SO! Like...
there's this place called OKstupid
(OK! Cupid.)
Whatever.
You answer a set of questions to figure out,
you know
what makes you. (me?)
everyone compatible or not and you start off with this really-high-percentage-with-other-people
if you only answer like
you know
like 5 questions then... a lot of people match you.
AND if you answer like
you know
like 89 questions that percentage goes down you know
and I was thinking
we started off here at 92 percent.
We are an A in compatibility.
(Oh god.)
WE would have such great chemistry.
(Please no.)
We could probably TEACH each other a lot.
(STAHP)
I would study you like a calculus final, all night long and with a piece of wood in my
(UGH)
Anyways the questions they start off so high
such a great grade
but the further the questions go
you know
when my head starts to get all blurry
I can't think!
I freeze up,
Maybe the questions will spin out of control;
take over this whole thing,
I don't understand.
why
the more questions I answer
the lower our grade gets going.

You must turn 16, soon. Before the year is over.
Your year of birth, your current age tell me.
Your birthday is yet to come.
You weren't born in Spring.
When leaves were springing green and wriggling their way out of the cold.
You weren't born in Summer, at least not yet.
But you could be,
the smell of crickets chirping through the air.
Or the sight of fresh flower smell.
Maybe fall, when
Campfires and trees all lean together against the wind
And the dark huddles close to keep warm.

Winter?
Are you days of weak and bleak, redeemed by
The penitence of snow?
Are you the sorrow of snowflakes
Or the loneliness of Christmas?
Do you know the sadness of winter, at fifteen?

You must turn 16, soon.
When you do, I hope the skies sing you a song.

I ripped our love apart.
I defiled it.
Whatever we had I graffitied all over,
I sprayed noxious fumes over a work of art.
And you're gone.

I ate our love up.
Devoured it.
We had a four course meal planned out.
I ate the desert before the meal began.
And you're gone.

I bulldozed our love.
Destroyed it.
We were architects for not just a building, a city.
I burned the plans, the structures.
And you're gone.

I killed our love.
Murdered it.
a life of
Your pit bull and
hairless cat and
motorcycle
Workbench
-did you ever take that course?
love

Your eyes when they were seventy.
When we were on shrooms,
I hallucinated you at seventy.
I started crying because you were so beautiful.
That was before I went homicidal.
But you are gone.
And I don't blame you.

This is the poem that hasn't been written yet.
A dash of sad.
There are letters, and sentences, and paragraphs of
the lines on your face.
Your expressions.
This poem hasn't been written.
I describe in it, what it's like
To know your hand,
not just memorize it but know what all the nervous ticks
all the minute squeezes are.
To feel your heartbeat in your thumbs.
This is a poem with a growl.
Just a little bit because you are so much a part of my space
that I must kick you out sometimes.
But this malice,
is really just the orange to purple the
necessary opposite of the depths of how I
feel towards you.
This poem is how I think
any good poem should go.
I will think, I will laugh.
Of course sometimes cry.
But in the end, of course!
As all good poems should go.
I will be the better for having
read it.

Lover,
You are not the heartbeat.
I am the heartbeat.
I have to, don't you see?
I'd like for you to be just
Glorious!
Bursting through my blood.
But you at best,
a pacemaker.
You shock me now and then again.
This is how I know you to be a lover
and sadly not,
my love.

And then we broke up
so what did I do?
I read poems, hundreds of poems and each one,
even the one that was like a bird
and even the one simply about words
in each one I found you.
A beautiful new,
sad
painful you
and each time I read
(I tell you, I tried to go to bed)
a little part of me died
a little part of me
no, I don't want it to rhyme.
But my tears wasted
my poems wasted
my words and thoughts and wants wasted
I should have shown you more poetry
before we were through.

Don't sigh at me, Wind.
So impatient! Pushing at my clothes.
Trying to sail me down the road.
You can't force a thing any faster
than it's meant to go.
Not even you wind.
You can't hurry time!
So impatient.
You should learn something from the earth.
Grumbling, generous, gentle.
Slow to shift, only sometimes
a tremor.
Or maybe a day with water!
Crafting clay canyons through
handfuls of centuries.
Convincing rock to change, moving
the earth by gentle persuasion.

Fire.
You stay away from fire.
Fire's only good for burning.
Don't hang around him, you'll only encourage him.
All impatient-like.
He'll be up and roaring again,
Raging and burning and tearing everything apart until
he goes and burns himself up.
And then what?
Nothing.
And he knows this!
So do you.
Wind, you can't expect a forest to regrow overnight.
And that.
Well, that was a pretty big fire.
So dig down, Wind.
Find the earth and water,
rebuild your roots and grow.
Just don't go trying
to set me a'sail.