And just like that, it's over -
like it didn't even happen.
Traded the rest of his life
for a half a gram - went out
noddin' like he was nappin'..
My heart cries for the family,
Aaron, I miss you, fam.
And, if I could, you know I'd
buy you back for that half a gram.

Just like that, gone forever..
Like he was never here,
a sudden change of weather
we often see this time of year.
My heart cries for your kid,
I'll never forget you, man.
Why men would rather ****
than build, I'll never understand..

Just like that, forgotten..
The girl had gotten sober
Bought some birthday
presents and ******
and just like that - its over.
My heart cries for your baby
Carrie's never coming back.
I wonder if she wore the
bracelet I gave her when
she faded into black.

Just like that, we're praying..
for God to heal our hurt..
a few words about his life and
then we chunked him in the dirt..
I tried to tell you, Bill David..
That girl would get you killed..
Look to God to do the healing
You just be the one who's healed.

This is just to say
when i gave you that poem
I had no inkling

Of what was to come -
all the pain awaiting us
The ancestral sin

Temptation, assured
We were manicured, shared prose
Dog-hungry for plums.

So you all know...this is THE alter ego of a friend I burried ....ring ....ring .....ring.... .aw ****...my best friend Carlos just snapped me out of hate

Jorge

still in the night he
does not remember why
—sounds of her sighs

her small ears
pressing into the tight
space of the day

or the tenderness between
him and her
held in the air

the repeated denial
of the time set chained  
to hold their plans

were revolting against
trysts
spent in another’s gaze

2. Sebastian

the tenacious sense in
arrangement
lets slip imitation

how I could possess
your breath
and bear it

delicately freeing
my stances
I strained

in celebration
at the sanctification
that you’d
granted to Saint Sebastian
in Irene’s
blessing

will healing hands make
poetry
or trap the shaking  

of my languid silver pens  
taut but not
ready

3. Carlos

the sweet words
brought
for the lovers

that beats hard
each
hesitance

leaps
without fear
regarding

that
their time is
now here

the shape that
your
sighs take

suggesting
as if
limits don’t exist

You ate them?
You ate the ******* plums
that were in the fridge?
God, you're a selfish *******.

So much depends upon
The open sky cut open by the trees
By the rain by the lives that we led

Upside down we stood as if for years
Waiting to become the person
We were meant to be
On the back trails of our open heart
So much depends upon

Listening to Bach in the dark
How poets undressed our sympathy
In clothes of the absolute

So much depends upon
The sound of Mandarin like
Circumstance, and stillness that never dies
These were the cries that we reached
Out for, as if we could grasp the light

So much depends upon
The dreaming of what is possible
And prowling around the people
Whom we let hurt us in order to
Learn more completely how to feel.