Some days I like to wear black
  because what I feel is too complex to fit 
  inside a color.

Some days I want (I need) I want to listen to  
  the most baleful unaccompanied horn sound 
  want to 
Play the sort of sound that can swallow the 
  moon want my horn to
Sing like we're weeping together

                because I cannot

because I want to need to cannot 
because I cannot I want to need to I cannot I cannot

Because I

--CNS 7 April 2005


The most beautiful song in the universe lies

In the fathomless pools of an quadruped’s eyes.

He remembers a time when his kindred ran free;

Arpeggiated hoofbeats proclaimed their glory.

Not e’en the great Mozart could match the perfection

Of this timeless memory’s grand resurrection,

For he holds in his heart this age-old melody

of a time yet unstained by human blasphemy--

When the song in their hearts was the only concern

Until slurs suddenly to staccato would turn,

Leaving holes in the one-time legato etude

Now turning to one that is boist’rous and rude.

Where once it crescendoed to musical fury,

It now seems to soften and starts to grow blurry,

For man always strives to remove this desire

Of the horse:  to recapture his spirit of fire.

--CNS September 2002

Daybreak
         Fist unclenching

 every morning
                     puts on a face for the world

                                                     ~

                                              Nightfall
                                     She folds.
                             into herself

                                again
--CNS 12 November 2004


I've never been incompetent

but when you speak to me

My confidence, my sense of self

collapses to debris

Only you can make me worthless

--CNS 29 October 2004

The person you can see in me

the woman I will someday be--

she may be me, but I'm not she,

the woman I will someday be.


The ones in me you haven't seen,

the girls who I have one-time been--

all that I am, I've had to glean

from who it is that I have been.


At times I feel like more than one:

the person I have now become.

Of all the others, I am sum--

the person I have now become.


And so I feel the only way

is living life from day to day.

The others, they will find a way;

they'll live my lives with me each day.

--CNS 24 October 2004

Softly speaking to me

the demon in my mind

whispers words of comfort,

joy, and peace I'll never find.


Expect more, you will get more,

she leads me to believe--

then all too late I realize

that I have been deceived.


Impossibility

becomes my only goal,

and just when it's in reach,

I fall into this hole.


It's dark and lonely here,

and I am so confused.

She laughs at my distress

as I lie here torn and bruised.


She wants the best for me,

she wants me to succeed;

but in the end she always

leaves me lying here to bleed.


She's going to help me up

when she knows the time is right.

For now I wait alone

in the stillness of the night.

--CNS 17 December 2003

You see this superficial smile?

I wear it just for you.

I've practiced long enough that

my emotions don't show through.

You see my life as perfect,

you're oblivious to my pain.

I try to show you my wounds

but my efforts are in vain.


Because I'm perfect in your eyes,

you think I'm fine alone.

I need you here beside me,

I can't do this on my own.


I'm over troubled water,

but my bridge just isn't there.

Are you going to help me cross,

or do you just not care?

Do you know I need your help,

or are you blind as well?

Just like all the others

Who can't see through my shell.


Because I'm perfect in your eyes,

you think I'm fine alone.

I need you here beside me,

I can't do this on my own.


I need you to go with me

for I mean to travel far.

I'd ask you for directions

but I don't know who you are.

I don't know who you are.

--CNS 2000

When you lose a loved one,

You always wonder why.

But, have you ever wondered

What it's like to die?

We simply cannot fathom

The experience of death;

I wonder what happens

After the final breath.

Do we go to hell or heaven?

Or do we stay right here?

Are we free to mingle

With those that we hold dear?

Are we simply gone,

Our bones within the earth?

Or do our souls return

In some kind of second birth?

There are many theories,

But it can't be denied:

No one can be quite the same

After they have died.

--CNS 1999

What can I do to make you love me?

Everything I do, I do for you;

Yet you never seem to notice,

You say 'good job' but it's not true.

So what would it take

to turn your head?

Nothing I've done,

Nothing I've said.

None of this is easy,

But you must think it is,

You've come to expect it,

You weren't expecting this.

You wanted nothing less than perfect,

I thought that I came pretty close.

You never gave me recognition:

That's what I desired most.

Why is it never quite good enough?

Tell me, that's my cue.

I'll exceed my best,

Just say 'I'm proud of you.'

--CNS 1998