you’re like art or something --
i don’t understand you and i always think i’m supposed to.
you remind me of stealing from my parent’s liquor cabinet,
i can’t look at you too long without feeling like
i’m gonna get caught up in something.
i can’t look at you too long without feeling like
i’m breaking some sort of rule.
now i know that love was the first time i saw weezer live,
that love was losing your voice because you’re singing too loud,
that love was pressing you down the backseat of your car,
that love was censored out of this poem.
too explicit. too tongue and teeth.
love was an honest liar.
love was at least 70% proximity, maybe.
love was not a victory march, just the drive the home.

we are terrified of it, maybe that’s why we like it.
there is no litmus test for love. just trial and error.
just… a lot of error.
love is hotel room we’re never going back to.
we existed there once
but we time ran out and had to return our keys, go home from vacation.
there are no good poems that come from that.
just 2 AM and missed calls and quiet.

see, i am bad at doing simple things.
my hands shake too hard and ruin dreams.
i hold too hard or push even harder.
baby, you were never hard to love, i just wasn’t any good at it.
see, i can write three page poems about the curve of your eyelashes
or the way your laugh sometimes gets stuck
in the back of your throat like a secret,
but i cannot seem to look you in in the eye
and be honest with you.

so tell me what to do when you’re staring god asking if he exists,
tell me what to do when every shot you’ve taken has missed.
tell me what to do when you’re standing on a dance floor
after all the music is gone,
like the fifth of july when all the fireworks have faded out of the sky
and all that’s left is casings and matches.
tell me what to do when you run out of words.