There are things better left untouched by words.

I don’t write poetry when I wish, I write when I can’t, when my larynx is flooded and my throat is shut.

This morning I suddenly catch myself: I'm not there, I'm so lost in thought, I don't know what's going on around me. Can you think yourself to death?

We cling to words like drowning men to straws. But still we drown, we drown.

The way a source strains toward the light, toward the air. Its laboring work, its effort, its black passageways like despair. That’s the way a poet looks for words. With muscles, gestures.

I’ve learned to value failed conversations, missed connections, confusions. What remains is what’s unsaid, what’s underneath. Understanding on another level of being.

Where your pain is, there your heart lies also.