Hey...
It's such a little big word.
Its also for some reason what comes out of my mouth,
Before any other combination of words in the known world.
You look like you deserve more than that.
Yet, here I am, mouth probably too far open
Staring at you for what I imagine is too long
Creating a moment in time I'll probably obsess over forever.
I'm clearly awful at hello's and new beginnings.
I'm even worse at saying goodbye.
Which is what I'm always worried I'll hear first.
How do you explain yourself to someone else?
Someone somewhere set all these unspoken rules,
I've never been able to figure it out.
But you have kind eyes and it makes me want to try.
There is something ephemeral about the whole process.
It's such a weird weird ritual that keeps the world spinning.
Hey...I'm a person and so are you.
Here are all these things that make me...me.
But that's not what I say. Not what anyone says.
We say hey.
I can't tell you how I'm both confident and anxious all at once.
How you look beautiful, but you could very well destroy me.
I can't say how I stay up forever and relive my life in moments.
I can't say how I'm a narcissist who doesn't believe in himself.
I can't say in all my time on Earth, **** is still the strongest word I know.
Or how I swear something other than your body attracted me to you.
It isn't something I know, but I sure want to.
I can't say I have a soul that cares about people more than it should.
Or that I could care about you, if you wanted me to.
I can't say how it took the kind of courage normally found in soldiers
Just to walk the twenty feet to where you're standing.
But here I am and there you are.
Drink in hand and a smile that could stop a heart.
With the moments before and after I speaking lasting an eternity.
I swear the world starts spinning again when you reply...
Hey.

Kiss the girl whose hair
is piled atop her head,
like her thoughts;
tumbling down in bundles of curls
as they overflow.

Kiss the girl who drags you out
from beneath awnings &
makes you face the rain,
while she dances fearlessly
in a soaked, diaphanous sundress.

Kiss the girl who insists on
preparing you tea &
pouring it in your presence;
inviting you to witness
the intimacy of simple ceremony.

Kiss the girl who breaks
the stillness of occupied space
to reach out & encompass your hand;
seeking the sensation of your being
to comfort her through silent moments.

Kiss the girl who takes
up into her arms
your scattered inclinations & obsessions;
teaching herself to love & nurture them
as if they were her own.

Kiss the girl who envelops you
with her sultry sentiments &
provokes you with her precocious intellect,
leading you to question
all concrete belief.

Kiss the girl whose
very existence embraces you
like a contented sigh or the kiss of sunshine
one might play beneath
on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Kiss that girl & kiss her deeply,
& with considerable intensity;
as if to break the seal between your lips
would shatter her
into a thousand pieces.

& do not let her go.

you inhale and type you wish
for a body bruising sweat syruped
half passed lover, you've got
crisp greens, white shoes and
soapy molars and citrus skin

my lover and I are young and have
nothing of you, ankle deep pools
of puddled people, we have none
at the dinner table but each others
faces at the silver Saturn plates

Age is measured
by number of years
10, 20, 30
counted by your peers

you're born with a number
that sticks with you through life
you can't shake it off
no matter the strife

you're labeled by worth
"how much money have you?"
not by your soul
or how far your heart flew

you're labeled in death
by the year that you died
not the life that you lived
or the tears that you cried

you get a number in prison
your name doesn't matter
for all that they care
you're another mad hatter

you're judged by your height
or the pounds that you weight
only those who are famous
are judged by what they say

so many numbers
and to you they are sown
judged by a number
and not the unknown

The words sit
on the tip of my tongue--
Bubbling up from my chest and
Threatening the bust open the seams of my lips.
And I can't tell you how much it means to me
That you're feeling the same thing too,
And I get to be the stubborn one.

can you just simply forget
How to do the things that made you live
you let all fall that are gifted in grace, let them hesitate with an insecure skip
dismay catapults while grey shadows
your previously bubbling take