Sweat shirts and skinny jeans
Stiletto’s sit at the door
We’re trying too hard
Striving to go too far
For something unwanted when received

Relying on bubble gum
Grasping diet colas with manicured fingers
Aviators and spandex

Wanting nothing but…
Sweet nothings
Worn affection
And kissed necks

Needing to be known
But not know
Hiding behind
Four wheel drive and bad rap lyrics
Fifty nine cent burritos and Carmel frapicinos
Behind straight A’s and paper cuts
To be known
With secrets

It’s January

We’re as dead as the leaves on the trees
Struggling between light and dark
Like snow fall and white water rain
Stone faced on the eternal chess board
That’s become life
Switching from black to white
Behind morals
And gray with our hearts
Beating heart beats until they die
But still needing to believe in rainbows on the sky line

Still searching for gold
For luck
For right and wrong
For love
Dignity
And trust
For true anger and false solutions
For death do us part
But youth is showing
A pressure
Not leaving the alter
Or our souls
We can’t love
Or communicate or succeed
We can’t speak
Can’t be

Its flying
A dream in the wind
Turning the pages in the life book
Settling on good
Not grand
Nor great feats of illusion
Simply good

Bland in the celestial space of things
Because diet colas and spearmint
Lack the ability to speak up
And capitalism only feigns interest in the economy
Dissolving to nothing but
Sweat shirts, skinny jeans and hooker heels
With affections, discarded dreams
Not a black and white hallmark card
A staccato definition of upending failure

The exorcism of religious day dreams and sky lines
Of love philosophy
Faith
Trust
And true compassion

Digging under the dirt with artistically calloused fingers
Needing nothing more than
Rest in peace
Then true sanctuary

Leave your hands in the mud
And cry
For something other than curling iron burns and turtle necks
Other than a cheaper, still poetic, cup of coffee

Crying real tears
Not caused by crocodiles
Or onions or splintered fingers

Fighting to make a wish
Make a difference
Hope

To be young enough to toss a penny in the ten cent wishing well
But old enough to appreciate what comes out

But maybe
Just maybe

We’re too old to understand
To prevent being caught up in economy
A cheaper cup of coffee or fifty nine cent burritos
In fur coats, UGG boots, Chuck Taylors
Head shots, star spangled southern accents, two step fox trots, and the furry of insanity

But insanity is broad

Includes triple zeros and thirty sevens
Smokey eyes and receding hair lines
Chuck Taylors and bathroom slippers
ACT’s SAT’s and private institutions
Free love and third world prostitution

Irony holding hands with insanity
Pulling off a Cheshire grin
Before the Red Queen offers another cracker
That we refuse with excuse of chewing gum
To settle our scales

Of weight
Love
Philosophy
Independent variables
And facades
They weigh lighter than the rest
By the way, they’ve become second nature
Nothing but a non variant game
Of mechanic schizophrenia

Face it
Coffee burns with gas prices
Trees die with paper dreams
And wishing wells have a day pass – with a twenty dollar fine

True love waits
Kiss back seats good bye
Stare out at the tree line – with Maybelline defined eyes

It’s January

We’re as good as the trees