I love this aching emptiness,
 I need this wild ruin;
 A stage to highlight vanity
 And make my big debut in

 To get away from all the hype,
 The rancor, and invective --
 And realize how small I am:
 An exigent

 Perspective

 Some people see a scene like this, and say,
 "I could not live with all this solitude;
  This dreary sameness, each and every day.
  No variation -- snow and quietude."

 While others, see a city street, and muse,
 "Who wants the noise, pollution, and the stress?
  Give me some space and quiet to diffuse
  The chaos, so that I can decompress --"

 I'm not an urbanite, so I'm with those
 Who easily could be at home out here:
 I don't like crowds at all, and I suppose
 That what might give me hope, gives others fear --

  But people differ, what seems bleak to one
  Night seem to someone else a lot of fun

 the ancient
 lives in the footsteps
 echoing

 across the wild lands
 bare and bleak
 that we call our hearts

 we wrestle long with those before
 who do not seem to comprehend
 the way the world has changed, amid
 the broken ways that they defend

 we walk to work to change the world
 then turn to look, alone and sore,
 astonished that we're where we are,
 and that we now are

"those before"

 how many feet have trod these paths
 how many laughs across this yard
 it all is new when we are new
 and when no hopes from us are barred

 by years, or by experience,
 the voices telling us that we
 are just like all of those before:
 imperfect, flawed,

 humanity

 She's thinking about all those times
  that she deferred, or didn't say
  the words upon her mind, or heart;
  too many times, it's gone that way --

 And often, other's feelings are
  the cause of her reluctance,
  which others don't return, there is
  no mutual inductance --

 But thoughtfulness is weird, it's like
  a habit she can't really break,
  and when she tries to just let go,
  the questions come, the doubt, the ache --

 She's thinking about all the years
  invested in such latency,
  and she won't give up sharing "nice",
  but she might change who all is a

  share-ee 

 You think about her all the time,
 And every night she floods your dreams;
 Your mind, it wanders where it will
 And does not balk at the extremes
 Imagination can create.
 The images, a flow-through --
 Yes, she's created thoughtfulness
 Although she doesn't

 Know you

 the day comes to me gray, and speaks
 of distant shores and tidal wreck;
 we are no more than spray that lands
 upon the rocks, the shore, a deck --

 a bit of motion brief, a wash
 that slow recedes back into time;
 a vapor of belief, that's gone,
 or ossifies to frost

 and rime

 she comes to me gray and aging
 like she wasn't when i knew her

 beneath the clouds of autumn
 in the silence of my yard

 i spread my arms to greet her
 but she walks on towards the shadow

 for there is nothing more to say
 we didn't say before

 the fading years they are our base
 we build on them or nothing

 and layers underneath aren't such
 we get to lay again

 she passes me gray and sorrowful
 like i've become in wishing

 that angel cloud shapes floating by
 could alter what

 has been

 I run outside
 To greet the dawn
 But it is noon
 And so I yawn

 And stretch my two arms
 Out to hold
 My day, now only
 Seconds old

 Then think
 "I should go back to bed,”
 For waking's full
 Of fear and dread,

 And so then with
 A muttered oath
 I go,
 A neither kind of both.
 
 For what are choices,
 Anyway?
 Confetti on the floor
 I say,

 A decorated
 Subterfuge
 That each are small,
 But total huge.

 So I won't make them,
 Or I will --
 Time wrecks, and so
 It's time we kill --

 But doing nothing
 Can be growth:
 That's me --
 A neither kind

 Of both

 they were both friends and lovers,
 and neither of them lied
 in saying they were impassed,
 and that the other side
 of it was just to go two ways.
 it's just one of those things:
 a neither kind of both, they were,
 two empty

 wedding rings

 off a little, in the distance, 
 comes a pattern strange and bold; 
 by the time we understand it, 
 it is gone, and we are old. 
 
 "off a little", so they tell me: 
 people steer around, away -- 
 maybe i'm not off that much, just 
 on some other world 
 
 or day

 we wonder, don't we, all the time, for 
 wonder's free, and pointless, much 
 like riding cardboard boxes down 
 an ivy colored hill, where once
 the answers strung like christmas lights that
 pointed to star, and not a bar, so there you are.

 and maybe i'm a little off my point, but
 but points are painful when we 
 sit or stand on them, and so
 find cushions in your truth, and let
 a little bit of ice be just enough to
 cool your drink, not too extreme, around
 the temples that we keep our minds
 within.

 his name was alan, both were just fourteen
 when music by the pool and glowing nights
 turned into an prolixity of stars
 that spanned the galaxy of her emotions
 into regions she was sure that no one
 ever felt before --

 her name was velvet, he had never known
 a person quite so perfect, and she took
 a part of what his heart had been to own,
 unconsciously -- he gave it willingly --
 but all he knew was, he would climb the stars
 and bring her one, to simply see her smile --
 
   another first love, perfect and complete,
   unique, as each one is, and e'er will be:
   when feelings fill an ocean, and we float
   alive and loving the

   intensity

 to be with friends and have her music
 working playing making fun
 to be up when the stars are out
 and not feel like the only one
 who's tired of the quarantining,
 laughing, splashing, humming --
 and feeling like she might just love
 the person she's

 becoming