The conductor never gave me a map
With the stops highlighted in yellow.
Never told me how long until
Just the destination
And perhaps a sad smile.
Please don't apologize:
You did it to me again?
No, you gave love only.
I do it to myself.
Smoke from the Camp Fire (capitalized, it's a proper noun this time)
Fills the air,
Stifles it, poisons it
And yet
So beautiful to look straight at the sun during midday,
Right around when I leave work
Work
That ****** place that kept me from you, those 8 wasted hours.
That ****** place that will provide me the means to get to you.
That ****** place that provides me the means to give you physical tokens of love, to buy you Plan B and books.
**** it all
So I've scrubbed under my nails,
Washed my sheets (goodbye long hairs, although I'm sure they'll stick around)
Organized my books,
Threw out the trash, the beer bottles and bottles and bottles
The empty cigarette packs.
I haven't driven since you left
Haven't looked forward to my bed.
Haven't smiled after waking
Haven't found you in the night
But **** this sad ****
Let's put on some happy music and hope it sticks.
Put away The Growlers
Put on the Modern Lovers.
If you inspire me when you're here I'll become better when you're not.
I'll read more (smoke more drink more cry more)
I'll save money
I'll play that ****** guitar in the closet.
I'll be a better man so that when we see each other again
I'll be able to leave you with more of me,
How did you say it?
You make living easy and fun?
The nicest words anybody has ever said to me.
The most heartbreaking **** I've been told from 600 miles away.
i make living easy and fun,
Very good, that's what I'll do.
Nov 10, 2018
Nov 10, 2018 at 6:51 PM UTC
The thing always goes wrong,
but with you buddy
it's been gold for years.
The golden hair boy
the wild child
the easy lovin.
Feb 12, 2018
Feb 12, 2018 at 1:42 AM UTC
to be fair
/since we're both libras\
you never did ask.
you only said
"I guess you like me
and I don't know why."
you never did ask
but I wish I'd told you
exactly why I do like you.
It didn't cross my mind until tonight that I could certainly tell you
exactly why
I like you
but perhaps more importantly
I could tell you what I like about you
and you never did ask
but since I'm a few beers deep
/in pursuit of libra-esque fairness,
it's more like seven or eight beers deep, but I've never liked counting that sort of thing\
I could tell you what I don't like about you.
I guess I could start with that first
but I depending on how this next beer hits me, I might have forgotten how badly your dismissal has hurt me by the time I get there.
Against the warnings of a friend I do not trust,
**** it, she's your coworker, she ***** me when I was thirteen and you might as well know about it\
Against the warnings of your coworker
I trusted you.
I put you on a pedestal next to Buster Posey, Jesus Christ, and Jeff Mangum. You haven't fallen from that perch, but I'm so far below.
At least, I think I am, it's a bit too dark to see beyond the end of my nose right now
/that pile of beer bottles is chuckling at me now\
if you had asked me
instead of wondering
I'd have told you I love your optimism and your work ethic. I was raised catholic, not Protestant, but I believe God smiles on those who work as hard as they can. God and I both smile on you.
/another beer now\
I'd have told you I fell in love with you the moment your hands first wove their way through my hair. It had been quite a long time since I'd felt so truly comfortable, so utterly welcome.
/I'm crying now,
I guess I'll smoke some ***
and try to calm down\
If I'd have been able to do so without crying, I wouldn't have been able to stop telling you why I like you. I'd still be telling you now.
I'd have told you I love how eager you are to speak with everyone.
The old man at the bar could have been your best friend the way you welcomed and listened and laughed with him.
You're so aware of not only the space you take up, but what you leave behind you as you twist and wander and whether it's bullheaded arrogance that delivers you so elegantly through life, or if it's a sort of divine empathy that lets you experience all the love around you, as coal to an engine, as espresso to the child, I don't know what it is exactly,
but I love it.
/that last part didn't make sense, I wish I hadn't smoked ***
/one day I'll realize that's how I feel every time I smoke ***
Whether it's because I'm a 24/7 romantic
Or I really do care for you,
I can't tell,
I've forgotten what mean things I had thought up to say to you.
/I can't believe I'd want to hurt you\
/I am a libra, I think libras are supposed to get along just fine, right?\
god forbid you ever read this,
I'm too drunk tonight to try and give it to you
/you wouldn't read it, i bet\
/did you ever read the poem I wrote for you? It wasn't any good but I've thought of you reading it,
sitting cross legged on your mattress, windows open, some vegan snack sitting in your lap, perhaps a friend or lover has kicked it up out of the corner it lays in,
hopefully it makes you smile,
a silly poem
that a silly boy wrote
Because he fooled around and fell in love with you\
But perhaps someday you'll get this this
and I hope it isn't mean,
/I haven't ever wanted to be anything than an easy friend for you, a comforting hand, a steadying smile, a car ride home,\
I'm sorry,
I can't tell.
It was a terrible night.
The night you told me to stop bugging you
I didn't get drunk
So I should have prossesed these emotions by now
and so it goes
Feb 6, 2018
Feb 6, 2018 at 3:52 PM UTC
I'm leaving California,
I'll be in Montanny by may.
Said I'm leaving California,
I got to get away.
But don't ya know my friend
If you asked me to I would stay.
I can't find the words when I'm with you
The old fat cat has got my tongue.
Ya know I can't find the words
To let you know you're the one.
In progress
Jan 31, 2018
Jan 31, 2018 at 10:44 AM UTC
'Twas during The Troubles,
when my uncle did,
made haste with his lads,
and in Belfast hid.
Their votes they cast,
and still the British stayed.
So they took up arms,
and like pianos they played.
Making bombs in the basement,
very carefully they planned.
They laid them at the entrance of Parliment,
let those imperialists be ******
Ooh ahh! Up the R.A.!
They shouted in the night.
Tiocfaidh ár lá!
They gave the Brits a good fight.
Thirty years later,
in a prison my uncle still lays.
He writes me letters,
He still believes in brighter days.
When the brits are out,
He'll go home.
Tend to his flock,
this Irishman will never bow to that throne.
Jan 27, 2018
Jan 27, 2018 at 7:25 PM UTC
Sometimes I get that feeling
I'm sure you've felt it
I feel as if I'm 16 again,
My most valuable possession
Is the skateboard I built.
It's a Tuesday and I've ditched school again.
The twelve dollars in my pocket
Is burning to be spent.
At the used book store
I spend eight of it on a paperback copy of
The Fellowship of the Ring.
Up the street to the Curly Wolf
I buy a cup of coffee.
Skating with a cup of coffee isn't hard for me.
Moms drunk again,
Probably will be for the rest of the week
And so it looks like I won't be going home
Until she sobers up enough to wonder where I am.
Can I sleep on your floor?
Only for the night? That's fine,
Liam said I can stay at his place starting tomorrow
Jan 15, 2018
Jan 15, 2018 at 6:00 PM UTC
You come to me
In drunken dreams
Breaking seams
That have long been stitched.
I see you in public
but you're far away
Dec 17, 2017
Dec 17, 2017 at 11:26 PM UTC
Two years ago, almost to the day, I scribbled into my notebook a single line: "When in doubt fall into those old rituals"
Two weeks later I was sober for the first time in eight months.
This morning I put whiskey in my coffee and took a pull from the bottle besides. I catch cold easier when I'm not drinking, my bones shake and rattle, I can hardly read.
If you know me more than most,
you know how desperate not reading is.
When in doubt, fall into those old rituals.
Smoke rising in the diner, two hands with a cigarette each hovering over two respective cups of coffee.
A plate of fries or perhaps an omelet and of course coffee after coffee after coffee, no cream, whiskey from the flask.
Cigarette after cigarette after cigarette.
The newspaper this morning read
"Annual Steamboat Children's March"
My bar won't open till 3.
Apr 9, 2017
Apr 9, 2017 at 3:40 PM UTC
.
Mar 29, 2017
Mar 29, 2017 at 10:05 PM UTC
forgot how to love
she said 'spank me, man'
i spanked her too hard
I tried to kiss her kneck like James Dean
she didn't feel it.
i made her bed while she was showering,
i made her coffee while she dressed,
i held her hand at the bustop and then walked home.
i found a note in my pocket
a drawing of a flower,
a drawing of lips kissing,
her handwriting
again I'm in high school learning how to love
this time my lover already knows
and so it is easy to remember.
her makeup stained my favorite shirt,
the one my dad bought at a brewery in Berkeley but to be fair, the blue one that says 'Truckee' was my favorite until this morning
Mar 20, 2017
Mar 20, 2017 at 10:07 PM UTC