you got in the car
three days without a shower
hair hanging in your face
looking out the window
knowing what you did
what said
hurt

it had been said
your arguments made
so you sat there
listened as I told you
in a voice you never heard
what you truly done

afterward you clung to me
said you were sorry

my body was stress sore
exposed nerves 
raw eyes and gums
my father heart
broke to pieces
for us
and what we were 
in that moment

Ostensibly means 
you might hear a poem, but
maybe meet a cat.

The matriarch tree of this wide old street
will give us strength to keep on

1) If the shoe fits, wear it. Yet, what happens to beings who can’t fit the right sole; finding it infinitely impossible to fit into their own skin when society expects fulfillment in the form of gross from grotesque businesses?

2) They say be fit, peak physical condition, maintain through acts of physical fitness to avoid fit full bouts with bubbling bile boiling in your bowels because you can’t find it in you to fit in;

3) fit the bill of the bigoted bureaucracy forcing you to foot bills for survival.

4) When you’ve been a fitted sheet on a mattress of spikey springs for the mental fortitude of what feels like centuries you find that the eventual slip into madness meshes and becomes you.

5) Fiddling through reality to find a place to fit in, but forced society imposes fixes upon yourself facilitating this mania; ending in being seen unfit for the duty needed to survive the rat race of life and slammed into the asylum.

6) Four soft walls fit for a king who rules the maddening crowd.

Define: Fit (read aloud)

The inkwell of my brain’s run dry
I’ve nothing left to say
But still I show up to the page and try
Tomorrow’s another day

On a Sunday afternoon in March I drove the three of us
back home from Asheville
I’d only ever passed through, never stayed
Neither of you had been out here
Not like me
I’ve been up to the lake and all its ducks at Kingdom Come 
more times than I can count

We took my dad’s route on the way back
My car danced its way around Pine Mountain
and I suddenly I was my father
Hoping you’d look up from your book
and out across the valley
as we ascended through the trees 

I prepare for my returns
like an attorney
for judgement day

I only wore them once
ten steps on the carpet
the cat sniffed twice but didn’t nibble

find your irises
in the mirror
repeat that gentle smile

set the box down
less firmly
than a bible thump

more sure
than grammy’s
favorite plate

will that be all for you today?

thunder utters

Her words seep with good intentions 
But the road to hell was paved with her lips 

She wasn’t pretty in the conventional sense.
She was pretty in the way that a sudden
summer thunderstorm would rain down.
You would be walking and in the blink of
an eye, you would be struck by the beauty
in her eyes. The rain would strike the pavement
and then hit your heart. It was only a season,
you would tell yourself, but no one forgets
sweet summer nights. She would come quick
and leave even faster. You would tell yourself
that you could forget her in a matter of time,
but she was one to remember. One for the
record books. A torrential downpour. You
would tell yourself that she wasn’t worth
chasing, but people love tornados for a
reason. She wasn’t pretty in the conventional
sense. She was pretty in the way a sudden
summer thunderstorm would catch your
eye and you loved her for it.