As a child summer clung
as a veil about the summers
hazed in greens and yellows
the trunks of trees rising in
moss'ed woods and
sprouting into the edge of pastures
long abandoned in the old age of
the loved strangers leaving the land to
the adventuring of children
as the days lingered.

I huddled then as the
words blurred into cadences
that would allow me sleep
in the age of always storm
battered hearts and
Learning to love the manner in which
the surge hits the surf and rain trembles
the window panes on which it falls upon
the dreaming minds inside
as the nights lingered.

We held hands in the summer
that birthed our majorities and
witnessed us grown together
and apart again, from strangers
to loved to strangers
again, as distance and realization that
nothing can stay the same as they were
when we could count forever on our freckled
wandering backs that year
as childhood lingered.

____________

Day one of National Poetry Writing Month!

I set aside
The things which I strode
Towards when my legs had
Strength for long treks
For attempts at those things
They said I was incapable of.
I was capable.
I wasn't capable of returning
To myself, not soon enough
To avoid losing all my gains
For want of being called
"Unselfish."

And my potentials withered
As so many yellowed flowers.

Beware of those which tell you
That all you wish to do
Pales in comparison
To that which they've left
To haunt your halls
To tell you you're unworthy.

I know it is hopeless
But--
There is nothing, in
My life, to hope for if
We aren't allowed to hope for
Hopeless things.

The prosaics are even
Laid out
Impossibly distant and
Unreachable from here
A good home of family my own
To raise as I will.

The plans I have made
To build
Up ambition of my own have
Crumbled to dust so that my aims
Are restricted to what I can pull to me from
My partnered half.

Hopelessness is endemic
To what
Is available to aim for.

an alternating impulse

If another android
calls you a robot
does it hurt you more,
or is it less?

Breath

Somedays it is hard.

But always it is like breathing
Like a heartbeat
Effortless. Needed. An inevitability
Of life. Of physics
Constant gravity. Tides pulled
By lunar astronomy

An ever presence that is so
Natural to being that
On the good days we forget
But for deep inhaling
Of casual joy. Of knowing.

On bad days, though, we suck in
Of fear that we would suffocate
That we would drown
Lungs spasm. Blood and heart
And thence brain deoxygenated
Without it.

Hand-Crank Paper

Don't ask me to speak aloud.
There are switches to
Fill in blanks
In cadence
Imprecise and chopped together
From your scraps.

Double time my interpretation into
Auditory stimulation of
Communication centers
Beyond the inherent
Protocol for the duration of
The mechanism.

(music boxes cranked fast
Distort tunes
Throw off gears
And break springs. )

I need no words

I need no words
To fly
To scream or to
Let you know yes
To communicate
Create build love empower.


Words are only involved
Because you would call me
Storyless
Deny my oppression as real
And yeah this is bending
Into it but


You never would learn
Without your own
Supports and adaptations.


Maybe your over dependance
Is your own damn
Limit of "vision."



----

Written in response to "typical" language processing privilege by otherwise awesome community storytellers, Allied Media Conference in Detroit, June 29th, 2012