I Can Top That
"I can top that story."
"I once. . . . . ," you continue.
Displaying your life for all to hear.
Booze glittered parties to friends who can down a milk gallon in one sitting.
"Did you hear the one-," you ask.
A playful insult stops conversation.
We all laugh.
You talk for the sake of talking.
Hoarding attention faster than you can inhale.
"Hey, that’s nothing I’ve got a friends who-"
You talk to entertain.
The talk slows. The moon and stars show.
You dream of the dare and
The honor of captivating you peer’s minds once again.
"I can top that."
With You
It’s raining.
I long to dance
I want to run out and become
Drenched
In the heavenly liquid
But only with you.
Swing and swaying to the song in our hearts.
We become wet, but pay no attention to the cold.
Holding on to each other, yet lettering go.
Dancing around, dancing in the rain,
But only with you,
Only with you,
With you.
Innocence I have lost
Innocence I have lost.
Somewhere between the ears.
I know better.
I know the direction to go.
I love. I stand.
I am quiet.
The duck’s quack echoes louder against the bomb shelters.
Than I speak.
I am unsure,
Afraid of rejection.
I churn and turn and walk away.
What if?
I am scared for another.
Am I scared for me?
I shouldn’t be.
Black as this marker
Black as this marker I engrave this with, the smell of pungent marker ink fails to describe the amount of distance i fall short in praising my heavenly father. why? i fell like a helpless romantic pursuing a virgin daughter of a wealthy monarch. What proves you to me every day? the professor screams you don’t exist. i sink and shy away from any conversation. this monster of intellect displays a dogma of academia that i am sure will not die before my resurrection.
The White Cord
Give me the white cord that ties and binds.
No red. No lust.
White takes longer to make and stronger it is.
I want to help you
I’m not in it for me.
We’ll yes I am.
To go with you physically, then to remind me what I can do – what was given to me.
Keep me running.
Drag me along with the white tether chord we’ve made.
Our ghosts haunt me at the creek
Self-control gave control to self
and the water kept running out of our hands
toward the Gulf.
Five minutes flowing to fifteen, never ending. . . .
toward the engulf.
Creativity of physical intimacy flows–
Running out of ideas, I run my hands over
your body and soul,
eyes closed, mind open,
claiming a place.
Tipping over forgetting the sun,
All senses lost,
blurred eyes of a lover
focused on you.
I cannot hear time running over rocky riverbeds:
Our ghosts haunt me at the creek.
Am I?
Am I not supposed to strive for perfection?
Am I not supposed to be kind and loving?
Am I not supposed to have compassion?
Lending a hand to help the crying girl with the skinned knee up from the concrete sidewalk.
Am I not supposed to listen? Nodding as I hear grim stories I never will understand
(The stories that make me mad at God for creating humans).
Am I not supposed to share?
Talk of my problems and their one solution.
Am I not supposed to serve?
And be a 24-hour waitress to everyone and not expect a tip whether they order 1 course or 97 cow corpses
Am I not supposed to give?
For the cost of a cup of coffee you can educate a child in Thailand?
Am I not supposed to be holy?
No put downs, insults, and prejudices. Was that a leer?
Am I not supposed to be faithful?
Trust more than an infant nursing.
Am I not supposed to happy with the happy?
Sharing laughter, sharing my joy for life.
Am I not supposed to sad with the sad?
Letting my tears swirl with another’s tears down the same porcelain basin?
Am I not supposed to care?
I try.
Taxi Driver
Travis, my emotions are mixed.
You are the reason I question my belief in God.
Why help another if one believes in no absolutes and wants nothing in return?
I try one jigsaw piece with another. I struggle.
Do I care for the serial killer’s paper cut finger?
The one who raped my ten-year-old daughter and through her in a bin.
Do I care for the minister’s ignorance?
The one that preaches death and hate between factions of skin and money and knowledge.
Do I care for the wife that I tied a knot to and wore this golden ring for fifteen years?
The one who is at a stranger’s house every Wednesday night.
Do I care for the manipulators of fear who are not born yet
The ones who will commit worst crimes than my mind can now understand.
I care or I guess, I want to care.
Does the psychopath have dignity? A soul?
Yes, I reaffirm, I care, because I was not the first to care?
And anyway, where is the line you want to draw?
Are not all crimes equal and all wrong.
If it breaks the heart of infinite love,
It breaks not only my heart but also all my arteries.
I bleed to death in a love that will never be returned,
But I will be resurrected.
Thinking of You (II)
Not afraid of rejection, but terrorized that
you can cause me to crumble.
Brown eyes that see this lonely heart’s pain;
When I’m too close to mumble,
you are a vat of goo to sink into
releasing my doubts, weakness, tears.
So angelic, so down to earth,
getting down in the grime and dirt.
You boil the frost condensed on my hardened heart,
with smile jolts past my groggy, depression clutching my joy, yanking it up from my heart, through my throat, and to my lips.
I grin uncontrolled thirsty for your kiss greater than I demand milk after swallowing habareros whole.
Real only when I hear your laugh in this Antarctic desert’s emptiness; birds in fake tuxedoes surround me.
Craving your embrace more than a good night’s rest after a day packed full of packing tombstones to my grave.
Grasping for your hand unrestrained knowing the derelict will not be turned away. I am fragile,
but cross out my packaging’s cracked cup when you hold me.
If only, all of the tones of your voice could be recorded
and broadcast worldwide, there would be no war.
Dedicated to Heather LeAnn Catlett ( Kitty )
Give them life
As I walk I hear, "He’s sweet. He’s so kind."
It consumes my mind
And I don’t deserve it.
But I am in love and
I want to not manipulate.
Who is given more is asked to give more away.
I want to give all of me to those who need love.
I’ve been validated
So I others validated and give them life.