I only managed a single bite, before I passed it on. We passed so many things on then– wine and weed and one another. I think we thought it noble. No one knew the name of that exquisite cheese. Wealthy parents had sent it from France and the package was as forgotten as yesterday’s friendships. But that single taste stayed with me, it seems, although in those days, we had no trouble parting with anything. I felt it was my taste of the highlife. A sliver of the very best. Have you lived the highlife? Every whim attended with silence and precision. We thought in our innocence that we would ch

Imagine a world where people felt safe
You can only imagine living that way
Imagine a time when people were equal
Sometimes we act like that’s illegal
Imagine a society of acceptance and love
This is a place of push and shove
Imagine a teen that wasn’t obscene
We should treat girls more like queens
Imagine a boy that didn’t feel judged
He’s actually sad, not just holding a grudge
We can only imagine these sweet, innocent dreams
No matter how hard we try, it’s just not in our genes

summer morning days little league glory upon days to remember

Memories burn and melt,
Flowers wilt and fall and break,
such is the cruel touch of fate.

Hands turn to ashes and bellow in the wind,
voices cry out and never are heard from again.
such is the cold crack of reality.

Daydreams end at your mind and can be erased,
companions betray trust and crack under the hand of time,
such is the jarring ways of life.

Feet dangle from ledges and scar from impact,
Mothers cry and sisters crumble to the ground finally,
such is the sweet release of death.

Fallen prophecies, too feeble for the dead.
Prompting the cycle and wishing to be fed.
No cracking eyes or tainted skin.
Nor cold-hearted colors; nor evils within.

Breathing night and cursing day,
Neither more fair choice, nor other a way.
Bled from sunset, forged from fire,
Flowing like water, bellowing to the choir.

Taming the weak and weakening the tame.
Such is an animal, ignorant to shame.
Velvet red and soft like grain,
Blood lust of a human, blood stained a lion's mane.

It breaks the sky and its flueorescent abode,
It burrows and envelopes beneath the surface of feeling,
The tree roots coiling like a distant road,
and all those who praise it with their appealing.

The mastermind, tangling ropes into veins,
the puppeteer, cutting deep into dreams, 
the piercing stares of wailing pain,
It fills the silences by all and all means.

It lies so still beneath that wood,
you witness every a day,
when the mind skips gears and kills all that is good,
and your hope begins to sway.

In the background of a campfire the sky began to dance

Catching the eyes of those gazing into the abyss above the bright orange flame

Magnetic fields cut through the blackness

In the dead of night

A part of your spirit you didn’t know you had jumps to life

Green waves slicing shapes in the heavens

Opening up the universe

And its endless possibilities

It is the dawn of your new beginning

Changing the way you view the world

And your place within it

I am sorry.
I have done
many bad deeds.

I know
You may not forgive me,
But that’s okay.
We are all human.

I don’t need to be forgiven,
I just need to know
that what we had is still there.

We crowd into line
outside the funeral home,
to pay our respects
to Luke’s mother,
eyelids shut
like the casket lid,
to his father, antsy
indoors, and Luke,
locked inside the casket,
hiding the way he played tag
in his parents’ backyard
at dusk, the adults’
cigarette tips glowing
safety from the porch,
while we snuck
tree trunk to tree trunk,
not knowing where “tag”
might come from, staying
clear of the dark woods,
never imagining death
in an open field
on a sunny July day,
Luke, stacking bales
on the wagon lurching