i will come back here for you
even if the sea disappears
i'll find you there in the dream-scape

he once said
in chair swivel dizzies
that this world was made for me
and that i wear it well

star-glittered floor
glitter-glimmers in setting cement
maintaining illusions
weighing the full commitment
current-whirling eyes
refrain. continue diffracting. sleep in soft beds. study. rescind.

you have really gone and done it, now.
is this not what you wanted?
am i not who you molded me into?
there i am, in the reflection of your bed frame.
there you are, sitting on your bed.
here we are, studying each other.
rescinding into our separate... rash follies.
our derangements match on a similar-but-different level.

cheers, together, we ruined lives
care if i take a seat?
i try so HARD to break from the HABITS THAT RUIN ME!
where do they go when i expel them?
into the air, to float up to space? do the aliens bite the insides of their cheeks, too?
or into the sea, so the critters & corals can get high, like I used to?
maybe they will crawl into the ears of my neighbors, so Tab can have "The Rug" stuck in her head all day, too.

well, well, well. here we are, in this space, together.
on the one hand, but oh... oh, on the other hand.
sign out. do me a favor, reversing your trail.
who am i to judge?
who am I to wonder.

fast asleep, you are, my love.
oh, how i wish i was sleeping next to you.
cradled in your bear's embrace.

i'll be here waiting when you fall down.

where were you when the tree branches
were scraping against my window
when i was staring at the cul-de-sac
clutching the landline to my chest
one time i thought i saw a bear
in the woods across from the bus stop
but it turned out to be a pile of brush
you know i still see things in the dark
the other night i woke up from a bad dream
and saw teeth that weren’t there
i managed to blink them away but
there are some things that i can’t
like the shadow in the doorway that visits
every night and the open hand i am doing
everything not to grab
it pretends that it needs me but really
all i needed was yours

There is nothing but love, and now. Nothing but places that ring out memories, memories of learning to lose, memories of us. There is nothing but heartbeat and heartache. Nothing but night sky. Nothing but the gleam of our spirits, their sheer capacity to keep opening themselves against all odds. Nothing but soft eyes and warm hands. Nothing but breathless winter snatching our oxygen and making us taste of ice and courage. Nothing but risk.

There is nothing here but ecstasy and boredom and wonder, nothing but watching her watch the moon, nothing but light. Nothing but mistakes and forgiveness, tender uncertainty. Nothing but the accepting of what is. Nothing but stars falling overhead, and us lifting our hands to catch them. Nothing but resistance, war, the ache for justice; nothing but our poetry burning these walls down, nothing but chain link fences and snow.

Nothing but creation, nothing but sunrise, nothing but nervous first kisses shared in the back of a city bus, nothing but mouths moving together. Nothing but reverence, guns, a god we don’t believe in, the children making snow angels in the park. Nothing but breathing together, laughter and bare feet. Another day, another hour. Nothing but the revolving of Earth, the splitting of cells, these fears we nurse in the darkness, the loss we have chosen to accept.

Nothing but our longing, our need, our dying, our letting go; nothing but nakedness, this human vulnerability, the trust we give to others, the thunder of our feelings, the words we cry out; nothing but our souls rising and falling and growing and moving and touching and aching and knowing and leaving and loving and becoming.

There is nothing but this.

When I’m older, I’ll give more of myself to the yellow morning. By then, I’ll have a front porch where the honeybees join me for breakfast, and I won’t worry about the sting any longer than I should, and the day will be enough. But for now, I am still waiting for a flood, still waist-deep in the rain. I am taking communion with the things that hurt, letting them melt on my tongue like hot wax. The broken clock, and the hollow haunting, and the songs that say what I can’t. I think the winter knows me better than I’d like to admit. But sometimes, the heaviness feels a lot like being held, and so I let it crush me.

and here i am again
at the intersection
of pedestrian language
& old wives tales
swallowing gum
like 7 year memories
opening umbrellas inside
cause i can't seem get away
from all of this rain
i ******* with my left hand
cause i was told
back in highschool that
"it feels like someone else is doing it"
it gets me wondering
about the difference between
losing you and finding out
that some one else found you
or my sleep
or lack thereof
its starting to tear me apart
i keep having this dream
where you are in
an unfamiliar body of water
trying to wash my poetry
off of your hands
or the one where
something happens in my chest
every time you sit
on someone else's bed
i'm tired of feeling like something you've misplaced
but don't have the heart
to look for anymore
tired of you saying my name
like you're trying to bury it
i'm tired of wondering
if you can tell the difference
between the absence
of my voice & silence
the other day
i almost started sobbing
at work when a woman
asked me about
our equipment
i was explaining how
things come apart
and almost mentioned your name
it made me think
of how you used to say
things like "what would you do
if i showed up on your doorstep
one day?" now, i haunt
the windows in my house
i don't leave for weeks at a time
i sit on the porch like the dog
you didn't shoot behind the shed
the one that refuses to die
until you come home again
i told somebody once, that
you didn't even know
what my voicemail sounded like
i wonder if they thought
it was because you
are so important that i never
let it ring that many times
before picking up
or if you dont know
what it sounds like
because you've never called
you can't be the ****** weapon
and the search party
i'm tired of all the seats
to the ferris wheel in my chest
being empty
tired of your voice
being the one i look for
in abandoned places
that one sound i beg
to bounce back
down vacant hallways
i just seem to stand there
in all of that quiet
like someone looking for a mistake
on an eviction notice
so i guess the hardest part
isn't letting go
it's forgetting
you ever had a grip
in the first place
and since you've been gone
i wonder if when
you pushed yourself away from me
you used your left hand
so it felt like someone else did it

while september cicadas
were singing my neighbors to sleep
i was up walking holes in my shoes
over love once lost
so many poems ago
that the only thing i remember
about the house at 38th & bluestone
is that it reeked of alcohol and is
as i'm sure of it
still saturated in perfume
and abandoned laughter
but that's not the point
give me a minute
what i'm trying to say
is i always thought god
enjoyed watching things leave me
it makes me wonder
what was on his mind
that night in september
when i stooped to cough
or tie my shoelaces
i no longer remember why
but i recall their trajectory
the way gravity cradled my hands
and brought them crashing back to earth like a 747
they landed inches away
from a scrap of crumpled loose leaf
folded in half like the smiles
of my relatives on a holiday truce
you see, lately i've been looking for scars in the newspaper
i find myself checking the obituary
for my former selves since the day i found your suicide letter
maybe that's why i can never explain my obsession with history
maybe archeology is just a funeral
in reverse
maybe hell is just rewinding home movies
or watching confetti
turn back into photographs
i never told anyone
the reason the doors to the gun cabinet in my family's house are locked not because they are afraid
i will take my life
but because sometimes
i sing them birthday songs
on the day you died
it makes me think
of how rooms only echo
when they are empty

*you know
i never echoed until you died

i don't watch home movies
hate them
reason being because
when i was young
i was looking for a movie
my mother
had recorded for me
and accidentally
put one in the vcr
that i'm not sure
i was supposed to see
i know the obvious response
"uh oh, ****"
sorry to disappoint
they were only marked with dates
  1991
on live television
montel williams asks my father
"how can you just throw
your child away like a piece of trash?"
   1994
i spend so much time
in the emergency room
that my parents stop
penciling in growth marks
on the frame
of my bedroom door
i always thought
it was because they believed
i would never grow out
of this sickness
sometimes i believe
the reason that they
never bought me a dream catcher
was because they never thought
i'd live long enough
to see them come true
   1996
i am eliminated
from a spelling bee
because i didn't know
the 'dad' is silent in 'family'
   2013
before i got into poetry
i used to do standup
none of my jokes were funny
one of the other comics
tells me my skits are dry
sometimes sad
he says "why don't you joke
about something like your family?"
so i say
"i never wore any sunblock
because i didn't want anything
to keep me from my father"
i say "what do you call christmas
without lights or heat?"
before he has a chance
to answer
i say "1997. better yet
why don't you
make like a dad and
leave"
   2014
every time we drive
past the hospital
my mother reminds me
how much it cost to save my life
like she'd rather
have her money back
she doesn't have to say
that sometimes she wishes
it was me who had died
instead of my brother
i can hear it in the way
she says "love you"
sometimes i imagine
that if i were to die
that she
would pick out a casket for a child
because she never loved
the person i became
yesterday i told my father
how close i'd been
to suicide lately
and he said
"that's my boy,
livin on the edge.."
and i can't remember
if i laughed
or cried