Honest John waits In his car.
peaks through his rear view mirror at the glass door. watching.
The engine is off.
cold air nips at his nose and ears.
ice caps cover grass.
the night pitch black
No moon in the sky.
few stars due to the city smog.

A Dim glow from inside the restaurant
Casts shadows in the parking lot.
She hides in them.

Rolling carts march uniform right on schedule
hauling trash to dumpsters just outside.
Honest john watches her slip on a Latex Glove.
*** a cigarette.
She doesn't want honest john to smell the cigarette on her hands.
He doesn't know.

Honest John's Phone buzzes.
He answers.
Told that "work is going late."
She "won't need a ride tonight."
"Won't be home tonight."
Honest John asks where she's going.

"oh, out with my lady friend.
Sarah, haven't seen her since high-school"

"Alright." Says Honest John.
"Have fun." He bit his tongue for the sake of not seeming Crazy again.
It wasn't very honest of him.

She climbs up into red Truck with
The man.
smoke billows out the windows as they screach off howling in the rearview mirror.

Honest John has always hated her lying.

John Loves Crying.
It's honest.
Not just his own tears.
Being the shoulder to cry on is johns momment of ecstasy.
Tears are Beautiful on everybody.
Nobody cries without a reason.

Alone John Smokes Djarum Blacks.

They're the most honest of cigarettes.
Don't paint themselves White
Try passing as innocent or pure.
Just Blatantly say
"Hey, we're way worse for you then a normal cigarette.
"This is slowly killing you"
John appreciates that
even though they're slowly killing him,
At least they are honest about it.

John speaks his mind.
Just as he beleives it.
won't risk leaving words
unsaid again.
but there is one word
he's troubled being Honest about.

Love.

Everytime he doesn't say it.
It kills him slowly.
which would be fine,
if love didn't lie.

I wake up on a yogibo. It's comfy,
But I'm in what is now just
My room.
It feels empty.

All the clutter that made it look lived in is in the three empty sock and underwear drawers that used to be
Hers.
All the pictures of us and half the nerdy posters were removed from the walls.
Half of the games, movies, books, Magic the Gathering cards,
Are all gone so the shelves look bare.
Half the closet is empty.

I walk into the hallway and pass three doors
The first door leads to a bathroom,
The second a closet.
The third is what I now call a "guest bedroom".
The only things in it are an
Empty dresser covered in
Princess stickers...
And a bed frame.
I try not to leave that door open.

I walk down the stairs and grab my coat.
I go out to my car, sink into my seat, turn on the engine and check my phone.
I've got two text messages, and a new tinder match.

I ignore it all and open spotify.
I start playing Watsky's album "All you can do".
I crank the volume to 24 so I can't hear my own thoughts.

I check the first text message.

It's from the
Mutual friend of the nice girl
Who I might date when I'm better.

"Hey don't worry about it, she has a lot going on and is super busy all of the time.
She wanted to meet you to see if she liked you but I think shes not really into you.
She said you were super nice, she just can't be with someone as outgoing as you
I think. She's super shy. I really thought she might like you but I guess not. lol.
Sorry!"

I check the second text message.

It's from the
**** buddy in Kennebunk
Who I met on tinder.

"What are you doing tomorrow?"
Sent at 8:33pm yesterday.
I reply: "nothing! wanna hang today? when are you free?"
"I'm free pretty much all day/night. Warning:
I just got my period, so I feel like absolute ****.
I need good feels and comfort(food), if you will. so when?" I send:
"Uhh, I got errands to run... i'll get back to you" In return, I receive a polite:
"Go **** yourself. :) "

I go check the tinder match...
"...Oops."
Unmatch.
No reason.
I Drive to work.
I belt all of the lyrics and jam to "The one" and "Whoa whoa whoa" and "sloppy seconds".
Shut the car down, clock in, apron up, shout: "Morning, family!"

How am I doing? "I'm awesome! how are you?"
How am I doing? "I'm wonderfull! what brings you to freeport?"
How am I doing? "I'm awesome, peak or dark roast?"

How's my daughter?

"Well actually... I
Broke up with her mom and I
Wasn't the biological father so I don't get to see her anymore,
and my manager said that customers are getting
Uncomfortable around me because I am too open so that's the
Scripted version I have to tell you."

Even though I'd love to tell you that I don't know how she's doing, and it kills me.
How I told her mom that even though she didn't have any
Compassion left for me, and she lied to me,
Tortured me more than any human on this earth and was slowly draining the
Life and sanity out of my body like a leech, that I
Knew what I was signing up for when I started to call myself
Daddy.
That I was leaving her, so we could both get
Better, but I was not leaving that little girl.
And if she would let me
Love her, or
Watch her, or
Buy her birthday presents that I would because she was the best thing to ever happen to me.
And when you ask me how she's doing
All I can think about is how I earned that first "I
love you,
dada."
How I made her laugh more times than her
Mother made her
Cry. How I tucked her in and she made me read her
"Oh The Places You'll Go", over and
Over and
Over. Screaming when I said she'd go
On through the hakken kraks howl, and
Giggling when I said she'd move mountains.
I raised her for three years and she called me
Daddy.
But her mother said that because I wasn't the biological father I don't have any right to see her.

"How am I doing? I'm awesome."
"How am I doing? I'm wonderful."
"How am I doing? I'm waking up."

You ******, exotic,
Beautiful creature.

I could not be more intrigued by you.

I drove,
46 miles,
just to meet you,
you screamed at me for being late.
I wasn't.
I just live farther from your perspective than you can imagine.

I saw your face,
then I saw your eagerness,
Then I played this game,
Where I googled every word you said,
became an expert on it.
Throwing back refferences to things
i've never seen.

When I rolled in with my cigarette lit,
Sporting my badboy leather jacket,
you asumed I was this rebel.
This dangerous,
adventurous,
amazing creature.
Dropped onto this earth to entertain you.

Today.
That's exactlly what I am.

I'm 46 miles away from my home town.

My foam swords,
magic the gathering cards,
Dungeon and dragons playing self
Packaged tightly in the lockbox at my bedroom door.

The daddy, I became years ago
because I wanted too.

The lover I was raised to be,
watching nothing but romantic comedies my entire childhood
like some sort of propaganda to be the perfect boyfriend.
Tucked crisply into my bed.

My smolder is a gas mask.
you are the poison gas.
It was invented specifically for me to survive when I'm in the trenches with you.
My attitude is an army.
I hold myself like a commander shouting orders at my mind like it needs a leader.

“Stop calling her beautiful, maggot! She wants you to take charge.”

“Sir, yes sir!”

...So uh...
What do you wanna do today?

“What do you think you're doing?
Don't give her options!
Tell her where you're going!”

“Sir, yes, sir”

We're getting coffee.

We go to her favorite coffee house, I guessed.

She gets a nutella mocha.

I get a 16oz almond milk maple syrup latte

She calls me a hipster,
I laugh, I don't disagree.

I give her the radio,
“You pick the music”

“What do you think you're doing maggot!?”

“trust me,
we need to find out what music she likes before I play my music.
It's very important.”

I can pull brilliance out of any genre,
bands she's never heard of, but she'll fall in love with.
She plays show tunes.

Oh...

... Jackpot!

I start the conversation, you ever heard of Rocky Horror?

You ever hear of
Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog?

You ever hear of
Little Shop of Horrors?

You ever hear of
Repo, The Genetic Opera?

You ever hear of
Hedwig and The Angry Inch?

She has.
All of it.
Every last word.
And she knows all of the words.
In fact,
every song I sing,
she sings along.
Word for word.

I  crack the whip,

you ever heard of Bo Burnham?

She has.

This girl might be the one.

“What do you think you're doing maggot?
Don't fall in love with this girl already,
Don't fall in love with this girl at all.”

“Sir, yes, sir”

We walk the beach,
Singing,
Dancing.
Every word of every song either of us start the other knows all the words.
She's breathtaking.
I can't believe it happened myself.
We chase each other in the sand.

I confess.

“You're actually the first person i've seen in real life from tinder...
I hear all these stories of couples meeting people for threesomes online and then murdering them.
I was half expecting you to **** me.”

She says:

“Well we didn't get to the end of the beach yet.”

I laugh.... wait... is she serious?

She laughs. “No really, i'm a sociopath.
My boyfriends waiting at the rocks down there and when we
Start to **** he's gonna jump out and slit your throat.
The redness of your blood spilling on the rocks is going to make me so,
*******,
Wet.”

This sounds like a great Idea.

She texts her boyfriend and asks if it's okay to kiss me.
When he doesn't reply she spams him.

Babe.

Babe.

C'mon Babe.

Really, Babe.

Babe.

Babe.

Babe.

It starts to rain,
We stay and get soaked together,
We don't care that we're wet, we keep singing.
The rain stops.
We get in my car.
I drive her to portland,
We park in the parking garage,
because i don't understand...
Signs...

I buy her dinner,

Not because it's the polite, gentlemanly thing to do,
I'd do that without the leather jacket, no.
because her sugar was low
she was having a panic attack
her boyfriend and her were probably breaking up and I felt bad.
Her boyfriend finally texts her back.

“Yeah, do what you want.”

I kiss her.

She asked me too before he gave permission, and my colonel said to do it

But I've been on the otherside of that text messege.

And even knowing what she wanted, I was waiting for that reply.
I don't know that boy.

But he deserved that

We go back to the parking garage, and she does not waste time,
My belt undone,
Her mouth eager,
Did I mention that this was the mission?
After awhile She asks to go to the back.
We do.
She removes the leather jacket.
this is her chance to wear
The leather jacket.
I make her ***,
I have this brief thought that maybe she faked it for me, but then
I can taste the truth,
I'm proud.


“Good job, maggot.”

“Sir, thank you, sir”


I drive the 46 miles back to kennebunk to drop her off.
She keeps my shirt.
I get home and find her phone charger in my backseat.
“Looks like we have a second date,"

I text her. “you forgot something, beautiful.
And I think you might want it.”

******* google plus.

I spent days deleting pictures of them off my phone.
Click update profile picture, and suddenly,
There's a beautiful girl standing at an ATM through a window covered in raindrops.
a little girl with smile wider han galaxies pulls the last jenga peice
Maybe I don't want to look at the three of us snuggled cozy smiling.
Maybe i don't want to see my old phones wallpaper.
That i changed to forget this happiness.
Maybe the hearth of that home burned ob these photographs.
On barbie doll soap opera ******
On match box car roller derbie.
On film strands ripped from the winding projectors of playground games and princess dresses and faces covered in cake.

******* google plus.
you didn't even ask if I wanted to save those memories.
or at least when you did, I had a different answer.

She said "I think, I'd be coffee."
I had asked her:
if your personality was a beverage,
what beverage would it be?

I reply,
"No. You wouldn't be coffee.

I wake up to a cup of coffee every morning.

If you're going to be coffee you need to have somehing else to you.

Be sweet and cheap with tons of sugar if you have too.

Or more preferably, be locally roasted with high notes and low notes.

Or be dark, bold and roasty.

You can taste like anything!
bing cherry, citrus, earthy, chocolate.

You can't just say coffee.
Coffee deserves so much more explanation than that.

I had coffee brandy once.

I woke up to her every morning and I got drunk off of her.
If I ever stopped drinking water i'd throw her all up and feel sick.
but I would never drink water.

Every morning After I drank her I'd walk down the hall and find a sippy cup full of milk.

Even she was not just milk.
She was strawberry milk.
She was coffee milk.
She was my little coffee milk.

You are not coffee.

I had coffee before and it's gone.
You are water.

I don't wake up to you every morning.
I don't need you to get through my day, yet.

But run you through my filter enough times.
Soak up all my grounds.

Maybe one day,
You can be my coffee.

I wake up on a yogibo. It's comfy, but,
I'm in what is now just
My room.
It feels empty.

All the clutter
That made it look lived in
Is in the three empty
Sock and underwear drawers
That used to be:
Hers.

All the pictures of us
and half the nerdy posters
were removed from the walls.
Half of the games,
movies,
books,
Magic the Gathering cards,
Are all gone, so the shelves look bare.
Half the closet is empty.

I walk into the hallway and pass three doors
The first door leads to a bathroom,
The second a closet.
The third is what I now call a "guest bedroom".
The only things in it are an
Empty dresser covered in
Princess stickers...
And a bed frame.

I try not to leave that door open.

Go Down stairs
Sink into car,
Turn on Spotify
Crank the volume to 24
So I can't hear my own thoughts.

Drive to work.

Belt all of the lyrics and jam to "The one" and "Whoa whoa whoa" and "sloppy seconds".
By Watsky.
Clock in,
Apron up,
Shout: "Morning, family!"

How am I doing? "I'm awesome! how are you?"
How am I doing? "I'm wonderful! what brings you to freeport?"
How am I doing? "I'm fantastic, peak or dark roast?"

How's my daughter?

"Well actually... I
Broke up with her mom
And I
...
Wasn't the biological father
so I don't get to see her anymore.
My manager said that customers are getting
Uncomfortable around me
because I am too open so that's the
Scripted version I have to tell you."

Even though I'd love to tell you
that I don't know how she's doing,
and it kills me.
How I told her mom that even though she didn't have any
Compassion left for me,
And she lied to me,
Tortured me more than any human
on this earth and was slowly draining the
Life and sanity out of my body
like a leech, that I
Knew what I was signing up for
when I started to call myself
Daddy.
That I was leaving her,
so we could both get
Better, but I was not leaving that little girl.
And if she would let me
Love her, or
Watch her, or
Buy her birthday presents,
I would,
because she was the best thing to ever happen to me.

when you ask me how she's doing
All I can think about
is how I earned that first "I
love you,
dada."

How I made her laugh more times than her
Mother made her
Cry. How I tucked her in
and she made me read her
"Oh The Places You'll Go", over and
Over and
Over.
Screaming when I said she'd go
On through the hakken kraks howl, and
Giggling when I said she'd move mountains.
I raised her for three years and she called me
Daddy.
But her mother said
that because I wasn't the biological father
I don't have any right to see her.

"How am I doing? I'm awesome."
"How am I doing? I'm wonderful."
"How am I doing? I'm waking up."

I woke up at 3 am unable to go back to sleep
I did not want to be in bed alone
I wanted you right next to me
I could have sent you a text
maybe a phone call would have been good
But I am a hopeless romantic
so I did what every girl should
I put on a pair of jeans
slipped on some sandals and grabbed my keys
It was sprinkling outside
so I grabbed a hoodie too big for me that it almost touched my knees
I drove over to your place
not sure if you would be awake
As I pulled up to your house
I saw you sitting outside as if you were waiting for me
You stood up as I got out of the car
you chuckled as I walked to you
"I COULDN'T SLEEP!" you yelled
As I put my arms around your neck so you could lean down to kiss me
"Me neither" I said
"That is why I am here, I can't seem to sleep without you"
Then without hesitation you led me into your house
where we fell asleep in your bedroom until noon

I know you probably don't want me here
I'm sorry I left you at the airport alone
I'm sorry for not answering  your calls
I'm sorry for letting you think I don't love you
The truth is I do love you
and saying that out loud scares the hell out of me
The last guy I said I love you to hurt me
he not only broke my heart but he shattered my self esteem by criticizing my body on social media
and picking at every flaw he once claimed to love
It took such a long time
for me to build myself up from my ex's mean words
If I tell you that I love you
I am allowing the walls around me to fall down
I am exposing a part of me I have hidden away
out of fear of rejection
I didn't plan this
I didn't expect to meet you
and when I did I had no idea I would fall for you
the way that I have
When I cry you don't get mad
you don't tell me what to do
or try to distract me from my tears
You respect my feelings and you just sit in the moment with me without me having to ask you to
It scares me when you tell me I'm beautiful
my ex he never did that and if he did compliment me
it was only to get into my pants
When you tell me I am beautiful
I know you're not just talking about my body
You see things about me no one else takes the time to see
and you adore those things about me
Like that one night during the blackout you came over
and filled my room with candles
and you purposely got the ones that smelled like Christmas trees
and you told me "I know how much you love the smell of pine trees" but I never told you that
so when I asked you how you knew that
you said "I could tell by the way your eyes lit up when we watched The Polar Express for the first time together."
You take time to notice things about me and that makes me uncomfortable because I am used to being ignored
I like how when I drive your car you have that CD labeled "Mandie's Favorites"
and on that disk is every song you ever caught me listening to on repeat
and you always leave money in the cup holder
so I can grab a coffee from Starbucks because you know how much I love my coffee
When you told me you loved me
I got scared and ran away because I am not used to being loved so much
Your actions say it all though
You don't even have to say the words because everything you do screams "I LOVE YOU"
It's like I am always on your mind
and it's amazing that out of all the women in the world
you chose me
I know you are not my ex
You are far from it
I'm sorry for assuming the worst
and holding you up to a negative standard
After some thinking I have come to realize that I love you
I'm in love with you
and there is nothing I can do about it anymore
You're everything I want
You broke through my walls without me noticing
You see my flaws and love them without fear
I don't want to be afraid of love
With you I'm not scared of anything
You give me the courage to be fearless
in a way I never have been before
You complete me in every possible way
and if I could spend the rest of my life with anyone
it would be you

When I first showed interest in you
you told me to find someone better
You told me you would end up breaking my heart
and that you could not stand the image of me crying
I didn't understand
You were such a gentleman
You told me yourself that you have never been in a relationship
so how could you know what type of boyfriend you would be
I knew you were keeping a secret
The way you acted sent off signs
After months of being your friend
you finally told me your secret
You told me that you had cancer
You have had it for a year
The day we met was the same day
your doctor told you that you would pass away soon
You also told me that you have been in love with me
since the day you laid eyes on me
You wouldn't allow yourself to be with me
because you didn't think it was fair
to let me fall for someone who was going to die
That was not your choice to make
I loved you before I even knew you were sick
I fell for you even more through our friendship
and the fact that you were sick didn't change how I felt
I kissed you
I kissed you multiple times until you kissed me back
I was determined to make you see that I wasn't going anywhere
Your cancer didn't scare me

It is six months later now
You're confined to your bed
Your cancer has taken over your body
You can't even hold my hand without wincing
I just lay next to you
I'm not sure if I will look into your eyes tomorrow
yet I'm not scared
You have shown me that life will end for us all one day
so embracing the moments is mandatory
Getting lost in moments that won't ever come again is a must
I feel your hand on mine
You feel different
You feel at peace
I turn my head to look at you
You're staring right at me
You smile so perfectly
as God finally sets you free

My husband is an ***
he claims I have no class
He will have a tough time getting to work
when he realizes his truck is out of gas
Maybe he could drive his truck to work
if only he kept his mouth shut
But instead he likes to get under my skin
by purposely ******* me off