i
have. never.
known;
letters//
nouns
the tri,....
                 ck,...
                           le of
words
To Simply Say
whatever-it-is-i-mean
i mean~
You. Are. the pin ch
in my chest
the> pull >>of >each breathe
EvERy
#sadlovesong
& when you
~}{hold my hand}{~
I
Am.

My soul
is getting older,
the nights are colder

and the soles
of these soft worn out
doe-skin boots are thinner

every day, way too thin
to keep the thought
of a frozen plot at bay.

i would never ask
and you may never tell,
but do you ever see that
dream of us in Mexico?
it's okay. it's okay. it's ok.
you don't have to answer.
just hush now and say
something sweet to me
inside of your head.
Tell me dear tell me
do you still see us
at the Louvre, in the rain?
is it me standing there
or is it someone else?
how do his hands feel?
how does his voice peal?
does his fragrance waft
away from his skin and
tickle the ***** minora?
does he wash his sheets
every four or five weeks
to keep the lonely facade in tact?
does he live on a staple of
beer and roast beast,
an occasional moonshine
when the mood strikes him just?
does he torture himself senselessly,
incessantly, bridging the neurons
to find he's forgotten it all?
... does he love Cherry Coke?
no.
he isn't there with you is he?
it's somebody else. somebody
with yellow hair to his shoulders
and bright shining blue eyes:
the kind of eyes that tend to
outshine you, and all the
things you convinced us
you've got going for you.
the kind of eyes that seep charity.
oh, is he there with you when
you're snorkeling in the Maldives
and you realize that you've gone
just a bit too far underwater...
you're very deep when you
well know you shouldn't be.
then tell me: what happens?
you are found and swept,
carried and rescued until
BOOM! You breach the veneer
and there are all your friends
looking down at you, thinking:
"thank the Lord our Savior for
Titus Arnold Masters McMajor."

but love please love oh love,
tell me who you really see.
touch your lips and swear to me
that it isn't the mediocre man
who doesn't spring to your mind.
both of you without a stitch,
floating abreast and prone:

skeletons in the Dead Sea.

sometimes i wonder if shakespeare was behind the pen
that fiddled and diddled in that old church parking lot
i drove by it the other day but there was no one there
nobody freezing their buns off in the wake of the open door
nobody trying to canoodle in the back seat that wasn't folded down
nobody even thinking about pulling into that darkness.
would you even do that again? i would a hundred times think.
what even happened to that kid who used to write songs
and play them as if he were playing in front of a hundred eyes
but they were all your eyes and there wasn't a flame in existence
that was brighter than they when each lit up in its own way.
what even happened to the girl who showed that boy her house
and the colonial colloquial drapery and carpeting wall to wall,
her little sister sticking her finger into the brownie batter
and protective mother who i've gotta admit was 100 percent right:
stay away from the bad man with the non-leather patagonia jacket
and all of his sassy ideas that got him good grades in k-8
but really started to expose his weaknesses steeped in frivolity
when he got into the upper level courses and advanced placements.
[a GD mile wide and an inch deep, that's what me thinks jar jar binx]
stay away from the burnt out eagle scout who let his guard down
and allowed your guard down both metaphorically and not sooo... but
remember that coffee shop show that you never came to?
strange, it feels in this moment like an aching sore thumb.
i listened to joshua radin all the way home and thought
christ what am i even going to do about this can this work and
if it can work how can it work but if it can't work why can't it work?
because lord knows this lady is easy to please when we drink. but
silly,you're tough as ***** ****** nails when you need to be told no.
& i aint never heard of sucha thing as a dude who's charming as hell
when he's telling a gorgeous woman sum'thin she don't wanna hear;
make me a pill for that and i'll sell it on The Street for days without end.
[so how much supply you got when the thing aint even fda approved?]
"lose yourself in what you're doing and you'll never work a day" is
what they tell me while they cast me into this steel bending furnace
and demand me to find a way to be cool and relax and chill the f out-
been doing that on my own and there's no milky white ear to listen
or a record to put it on or even a GD vocal box that feels like working
unless it's singing showtunes in the car or harmonizing to justin bbr
like i'm the **** 6th man in the pentatonix or however many there are.
capitalistically useless thing i was born with and worked really hard at
until one day it told me i don't have the capacity to scribe anymore.
so i'm forever speechless like the kid who got coal for christmas last year.
& you'd catch me in that backyard again with all the 15 year old girls
still kinda trying to impress them but mostly you, & give my shirt away:
wear it and be proud that you snubbed the bad man who passed through
with the non-leather patagonia jacket in the old church parking lot.

He drew a figure eight on my spine, absentmindedly,
and traced the nape of my neck with his fingertip when he said,
“You are beautiful to me.”

But the ellipsis in the silence spoke louder than he did, and the look in his eye was not born because I was lovely;
It was not because he loved me.

A thing too small for love-
But far too large to be lust;

Simple. Ugly.

He looked at me like he was hungry.

So sweetly he critiqued each curve, every line, blurring my edges with the images of every bent perception pulled from the mire of his mind;

and I
could not
satisfy


Pretty innocence diminished in the grip of his vice,
Pressed tight against my body, despised in dark eyes.
I am not the inhuman creatures you contrived in the middle of the night.
I am not the feminine expression of your ******* pride.

What a wicked crime,
to take a woman’s body and leave the woman behind.