You hate my poems
You say they take me from you
that they're pointless
a waste of time
maybe you're right.
You read them,
just the words as they fall,
and say you get nothing
just syllables.
I have lost count
of the sighs and eyerolls,
the you have no talents,
they sit in a memory box
along with the times you've asked me to stop.
Stop.
Just like that.
Stop pouring myself onto paper,
Stop looking for beauty in darkness,
Stop healing.
You prefer me broken, fragile, dependant,
the girl you took from nowhere to god knows where
a once pretty, broken thing
to hang silently from your arm
while you talk proudly of the soul that you saved.
You fear that my writing will end us.
I fear that my stopping will end me.

I am in love,
With your
Darkness.

You seduced me,
With your mystery.

Everywhere I look I see your face.  
Grandiose,
yet humble.
Old as time.
Luminous freckles,
Stretch proud,
On the infinity
Of your body.

You inspire me,
And humble me.
I am enchanted
By your
Lullaby  
Of silence.

I know  there's some that fear you,
Stricken by the omnipresence.
I feel sympathetic,
For the ages
Of misconceptions.
Whispered in your name.

I am staggered
To my atoms.  
By your honesty.
Your projection,
Naked and dark,
Bare and bountiful,
Beautiful.

And I know one day Ill join you,
Up in your excellence.

while september cicadas
were singing my neighbors to sleep
i was up walking holes in my shoes
over love once lost
so many poems ago
that the only thing i remember
about the house at 38th & bluestone
is that it reeked of alcohol and is
as i'm sure of it
still saturated in perfume
and abandoned laughter
but that's not the point
give me a minute
what i'm trying to say
is i always thought god
enjoyed watching things leave me
it makes me wonder
what was on his mind
that night in september
when i stooped to cough
or tie my shoelaces
i no longer remember why
but i recall their trajectory
the way gravity cradled my hands
and brought them crashing back to earth like a 747
they landed inches away
from a scrap of crumpled loose leaf
folded in half like the smiles
of my relatives on a holiday truce
you see, lately i've been looking for scars in the newspaper
i find myself checking the obituary
for my former selves since the day i found your suicide letter
maybe that's why i can never explain my obsession with history
maybe archeology is just a funeral
in reverse
maybe hell is just rewinding home movies
or watching confetti
turn back into photographs
i never told anyone
the reason the doors to the gun cabinet in my family's house are locked not because they are afraid
i will take my life
but because sometimes
i sing them birthday songs
on the day you died
it makes me think
of how rooms only echo
when they are empty

*you know
i never echoed until you died

i always thought
you were thru traffic
that you were just jet lag
background noise
the kiss in the rain
i've never had
but what if you aren't?
what if this
was the thousandth time
i have loved you?
what if this is just a fresh coat of paint?
what if god
keeps a handkerchief
soaked in the day we met
next to his bed?
maybe theres a reason
i reach for no one in bed
the way i would
if someone used to be there
you know, they say
the road behind us
is littered with things
we couldn't hold onto
i wonder how many times
you've slipped through my hands
like hour glass sand
do you know
how much erosion you've caused?
i heard cupid
stopped keeping count
of how many times
we came together
just to come apart again
maybe it was just a rumor
it makes me think
about how many times
i've almost had you
like if all this talk
about history repeating itself
endlessly replaying is true
i wonder how many times
things have happened already
like the time
i tried talking you
into loving me back
back fired
or the time i could have sworn
jesus & lazarus were playing chess
with my heartbeat
but it was only you smiling
how many times
have i tried to tell you
how many times
have you read this poem
how many times
have i tried not to meet you
in my dreams anymore
it's like sleep tries to warn
me of what's happening
before it does but
i keep having this dream
where i tell you bedtime stories
and each one
is a different way you die
and in every one
i can never save you
it's like you're this song
i have on repeat
and every time it starts over
i forget the words
it's like you picked up the book entitled "us"
and the back cover
said you'd leave
so you never bothered reading it
tell me you aren't
going back in that bookstore
just to do it again
or will you tell me tomorrow?
or is this the time
you don't say anything at all?
if this has all happened before
if we call it quits
before we begin
again
from the beginning
i just want to ask you
to be my fire
because i am tired
of these old lives
and i'd like to see them
burn