your fingers
     stained with the grey matter
     of thousands of innocent cigarettes
still somehow managed to dance
like vagrant ballerinas
with a vendetta against my spine

a perfect cringe

our moon-baked bodies pressed together
like pages of a novel that you once read
and i thricely pretended to
     we both missed the plost twist
and twisted ourselves to sleep

i remember your voice
     the way that you'd articulate in coffee-table-cursive

your words dripping from your lips
like honey from the comb

i remember me
dropping to my knees
     to lap up the sweetness
like a beggar in the street

if my whiskey breath meant
that my tounge was slinging poetry

     how many sonnets
     are you yet to hear me speak?

frank sinatra still sings me to sleep
the same way that you'd shake me from a nightmare
     it's soothing
yet somehow reminiscent of chicago's smog

i wake half-shaken
and half ready to light up a spliff
right where i sit
     wherever it is that i'm sitting
or am i standing?

and is it too demanding to ask
that you laugh
when you've got a cameo
in my drip-stained dreams?
     ****
all i'm asking for is a laugh
     anything
          really
other than a gap-mouthed gasp

that's all i ask

well
there's that
    
and...
          maybe you could show your face
          for just one or two milliseconds longer

i tried to write a poem that wasn't about you
but nothing came to mind

we spoke through the silence of shadow-puppets
on a borrowed brick wall stage
     we'd made our home

we'd whisper secrets to each other
in the same morse-code voices
     that flashlights use to speak to the stars

i guess you were right
you really could fold space like a map
and you really did punch right through it

back to the days of dandelion dreaming
     tasting the sweetness at the center
     and squeezing the sap from the stems
onto our dirt dusted hands
          frantic finger-painting on the cement dance floor that we bloomed from

back to the sage-dressed lake bed
     she laughs
and boasts silently to the sky of her emerald depths
     i laugh
and boast ineloquently to the bottle's neck of my mermadic swimming
          always got my head beneath the surface
     but this isn't suffocation
               no
          just transformation

i am on the rise

back to the nights of meteor showers at the top of the world
from the hood of my car
     sharing candy bars and over-ripe secrets
it's the browning fruit that tastes the sweetest
          so freedom must be the color of garden soil
     or maybe just the same shade as your eyes

back to the laughter
erupting from our child-like bellies
like hot water
     from granite springs themselves
remember?

back to the tents
     and firepits
     and unmapped road trips with no end in sight

back to the chapter
with the "happily-ever-after"
     and the monsters under the bed packing up for a holiday in spain

back to the light
that's how i'll survive

now and then
i catch the dream screen wrinkling
and reality begins thinning
     like the hair on the crown of your head

it's then that i wonder
if we're stationary when we rest
     or if we're truly capable
     of traveling both space and time
     with just the silken strength of our sleepy synapses

do our lines connect
when we're clinging like dew-drops
to the threads of the dream web?

in my head
you hear my voice
     echoing through your slumber
like classical music through a dance hall

but
     maybe you can't hear me at all

maybe you're just as far away as ever

i dreamt of bathing
in the condensation pools
left spilling onto car-door handles
by words we half-whispered so many moons ago

i imagine it felt an awful lot
like the way you felt
when you were eight years old
and your mother's minister
lowered your head into that stream

     something you'd thought you'd wanted
until the moment showed it's teeth

if i could write the way that you'd speak
my days of slinging beer would be behind me
     and i'd be sinking my teeth in to my third or fourth release

i just can't remember your voice

but i do remember your eyes
and if i could paint anything as gorgeous
as the way that you saw the world around you
     i might finally understand what you were always trying show me

i'm miserable at sorting through clues
     though i have been spending nights on end
sifting and measuring the magic of you
that still can't evade me

i still can't write when i think of you
     my mind becomes clouded with scenes of the rearview
and of your freckles, too
and hidden hazel curls tucked beneath that dusty wollen brim
          
     oh, how i long to be the feather so lucky as to live above it

but sometimes we feel things
that can never be taken back
     not for a refund
     and certainly not for exchange

sometimes our hearts know more than our heads ever could

and your pulse should no longer be on the tip of my tounge
or the wheeze in my lungs
     though i'm starting to think that you'll always be

four years of scribbling nonsense
     and you're still the well that my pen tirelessly drinks from

i'm never entirely sure
where my bruises come from
but their presence is strangely pleasant
     like a voice message left by a moment
     so very long-forgotten

i've gotten awful far by going nowhere

just look how i glisten
listening to secrets sliding
through the near silence of no place private
slightly derranged and completely distant
     lovely
and removed from social soliloquies
     to the self appointed throne of thoughtful longing

belonging's just such a bore
     when you're built to scream to existence
     like a super-nova through a telescope's lense

she'd weave secrets the size of osiris
into her honey-dripping locks
while watering the lawn
     beer and juice in the same glass that i first drank from

who'd have guessed
that all "growing up" meant
     was accepting the fact
that our parents made masterpieces in their sleep

i once dated a boy who found it "adorable" that i know how to change my headlights
     fill my radiator
     change the oil
     and notice every stopsign as i'm halfway through it
he dumped me via text

before that
there was a boy who loved my lack of first person capitalization
     my over-use of metaphores and similies
     the way i personify the night
     and practice preforming poetry in the shower
he took off into the sunset with my journal in his shoulder-sack

and somewhere in between
i stopped asking myself what it means
threw up my hands
     and learned to enjoy the ride

there are nights where your absence chokes out my breath
and the only way i can finally rest
     is to heavy-handedly pull at the tides of my brew
          the way you'd paw at the hips of my skirt
          silently signaling you'd finally had too much to drink

your lack of grace illuminated
in whiskey-breath
and neon jukebox glow

so off we'd go
     leading the liqour-lust parade
     trailing downpours of drink chips in our wake
and you'd take up my hand
in your forklift phalanges

such a prideful little man-cub
with a puffed out chest and a leather vest
     only softening your edges in the sanctity of my lumpy bed
     when you've got the chance to rest your noisy head atop my naked breast

oh you rusted demi-god
though i do miss the struggle
and the snuggles
and the ***
          i'll be just fine with my growler of stout
          and your leftover whiskey in the freezer
forgetting what i'd learn
during our staggered steps home

somewhere within you
i had once noted a celestial gleam
          you bought me a pair of dime-store shades in reply
     and i wept
     my entire walk home
for the sincerity present in your lack of articulation

i used to cradle her bleach-cracked hands in mine
and decode the stardust resting within her fingerprints
     up until the day that i lost touch with the art of reading braille
     and she stopped slinging tall-tales for me to fetch
and rest the plot-twist at her feet

often in the post-script
i'd find my train of thought highjacked by the sunlight illuminating the rainbow of earth-tones ablaze
in her frizz-ridden curls
as if she'd been washing her hair with the damaged case of beer
she'd gotten for half-price at liqour depot
     she never did quit drinking
          but neither did i

at least we tried

though sometimes
in the middle of the night when nothing was alright
and we'd barely survived another fight
her face would catch my glance
cast aglow by a flood of lava-lamp light
    
     the sea of freckles resting at the crest of her cheeks
     rose lips perma-pursed in half tilt
     her resting heart-rate so high that i could almost see it
          pirouetting within her chest

it was then that i'd love her best
     amidst the ruins of who we were
     just moments before

if i could
i'd lasso the wyoming wind
and ride it like a wild mare to wherever it is that you now call home

you'd find me pounding on the door
     with a bottle of whiskey in my white-knuckled fist
     and a bubble machine eating the paint off your late model car
     and how far i'd come to find you would instantly become irrelevant when you'd smile
          it's been a while

i still catch myself wondering if you catch yourself wondering about me
and the places i've seen since i last saw you
     lacing up your boots and diving head first into the blue of early evening
you didn't even tell me that you'd be leaving

but you did tell me a thing or two
  about the birds
    and the trees
      and the sea
        and your heart
the way it missed beats like i miss stop signs
and you'd once said that it was scared
     always waking you up in the middle of the night
     and telling you that it's alright to want to run
you sure did seem to be good at running

so i swish scotch between my teeth
and atop my gums
to make my tounge believe in singing
and i climb to the tops of the palisades to slingshot siren songs your way

          "oh won't you stay,
               just a little bit l o  n   g    e     r..."

then the record skips
and i slip from my dreaming
back to a shoreline where the washing machine squeeks
and i can be found grinding my teeth
like a lost little god in the grotto

oh
     where did we go to
     when we left to get old
and brittle
     like a tree no good for climbing

we dissolved our youth within the golden glow of nostalgia
marked on a calander long since dead and torched
     that fall when we learned to feel
     and burried each other beneath the heaps of rotting aspen leaves

"until next time, my darling."

winch sinched grimmace
hung at half mast
in an attempt to hold rebelious bicusbids in their place
     but they still wiggle like a bobble-head jesus glued to the dash
     every time that you laugh
so i guess that's why you're giving it up

your arms look like a road map
     riddled with pin-***** ***-holes
and with routes to hell and back marked
by distressed vasculatory flares
     so you ask to borrow my sweater
     and another fourty bucks
with no explanation why

for once
     you didn't lie to me

he whispered secrets in my ear
as i'd weave tall tales in his chin hair
     and still to this day
          we each swear
there was nothing there

other than the static charge in the sexed up air
and the moon beams
     tangled in our thunderstorm breathing

i still see you in my dreams

     you come and go in flashes of raw and sacred light
like heat lightning
     a mile and one half downstream
from my not-so-secret hide-out
amongst the limping cedars and smouldering sage

          and i?
i am the thunder

tap-dancing my way
through the ill-reviewed chapters of your life
     the same way that your nothern lights glow
through every lifetime of mine

          i found you, once
          and i'm miserable at letting go

for, oh
     you move so slow
          yet you're somehow far too hot to trail
like a commet lusting after its own tail
lacing our solar system
with the whimsy of wishes to throw in the air
     or the well
     or at the man in the sky
          who promises to keep us from hell

     it's just so bizzare
          how i find your missing heartbeat
               in every stray that mine picks up
and the way that you're stitched to my sole
     like my shadow's lone companion

i chase my jameson with the best of intentions
and each of my cigarettes with ****** tension

i guess i'm the best
at ignoring my own lessons

i've learned to trust each exception
     and never call a moment home

that's when i grow

in the universal record skip of an instant
that reminds me to question
absolutely everything i know

i want to douse you in the muddy water
of the balckfork's patient trickle
     at the crest of spring
and baptise you as mine to keep

     my own semi-precious stone to bring to the table

let me carry you around in my pocket
like a bottle cap
from the last bar you sat at
     while you were day-dreaming of me

          some treasures are far too great
          to try to hide from the world outside

          and more often than not
     a good bargain
isn't what we bargained for

i can never find my drink
     it's not so much that i forget
     it's more so that i'm never around long enough to circle back twice
but that's alright
     i can always find someone's

i talk to myself
**** near constantly
     i'd like to think it's not to hear myself speak
     but to let myself think
the only time i get the chance
to say the things i've always longed to
is when i'm the only one around to listen

     i love to listen

i also love to eavesdrop
just to see how others talk
     when they're expecting only to be heard

i still don't believe in hell
     not as a destination
hell is some place within me
i dredge through it daily
and not a soul can save me
     guess that's why i've never feared god

no
     not god
but **** near everyone else

i've got this ******* anxiety
just welling within me
and what's worse
is that no one can see my crazy
     no
     just me
but it pecks at my brain
and howls at the moon
and consumes my thoughts whole

     i'm afraid of everyone
     always

i'm the most afraid of me

i'm afraid of the things i see in the mirror
     i fear for myself
that i'll never really grow up
     just more scared
     and angry
     and bitter
i'm afraid of my heart-rate
     climbing higher than your balcony
     until it factually breaks

but i somehow know i'll be okay
i feel it more and more each day
     because somewhere
     in my static-charged skull
     and double-time heart
     there is at least a little balance

     see
     i've got something that most people don't
          i really only know one thing:

if i ran into the six-year-old version of me
if we passed as strangers on the street
     she'd smile
and think that she'd like to grow up to be just like me

i still stretch in the morning
in hopes i can someday make myself
into the shape of the hole
at the center of the universe
     and become the glue
     that keeps magic in its place

i used to lay next to you while you'd sleep
and wonder how you could possibly have more secrets to keep
than you've got eyelashes
     you've got more eyelashes than there are tulips in holland
and even that was never enough to keep me from wanting more

it wasn't my excitement that would keep me from my sleep
     it was just that you snore
          that ******* snore
and in my wormy brain
it means that you were subconciously bored
          i always failed to work the whiskey on your breath into our amorphous algorythm
     no real measure for our frosted-glass-pleasure
     just bruises left to treasure
          on our hearts
          and necks
          and spirits

we got good at it
     spending every night
with so much left unsaid
that it was almost as if i could hear it
with my ear pressed to your ribs
     like post-dated reverberrations from all of our forgotten arguments
     echoing through the void of our emptied bottles
     and in the cherry-pits of our chests

it was all just a long line of tests
measured pressures
and recorded reactions
     it was an intellectual's game
     who will be the first to break?
in retrospect
     i think we took turns

and as much as it still burns my eyes
and breaks my mind
to know that there are tears left to cry
     it feels alright
i guess that's the part i always liked
          that ache left in the morning

sometimes i blame my parents
for letting me believe
that love was as simple to understand
     as the plot of a disney flick
they should have told me the truth
     that it's really just sick
     twisted delusions of our infatuated brains
and that the more we try to change it
the more it stays the same
     that the more you say its name
     the less likely it is to show its face

i'll never know if it was love
or insanity
     either way
s o m e t h i n g still remains
and all looks pretty much the same
from this side of the window pane

the scent of your flesh was the same as the smell of the aspens
after a fresh sprinkling of snow and dust
    
      the best things haunt our dreams in scenes of the forrest


your touch made my heart sing the songs of the ocean
that you'd always wished your land-locked lobes could decode

     more often than not
          the magic lives in the mystery


your favorite game was the chase
the way the wind slides through your curls at a sprint
the taste of the sweetness as it tries with all its might
to evade you in the night

     if you love something enough
          it will never really escape your grasp


still to this day
you're the only one who could make me blush that way
as if all of the sun's rays were magnetized to the apples of my cheeks
solely to play a part in my school-girl reaction
to the cabaret way you articulate


     *fate may be cruel to lovers
          but nothing is as cruel as we are to ourselves

she used to have this way about her
     a magical capability to hide her deepest secrets in the center of her sentences
     leaving you unsure if that's how she really meant it
          yet somehow certain
          that you walked away from said verbal exchange
          with far more than she would ever know
          that she was capable of giving away

she sat in the kitchen
   frivolously underlining passages in her brand new bible
      nodding her head
      occasionally pressing her hands into her chest
"yes" she'd whisper
   with her blind eyes shut

         every ******* needs a crutch

every hour or so
she'd leave her hiding place
   to shove her misunderstanding in my face

"god only loves us if we ask him to"
"you're a sinner. your sins can only be cleansed with the blood of christ"
"our lives gain their only meaning when we ask christ into our hearts"

oh yeah?
   is that right?
      how'd he find any room in yours
      when you keep it bound up like a hostage?

i tried with all my might
   to remind myself that i am a spiritual being
   that i want no one to hurt
      even those who waste their precious seconds plotting ways to hurt others
   to craft everyone their own kind of pain that they can name
      and later
         help you look up a cure in a little black troubleshooting guide

but i cracked
and i snapped
and i didn't feel bad

don't you get it?
are you paying attention to what you read?!

the whole ******* story is about LOVE...
   about loving everyone
not only under certain circumstances
   but every second of every day
the same way we're told that he loved

calling yourself a christain is the farthest thing that you can do from actually being christ-like
  
he was a good guy
      like robin hood
         not oprah
   you won't get a free car
   or fleeting fame
      all you'll gain is peace
      and clearly that's what you really need

but you also need to remember
   that if he's watching everyone's every move
      like you say
   then he too sees you going out of your way to ruin someone elses day
he sees you ignore the hungry man asking for change
he sees you preaching things you've never practiced
he sees you looking for ways to bend the rules without breaking them

if christ came back
   he wouldn't be the sharp-dressed man seated up front
      whom you try to charm the pants off of with your faith every week
he'd be the homeless man outside sitting by the steps in silence
whom you marched right passed
   without so much as a glance
      or a simple hello

         he'd know you misunderstood the entire message
         flash a toothy grin
         and go right back to spitting prophesies into his brown paper bag
             
            but most importantly
                  he'd never rub it in your face that he thinks you've got it **wrong

i want a voice like the heartbeat of the metra tracks
     as it shakes its way into your brain
while you're half awake
and daydreaming
     'bout something sweet
     something that means nothing to me
but it's cute
     see
          
          the way you can't help but smile

i want to be that cringe of excitement in your skull
that you can't stop daydreamin' about

  and...
if you could find yourself fascinated by my freckles
     and my flaws
     and the scars all over from all of the near-fatal gashes
     and the heaps and heaps of stardust rusting to my eyelashes
     and the fact that i'm always talking about love as if i'd actually had it
          i promise
i'd never say you were a fool

i could wear you like split ends
or a crooked grin
     a handsome pair in inclement weather
     somehow better together

not two halves
     of one whole

two wholes
     thriving on each other
      
          cigarettes and coffee
          whiskey and beer

mmhmmm
     we're in the clear from here
nothing but salty tides and starry skies
          straight on 'till morning

thoughts of you come in pairs
     like stanzas of the most beautiful poem ever written

yes
          you

you read like an open book
tattooed with elloquent confessions
and articulate interpretations of the thrum of existence

i'd trade any gem
from the shelves of my library
to be able to run my fingers down your dusty spine once more
     and read your vertebrae like braille
my phalanges eagerly slurping the sweetness of your flesh

oh
          you

sole proprietor of the laylines of my fingertips
     well versed in the science of touch

the world-class professor of the art of feeling
     you taught me to feel everything
in a blurb of sunlit hours

ah
          what i'd give
          to be a page-number in your story

i wanna feel like the ink in a pen does
as it crimps and curls and dances its way across a naked page

i wanna feel like the page being filled

give me a pulse like a double-time war drum
     thudTHUDDing towards crescendo
     with a cymbol-crash ache
and flesh that winds my spine and river bed curves
     like a stretch of highway on a midnight drive
     that fades into the face of the moon

gimme some of that star-stuff sparkle in my pete moss eyes
a few of saturn's rings 'round my hula-hips
and a solid kiss
     right on the lips

               yeah

when i grow up
          i think i'd like to be in love

the snowfall came tumbling down
   resting sweetly on my eyelashes and toes
like the feathers of one million unfortunate doves
     that dad popped in the chest
     with his pellet gun

there, in those strawberry fields of dreaming-
those blooms of a season long since dead and torched-
     i swore i found you
and you were speaking sweetly in a smokey room
with a crescent smile
and a cheap long-neck bottle
and a blue ball-point pen
that you'd only pry from it's waltzing
     to chuckle with (and charm) the bartender

an older lady
with muddy-water curls
and poision ivy eyes
     and...there's something about her that reminds me of my mom...
then the moment's gone
and now, all i can wonder
is how it is that she's counting change when she hasn't got any fingers

the captain must be on the mic again
with bull-**** banter about the weather
     or our eventual destination
     or something about the turbulence to calm the unfortunate un-drugged
his monotone monotony
sneaking through my sleep to me
     and coming through like the voice of the radio host
     as my head's beneath tepid bathwater

your ellegance uneffected by his audible intrusion
into my sub-concious dellusion
     you pull at the tides of your brew
     and wink
then back to a busy pen

     i have to get to you
you've got to remember
  
come back

but dreams don't work like that

it's as if my feet don't match my body
or my legs are facing backward
or i'm in that godforsaken hallway scene of "The Shining"
     and i'm finding this to be far more frustrating
     than remaining concious through the flight could have ever been

and again
somewhere over nebraska
the ride gets increasingly shaky
     not obnoxious enough to wake me
     just enough to take me to the part of the nightmare
     where my teeth start falling out
          like precious little gems of vicodin and nicorrette
               t a p p i n g out my fragile skull
and now i'm wearing some ******-gummed grin
and that charming lounge is feeling like "From Dusk Till Dawn"
and all of the friendly faces are gone
     except for yours
          and you look horrified

how come now i've got your attention?

touchdown at o'hare
and i wake in the window seat next to a vacant chair
     alive and well
except that you're not there

and to think
     when i was a kid
          my nightmares all had fearsome beasts
then i grew up
          and found the monster to be me

"you really are beautiful,
in your own kind of way",
he says
     as he spits through his teeth

in what way is that,
i wonder?

in a way that can't be crammed into a size five dress?
in a way that isn't actually aesthetically appealing?
in a way that's too intelligent to find your misogynistic outburst colored flattery?

he pushes the wire-like hair away from my face
and wipes an angry tear from my freckled cheek
     "see, all you have to do is try."

oh, boy
try
yeah,
     that's what i'll do
so i can catch another in a long line of "men" who think i COULD be beautiful

as if beauty is only one color
     one size
     one shape
as if it can truly be measured with a bathroom scale and a hand-held mirror
and can be purchased at a costly brand-name outlet in a shopping mall near you

my mother's mother has an affinity for referring to my twenty-three extra pounds
in a way that one refers to the neighbor's busted-down ford that needs towed away
"oh, catrina, you really could be so gorgeous,
     if you'd just get rid of some of your fluff."

she pinches at my sides
     and the backs of my arms
     and the little curve at the tops of my thighs
          just below my ***
like i'm an over-stuffed pillow on her antique love-seat
that's about to burst at the seems
     should the seemstress not pull out the threads with her teeth
and remove the unsightly over-fill like black-heads from a slender nose

everything she buys me comes from a plus sized store
     and wears a fat filthy double XL on it's tag

considering that i factually only need a large
i fight back my plump tears and wear a cheap smile
as i give thanks i don't mean
and kiss her on her heavily perfumed cheek
     "oh, such lovely lips
     why not a splash of lipstick?"

as soon as i'm out of her home state
i take the clothes back to the "big-girl" store
and trade them in for pizza and beer money

the girl behind the counter ironically weighs ninety-two pounds soaking wet
and that's only if she's still got on her padded bra
     slender
     starved
     sickly
     and supposedly ****
since when were curves a curse?
and who the **** decided it was a good idea to pattent worth with a lipstick shade, anyway?

no
     no way

i am beautiful without having to paint myself that way
my existence is not defined by the shape i take
my flaws and imperfections can't be remidied with any myriad of poking and plucking
     nipping and tucking
and all of my greatness and wonder sure as **** outweigh a tiny bleach-blonde *****

oh
*******
     and that pretty little pony you rode in on

i refuse to be pressed against a rubric and graded like a show-dog whose owner will only settle for best-in-show
     and kicks his failure of a companion sharply in the ribs when he doesn't bring home another ribbon

this obsession of society's is making us sick
  
we don't teach our children compassion and empathy
     we instead instill their heads with talk of thread count
     and color schemes
     how to brush on blush
     and how to pick a suit
cute won't save the world

i beg you sisters
     please
let us not give this disease to our daughters
let us not allow our sons to carry the gene

together
     let's put to rest the ill-concieved notion of our beauty residing without us
          rather than within

let us never again bow down to the revlon gods of vanity

together
we are Woman
     and we deserve to finally soar

i curse my nightmares
for stealing away precious moments
that could better be spent
     dreaming of you

my DNA is a self-made daisy chain
strung together with the best of intentions
and a few yards of dental floss

it's always getting tangled up in moon beams
and boot strings
     tugging me in one thousand directions at once
like the sea pulling at the limitless shorelines hem

i am magic

my flesh reflects the hue of the desert dust the winds bathe me in
speckled with freckles that occasionally line up with the stars

what a fool i'd be to paint myself into obscurity
with make-up brushes and lipstick hues

          no

i choose me

excessively sensitive to the energy of all other living beings
always feeling everything
all the pain and happiness
love and fear and angst
     at once
          lumped in with the leaves of my tea
destined to forever reside within
     me

the high-priestess of the immeasurable things
the guardian of treasures unseen
     constantly filling my sundress with ***** pebbles
     broken feathers
          and all the stardust i can find

i've spent the last one thousand life times
being everywhere at the EXACT same time 

you should know
     you were there

     and oh
such love i've found
hiding in the shallows
in the mud
     and under the edges of your finger nails

even in the darkness of the vast
and ever-stretching sky
there is so much light
so very many precious gems
hoisted into timeless settings along the milkyway's head-dress

          i promise
where i am right now
is the best place to be

and if you don't believe me
     crane your neck towards the stars

i broke my teeth
on the secrets you keep
     and you swear that i'd died in the morning.

the train whistles lull me to a dusty sleep
     an ancient sleep
primitive and timeless as the sage
          it tastes like rain
          and reads like a folk song

and when the engine songs are gone
the interstate strikes up it's serenade
     flooding my heart valves with gasoline
     and valvoline
     and the smile of what i can only hope to imagine are young lovers
with a fiesty case of wanderlust
and a puppy in the back seat
with a wagging tail

"happy trails" i whisper
and the stars flicker
and i smile

the walls let their secrets slide while they sleep
     all those restless memories they keep for themselves
floating around
and settling in the parlor dust

they trust me just enough
to let me cradle them in my chest
woven between my rebar ribs
and my flat-tire heart
     thud thud thudding as it speeds off into the distance

the dogs rustle the sheets as they rise
     just long enough to sigh
          dance a sleepy circle and a half
and put themselves back to bed

i finally crawl out from inside my noisy head
as the boy nestles up to my neck
and traces my clavical with his humid breath
and ropes me in closer to his chest
     with his big bear arms

his heart sings like a fire alarm
stirring the brave to save me from the shadows
     and chase the ghosts from my gallows
          and he even lets out puppy snores in his sleep
the tune that finally pirouettes me towards my dreams

where the birds sing like drunken sailors in the mango groves
and the rows and rows of lime trees
     my heart and mind innertwined to paint me a scene i've never even seen
          not with my own eyes

it's so nice to think it's within me
and not without me

yes
     for every sound, a source

i tried to write you a letter
     once
but was unsure of the address for the heavens where you shine
     not "Heaven"
          per say
but the stars that gained your carbon as you selflessly gave it away

          turns out celestial bodies aren't listed in the yellowpages

i tried sending you smoke signals
     twice
but the message was so **** long
  and it read more like a song
    and you never much liked my lyrics anyway

i moved on to morse code
     spent night after night lying on my back with a flashlight
dripping ceasless patterns of dots and dashes into that murky blue puddle of midnight sky
     as if maybe you'd reply
with a simple "hush"
and a shyly sigh

          it finally dawned on me that you probably couldn't decode it
          that your parents probably never made you learn
               i cursed them for not teaching you how best to reach me

now
     i'm getting older
and colder
and alot less wide-eyed and hopeful

now
     i just hope you can hear me speak

the click in the back of my throat that comes with trying not to cry
the sincerity in my 'love you's
  and my 'miss you's
    and in my uncensored ungaurded love that i ash onto your headstone from the end of my pregnant joints

now
     i just hope you can taste the beers i bring to share with you
as i'm rambling along the rails of my de-railing train of thought
and ripping through that sixer i brought
          you and your cheap taste in beer

i hide the bottle caps in those little metal vases that your mom keeps filled with florist foam
     and different colored silk lillies
          they always look so nice

now
     i just hope you can read me
better than you ever could before

i hope you've decoded the lines in my palms
and the ***** of my feet
and the cracks in my nicotine teeth
     as i'm smiling wildly at the earth that keeps your ashes safe
          close to her breaking heart

i hope you can read the quotation atop your grave
     i'd have never imagined that the one permanent thing i could ever give you
          was the last line
          of the last text
          that i'd ever send your way

i meant it back then
but now
      it means so much more

"sleep sweetly, philly, you will never be forgotten"

the moment that i laid eyes on you
     time simply ceased to be

the globe stopped its spinning
and the lights started dimming
     and the heathens began their fevered singing
          and i forgot just who i was

the instant that your eyes fell upon my frame
     i got thrown back into reality again
          and i crash landed feet-first into a chair

          it was fair
     we both had to stifle our giggling

you spoke smoothly
     almost orchestrally
some sort of poetic sing-song
          heavily laced with the accent of the place that i hope to someday find you

               "chicago, chicago, that toddling town..."

i hope i find you soon
     wearing that same sleepy looking smile
     and your news-boy cap
     and that shoulder strap sack that i'd like to think you kept stuffed to the brim with college-rulled ball-point ballet

but that was years ago
     now there's more than just arrhythmias and murmurs and excited flesh between our heavy chests
now there's lines drawn between our toes

lines scratched into the sands of time with the force of lightning's strike
          
          worry lines
          telephone lines
          state lines
               lines that furrow across the face of the map

     things tend to fade out like that
the way the last track on your favorite record fades slowly to the sound of a skipping needle
          
i'm still unsure if i imagined you into existence
     or if you only existed in my imagination
either way
          i wish you'd have stayed a while longer

almond shaped eyes
     the color of fertile earth
           deep
deeper than marianna and her treacherous trench

i fall deeper into your magic with every glance

     the mere thought of your existence sends lightning bolts through my bones
you give me butterflies the size of ostriches
     and someday soon i'll take flight

astronauts and the smell of stardust

      nasa
           here we come

i can hear the static pulse of the universe in your laughter
     you leave solar flares in your wake 

you take my breath away
     a presence as heavy as the vacuum of space

not burdensome
     but welcomed
like an egyptian cotton blanket over bare flesh
     or the pressure of the lakes surface on my naked ribcage
          an embrace
with god
with darwin
with satan
and neil pert

it hurts me when you frown
     deep
          deep down

i drown in despair at the earliest glimpse of your discourse

     but when you smile
hot ****
          that smile
i shiver and shrink 
like a scalp in a glacial pool

you're strong as a sequoia
      proud as an ancient peak
yet for some reason
     you see me
in a far more flattering light than i view myself

i wanna take you
     far
          far
               far away
and make you stay forever mine
forever perfect in my eyes

poetic strengths
prose-like down falls
     and it all reads just like Rumi
classic
     timeless
          true

i can't wait until the day you admit
that you can't wait
     to be tangled up in me
          and the sheets
          and the seams of the fabric of time

i was born at the heart of a ribbon jam
      my analog pulse
tap
   tap
      tapping
out the lyrics of my fight song

since day one
india ink sludge blood has flowed
     from my dog-earred heart
          straight through to my ball-point fingertips

my DNA lays in cursive wait
     leaping from the pages
        into the light
at every aching plot twist

card catalogued depictions
   
  not of how events factually unfolded
          but of how it seems they could have unravelled
if this were a paperback i'd planned to read
   and re-read
alike

but alas
when the lights go out
     that's it for this round
          and i'll be down for the count
          no matter how hard i fight

but words...
words know not death
     solely evolution

they change their shape
   their time
      their place

a word can only fade
     like aerosol on dust colored cinder

a single word will outlive one hundred empires
   one thousand governments
      ten thousand authors
and so
   it's within articulation that my loyalty lay
   and in my words that i'll find my home

here
in the lowercase swoops and loops
   of the 'A's
      and the 'E's
      and the 'D's
      and the 'G's

...and those little cursive 'Z's that hang just the same as mom's old hammock

           yeah
           home

with every inhalation of stale inhabitation
     i'll exhale a poem

my regenerative reincarnation through catalytic creation

with well worked hands
he pulls on the sea
     like the hem of a pale skirt dancing 'round his lovers hips

it's what she loves about him most

the way that the tide ebbs and flows
     with the rise and fall of his sun-stained chest

seashells
and gull feathers
and bits of fishing net
     woven into his hair
like the threads of canvas sails

aqueous thunder-head eyes
look like they've seen the fall of every empire
      and soon
they'll witness the fall of ours

he smells of salt-cured wood and the sun
and it's the kind of smell you'll never forget
nor properly describe

he moves like magic

     like waves
          lapping at the shoreline in the calm of dusk

with an anxious tongue
and an appetite that's never satisfied
     he licks the wounds of any heart
he's strong enough to bare the weight of any burden
          of any trash barge or sea ferry

ear pressed to his chest
     like a conch-shaped vessle
          the labor of his heart valves plays like sailor songs
in an empty cabaret

     nerve-wrackingly beautiful

soft spoken secrets slice through the silence
     like coffee-breathed cannonballs
sent shamelessly into the space between
          who we are
               and who we will be

the smile in your eyes makes it seem
as if you really see me

pinned beneath a perfectly blue egyptian cotton sky
     and a lake-shore brown box-spring earth
          you stretch yourself thin
     thin as eyelash lace across a freckled chest
     thin enough to let the sunshine gleam through
          through all your light and magic
               reflecting pure stardust onto my my blank screened flesh

i've never felt as beautiful
as it is to be tangled up in you

extremities snagging one another
     in a devine blend
          of feverish feinding
               and something far more freeing

     i'd trade my unsteady pulse
     for every day to begin this way
drenched in poetry
and morning dew
and crazed, excited grinning

how about you toss me a post-card
     through our dreaming
     one of these evenings

          yes

my heart strings are singing

     this is the beging of a story
that i quite like

you kissed me sideways
in the light of a harvest moon
and i never wanted to return to reality again
     but i did
and it hurt

like a newly aquired broken bone
while trying to master the art of the monkey-bars
in a humid july
     all those sunburned years ago

i never did learn

not how to fly from one bar to the next
not how to cartwheel into your heart
and certainly not how to be your definition of "beautiful"

    i only learned how to define such a filthy word myself

so with skinned knees
and bruised shins
     i climbed
up the ladder
into the sun
where i burned off my hardness
and my hurt

into the sun
     where i shine

and find myself
     finally
lovely as can be

this is me
the freckle-faced mess
who finds the gorgeous in every flaw
every snagged seam
every falling hem

     it all just seems
so very human to me

and what a lovely way to be
in such an inhumane reality

let me show you just how pretty your crooked smile really is
let me teach you to find the magic of a broken heart
     and a bruised ego
let us dance
together
to the tune-deaf sing-song of the world that we live in
let my eyes be your mirror
     so that you'll never question your own worth
not again

every star shines its brightest
when there isn't a soul to be found
who is measuring their light

it's your turn to shine
     just like the light of that rust colored harvest moon
so many moons ago

twinkle twinkle
     my dear

another year older
but it feels as if a life time has passed since i last stood in this place
my face hasn't aged
     per-say
just changed

there isn't a **** thing that stays the same
these days

the boys are going grey
the girls have all run away
and those who haven't
     stayed behind to master the art of procreation
we haven't been bright eyed kids
for quite some time now

we cry now
twice as often
and thrice as sly
our eyes stay dry in the daylight
for the sake of acting strong for those we love
but we'd love nothing more to unwind
to hide behind the curtains
     and watch our sorrows flow downward
forever pirouetting towards the sea

happy birthday to me

birthday cake taste like a musty wake
when layered with day-old whiskey breath
and somber advice for the future
shared by older souls
     my best-dressed celebration turned death-day contemplation by the ill-fated sands of time

hot ****
     i'm getting way too old for this ****

i sat in the back
and watched you crack yourself in two on a well-lit stage
like an egg in a skillet
          the sound was comforting

and there beneath the bell of cascading light
you writhed
and fried
and your secrets splattered on to the backsplash
like words upon a page
half-hearted lower-case fossilized in the tile grout

i gathered up the crumbs
with an anxious stomach
and a wet tounge

      oh
          how i lapped it up

let it soak in
and stew in my belly
until the steam swelled
and was forced to be expelled
     the feast i've with-held so long

it's the heart song of the kitchen timer
signaling my turn in the frying pan
     my time to climb up into the spotlight
          and squirm through my own confession

        i made every sound from scratch
               just for you

the pendulum princess taps her pen on the desk
as the dogs whimper in their sleep
and the trees wrap themselves in the witching-hour starlight

the silence suddenly seems so frantic

i swear
i can hear my skin shrinking

the wind slithers over the roof
whispering through the moon beams
in hopes of finding someone to snuggle up with

at least i'm not the only one who's sick of sleeping alone

my body no longer feels like home
my bones creak like splintering floorboards under stubbed toes
my head's busy running in circles of constant contemplation
     am i awake
             or am i dreaming?
        was that a sigh
                or am i screaming?

buzzing like a firefly
trapped between a ***** countertop and a frosted beer mug

three weeks of bed rest
(and counting)
and all that's grown stronger
is my understanding of exhaustion

arts and crafts and kids on drugs
dream catchers and storytellers
in tree-houses and sheds
bare feet and bare legs

magic

let me share
i'll cut you a slice of the skies to keep in your eyes
so you can always see beauty
and learn to accept it when it's lying in front of you
remember how gorgeous life is

sunsets and fire pits and tents pitched in the mountains
solar flares and lunar eclipses
in telescopes lenses and lovers eyes

this IS profound
and we SHOULD take note
the universe bares wonderful gifts
and we are fools to let them slip so quickly through our hands
we've been here before
and we've known each other for eons
don't go forgetting

lava monsters and yellowing pages and smiles recognizable for miles
sage brush and card games
with cowboys and poets
cheap-seat prophets bound by collective conscious and some kind of mysticism

two-track game trails and smoke rings rising from the west
find your way home

i'll hide behind my sunset eyes and river-bed curves until your return