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

it's all faded two-lanes;
cracking blacktop winding from high hopes to low lives,
the question is: what we're seeking in between.
it's strange to me,
how many days are wasted by the thoughtfully confused
waiting around all day to see what it means...
it doesn't mean anything.
unless you make it.
so climb back into the saddle with your heart set ablaze,
and tear it all down.
shred the scenery to scrapbook confetti
and sculpt the life you've always wanted from the raw earth yourself.
make yourself proud.
and gracious
and elloquent
and kind.
decide for yourself.
rediscover the truths you held dear when you were young,
before they taught you what to think and how to feel.
revert to your innocence and follow your heart,
and the feeling you've had in your gut all along.
paint your own sunset
and moon rise
and everything in between.
make yourself a masterpiece.
be who you've always wanted to be-
**** the social blue-print.
the only expectations you should ever feel obligated to meet
are your own.
make yourself proud for once,
who gives a **** about the crowd.
plow through the rust coated foundations
and bathe them in gold spray paint.
turn your life into the taj majol.
make your heart into the lourve.
and let your soul defy all definitions-
be as free as you've always wanted to be.
you are the gorgeous by-product of thousands of millions of years of evolution;
start acting like it.
ignore those sharp spoken whispers of doubt that flood your mind
at any given time-
you are priceless and magical,
mystical and strange by definition.
welcome to the human race,
but first,
stop running.
park your *** in the fresh cut grass and just breathe.
deep.
smile hard,
blissful and honest,
until your face gets sick of it.
just smile;
it feels so wonderful to be happy.
say thank you,
for EVERYTHING,
and mean it.
who you were yesterday is gone forever,
but who you were today decides what shoes you'll be walking in tomorrow.
be good,
and happy,
and honest.
life itself will return the favor.

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

you got this rattle in your chest
like the timing belt in your heart's been limping towards death since birth

it always hurt to listen to

so here
     here's the message at the bottom of the bottle
     you spend so many nights studying
as if perhaps
          you might actually remember what it read when the sun assaults your head come morning

here's what you been begging every fair-haired eve to whimper
as you slip her a dose of your hand-crafted love-sludge on her boyfriend's couch

this is the truth i learned about you seven years ago
while you spilled your guts on my favorite boots
     you really were cute
all campfire-light and anguish as you visably contemplated introducing your hand to my chest

you're different
not just from me
     but from everyone you meet in every pub on any street
and for some reason
     you seem to think that means that they don't see you

          they see you

you're scared
     not of dissappointing onlookers
but of disappointing yourself in some manner you can't help
so you help yourself to whatever opportunity you can find
     to exhibit boisterously the ******* you think they see you as

          you're too smart to be so stupid

and you're hurt
i get it
     i've heard your monsters howling through your head
     everytime you ever used my bed to rest it
but that's not an excuse to pull the dumb **** that you do
that's not a reason to abandon whatever sense of self-worth you once grasped

oh
     handsome boy
          the wounds of your past are not handicaps
     no
pain catalysts enlightenment

and i meant to tell you that night
     'long the river in the fire light
that you're going to be alright
          that you'll survive
so long as you give up the act that you're the only one who's ever felt like that

hurt just proves you've still got feeling

a devilishly good looking man once told her
that her hair was like a waterfall of the colors of all the best beers

if she'd had another shot of whiskey in her
and there wasn't a hardwood bar crowded with regulars between them
she'd have grabbed him by the face and kissed his shoes off

it's funny
the things she considers sweetness
she's the bar keep who slips anyone nice free pints
just because it's almost friday night
all she wants is to see everybody happy at once

the last time that she went to the bar
the boy that she smiled at all night
slipped her a cocktail napkin that read,
"just because you're breathing,
doesn't mean that you're alive."

she still isn't sure how to take it
but she still knows that he's right

i find myself
     fly-bi-nightly
dancing a razor thin line
between hating myself
     and giving you the blame

it's been so long since i last slept

so here
     this time i brought something for you

          take it


i made it for you
from scratch
     and i wrapped it in the flesh of that lone oak
     that you'd thoughtlessly carved our names in
          outlined in a school-boy heart
     coupled with the word "forever"

silly little man-cub

     always raising your voice over terms you can't define

.    ironic
really

          the brain stem controls involuntary movement
     and lies just inside
the flesh that i can't help but check
for the glass and pebbles
     you left behind

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

it was i
who gave to my telescope
the gift of animation

she relays my pulse to the stars
     slingshotting binary christmas cards to the carbon that i borrowed from

and some nights
     i wake to her breath along my neck as she studies life
and what it means

then
     come morning
she kisses my sun-stained synapses
and reminds me that my body's a testament to existence
          not a mausoleum

today
     my father
beneath all his grey hair and wisdom

asked what it says about our world
that we tell our children tales
of masked heroes
     brave enough to face monsters
          of cloaked men who stand up against oppression
          against carelessness
          against greed

why do we teach the youth
that the brave should hide their true identity
     that they should act ashamed of their valor

              
               i hid my face in fear of recognition
                    and wiped a renegade tear

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

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

sunrise sounds like the earth itself is waking

crack the back
     and rise

i lick the dust from my lips

     the taste of iron
     salt
          stardust

communion

this dirt is my altar

     the flora
my patroned saints
     the fauna
my goddess in swing
     the wind

my baptismal cleanse


     oh

and i

the wide eyed game-trail wanderer
     child of mud and snow
it's of the earth i'm crafted
and back to the stars that i'll go

i watched raven pull the skirts from the rose's hips
and smear lady bug guts across her grin
     like garden-grade lipstick

i asked her what it means
when she hovers in my dreams
but she just laughed

and on her way back to that highway in the sky
she craned her neck just enough to throw me a whisper

"your wings won't mean a thing
     if you're too afraid to fly"

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

they've been sitting here since the night Christ died
     sharing stale conversation
     and lukewarm beer

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 leave you love poems on crumbling walls
     like rust-stains on canvas yet to be stretched

there isn't a message yet

but in my dreams
you somehow see it all for what it means
following the commas and line-breaks
right back to where you left me
     and we finally allow ourselves
     to share the light necessary for life to grow



i awake in the morning with whiskey breath
and aerosol stained fingertips

     *can't you hear me slinging siren songs
     across the distances we keep
          while fast asleep?

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

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

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

it took me twenty five years
to realize
all i've really wanted to find in life
is a gentle man
who knows just how to behave
      when i rest my rose-hipped lips
upon his peach-fleshed lobes

          and whisper

     "i'm afraid."

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 fall in love a dozen times a day

with lips as they dance on a down-turned face
with the wilting words they say
with that same face
     when it takes the shape of a reaction

you'll get distracted
     when our eyes cross like sci-fi light beams
and it will seem as if i'm looking at you the same way that i bat my lashes through the telescope's lens

          it doesn't depend on much

just that we so happen to share the same space
     and an eerily simular pulse

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

after enough ***
     i could fall in love with anyone

after enough whiskey
     i love myself too much to want to share

when i mouth my secrets to the cliff's face
do you taste the carbon in the space i take
the heat i obsolve in our sacred states

     do you note my silhouette


          when my profile aligns with that of the moon?

these solar flares and northern lights
have been reminding me of the way we used to fight
     wild and alive
     beneath the absence of light
          cascading from a new moon

how could i ever expect to believe
that you understand
when you and i both know
     we see the world through different eyes

you don't see the monsters
who hide beneath my eyelids
you don't hear the things they whisper whilst i sleep
     you don't see my ****** up dreams

and yes
     i'd love for you to stay
and i do taste your flesh
          in the way you say "i know"

but
     no
you don't

so
     know this

this is why i rush you to leave
why i won't let you say "need"
     why i lock the door

this is why you DO want me more

          because i like you too much to break you
     and i'd hate to share with you my shadows

there's something in the way in which grown men cry
          that begs us to fall to our knees
     and weep
for the heart ache that we've given to our fathers

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

your lips unleash melodies while you're asleep
and it sounds to me like a lullaby
i've spent a lifetime trying to teach myself to sing

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 unsure what i miss more

     you
          or the excuse you gave me to be insane

if simplicity was what you'd wanted
     i'd have adorned myself in complexities
and have finally learned to dance

i remember the day i was born
     all bright light and handshakes

it felt the same on the day that i died

her hair is multi-faceted -
it wasn't until recently that she noticed.
one day,
she climbed out of the shower
and looked in the mirror
to see a cascade of the colors of her three favorite beers,
wrapping around her like a robe.
it was the first time in her life that she realized she was beautiful.
ever since,
she's been unstoppable.
now every day is a good day,
even the ones that hurt.
she finally understands that you can't have shadows without the sun,
you can't fear if you've never had fun,
and that it is utterly impossible to love -or be loved- if you don't love yourself.
life is good, again.
she's her own friend, again.
suddenly, she sees everything the way she did as a child.
everything is crystalline and inviting-
the world itself is her own magical kingdom.
with a smile on her face,
she's capable of anything.
she's a true find;
the bar keep who'll keep feeding you drinks long after your cash is all spent,
she somehow manages to see anyone with kind eyes as an old friend...
she feels like she's known everyone for lifetimes.
the only challenge she gives herself anymore,
is to make a smile of every frown.
she just wants someone to laugh with.
to dance with,
to turn everyday into a holiday for.
let her celebrate YOUR life.
and yours, and yours, and yours.
let her make you proud...
to be human,
if nothing else.
let her adorn you in the fractured bones of her oldest stories.
let her weave her favorite songs into your hair.
just stay and play,
at least for the day,
and when she's done with you,
carry yourself a completely different way than you ever have before.
be something new.
try to love yourself even a fraction of how much she loved you before she even knew your name,
and remember to smile.

i can't wait until the day
i wake up
and realize
     i've fallen in love
the same way that dusk falls
onto the skyline

     it's an obvious thing that you don't notice
until the sky lights itself on fire
with the last three drops of light

you've got the same gleam in your eyes as god did
     the night before she gave birth to the stars

is it possible to feel more than the tepms built
     the night that you ignited
and illuminated my brain
as a shape
human hands can't recreate
         that hearts can't fake

     a space we dream of inhabiting when our souls create a safe place

     just something we cling to
when we learn who we are whist we scream
and cling to the images we sling
as we clutch each other's bodies

     a heart-felt blockade between who wish to be
          and who they see

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