Little Butterfly

"Do you remember the story about the butterfly?"
How it soared way up into the eastern sky
and the wind took its delicate wings across the ocean;
a wish fulfilled to be free and alive on the other side,
away from this, on the other side
of these every-changing tides.

"Do you remember the story about the butterfly?
I always thought I could go anywhere alone.
But since I met you I've realized I'm weak.
I can't fly all by myself.
I can't go anywhere without you anymore."

She said it, Hinako Takanaga,
I read it in a cute manga
And fell in love with the concept
that we could be butterflies, you and I,
and we could fly together and defy everything
and care about nothing but each other at the same time.

The season is summer, my dear,
as Takanaga said...when the young butterflies
are just beginning to flutter through the air.
The season is summer, my dear,
when we break from the shell and flutter
through the lazy days like nothing could stop us....
anyway...the season is summer and we're together.
So, I can fly.

Be my little butterfly, won't you?
Because I'm afraid to fly on my own...
Especially now, when I am at home.

L_VE

Listen t_ me
_h, h_w I wish it c_uld be
Very plain t_ see
Everything and m_re
L_ve.

Something's missing, though,
something deep in my soul,
somehow I have to find a way to let go,
somehow
I just have to...
...know...
Oh.
O.

I just realized what's missing
The realization of how the constalations aligned
just for us, just for the two of us
for this one summer together
under the stars, wrapped in arms
as we chase away tomorrow for one more day
and hope and pray that these feelings stay
close together and forever and linger long after
I'm 1000 miles away from here and there and you...
and I realized that something's budding in my soul
Something sudden, somethings suddenly so new.
I think...I hope...I wish...I'm starting to L_VE you.
O.

lOve.
I forgot how it felt this way
how you take my breath away
When I just want you to stay
and I just hope and pray
that somehow, someday
We'll be together this way...
O.

O is the sudden realization I've missed this
And I could have missed you
And I suddenly found you
and everything is okay...for now.


Maybe this is love,
But who knows?

Oh...
L
O
V
E.
Oh...I get it now?

New Hope

He said it in the sweetest way:
"I know we only have three months,
but let's make the most out of the time we have."
Here's to the memories we'll make, my dear.

Your beacon of hope shines out of the void
I had made for myself for this last cold summer
You give me new hope in the darkness
That bright days are still to come
and there are memories still to be had
and there is life still to be lived
here in this little place I call home.

I find myself pulled
in all directions now
Waiting for him
Waiting for her
Hoping for the best
and stopping the stir
I find myself pushed
in every possible way
Going to there
Leaving from here
Hoping for something to last
and dreading the whir
of those voices
and faces
and places
and times
1000 miles away
but oh so close to time.

But I pause from all that
for these brief summer months
Because you give me hope
You give me hope for today
for tomorrow
for every day after
That we can be together
And, for at least the summer,
Stay just that way.

A new hope for love
a new hope for life
a new hope for us
to watch days go by.

Here we are,
those sweet days of summer.

You said it in the sweetest way:
"I know we only have three months,
but let's make the most out of the time we have
Live for today, dream not of tomorrow,
relish in our joy, and escape into our bliss.
We've got a summer, let's make the most of it."
Here's to the hope you gave me,
Here's to the memories you made me,
Here's to us, my dear, here's to my final summer here.

Stuck

It's a good thing I'm leaving
because this place is driving me mad
With its insane notions
of what is good and what is bad.

But here I am
stuck in the middle
of being here
and being there
and in this perpetual state
of denying anything here
so I CAN and WILL go there.

August 23 is a deadline
by which my life must end by
and begin again after that day
but until then I'm stuck
in the limbo, the purgatory
waiting for heaven
and hoping to avoid these flames
all the while suffering the solitude
that goes onto to obliterate myself
in its vicious cycle of taunting and teasing
because I am alone.

Goodbye my hell.
Goodbye my heaven.
Hello purgatory
and the weightless waiting
in which I find myself
crying sometimes
and hoping the rest will go better
and someone will find me floating
in the limbo between here and there.

Until then,
all that remains
is me: stuck.

Just Fuck It

They sit at their table
with cigarette aglow
in the hands of one
too young to even know
how to ignite the flame
of passion that should burn
even into the darkest nights
of a relationship that's meant
to last into the end of time and beyond.

I laugh and pretend to care
about the one with the fag
as I long for the one with
the one with the fag.

Just fuck it, alright?
I scream inside
as they walk into the night:
another couple
I long to belong in
but find myself the third wheel.

Just fuck it,
I scream and look downtrodden
As I'm pushed out the door
And asked is everything alright.

Of course it is, just fuck it.

I wish I could see them,
the faces the make
As I walk away
down the cold lonely street
and pause to meet and greet
A slut and a girl I barely know
but somehow reads me quite fluently
as I look at him and smile
realizing he realized I existed.

Me.
Existing.
Just fuck it.

I walk away again
Walk away from him
Walk away from the hordes of hims
The unavailable, gay men.

Just fuck it.

Recession

My life is like the stock market:
hopelessly lost in the stir of New York,
I teeter on the edge of going under
all the while wishing for a peak
which I will never quite reach
because somehow there will always be
some greater height to reach
that is just out of reach
and so fucking hard to follow
because it goes up and down
so rapidly that I get lost in the blur
of faces and names that mean nothing
unless they crash like a meteorite
into the poor, pathetic negative
in which I currently reside.
My recession.

Beauty from the Beast

It was the image of perfection:
ruby red paint
sleek curves
and the power of a beast
contained within its compact form.

I named it Baby Red -
for the color -
and loved ever minute
behind that 0-60 in 3.75 seconds
2000 Honda Civic.

It was the envy of every man,
woman, and child in my small town
and on the campus of my 500 population
school that I sped to as I ran late
every morning from the moment
I bought that slice of heaven on earth.

Then, the gravel came fast to chip
the paint from the side
and the road met window
at 55 miles per hour
as my stack of Compact Discs
bombarded my head as the world
spun around in circles
going so fast but so slow at the same time
like a careening airplane
that's sure of death but no longer afraid
of what is to come as it
plummets so quickly
to the ground that there is no
turning back from what
is going to happen.
Then it stops.

I am sideways.
Hands at 10 and 2.
The car groans its protest beneath me.
I push up against the passenger door
that is suddenly so much heavier than
it ever seemed before.
Gravity's a bitch when you're trapped.

I land on all fours on the gravel road
and cry int the headlights that light both
my feet and my contorted face
as I stare blankly at the carnage
of my once beautiful Baby Red.

I scream out into the night
"Help! HELP! Oh my GOD!
HELP! I just wrecked my car!
Won't somebody help me!"

I cry out in vain at the lonely farm house
and to the rustle in the bushes.
I scream not for the aide but for the comfort
of screaming when the world
has come back to full speed
and the impact finally hits
that my car is not my car
but my pile of scrap metal
for all I know or care:
this is the death of beauty.

The cell phone lights from inside
and I scale the car once more
to reach that heavy metal door
and fall through to the other side,
where my journey both ended and began
once more, to dig for that beacon
of flashing hope beneath the gas pedal,
beneath the black rose pedal that killed
a love and gave birth to a new love
all at the same time.

"Help me! I. Wrecked. My. Car!"
I pant between sobs

"Huh? Dude? What?"
He says in shock and awe.

"I. Wrecked. My. Car."
I repeat for affect.

"Woah. Are you shitting me?
You're late man, get yo ass here!"
He retorts, hoping to see
some way passed my joke
that isn't really a joke at all.

"I. Can't. I. Wrecked. My. Ca-a-a-ar!"
I scream and squeal
and thrash about
until he appeals
to my cry for help,
for him to come my way!

"We're on the way."
Thank God, you're on the way.

Headlights blare from both directions
parents come last, as usual,
but the friends are their pushing
and holding and hugging and praying
that nothing is broken.

But something is broken:
my big-headed pride,
my over-sized stride,
my love of myself
I could not deny.
Until that very moment
when it was all gone.

They came to push it back upright
and there I beheld that horrendous sight:
My Baby Red turned into the Red Beast
the devilish gravel held its devilish feast
on that shiny red paint and that smooth sleek body,
why did this happen to that smooth sleek body?

That night was a daze
The next day a drag
I sat on that bus
and wailed and sagged
in the seat as it bumped
along that same gravel road
where my car marred the surface
of a patch of roughness in the otherwise
quite bumpy road that should never
have been traveled.
That will teach me to speed
on loose gravel!

Two weeks later,
the Red Beast was back
but the stares were of another
sort than the stares of before.
These were of sadness,
pity, and remorse
for the loss of cart
for the loss of its horse!

They wept at the loss
of such superficial beauty:
the red mixed with white,
the ash to douse the flame.

"It was so pretty
But then you had to go
and wreck it all!"

Why do they make me take the fall?

I drive it still today
Some two years later
I drive it still today
But it's become something greater:
A legacy I leave behind
to top my "Tops in Texas"
because long after that
trophy is forgotten,
they'll still remember me:
the boy who rode the gallant steed
That broken piece of former beauty
turned into the ferocious beast!

I leave behind a legacy when I move:
the legacy of Baby Red turned to Red Beast,
the legacy of legend to say the very least.

Wherever I go, people recognize me
But it's not by what I've done
Or who I know
Or what I will do.

Wherever I go, people recognize me
because I'm not afraid to tame the beast
and ride it into the night,
and on through my life.