from the legal pad

there are moments where i deserve any of this, fool. but there are also  glimpses in the morning    as i roll over    away from you. smiles in the grocery   when you ask to splurge   on a two dollar item. mere seconds,   when i helplessly grasp   your living beauty. here in the space between my arrogance and my astonishment i thank you. lucky me. life and love with you is next to salvation.

not the lack of acting. nor the track record. wholeness, more than monogamy, is left wanting. more than sex, more than adventure, more than the love of another- this escape reveals a separation anxiety. he's lost his sense of self within the rosy distraction(s). she's hopeful to merely outlast the other(s). our artless infatuation rightfully reveals the reality- fragmentation. his selection(s) segregate(s). he won't find the one(s). designed in singularity, with a love, by an endless unity. the bachelor can only remind us of all that life isn't. may we find ourselves rated, premier and whole.

i've only grieved second hand. i've held the hand of an unknown spouse as her beloved was unplugged. i've told the boy that dad was dead, and he could see him soon. i've called the friend of a friend, for a friend, when she didn't know.  i remember watching my brother, mother, father and friend. this week i put on my suit twice, but the tears were not my own. they are my only gift to you. i am so sorry. i can't imagine.  i hope-

east texas and southern california. bird petri dishes to some extent. but in these regions, i never noticed. in the thriving metropolis of arkadelphia, arkansas, i took a course half-devoted to bird watching. i now know who cooks for you all. but that's about it. today i hear the cry of a mourning dove with surprising regularity. this previous white noise now sings with shape and sadness.   awareness, my ear's salvation. education, my mind's new freedom. there is life, i've been told, singing from the nests of trees and the nooks of balconies. and i hear it, now, with surprising regularity.