i am me
i am not peter
not cantelon/mccarty/valeriote/samuels/omansky

i am me
only me

no dad
but definitely not
imacculately conceived
i had no man to model
so i am not man
i am not woman
maybe both, not either
but a better woman
made me a better man
that i might know i am neither

i am me
and she was she
i am not straight/gay/lesbian/trans/2 spirit
i am not husband/father/brother/son/uncle
i am invisible and visibly here
and brazenly standing right in front of you

not christian/jew/muslim/buddhist
not atheist/agnostic/believer

i am me
only me

can’t
you
see

just me

not liberal/conservative/communist/anarchist
not tall or short
not sexual or asexual

i’m not gen x or millenial or any
in between
fuck every distinction ever made
by cowards and our lazy oligarchy

i am me and me alone
and me in the midst of it all

no box or cubby or file
no friend no foe
no personality test or horoscope
defines me…not you…just me
only me

i want to be
just be
in a sea
of labeled shit
that makes it easy
to know who to hate
and i am not white/black/brown/red/yellow
just me

it is enough
it is everything
to take my place
to sing whatever song i choose to sing
it is enough

i am none of these things
and maybe i am everything
i am dead and i am alive
and i am beyond it all
and bound right here
forever and never

i am me
why can’t you see
it has always been this way
today tomorrow and yesterday

i am me

i am who i am
has always been
will always be

i am

me.

morning
and sun is gold
inside the bleached snow
glowing like a hidden treasure
from within

and if it were yesterday
it would all be for naught
it would all be passing beauty
easily forgot
amidst a deeper, lingering backdrop

but it is today
and so it is a good
and wondrous thing to see
causing better, higher thoughts

and i know
that beauty can be missed
in the passing storm
buried beneath it all
unless one digs for it

you must only look to
the dead and the dying
when you are
the dead and the dying

you must only yearn
for dust and dry bones
when you are
dust and dry bones

sand for the parched throat
and sun for the blistering skin
stay out of the water
stay out of the shade

for you are not like you once were
you are other now and we cast you out

life is a pixelated dream

moving languid past my eyes

as though across a distant screen

but I am pleased to be a witness

to the creatures dancing unevenly

beautiful shadows before me…

what a heart there

lying on the kitchen floor,

nearly tripped over it

walking by –

“who’d go and leave their heart laying out like that where it could get all crushed and broken?”

so I picked it up

and left it on the counter

and covered it with a glass bowl

to keep it safe until the owner

could reclaim it and put it back

where it belonged.

there comes this time
like the inevitable wave that rolls in,
like the inevitable wave that rolls out;
this absence of a presence,
this presence of an absence;
and we are lost in the crowd,
and the crowd is lost with us.

i cannot accept the undesireable exorcism
that casts out life and lives like scrap,
rolling toward the end of the conveyor belt,
dropping piece by piece to the crucible,
to be forged into nothing;
at least nothing worth while,
just spare parts without me,
without you –

empty bits for the next universe.

time is not distance

to the heart

to the mind

time is yesterday,

time is tomorrow

time is now

but it is never far

never away

all the things we were

ashl the ones we’ve known,

they’re right here

right now

forever… all the time