Maybe some nights
Breathing sterile, filtered air,
I crave the bugs a’biting,
A screen door scrapping somewhere
Crisp harmonica cutting through the dark
Like a mouth-foamed, four-legged stray
Who bites tame, but you should hear the bark
Warding off the turn of day
So we can sit together, one by one by one
Burning whatever’s left of our regrets
On a smoky fire of bon
Or at the end of cigarettes
Dancing wild around the open flame,
To feel the heat of air and blood-
To call it out, to use its name
This craving of grass, and heat, and mud.

I’m so confused.
What is You
And what is just the best
We could do?

I want to show faith.
I’ve lost my place,
But I know I can grow
If I see Your face.

All built upon itself;
A fool’s hoarded wealth
No strand unraveled or untraveled
Until our broken health.

Create New.
Only You can undo
The twisted shards of words and thoughts
Shared between we two.

And I Know
There must always be
Some other way across
But you pushed past me
And your indulgences have cost
Us all the years between
What we found and what we lost.

And I Know
To take from you will take from me,
But my inaction yet succumbs
To the weight of all I see,
To the route you can’t outrun.
I seal the barrier between
What we have been and will become.

And I Know
We are pulled by one gravity.
As yours, my hands are stained.
We are both the guilty party;
Without repentance, we remain.
Therefore, I pray this space between
Breaks us both the same

So we can taste free, and be
Changed.

I return to You time and again
Because I wander;
Because of the hope
And the joy I have squandered.

How can this vulnerability,
This seeping, desperate trust
Clutched while falling,
Be any form of tough?

How can I reintroduce hope
Into this myopic entity
Living in the failures
Of a brief eternity?

How can I hope to be resilient
When I barely stand
As a crumbled ruin
In a forgetful land?

How, under expectation of sorrow,
Can tenderness share
The hope of joy, faith in tomorrow,
Grace that can bear

The weight of every yesterday?

I must change my vision,
And my line of sight.
Tender enough to listen;
Tough enough to fight,

To never recoil
From the pain of what’s right.

Each night he takes him in his hands
The lump of cold, dead stone

And he winds him up, and winds him up,
So we are never alone.

And I hear him ticking, ticking, ticking
Across the empty space between us,

Like a tyrant laughing, laughing, laughing
Forever undefeated

Reminding me each second
of the victories he’s wrought

When we thought all battles ended,
And no wars again be fought

This timeless wonder in his palm
Splits seconds, so divisive.

He laughs, he ticks, he gloats
Unceasingly derisive

And I am wild to visit harm
Upon that little metal piece

To end his reign, to end his lie,
To give us some release.

Wild to pierce his skin, and smash his face,
To rip out all his sense-

Oh, the damage I could wreak
Would all be self-defense!