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...