What am I
To a million people
Whose names are numbers
Waiting to be counted?

What am I
Other than a mispronounced name
And a character of no value
Who often becomes forgotten?

What am I
Aside from being a drunken thought
Whose name you scream
And whose heart wrenches at your drunken sight?

What am I
When I become frustrated
At how much I love you
But can't find the right words to say?

What am I
To you
When all I've ever been used to being
Is nothing?

then
your pale frame
eclipsed my sight,
you, the moon,
caught me staring
too long and i blinked
your face burnt black
into the backs of my eyelids,
there were nights
i would rub my eyes
and count the spots
you’d left like stars
(one two three four
five six seven eight)

then
i thought the numbers
in my head were all
the reasons we were wrong
i started sleeping
with my eyes open
if i shut them i’d see
holes and think of your craters
and how the men who tread
your surface don’t clean
their boots well enough
don’t think to ask you
how you like it before
they plant their flags,
but they offered you
the world, and all i had
to offer were the spots
in the backs of my eyelids
(one two three four)

then
rockets counted down
the seconds until they could
meet you and i
counted you out,
contented myself by
staring at the sun,
blinked and i
saw spots
(one two three)

i am no man,
would not simply
stake a claim so bold.
in hindsight,
you, the moon,
had already claimed me,
wrapped your evening flag
over my eyes
and made me yours,
i just never
noticed the fabric,
couldn’t see past
the spots in my eyes.

now i only see you in hindsight.

I turned the engine over and drove to my place. Not my house, my place: MY place, where I can listen to albums and stare out across the city.

I climbed up through the sunroof to get out in the raw air, it’s a broiling 95 degrees but so much better than being inside. Cars move on I-80, stopping and going. The sun hides behind the west mountains and leaves ribbons of brilliant burning orange in the sky and reflected in the great salt lake. I can see for miles in every direction.

This moment is so cliché
and stupid
and fantastic
and freeing.

I wonder how I’ll survive this heat. One day at a time, just like everything else.

For the first time
I dislike the days growing longer
I wait impatiently for darkness
To descend upon me
In the soft sweet night
Now I wait
I look out the window
But it’s not here yet
Where is it? Why must I wait?
This is taking forever
I’m impatient and cross
I’ve had enough of
This light

Love you
more than
I know
you can, so
I step outside
my fears
and these lives
past doubts.
And this town
never felt so cold
underneath these boots
even during Fall
leaves crushing
and New York
air brushing a could be
perfect would be
evening.

My feet were splintered and cracked from crawling in the broken trees,
but still I stood and stared through the wooden beams
to see far below me, to gaze into the eyes of the howling beasts.

I hoped desperately that they not see me,
but their heads flashed upwards and their tongues pulled me from my perch.
I could hear every word now, trapped underneath their fumbling feet.
They moved slowly over me, working meticulously.

I waited for the evening, when the dying rays of the sun sank into the tile from the doorway,
and when they would vanish melt into the darkness of his shadow.
I wait and wait some days, but they never melt just right,
instead only turning the whole world into night.

His shadow doesn't arrive sometimes for days and nights,
sometimes, though, it takes months and once a year,
but every day I long to hear,
his rough and Southern drawl,
whether it be telling me that I am queer
or small.

Most days I do not care what it is he'll do or say,
I only care that he is there, and that he will make the monsters go away.

i feel the lonely bitterness of streetlights
slink away into the city

when I think of you,
home .