From the bare bones of the piano

He coaxed a breath,

Then a heartbeat,

And at last the pulsing warmth.

Radiantly alive, the piano said the words

He never could.

Charming the audience with its beauty,

The piano gave itself to the listener,

Loved them with a wholeness unmatched by any human,

And the audience, in return,

Forgot their own skins,

Dreamt of notes as souls

Enveloped in ivory and ebony arms.

And at the end of the performance,

He walked away without a word,

Never once met the eyes of the audience,

But his love was returned in the click-clacking of palms,

In the glass eyes of each dreamer,

And in the words never said.

I love you the most when we’re together like this,

arms as pillows sewn together by our fingertips,

limbs curled and stretched symbiotically,

drawn out inhales and warm exhales,

sleeping in such a deep happiness

that I forget the effort it takes

to be this together in the day.

Drunk with the afternoon’s sun heat,

the blue moon glow illuminating the

crescents of you just so,

watching you so still, so close - the

nearness of former untouchable now here,

the sick thick wanting of you

                                          too soon.

I jump onto your hip, knees tucked in and arm around the back of your neck, as you curve into a C to give me momentum. Fluidly, without having to worry about whether or not you will follow through, I kick my right leg into the air with my left at an angle underneath as you straighten out the curve in your torso and keep me in the air. Folding diagonally across your front, your arm guiding me down smoothly until we pause, our faces close enough for me to feel the air shift as you inhale, our arms intertwined and legs inches from the ground, inside knees bent together just enough to looked crossed and our other legs stretched behind us, we finish the step and hold the pose. Easy, beautiful, unthinking. Dancing should be like this always, moves flowing with synchronicity, blending into unity without any coaxing or pleading from the dancers. The moment you let go and trust that your partner is right there with you, that’s the moment that resonates, that’s the moment when a dance becomes more than a few intricate steps put to music. The dance becomes a gift, a creation borne of intuition and feeling. So I will ask you with care, with respect and trust: can I have this dance?

Look at the night sky. Just look at it. So vast and clear and full and beautiful, exactly like you are right now. How could you feel ready to die when you don’t even know what it means to be alive?

He had eyes that were forever under a shallow pool of water; tranquil, pale blues with veins of yellow that lapped up the light, coaxed ripples out of the stillness, each wavering circle expanding until there I was, right in the middle of it all. Those eyes, those clear blues, I swear that sometimes they were able to trickle into the very center of my being, right into the rotten middle where all of my potential was wasting away. Perhaps that is why those eyes always looked so sad. Perhaps that is why those eyes, water personified, flowed right through me not once, but twice, flowed right through me, rinsed me clean and kept flowing right on by.

I’ve never been so lonely and happy as this, as I am in this moment.

I’m leaning against the shadow of reality,

Desperately praying to anyone and anything that will listen

Please let this be enough

Prop me up and push me out the door

Peel away my molting shell

I can’t see where I end and begin again

I can’t see anything at all,

I’m all feeling and no vision in a world that tells me to

Question my feelings, but trust what I see

The world is clear as can be,

I’ll learn one day, they say

But I’m looking through fractured glasses

And I’m dizzy with fear

Just tell me how to get out of here

And keep me safe, keep me safe, keep me safe

I want to create my own world

Where there is no difference

Between democracy, communism, and socialism

Because there is no government

All that exists is what is

And what isn’t

You either learn

Or you don’t

But if you learn

You learn for yourself

And your GPA is useless

No one’s taken the standardized test

Because no one cares who can fill in the bubbles first

Everyone knows that bubbles are meant to float on the water

That covers our skin in promises as we baptize ourselves clean

They aren’t meant to be pinned to the paper by heavy gray lead

That is pried from the earth

Under a city where the children don’t know what earth looks like

This isn’t learning, this is pretending

To prepare the youth for a brighter future

A future illuminated by fluorescent lights, of course

Don’t think for a second that light comes from the sun

No, sunlight isn’t efficient enough for a bright future

Sunlight doesn’t create jobs

In fact, don’t let the young ever, ever see the sun

Feed them images of recorded sunsets

Then keep them at their desk until it’s too late

For them to see the sight themselves

A happy worker is a productive worker

But let them get their happiness from their screens

After they spend the work day wondering just how hard

They would have to hit their head against the desk in front of them

In order to forget that this isn’t the dream they’ve been waiting for

And then give them the illusion of a break after the week is over

Thank god it’s Friday

Before you wrangle them back in on Monday

Don’t let them see the sun

This is the way to a brighter future, after all

There is no sun here

But I refuse to forget its warmth

droopy eyed notions of love will never do, not when they balk at the light of day.