One twisted wreath ring
stainless steel, size 8, scratched
******* on right hand

leather wallet, bi-fold, European-style
my father's, my nineteenth birthday
three train tickets, debit card, folded five

five keys, two keyrings
keychain says Budapest, never been
four keys decades older than me
just one, newly cut

headphones, black
one ear doesn't work
wrapped carefully
never tangled

lip balm, mint

coffee receipt

three quarters
four dimes
a nickel

and the understanding
that I've a hell of a long way to go.

Between you and me
I didn't know comfort
that lasted longer
than seconds
before I
knew you.

I could put it into specifics by describing your toothpaste. No matter how recently you had bought it, that sorry tube was always a mangled mess. Twisted, creased, folded plastic or whatever it was, topped with a messy, half-open, broken-hinged, ineffective cap. Slathered with the blue-and-white residue of rushed mornings and tired nights. Exhausted. Does toothpaste try? It gets the job done, sure. But you probably waste half the toothpaste by destroying the tube like that.

You were like this with many things. Exhausted, a little bit crumpled and always partially wasted. Like toothpaste, I know you were always trying, and you nearly always succeeded at whatever you were doing, you were just often left with something not finished to your own standards. Dissatisfied with your own success. As I'm sure toothpaste is when you have a fine smile but still end up needing a filling again. Toothpaste does a good job, you must understand. We are just sometimes careless, and we sometimes don't have the time we need. We all still end up needing to schedule a dentist's appointment once in awhile.

Nobody likes the dentist. They’re bound to be good people, dentists, but I’ve never met anyone that doesn’t dread the dentist’s throne. Really, we’re supposed to avoid them - the whole goal is to never have reason to see the dentist, right? But we always do. For a regular check-up at least, if we can remember to book the appointment, as much as we may want to get out of it. Something that should be so easy to get out of, had you just brushed your teeth right all the time. So toothpaste is never as effective as you want it to be. But maybe that’s what makes it so satisfying - squeezing the life out of that tube, you can feel like you have power over the inevitable. That’s what you wanted.

I wish I understood
why I've lost the ability
to fully understand.

All the best people
can burn you sometimes
and often the worst
will offer you aloe

but those in-between
are those you should look for
who notice your burns
and know what they're from.

Quiet

stretch
headphones in
touch

play

Tom Petty
the heartbreakers
are silent

free
free falling, falling

lights
off, dim
light through
basement
apartment window

too late
to sleep
too early
to wake

and I'm free
falling, falling

touch
pause

headphones
out

get some rest
goodnight Tom.

We used
to talk
for hours.

Grocery store chocolate chip cookies
and cold milk in chipped whiskey glasses

on a dreary Sunday, foggy afternoon
the radio just feet from us, silent

rain gave up several minutes ago
so now it's just your voice and I.

on wings of the child
of a small yellow bird
it took just under
one awful minute

tires, voices
shouts, a scream
a chorus of them,
a choral chaos
that didn't stop
until you ran away
bird song halted

just like that,
those people
will never
be home
again.

After minutes
it's as if
I've known
you forever.

The grey in your fire escape window view
encompasses the sky and reflection
the glow you've missed for years
fallen from the sunset

a smouldering reminder of the dull days
you see ahead of you, a charcoal expanse
spread across skyscrapers and rubble
in that grey sunset reflection

oh, how the colours you miss so dearly
long to clearly see you, unobscured.

My father was
not a businessman but
a handyman, a blue
collared hope chest to
those he loved, gruff and
sturdy with stony hands and
crystal wit, sharp as the chisels
that sat in the bottom of the rough-
hemmed toolbox he fused to his gait
rarely used but sharpened, always present
a testament to the unrefined repairs
he had constructed himself through, my
father was always fixing never perfecting
he taught me how to do that how to
be imperfect yet functional, a fire
that warms not burns, a home
in winters that drag on past spring
and that I am not, but I know how to be
because he told me, he told me,
he taught me to be
good even quietly, work hard even
though it is hardly even you that
can notice what difference it makes
be strong for the weak because it is you
you are strong for that way he told me
and I know now I always must try to be
a handyman not a businessman,
a blue collared hope chest to
those I love.

Once
we
were
able
to
cre-
ate
life
with
only
words.

When you find
you feel uncomfortable,
we'll dive into
waterfalls
of colour

then we'll find a way
to console the moon,
so the current
stays awake
in a tide

when rhyme runs out
and reason's the sun
we'll out-flower
underwater
mountains

and when the volcano
erupts with a reef,
we'll know that
you're safe
in the sea.

And we
spent the day
in the bed with
white sheets,
wasting away
our golden hours,
our youth
and our future.

We fall into just the right places
now it's easy to undo these things
there's nowhere our hands
          don't know where to go
and we're asleep when
          the morning birds sing

our breath knows its way into rhythm
new is quiet and sincere
but still there are sparks
          in the spaces in the dark
and nothing can ever
          reach us here.

Words
won't
water
flowers.

Now the water
is at your neck,
you swam too far
into what you didn't
yet understand and now
it's too late to make it out
from under this next wave.

It is said so often
that if they love you
you can go anywhere
and they will follow you

every poet dreams this is
the truth as we run from love
but it isn't. We have been lied to
by those that haven't ever known

that love they write about so often.

I will always be
acceptable and
yet comfortably
disappointing.

Every writer has penned themselves
the last on the train, the empty diner
even when we aren't that alone.

Tell me
is there fog
in Vienna?

Before
you fall
asleep,

count the
reasons
you'll wake up

even if
there's only one,
now you have a reason.

On the 1:28 a.m. train
all that have left to ride west
are the night shifts
high on coffee and hope
the lonely rock climbers
with caves under their eyes
and the young lovers
too late to stay out
too early to say goodbye.

This black jacket
will fade as I do

and these old shoes
will age with me.

Like pulling a rabbit
from an old black hat

you pull another life
from that flask

a magician
never reveals their secrets

and they never
produce real magic.

All I
needed
to do
was fall
to learn
to fly.

I'm wrapped in corner winds
of morbid misunderstanding

where monsters will emerge
and turn to dust in an instant

here you endure the anxiety
of an uncontrollable silence.

There's a place for you
in the stars, in the sky

there's a home for two
under night

I've a hole for a heart
and I'm falling apart

but Daisy May,
you can stay,
if it's alright.

The ringing in my
exhausted ears
makes a sound
like the doors
of a subway
closing.

Like pajama clothes
we don't at all match

incompatibility clashes
you'd never wear us out

we fit poorly in pattern and
nightmarish combination

we are cut of conflicting cloth
and yet we are so comfortable.

We can sit
wherever

we want
to sit and

we can
count the

fireflies
that shy

away from
kissing us.

There was a time
when I wrote poems
about longing and love

but I love how long it's been
since that was okay, since
I didn't have other things
to worry about, to think
about, to dream about.

Lovers and dreamers
write out your hearts
but I am no longer
one of your many.

The thing is
after a sunset
things get dark.

How strange it is
that I don't write poems
when I'm with you.

Dying to live as if he was dying
he spoke of sleep in melatonin growl
all was grey in his sepia expression
and he dare not remember his name

with a twist of overqualified hands
he dragged the scratch ticket up an inch
across the faux-velvet subway seat
in regretful pull of the gambling fool

screeching between unsettled destination
he wrung friendly hands left alone for years
mottled digits that knew all so well
why his wife preferred the sofa.

You don't expect
the best of me

so some days
I can make you
so so happy

and others
you know
I'm trying.

Now the water
is at your knees.

I know all too well
how to speak as if
we are strangers.

In my years writing
all I have become
is a **** good liar

I will tell you no truth
but all you want to hear
will fall with sincerity

from silver velvet lips.

So hat someday we will wake
without dressing in armour

so that we will be equal in the eyes
of these goddesses we uphold

so that our sisters, undefeated
have no more scars to compare

so that in the end, by whatever name
we are our own and will remain so

so that the stories of our hands
will write the pages of history

forever.

Of course
we are
all of us
fighters

of course
we each
have our
causes

causes
to which
we must
devote

ourselves
completely
though we
struggle

the force
of our minds
of our hands
unstoppable

we are power
we are change
we are strong
we are strength.

We are well aware
of the cycle of history
the pull of the times
and their grip on our arm

but in immovable force
of endless movement
we run alongside together
differences are our lungs

in unmeasured numbers
we charge as but humanity
and with undeniable battle calls
raise the emblem of our hands

towards what we so believe
resisting the pull of silence.

Leaving bridges in flames
and walls in glorious ruin

I stepped into the open air
tears reaching my collarbone

while sledgehammer and matches
slipped from trembling fingers inside.

I see the way
your t-shirts fade
your book pages crease
your nose turns up
your clothes aren't folded
your ears turn red
your tea isn't strong
your lips don't close
your stubbornness wavers
your shoulders are warm
your thoughts circle
your eyes flicker
your shoes get *****
your cheeks get spots
your beliefs are relentless
your fingernails chip
and I love it.

It's as if
we find
peace

in each
other's
wars.

I will always steal flowers
from your garden of wonders
to take to our cemetery
for I know you love violets

in the mess of daffodils
and green I've seen you
red and yellow see you too
yet we are both searching for blue

among the crystal petal headstones
I run through names I'll forget
leaving white and pink chrysanthemums
everywhere I can still remember

the sun will soon go to bed
and our shadows will finally kiss
we can sleep till purple morning
for you do love violets.

As our days count up
so does the possibility
that we'll regret having
burned up so many days
together, ignoring the end.

Today
but you

I left
will

a rose
never

for you
see it.

And all of a sudden
spring awoke and

my sleep faded
from the icy teeth of winter

to the cool, orange glow
of a beginning.