A Red One

You ran in with a fist full of flags

and told me one was mine.

"A Red One!" you yelled

and ran screaming from the field.

And I took you at your word

because I'm true to mine

but now I sit here 

flag-less

wondering what you meant.

You see, I see 

my own humanity

and human-ness

and yes,

a distinct lack of perfection, 

but

flags?  

I'm not holding any

so I'm confused

and wondering what you saw 

in these, my empty hands.

And from what I've heard from those around me

who look daily at my hands

empty of all 

but

ready to hold,

I think it was you

waving your own flags so hard and fast

and with a fury you seem to think means "truth"

that you didn't see

what was real

and true

and right in front of you.

See My Eyes I Can Hardly See

If I were to fill the page 

with photos for you to look at

I don't even know which ones I'd choose.

How to define this life

in chosen moments,

small echoes of the days I kept paper copies of beaches

always beaches 

and sand, 

lakes, dry and fluid

I am a coastal child

defined less by that than by the lack of images to mark these days.

I have spent so much time

listening to what I thought was right 

that I no longer have any words of my own.

On the outside

big words make people cringe when they know you

big words make people put up their walls

run away,

hide from things because they forget how short this all can be

in its length, in its duration,

they forget how quickly it can change,

days into hours into minutes

gone.

People die

people crash

people hurt

people leave

who else knows 

how hard it is to have all this love

and nowhere safe to put it

you know I love you

and I'm not allowed to say it

not supposed to feel it

we overcomplicate things

we do

love is love

and if we could all just live in that

even for moments a day

nothing else would matter so much

nothing else would twist us up so much.

About That Thing

Sometimes when I'm with you I close my eyes

because you get too close to things -

or they seem to move towards us

boxing us in

and I don't want to panic

so I look away 

or close my eyes

I revel in the dark

and the ease of not seeing 

things get far too close

I worry too much

about things I can't control

and you

worry too little

about things that might not be

I'm not sitting where you're sitting

so everything looks different

closer

less spacious

and from your seat

the world is bigger

easier

and

I trust not

what I can't quite see

from my perspective

so

in these situations 

where you maneuver towards

big brick walls 

and

around 

giant blocks of steel

I close my eyes

because it's all too close

and getting closer

and in the dark behind my eyelids

the tilt shift perspective

is entirely gone

so sometimes when I'm with you

I close my eyes

A Sword

You tell me
I'm 

double blind, 

placebo controlled

while I'm making volcanos in my kitchen sink 

because you're not here to talk to

everything used to be simpler

in the times when we weren't there

and I fall in love at the drop of a hat

and let me tell you...

people are dropping hats

all over the place

eyes aren't windows

they're portals you can pass through

and souls shine out through opened eyes

and if you look carefully

you'll find that eyes 

are see

through

I dive into things

into

people

into

feelings

into

lives

into

eternities

I dive into them 

and sometimes you 

have to remind 

me

to dive back out

metaphors are always mixing in my world

and words have more than one side - 

so "double edged" doesn't even begin to cover it

there are 

more stories 

than players

when words mean both nothing

and everything

there's a certain ease to the flow

but getting there isn't easy

double blind, 

placebo controlled

as we are

The Dark Is Afraid of Truth

I leave your house in the dead of night,

scrape the frozen snow off my windscreen
as the racoons call to each other

listen, listen, listen.

I drive home,
the streets empty but for the taxis
and me.
A sad song plays on my car speakers
and I am mission-failed
and sleep deprived.

I wish I could stay calm long enough to not have to yell all the time
I wish you'd listen to the in-between of my words.

I can only push so hard
and the more you say you've 'got my back'
the harder I have to push
to make you go away. 

I'm getting pretty tired.
These dark nights of the soul are getting to me
and it hurts to think you've heard the screaming in my head.

I crave rest.
Like air,
like oxygen.

I have tried so hard.
So hard
always.

Always,
and always through the possibility of (at least) two truths,
two realities ,
and I shift between them;
struggling with the fact I can't be both wrong and right
yet I always seem to be.

How do you expect me to put one foot in front of the other when I've dragged myself this far, pushing you out towards some clarity
when I have none of my own?

I'm so tired
and I have nothing left;

tank empty,

running on fumes,

maybe not even that much.