn out right
Barring rational thought
They swarmed after you
God knows what they were thinking
Thought you to be some sort of blessed seraphim
I tried to beat them off
Yet with every attempt
They increased force
Once again becoming their slave
I fell in love with you

Mistakes Rubbed In

How hard is it to kill a bird?

One that has already

Injured its wing.

Every single passerby

That hears its sad song

Harasses its disadvantage

Replenishing the pain

That it already suffers

Until one day

It has run out

Of even the saddest of songs

<3/19/05>

Mountains

Mountains, monsters of the land

Mammoths rising out of the plains

A collage of peaks and valleys

Pasted against the perfect blue sky

One in particular calls me

In the midst of the great Sierras

No worn trail scars her face

The perfect result of two land masses

Come together to grind

The base trail appeals to me

A path winding through green meadows

And pristine streams with teaming trout

I splash my face with water and lie in the grass

My soul restores

At her base, the trail diminishes

I push onward, the route mine to choose

She looms above me-

A glorious thirteen five.

Ten thousand feet, I emerge from the trees

I am struck by beauty from all sides

Looking to the mountain, the summit is in sight

I begin the climb, loving every aspect of it

But will the summit be as glorious as it seems?

And how long will I stay when I get there

When I have only to come back down.

Nontraditional Murder

A fly flew into my room today

his origin unknown

as the temperature outside

lies far below the life zone

of such a creature.

He takes to flying around my head

Apparently rejoicing

The more pleasant climate.

I shift in agitation,

He settles upon my SHIFT key.

My eyes fall on a rubber band

Laying on my desk

Forgotten up to this point.

Barely moving,

Not daring to remove my eyes from my companion,

I reach for the band of rubber

Once used for general purposes

Now to be used for death.

The band is raised to my fingers

And pulled taught.

I raise my aim to the shift key–

Dammit he’s gone,

Taken to obnoxious buzzing again.

The band still held taught,

I wait with anticipation,

My eyes sweeping the room

In search of my target.

My evader presently returns

This time settling on my desk.

The band tightens

The mark located

I release my desktop weapon.

The aim is true–

Fly and band are launched under the monitor.

I flick him out with a pencil,

But he is not dead,

The shot off by a fraction

And only damaged his wing

and corresponding legs.

He moves in a circle on my desk,

Dragging injured appendages,

In a sort of pleading dance,

And desperately trying to escape a second attack.

Pity fills me, and I hurriedly set the band

and pull it tight

to finish the job.

This time the aim is dead on.

The rubber striking the insect

directly on the abdomen

squishing it,

And consequently ejecting his innards

out onto my desk

In a small radius about his body.

Satisfaction at a job well done fills me

As I remove the mess with a Kleenex

And continue studying.

<November 18, 2005>

Road Kill

I found him in a ditch

just off the road.

He lay there,

a broken heap amidst the grass,

his antlers broken,

and flies sipping up the blood

as it drained from his body.

Blood that once surged with life

through his great veins.

Now it trickles down into the dirt

rendering him unrecognized

as the proud buck he once was.

Now just a heap on the side of the road,

still unaware of what he’d done wrong.

He had thought he was too good for death,

His pride had become to great,

and now he lies there

with the grass still waving

and egging him on.

Heartless

She fucks light

And darkness bulges over

the shadows of evil men.

“Give up!”–She cries

But they hold their ground,

Claiming they’re already dead.

So she sucks the life from them

And goes on her way

Fucking and sucking

Danglers and knots stuck in the fray.

11/02/06

In Response

People ask how we’re doing and

even though an answer

readily

forms in my head

eager to be stated, I answer

cautiously, because it feels pompous

to answer directly.

<December 2007>

Let me rant here briefly

Let me rant here briefly

because yours is the prettiest face

I have ever seen.

And now,

I lie here with mixed emotions

because for once in my life,

I fear that I may never have to search again.

But it’s not the bad kind of fear of a sort of suffocation

that I have felt before.

It’s an excited anticipation of what could come.

It’s the wonder that you may be achieving what no girl has before.

I can’t believe I’m writing this mush,

this shit—it’s not me,

but somehow, now it is,

and it just feels right.

<June 2007>

Limits Found

Countless empty pages,

countless torn and trashed,

and I still stare at the page and wonder

how to put this into words.

Poems of anger and frustration come easily

But conversely when the subject

is no less than perfect,

any of the words I can muster

seem to always fall short.

<October 2007>

That One Place

We lie there

just warming up

and teasing each other

with cold hands.

But I pull you in close

and you nuzzle once,

nuzzle twice,

before eventually finding

that perfect place

for your nose on my neck.

And nothing can replicate,

nothing can describe,

not an overplayed love song,

not a thousand crumpled pages of failed poetry,

the feeling I get in that moment.

<December 2007>

The Little Things

They lay next to

One another

Their feelings tabooed

And repressed

A thin cushion

Of air runs between them

From which they both breathe

This space

Only a few inches

But undefined

At this time

His arm violates

The void

And lightly touches hers

She smiles

Ugg Boots

Ugg Boots walk along slowly,

Squish Squish.

Boots see Addidas,

Spring Spring.

Boots and Sneakers meet,

Toes to toes.

Sneaker moves in,

Kiss Kiss.

Right boot elevates,

Love Love.

Words of Comfort

She says she can’t remember

What it’s like to be truly happy.

Yet I can see the joy

Beneath the face

She gives the world,

Beyond the dread

That eats her,

When even she

Is unaware of its presence.

What words unlock the sorrow that binds it?

Be they words to which I am familiar?

Or are they absent

From this life?

<12/27/05>

The Kiss: A Girl’s Perspective

Kiss, what a word!

But hardly gives it justice

This perfect ecstasy

This wonderful feeling

The excitement, the awe

Weak in the knees

So perfect

So beautiful

Draws together

Intertwining feelings

Surely nothing is better

Than being joined in this way

The electricity flows

Filling the veins

Support me

I can no longer stand.

The Kiss: A guy’s perspective

Kiss, an attractive word
A word that creates longing
For that mysterious activity
Fun and exciting

Lips brushing
In melodic motions
Energy pulsing between them
Tongues delicately intertwined

A new desire awakens
The kiss no longer enough
Yet always longed for
Not always satisfying

But is always fun
Always something to go back to
Innocent, yet exciting

Just a Kiss, yet everything