Half a world away
I day-
dreamed of you dancing in
the sun
your eyes a thousand stars
lifting to the heavens
as the music coursed through your veins
and your body shimmered
in the glittering rain
a thousand souls beside you
all heartbeats one

Your spirit finally freed
your wings unschackled
the soul no longer heavy

I dream
that in that
crowd
a face turns towards
you
in the sea
two pairs of eyes meet
a nova explodes
a giant star collapsing pulls
you
and he
and you do not think
of me.

We could always say
that it was almost us
that it was almost forever
that it was almost right
just the wrong time
and this fated life ain't right

I took your love
and cheated on you with time
I took all your pain
and threw it in your face
You could almost say
our love was the color
of the tears in your eyes
and it was just so perfect
only half the time
The other half
We 'bout lost our minds

But
we had something special
and it was almost us
it was almost
forever
it was almost
life
I just kept telling you
it was you
and that was almost
always
halfway
right.

Driving down a North Carolina road
An hour after dusk,
A nice buzz drifting through my body
watching the fireflies dancing across two-lanes,
and the smell of grass a delightful hint on the air.
A warm breeze with a slight chill at the end
drifts through my open window
Like a cool kiss laying you in a warm bed.
And mac miller croons
His soul full of understanding
Of the messages that stem from depression.'
A couple of the quaint homes I drive by on these winding roads
have already strung up Christmas lights on their quiet porches,
because we Carolinians love a peaceful joy.
And I just know
That this is heaven.
And I know I ran from home
to escape my pain,
but to return
is an inescapable epiphany.

The say
give him his flowers
during those April showers
before he gets too old
and loathes
the smell
of the young
rose.

They say,
give him his flowers
when the thunder
cracks,
the lightning whips,
and
the wind rips
his soul to blistering bits.

They say
give him his flowers
when the sun comes out
with it's hot quench
and
melts the fun
of all his summer dreams
and
he just can't believe
that when he was young

he really did
dream

but now
he licks
at
nothing
finding love
haunting.

shiny toy
dazzling in the sun
but nothing
to love.

****** you up
horrible decisions
on my ******* again
harvest moon alive tonight
liquor flowing
got me tight
cant say how mad I am tonight
gotta let it go
I just cant
how could you take him over me
but its karma
just couldnt believe
youd sit there
and take a backseat

How am I deserving?
A dog to have an angel.
A drunken mongrel, lapping up his drink out of the sewers,
stumbling and mumbling and howling his way home.
Smoking cigarette after cigarette, eating his fill of what's in his bowl.
A liar, a thief, a beggar, a cheat.
A homeless dog, screaming, baring his teeth at the others,
until his cowardice overcame him and he whimpered into the woods,
crying with his tail between his legs. Nothing but shame to clothe him
and even that hung loosely.
And how now, am I deserving?
A dog, to have an angel.
An angel, whose song is hummed so softly, it could be the twinkling stars whispering. whose eyes, light and caramel and emerald, ignite waterlogged embers into competitive thrusts of red-hot atomic energy. The energy to move. To grow!
TO EXPAND!
how now?
Am I deserving?
of an angel with a fabric
of a million hurts and echoing pains,
laid so gently upon her shoulders,
that it is royal,
and she is not ruined,
but exalted.
Am I deserving?
The mongrel.
The angel.
The drunkard.
The farce.

New things,
New emotions,
New places,
New,
New, new.

So old to you.

All I'd wanted to do,
You'd already done.

No magic in flipping through
the pages of last year's edition.

I just hadn't read it yet,
No spoilers babe,
Please,
don't ruin it.

But you did ruin it,
somehow,
The way that lovers always do.

Without words,
But even more brutal.

You laid beside me,
As our bodies burned in the tumult.

You stared at me glumly,
As I hooted and hollered,
Energized and convulsant at the pleasures
Of the newness of each moment.

Not knowing that I was being seen through.

A placeholder.

A parenthesis.

An interesting afterthought.

That I was the means to an end.

The work-around.

That you were thinking of him.

And the countless pages ya'll had written.

But, I eventually got wise.

I saw the blank awe
For augurs:

The listless staring,
Limp kisses,
Lonesome nights
Too easily won fights.

It was written.
Written like this poem
And
Meant to be erased.

I want you to always think of me
When you think about what you've done.

And I hope it makes you smile.

I've still got the dog, *****.

*******,
The spider said.
Evil, evil thing to say,
To the fly stuck in your web.
I'd be gone in an instant,
If I hadn't been bitten,
Paralyzed,
Paroxyzed,
Entanglyzed.

Those shimmering beautiful eyes
And delightfully sweet and spicy aroma of your juicy *****.

My lips
Knew a thousand ways to make your legs curl and your body shrivel. To make the web bounce and thrum.

But it was you,
Charlotte,
You who knew the fool in me
That loved to love.
You, Charlotte,
Whose beautiful shimmering eyes and plump body
Fattened me up for slaughter.
And I loved you for every minute of it.

Even as you devour me now,
I close my eyes to the sound of your poison coursing through my veins,
Thrumming along,
Music to die by.

Nights
And brain cells
Wasted.
Twisting and turning
Down roads
I know won't lead me home.

Why can't you hate me openly?
That would help me internally.

Easier to be the bad guy
Than the beloved,
But worse to be the abandoned
Than the forgotten.

How many nights
Did I pour myself into oblivion?

Shot after shot,
Burning my half-lived
Half-lifes
In this radioactive wasteland.

How beautiful,
A glowing, broken heart
Always ready for fission
And you so safe
Behind that picket fence
With Mr. Right.

I'm older now, and getting older quicker
And yet,
I still lapse into the days of
Late nights and burnt pancakes,
Love songs and flea markets,
Ferry rides and indigo sunsets,
Whistling wind and your lovely lips.

I've been stranded on this island so long.
I hope you've been getting my messages. I hope somehow the abyss has a voice for me and that you can hear it and be broken too.

there are two dimensions
to this living.
One is the surface,
the ethereal,
the light to the dark.
The shadow to the skin:
The depth of pigment.
But then, there is the deeper sin
the battering within.
The judgment of blackness
based on skin.
It has hounded us,
through our history,
from House to field.
from basketball court
to court house.
From boardroom
to dorm room
to class room
to living room.
Granny used to say,
ooh girl you've got good hair.
Nice and wavy,
like your grandpappy's.
Used to say,
see you're the pretty one.
Running her fingertips
along our cheeks,
mired in awe
of our caramel complexion.
while like tar,
it stuck to the minds
of our classmates,
cohorts,
coworkers.
With jealousy
they said light-skinned,
not black enough,
not us enough.
not us enough.
when one day in class,
the teacher had asked,
"what do mommy and daddy do?"
Janitor.
Works for the state.
Garbageman.
we piped up proudly,
"my mommy and daddy have college degrees,
one creates houses
the other works in network security"
all the while,
our classmates had laughed,
made fun of us,
"so, that's why you don't talk black"
Two smart ******,
bred a smart *****.
And so the story of us,
had morphed
from the days of Angela Davis,
to this new form of self-hatred.
the valley between us
suffered a cataclysm
and became a canyon.
Continued to grow,
our skin a stain,
and as actors we had to train,
mellowing our dialect
just to make it seem as if we had intellect,
cause we all know a succesful black man,
has two distinct voices,
and not through his own choices,
it is bred from necessity.
can't sit in front of white man
and talk like pickaninny.
got so comfortable out of our own skin,
that we felt we were the ones
digging out the edges of the canyon.
So far thrown from blackness
that maybe this is how they separate us,
make us hate ourselves
and love they wealth.
make us hate our hair
and love they locks.
Cause like superheroes
we switch from day out
to day in.
Being dark, light or caramel complexioned
we stay hounded by
how close we get to whitening.

Sometimes I can't help myself,
I just can't.

It won't go away.

When I try to tell her,
I can't help but see how much
she laughs at what's on TV,
and in the tiny screen
I stare back at myself.

Later, On a bench,
I sit, watching
the fading amber sun
glaze the glinting, tin rooftops. And
the smokers' cherries
glow and subside.

Sirens break the silence,
screaming bells
from
a
distance.

but in my faraway place
they whisper,
an augur of pain.

knowing furnace heat,
not the inferno beneath.

playing cat and mouse,
not cheetah and thom's gazelle,
but knowing the chase,
the atomic shiver:
it boldens
the least brave.

Sweating out pain,
but not until it throttles
the *****.

You and me,
we don't connect
like we used to.

The days are searing,
the sun's a cowboy,
clouds are wolves,
we are the unbroken plain.

We are simply the stage.

We are nothing new.

We won't make it like this,
gnawing at each other,
lying and pretending
that we aren't interested
in the running of the wolves,
or the cackling gunfire
that cowboys let loose in joyous screams.

Ravaging ourselves,
the west blackens as the smell of coal,
acrid, spreads through the air.

Somewhere, a burning
is beginning in the most unnatural way.

Somewhere we feel a tear
in the fabric of ourselves,
where a giant, constant fire
destroying
burns.

Writing is the truth,
love.

The woman who's got your heart,
won't let go.

You'll run, but she'll own you,
always.

On everything else, your energy's
wasted.

But this *****, she's *****,
plays nasty.

"She'll con you into thinking,
she can save you."

"She'll ******* 'till sunrise,
leave you empty."

"She'll **** your brain,
leave the pain."

On the way out, she deposits
a couple something's.

Something for you to maintain
'till the next time around.

But with each go of it, less and less of you
remains.

Writers are useless things,
perfect slaves.

Horrible lovers,
melodramatic *******.

she's so anxious, she's so real,
she wants to move on,
but that **** just won't heal.

wants to forget about the past,
but she's real forreal.
keeps her lips juicy,
but they never peal.

Her thighs are getting bigger,
her waist is getting thicker,
and when she looks in the mirror,
she can't see what I see.

Can i tell u
Can i tell u
That the loneliest
I feel
Is whn im deepest
In my own mind
Tht the loneliest
I feel
Is so deep
That id rather reach in
Thn reach out
Rather feel u
Than me
Rather be ecstatic looking
:) :) :) :)
:)
:)
Than say whats going on
Deep inside of me
Wish i had u hear with me
Wish u could be the eventually
To eventually see
Whats ******* with me
Wht makes me wnt to push away freends
Of yrs
In sake of solitude?
Rather than love
I seek inner sanctum.
****** up
Push away friwnds of yrs.
Im so gone now
Wondering
How
Long
Now

Noisy
Noisy
Nosey
You hate to know
But
Love
          It


               Still.

When there's that couple
Sitting in the bar next to you,
And they are
Yammering
Yammering
Yammering

:0 :0

You want to scream
IT IS NOT REAL!!

...but don't
Because you have pushed away all that is real...
And don't even know anymore.

**** the *******
And all the noise
That harrowing guilt
It holds you down
Flowers!#@ always wilt
Always lose patience
For the sun
Love me now
But love me not
:] :]
We truck through
Just to truck through
:l :l
Love just to be loved to
???
It's easy to love
Uneasy to be
Loved.

:l
:l

All the things that make a person
Feel home, not unamused,
Not Bewildered, not beholden
To another place and time,
They did not come back with me on that plane ride,
Maybe i thought i'd dropped a peice of me,
Over the atlantic,
And i'd get it back coming home,
But no, i am there
Not here,
My stare is blank sometimes
I know,
there is nothing there.
I laugh, for all the wrong reasons,
I am not here,
Not present,
I'm laughing at tragedy,
The tragedy of  self left behind.
I drink, to get drunk
And let loose let loose of everything.
I drink to rage it out,
To yell, to cry through madness.
To fight and be fought.
To lose and lose again.
To not have anything,
And think i'm deserving.

The sadnessss$%!&!!
Inside is barely assuaged
By the makings of a new day,
The sun filtered through the river of clouds,
The love curtain hanging from my window,
To my cheeks is barely alive,
Barely breathes morning,
The room shrouded in this lifeless glow
A gray, drowned pallor
And i didn't get drunk last night
And blast the night with fury
But my sadness$!@@#$!!! Kept me
Up
All
Night.
And a true friend doesn't just keep you down,
They get down with you.
And in the morning when she is gone,
The sun does not greet me,
Merely a showing of face.
A courtesy. A head nod.
A flip of the hand.
Flicka da wrist.
A wraith hanging back in the mist.

I don't know what to say to you,
To keep you from hating me,
And maybe that's what'$ best for you right now,
To hate me.

When the world has finally ceased
All of its murmurs and house noises,
Screeching of tires, grumblings of mother,
The crystal clinking of children laughing,
The roar of love when family is near
And all is warmth, when there is no atmosphere, and its resonance, no galaxy
And its static clicks, no humgbuggery and its inherent mumbling, not the silver grate of the homeless woman pushing her cart down the sidewalk, creaking and crackling as it makes its way over tiny cement chips and the decay of the city, not the incessant yipping of the pup, the orchestra of the subway, all the voices one tone, and yet, a legion, a multitude so synchronistically foul and beautiful, the grace of the sax player, how his voice through brass tongues, lifts like silver string, dancing on the waves of pollution, a feather tossed around by the wind, girlfriend hollering at boyfriend though her phone, the herky-jerkiness of her voice, stop, start, quickly now, quicker, quicker, stop. The crinkle of grocery bags, and the rustle of fabric as grandma shuffles onto the train, all melding. The last time you spoke to her, her tears echoing against her hollow cheeks, her body a tambourine as it shook and hesitated against the megaphone of your belly, each movement amplified, each meaning sharpened. Will you be able to listen? Will you hear this story, and knowing it was true, for all of its disaster and ugliness, will you have remaindered some of it for yourself, and held some of it in your heart so that you are not all chaos when the last tongue has shed its last foul tear. Will you be the vessel?

She's gone
Little dove.
Gun
Little love.
Done
Little love.
Done gone
Little love.
Done done
Little love.
Gone done it
Little love.
Done ****** it
Little love.
****** up flew away
Little dove.
No love from the glove
Little love.
Nothing done done it since like my
Little love.
Nothing quenches, nothing touches like my
Little love.
Oh, how it hurts to think of my
Little love. Lovely dove.
Dove with blood on the wingtips
And a tear for each eye
Little love.
How oily little love flies now
A paintbrush of pain in the evening sky,
Oh how she smears the heavens
And in my eyes the colors of the rainbow
Blur,
Lovely painted dove.
How i wander naked, these streets at night,
My shame and rage my only garments, and i can barely stand straight.
Oh, little love.

Still haven't let it go,
Don't know why i can't,
But every hint of laughter,
Is haunted by the shadow of a tear,
I regress as i digress trying to avoid stress,
Back to the bottle again,
Back to the rage,
Back to the fallow, shallow grave
Trust falls into the arms of a skeleton,
Dreaming of God wishing he was Satan,
Cause then my weight would make since,
Seem more like i'm getting lifted
As i'm falling deeper and deeper,
Lost you, now i'm gone.
Fading away everyday, a peice of myself
Constantly flaking away, they say
Love ain't supposed to feel this way,
But what do they know about love anyways?
If i find myself
In the twisted embrace
Of a semi's grille,
Shrouded in steel,
I'd finally feel the crush of love again,
Easier said,
Than done.
Wish you could see
The raven's leaving their keep,
Each night they flutter and rush
Out of my body,
And i run through the streets
With an insatiable thirst
******* the life out of me.
How i wished things had worked out differently,
How i wish i'd worked it out differently,
Hadn't made so much of the mess
Between you and me. Now i'm handling
A lot of things on my own, the mantra
Becoming a slogan, gotta move forward,
Move now, fast. But am i healing?
I can't tell, don't think so love.
But this is what they've all been asking for.

Disaster starts at home,
in the hearts and minds of lovers.

No insurance to sustain us
in the aftermath of storms.

A hurricane force, burst the windows
bowed the walls.

The joists screamed, twisting.

the roof hollered Hosana.

All night long, I made you stay
in that house covered in rain.

Shackled to the refridgerator
I waited feverishly,
you waited to go.

I didn't hold you, just had to have you,
a firefly I shook in my glass bottle.

A firefly, I wished those wings would break.
You wished your wings would break.

For different reasons we remained,
love of prison,
or love of self.

And she looks at me,
and I know,
it's done.

And she looks at me,
and I know.

The worst part of it all,
is that her eyes look the same
now
as they did
then,
but she just doesn't look at me
the same.

What a shame.
A **** shame.

And She looks at me
seeing all the things I've done,
and there's no going back
now.
And that's a shame.

Love is a shameful thing.

She is merely
an empty drum
against which
your head bangs.

She has been empty for awhile
now, but you still plow
away.

It's easier this way,
to remain. Better than sorrow,
and the magic of pain.

She has been echoing all this time,
the sound of your skull
is a thunderclap in the air.

With each concussion
lightning spits
through your eyes.

But she is merely a drum,
been empty for awhile.

The blood runs down
your dented forhead,
and tears stream down
your face,
but you will remain,
it's easier this way.

Easier to do
what you've always done.

Some men
wear the heaviness of their souls
on their sleeves,
like a badge or a scar
for all the world to see.

Some of these men are kind
and their kindness
is their scar.

Some of these men are arrogant
and their arrogance
is their badge.

Whether they be civil or indecent,
at least they know.

At least they know
what's what,
what's going on,
what bubbles
beneath the surface:

That for man and beast,
one is not so tame,
and one is not so wild.

That savagery
is not so unbearable
when the time calls,
and compassion
is not so alien
when the time calls.

These are the men of our time.

I had a lover,
who was beautiful
and kind.

She grabbed the sun out of the sky
and grinded it into a powder.

She blushed her face with it,
and each time she passed
she would turn the flowers.

Her hair was a river,
it flowed for days and days,
and ended in a single teardrop.

Her hair
made the world
wish for more rain.

When she called me,
I answered.
Her voice freed me.

Her pupils
were the nexus.
Her iris'
were a foundry.
When she blinked,
everything darkened
and I wished she would never do it again.

When she slept,
she snored
peacefully.
And I drew her close to me
just to be closer to nirvana.

It is only fair
that such things
cannot be sustained.

That is too much beauty
for only one man
to hold.

She is a gift,
to the earth.

You have lunch
with a fly.

Standing in the street,
you allow the breeze
to take over.

You watch the mountains,
as much as they watch you
standing still in time.

At a garden, you sit for hours
in unperturbed silence
as the finches inch closer and closer,
your eyes becoming
more and more
like bark.

You pass everyone on the street
with a small smile on your face,
without saying hello.

Anger comes to you
but you do not answer the door.

It becomes easier to breathe,
easier to laugh,
easier to be.

The high that fills you
is non-narcotic
but the air is clear,
the sky dazzles,
each cloud mind-boggling,
and each mountain peak
a tiny heaven.

Your lover long gone,
is a recent memory. And she returns
to you with an electricity.
She becomes
all that she never was,
but always was.

It is saddening,
but it is also beautiful
because it existed.

Even your enemies
take on a certain glow,
and emanate eternal qualities.

There is no reason
for all of this,
it just happens to you one day
when you finally begin to make
all the choices in your life,
even the ones
you thought
you couldn't
make.

Take off your shoes,
drop your bags,
I know it's been a long journey.
The coffee's almost ready,
and I put the kids to sleep.

I'll carry you up the stairs,
****** to hell, let the floorboards scream.
I'll undress you button by button,
and hold you close to me.

Don't worry about the money,
or what the neighbors think down the street.
Your pride is your pride.
Your shame is your shame.

I'll get a bath going 'till
the water is bubbling and warm.
I'll crush you some wine,
and light a few candles.

But, please baby, don't cry.
It's okay to be us.

When I lift you from the tub,
your body
shivers.
The candles
flicker.
The whole room
shakes.

Baby, don't you worry
what the neighbors say.
Your pride is your pride.
Your shame is your shame.

I lay you down,
and your hair is wet and sweet.
You cry as much as you can,
then blubber away to sleep.

I walk to the window, and pull away the curtains.
Out in our backyard our wayward dog wanders in,
licking every single paw before he hops the monstrous hedgerow
and lands in our sweet-smelling rose garden.

The world outside
and the trouble within
he weathers it all,
as he limps back to his house,
licking his paws.

It's okay for you to be you,
me to be me,
and him to be him,
we all have our jobs to do.

There is a bird here
with a broken wing.
It cants off to the left
drooping almost to the ground.
The feathers are oily,
shredding.

He hops around the base
all day, scavenging,
picking up things
here and there,
making a living.

I left for awhile
and came back.

He was still alive.

I thought he would've died
already.
That wing was so ugly.

I asked him how he'd made it.

He raised his head above his shoulders,
just like a king,
as he said to me:

"I am a bird
with a broken wing."


For a minute,
he stared at me,
then hopped off
with that broken wing.

If, one day, I see you crossing
The street, I won’t wave,
I’ll let you be.

More beautiful now
Than you’ve ever been,
A couple butterflies
May come fluttering up
Out of my mouth,
And my heart may skip a beat,
But if I see you,
I’ll look down at once
And stare at my feet.

When he catches you in his warm embrace
And plants a sweet kiss on your face,
I’ll clutch my newspaper close
To my chest, and hold back a tear,
But I swear, you’ll still be as beautiful
As you’ve ever been,
And I won’t love anyone
The same way again.

When he takes your hand
And you turn to walk away,
I’ll feel that same deep burn in my chest,
That I’ve always felt,
That will never change,
Even when you turn around
And look at me so strange,
Like the visage of a dream
From some long-forgotten place.

But honey, when you furrow that soft brow,
And turn away quickly,
I’ll remember those days
When I caused you so much pain
That you counted the seconds on the clock
Hoping all that time would just tick away.

And the shameful memory
Will haunt me,
even as I turn to walk away from you
And you turn back to him, to walk away from me,
Going down two different streets.

Once he's out on the open road again,
the glittering lights
devastate him.

Reminds him, too much,
of the woman who's left behind
nursing a half-glass of wine
on the porch,
eyes glossy and red,
mascara the gauntlet runner.

She's finally saying goodbye
to his sorry behind.

She hates him. Cut and clean.
"Get your ****, you need to leave."

"If you stay here, I'm calling the cops."

She whips out the phone, taps in the number
shoves it in his face.

She plays no games,
no ***** given today.

A baby bump, bumped its ugly head
into him.

Sleeping some nights, on the soft shell,
he could hear it too.

A murmur here, a murmur there,
a murmur everywhere.

She dreams of the days on the beaches,
the crystals on the clear blue,
the screeching silks careening through the sky,
the canary diamond cradled by the waves.

The good ole days
before disgust
ruined her heart against him.

The gorged days of Fall,
burning, passionate nights of Winter,
glorious victories of Spring.

One night, he flipped out,
left the house heaving
and didn't come back
for awhile.

But the nail driven
couldn't be un-driven.

Before he turned the ignition--
for thirty minutes--
he picked a blister on his thumb
until it bled.

You fall in love with a man
who's in love with his disguise.

He wears a black suit, black tie,
covers himself in glory, his eyes the starry sky.

In his bed, the book is written.
faithful lover, he authors your prison.

You cling to the book of his love,
singing its melancholic words.

In his black suit, black tie,
his scorn covers you in bruises, blackens your eye.

But the book, you still read
even after he leaves, and the love is dead.

You're disgusted by those lines,
losing faith in all of mankind.

You'll find yourself in time,
but one day again, you'll become the man in the suit and tie.

My
dreams
don't
dream
themselves
lazily
to sleep.

They
thrash
me
with
truth.

She's
been
cheating
all
night.

She's
been
crying
all
night.

I've
been
crying
all
night­.

I
wish
I
could
go
somewhere
where
the
sun
shines
the
whole
nig­ht
through.

I used to
write, a lot
of lovers do.

My drive:
a cancer creature lovely,
crazy,
uncontainable.

Watched him rip mind
in half, fillet
innards, sew it
all up, hand me
some Evan Will.

For the longest time,
all the best writers--
lovers and creeps, fools
and drunks--nobody's
done this thing better.

Never realized 'til now:
when you fall in love, best
to lose your mind, heart, and
soul, then, get your writing in.

Not when the root is rotten.
the rancid meat you toss in--
the words--just to keep it going.

Love is the hardest drug,
it stings the veins,
singing the whole way.

nothing beautifies,
nothing screams
quite the same.

The abused and the abuser,
The drug and the feeling,
the same.

**** her, **** him,
that's the delirium
kicking in.

This is gonna ****,
the way it ends.

During the come-down,
the delirium will bend you to every whim.

You'll say **** it,

then come running back,

the urge killing you.

But the store's closed.

Your veins will throb.

It'll carve out your soul.

I know she ******* hates me,
She says so,
In so many words,
Being just nice enough
To hurt me deeper everyday.

I know she wants me to leave her
to whatever she wants.

I get the message.

I say,
I will.

She says nothing.

I’ve gotten number.

Starting to feel less.

A plastic plant.

I think I'm insane,
returning to my youth again,
the same cycle of fire and ice.

Easy to say,
that I was just young.

It was back in the day,
but,
back-in-the-days
make it back to us
always.

I had a problem
with cheating,
couldn't meet you at your point of need,
had to take a breath
especially
when
we
were
fighting.

had to step out the house,
with a half-bottle in my hand
had to take a breath,
had to give it a second
to sink in,
what you'd said about me,
how i'd grown worse,
gotten the worst of you,
and you,
the worst of me.


Fighting going on,
in the house we called home,
so far from,
though,
more like a prison
we called our own.

Spent nights sipping
a bottle
at the dinner table,
no blessings made,
no prayers said,
no good graces,
just bitterness over spaghetti
and that white girl
you thought i'd laid.

We Sitting down
to take a sec with the Triple-Sec,
you said to me,
"can't believe you ******
that white *****"

"Baby, i'm flawed,
just like anybody else"
couldn't say with the last breath
of the dying relationship,
that this conversation
signaled death.

Couldn't say,
that white ***** was much more than that
to me.

That a year's worth of lying
and go-betweens
was the last gush of fresh air
to an evergreen
whose air
no longer made its leaves turn green.

We'd left that precious place
a long time ago.
Adam and Eve ******* the juices
out of a rotten apple.

My Adam's apple stuck in my throat,
my belly filled
with an emptiness
that made it bloat.

Said, I was sorry so many times,
it burned my tongue
to say it before bed,
every night.

Still laid you down,
but the *** was getting so lifeless,
I looked into your eyes,
you looked into mine,
the anger was so tireless.

So much hate,
spread in a two-bedroom
townhouse,
a playhouse in the backyard,
where your kids played,
and we fought inside,
while the sun cast shade.

Fighting about the dishes,
how the bills were never paid,
the lights turned off,
we slept in the dark for days.

In the mornings you'd go to work
before i awoke,
so easy to go
it was easy to say,
easier to go,
than easier to say,
that it was done
we were just hanging on
because we had so much going on,
taking up the responsibilities
of a full family and home
when really
we were cradling a dead child,
the newest baby between
you and I.

Still don't know
how you faced it,
so gracious,
with my ungratefulness.


Couldn't face ourselves
to face ourselves,
couldn't say well enough
that we were left to hell.

****,
you pulled a gun.

Remember that day
in the Thursday sun?

Right after work,
caught me pulling a chick
on facebook,
and somehow it came to you to reach under
the sofa, that's all it took.

Grab the piece,
and shake it against my temple,
saying,
"can't believe i fell in love with a *****
so simple, simple, simple."

And me,
through gitted teeth,
"Baby, put the gun down,
you gone crazy?"

Baby,
i don't know where you're at now,
know you got **** going on,
i'm going on,
you going on,
got a lotta **** going on,
'cause we held on
way too long.

Baby,
I've grown.
I Know my past
made me better
and
yes, you were the last,
but yes,
you were the last,
the last time that i had to cast the dice
and throw it in with the worst of me,
way back then,
not too far back,
cause every now and then
i go back
to way-back-then
wishing i'd been a better man.

Wishing that baby had made it.

Wishing your kids still knew my name.

Wishing i'd pulled less *******.

Wishing i'd pulled less of my ******* game.

Younger back then,
no longer still the same,
but every now-and-then
the back-in-the-days
come back with their hapless passion,
make me think of my old ways,
how you pulled a gun,
how we fought through the night
just for fun
until the kids cried quietly
their tears lit by nightlight,
and we still loudly fighting.

Finally
letting out our anger
cause we couldn't do it during the day
the only way:
drinking at night,
burying the days
just to burn the stars,
moon
and violet sky.

Love is growing
From within.
From the bottom of my insecurity,
Taking the worst of me,
Building it into eternity.

Eternally, we sit on broken thrones
Built up, on the past.

Feels too much like home
Our pain, can’t see how far
We’ve come.

Obscured, because we’re too wrapped up
In ourselves.
****** up
How we treat ourselves.
Tells us,
That we can’t be
A you and me,
Won’t make it through a year,
Much less eternity.
Don’t you worry,
I understand what’s happened,
I know the past is hard
To understand.
I don’t demand,
I just try to revitalize,
Both myself,
You,
And I.

Can’t heal nobody,
It’s hell to try,
But this is my story:

In a city like Raleigh
I rumbled down streets,
With a couple beers and a few shots in me,
The New Year’s coming,
But I just couldn’t see,
had to get out,
just for me.

Hit the big city for a couple days
Driving down avenues
Littered by Christmas lights and Christmas trees,
Christmas in New York,
Spent drinking and stumbling,
Spent away from you
Broken and mumbling,
My pain dripping into the sewers,
As I ****** away the anger and anguish,
And I ****** a pretty little Ms.
Who never could love me,
and I could never love she.

In the spring, I spent,
A lot of time,
With a pretty dime,
she wanting my child,
But in the end it wasn’t meant to be,
The choice of life,
Ain’t up to you and me,
I said to she.

In the midst of fall,
When it all falls apart,
I met a woman,
Twice my age,
Willing to have *** for days,
But she couldn’t handle her own pain,
Demanding all the love,
But her, I just couldn’t save,
Fights and fights and fights
Until calls to the cops were made.
No hands put on,
No hands displayed,
No hands up,
No call from the soul to say,
"Let’s let it go,
It’ll be best for you and me,"
No, we hung on,
Hanging onto the precipice
Until the love in us died.

Winter comes,
More Hennessey shots taken,
Taken for days,
For you I don’t know if it’s easy to say,
But I was lost,
So lost in those days.

Spent cold nights
In a car,
Cold mornings in a Mcdonald’s
Biting bad meat,
Tainted with an unloving scar,
Couldn’t even love myself,
Felt that would take too much time,
So I found help
Drowning, drinking, soaking
Thinking that would help.

But in time,
At the right,
I found you driving down the parkway,
Down the right line.

An accident brings us together,
Love, ain’t no beautiful story,
At least not then,
Kind of ****** up, a horror, sorry,
Ours littered with skeletons,
But from the ashes and bones
Gardens grow.
And now, roses bloom
Where once the earth was dead.
Dead as death.
Heavier than metal,
Now lifted as a breath,
Warm as the kiss of a petal.

Far away, across the emptiness
and unbrokeness of the desert
a thousand
pebbles are strewn,
each one begging to be picked up.

In some eastern city,
a girl and her friends
wander, and laugh, and joke,
and jump, drunk. She looks
so good tonight. Her hair
wavy and long, her eyes
a thousand different wavelengths
of blue, green, amber.

In a room,
there's a bed,
a desk,
a dresser,
a bedside table.

The girl and her friends,
wandering darkening streets,
drunk, looking for the next ****,
next bottle to **** dry.

Outside his window,
the setting sun reaches out
for it's last burning grasp
of skin. Scorching all day,
now it relents, but it always leaves a mark.

There's a guy in the club,
all up on her,
and she isn't trying to push him away,
even as his lips brush her neck.

In the room, in the dark,
he goes subterranean,
spending hours staring at her feed,
at her notifications,
where she's been,
and who she's with.

The brushed lips are the first warm thing
in forever,
it seems.

Going even more subterannean,
he runs through and through
all the scenarios.

He goes back and forth
in his room,
looking for something,
looking for nothing at all.
Up.
Down.
Sit.
Stand.
Calm.
Explode.
Reassure.
Anger.

And tonight the most harrowing thing,
is those lips and the strength
of pain and sorrow.

He saw,
He saw the snapchats.

Emptied him whole,
right there,
filleted his stomach
and dropped some rocks
for his way down to the bottom.


All the rights he has now:
the right to the joy of betrayal.
the joy of being right,
and its incumbent wrongs all at the same time,
the comfort of madness.

The sun beat down
the earth today.
Beat it down, beat down
the cats stretching and yawning
in the horrible heat,
plopping in the shade lazily.

Fatigue rolled through the desert
a horde laying waste to motivation,
and replacing it with depression.

We shut out all light,
shuttered the windows,
locked ourselves away,
turned off everything real,
delved deep into our laptop
submarines. venturing deep
into nothingness, away from emotion,
away from the beating, burning heat,
away from sunlight and UVs,
away from all that which,
though it beats us down,
strengthens us,
and yet we despise the heat.

No more long, slow days
of pushing through
fatigue and boredom,
we've stagnated long enough
they say.

Now the wind kicks up a renewed warmth
that greets us in the morning over the white-capped mountains.
Now the sun sets and shrouds a cloudless sky in gold.

We hear voices, whispers
saying someday soon we'll go out
to ****
or be killed.

And it's scary how much it excites us
to fantasize about death;
about our role in catastrophe
and the empty glory.

Sometimes death hurtles through the beautiful
high, azure sky. And leaves
not a mark, not even a cool shadow on the ground
as it flutters harmlessly to the earth
bemusing us. underwhelming us.

Some weeks are so quiet
that we touch the nuts and bolts
of true nothing
too much.
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
feel too little and lose sight
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
of our purpose. Lose sight
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
of the need
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000d000000000000000­000000000000000
for one. Lose sight
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
of memories of ******* by the fire.
Lose sight of what there is
to guard inside of us, to keep
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
whole and untouched
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
.
Lose sight
of why we're
guarding it, why
we're trying to, need to. Lose sight
of what the air tasted like back home.
We just lose.

Sandstorms kick up giant tornados
of dust, pebbles and sand
cutting silently across the burning concrete.

We stand
in their way,
constantly.

To keep busy
we tell
the same stories
so many times.

Now they dive out
of our mouths dropping weightlessly,
not even the strength to carry a wingbeat.

We barely believe ourselves anymore,
that's what we say.

The graying home.

The graying home,
night to dawn, dawn to hazed day,
back to dusk, to murky night.

The air is rife with the stench
of burning trash, pungent as a just-opened orange,
just as spicy, heavy as cigar smoke,
but dim, imperceptible.

The world turning, while we notice,
from our thrones in the shacks
where our discontentment brews.

Backyard brawls
and sunflower gardens.

Bezzled nights,
twinkling jeweled fireflies,
musky, humid air,
the tickle of rain on your cheeks.

Washed away,
down
the
drain,
youth,
gone and can't be recaptured.

Fistfights
in high school hallways,
tumbling in stairwells
with the beasts of our fear,
and the rolling thunder
of adulthood smashing
against our minds
like tropical waves against
arctic icebergs.

Youth, again;
mother's warm body
cuddling together
in the morning replenishment
on a spring mattress
that is continually sinking down abyssally
where boy and mother
cope with the aftermath
of the brokenness
shrouding their home.

**** drifting up to the ceiling
as we drank our full
of Everclear,
bought by fathers
who's lives had been beaten
down to a depressed mattress
in the corner
of
a garage
speckled by oil slicks
and draped by fiberglass
falling in curtains from the ceiling.

The absent smell of crack in the air.

Sunday breakfasts,
grandma in the kitchen,
mom in the basement,
kids farting around in their rooms.

Mom's curdling yells ripping the house to shreds,
as she sought peace,
in a quiet, and moldy sarcogophous.

There is a place where bombs
and mortars fly,
where a smile is as hard to find
as a mosquito in a desert,
and self-hatred is easy to come by
when regret blankets your mind
with every sand-choked breath.
And in this place, time crawls
by only springing to life when happiness
blooms, and idling when emotions
are sautered, and the search for feeling
is like waiting to get bitten.

But in this place,
there is a garden,
where youth and adulthood
collide, where the sunflowers bloom
once more, and the blood spilt
before the war began, gives life
to the seedlings,
and the soil is not so rotten
as it has grown older and tired.

The mind, finally centered
among the chaos, finding
its concrete horizon in the oasis
of a centered self,
centered finally,
in the midst of this brutal
and beautiful disaster.

What's left in the world
For the woman in the burning house
Except pain and sorrow?

She meanders through life,
Picking things up
Here and there
Where
Here is darkness,
There is nothing,
And tomorrow never comes,
And each new thing
Is something to hold
For just awhile.

She must watch
The house burn down,
While still inside.

First the drapes.

She clutches onto the past,
In the falling ashes and huffing heat,
And can't let go,
Even as her skin peels away.

Black tears stream down her face,
And the inner workings of her own soul
Become even more confusing to her.

The walls crackle,
The windows shiver and burst,
And the world rushes in upon her.

On the braided rug in the living room she kneels,
Holding her things underneath her *******,
Praying that everyone will see
And that no one will see.

Her life,
Ruined.

Her family,
Gone,
Long ago.

Her hope,
The match that lit the trashcan.

And now, flames all around her,
Her black tears a residue,
And the world watching,
She knows nothing.

She has nothing.

but
Pain and sorrow.

After falling
Off the wagon,
I ****** blood.

And woke up worse
Than hemorrhage
Suffering from a pain
I couldn't
Explain.

Pain troubling
Me thru the day
Knowing there were
Things I couldn't fix
Or understand.

Waiting for nightfall,
The shroud of darkness
And
Foggy light,
Knowing understanding
Would never come,
But searching for its source
In the sky.

While soldiers died,
Under a Syrian night.

I'm sorry, I'm such a sorry man,
regrettably, I thought of our old love,
remembering nights of amorous hugging,
bending you over, spreading your legs,
entering your body, finding a place
to reside, though not deep inside,
not where the creature of love casts
his gaze at me, from his light
with a shadowed eye, seeing through you and I,
to the future cast in the die, I fall
hard you said, quietly, so quiet and
hushed, without weight.

When you talked about your dreams, they always escaped
your mouth in a mote of smoke,
into the spackled ceiling it snaked,
wisping, serpentine, through all the fiberglass,
into the atmosphere, into the solar system,
not yet burned away, into the stars,
where all of you resides, all your dreams.

Back on earth, my eyes fixed on your escaping self,
I imagined no happy endings, no good way
to say a sad goodbye, a burning lullaby.

No way,  even naked,
in the bed we shared, did we share a single shred of truth.

Curled up in my arms, naked bodies sweating from the *******,
not just not knowing each other anymore, not just not listening, but so close to the singularity when we were *******,
so close to zero gain,
that when you said we may be having a baby,
I didn't know enough about you to say yes,
only knew enough about *******,
to say no to yes.

I'm sorry I turned out to be such a sorry *** man.