Axis.

Free 

Free, free

An open trapdoor

An open box of doves

A picture of words

I've always been an impressionist 

Because there we are

The world

He's dancing without a care in the backseat

To the song drumming in my chest

It takes me there, a snapshot

Of the young man throwing everything he meant into waves

Heartbeats

And will they never know?

All we are

Floating

Feeling

Trying

Will they never know

Darkness pulls

Another year

Smoke and ribbons

It hides 

But knows that I see it

Working so hard

To find welcome

They laugh

And she prays for me,

And she prays for me -

Everything

In love with life

Exhausted from living 

Everything 

Kyrie eleison

Two thousand and sixteen;

The Warrior.

Tonight I can see

That I'm climbing a ladder into the stars

Where they tell legends 

Of the Warrior.

It was the strongest deed ever known

The Warrior looked up towards the sky

Smiled

And walked in silence.

Tonight I can see

The beauty of lives in a tapestry

And I don't need to know

I just need to feel.

Symphony.

This sweater was my mother's 

It's thirty-something years old

She borrowed it from a friend

And forgot to give it back

This woman has years to live

And she laughs just like she did

And she prays for me

This man shakes when he speaks

Because it's pouring from his soul

And his words are desperate

Because of what his eyes have seen

We live on a spinning rock

And I'm turning eighteen tomorrow

October 28th.

Sometimes the stars decide

To reflect in puddles in the dirt;

Cold.

The earth crouched down

As the sky closed in

Sealing up the edges of the horizon in gray

Blurred windows, crying trees

Flatness stretched its fingers into the night

And they found no difference of color when they awoke

The light had erupted;

The clouds had ignited.

Now the floodwaters rose

And they called it a day.

The rain was mocking her denial of tears

They slammed the heavy doors and he sank behind the wheel

A quiet victory

She put on a song and found something strange:

Rest.

She was the only girl he knew

Who could fall asleep to punk rock

Now her head was drifting down

Her eyes falling shut

He found her by the window in her dream 

Chill.

Why can't I sleep

There's a chill under my blanket

And on the road home

Through the red lenses of my sunglasses

Leaves catch fire and tumble across the street

My arms drown in sleeves

Why must we fall?

Return.

I hear the night wind

Something carried within the wind

A voice comes within it

A voice like my own

But loved

And telling me I am loved -

My thoughts are in pieces

They are pieces, complete, full, smiling

They are in uncharted places 

They are in the most familiar home

A poet of incoherence

A poet - I am here;

I do not need to touch

I do not need to feel

It is real