you who dance amidst the diamonds
you who trudge beneath the underbrush
you who dedicate your stories
you who write with nothing to say
you’re all a failing, fallen star
and yet you’re just like me

i who lay among the poppies
i who jump off the bridge
to swim
to swim

so join me in the water
the temperature is right
so beg me to deliver
a letter i didn’t write
a mixtape deleted
a cannon fired
godbless
and get rejected

you who dive into the fog
you who dine
on another’s dime
you who shiver
shake
break
and mistake
the end for the beginning
it’s over
before it starts

so join me in the river
and glide on with the current
or sink
or swim

sit by yourself and wait for the bookshelf to come falling; watch as the stories flow toward the floor and read. there is no passion worth your teeth. there is no point to catching things which are thrown; are thrown at you and me. and walk next to me. there is no conversation. there is only the silence between us. there are only the lakes and the ponds. there are only the stones tossed into the water. there are only the ripples which move from that point and the waves crashing on the shore. and so we stroll and so we don’t forget those nights spent strolling or trolling from bar to bar, from sea to sea, from branch to branch, from tree to tree. and if you’re alone, call. and if you don’t it’s over. but only if you think again of someone, somewhere, off and bent like fathers teaching languages, dead, or preachers preaching just to make rent or writers writing about love and trends like it’s only a mirror reflecting. it’s more than you or i, you see. it’s more like dancing in the streets. it’s more like washing clothes or feet; linens. sleep.

go outside and look toward the sky and see how the clouds roll by.
sit underneath a tree and watch as the leaves blow;
the branches sway;
the trunks stay put and all.
and wonder around the city thinking of a girl
or a boy

wait for the night to fall and go out walking,
your eyes gazing toward the stars
trying to trace their shapes

wade into the river
and swim

there is something about the feeling of the summer
that shakes you from the hallway
as you reach for doorknobs
turning and entering your room
you collapse on your bed
and sleep
sleep

it’s like the season of the witch
closing in on summer
you’ve been feeling alright
and still can’t catch up to the world, spinning
so you dive into the fog
and swim through the night
as you collapse into tears
without knowing why
without wondering how it came about
and you shudder
you shake
and somehow, someway
you find today is ending
midnight
stars
the moon

stand beneath the rain
and feel it running down your cheeks
you never feel the same
after a summer storm
so dance amidst the fog
and go running past the drains collecting water
and be just another passerby
to the wind and stars and sky
the moon hides
as the sun goes down

singing songs of rivers flowing down a mountainside
and watching while you calm yourself with cigarettes
inhale
exhale
repeat
and walking along the riverbed
and falling
down
down
until you reach the bottom
cut and bruised with landing

the thunder claps and for some reason it holds true
that there’s something if not nothing on the dark side of the moon
the clouds cover the stars
yeah, they’re falling like rain
drenching the coast to coast
living and breathing
and feeling the most

and there is something about the darkness of the nighttime
that makes me drift into the dawn like birds just soaring on
and the china breaks like the glass it is and helps me
to wake up from counting sheep and tripping, holy
forget about the times you held like water, lord
and be a wild and distant soul
on the corner of the street where you’d been sleeping
I am only what you heard

and like the only thing that matters is
what person makes you
a little closer to the fallen leaves