an idea grew amid the fallen leaves, ashes and
things you would bury or toss out had you not known
any better; unfortunately, most of us didn't.

we wrote our hopes, dreams and most secretive desires
in a notebook that we buried in the sand. we begged for
the ocean tide to wash it away so we could be left with nothing
to feel or to worry about.

it was the kind of love that scorched the nostrils
and made hands shake when they weren't laced together.
a love like cholorform that, when overdone or
not moderated well enough, could become deadly
but we ached for it anyway.

it wasn't until the sun we reached out to turned its
illuminated back on us that we began searching -
searching for a bed of roses in a pile of leaves,
grass and garbage.

we found our motivation among the sorrowed voice
we had only hoped would grow into a kind word,
and a kind word would become a hand that would
carry us to happiness
and every goodbye we hoped only brought us closer
to tomorrow and our next time together.

you looked at me as if beneath the rags you could tell
i was something beautiful; kind of like a star
but everybody knows that most of the stars we see
are already dead, and that true love isn't the kind
that you'd go killing flowers over;

we laid ourselves to rest on pillows of concrete
washed the names of strangers off of our scraped palms,
and waited for the brighter stars among us to come into our homes
and lend us a candle or a match so we, too, could glow.