Trust,
a tricky word,
a tricksy idea,
a gift to give,
a gift to receive,
unfamiliar to me, I never give,
Always a liar,
So you’ll have to trust me when I say I’m not lying.

She looked at me through smoke.

Exhaled, brushed past her lips.

The shock of her gaze, stopping me dead,

What things could she teach me?

It was there, at that moment,

I was born.

Squalling and red, bursting into life,

After years of solitude,

I drew my first breath

Light flooded my eyes

And I saw the nudity,

The reality. The truth.

The innocence of life.

Simplicity.

And I saw my previous perspective again,

An eight legged beast,

Gnashing its jaws. Ready to devour

Any innocence I might have had.

What hell did I stare into?

What heaven has eluded me?

I beg for life.

when it’s cold outside
and facebook is slow-moving
and the city-streets are grey
and your wife don’t love you
no more,
and the kids won’t look you
in your eyes faded from years
of looking
will you turn to your hope
chest
set up as
a time capsule
to remind
of what you asked of yourself
long ago
and will it be too late?

when i see you
standing in the cold-grey
street, my head barely
above a desk,
with your arms like propellars
i will wonder for a
moment where you’re flying
off to until you get crushed
under the weight
of the commute–

then systematically you
get cleaned up off the cement
like a stain on a white counter
that stretches for infinity
for absolutely no reason.

If I smile too much sometimes
it’s only to make you happy/
angry/
calm/
annoyed or
generally emotional

If I smile just enough then
I’m doing it
right