She says she prays.

Kneels down.

Talks to God.

She's been searching for forgiveness.

If God does not forgive her,

she has no reason to stop.

If God does forgive her,

she can finally get off her knees.

She doesn't know life

without dogma.

She'll eat the cracker,

drink the win.

Until Christ finally shows,

helps her up,

wipes his body and blood

from her lip, and

convinces her that forgiveness came

as soon as she asked.

I think

life is harder

when you need a savior.

#mentalvalleypoetry

I wasn’t a fully formed human

when I last spoke your name.

I was half the size

of the words you used

to berate me.

The slings and arrows

had Shakespearian perfection.

I just wished

we could have danced

in silence a bit longer.

The air was not full

of misunderstanding.

We could breathe

in a way that didn’t hurt.

I’ve grown some.

Being a man

has no real meaning to me. But

I have grown.

I know

now

that I am not those flaws

in your lenses.

You are not those monsters

that I fed.

We are just people.

Broken, stupid,

beautiful, intelligent

people.

We seek unicorns

but can only find horses.

Her.

There is never a floor

when there is her.

That face makes me fall,

constantly.

That voice is my chaperone

to this descent.

Gravity is consistently a winner but

with her

it...is...Emperor.

Thy banner raised.

Thy fealty sworn.

#shortpoem

If I failed you

in some manner,

I don’t remember.

Or the days were wrong.

The moon was in the wrong house.

It was probably a Saturday.

I tend lose track of Saturdays.

If I failed you

in some manner,

did I say I was sorry?

Did you tell me I need to?

I am not always aware.

My eyes are open

but the visions of bright ideas

can block my view.

I never know when this will happen.

If I failed you

in some manner,

it’s because you expected me not to.

I plant and grow expectations

as much as you.

Sometimes things die.

Balls get dropped.

This is tough because

I was hungry for it too.

Let’s feast on forgiveness instead.

As we laid talking,

the baby sleeping a breath away,

the moment arrived.

There was months

worth of chatter and

build up

that lead to this moment.

It was beautiful.

I set my drink down 

on the night stand

turned your way and 

looked you in the eyes.

I felt like a child

at Christmas.

The moment you realize

you don't have to wonder

anymore.

You have your gift.

I took a moment to

touch your hair.

Then,

in slow motion,

I touched my nose

to yours.

Like that,

there was no distance 

between us.

Lips danced.

This kiss had fireworks,

magic,

an expiration date.

I am not sure how much time passed

that evening;  but

I know how much has passed, since.

I'm not even sure if I was foolish.

I just know that night

I wasn't steering

or thinking.

I was simply funneled 

by life

or God

or love

to that spot.

I write poems 

because of spots like that.

I might be too weak for relationships.

There is too much honest

requested, but

not really wanted.

With my "if this, then that" mind,

I always perform poorly.

However, solitude breeds sadness.

It brings questions.

She

is not the answer

to my questions.

She

is the exclamation

in my silence.

I long to tell stories

that will breathe when I cannot.

That dance

when my feet fail me.

That sing in notes

only known to those who have felt me love.

That will remember love

when the world has forgotten it.

That will form over the wounds

of the broken, like fresh flesh mending them.

That will tell us to be willing to try and

fail again at a moment's notice,

even if only for the hopes to bleed less and

heal sooner in the future.

Stories that will finally

sit down and play with that inner child.

The one who is very smart if not a bit overzealous.

That will shine, in the caverns of my mind,

so that I may see the moral and understand its intent

That will file down the edges of my political leanings.

There is a beauty in gray, even for the color blind.

There is a break of daylight

even in the darkest times.

When our daydreams are courting our nightmares

during hours we once spent in slumber

peacefully,

these stories will be our lullabies.

They will speak, clear and soft

to mute our screams of war,

laying us gently in their beds of irony.

There are stories

where the words are so beautiful

we forget about the existence of pictures.

And movies.

And light.

These stories are told by the ancients

through modern tongues.

They have the longing that makes us remember

that have not all we want.

The search is the universe!

It's infinite.

It's expanding.

There are stories in the stars

that we ignore every night of our lives,

but if we reached out

to touch these brittle pages above us,

would they rip in our hands?

Would we understand the language in which they were written?

I wish for my stories

to help translate these novels of hope.

To mediate for my family extended.

I long to tell stories that will breathe when I cannot.

That breathed before I could.

For conflict only comes from misunderstanding.

They suffocate the sound

until silence is the only tale left.

Unfortunately,

silence holds can hold comfort but

it can also substitute meaning for intent.

Silence splinters through our sentences unwelcome, but

will always wrap us in its arms

when we are alone,

when our words and our world,

no matter how colossal or minuscule,

have abandoned us.

I want my stories to embrace silence

as it has embraced us.

To kiss its cheek

as it has kissed ours.

To return the favors of forgiveness

it has shown us,

no matter how undeserving we were of its grace.

And as silence breathes forever, so will these stories.

Even when I cannot.

Every sound you make

rumbles in the space between

what you have and

the sanity it takes to survive.

You're not alive.

You're the ghost

of a saint

I used to pray to.

You're the most devastating

way to

skip through a couple of months.

A couple of bucks.

A couple of half-hearted attempts

to domesticate.

I promised to wait for you.

I stayed true to that lethargy.

That lack of activity

made my mind move faster.

This mission

became my master.

It was exacerbated by faded notions

of connection and

the resurrection of us.

Now that time is ending.

I'm fending off your demons

in favor of angels.

And I will strangle every last

accusation that flies my way.

I won't stray from my mission.

I am an efficient soul

that has pull with heavens.

I have unleavened bread

and wine

upon a shrine of righteous indignation

and scars I have laid before you.

What will you do?

Now that your kingdom has faded.

Jaded makes you ugly.

You tugged me too hard

in the wrong direction.

Now your protection has receded.

No longer impeded

by my need to please you.

So let me ease you back into perdition.

It was a war of attrition.

The thin layer,

that was you,

never had a chance. 

When you speak

the paint comes off 

the walls.

Your acidic nature

melts all hopes for reason.

You've failed

in the one thing

that makes you different

from the monkeys.

I sleep a third of the time.

I'm tired half the time.

Somehow,

I am supposed to live in these fractions.

Somehow,

I'm supposed to dine 

with my self-esteem.

Until it smiles at me

tells me that it will never leave.

Somehow,

I am supposed to create 

subject matter;  but

what if the subject doesn't

matter?

Somehow,

I am supposed understand you

enough to love you

when I don't understand

the reason it's come down 

to you.

Somehow,

I am just supposed to forget

that I have lived 40 years

searching, hoping, praying

without real regard 

for the time lost in doing so.

Somehow,

I want to go on.

Ultimately, 

this is how I sleep my third.

This is how battle through the half.