this late in the afternoon
my tongue
circles itself
searching
for red velvet cake
earl grey
with
devonshire cream and scones
showing more concern for
spilled milk than spilled
blood
i know why
the mona lisa smiles
folds her hands over each
other
just so
(furtive)
i have met caged birds
and heard their songs
they are
not
alone.

the ****** on fifth street
don’t ask you to buy whiskey;
they take it from you.

there are too many
words—lascivious, lewd, *****—
used to describe them.

and too many names—
**** ***** harlot ***** *****—
used to deride them.

you want one tonight
someone who’ll snort ketamine
whose laugh sounds like bells.

someone to talk to
for thirty bucks an hour;
the best ones come cheap.

the best ones come drunk
(when they’re not doing molly)
and dance in the street.

the best ones wear rouge
that glows under streetlights and
rubs off on your lips.

the best ones **** quick
and leave quicker—out through the
back door, and lights out.

Hellenic
Flesh and marrow
Raphaelite form
painted into life.

Honey hair
slipping through the vees between my fingers like
sand
conch-white skin
You blind me
like the noonday sun.
Enveloping—
body wrapped in body—
ocean and sky
meet
at the horizon.

Peel my skin from me
like an orange.
Apple.

Heal me
with hands upon thighs
Stitch my ragdoll body together with the sutures of your kisses
Stuck
by the glue of lips

Raise me like Lazarus
from the valley of death
from the orchard in Eden and the shame of skin

Reupholster me
like a dinette chair.

Vivid as the Sistine Chapel
your hand
outs t r e t c h e d
toward God

I find you in
pumpkin seeds
scattered
like tears
on the floor of my car.
They were yours.

i have a knack for misreading emotion,
or possibly a lack of accepting devotion.
you set me in motion, a tide in the ocean,
fated to fall yet i rise with your potion.

i'll drink your poison if you fill the cup,
you make me crazy, baby, don't give up.
a lyric i love above all the rest,
but my cup's still filled, i can't drink it yet.

four years ago i'd down four in a row,
but now the tides fallen and i can't let it go.
i used to be immune to this toxic venom,
snake tooth insanity now drives me to bedlam.

a once-concerned man in the mirror told me,
the best things in life are free.
so why is it my life revolves in threes?

three colleges,

a four-year marianist institution,
     with less morals than a mosquito,
a two-year community college,
     overlooked as tall egos look down upon,
and on to a four-year vincentian valued
     melting *** of hopeful inspiration.

three majors,

a degree in engineering seems futile,
     as i already understand the mechanics of life.
a degree in business is impractical,
     as i already know how to sell you on strife.
a degree in english completes my triad,
     as i already know it's the butter to my knife.

three years

one for the money,
        two for the show,
                three to get ready,
                                                   four, oh, help me so.

three reasons,

1.
2.
3.

it seems i'm still searching for my meaning here,
pursuing a hare at tortoise-speed.
if only i could kick it into third gear,
i'd catch up to my purpose, and plant
                                                                    three
                                                                ­                more
                                                            ­                               seeds.

I'll add a line today if you do the same tomorrow
Shifting perspective back and forth from this day to the next
If we try perhaps they can be woven into something that is "together"
Instead of "distant" and "away," longing to be whole as I do.

Blurring lines might help this forced insomnia of mine,
Melding might ease your mind,
If we try perhaps we can fill each others chinks and bruises with comfort
Instead of words caressing in place of hands and lips.

Though I always love your words, I crave them physically.
Watching your lips move in the steady cadence that is yours naturally
and the thrumming and rumble of the air expelling through them
my ear on your chest,
my hand below your moving ribs,
riding pleasantly in time with your lover's lilt.

To know you "now", instead of "then".
With no more "Is everything okay?" because you know.
Coalescing what is separate, into one
My happiness becoming whole because my days are now with you.

So I will add my line today, tomorrow please will you?

I don't know what it is that gives you the nerve or the will to live in my presence any longer.
I don't know what makes me hold on so tightly to your soul in this world either.
Truth is, you could have easily gone away last night and never come back...but I engaged the reaper in fisticuffs and told him there could be only one.   Needless to say he was a little confused.



I've broken a promise almost every day since the day I said I would never leave you.
                                         And I've thought about you every day since the day it was too late to realize I loved you.
Why then, can't I let you go? Out into the night. Where you belong?
                                               You have my permission to die, but only over my dead body will you find salvation.

If we live in a world where people build walls out of their morals, then I must be some kind of ******. That might explain why I talk to plants.
But I got really good at climbing from hangin' 'round you, and I also got real good at runnin', and eventually I ran away.
That was years ago. And I just now learned how to stop. How to stop running, and smell the flowers. There's so many flowers, and all they want is for you to stop running and enjoy their presence, even for a second.


but sometimes to survive, you have to pick the flowers for later, in case you run out of food, in case you run out of run and need to dig yourself a nice little grave, preferably at home, and set the flowers up on top. Sometimes you have to feed off of others as a reality check that you can still make things move and that you can still move people.

Every time I ran away from home, it was nighttime. And I'd get about a quarter mile down the road and turn around to find you hot on my heels. When I'd get about a half mile down the road I'd always turn back.
                                                                ­                                                                 ­                                       for home.
I'd lay in my bed and think about dying and say, I don't want none o' that.  and then you'd dig your nails into me really hard to remind me that I was mortal.                                      Everyone was born to live.
                                                           ­                      Not everyone lives to die like you.
                                                            ­                                                                 ­                                  You'd say.


I laid there for many years. Thinking about what you said. It was hard to figure out because I couldn't tell if you'd really said it or not. And you always watched me thinking.                 ...what were you thinking?
I've decided.


              It's not practical to fight any longer. As time, the only father figure I ever had, has shown me, all good must come to an end.                   Though I'm not sure how this world will survive without you, and though tears have flown free as the world's waters as I've written all of this, and though you are the closest thing to a God that has ever been mysterious to me...I have decided.      and I have Realized just how important it is for one to die
                                                                ­            
                                                    ­                                                                 ­                                                         at
     ­                                                                 ­                                                                 ­                                           home.


What you don't realize about me is,                for me...


Home is in other people.

























                                ­                                             and i ran away years ago.

the people look like ache,
shriveled and lost inside
their twisted interpretations of movement.
we're tired here,
spitting out apologies and
niceties, the things expected
of a well mannered member of society.
looking at the hands passing by,
wrinkled and lined with everything
they've loved-
it's exhausting to think of every life you've contained.