Birmingham I am your first born Ex husband
Birmingham I am 3rd avenue north
Birmingham I am the hands of Vulcan
Birmingham I am an abandoned race course
Birmingham I am your Bob Dylan
Basquiat and Bukowski
Birmingham I am nothing
Birmingham I am blue
Birmingham I’m yours if you let me
Birmingham I am you

People have a lot in common with coffee
Some of us are sweeter than others
Some of us taste of spice
Some of us are black
Some of us are brown
Some have too much milk and turn out white
Some of us are cheap
Some of us are not
Some of us are free
Some of us are not
We all came from different places
We all have different names
Americano, cappuccino, caramel latte
But as we all gather in this coffee shop
Only one thing is true
Coffee is coffee
What you make yourself is up to you

Red face, shaky hands
Too many screwdrivers
Can throw a wrench into the best of plans
It’ll take a lot to fix this mechanic
But with a little elbow grease
And something to eat
He’ll be running like new
Just you see

I guess I was amassing a collection
So I could show my children all the places I’ve ate

Like little milestones

All the places I’ve had dead end dates

All the places I’ve gorged myself
Having just got off work
Or just smoked a bowl
Either way I felt deserving of a feast

All the places I shared stories with friends
All the places we shared kisses before we went in

All the orange chicken I ate to help sober up
All the take out I ordered when we broke up
And that one place I found out I was allergic to shrimp and threw up

Yeah I remember it all
The egg rolls, the soup, the soy sauce
The painting of pandas or dragons
The red lanterns
All the motifs
You seemingly needed to run an establishment
Like this

There are the stand outs
The Lucky Star whose pork fried rice was just cut up Slim Jims
The Panda House who treated me less like a customer and more like a friend
If I didn’t come around, they would call and ask where I had been

It didn’t matter if it was in a mall or in my small home town
I always found comfort in this other culture’s food
So while I’m waiting for all those fountain cookies to come true
I guess I’ll look back over these dozen Chinese menus

Hit the pen
Pick up the pen
Bleed ink
Till you’re free of sin
These poems are confessions
These poems are life lessons
That I was second guessing
Mistaking curses for blessings
One night stands
Instead of weddings
Who I am
Is foretelling
Of where I’ll be
Heading
The world’s ending
Is Armageddon
And I know what I’ll be regretting

All the poems in the world
Won’t get me into heaven

You
You *******
You are everything
I still think about that summer
We use to get high on Adderall and play Life is Strange
Go to flea malls and never buy a thing
Watch ****** movies, walk around the lake
You were my best friend
No one could take your place
I remember cuddling in the mornings
Not getting out of bed till the afternoon
The light dripping through the windows
Bouncing around the room
You are so beautiful
We were so young
I’ll never forget those moments
Though, those days are long gone

My girl is a cigarette

She’s a Lucky Strike
She won’t last me through the night

No matter how hard I draw on the conversation
I can’t spark her imagination

There’s nothing I can say
To make her a **** in my ashtray