distractible...

you changed me
and you changed me again

i am not so familiar with this now.
i am quiet though i'm living out loud on the outside
i don't know how to reconcile the two parts of me that are struggling for surface time.

i am stuck on the smile of others
and giving complete strangers my best attempts.
i am mostly met with blank stares
and occasionally a smile is returned.

there are things you shouldn't say
i think
as i carelessly say them

and there are things you shouldn't think
as i hold them up for reflection.

she tells me that these things are to be expected
though she doesn't say how long i can expect to be unfamiliar and uncomfortable in my shoes.

it's a struggle i'm quite aware of
to have bad habits to fall back on.
as if the digression is acceptable to everyone but me.
or perhaps it isn't?

the dueling continues as it always has
between the monk and the id.
one is written on my skin
and the other etched in my mind.
how these battles prevail
will be in question until i master the art
of compromise.

with myself
and my ever reaching
ever searching
wander lust...

anything like me..

brother
i dreamt of you
two months after you took on your new role.

it seems impossible at best
for me to recognize and
accept
what has become of you
and me
and this.

but in the dream we were together
and throughout our time i was more of me.

you came alive for us
despite us finding you stoic and emotionless.
you came alive more and more the longer we surrounded you.

you gave me a message that i'm having a hard time understanding and living up to.
you told me she was "good peoples"
and that our love was something special.

i just don't see it in this moment brother.

i'm having such a hard time seeing anything but me and my ever changing emotions.
and i wouldn't wish understanding this on anyone.

but still she is here.
standing right by my side.

i'm incapable of recognizing this sacrifice as it settles in front of me
and i hate this part of my present place.
i just don't know how to be anything other than all in my mind-
gathering memories
erasing moments
and reliving what i want.

i am weak
and unrecognizable
and i don't want to understand this part of grief.

how do you explain contradictions like this, brother?
i don't know how
i just know how to be in it.
and it feels everything but like me...

a lovely day...

i am full
and ready to burst.

this sex
this sexual energy
so full
and so alive.

i hear her
and i hear her again
and i want it.
i know it's in me

the music.

i miss that rhythm
of the drum
and the skins i used to kiss with my heart
and my hands
and my mind
and my stix.

i want her back
because she loves me.
connects me.
right.

maria isa
mayda
they remind me
of the fuck in this.

the groove and the
funk
and the straight up.

i wanna connect
and lately i haven't connected with anything right.

i breathe deep
and i let go
of the initial
but there is more
that's there.

i've been missing.
yeah i've been missing the music.
i haven't danced
and i haven't swayed to it.
i'm starving an essential part of me.

i cannot live without.

you inspire me
and what you make me feel inside is more than magic.

this soul needs touching
and you've gone as far
to put me back on track.

make me move
and make me expose
what needs to be set free.
i'm down to release
i've got a lot on this mind to let go.

sit there and be
a witness to this
and let me find myself again..

misheard...

we can agree on this baby-
i am impatient and less than willing to be

sometimes it just seems we see anything but eye to eye
and it gets you at the worst times
and it gets me at the worst times
but somehow
we navigate the waters.

and sometimes we don't.

and we sit in silence
angry and defeated
and with tongues full of unspoken words

it seems lately
since things haven't been making sense
that we have not connected the way we should.

and i don't know how
and you don't know how
and i refuse to bow
and you refuse to bow

so that leaves us lonely and with more questions
than answers.

i told you tonight
that lately i'm simple
and all about me
and all about ego
and how that is a dangerous place to be
because i know that the ego is insatiable.

you got it
and you got out
of my car
and we walked you home
boots hitting the sidewalk in unison
but our minds were anything but.

i've been here before
and i know i'm testing you
i'm pushing you
and you are pushing back
only to understand.

i don't have answers
i've just got emotions
and i'm sorry for this sort of thing.

you deserve more

but lately nothing has made sense but the erratic emotion
that fills me
and empties me at the same time

i live in constant contradiction
i love
and i hate
and i wish
and i ponder
and i want more
than is possible
or really understandable

but the same it makes sense to the primitive
emotive
part of me
the part that doesn't always want an explanation
or an answer
for these things that
make little sense.

still i want
i want to be understood
if not by you
than just by me...

one suspended belief away...

this form of rage can make me choke inside
but somewhere deep within i hear the steady rhythm of justification.

don't get hung up on the typos
and the forgotten birthday calls.
the past was merely days of open hands where a hollow book resided.

that book has since been burned
it didn't amount to much, they proved.
taking sideways steps to blind faith will get you nowhere but lost i say.

she clings to those words that she's spent hours and a lifetime finding
and though they can loosely be attached to her here and now
everyone knows she's a lost soul
standing on the brink of something undefinable.

you can apply these words to someone you may know or even the one who writes them
but really the imagination could take you farther to a truer answer.

a woman who stands behind a table calls my name
she neither knows me or cares to really understand my point of view
but i take my place in her line
for what it's worth
and when i close my eyes at the hauntingly bright light she shines in my face
she closes a curtain and turns away.

mother, i say
will you please stop forgetting about me.

you leave me every time i am critical of your sensibilities
and how you couldn't understand girls like me.
threaten me with your beliefs
disregard me to take back a point from your own mother but
does it really ever even out?

you are moved by her in her dying days
you say she has become so sweet-
the mother you always believed you deserved in some way.
well i can hear everything you are saying
and though you've leaned against me for years
some things always start out being a war

i can only hope our end will be something similar
to your answered prayer.
but as i look in your direction i remind myself
that i like to keep perspective...

she said to me...

how do you identify something you can't name
it's neither lonliness or desperation
i'd like to think there is something in me that just knows when i need someone in my life.

a stranger i try to know
an aquaintance i try to understand

there are people i meet
that i must learn.

sometimes my eagerness gets misconstrued
and confusion ensues.
i can be ungraceful and eager
when it's merely excitement to have found another piece of a puzzle that i somehow recognize.

i am unaware of my own reaction to such things
am i quick to reject?
am i quick to run away?

learning that a life of being misunderstood
can be lonely, it's true
i try to have faith that the one's who get me
just know my intention.

it's like being found when we connect-
like finding your vision
or a part of you that you know belongs with you somehow...


surliness can surely be mistaken for many things.
but how about we start seeing it as genuine curiosity rather than a threat?

she said these things to me and it made me wonder
about the rusted pipe that is loud but never seen...

ode to a little brother

do the right thing little brother

learn to love
learn to be there
at the right times
and even the wrong ones

don't succumb to the numbness that searches for you
and travels safely within your blood

ease the anger
that fills you like air
let go of the nonsensical truths
and grasp on to the things your heart tells you

conquer your vices
and give into the grace that searches for you
in your honest hour

forget the parts of your past
that do you no good
remember the moments of light
where you felt weightless and peaceful

there are demons that are searching for a home
in your mind
ward them off with the inherent space that eases you into easy.

don't follow all the men who have tried to lead you
learn how to find yourself in your own image
similarity isn't enough
it isn't genuine

you are your own leader
you are not a follower.

make peace with your mistakes and the mistakes of the one's who were supposedly right
if few truly know
then fewer walk in the path
of integrity

know that the tides of awareness ebbs and flows
like the stormy sea of learning
there will be days you are too tired to heed the message
and days you will wake up with a yearning to stitch the wisdom to your heart

we are all learners of the lessons in life
some fall and some stand
and some manage to do both at once

remember your innocence will be challenged
but your soul is your true compass
read from the map you cultivate
not the false tools that promise you a short, sweet ride.

every one of us breaks
and every one of us reinvents our broken parts
moving forward
stronger
and more steadfast in our resolve

so do the right thing little brother
and remember that of everyone and anyone
i will be watching you
from by your side
from behind you
and from above you

full of love
and full of a knowing
that you will be ok

i believe in you
more than you will ever know
and i see the broken parts
soon coming together
to help you move forward
and closer to the grace that resides in your bones...

twaddle on restlessly...

how to save a life

there are lines you can't cross
despite the short distance between you and the other side
some things that slide aren't necessarily moving without a lot friction beneath.

she has a post it note with a name on it
she has a memory with a face in it
and she can say with some level of certainty that the two are reminders that she won't forget
anytime soon.

nothing is making sense no matter how much she tries to juice it up with evening wines and liquors-
she'd fail herself if she gave into the pills that you nursed your demons to sleep with -
you know her better than to watch her lose herself coming back from the darkness that way.

no one is free from this ache

she has become unhinged and there is no amount of everything that will make anything subside
even just a little bit.
no flame has overcome this sort of pouring emotion that has been raining for days turned almost 2 months.

daylight forces her to be reasonable
but fading into darkness the anger emerges
the loss of coping settles comfortably back into the recliner of her mind.

it's urgent
and chaotic
in here
despite the calm and temporary sanity.
this is her ticket to crazy if she ever wanted one.
it's the card that breaks the deck that has remained boxed ever so carefully.

silence does not mean there are not loud noises in here
life does not mean she's alive or half living
it has been a while since anyone has been able to clearly define that or what she calls it.

it's about how to keep a tired mind at rest
it's about learning to comprehend someone broken on arrival...

there is only one of you
and despite you sending me the same messages for years
this is what my heart hears-
i have learned to play my part
though i'm still not sure of the role i was assigned
i witness and i grow
and i rise and i fall
and i search for some meaning in the indescribable void of comprehension

but when the daylight rises to full mast
i am only standing between a bullet and a target...

letters to my brother mike..

i can't help but to think that at some point he said
"there's got to be some place better than this"
a place where bodily addictions don't creep into each and every moment.

something tells me this could be so
despite the quick wit and
eagerness in his eyes.

i didn't know him like i wanted
because there were years of scar tissue
and unspoken words between us.
one moment changed things forever
and another some 15 years later
changed them again.

i tell you pivotal things happen when someone dies.
truth comes home
and lies get buried.

and sometimes it's the opposite that occurs.

we witnessed things like christmas in the sky
and angels over our stockings.

we weathered broken parents
and severed family ties
though you were spared the worst
and i never really understood how you couldn't grasp what it was like for et and i.

regardless of our bruises you seemed the least affected
but somehow the direction life carried you to
moved you one step forward and two steps back.

life has given us some hard lessons lately
and i'm still trying to understand your point of view
i'm only getting parts but it takes a pretty clear day and an open heart
to see from where you slipped off track.

i wish i could have saved you.

you've come to me several times in dreams
and i'm comforted to feel your ease now.
i am still unclear if you have forgiven yourself
and i tell you almost daily that i'm trying to do the same.
but there are times when i'm not so strong and i shut this and you out.

i pick up and dust off all the lessons that i have learned that i can apply to this and you.

i have a long way to go
and i can only hope that some sort of grace has followed you to where you are now.

i know there were so many good moments that we once shared and this is the time to bring them back
and in it there is a whole other part of life that is waiting to live again
i am holding myself to those promises with a strong conviction of the heart and i am believing in the beauty of what brought us to each other.

someday when there isn't earth and sky and endless limits of the mind between us
we will recognize one another again.
i will look forward to that time
and hold you close until it comes
and will wait for you to gimme some company again...

in the hands of unknown saints..

i tell her i am green at this
i don't know the better choice to make
i am out of my limits of understanding
myself
or anyone else for that matter.

it makes it worse when people ask me how i'm doing
i don't know what to say
or do-
i want to tell the truth and cry
but that's not the sort of thing they are asking for

it never is.

and it makes me feel awkward.

i wonder about things that i shouldn't wonder about
and she tells me we are too old to make those sort of mistakes anymore.
the ones you come to regret and never get passed.
but just the same
my mind is aimless and untame
and without limits.

i am trying to grasp something that is bigger than me
so i give myself room for senseless escape
that takes me far away from here.

i fall in and out of love
with life
and i am thoughtless when i should be thoughtful..
and i daydream about making the world hurt the way i do-
but i am a functioning non alcoholic in all of it
which should redeem me on some level
of hopelessness-

i don't think i'm the same girl i was on that first night
and i can imagine now what it feels like to be a little scared
of the things you can't see
and the things you can't make come true.

there are limits on everything
and my never-ending search to find them hasn't stopped
or made me less curious.

but boys and girls and everything in-between will walk these same lines
and they will kick us up in the dust as they too look for the white noise
that calls to them
and they will call each other by the same names we did
and they will eventually find the limits that define their world as well.

i am writing in the hours that he was still lost in-
one hour to go
and the number three will forever mean something different to me
as i dream of our yesterdays
and the colors fades to gray.

as i close my eyes
i try to make sense of the new normal that i am now a part of
and the mystery that surrounds us
and i can't help to know and justify
that things will never be the same...

even numbers he held...

it's getting late and i'm not done
pardoning myself
of the emotions that have taken me hostage.

i take you down the road i am living
the one where i'm million different people from one day to the next
and the meaning of volatile is inherently expressed and defined by me.

i am missing the rhythm that eases me from moment to moment-
just promise that you're on my side
and i'll do the same.

intuitive hits that have come to reveal their meaning
have shocked me throughout these last few months.
i don't want to know what they mean anymore
the water
the song
the knowing.

they have all come full circle
and i find no comfort in being right.
this time or any other time.

i haven't heard from anyone else who shares the same unfortunate tide
or title.
everyone is gone-
silent
and out of earshot
to my middle america ears

i could try to split the rainbow that is inevitably on it's way to me
but i don't think anyone's got their windows or eyes open just yet.
i am alone in contemplation of how this has halted the rest of them and us.
i wonder
and i wait
and think that perhaps the distance and silence is just a necessary part
of coping.

someone tell me this is so..

startled toy soldier...

sunset sailing
on windy skies
and blood shot eyes.

something tells me there's more to the story than what i've been told.
i stand corrected that a broken heart from a lost brother is the worst kind of feeling out there.

i heard a song that you sang that one drunken night out in utah and the words mean something so different to me now.
i recall how something broke inside of me to see and hear how broken you were in that moment.
you sang it proud though brother
even though i saw little pieces of you falling all around us.

since that day you were splicing
and little pieces were all around your feet but i didn't take notice
enough to step out of my discontent about the choices you made-
the ones that caused us to drift apart.

i had since given up on making sense to you
or having the same returned.
i didn't understand
nor comprehend what monsters rumbled your fleet
and stole your innocence each and every day.

i stood by and waited
for you
or something bigger
to fill in the missing pieces

something
anything
to bridge the gap
in our short, complex sibling journey.

i never understood why of all pictures to reveal in my everyday life
that i chose the only one of us three.
from a different time
from a different mourning
and burial.

never did i ever think that picture would be on show for our last visit.

brother
i won't pretend to understand you
any better than you understood yourself
and i've been forever assigned the task of learning you now in your physical absence
much, much too early.

your glove
your clothes
and your music that sings to me
has integrated you into my everyday-
more than you were able to in your waking moments.

though i'd much rather have your voice and your laughter
than the still objects that i have come to hold close.

for all the brokeness and disease that claimed you
there is a beautiful calm that has since come to represent you.
i walk with you by my side each and every day
and together we navigate-
you my silent partner turned angel.

i will love you as i have always loved you big brother
with a heavy heart and instinctual pain...

dark waters of love...

for my love.


intermixed between the voices
i hear you
whispering alongside my body

your sweat by exhalation
covers me in a mist like love

my body aches to move
and go
but you ask
for me to stay

you write letters
obvious
and precise on my skin
and you read my words unspoken
through rhythm
and just knowing

and speak them aloud to me.

as these days move onward
and i fall apart then back together
spilling about myself and all over you
i don't have to describe my messiness
to you
but i do

and you take it in
and take me in
and you do what you don't know how
and what you do know how
to me
and for me
and with me

and you watch me struggle
and sway in this seemingly biggest fight of my life to date
and you stand in grace
and reflect back to me
what i am not
and what i want to be.

then you spit fire for a bit
and let me revive you

this is our dance as of late
it is unpredictable
and senseless
though very necessary.

i am growing and it hurts
and you are witnessing
and it hurts

and we are somehow simultaneously
syncronized in our opposite-ness.

a love recognized and breathing softly.
through saltiness
and blurriness...

napoleon complexion...

a conversation
with an old friend
who i have given permission to know me in ways i'd rather not divulge.

he just knows
because he's witnessed 13 years of me
because he is more than half awake.

i trust him as much as i understand him
which can be more or less depending on the day and time of the month that we speak.

he reminds me
that i may never get what i want in these things
that i may never understand what i want to have.

that i must learn to accept because that is all that is left.
the grief that has been a constant next to the disappointment
and frustration.

how we learn to just take things for what they are
takes more work than i think i'm capable of manifesting.
but like a difference of point of views
i take the road
and search for similar results in a new destination.

i take one step closer to understanding how these things work
and how ties can be broken
must be broken
severed
and buried.

that is the only way i can survive.

he speaks and i busy myself with fixing things i can actually touch
and see
i add parts
and drop others
and though they crash to the floor
they are not broken
like
the figurative yet real
situations that suck me dry.

the fact that i still have a heart
convinces me that i can navigate most things.
the very real truth in my existence and will to love
is a testament that these seemingly biggest of things
have not broken me

but only made me understand
that there are no limits to the complexities
of family.

i can't escape but i can come to accept things for the way they are
and the way they are not present in my life.

the one lesson i most needed to learn came from the lips
of a stranger
who i let know me
witness me
and save me just a little
in this moment.

he says to me-

can you stay?
can you leave?
can you fall for a while?
as you learn to just accept?

folds in trees...

dog eared bent and unbent pages remind me.

i wake each day to learn the hard facts of life
i wander from address to home
street to life
chair to wall
memory to forgetfullness
to learn what breaks us all in an un-noticed moment-
grief
pain
loss
and
misunderstanding.

there is conviction of the heart that lives here in these parts.

i search for a commonality
in every corner that i park myself
i look for the condition
and the one connection
that binds us all

sometimes i find it
and other times i lose myself in trying to create it

i wake up and i seem to recreate the dilemma
that plagues me here in this life.
the lesson of persistence.
but a wayward persistence that undoes itself in the making.
i have fought hard to learn these lessons
and though we've spoken about it-
it eludes me now
and the lesson is temporarily lost again
while i am out there searching for myself
again.

desperation can make a predictable fool out of us
what we want
what we think we deserve
and what we fight for-
all intermixed in the cloud of privilege and greed.

i never quite understood the later parts
and how they are largely ignored in the psyche of most.
i never quite understood how dismissive people can be as well.
if you can't register something genuine
then how can you fool yourself into believing what isn't?

i am simple
when i'm complicated
i work on a system of levies
and tides

you won't find me anywhere but in the waters
floating
sailing
sinking
and
swallowing

there is a notice
a red flag
that presents itself to me
time and tide again

the lesson i'm forgetting
and denying
and not privy too
often enough

it lies in the curly
and the tangled
parts of the cut off parts of me
but it's growing back
and i'm coming around again to notice-

it tells me
and this time
finally
i recognize the letters
written in slow
big
letters
on my back.

they say:

you need to listen to the voice inside...

forgiven...

i don't do well with these sorts of things
heavy
and hard

i'm happier in the abstract concoctions of the imagination.
cryptic signals
broken meanings
and lyrical misinformation.

i keep dreaming about her
and in each dream there is a connection unrecognized but clearly apparent and felt.
i recognize the undertow of emotion but she is misled in her hesitation.
i don't get what the dream symbolizes.
should i delve into getting to understand her better
or into getting to understand myself?

last night the same lingering emotion was represented by another familiar person. on some level they sort of remind me of each other- one a childhood friend and adult aquaintence and the other a passerby in my work life.

i am baffled and confused by these emotion filled misunderstandings and omissions of truth.
what is the world telling me from behind a thin veil of tubular repression?

my past has been showing up on my walks lately.
i'm not the type to ignore someone when they are within earshot of me so i speak
and the moments pass and the familiar gestures are presented and responded to
and then we part
and i can't recall much of where i was coming from or what i said.
i've just been in that sort of haze lately..

god only knows that so many of the colors have come to fade away in my life recently.
i am here in body only.
yet i feel my brother all around me in spirit- only missing a body.

i won't lie and try to make anyone believe that i'm more than the less of what i usually am in this temporary disjointedness. i am a proverbial directionless woman at the moment and though it gives me an excuse to sit and accomplish little or make much effort (which is all i'm capable of) i recognize that the moment is full of promise as seedlings of future expansion is within me and i'm looking towards tomorrow for that new beginning.

i am giving myself permission to fall a part and be erratic and moody and selfish for a while until i figure out how to move forward with the new normal that i have been thrust into. i will falter and yell and give up temporary hope of making something of this incredible loss that i could have never predicted that i would feel and then i will remind myself that this happens every minute of every day all around me- loss.

and i will wake up a little bit more every day
until i am me again
and when the day comes that i feel alright
then i will move with a little more grace-
but until the day comes
forgive me for falling a part...

standing corrected..

it will be there first.

and it will be unrecognizable to the part of you that you've come to know
and mostly rely on.
and in the in-between moments you may think you've figured it out
or mostly gotten past it.

but it will be there first.

there will be a semblance of what was whole
but in reality
what you believed to be true
was not.
and not only was it a lie
but it was a messy lie.

there were words
and there were motions
and neither really connected
to what made sense at the time
before or after.

you watched like a child
believing the sort of fairy tale
that you had hoped it was
was nothing but a facade
and mislead expectations.

when you're ready to let go of all the lies
and start looking at the truth of the matter,
let me know.
i will give you the harsh reality
using gentle words
and pretty pictures
to make it easier to swallow-

and it will be there first.

the strength that you have prided yourself on having
won't fit the bill of this magnitude.
it will chip away the familiar
and will test every bit of sanity and resolve that you have come to expect that lives in you.

you will be broken
and unrecognizable to yourself and those who think they know you.
you will remember it much differently
and not at all like it is
and was
and will continue to be-

and it will be there first.

but in the days you will be given
and the time
that you will take
things will change
and
become more clear.

you will shed the broken parts
and new understandings will emerge
if you can stomach the patience that it will take.

there will be breakdowns
and fits
and moments lost
in the abyss of learning and transformation

but it will be there first
i promise you.

and you will recognize it once again when your eyes open
and the light is a little brighter
and you feel a little lighter.

i will be there to show you what still remains
and how much of what you thought you lost
is less than what you've come to find.

give it time
and recognize that even fairy tales have plots that are believable on some level.

don't lose faith in these moments
because they will return you to a place better than now.

you are bound to come around
and it will be there first..

dissonance unrefined..

phrases,
they come to me randomly
and in no particular order.

some of them i write down
and some of them i watch float by and out of my conciousness.

i am fragmented on a good day
and emotionless on most.
i recognize that things are moving quickly around me
but i am stuck in this disconnect
this place where over used words
and empty reality cliches don't phase me.

i am connecting to little right now
and they tell me that's ok-
that it's part of the grief.

but no one told me about the anger
the wrenching, soul crushing anger
that would spill and
leak
and
ooze from my pores.

i was not prepared for this sort of thing
and in the most crippling of moments i am seized by it-
unable to move
cry
or even
speak.

the fury is uncalculated
and sore
and oh so eager
to spill-

there is no way to rub this out
or give it a name

it feels stuck in me
and i can't shake it or wash it off.

but you see brother
it's not just about you
and how you left-
or the unrecognized moments
or conversations we had yet to have.

it's about everyone else
and what i've seen.
it's about not understanding
this sort of thing.

i may as well justify it
and then go on justifying it forever
but i'm not that person anymore.

i just don't know what to do with this.

you 'checked out'- as grampa wrote down in the address book of grandma's when she died;
before any resolution found it's place
you took the easy way out
when you look at if from the vantage point of the one's left behind.

i didn't see you as a quitter before and it's hard to start thinking that way now.
i know you wouldn't want me to see that way,
even if for a minute
but brother there was so much we didn't learn
so much i didn't teach you
and so much i didn't tell you that you taught me.

these feelings are knocking me sideways
and though on a better day i know this isn't the end,
but merely a new obstacle for us to overcome and get through-
i just wonder how people are gonna get past it..

a correspondence to an unwritten letter...

i can tell you that i won't recall what i'm about right now, later
you will have to promise me that you won't remind me either.

without focus i have been wandering for weeks
nothing much registering
my moods have been in more places than the most traveled nomad.
i am without
much more than the currency that my reputation holds
which may or may not be worth much to some people right now.

dreams come in heavy heaves
placing me somewhere familiar and unfamiliar the same
in the most lovely of moments i am surrounded by beautiful people
i am being pursued by a beautiful woman who can neither see through my thinly disguised confusion
or imperfections.
i am comfortable in the longer of moments we share
but there is always something bigger pressing, calling out to me to figure out.
i somehow keep getting caught up on the beautiful woman in front of me and fail to see the lesson i'm there to learn.

when i wake i am full
and i am a little bit empty
wanting so badly to fall back to sleep to hear the words i missed
to see the things i didn't catch at first glimpse.

like an aged man with a dying libido who must somehow prove he is still viable
i live in a moment with a grandiose self sacrifice of blindness so that i can avoid the awful truth of what i have become.

sometimes it is bearable and sometimes i do not recognize whose feet i am standing on
or who's rough hands i am holding..

just the same i fall asleep each night and search for some meaning that i missed the night before.

i tell you, i won't recall this shell of a person that i have become- to cope with the madness i've seen of late.
and i'd rather, sweet friend, if you spare me the reminder of the empty pictures that you take of me through this time.
i know i will return from this dark journey brighter somehow

just give me time
and don't remind me of where i've been...