Too many times

Too many times

It has happened that you overreach

And bring to ruins a carefully

Calibrated reality

It is no longer allowed 

to look the other way

As the constant friction remoulds

your differences into opacity

Surely there's more to understand

Perhaps the hour is not now

Perhaps this is all you will have

And other things may begin to matter.

shed your sticky angst

But before you walk away lighter

put down these words in a cool, dry place

a poem is a safekeeper

Outside The Box

It gets stranger in the night,

a time of cold, suspended sight.

the nub of my wrist in your strong embrace,

and the taste of summer rain.

We burn by the candle's wick,

drown in the swirling intrigue.

You hold me by the nape of my neck

and fear chokes my gullet.

Strangers love like stowaways,

hungry and funny by turns.

Hysterical. The red is from the wine.

Oh, but some of it is mine.

I bear no scars from secret trysts;

I play well known outsider's tricks.

I go where strange friendships are found,

and return like clay, unmade.

Break your own heart and mourn it well;

the love of self is a lesson in hell. 

And tortured souls arrive at the place, 

none too soon and a little too late.