Michigan morning after the storm, ah but we’ve been here before, haven’t we? 

Or maybe the storm isn’t over

Maybe life is the storm, and we the raindrops scattering in the wind, helpless and aimless and bound for nowhere 

I saw a little slug on the sidewalk this storm-passed mourning

Making his way towards the grass, he told me that everything was okay

And so I stopped, anxious to listen to this new philosophy

He told me, carefully, that I was forgiven 

That slug murders happen all the time, and I should understand being misunderstood

He explained that fear wasn’t her fault, only a mere symptom of living, and that letting go didn’t mean giving up 

Often it meant moving on, as he had to do every second, with every movement, let go to move on

My slug went on to prophesize, though

He told me one day I too will make it to the other side, just as he will

Quietly with a tone that only confidence knows, he preached to me that  all life is hard, but every one is worth the journey

I am sure he saw the doubt flash across my eyes that I tried to keep a brief one

Then he recoiled, when I tried to help him, and explained that some things we just have to do alone 

He reminded me of the messages his ancestors had written out for us so long ago, the ones we could not read and I knew this meant that my ancestors had a message for me too,  I just couldn’t read it yet 

Before I could agree, the slug went on, attempting to convince me that this didn’t mean I should stop trying to learn the language

All will be revealed, he nearly proclaimed, and the universe is spinning, no doubt, exactly as it should be

As it was long before I met him on my sidewalk this morning, and long after I am an ancestor too

And so it was written, on a porch full of love amid a Baltimore summer day, lifetimes ago and last night in my dreams

I didn’t know how to thank him, so he thanked me, for listening, for allowing him to pass through 

And I can’t be sure, but I think that he was happy he had mistook the way, that Michigan mourning, that always comes after the storm

No one even asked me 

No one asked how I felt, but as usual I show up to tell you whether you want to hear it or not

The rain outside is unremarkable and I am struck with accuracy

Accuracy in how I feel, which is rare, so I figured I had better write that down 

Fleeting things

These are my specialty

   after all

You didn’t ask

But I will tell you nonetheless

I am the classic underachiever in one of those bad indie movies

The type that you start and not quite instantly, but soon enough, hate

Overly dark and irritatingly emotional before there’s even reason to be

You keep watching, though

Because by then it’s halfway through the movie already

   and you know you

You are devoted at this point 

A bitter-end kind of movie watcher, which I do admire

And so you watch said star of movie struggle,

   the whole damn time

Mishap after mishap 

And some are funny for a second and some are sad for a second and you eventually come to realize that this movie isn’t even going to end well

And it doesn’t

No happy ending and no shocker ending either

Just the same banal tone that was supposed to be artsy in someone’s mind 

   but translated badly to boring

And then the end 

The end is just another example of the star’s ordinary bad luck

As it shows her, invariably, cleaning out the apartment of a friend that has died

It’s New York, after all, or some equally dreary city that inspires some and repels others and was likely shot nowhere near there but in Missouri somewhere

For no reason

It is an old neighbor friend though, this New York, MO apartment dweller

So it isn’t even beautifully sad, just more of ordinary

   and then it ends

Just like that

No resolution

No hope of better days

Just an old dusty apartment to clean up and as the credits close, some overrated and under obscure for the movie band starts playing and you get up and don’t think about that movie again until you look in the mirror the next morning

And then

Then you know why you didn’t ask

I am trying to remember you before 

So that I don’t hate you In my memories 

Not a glimpse of the love I was once so 

In love with 

Not a glimmer of recognition in eyes that could tell me a million stories before they blinked 

Not a glimpse of the once in a lifetime beauty that had surpassed its once 

I’m trying to erase the reasons I thought I had 

So that my soul does not look for yours 

Eternally seeking the afterlife 

As we, down here, exist only in the lifeafter 

Don’t you dare promise me forever

When you know there is no such thing

As time

And forever is another

empty black hole 

And a promise, an empty one

Can never be fulfilled 

Or proven 

Or disproven

Until it’s too late

But what is too late when you take away time

When time is disqualified 

And no longer a human emotion

What can measure the absence of forever

Quite so dismally as time

And on which side of imaginary do you want to be, really

Running out of time?

Or time stretching before you like a limitless race

With no finish line

No winners

And no exits

A racetrack bunny trapped in space 

For all of forever

And you can’t fake it well enough to promise me that

She left me so much

more than she had found me, but

she still fucking left 

Under a Gemini sky, she appeared to me 

Mystery and mirror colliding,

 Echoing out my fears and pain and beauty and Magik 

Sent out to the world and returned to me

An Inferno, 

the super massive black hole kind of catch you off guard falling

In letters screeching love and love screaming stop and halting as you brace for it

It is 

Inevitable injustice,

The opposite of nothing

Super massive black hole happiness

Intentions and obsessions, complete now

Drive through sunrises a given, 

how did I not notice why that happened, and when did I stop seeing?

Things as they were

   did you just  stop noticing too? Understanding? Caring? 

She is peace. Peace and open, with 

calm ocean homecomings

Home and the hereafter

are carried in her laugh that replays often in her absence

almost on command

A soul, calling another home

Through song 

  and likely brain waves, and world waves, and cosmic versions of waves that humans don’t deserve. 

Through super massive black hole memories

to be made and martyred

The proverbial one day suddenly appearing before you

A sunrise generated prayer, thank god

She is love, echoed and ethereal, 

traversing all the space aisle holes of nothingness and everything,

Colliding into static motion. 

this one second…

that I will hold forever.

Driving home

through a heavy mist of memories

new roads and old thoughts, always

neverending words to haunt me.

I listen for distractions

and invite anyone’s,

anyone else’s mantra to replace my own

As I envision new beginnings

and wonder where that strength comes from, and why

and where

and how

do I pursue one last time for the millionth

time?

An appeal to the universe yields no answers

but for running out of gas, under a rainbow

Beautiful distractions.

Maybe they are the answers, as good as any

through winding tunnels of green and grief and trepidation

the roads that stretch before me

seem longer than those already driven ,

apparently not destroyed…

that was me.

Under a broken down rainbow the ghost words continue

constant companions

a love-hate relationship if you will

one. more. chance.

one more choice!

one more leap – the kind without faith behind it

without crutch

or carry

or maybe even care

without, I hope, this tarnished cross that has mocked me

through countless trials

and even more executions, and yet

time passes

or fools us into passing

or exists, and fools us into existance

despite all the warnings

of No Exits

that rise

as ghostly incense, an apology for nothing

Follow the shadow of the rainbow

and I am not surprised

that this does not lead me home.

Nor does this stranger

digging through his truck for change

and that smile I fake

so many decades in the making

Deciding as I drive away

that beauty

is the greatest deceipt

in this vast and treacherous ocean

of false gods and mirages.

Words.

I need words.

I need words to let this pain out somehow, words with the power to transform themselves AND the fate of the universe

Words to quell this heaviness, a weight more than I can bear, we cannot bear this cross alone

but we keep trying to don’t we?

We carry it together and we always have, who leads and who follows fades the longer we march.

We carry it together and we always will.

Your future depends on my future depends on yours and our children’s

depends not only on “us,” but on each other.

At what point is it no longer an acceptable loss? At what point is it personal? At what point do the ends quite possibly justify the means?

Words. Words I have always hated read like the only solution,

if there is a solution. I refuse to believe it is the end, but it is.

It is the end of complacency and apathy and turn the other way, the end of see nothing and say nothing, and turn the other cheek becomes invisible to us and deaf to our ears…

Living barely better than dead.

And that job, that job you’re just a few degrees over-qualified for, but how can you say no when you forgot to straighten your hair this morning, what did you expect?

Thank you, SIR. Words as unnatural as they are untrue and you promise yourself that this is the last time you ever break a promise to yourself.

And so you show up. Late, but you’re there and they see you and the MEANING OF IT ALL waxes and wanes and is always out of reach, but within imagination,

within this new realm

of mild improbability.

Words. I need words. I need words to fix this and words to wash it away and words to manipulate only the RIGHT PEOPLE.

Words to mourn with, to sympathize with, to stand in solidarity with, to defend with PEACE

and then logic.

Words to cast a spell

or two, or three, or enough to span the next 400 years.

A spell to stop from only trying this time, a spell of safety for your sons on the wrong side of the masses’ consent.

Words to both confirm and contest what we call reality, morality, contempt, revenge, avengement, enslavement, IN THE NAME OF

and on repeat.

Words to resurrect words.

Words written a half a century ago that could have been spoken yesterday,

but for PROGRESS.

Words to sing our anthem of pain, the pain of we won SO MANY WARS

and lost all the battles.

The battle for life lost, the battle for hope lost, and the battle for happiness,

we lost some of that along the way too.

Give me words to tell our children. Words to walk us home, to lead us home, to teach us that this is our home TOGETHER.

We need words to guide us and words to guilt us, and words that will never allow us to stop

on our quest for freedom.

I didn’t know I was going to stay 

That a few short days or weeks or maybe minutes later I’d be counting down

Time 

And wading through the space 

Until I could see her again. 

Hope came into focus through her voice and in it I could see into forever 

Mornings bathed in cool comfort 

While a blanket of inertia begs you not to move 

And a million voices from a billion hurts whisper through this haze of heat and hope and paralyzing fear 

No one stays forever 

And as the music brings you back to days long forgotten, love and anticipation, goodbyes and laughter through tears

pain 

you thought you just might not survive 

Lying here next to her, you wonder how you did 

And why 

And how did this new life come to meet you 

Where you left off

Where you cut off 

The pain 

when and where and however you could 

Watching to see what she understands, how far you can go, how deep into yourself ?

You want to admit that you remember 

Confessions of 

Redemption from 

Could this really be not too late? 

I breathe in a strength that comes from 

Most likely a good imagination 

Dreams and promises take my place 

Take up space 

Dislodging sadness and guilt and death bed confessions 

20 years in the making

I wait for tomorrow and as I do 

I notice the sky 

The sky today

And the sound of her voice and the comfort we have captured 

And happiness is fleeting 

But I will remember these moments shrouded in love 

And I will remember them every day, as time stretches farther before us than I ever could have bet on 

Or I will remember them tomorrow 

And mourn the rest