Driving Through The Hills A Little After Dinner Time I Speed In The Right Lane.

There are cracks In the pavement Outside my window Where trees have Stretched out their Roots, like the Asphalt is simply A weighted blanket

When the garbage Trucks bounce and Thunk over those Bumps in the road I can almost hear The trees laughing

We speak in tongues The wicked we Me and my anxieties

Losing peace And lost to sleep No sleep tonight for me

My words are jumbled Mumbled sounds Can you find them In the lost and found?

Insane is pain In painful times These chains aren't yours But mine

I love writing About Her And Him Whoever They are

Without reading any of my written words Is it possible to truly know me? Mind musings, soul serenades This feels like the only accurate, undiluted Version of my being

If you've never met my body Maybe you know me better than most Or maybe to know me is reading both Poetry being the translation of my body language Into my mother tongue

So I'll lay my words down delicately, intentionally Hoping you see them A dialect spoken just between us Yes, you would know me I think you could know me entirely this way

Lose Focus - Drew Alexander

“Oh can you count the miles between us, like constellations in your eyes”

I stand with my feet In the water Letting the icy waves Bury my feet in the sand Erasing my footprints So I had never Walked here

The water that touches me Touches you It glides along your ankles And the tide rushes over us Though we stand In different oceans

When I get home My cat looks at me The same way she did Back then Only the fur on her chin Is gray now Her eyes are watery

There's a tap on my shoulder I know it's you I look behind me And all I see is the door I turn the lock Turn off the front light Going to bed without you

You're in between the sheets Your blankets are green Mine are brown Together we must be Like the earth That connects us

The salt of the sea Is on my skin I think that you can smell it That with my eyes closed Your arms around me Whispering Take me back there

My cat settles herself In the bend of my knees I wonder if she remembers you As she yawns loudly Falling asleep soundly Just as I do

She used to look out the window With eyes darting around Like the fluttering of birds Was the greatest joy she found And marvel at the rustling leaves Chirping and chittering sounds Enthralled by creatures great and Small that roam upon the ground

Hardly would she ever venture Out into that very wild land So safe behind that pane of glass So safe to let her world expand Sometimes we would sit by the door Glory under that sun so grand She lived a quietly sheltered life It was a choice I understand

Snake bites I became the viper I was a beautiful Venomous biter

Pointed piercings Below my bottom lip To match my heart Once bleeding and ripped

I miss them now They kept everyone Away

They promised If you try to steal My pleasure You must also Feel my pain

Like you might Admire the clouds And then be Angry at the rain

That if you Don't care for The predator When it hurts you

You do not Deserve To be coiled Safely in my arms

I harbor devotion So I would slither away And desert you

The winter cardinals Have finished their work Of raising wobbly chicks Into fierce and steady Juveniles, ready to Graze the sky with the Tips of their wings And soar off gracefully Away on their own breeze A fresh, solo journey

The parents are not Left behind, they are Quietly content, free To fly wherever they please The male a radiant scarlet And she such prominent earth Tones, the blazing yellow Of their beaks like Flames flying by on the Biting morning winds

The serene songbirds Mated for life, they fly Side by side, sharing One current of frigid air Wings spread out together As they glide in sync With nothing more to be Done, they settle in their Empty nest and sleep freely And warmly with each other

The light and dark Tides of my life Swelled simultaneously

Waves that lifted me Battered me In their shore break

In my euphoria I waded Through so much pain

And the two have never Separated In their continuum