drown

When I look into your eyes, I see all but my favorite colors, reminding me of everything but my favorite places.

But I get to share them with you. And I get to take you there.

When I touch your skin, it’s softer than I could ever be.

But you get to feel the callouses from my hard work in trying.

When you speak to me in whisper, it reminds me of the rain.

And I get to feel it, and it washes me, my fingertips reforming to move through it.

Love can be so many things, and you can see it in so many different ways—

I see it in you, in the way you move around me, and the way you talk about your family.

I see it in the way you get excited about adventure, the way your eyes light up and I drown in that glacier blue that floods the space around me.

And you’ve seen it in the way I speak soft and low with my mom, picking up for her and cleaning up little messes.

You’ve opened my eyes in an ocean of ways, seeing things I haven’t seen before, feeling in waves I’m almost unfamiliar with.

I have been the boat, I have been the sea, I have been the lighthouse, and I’ve been the same rocks I’ve crashed upon so many times.

I hope to float in any way I can, as long as I can.

I hope to sink, I hope to swim, I hope to drown I hope to drown I hope to drown.

_______________________

JK

shipwrecks

The shaking in my bones has almost left.

The quaking of earth and shattering of stone had almost buried me entirely beneath dirt and rust.

In crawling back into the light of day, in washing myself clean of days gone and wounds long scarred,

I still find myself reserved and hesitant.

I’m even biting my nails tonight, just one of a few habits I’ve all but snuffed out.

Being completely honest, I am terrified of things to come—

But I am hopeful, and I haven’t felt that way, truly, for quite some time.

I feel stronger, I feel more confident, and I feel more cared for than I have in many years.

My heart still beats the same, my mind is at ease in conversation, my limbs remain soft and caressed with love—less blue and yellow than before, less ache of soul and worry of spirit than I’m used to.

I feel loved, I feel happy, and I feel appreciated.

I feel safe.

I’ve put walls between myself and all the white ghosts, red devils that’ve so easily disgraced my skin and bones and heart and mind.

I still hold the lyrics of Wooden Heart by Listener close to me:

These lies are ropes that I tie down in my stomach
But they hold this ship together tossed like leaves in this weather
And my dreams are sails that I point towards my true north
Stretched thin over my rib bones, and pray that it gets better
But it won’t, at least I don’t believe it will

But it does, and it will, and it did for me.

Life gets better and you learn and grow and adapt and reform, and you can become the person you hope to be, and you can give all the love you wish to receive.

Scars are there to show that we made it.

You’re here, I’m here, and I fucking love that for us.

The ghosts that follow us cannot pierce the glass between the realms, though they try—

I am willing to learn and grow and love again for you and I.

‘Cause I know that our church is made out of shipwrecks
From every hull these rocks have claimed
But we pick ourselves up, and try and grow better through the change.

I no longer feel haunted when you touch me.

___________________

JK

safe

I used to carry around a wooden heart—

It was crafted from broken boards and rusted nails, pieces of shipwrecks I barely survived.

It never fit quite right in my chest, and hadn’t felt safe on my sleeve for a long time.

But I still tried.

Love is the only faith that I truly have left, and I’ll hold onto it until my final breath—

And you now have shown me that flesh and bone can regrow, that there is always more, and that my heart is safe from rocky shores.

I still set sail and I still press on;

I place my new heart back inside my chest, back upon my sleeve,

Not because I know for certain I won’t crash again, that the sails could never rip,

That the clash of the rain won’t tear me down,

That I could never again be drowned,

But because there is still so much more to see, so much more to know,

And my compass will always guide me to my true north, and I will always follow it home.

__________________

JK

poetry

I’ve tried writing it out, but the words and I are too close together.

The ink in the pen and blood of my veins sometimes spills the same way, often mixing to a deep hue in a way I cannot explain.

Bones and flesh become another form of parchment, muscle wrapped around them tied up with ligaments and joints like dotted i’s and crossed t’s.

I’ve said it once before that anything can be poetry.

And I once said that I wrote your name, and then I wrote mine.

Here I stand again wondering if the lines I lift mean anything this time—

But I will write her name, and I will again write mine,

And I hope to god the ink and blood and flesh and bones and skin teeth back hands lips cheek smile laugh stays wrapped between the letters like Jasmine vine, less black and blue and more green and blooming yellow on this frame of mine.

Peace always finds a way to grow in the summertime.

_____________________

JK

every part of me

I can’t help it.

I want your skin on mine like sunshine—

I want to feel you the way air brushes past my cheeks.

I want to know you the way light finds every part of me that it can touch.

I want you to feel my hands in search of something more than broken branches—

I want to land hands down, palms on solid ground, fingers folding, interlocking like wind twisting vines amongst the trees.

I want you to see me, all of me, screaming at the sky in the hopes that you hear what I’ve been saying so loud for so long now.

I want you to know that I’m here.

____________________

JK

Happy Father’s Day.

My father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name—

Breaking ground and shattering through sound, I hear you encouraging me from beyond.

Everything I want is surrounding me now,

And you were right:

I shouldn’t be discouraged; I have so much more to give, and there are those who are willing to return equally.

I have so many things I wish I could tell you about.

I love more things, I have so much more sunshine, and I am striving to be the son you bragged me to be.

I hope you’re proud of what I’ve become.

I hope you’re happy that I’m happy.

I hope you know how much I miss you, and that I wish some of the people in my life that I love dearly had been given the chance to meet the man that made me so.

I’m learning more now, a lot through retrospection, but I hope you know that I never forgot the things you taught me.

A lot of them I took for granted, some I may have completely ignored, but it’s all here. I have it all.

I will one day be the boy come to man be the son you hoped I’d always be.

And I can only wish you were here to see.

I love you, dad. I miss you like hell.

Happy Father’s Day.

___________________

JK

rising tide

Limbs like anchors in the heat waves,

Eyes locked on the horizon line,

With the wind at our backs, we’ll be just fine.

Pressed on like iron sides,

Hands reaching for more, a taste of the siren’s voice,

With the sun to our east, we’ll be just fine.

Tongue tied like sails in a storm,

Waist to mine, we’re wasting time;

Wether boat or sea in rising tide, just weather to you and I, we’ll be just fine.

_____________________

JK

between two pebbles

I know that one day I will no longer walk this earth, now with dirty feet and calloused hands like aged leather from years of plucking—silver cord stretched thin like tight wire.

Perhaps there is another world beyond where my hands no longer ache from the heat and strain, where my feet run free in the tall grass, the whole of me swallowed by the wind and rain.

Too many stars in the sky tell me that there is hope beyond the things I touch, the heartbeat, the cold, dark nights.

Perhaps one day I will wear your love like a robe of open air, swathed in blue skyline, taut, skin to bone, lovely, soul stitched to mine like patchwork hand-me-downs.

Perhaps that soul is something that can be created, something found, something that makes life and living more like counting cars, cloud gazing, mesmerizing, serendipitous love found perched between two pebbles in a whispering brook.

Too many hands in mine have left skin less soft, less ought to hold again.

Perhaps my heart and soul were never mine to own, only found in hands that hope to hold and love and share and fall and ache and hold and hold and hold and hold.

I hope that the next time I fall I will never have to get up again, and I pray to never hit the ground.

___________________

JK

lovely bones

Skin like branches, breathing soft through the leaves of me;

Hands like houses, opening doors to feelings unseen;

Teeth like starlight, twisting, turning me, casting shadows through the deepest parts;

Eyes like roots, digging into mine in search of what I see;

Carve out my ribs to save a space for us—

There is so much more than lovely bones beneath these veins I hold untouched.

___________________

JK

like broken feet

I wanted you to be the one.

You were often cold when I told you that.

Severed at the ends like dead hair, you loved the way the wind tossed you about,

And you never held any sort of fluke or pointed projection that reflected me as an anchor in any way—

No rope of me meant anything in holding your ship;

No standing end was I to you, just a bitter end to stormy seas.

I did everything to be the bowline boy, the clove hitch holding ship to shore, forever waiting on adventure beyond horizons.

My love has grown tapered, frayed at the ends like weathered line, tossed to sea and washed to tide.

Deep blue ocean wraps around my rib bones like tight skin, binding frame like broken feet lest I grow beyond what is deemed beauty by those around me.

I keep my heart pressed aft and away from me through these rocky waves crashing on my beach.

I’ve lost grip to the helm, water flooding the boards beneath me, salted sea searing open wounds.

Through the blinding clash of lighting flashing all around

I see the eye of the storm casting light towards the bow:

A break in the breakers, a calm to the ache of wind that surrounds me now—

With anchor lost, compass muddled by the magnitude of misdirection, I press on.

I’ll sail until I can’t sail anymore.

_______________________

JK

you, you

What do you do for them when they love another set of eyes
Stare at teeth with ache
Taste tongue in cheek
Of someone else
And you, you,
Can’t imagine them being looked at the way 
You long for,
Having exchange of breathe
Closing eyes in the dark
With someone else
And you, you,
Try to keep your distance, 
But you can’t stand it,
Not for one moment being any farther apart than
Skin scuffing,
Fingers locked,
Lips collide,
But you, you,
Don’t love me the way that I love you,
But neither do I,
And you, you,
And I, I,
We’ll both end up rolled out like shag carpet
On dining room floors
With someone else

JK