The silence is full of peculiarities,
like the bending of carpet fibers
and the fizz of water.

The sheets, blankets, and comforter
are bent back in two, as if phantoms occupy
my rest.

The walls scream that they are alone,
that they stand alone, and
have no corners.

I lay forgotten. A ring of gold in the pocket
of desire.

There once was a man. Of this I am sure.
But as the hours pass I remember less
the status of his chin or the class of his nose;
the rank of his brow or the courage of his hair line.
I find myself forgetting, and in forgetting
wondering if ever there was anything to know,
but still I gaze through windows and upset the couch cushions;
I look under papers and grope through the pockets of dirty jeans,
with a manic rush. As if, something important is slipping way,
like the middle two digits of a phone number, or the name of the girl
I met once while ordering coffee.
She had oak brown hair and blue-gray eyes. A fog skimmed reservoir,
which at once reminded me of the wet smell of morning and
the thrill of walking in on a world half-dressed.
And I hang to these things
for they are my metal; the truss and support that keep me,
that bequeath flesh to bone.
So when the heat ceases in my veins and my eyes hold no more room.
I remain.
** 5-3***
gray reservoir
and a girl I loved before I knew her name.

Beautiful isn’t a word I use to describe many things. Flowers are pretty. Sunsets are awe-inspiring or breathtaking. Girls are gorgeous and cute. Mountains are nice.

Beauty is not an aesthetic word in my vocabulary; it is a state of being.

Love is beautiful. Not the kind of love we mortals experience, but the kind of Love we idealize, the kind we can’t fully comprehend, the kind of Love we see in a fog as a dim outline. I have this problem, which is more of a finite break down. I stop loving when I am hurt. I will love you long, and I will love you passionately, and I will love you well, but I will never Love you, because my love has limits. I have rules. Number one, don’t break me heart. Number two, don’t break my heart. The rest of my rules are either a variation of rule one and two, or a combination of both. The problem I have is if you break my rules, I don’t love you. The problem is I am conditional. My love is based upon merit. Love for me is unascertainable, because I will always love you more if you make me happy and less if you make me sad. It is the transcendent quality to Love that breathes beauty.

Providence is beautiful. This idea that somehow we are all, 6 billion+, moving toward a common destination (whether that destination is dirt, or something a bit more glorified) is beautiful. The beauty is not in some communal connectedness; the beauty is that providence brings meaning. If it weren’t for P, the insignificant moments in life would simply be insignificant. Life would be the process of piling up meaningless pebbles to build a whimsical wall of stone. P gives these pebbles (conception, birth, life, death, dirt) meaning.

Community is beautiful. The fact that I cannot survive alone, that I am not meant to be alone, is beautiful.

Telling you, that you are beautiful, gives you commonality with those things I find necessary in life. Not simply my own life, but Life. When I speak to beauty, I speak to the foundation of the stars, to something more fundamental than breath.

I just want to say, “You’re beautiful,” and have it mean, you are the birth of originality, and that you give creativity purpose; that you are the expression of all I hold dear.