3 am....

I never wanted my lips to miss yours,
my eyes to miss the sight of your smile,
the scent of you gone from around me.

I never wanted myself to fall so hard,
to be up at 3 am pacing the ceiling,
memorizing each line of grain of the wood
as I call out for you in my mind,
wishing, waiting, hoping to hear a response.

It isn't hell anymore when I hold you in my arms,
your naked smooth, supple, voluptuous skin against mine,
your every curve resting and blending with mine,
your fingers lightly tracing the veins up my arms,
lacing their way entwined with my fingers,
your lips slowly making soft moist craters against my skin
as you descend ever lower against me...

Oh, how I miss you at 3:30 am,
my mind imagining sins
that our bodies make
during each daily confession of love,
how I miss you now, as I roll over, and
you are not beside me...

Stipulations of Religion

Sometimes it's the broken church,
the sad church,
the church with the smashed and missing
stained glass windows -

that is the better church,
the truer church,
the more godly church
for which your and my god(s) are meant
to be honored in -

sometimes it's the church that has broken pews,
has an attendance of barely three,
sometimes it's the church that has a
belfry barely held up by worn-weathered-wood -

it's not always the biggest church,
the shiniest church,
the church with a thousand parishioners,
the perfect church can be a clearing in the woods,
a bus-stop confessional,
under the over-pass bridge where the
young and broken and homeless
stay away from all of the pain that they feel each new day -

Don't always look for your god(s) in the shiny church,
don't always look for your spirituality in a
room with everyone that looks and prays like you,
don't always look for salvation from a faith built in a house of gold.

You'll find your god(s), your spirituality,
your salvation from within first,
if not there,
 then in the faces of those you won't dare look at.

Don't pray in a marble cathedral,
if you're afraid of praying in a
fallen wooden church first.

Breathing "I Love You"s...

I'm in the room where sleep should be had,
but instead pacing and cursing and
sadness is clinging to the walls,
putrid emotional wallpaper held on by tacks
of self-doubts and self-anger and self-denial -

I hear the words leaving my mouth, and I
watch as they float across the room,
hijackers of emotional terrorism
stealing and flying planes of feelings
into the pillars within your soul, the
light fading from your eyes as I see
the doubt fire from my lips to pierce your heart -

You're out of the room, having left to
do self-triage on the wound that bottled alcohol
and bottled anxiety and bottled depression caused,
You're out of the room where you felt a second emotion against
love from my lips, where you watched me fall apart,
where you saw my inner most bare beast and even then,
you let your fear go, and you held on as I tore through my
worst mistakes and fears like thin sheets in the wind,
you wouldn't let me go...
and I dared your heart to a competition,
to see if it knew what I really was like on the
inside, and you called my bluff -

You left the room, because even in my most un-sober moment,
I twirled further into the ball of doubt and anxiety
that I wound with each new breath,
and you left the room,
to take everything all said
and done and cried and lied about;
into context.
You don't care that I find myself some days
sinking ever deeper,
ever farther down into the insanity that
plagues my family -
you don't care about any of that.

You tell me that no matter how far I fall, how long I sink,
how deep I go into my own darkness that seems to never leave me -
you tell me that no matter what,
you'll never leave me,
that you will be there to catch me when I fall,
to pull me back up from the bottom of the drink,
to bring the light into my life with every touch
and laugh and brush of your lips on mine.
You see me at my worst, hold up a mirror, and say,

"See, even now, you're the most beautiful beast,
so don't let your tears stain your scars
and don't let your fears cloud the bright skies in your mind.
Let everything go, and let the warmth grow,
because with every breath you breathe,
you have to relearn to un-clench your fist,
and let your failures and fears go.
This won't be easy, and it won't be undemanding,
but with every breath in, you call out my name,
and with every breath out,

you breathe an 'I love you'."

I'm Right (Push, Pull)

Be thin, be fast,
be funny, be sexy,
be yourself, be like us,
be with a ton of sexual partners,
be with only one partner,
push, pull,
push, pull,

Have large muscles, be gangly,
be a jock, be a nerd,
it's ok to be gay,
get back in the closet you poof,
push, pull,
push, pull,
push, pull,

Died a hero, died a wreck,
Painted smile, honest sadness,
you'll never do anything wrong,
why can't you do anything right?
push, pull,
push, pull,
push, pull,

Enough is enough, I'm taking a stand,
Enough is enough, I'm going to lie down,
Enough is enough, who're you to tell me what to do,
Enough is enough, who right or wrong anymore,
Enough is enough, I'm through with the push and pull,
Enough is enough, maybe I'm wrong and they're right?
push, pull.

I hate Sudoku

There once was a man named Michael,
Who sucked so hard at Sudoku he cried till,

His headache was gone,

He got to move on,

And do something less painful.

Amor Vincit Omnia

Looking up,
a warm spring night,
a plaid blanket beneath
the two lovers beneath
the midnight black sky -

Little then,
they now know now,
what their lives
would be like -

Adventures across time
and across space,
across living room carpets
and bedroom candle-lit dates -

Little did they know,
the lovers two,
that when they made love,
a life began a-new -

Under the midnight black sky,
two lovers hold each other tight,
staring up at the red speck,
from the earth to Mars,
they soon realize that,
the sky-

it's full of stars...

Cold Water Flat

It was near 2 am, his third rum-and-coke almost gone, the sounds of Muddy Waters, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Buddy Guy, and Etta James croonin', bluesin', and groovin' from his record player on the spare chair in the corner - the record covers and sleeves strewn about the floor a-mix-with empty wine bottles, crushed and ashed cigs, paper-wad piles, and the occasional crumb-infested dish and cup. It had been less than a week since his fiancee had left with his brother - and still he was propped against the cold-water-flat wall which his mattress lay against on the floor. Life was seeming to suck and spin-out, all the while keeping him around for new hells, and yet, with each new cig, each new idea crumpled into piles, each less-coke-and-more-rum concoction poured down his throat, he seemed to live for another night - until his new nightly ritual began again.

When he wasn't pissed-drunk on the floor, he worked day-shift for security at one of the last remaining Five-and-Dimes in flat Midwest Ohio. Hardly anyone came into the store, so he could sneak in the odd drink-and-smoke break during the day - his shift lasting from 9 am till 10 pm, sometimes he'd sneak out around 6 pm and grab a cold draft at the bar down the road, dodging work for the last four hours as draft after draft piled up, shot and shot, drink after drink until the bartender threw him into a cab, paying the cabbie out of pity yet again, where the cabbie threw him back against the wall on the mattress, where he would reach over and pop open a bottle of coke, pouring it and some rum he had lying around into a cup, his ritual beginning again.

However, tonight, as his cheap wrist-watch beeped at 2:30, he slumped down into bed, looking up at the roof above him, mold and water damage threatening the roof to cave in at any minute. His past week playing again for the fourth time that night - his fiancee giving him the news, his brother wanting his hand in blessing and congratulations, the rushed marriage, the rice being thrown and the hand-me-down coupe with cans tied with strings speeding away from the church as his mother cried and his father held her close. He remembered walking down the road some, past shops and churches - couples coming out of every wood work, seemingly to spite him, Fate thumbing his mockery into his face. He found the bus stop, and paid the fee, heading into the big city a few hours away, renting a cheap dive of a flat, and holing up - wallowing and drinking away into self-pitied hells.

He closed his eyes, the alcohol sloshing away the last of the pain, the night finally swallowing him up.

It was near 4 am, his record player playing silence from the chair in the corner, empty rum and wine bottles littered around, broken and given-up-on dreams crumpled into little paper mountains, smoked cigs cold on the floor, dishes piled up near the door - when the roof fell in, second floor becoming the new first. He never woke to feel it, never woke to hear his end approach around him, he never knew what was to come of him, never knew that on the floor above him; in their cozy little honeymoon flat, his brother and ex-fiancee were asleep in bed when their floor caved in dropping them down into a piss-hole of a room, where only the landing woke the newly-weds.

Life and Fate got him down, but only at the end did they get him, in the cold water flat...