< for the one who didn’t >

The tomatoes hang eaten.
Some rodent, maybe.
The cayenne doesn't work,
just burns the air I breathe.

Knees swell.
The doctor?
I haven’t called.

This is the small life
we once smirked about.

Summer again.
No mercy.
Too much.
Too bright.

Lately, I forget:
the grigio in the freezer
the last message,
why I opened the drawer.

Lately, I drop things,
envelopes, keys,
my grip softening
with everything.

You said,
“That’s what old looks like.”
But you didn’t get here.

We stay,
we wait,
for mail,
for quiet,
for a name to light the screen.

Oceanside,
in shopfront glass,
I glimpse my portrait
eyes storming, squinted,
shirt caught on wind.
And I ache,
to be so
briefly
here.

Now the cuts
have faded to pale seams,
from the girl
who left her key on the counter,
and took the why with her,
and the friend
you hadn’t seen in years
but still called brother,
his paintings hanging quiet on walls
in rooms no longer yours.

like the ghost of an old song,
still in key
you rise again
fingernails dark with soil,
burying sunflower seeds
in morning’s cold fog.

The dog needs feeding.
There’s toast to burn,
and leaves to steep.
You carry your small life
like a cracked bowl
that still holds water.

After years bent in ritual hunger,
knees pressed to rice,
tongue dry from vow,
nights lit like altars,
no revelation came.
No divine telegram.
No trumpet of truth,
just the kitchen humming
and the silence after the call.

Only the widow neighbor,
waving through fogged glass.
Only the pipes in the wall
clunking like an old lung.
Only the light
barging in
without your consent.

You believe in coats
with missing buttons,
safety pins where zippers gave,
old threads that never matched
but held anyway.
You forgive the past
not because it asked
but because you need the room.

It builds in your bones
like wind in an empty house,
constant, uninvited,
and full of old names.
Like a tune half-remembered,
only the hum
remains.

The 101 slopes like a spine bent too long.
Camarillo yawns wide in the morning hush,
valley stretching slow, hills bare-shouldered,
fields glistening, half-asleep, half-prayer.

Lemon trees blink slow, bruised gold in the mist.
Figtrees call a name behind a rusted gate.
Sagebrush whispers gossip through chainlink,
its breath full of stories that outlive the tellers.

To the east, the nursery stirs,
plastic sheeting *****,
row tags flutter in the wind.
A thermos, abandoned, rests by a wheelbarrow.
Mud boots, discarded,
stand like sentinels
against the wood plank wall.
No footsteps follow.
I never asked where they went.

Matilija poppies raise their paper-white heads,
and the raspberries, furred with morning dew,
shiver, just slightly,
as if remembering friends
they were no longer allowed to say aloud.

A coffee roaster hummed somewhere distant,
low and steady, warming the wind.
That scent I never could shake,
burnt and sweet.
I could almost belong here again,
but it’s not mine without them.

I worked inside this valley with my back.
With my knees.
With the same hands,
now soft on the wheel,
muscle memory steering roads
as if nothing ever left,
as if the ghosts still ride along.

I pass a strawberry field, stitched in silence,
no voices rising in laughter today,
no corrido escaping from a shirt pocket radio,
no teasing between the furrows,
no calloused hands tossing tools,
only the soft ticking of irrigation
and the hush of work
that now waits for no one.
This silence has been swept, labeled,
nothing out of place but sadness.

I was here with them,
but only as a pair of eyes,
that never opened wide enough.

The strip mall stands like a broken promise,
painted stucco, faded western wear,
alongside roadside markets
missing the opening crew.
Still, the hills lean in to listen,
velvet green with memory,
quiet as folded hands.

Even now, under this sun,
the dust knows who knelt here.
Who sang into the rows,
who fled before sundown,
their names erased from the ledger
but carved into the earth.

And in soil’s hush, their names still root and rise.

you spoke with your back turned
like nothing was wrong
the kettle sat screaming
its blistering song

your eyes crack with thunder
I don’t look away.
I taste every stormcloud
and swallow the rain

you asked if I loved you
then smirked at the floor
i said it too slowly,
you moved for the door

We fought in the hallway,
half whisper, half snarl.
Your silence more cutting
than anything sharp.

you find every fracture
then press where it stings
You say, “it’s devotion,”
and tighten the strings.

We moved like a secret
too brutal for light—
no prayer, just breathing
breaks open the night.

Your hands then remember
what you never confessed,
you kiss where you hurt me
and ask for the rest.

but still, when you’re shaking,
and all fury’s gone,
I gather your pieces
and whisper a song

I stitched up the silence
you gave me to keep
and rocked us together
til sorrow found sleep

We curled in the ash
what didn’t survive,
and found even ruin
leaves something alive.

Old man stands alone,
shirt undone,
hair silver and lifting,
the sky begins to split.

The storm enters
not with cruelty,
but with memory,
that deep breath before
the world unbuttons itself.

Thunder cracks like bones once young.
The rain walks sideways,
then vertical,
then all directions.
He does not move.

Was the storm that raised him,
not his father,
not a stiff lipped god behind a pulpit,
but this:
a violent choir of wind and water
tearing through the trees like language
he always understood
but never spoke.

Remembering it in his legs,
how the wind,
long ago,
swept him off roofs,
out of dry judgement,
into open roads and beds and truths.
How lightning never hit him,
but always pointed
and directed.

He once chased it,
barefoot,
drunk on youth and refusal,
beautiful clouds, black and blooming.
giving permission
to crack open,
shake the dullness off the skin
like the last coat of sleep.

Now, old and alone,
he feels it again,
that holy silence between the strikes,
that rush of air through the ribs,
the kind that makes love and sin feel small.

The wind doesn’t ask where he’s been.
The rain doesn’t question strength.
They just take him in,
pulling his bones into a long, level song.

No one watching.
No one shouting him back inside.
Only black clouds
reaching low enough
to press their foreheads to his.

In that communion,
the unspoken pact between man and squall
he closes his eyes,
and lets go
of names, of time, of answers.

Only the storm
knows who he was.
Only the storm
still loves him for it.

She undressed in the mirror.
Only the reflection watched.
I found her candle,
cold and forgotten.

Her hands moved like smoke
understanding how to be skin again.
Not performance. Not pleasure.
Just unlearning the habit of vanishing.

Her shadow held her shape
longer than I did.
She said: “Stay,
but forget.”

Her child slept,
four states and a foster name away.
She traced a name in steam,
the S curling like turning in sleep.
then let it melt under a kiss.

There was a song
caught in the ceiling,
something we never played
but always meant to.

I kissed her hair while it was still hair
and not a question
left behind on a pillow.

I opened the door,
it sang some other man’s name.
A line drawn, erased. No message left.
The room forgot its language.
My ghost obeyed
and lifted.

You smiled
like I was worth the wait-
or the lie.
Couldn’t tell.
You left the kitchen light on too long.
I stepped inside.
The floor gave way.

I slept beside you
as a thief
-quiet,
not for comfort-
but for the hush
that comes
when no one asks
what you’ve done.

Your shoulder
held the part of me
that still wanted
to be forgiven.
I kissed you
like confession
with no priest,
no promise,
just heat and teeth.

You didn’t flinch.
Didn’t ask what made me
this way.
Didn’t try
to fix it.

I’ve burned names
like receipts.
I’ve swallowed shame
like spit.
Walked out
of too many mornings
with hands that still remember
who they touched
and didn’t deserve.

But you-
you just set a cup beside the bed.
No questions.
No sermon.
Just water.
Just presence.
Just mercy,
without the bow.
I drank the quiet.
It didn’t heal me,
but it stayed.

And when you sang-
not loud,
just soft enough to hold the air.
you said my name
like it was still mine.
Like it wasn’t
something I’d dropped
on purpose.
Like it could
come back.

We woke to laughter breaking glass.

not hers, not mine, not morning yet.

The ceiling blinked a single eye.

A moth drew circles on my chest.

Outside, a streetlight peeled its skin,

blue steam hissed from its broken throat.

A train passed through the bedroom wall.
a hiss, then cabled rolling float.

last night was full of paper moons,
of bitten spoons, of matchbook lies.
My pulse made bargains with her skin,
her hands spoke truth her mouth denied.

I drank from bottles filled with bells.

Each swallow rang a darker note.

She stitched my name in spider silk

and pinned it in her winter coat.

The carpet blooms with cherry pits.

A handprint shimmers on the sink.

The mirror mouthed a warning once,

but I forgot how not to blink.

I gave her maps I’d drawn in ash,

each road a lie, each city torn.

She read them like a child reads stars,

that vanish in a quiet storm.

She left no rope, no cage, no nail,

just shadows folded under wings.

I walked into the hallway’s mouth

to hear a single echoed string.

Some mornings take a different shape,

a wristwatch ticking in the trees,

a flame that speaks in borrowed words,

a bed unmade in seven keys.

A coffee swells in waxy skin
The city squints through windowed glare
She’s creased inside a wrinkled dress
Her shape hangs limp in laundered air

A payphone rang, one ghost, one ring.
No one moved. We all just knew.
A siren dragged its echo past,
delivering it's distant queue.

Fluorescent hums a migraned god.
My coat spins slow behind the glass.
Zipper beats like trapped bird wing.
A sock grins dumb from wire racks.

This street is lined with yellow stain,
lights too bright for folks this small.
I sipped, I burned, I thought her name,
then let it drift in urban sprawl.

The dryer stops. A broken chime.
Just silence, stretching like a neck.
I crack, not loud. Just wide enough
to feel the break beneath my breath.

She’s someone else’s Sunday now
in fresh-washed light, her hair tucked neat.
Vanilla steam and honeyed bread
laughing soft in kitchen's heat.

Here my soles are worn too thin
A half-full cup, a sleepless eye,
no grace, no hand to lift away,
this curb, this ache, this grayer sky.

And where I am, that’s all there is.
No turning arc. No healing bend.
But I’ll get up. I’ll fold. I’ll walk.
And maybe that’s enough to mend.

you pull me through doorways
with cherry red charm
you fill me with whiskey
and hang on my arm

The clerk asks for blood
the stone has run dry
we promise ’tomorrow’
and feed him with wine

dark clouds now move faster
with voice of hard wind
it speaks to you only
as thunder moves in

you twist here beside me
and curl like a vine
your teeth in my shoulder
reliving some crime

you hold me so tightly
and whisper your vows
your secrets stay hidden
your tears are so loud

here we know the teeth
here we show the marks
from lying underneath
what wants us in the dark
 
you shame and curse my name
in safety of the day
then pull your velvet drapes
and beg for me to stay
 
we claw and gnash in heat
and tear at tired skin
through bone
and blood
and meat
to taste the drug within
 
others cannot sleep
we bend against these walls
we grow
and swell
and creep
our scent hangs in the halls
 
you cry for noise and rain
to wash away your fear
you kiss your saint of pain
and drink her ivory tears
 
refuse all gods and kings
and move across my floor
you are my everything,
my queen, my child, my *****
 
press your hips to earth
reveal the peace within
begin the warm rebirth
of flesh
of life
of sin

clutching my crumbling holy relic,
that trace of her final kiss
still threading heat through quivered lips,
rise to find shelter,
move it safe from noise and smoke

stumbling through shadows,
like uneven, forgotten lumber
patching gut shot with used bandages
the faded, drunken hymns of heart flung sadness
hang along Cahuenga Avenue, old and overplayed
wilted spider silk across a concrete violin

each parking meter my next crutch,
arguing with stoic streetlights,
giving their cold flicker that same
blood stained sermon,
self same pity, worn and overused

from edge of a coin- I’ll scratch out her name,
from a nightman’s club- the darkness can fall,
from the tear of my eye- she’ll melt away,
from the skin of my teeth- I’ll feel the dawn crack
and learn, again,
to crawl

in darkness
I left you
was when your heart was slow
instructed by the western strand
'gather your clothes and go.'

I missed you
this morning
we moved from where we strayed
slipping free of drunken vows
fevered flesh had made

your soft
small picture
commands me now to kneel
deny the gods I knew before
and drop this broken shield

I'll ask you
tomorrow
'please cut this tender thread.
it bleeds and binds my all to you,
your body, and your bed

that simple
small mercy
returns my broken life
where your kiss can never hurt me
Orion fades from sight

I know how
you'll answer
'we are so lightly here,
It is in love that we are made,
in love we disappear'

too wise or
too simple
it's either black or white
unhealed, I'll tear at stitches
bleed out this fatal life

remember
years later
onto those soft lit eyes
your warm belly fluttered
in a melody
of sighs
then drowsy, low rain
fell so we would float
and drift through
wet desert
in a folded paper boat.