Waves

We're broken, perhaps lying on the shore,
or maybe we're still somewhere floating
amidst the flotsam and jetsam and driftwood
left over from the ship we sank together.
Either way, the tide has pulled us apart
and yet, for some strange reason, we appear
to keep attempting to catch one another
as each waves crests. But while we're both
floundering somewhere between home
and heartache, miles have sprouted and
the waters have darkened, and the storms
on the horizon suggest that the fight
is not yet over, and while we will never
find each other, I hope you find a way to solid
land again.

white space

If I could divest myself of all the words that grew and bloomed
inside my chest, they'd run together like so many colored lights,
blending into something whiter than the whiteness of these pages.
Unreadable, they'd stand as testament to what is everything
and nothing, what is blank, and full of life.
And I could send these blank pages, pages full of words
and thoughts and deeds, but you or someone who looks like you
would only throw them away, recycle them, because
you couldn't see that I was leaving space for
all the words we'd still not had the chance to write.

She held you, tightly, while you balked, riled up,
firing back with hateful words
and hands that wanted to take her life.
And while you hated her, she couldn't,
wouldn't leave you, knowing all the moments
that hid in the corners of your eyes
and in your mind. While I couldn't do that, after too many
doors had been shut and you saw to it that I couldn't find my way,
you've still been hijacked by your own fears, and
all I can do is stand in the corners of shadows in my room and
offer up the energy that sloughed off my body as quickly as the tears
fell from my chin - hoping that you could hear the notes I whistled
to no one, in particular, but you.

music

I've realized that the hurting hasn't healed
because my words could not become
the music that my arms want to compose.
The letters all are there, in their right place,
but you'd have to hear them singing, to know
how much and how big the feelings are
that hide behind each one of them.
I was never good at writing songs,
but I think that's why I can't stop singing.
I've said them over and over,
but the strings aren't loud enough
to cross these distances forged by our
ignorance of how we should proceed.
Take these notes, and commit them to memory.
Learn them by heart, and maybe one day
you'll know the tune better than I ever could.
You were always the melody,
and I was the words.

E-mail Notifications

I wrote a poem
addressed to you
and every time
I post a poem
I receive
an email, but
this time, the
email came and
said "Message
Undeliverable."
And for a while
I thought about
how right it was,
that what I write
may never truly
reach your heart
even if you let
it grace your eyes.
In months or years
I hope that I
can send that
message once
again, and you'll
have learned
and know what I
had tried to tell
you all along.

No One

"We can't continue, you and I,"
he said to No One, standing there.
But No One had already fled,
the only sound, his exhaled air.
He cried for No One to return
and one night, sleeping on his bed,
He woke, and wept, for while he slept,
No One had come, and gone again.

The Saddest Question in the English Language:

then why?