Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get. I mean, sometimes there’ll be a sort-of loose guide, but they can only tell you so much of what you’re going to experience when you pop the morsel into your mouth and chew, chew slower. It could be caramel ganache, or a turtle, or that raspberry goop—we eat anyway, knowing we don’t like it. It could be a truffle, it could h...

I thought to get one, you know?

A fishing hook for my hat

I saw a man the other day who had one

When I set out to go fishing

and I thought to ask him if he’d

caught anything good lately

or if he was getting any bites

and he’d say something like

“Nothin’ but smallmouth bass. You?”

and I’d tell him I don’t fish

——but you know I’d worry about

that fishhook fall...

If I was afraid of elevators—I am

because, sometimes I have a feeling

they’ll take me someplace

other than where I told them to

and the doors will open up

into utter darkness——there’ll be

a sound there, something scraping

like bones rumbling—and it’ll

quiet down, when it sees me

standing there—hitting _DOOR CLOSE_

__

__

firmly and silently; I’ll look into the dark

...

i went looking for me

awhile ago

caught the train to my reflection

missed the switch

didn’t find myself

spotted a glimpse of me

happy in the fiery trees

just enough to make me sick

no sooner seen then gone

sought by the Good Book

sliced my throat on the Word

I watched me fly away

a cubit over my spinning head

I caught my heel in time

for me to carry myself

further into my own mind

off into t...

I walked through the hall

on my way to write poetry

and heard a very faint voice

as I often do;

then thinking it was just a ghost

or a dream

or the wind

I carried on walking

and the voice called a half-whisper

louder——and it so softly cried,

“Help.”

So, realizing one of these

fellow humans had fallen

I followed that sound to each door

fusing my ear with every one

un...

Life is a story. Stories are chapters. Chapters are paragraphs—those are sentences made of words. Words are made of letters.

Anyway, don’t spend so much time looking at your darkest chapter that you forget how to spell.

———

The next time someone puts a knife in your back, and you go to return the favor——check how much room there is on their back first. Maybe say something nice. Or love them...

We don’t have to hate each other

not anymore

You don’t have to hate me

and I don’t have to hate you

and we don’t have to kill each other

not anymore

and we can love each other

I can hope for good things for you

and I can help you

like you were my blood

like you were my body

and you can tell me

when you’re dying

and I can drop everything

I c...

The room of my 15 brothers

each of us with our heads bowed

our hearts brought low to the feet of our King

with no dry eye among us

there, that is where this world just rips in two

and falls away

where the air is filled with the scent

of home

where the darkness is broken

where hell is helpless against our plundering

then I can smell God’s blood

in the air that...

there was a hotel within eyeshot

—I told a man today

that I am new to this labor

and he said to me

he couldn’t tell

we ran out of bird food

the best problem to have

and neither of us were cut

but I’ve yet to have a knife

pointed at my face

a gun, in someone else’s hands,

pointed to my heart

pointed to my Spirit

and I’ve not yet fired bac...