Graces.

When I was little
I used to draw pictures
of spaces

like homes
in my dreams

someplace safe

though
I don't know exactly
what safe looks like

is it a gun or bars on the windows

or pair of arms that
could hold me

I see

running water through the living room
and fish swimming around

my personal ocean

windows that span
floor to ceiling

so that the world outside
isn't so external

like melting
away
through the thin skin
of glass

trailing all the way to the
ends of the earth
and back again

in one continuous flow
of energy

every inch of the shifting plates
the trembling crusts
my playground

no place foreign
every language spoken

faces familiar
and friendly

every animal my brother or sister
every emotion driven by instinct
primal
not overburdened

by filters
or society

a place to lay my head
down on a soft pillow
or the fur of my cat
the shoulder of my mother
or the chest of my lover

dreams that don't haunt me
or cause me to cry
days becoming longer

in the field
with long grasses
I lay with legs stretched

staring at the sky

trying to extend myself upward
to the heavenly bodies

to the furthest reaches
to the next dimensions

only to return to this body
the only home I understand
completely

Dream Space

Sparks

Out of sheer exhaustion
endless nights feeding
on junk and pills

unable to sleep
but for a few choice hours
between bouts of indecision
regarding what to do next

i drag myself out of bed
after spending an hour
daydreaming of sleep

and stand in a cold shower
rubbing my eyes together
so hard

like i'm trying to scrape
away all the layers of membrane
that have been defiled
by what was witnessed

rubbing so that i could see
boundless explosions
of yellow stars

fireworks that look like pixelated
explosions of electrified wires
that were also veins

i see possibility in the darkness
and wish for sleep again

Under the Big Top

Ramble

All of this incessant talking
sometimes it needs to end

let's sit
with our fairy tales
and our monsters
in sweet silence

and imagine

in the same urgent cry
for something better than
chaos of an ordinary kind

the ice is crashing into the ocean
the seas rise above my head

and i am unable to stay afloat
without
a helping hand to carry me

the magic is somewhere
to be found

in the written word
a love letter
a summons

bridge common bonds
and reveal an opening

for the spirit to be
liberated vindicated
exonerated
contemplated

after passing
friends gathered round

but who will walk through the gates
as a true companion

who can we depend on in this life
not to disappoint us so greatly

that we lose all sense of hope

I try to look forward
but struggle against it

like i'm running through dry sand
my feet scorched
and skin blistered from the
deadly rays

ice palace with ice carriage

Delineate

drawing lines
down our backs

etching words into
skin

revealing complexity
through breath hot against breath

an implosion
wasted away

caving in and buried beneath
these feelings overcome

chills sent along fingertips
a head grasped in frustration

a cry bellows in my chest
and i am spent

Scrap Map

Boom.

strike down these doubts

this evil that permeates every ounce of anything good and pure
it's all too much to bear at the moment
i feel frustrated and not in that good way

the drugs are speeding underneath
and i'll burst if the pressure isn't let out
through a dull slow drip

because anything more than an explosion
might pull me into its grasp

don't think bad things
the bad things might come true
you don't know your own power, you aren't aware

of how
far
these steps take us

and one gesture could
pull on something to unravel
and then only bareness
remains

so exposed and vulnerable
for everyone to judge by clips and pops

the wind carries us away from
this place
and I float in the sonic boom

after Steve Schick's Percussion Concert