Finally

Your eyes are one of the few things that make me smile

They light up when I talk and my insides are on fire

Your voice is pure and imperfect like Katy Perry without auto-tune

It beats the drums in my ears like the heartbeat of a blue whale

Your hands are always cold

But I will hold them in the dead of winter so you are always a part of me

Your legs are slender ivory towers

Often caressed in tight denim and all I can do is want you more

Your hair holds more secrets than any chamber

It is dark like the night but then

Your smile shines like heaven in Paul’s eyes

It’s so beautiful it could kill a man

I fell in love with each part of you

I fell in love and wrote 7 different poems

All about a different part

Idolizing each individually because the thought of them together

Was too much hope for my cynical heart

When you came along

It took me way too long to see

I looked at you and saw only my dreams

My heart blocked off everything about you

You were like pictures in a mansion I was unworthy to look at

When you let me in

When you let my heart search and know you like the back of my eyelids

I shot myself with hope

Drowned in the galaxy of your mind

Melted into your subconscious

Found a place to sit with you

I sat with you decades under the stars

I wrapped myself around you like a blanket

Folding myself into your curves tucking you in

To my memories

So I knew you weren’t my imagination

I wanted to borrow God’s breath

Whisper the stars to you

Hurricane the moon to earth

See it light you up in my dreams

As we watched tides that were way too large

My mind longed to watch you every second

Clicking photographs every moment

Watching you change

I zoomed way too close on your eye

The camera exploded in green and gold

Like the sunset of resurrection

Your eyes, indefinable like an eagle

Played freeze tag with mine

In space

And comets struck the chartreuse plain of your iris

Colliding and fracturing bits of emerald and flecks of gold

And at that moment

As planets spun in your eye

As your face looked like every smile you’d ever wore

Dancing with your hair

Like Etta James, “At Last”

I realized

You were the one I’d written for

Almost Christian in a not so almost hell

This poem may hurt.

It may make you want to cover your ears

And you might as well close your eyes

Because you’ve already closed your heart and mind

It’s amazing how comfortable you are in your masks

For some of you it’s light because you’ve eaten away all of the you that used to fill it

You’re now just an echo in a shell
You are a snow machine hooked up to a beeping lie detector

Some of you can hardly carry your mask

But you insist on pushing it in front of you like a Grand Piano playing a tune you wish you spoke

This is for you social drinkers

You one time smokers

You just a kiss turning all-nighters

You who make out in tinted windows

You who blame it on the alcohol

You barely survivors

You who speak at your parents

You who don’t speak at all

You electric smilers

You hypnotizers; Womanizers

You aborters

You thieves and robbers

You joke-too-far-ers

You liars

You lusters

You over-trusters

You who cheat on homework but not tests

You who cheat on multiple choice but never short answers

You gamblers

You judgers

You hypocrites

You insulters

You who step on other's backs to keep your head afloat

You who don’t give a flying fuck

You attention whores

You gossipers

You pillow talkers

You one-nighters

You people over God-ers

You blasphemers

You self-servers

You who raise your hands because you like being looked at

You who cry so people will give you a hug

You gorgers of selfishness

This is for you.

Mr. or Ms. First Priority

God

He looks around

He can’t help but ask, “Where is everybody”

Where are the altar prayers?

The scar free prayer warriors?

Where are the Amen-ers?

The hand raisers?

The Jesus shouters?

The VBS-ers?

The church dinners?

And he looks down from his throne fashioned of grace

Into a pit he intended for fallen angels

He will find you there

Confused and thirsty

Gnashing your teeth

He will see you Oh Almost Christians

And almost wonder if His way was too narrow

As you wish you were in an almost hell

He will remember calling you

Remember knocking on the door of your heart

Having the key but not barging in

He can still feel what stone your heart is made of

He remembers your memorized prayers

Your go-with-the-crowd lifestyle

Your “I am God” attitude

Your lack of real belief

How you tried to cover his creation

How you failed to create your own

A tear falls

But it evaporates just before your parched mouth

You were soldiers without scars and this is your share of hell.

Your Hands

Your hands are cold.

But they are soft

Closing

Opening

Folding

Praying

Your hands fit perfectly inside mine like the underside of a boat

We float

Your weaknesses covered up with my fingers

Connected

This union is endless

Sometimes when the world is too loud

When your eyes are too beautiful to look into

When it feels like time is slipping away

I reach out and grab your hand

So I can enjoy saying something without words

Saying I am fragile

Saying I love you

Sometimes I hold onto your hand too tight

It is because I don’t want you to disappear

When time sands down the puzzle pieces of our fingers

When it bedecks our hands with wrinkles

Like someone who stayed in the pool way too long

I will still hold your hand

Still weave my fingers inside yours

Locking them into place

Listening to the echo of the silence

Like the sound of the ocean in a conch shell

Conducted with sound waves

To the rhythm of raindrops and beating hearts

The first time I held your hand

It was wet

My hands sweat like an equatorial noontime

I was nervous as hell

You pretended not to notice

You grazed your long left forefinger on my palm

As if my hand could melt any more from your touch

And best of all there was a second

And a third

I held your hand this morning for the 4,982^nd time

When I hold you tonight

When I stop kissing you to reach for your hand

When my fingers finish their tango with yours

When they slide into their place

In the valleys of your knuckles

When they squeeze you one last time to make sure you're still there

When they open musically, like an accordion for air

When they let you slip away

Hugging the space between your fingers

Letting go

Defying before we sleep

Any thought of not being we

4,983

Vampires (a question poem)

Maybe the reason vampires live forever is because they never have to see themselves in a mirror.

Maybe it’s because the dust of deceit can’t rest on their skin
They never have to wake up thinking themselves in a different age.
Never forced to paint themselves for a judging world
Modest out of necessity
Because sometimes the truth is too much to leave bare
They sniff out the lies of the masses like fresh meat
Chasing it down with alacrity
Biting the deception from the jugulars of the adolescent
Bleeding their own truth in
Sucking out the falsities that define us until we shine.
Truth glitters.