You use my ribs as your monkey bars
To make your xylophonic melody
Tarzan would be proud, I'm sure
You're doing well at the expense of me
Perhaps I've got a playground heart
And that is what I am meant to be

I am not a morning person
But I hold fondness for early birds
I love the idea of living in the city
But I also kind of dont
On one hand you have traffic and parking
And on the other, walking and watching

I commute by train in the mornings
I early bird watch the people passing by
Listening to podcasts of her breakfast cereals as I go
At 7:30 I take the B train to her jawline
Before catching the A train cross town to her smile
By 8:15 I wait behind her tongue for her to sing the early bird song of speaking only to me

Speaking only to me, being the only time I feel worth speaking back
Speaking back, I say we should do this again tomorrow
Tomorrow we will walk, and we will watch
Watch as people hustle bustle hurry home
Home is wherever it is that we may be
B train, I must go, I will return in the morning

White noise, black night
Snow is falling
Enough is right

Nobody looked for Anybody
Everybody always mocked Somebody
Anybody didn't like Nobody
Somebody tried to change Everybody
But in the end, Everybody became Nobody

We trade in Snapchat paintings and passing glances
In bad jokes, good ideas and texting trances
Buzz. Swipe. Type. Send. A closed-loop circuit
And profits good cuz it's an oddball's market
But both exchange rates and people change overnight
So just enjoy the time while you've got it, right?

You are my resting state of being, my napkin doodle
The one I'll think about when I'm asked
"Have you ever been in love before?"
The one who dared mountains to move
And the earth to reshape itself
That I might be with you
A long-haired, short-fused firecracker
Who brought rainbow noise
To a most dismal place

Promise me you'll get help, okay?

Should your blood ever boil within you
Should the heat leave your extremities
Should your breathing become quickened
Should a nervous sweat bead your face

Should you struggle to get through
Should you stand before Hades
Should you try and fail to defend
Should you feel a disgrace

Promise me you'll get help, okay?

When old age shall come to shake my hand
I'll greet it kindly and with a smile
When no longer my legs move to stand
It is then, I will know, it was worth the while
Of all the hurt and I joy I found
I'll share my story with those who wish to hear
Family and friends will gather around
And nudge and bump and draw ever near
I'll tell the same story every time they come
The story of my life, the story of what I'd done
And I know that, in the eyes of some
I'll see myself again, and know that I have won

You stupid, stubborn boy
You thin lipped, thick skinned, too tall trouble maker
You brain broken record, record, record romantic
You can not live between the lines of her words

Just because vowels and vegetables both start with v, doesn't mean that she is healthy for you

Just because you know how to read her hieroglyphs, doesn't mean that they were meant for you

You can not chase the shape of her echoes into the person you want her to be, like some rosy cheeked run on given a pulse

A pulse, a tick, a drum, a beating

Self administered prescriptions, trying to find her commas in the pauses of others peoples punchlines

Let yourself cool off from the shade of the period that is her loving somebody else

Let yourself know that love is just a word, and twisting words into something beautiful is all you know that you are good at

I'll tell you all my secrets
And all my hidden truths
I'll spill it all, I'm about to burst
Just one thing... you go first

Depression is many things

It is numb and aloof
Like you're on trial for being victim to every action or word spoken to you, but you bear the burden of proof

It is overwhelming and undertreated
Sinking or collapsing but never moving. Knowing you're better off now, but still feeling cheated

It is patient and twisting
Always dancing in the dead space of thought before you fall asleep resisting

Depression is many things
But it isn't me

You walk like a doomsday bunker grew feet
Climbed into your clothes like a hazmat suit
Deciding to brave that scary thing called outside

You talk like a river shapes rock
Repeating the same set of words
Until they feel smooth in the mouth

You write like your ink is honey
Savored by those few you share it with
Because they don't care where it comes from

Look, I'm not saying we have to get married
But maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing if we did
All im saying is, we live in an age of marvels
When super heroes dominate silver screens and cell phones alike
And everybody knows by now, a super hero needs a good origin story
And we would make a good origin story
I mean, really think about it for a minute here
I'm an alien person from another planet
And you're the greatest this one offers
I was struck by lightning and got super powers
And you're the reason why. You're the lightning.
I fell backwards into a vat of dangerous chemicals
You fished me out by my shoelaces and hung me on your clothesline smile
Galactus, world-eater, I swallowed my feelings whole like planets
And you had the courage to tell me to go on a diet
Which is to say, I talked about my feelings and you only laughed three times
Which is to say, I told you that vat of chemicals was actually my brain and you didn't laugh at all
Which is to say, my super vision failed to foresee your arrival
Don't be mistaken, this isn't a love poem, more like a list
1. You can trust me with your secret identity, the one nobody else knows about
2. My super villains aren't actually real people
3. But if they were they'd kidnap me to get to you instead
4. Whosoever holds this hammer, if she be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor
4a. And you're definitely worthy
4b. No really you are
4c. Please notice me
5. I'd be good to you
BANG! BOOM! POW! I wear it like a speech bubble headband
Like each of us, our origin story would be a little... off-brand
So, I'm not saying we have to get married
But maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing if we did

A paper boat to an open sea
A world still separating you and me
I wish you could join me here
And sit with me on this pier
We don't have to talk or think
Just watch the sun as it sinks
To where all good must one day go
To a place nobody seems to know
That's where I go, I hope you do too
Until then, I will sit and wait for you

Far off a coast, unknown to me
Beyond the line of sky and sight
Comes a foul and perfect storm
Hidden in the cover of the night
It has no face, it makes no noise
A dark, deep and dreadful thing
Not forgiving what it destroys
Bringing a special type of sting
But from the rubble of the past
Springs the birth of things anew
Some don't think that they'll last
But that storm hasn't yet met you

Chance
Chat
Click
Communicate
Confess
Confirm
Celebrate
Coast
Conflict
Closure (?)

There is a world of people in my phone
And yet, I've never felt more alone

Autumn coolly glides on the coat tails of whistled winds and trees shedding summer coats
She says she doesn't like peanut butter
Unaware of the basket of PB&J lying on the table
Does she change colors too?

I have words stuck in my head
Words I know that want to be read
But I can't make sense of what I think
You're ten years old and then you blink
I'm seventeen years old today
But forward is the only way
There's no turning back clocks
There's no key to all our locks
I can't seem to word my thoughts
I'll leave them in my mind to rot
Pick up the scraps and bury them in pen
Please don't blink too, you're only ten

*4/11/13

The rosebud wind tickles my nose
Or maybe it is my allergies
I have missed the touch of spring

Do clouds feel bad about the shadows they cast?
Or do they revel in the reprieve from rays they hold?
Do people feel bad about the room they take up?
Or do they remember their impact on others?

The severed canyon split-snakes out beyond my view
Like a hazardous sidewalk God has yet to fix
It would be a nuisance to the strong strided
Or a beautiful scar to the like minded

Look there to the distant dimpled dunes
Look there to the mix matched mountains
Listen here to the tree tickled tunes
Listen here to the fresh freeflowing fountains
Feel here the mother that's borne us each
Feel here the earth and what it has to teach

Anger antagonizes and attacks again
Bravery boldly bounds bout brilliance
Compassion casts careful, calculated calm
Disappointment detaches, disconnects, driving defiance
Enthusiasm's exuberance exhausts envy's edge
Fear fleetly fades fury's fated face
Guilt greedily goads gullible grief-stricken
Hope humbles hesitancy, heals heartbroken
Insecurity impatiently imparts invisible ignorance
Joyful jumps jaded jinxed jealousy
Keen kindness keeps kindred known
Loneliness lingers longer lately

Its Saturday night
Raindrops are my alcohol
And these tired thoughts
Are my hangover

We remember not the long times passed,
But the days spent with it
Be it friend or stranger, we are a
Culmination of memories.
Walking dreams.

I make poor life choices and get upset at the results
My life is just something that happens to me
The comforting cowardice in removing my agency
I blame all others but myself
And wonder why things don't get better
I made my bed
Now I must lie awake in it

Green-blue oxygen bubbles up
From the depths of your warm waters
Spilling over into white-capped waves
In the midst of your sunrise smile
Ebbing in, out and in again
As the spray salts your black sand shores

I've learned from life
If anything at all
That we can rise
Farther than we fall

Fine, abandon yourself to the damnation of the flames
Igniting your pain in the grass in which you stand
While ignoring the water I put at your feet
I do not claim to be perfect, only that I care
And when you realize what you've done
When your weight becomes too much to bear
Know that even for sinners, comes the rise of the sun

When comes the chance to serve in grace
And complacency shows it's familiar face
The battle begins, the naturally selfish man
I am busy, I am tired, and, I have other plans
Theres but a single thing to think to win
Remember, there is still room in the inn
Often waves the tides and times of life
To wade and wait through seasons of strife
For the mercy of the passerby to see
Today it is you, and tomorrow it is me

She was the raindrops
He, the space between them
Never to touch
Until they both hit the ground

Is it still a prison if it has no sign?
Because I'm trapped in this mind of mine

It is in the empty, open air between your words
That momentarily lingers a half-thought
"I wouldn't mind sharing silence with you"
But I don't know if you feel the same
And so I do

A soft message is what you read
And yet you pay it no heed
Answer me now this question please,
Why was my heart's beat the one to freeze?

You're something like the moon
A celestial body swirling in space
A romanced loner marked with dunes
Forever enshadowed in the others face
Man came, saw, and conquered you
Your valleys and hills topped in rags
Earth's oceans have never looked so blue
But at least you're in the company of their flags

Long have been the times
Few have been the signs
A mess of spots and lines
Of all sorts and kinds
From point A to point B
At what point do I find "me"?

Star so high, star so bright
Guide me by your light
Star so proud, of the night
Show me what is right
Star so gold, star so white
Direct now my inner sight
Star so sweet, of my plight
'Tween dusk and dawn, eternal fight
Star so wise, star of might
Help me know what to write
Star so aged, in your height
Reduce the sting of life's harsh bite
Star so far, be my kite
'Til sleep again doth unite

To stand strong in a world that rushes by
Is the hardest thing we'll ever do
So if you're asking yourself why
Remember, others are asking too

Some memories are sticky
Clinging to nerve endings
Disallowing their otherwise
Normal functioning

Stowaway of my heart
Dweller of the dark
Where will you hide
When it falls apart
Just know you left a mark
Leaving on high tide

There is an ideal bench under the sign at the end of my street
It seems a peaceful spot, with its deep color and curve
As I pass it daily, I imagine sitting there, lost in thought
About who has wronged me, and how I'd hurt them back
About how the snow of my youth has lost its shape to ice
About how I now find benches at the end of streets to be ideal
But most of all, I imagine sitting there, public made private
The ability to transform the space I occupy into my own
Free of the tectonic worry that I should not be in this place
There is an ideal bench under the sign at the end of my street
It seems a peaceful spot, with its deep color and curve
I will sit there in a day to come, and in peace, observe

It isn't easy to pray at night
When worn by thoughts of old
It gives peace to my young soul
To know of a happiness foretold
If only all questions were quelled
And that evasive peace withheld
I might never feel alone again
Knowing anguish could never win
I am the sum of all my pain
A forest held green by the rain

Leaves dart and dance like my heart beats
Slowly fluttering into life for brief, mad escapes
Before resting again, only alive when nobody is watching
Fading light spills over my face like a nervous waiter
And that's okay

Determination as a river flows
Bending to gravity and the like
There's no knowing how far it goes
That is, unless you take the hike

The weight of almost thoughts sink my legs into the Earth

While the almost words balloon red in my cheeks and ears

Because this ****** Doo quicksand ***** at my torso but not any more than my desire to go under

I'm going to a doctor soon, or a counselor, or a friendly stranger, or whatever, and I worry about the verdict to be passed over my head

Like the pills they prescribe will meet in combat the almost thoughts that turn my brain to a battlefield that just wants to go home but already is

Like my serotonin vocal cords that softly saunter siren songs should be given a megaphone to tell all the almost words that their echo chambers just got nuked from orbit

The fingers that send daily update texts are the same ones that want to let go of the steering wheel, not because I want to die, but because I don't want to be the one responsible for hurting you

So I'll bludgeon the sand with my two left feet until I turn it into enough glass to build a shade-stained stairwell back into my regularly scheduled programming

"I'm not there yet", I say
"Ah, but almost", I think

In the north there is a man who screams when the waters sing
For he once came cross the banshee of the seaside spring

And in that failing light saw wrapped her pallid strands
Round the whole of her one and sallow pointed hand

To the trunk-grown sword and verdant surcoat 'tween
A phantom defiler, a hanged man, the crime unseen

She sullen moved to mournful wail, deep of soul
But found no purchase in mortal air to extol

For where once was this sad shadow's throat
A cruel sentence had some former blade wrote

In a sick and seeping horror the man did freeze
As the banshee descended towards the trees

At length the water sprang from earth again
His movement restored, bloods color to skin

The greatest terror he recalled in lonesome woe
Is of the dead woman forced to her silent sorrow

I have an off-again, on-again relationship with permanence

Even so, I have been party to many pictures in my lifetime

Each thousand word tattoo, a spur of the moment snapshot, scrawled across my skin

Your thousand words looks a lot like wearing a red stuffed octopus named Richie on your head like a hat

The Cowboy and the Cephalopod both agreed this frame wasn't big enough for the both of them, so they agreed to compromise

I laugh imagining the world in which you are a marine biologist by day, and a hair stylist by night

I laugh imagining the world in which the words 'you' and 'permanent' are among the thousand on each hand

Day to day, always be nice to all
In hopes you might help the few
Because someday, when you fall
'The few', might just be you