Drops.

I had a microscope,
A view into other tiny worlds.
I looked at leaves and dirt and drops of water and honey and soap
To find they were not the whole things I had thought, but made of many interlacing parts.
And I wondered what other invisible facets the world held for me to discover.
You poked your finger, one day
So that I could examine a drop of your blood.
I realized that day the weight of the sacrifices you had made for me
And would always make for me.
I remember looking,
Over and over again
Long after it had dried on the slide
At that dark crust of your life.
Looking to see its magic again.
You had given me many gifts,
But no present before had been so very yours.
I wonder if you know how much magic I still find in blood,
However macabre that may sound-
I deal in blood and sweat and pain these days.
I deal in the magic that I saw on the glass that day.
The soul-water spilled on the floor and splashed on the curtains.
Every drop, your drop.

Drown.

Lean in.
Don't turn away.
Keep hope.
Open.
Forgive.
It's the only thing you can do, when the ground's a little unsteady.
Find my shuffling gait, will my feet to march on forward next to yours.
Drifting on Love's wild tides,
They crash and break heavy 'round me these days.
Ship's taken on a little water,
But we keep bailing and keep our heads above the deck.
Keep our kegs dry, and our caskets empty.
Horizons, they may dawn and fade
But I'll always have your light to guide me home.

Beach-glass tumbling waves ever my blue water constant.
Red sky at night, sailor's delight.
I found a bottle in the sand worn by time and travel,
And smiled to see it still held
The same bright promise.

Jacob.

Oh God, her name.

My kingdom and all its glory for her name.

I swore I would never forget, after reading it so many times.

I would never forget...

And here I am, like a goldfish in its crystal bowl.

Wishing I could remember as if it would mean something.

As if somehow her impact on me would translate into 

His impact on the world.

As if I could play proxy for her hopes and dreams and that if I could

Keep that candle bright, 

That flame a-stoked, 

That it would make it real for her.

I want to reach out, 

To remind her it was real for me, too.

That I would keep a cold guard at the door of his tomb,

Witness to his miracle and tragedy.

And somehow burn bright that hope in the sky above 

To save us both.

If only I could remember...

A gift.

This is a gift,
And it comes with a price,
She said.
Who is the darkness,
And who is the light.
Breathe carefully,
You're holding my last cache captive.
My simple faith and real release
Both dance just at my fingertips.
I see it everywhere, you know.
A sack-clothed figure stooped over a bus bench,
A gold and crimson flash.
He crooks a narrow finger at me
And I keep shaking and smiling my head away.
I breathe carefully.
Keep watch closely.
February's crows beat their black wings at my doorstep
But I keep my hands clean.

Too.

Your eyes,
They could be mine.
They could be anyone's, really.
But they're yours.
The minutes and hours, they tick by -
One day closer,
One week closer
To what?
To February?
To next month or next year or
What?
For it all to end, and start all over again?
Brushing off into cartoon land,
Following a racetrack round and round...

Sometimes I don't recognize my own face in a mirror.
But I see it everywhere in a crowd.
Sometimes I see your face in my dreams,
In the water,
In clouds and grass and the part of a car that curves over the tire.
Every car.
Every word.
Your word-face crying over me,
Spilling letters and numbers from your eyes.
It's all just the words, anyway
The words and the while
The ghost and the gaslamp rooftop.
The words all fit together like puzzle-pieces and they keep me
Together.

I need to sing, you know.
I need to breathe and pray and throw myself like paint,
Beating my wings against my own glass windows
Maybe I unravel, a little sometimes.
Sometimes more, sometimes less.
But always at least a little.
Won't you walk in the park with me?
Won't you go with me,
Too?

Perfect.

It's everything, really.
It's all the things that were,
And all that could have been.
Everything I was
and all the things I'll never be.
It's a world of possibility that's closing in on me
And my struggle to cross gracefully
A raging red giant
Flinging the vestiges of my violent youth out
Into space,
Into nothingness.

It's memories only half remembered
Moments I'll never have again.
The things we expected that
Never came to be.
Or things we never dreamed,
Somehow now held close.
It's the distance.
Or, the suffocating closeness.
It's the terrible idea that maybe,
Just maybe I can accept and transform
All of the guilt and loneliness and regret into the feeling that
For once,
And all,
I am enough.
I do enough.
I see and hear and give and love enough.
That there is no better to be had here,
And that the things I have right here,
Right in front of me,
That even I myself -
Am perfect.
Enough.
Whole.
All.
Both.

Enough.

High Tide.

I watched the sand get swept away
This morning
With Winter breathing heavy down my neck.
She heaves her chest in great sighs of frustration
Blows at the beaches
Chasing Summer's last errant children off.

If I listened, just a little
If I paid more than passing attention
I might hear her whispering anger and
She might sweep me off my feet, too.
I turn my back, keep walking East before
Winter brings the waves that crash,
And call me home.