that is the burden (inspired by eliot, yeats, superman, the green lantern, markus zusak, dustin, john k sampson, and the doctor)

i am the one who stumbled
i am the one who called out the warning
it was my voice rising
on the mad wind that rushed past
and threw you into the crater

i am the heron and the frog
i am between the impulse and the action
between the stimulus and the emotion
i am nero and his fiddle
i am the firstborn child

i am the withering jew
hidden away in a basement
walking on tightropes
i am the one who kills the king
in every dream i have

i am the sweet silver bells
i am the oldest song
i am the fear and the joy
i am the center and the centrifuge
the savior and the damned

i am the last one
i am the judgment
i am the weight and the glory
and when my home burned
in the fires of pompeii

i was left
standing on a hillside
watching everything i know
buried
under mountains of ash

this is my giving it goes out to everyone

i am thankful for
plaid
reasons
sweet things
softness
cats
pianos
songwriters
thorns
virtue.

and also
(this might sound a bit strange,)
fevers
circles under eyes
cemeteries
opening wounds
night driving
being alone.

but i promise i am most thankful for
you.

cast off

i've been thinking about it for a long time.
i was always too afraid before
(and everyone,
no one believed i could)
well i'll show them.

i'll do it. i'll take the plunge.
i'll make that leap,
and soar, with the sun on my back
and the wind rushing past me.
i'll show them

that nothing's impossible.
i was a timid kid with glasses
that are too big and shirts that
don't fit but now i will be known.
i will mean something.

i can feel the bravery
swelling up in my chest.
i'm smiling big now.
i'm doing it. i'm doing it
and no one can stop me. so i leap.

above me
the golden gate bridge recedes
into the sky.

ode to my favorite techie (the somewhat less sucky version)

you know, we're not so different, you and i,
you with your friend, and me back here with mine,
though in your eyes, i see a cloudless sky,
and in your eyebrows, that metallic shine;

but i see, too, the smile you throw at him,
the kind of smile that makes him lean on you;
you look as happy as you've ever been,
but i can see that this is nothing new —

that you two are the greatest kind of friends,
the kind who love to keep each other safe,
who've been together back since god knows when
and always know exactly what to say;

i turn and lean my head on my friend's back.
i hope that someday, we can be like that.

no power (awe struck)

you, crying girl,
with fragile wrists and eyes turned the color of roses,

folded to the table,
crooked like a tree in winter,

you work so hard
and look so proud and burn so bright

and you've withstood blizzards and hurricanes,
not bending and not breaking,

but when the earthquake comes
it rips up your roots and leaves you strewn and gasping.

always reminded that you must grow up.
always afraid of the fall — the taller you get

how the safety of the earth
keeps getting further and further away.

dear blake,

a cabin in the mountains,
way up, further north,
far beyond all the phone lines
and the passing cars amongst the pines;

the snow falls like summer,
the one you saw last fall,
disillusioned with the world
and all those jaw-breaker girls;

your guilt-ridden crows'-feet
betray your cigarette smile,
and you're beautiful and sad,
but you're all that i have,

and i'm not even sure i have that much,
so listen close or you'll miss it:
i know that you will overcome someday.
you call in sick but you won't stay that way.

haste the day

night, thick as canvas,
cold as an absolute —
it will never abandon you to
wild lightning and burning bushes,

it will rid these flares, each an SOS,
from the invisible tree-branch webs
that creep, spindle-like, over windows,
and its breath will cover everything
like the deepest and blackest of fogs;

and you, shivering dreamer,
will feel it weighing down on your chest;
and when you open your mouth,
it will rush in like water,
taking with it a thousand ghosts,
each one ten times more ancient than the last.