Untitled (Sea of Clouds)

The sea of clouds above me
Halts at a wall of radiance
Like a glimpse
Of a painted chapel heaven
And in the blink between
Each pass of the windshield wipers
I can see rain drawn across it
Dark grey lines
Elongated static
Embroidery thread
A veil
To shield me from the divine

Blue

There's a boba place in the mall
Where we used to buy ice cream
And a seafood restaurant
Where there once was
A Sweet Tomatoes. 

But the mailboxes await me
Like a line of ghosts 
Standing at sentry
To the low stone walls
And chipped sidewalks
That pull my thoughts 
As if I can feel in them
An endless cascading vibration
Set in motion against time
Mated to a memory
Of an echo of myself.

I didn't plan to come here.

Though

I'd also never meant to leave.

Now there's new cars in the driveways

And colored garden lights

Yet the neighbor's saguaro
Still stretches its fingers 
Into the endless blue. 

And they still use the number tiles 
With the flower print
And the front door 
My father made 
Two years before he died. 

They've painted it. 

Blue.

(2024)

Line

I wanted her and I to work
But we somehow got our wires crossed
The sparks were there but nothing moved forward
Stuck together alone in a revolving door
A radio dial fluttering near synching
We were never on the same wavelength
Passing each other like ships in the night
Playing some elaborate game of telephone
With mixed drinks and messages
But the words she was saying over our cups
Only began to make sense
The further she pulled away from me
Stretching the cords that bound us thin
Until we'd drawn a line straight between us

(2021)

Red Light

I'm at a red light
The stereo so loud I can barely think
It must be the drums 
Pressing against my chest
It must be your voice stuck in my throat
My words feel drug across sand
Where are you?
And where are you? 
My world is moving past me with growing speed 
     and I feel the rolling bass against my thigh as it 
           presses to the door and I
Where are you?
Every moment we move farther away
I existed before you
I'm sure I'll be

Right here

Burn Away

The sky resembles that trend in movie posters
From maybe five years ago
A hung dome divided between vivid blue and orange
I can see it in the rearview
I wonder if it's because of the brushfires
On the underside of the world
The sky there is crimson at all times of day
Like it was hung with darkroom bulbs instead of a sun
I've seen it in photos
I could stop somewhere and look behind me
Instead of catching glimpses across a spread of glass
But I have places to be
There's always something
I still don't like the taste it leaves behind my back
I wonder how often people do that
Let something fade away
Caught moving forward until a moment falls behind them
When I've parked my car the sun is gone
And I smell the scent
Of something burning

Untitled (Jaded)

There are moments when he is soft and sweet
When he weaves me throughout his heart like fragile glasswork
When he harbors unacknowledged hope for a future he places no belief in
But just as often he is bitter
A syrup derived from the inherent flaws in existence condensed to a pinprick of gravity
Stretched thin and indescribably heavy
I would like to say he grows his sweetness within my soil
A patch of wild to soak up the glow that his own bed has no place for
But what we'd like and what we get are often unmet paths under fumbling steps
But still I summon my colors into the sun
And he
Well he endeavors to not bury me under his shadows
His piercing barbs and entangling constructs don't encroach into my cherished places
And with my own hands I cover my pits in thread of rainbow prisms
A delicate patchwork of glimmering spiderwebs that grow sharp with sinking frost
Paper screen mazes and topiary labyrinths
And from my honed edges I regard his writhings and I know that in truth
I don't hate his jaded cynicism or his churning sorrow
I just can't help wishing
They were a bit more beautiful

Untitled (Letters)

He sends me love letters he whispers to the edge of the balcony
Late at night when the clouds swallow the stars and the mist of rain paints his skin
With the drops of light denied to the black holes facing up
The drops of light he cannot see which make him sparkle like frost in winter
He dreams in winter where everything is white and blank and cold
A cold to quench the unknown thing that sets his insides burning
To halt the machinery behind his eyes until everything is perfect still
In my memories of snow there is only us and a world like a bubble
And everything was alive like dancing and rain and my breath rising into light
And while I ache with the knowing and as he aches for the unknowing
I still can content myself that at the very least
We're both
In our own way
Dreaming of the same thing