In The Venue, 2006

These lights,
cooking my sweat-drenched face
with colors kaleidoscoping off closed lids.
I don’t dare open my eyes and welcome the sting
of being at the center of this storm.

I can smell the fog machine blanket the stage
as I hold my first love in my arms.
We move together like two birds flying
over the crowd, gathered and energized.

We fly over a floor of ecstatic chaos
and I’m not the only one singing…
a bridge is being built between
these strangers and my songs,

built until we’re closer, intimate,
together in this hurricane of noise.
So when I scream, they scream…
so when I breathe, they breathe…and we all know how it feels to be alive