The sun makes the leaves golden when it's cold,
it's a silly trick of the eyes.
There's a briskness in life that's somehow not real,
somehow a fanciful disguise.
Right now in this dry and hollow linen shell,
this prison that I've made.
I'm Wrapped up in safety ignoring what I feel
and my sanity slips and fades.
I keep meaning to move and wiggle my fingers,
do something, just try and feel.
Stretch my hard arms and feel my frozen feet,
nothing is anymore real.
To move and start breathing and thinking,
to face it.
Stir and get out of here, close to the street,
to embrace it.
Something happened in the changing and moving, I slipped.
It's black and I'm terribly lost.
I fell down that dark hole, forgot all my sight,
and I'm damned to the rising cost.
There's this tape on my eyes and my throat and I know
I can't breath. I can't breath!
What's up and down and left and what's right
somehow just can't be seen.
I breath on the window and write damned in the fog,
my finger trails so slowly.
Fighting to turn the locks, crack the hinges, break free,
the creaking so ghostly.

This wooden fence in these wooden hands and no one knows that I'm screaming on the inside because I'm so proud and so tough and I'm taking care of everyone but who is there to take care of me through the jabs and the insults and the years of disapointment and years of putting on a brave face and toiling through the death of my life and I'm dying slowly you see like the elm that made this fence and I'll just stand here till the sun wears me down and the wind blows me away gone dead forgotten because it's never ending like this wooden fence in these wooden hands and no one knows that I'm screaming on the inside because I'm so proud and I'm so tough and I'm taking care of everyone but who is there to take care of me through the jabs and the insults and the years of disapointment and years of putting on a brave face and toiling through the death of my life and I'm dying slowly you see like the elm that made this fence and I'll just stand here till the sun wears me down and the wind blows me away gone dead forgotten because it's never ending like this wooden fence in these wooden hands and no one knows that I'm screaming on the inside....

Memories.

Being ten and walking back from the pool with the cracked concrete chipping away into the water. Surrounded by a chain link fence leaning and curling. Eating a bologna sandwich on the porch in the heat looking at the tall grass and the dandelion wisps waiting for a wind. Picking at the paint peeling from the porch.

Dreams.

Wanting to be a famous painter someday, and live in New York in a tall building in a room the size of a warehouse. You could roller skate in there. You can see painting pictures taller than a tree. Such big dreams in vivid color turning to grey under the weight of the people holding you down.

Hope.

The ones you know who don't just kill themselves or each other, kill themselves with their vices. The rest go to prison or wind up in a dirty nicotine stained shack waiting out the inevitable. You know there's more to life, you actually get the hell out kid.

Saturday.

Taking the kids to the park, watching them run in circles and laugh, pushing them on swings that aren't broken. Watching a movie later in the day curled up on the couch with those little miracles, having a popcorn fight. Washing your car on Sunday, baking a lasagna. Getting the school and the work clothes washed for the bright and early morning around the corner.

Minding the gap.

You made it, right? But the space between the life you dreamed and the life you're living is wide. You have to remember the ten year old who thought anything was possible, who was living in big dreams. Remember to live. There's always more life you can fit into this trip. Make memories to take with you to the grave.

The loving

The day you meet. So innocent and special. The smiles, the yearning, the hope. You aren't jaded in those moments. Your hurts fall away, you forget you don't trust, you forget you aren't a believer. You fall prey to the twinkling eyes, the precious smiles, you believe the tales. You believe the stories, you want to believe the stories, and the endings.

The living

You become a person you won't recognize. You tell yourself what you need to hear, what you want to believe. You make up your own endings. You create stories to salve the small wounds you suffer, the broken dreams of perfection. There is still hope, there always is. It's a dream after all, you can still find yourself among the clouds you dwelled in when it all began, right?

The leaving

The wounds turn to scars. You become wise, and you return to yourself. What were the dreams you had? But you had them once before, didn't you learn? Didn't a part of you know? Of course. But the wanting got in the way, it blinded you, the wanting. You were so sure, so sure. And now again, walking on that path.......hoping no one sees you in the dark, where you are once again alone.

It's not the Poetry that matters most.

Words tell all do they?

And how do you take words

and make them mean exactly who you are?

Can you really reach the point?

Hand it to someone in a way they can see into you?

No misconceptions?

No deceptions?

Can you do all that with just words?

Can you say you are in my head

and know the knots and questions

and loyalties and insanities

and all the little happy endings?

If you really knew

there would be nothing to say.

There would be no questions or wonder

or agreements or speeches.

Words only tell a story.

They are grunts and hums

and trills used to make a picture

and the picture will always change.