to sleepy heaven:

shiny little bones, tense

banana leaves.

clings; wind

patterned; thin.

your six tooth smile

your crocodile skin

yes, literally.

You lie on a bed of it,

your grin fastened to your neck with cheap gauze

and whatever else was on sale;

close, comfortable.

You lie for your little brothers,

for your extremities and

for nothing at all.

You lie because you know I will catch you.

Because you know I already have;

from before your neurons curled

infant fists around the mere whisper of a notion.

You lie,

You confront yourself in the black of a loading laptop

in a third world internet cafe; the heat like a hug.

You lie.

You confess your sins to the screen.

You claim to forgive yourself; in verse like a hug.

You lie about that too.

When one has yet to be found,

the wind is a chilly hug--each breath a

solemn reminder of the toiling moment.

But when one is finally found

there is no breath

to breathe of.

And on the page was nothing.

The cold night a secret escape.

Cracked ring on the ballroom floor.

Jumble Jumble, I repeat on the bleak bank of the only River, its Fine grey Lines washing its grey Brick sides, turning over and over with the passing time. I Whisper those words again to no Reply, alone but for my Rhyme without a reason, slowly observing the passing seasons from the cloudy sky, a top Grade Pilot in my own eyes. Solitary and Silent I do confide, in my notebook I Multiply and Divide, my letters into words and back again, up and down from side to side. Time swings its Iron as it begins to Write my life in its entirety, my past and present and future, Given and taken Inch by inch, always expanding and always shrinking, perpetually Bigger and perpetually smaller, stealing my fleeting Height and age, years unfurling page by page. Finally, one day, They will come and sit beside me in the tall grey grass, and in the embrace of my mother and everyone else I will feel the charcoal Safety of the slowly fading sky.

Steam drifted up off of her cup of coffee. Crowds passed her by, diverging into their separate paths and turns towards their respective intended destinations. Her knuckles were white, her face paler--he was late. He was never late. At an adjacent table, a man with a well-waxed mustache and circular sunglasses lit a Marlboro red, and croaked a couple words to his partner. Her coffee was refilled. The square's traffic had started to thin out; black crows and the directionless began to make up a larger and larger proportion of its occupancy. She remained seated, shaking and staring dead ahead.

My first love had the middle name Grace;

she danced and sang, naive to the grey nature of the world I had already

come to find.

I broke her heart, and I have never forgiven myself--for her soul was never worthy of such a thing.

My second love had the middle name Grace;

she brooded and rebelled; we did it together. We fought the ugly world which we both thought we knew--but ended up waging war on only each other.

She tried to break my heart, but I was already under the protection of a numb sheet of ice.

My third love has the middle name Grace;

We met and have come to live together by such high chance and coincidence--yet the greatest of all might be this amazing pattern. When she revealed her middle name to me, my jaw made good friends with the floor; and while I have been called to Europe for the remainder of the year and she remains in California, my romantic heart remains ripe with fairy tale wonder. Her eyes shine blue and green like the sea of the central coast--and her optimism and maturity infect me, forging me into a better person. Life remains a mystery, and I don't pretend to understand it: I just follow its directions.

I walk, tepidly

rolling up a ball

of string;

my soles and toes

meeting upon it

in military precision;

its vector showing me

where to go.

My mother and father gave

it to me,

and it is the only thing

in this life

that is mine alone.