About one year ago
We sat side by side on Storrs first floor
You put your arm around my shoulders
And then asked me what I wanted

What I wanted from our relationship

I looked aghast
I felt the fool
I do not remember my response
Something along the lines of I did not know
Just to be with you, I suppose?
I did not, do not, know a lot of things
But now I at least I can say this:

I wanted winter, spring, summer, fall
To brush fine snowflakes from your hair
Stroke fuzzy plants on the verge of bloom
To meet new rabbits named Hlao-roo

I wanted even more to trust you
To cry my heart into your hands
And know you wouldn’t let it go
Even though I’m not sure you understand
How difficult it can be
I know, I know
This hasn’t been easy

We’ve slipped on the ice
Been burnt by the sun’s passionate light
And yet it seems we still command
A love more natural than the passing of time
So that a year falls like sand
Through your fingers laced with mine

I could not have asked that this all be fulfilled
Certainly, I may have wished it, but still
My first answer, though weak, was true
All that I desire is to be with you

Why won't you leave me alone?!

I'd rather be alone and alive
Than crowded by your face each time I close my eyes

Enough.

Who do you think you are?
Showing up each spring
To remind me of your round, stumped calves
Supporting your square and stable torso
Encircling your just, moral heart

There are a lot of loves
But none of them are quite like our love
There are a lot of kisses
But none of them taste exactly like our kisses do
This may be cliche
But it is so undeniably true
I love you Adam

And my love is not defined or confined
By the expectations of others
Standards set before I set my eyes on you
Because in that moment
The moment I glanced your way
And my eyes lingered longer than I had expected them to
I knew

I knew that I could love you

And I do

There once was a girl
Wild and free
Please forgive my cliché
That's how they all tend to be

She caught frogs in the pond
Salamanders in the stream
But she was carried away
Before she even turned sixteen

The reflective waters
Left for reflective glass
Lotions and powders
Replaced forests and grass

She had lost the perspective
Climbing trees can give
She focused on blemishes
Like the point of a pin

Then one sunny day
As she was dressing her head
The mirror fell on her face
And left her for dead

Spring's petals fall gently
Land on the ground
The white litter chills me

Have faith in God

But that's all that I have
I was hoping for more
Hoping for new love
Hoping for more

To live to love to die
To be two in tow
A pair to die as one
I love my life like towing flower
In bloom in life in death

Sometimes No
is unknown
and yes
is a guess
When No is yes
and Yes is No
then No is always
the best
or maybe
Yes...

They grab at the sunset spilling over the tops of the
Parking garages, office buildings, and apartments
Red-violet, sunflower, spring shoot, to blue sky
The backlight to their upwards web
Litter decorates stray branches
I love the city trees
Not a forest, but a friend
Isolated - But not alone

I met a nice young man
Picking plastic
From a garbage can

He informed me thus:
"All American citizens are
Stupid
And degenerate"

I wished to respond in turn:
"All Americans are
Intelligent
And industrious"

But this would be equally false

What if we could imagine
A world without religion
With only God
Only love

Imagination is power
Power to change
We could create
What we would wish

now and always

My heart beats
involuntarily
even faster
my leg twitches

up and down

this endless unrest
without direction
yet without digress
is a cruel occupation

I've never been much
in appearances that is
But what does it care?
We're really no different
All to dust shall we return
And while some may be of more dust
And others less
It is not the amount of dust to which one takes note
But the placement Thereof
Outside
Or in the house

Climbing up that slippery *****
Hubris gave my step a jump

Or perhaps nervous nature allowed me to it project
Regardless, I fell as one might predict

Fell on my face
Sprawled like a bug on a pin
Like Prufrock in all of his indecisions
He warned me too, warned me not to fall
But fall I did and fall I do
How I am falling and falling for you

I fall
For people with whom I've hardly exchanged a word,
Let alone a sentiment

It's a real problem, you see
Because when I fall for someone
I spend so much time dreaming about him
So much time sliding down the slippery slopes of affection
That when I try to speak
I realize he's still at the top
And I can't get back up

Take the "self"
out of selfish
Toss her in the bowl
Allow her there to rest
Let your "fish" roam

He will find warmer waters
That's instinct, you know
To bring upon creation
What we allow to grow

The Lord gives Life
Today and everyday
People take Life
Take it and throw it away

I pray for rebuke
For guidance severe
For my arrogant heart
May the Good Lord be near

We look back
So bright, so clear
We look forward and think we see
So much light
We do not see

Sometimes the best advice
is hypocritical

Because the best of us
wish we were better
than what we are

If distance makes the heart grow fonder
Then we are really ******* far away
And I know that this is what you wanted
But my heart pulls me further down each day

I thought that maybe in the jungle
Rain and mist would wash away my pain
But even in the heart of the blackest night I’ve ever seen
That flame blinded and raged inside of me

Another flame  burns when I think of that other night
The darkest night I’d ever seen
When your eyes were clouded with so much doubt
So I couldn’t see you anymore

And I hated the way you looked at me
When you told me you didn’t want me to be part of your life
Sitting here now, a million miles away, these words are still hard to write
But I can’t ignore it

I wish that we could be together today, on our anniversary
And I wish we could be with eachother everyday
Even though I know “every” is a word I’m not supposed to say
Anymore

Every, always, never, right, forever
What do these words even mean?
I’m not sure they mean anything
Anymore

But I miss the way we used to say these words
And I miss the way you used to pull me in so cluse
Instead of pushing me away
We are so far away Dearest

I fear that if I get too close to you
Love will congeal to terror again in your eyes
And I’m afraid of hearing your voice rise
To say you don’t want me
Anymore

Finished with the drama
With the boy
I have no friends here
And I feel so alone
But my thoughts won't leave me that way

They won't leave me alone
My heart is still beating hard
My breath still short
Even though he sent that text long ago

It's been an hour since he wrote
And that terse "It's fine"
Ricocheted through my brain

I leant his tie to someone else
Without asking

I leant my crush's tie to someone else
Without asking

But "It's fine"

It is so not fine
Your taciturn texts made that clear
And it will never be fine again
So why am I still here?

I'll never see love that I can tell
But I suppose that it's just as well
If only I could stop falling in love
If only I could stop falling for you
For anyone
I think that I would be happier alone
If only I could stop falling
It's making me sick
I might puke
I need to stop
Stop
Stop
Please Stop

By the way things are
the form of the figure
an art so defined
confined
within the walls of its own evolution

Natural Selection
Scarcity
or innovation
of ideas
we hedge on infinity
and then revert
and every so often we look back
salty towers of tears
fruitless being

Like the way we act
Look
Question
Smile

Feel?

When I look upon the setting sun
Or the recession of the sea
My heart does not get heavy
It does not wax full with melancholy
As it does when I lay my mind's eye on you

Why why why?
Why can I not look upon you as upon the sun,
As upon the moon
I will never hold you, but you are still a beautiful boy
Is it your humanity that gives me a tiny hope,
A cruel mustard seed faith lodged in my lungs?

Yes, it is hope that pains me as I walk
As I lift my eyes gingerly to the future,
My whole self cries for what never happened
For what I know never ever will

It really hasn’t been that long
No, not all that long at all
Since you and I began
And I began to fall

But looking back I see
So much feeling so much fear
Fear that what I havn’t said
You have been unable to hear

So now for better or for worse
I will confess to you my thoughts
It might not be my smartest move
But please pardon all this verse

I used to think my life was good
And wonderful it was
I could not ask for anything
And indeed I seldom should

I used to think I knew happiness
Knew it well as any squirrel or bird
Knew it well as any free living thing
Rejoicing in this Earth

Yet knowing you has changed all this
Not even the sun could contest
The brightness in my pounding chest
Masked by an overwhelming shyness
But present nonetheless

You highlight the landscape of my life
With strange metaphors and charms
For surely if you were to be removed
I would be in a state of great alarm

My one true comfort in it all
Is that looking back I think
I see you looking back at me as well

Cruel Instigation
of my heart
gave me less
than what i took

our eyes match
to light a spark
burning walls
in vein

my atriums Pound
the rushing sound
fills my sense
as i dash
through
cold
dark
hallways

alone,
but for
the Thought of You
i would fly

We danced to avoid the quite hell
Which Idleness can bring
That awkward burning touch
Waited just outside the ring

And of course I was not prepared
My arm below should have been above
And you corrected me repeatedly
With an uneasy glance thereof

You said "It's not the most important part"
Which was cute, I must admit
But what is the most important part?
Because I surly slaughtered it

You know so much about these things
You know about doors and dresses and
Photos and flowers and
Not calling back

You know that I sent that letter
Unanswered may it be
And you know I am pathetic
For an answer even dream



I know nothing but nights spent alone
Wishing this inward torture would stop
Wishing I could remember
To lace my arm over the top

This book feels heavier now
That I've finished flipping
Pages one by one
Part of myself
My feeling, my soul
Has leaked in the letters
Finding meaning
Where once was none
The book lies now soaking
Dripping into each day of my life
Staining lightly my choices
Permeating my thoughts

Is a boring circle better than a broken heart?

Why can't they understand?
When they yell, I cringe
When she cries, I sob
When he falls, I tumble

Why can't they understand?
Their screaming, moaning, *******
Is my burning, aching, stinging

I acted first to actualize this dream
In the thorny days of very early spring
When the buds were half-full, content to sleep away through dawn
Hiding in green blankets from the rising sun

Then your genial conversation pried open the green packages of joy
An irresistible seraphic power bloomed forth as you laced your arm in mine
You sent me into fever with a single unexpected hug
And spring sprang forth under the warm rays of your righteous eyes

But summer is coming, in fact, it's almost here
The tree tops are peppered with April's final gifts
And June's full verdant splendor is approaching quick

Yet your love is ever distant
Perhaps so confined as to never break free
Perhaps so guarded as to never welcome me

One night was not enough my eternal affections to return
Please don't prune the bud when summer's sun has just begun to burn

Gah! The love of my life!
Who put that there?

One tree composes the entire sassafras grove
Vegetative manifest destiny propels its growth

Even as the green leaves turn black

I searched for that sinful seed
That began this unchecked growth
Of endless reproducing replicates

Fatigue, distrust, remorse
Anticipation, heartache, shame
Every emotion I encountered
Claimed to be a person with that power

Yet feelings are false and can be fallen
The bark I’ve scratched, the leaves I’ve torn
Some I’ve even overcome
Still the forest only thickened more

Then I fell myself

Now my ambition, once unjustified and diffuse
Sprouts with the vigor of sassafras
Reclaiming land thought lost with a green
And very visible hand that holds onto mine

The forest continues to densen
Sweet sinful confusion still conceals the heart
Beating the path has only become harder
But in your eyes I see my pain
Irrelevant as the means to the end

We will find the root
And steep its very core
We will drink it
And we will see more

The first snowfall is such an innocent thing
As it falls nicely, landing and melting on your nose
But soon it builds
Accumulates
And it gets to the point where you can't remember a time when you didn't have this weight pushing down all around you all of the time

The first snowfall is such an innocent thing

In my season
most bitter cold
your love did flicker
but never died

The words coming out of my mouth
Are not the ones that echo in my brain

I don't need a man
           Should I even go to prom
I'll be miserable either way
           But what will I tell my mom

Some kind of Crazy ******* Beautiful

Your smile is snowfall
Late late in March
Large, fluffy, virtuous flakes
Drifting gently down
Perching along the yawning lawn
With no hope of accumulation

For April's fools
Are sure to be surprised
By the kindred showers
and thunderstorms
That arise when you avert your eyes

How easily your acknowledgment
Is washed away in the rain
The water waves
Towards a dark, primordial, and spherical sea

But my love can not evaporate
And it will never let me be

Truly that hawk flies free
Above all confinement
Above our wants and needs

Truly that hawk flies trapped
By fickle currents
Subject to lift and drag

Truly the truth
Is neither here nor there
But at the cross
Where reason and feeling
Coalesce

I came home
Touched the invisible blood on the door
My thoughts
Far from the tomato sauce
Gushing through the fresh wounds
Close
To my wife
But an ocean away
From her reality

Did I survive  
By merit
Or did I steal a life
From the trenches
Dug deep
Made to last
In my memory
People dying
Limbs flying
Across that dreadful expanse
Empty
Yet filled with fear

So pungent

The hooded yellow figures
Who burned holes in our throats
The hooded black figure
Who never left alone
Unlike myself
Who lost
More than I can take
Is
Everything
Said
Through gritted teeth

Five letters
not much to chew
but they put a sore
where you'd like to have more
and rub holes
in your shoe

Five letters
not expressed
or to be out dressed
without a flying
buttress

my legs
your hand
between
my legs
oh my

Belief in a greater power
Is belief in a greater purpose
Which instills in us a greater power
???

Suffocated in structure
A wall of fatal lines
Crossed with speed
Only to spur a quickened pace
towards the next

race, race, race

Deadlines approach
NOW
swiftly as death

The only deadline that matters


--------------------------------------------

There was a hot coal in my chest
Hot for you
But it just wouldn't catch
Although I blew and blew
We couldn't get hot
Because you wouldn't come close
But perhaps that's best
Because I'm still set to roast

Our favorite seasons frame our current state
Yours is fall and mine is spring you may recall
But this soft snowy wind has seen my heart elate
And this warmest winter ice has enticed me to fall

You may believe my affections flighty and without strong favor
Flurries of shyness may make my emotions difficult to construe
But really my fondness is like sunlight masked by a cloudy layer
Present always even if invisible to you

I would prefer to be clearer but all this seems so undefined
Even the lines of your figure for granted take I do not dare
If I reach out my hand I fear it will not solid matter find
But only thin films of hope hanging in the air

Whatever we have, for certainty I wouldn't trade it
I love the blinding power of the wind swept snow
To have known the sweetness of your kindred spirit
Is indeed a splendid happiness to have known

No, this is surely neither spring nor fall
Still this may now be my favorite season of them all