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yes, i remember
meeting you, your candle, extended
i lighted it without you even having to
ask.

you miss that, don't you?
you miss that spark?
you deemed me an angel guiding you
through a never-ending tunnel
of self perpetuating fear and loathing
and dis ease.

yes, what we had was real.  

but i couldn't save you, and even though
i tried, i didn't in the end.
no one could.

but

i was there for you
when no one else was
we were both starving
people, then.

i hardly remember who i was, really.
i was fragmented and lonely and sad
but i was given hope upon meeting you,
and all i knew
was that i loved you
and that seemed to be enough.

but it wasn't, as i learned
the hard way. years have passed
and you contact me every now and then,
out of the blue, as if to remind me
of a person i once knew.

there are some people
you will always know
they become a part of you,
the people that hurt you,
the people that loved you,
the people that left you - haven't
actually left you.

the last time i heard from you,
you said it would be the last time
i would ever hear from you
and there was
a strange peace i felt in that.

because

certain wounds eventually stop
reopening, certain theatres eventually
end up closing,
certain seeds eventually
need some sowing.
It was just the five of us
sitting there by your pool at 3am.
Feet in the water, jeans rolled up to our knees
beers in our right hand and each other to our left
singing old Tom Petty at the top of our lungs.

There was your best friend
who was drunk and singing a goodbye song,
long, slurred laments about
how you were his brother, like a missing tooth
that was pulled to early and left a gap
that your tongue runs over 100 times in a day
until you realize something's missing.
Something's no longer there.
And he'll say things like that
because that's who he is and he'll go to bed real early
because he's sad and tired and you
don't know how to feel that much yet.

There was your cousin in the jacket he stole from you
two weeks ago when he was sleeping on the ground
at a party you dragged him too.
He never learned to whisper and can't keep a secret,
but he made that night feel like it would last forever
and he held your hand through a lot of the bad times
in the trailer before your mom got home.
He'll laugh something stupid with his eyes squinted and you'll hug him
because you can feel he's alive and you want to start living.

There was your weekend warrior
who looked real tough and tan and Italian and
is afraid of who he is
but always knows who you are.

And then there was me.
And then there was you.

You were leaving in a couple weeks
and none of us really knew how to handle that yet.
So we made fun of your baby pictures
that were put into your slideshow and ate all your food
at 1 and then 2 and then 3.
I helped the other boys *** off your railing,
took pictures of your glassy-eyed buddies
trying to hook and capture the memory.

We were tearing down Wyoming,
praying it rained and flooded away
so you'd have nowhere to go and you'd have to stay.

This ain't nothing.
This ain't nothing but people who love you,
washing down their sorrows with a cold glass and a good cheer
to the one we see before he leaves.

And then there was me,
kissing you when your eyes would close
I'll miss you the most.

We slept in your bed alone
no clothes, just my body against yours
clinging to the time we had before morning.
We made love and I mean the real kind of love.
Not the high the five of us had
lying in your grass pretending
we could blow out the stars with a deep "hell yeah!"
But the love where you tell me how important I am to you.
What I've waiting and dying and trying to hear.

Your hand on my hip, you pulled me aside
to let me know you loved me, but just with your eyes.
Some dumb, young kids and real good kiss goodbye.
I was looking at your chest x rays on the lighted wall

Your straight spine centered behind your rounded ribcage
Looks like busted churchgates
from all the times you let your ghosts go

And there are bees buzzing in your shoulders only
you aren't cold this time

So much faith in what I do with words
Willing to love me like a half written gospel
we are filling in as we go

And I want to write us poetry
like the first man was asked to play the first piano

Come
dance with me to my deathbed

I am afraid
That one day I might kiss you
like a deaf stethoscope
that no longer hears your heart

That this language will grow stale
Along with your faith in me

but my knees
are riverbeds for prayer

And I carry my chest heavy like a library
full of books that hate the silence

You should know that
being a poet is more than just a choice

and maybe my body is like a library
but when I pray to you
I'll never use my inside voice

Just like I know that god used nails
to make the iron in your blood stream

That you'll be strong even when you're old
and even then
I still want you to believe in me

When we are like trains that no longer run the tracks
when we've fully mapped the topography of our bodies

But some days
our engine chests come back

and I write a poem about you that is new

And you listen
To my huff and rumble
you lift your tea and saucer with shaking hands
I close my eyes
and hear our train coming
 Aug 2013 Alex McDaniel
Sin
a message to every person who's name still echos in my mind and makes me shiver.

1. you were the first to give me a purpose. my body was small and your hands fit me almost as tight as your sheets. you were lost, and found home in the curve of my neck and the touch of my tongue and every story I dreaded to tell. you were a headache that throbbed in my teeth and crept down my throat. but I had a taste for a different type of pain.

2. you were nights without sleep for fear of the dark. you were the monsters in the closet and the dust along my bookshelf. you were The Calm Before The Storm that made me wish I was landlocked. you were venom in my veins and rope burns glowing along my throat. I've never believed in God but I pray for your victims when I watch you play life like a vicious game, and I still hope for your salvation.

3. you were a test I knew all the answers to but still proceeded to fail. you taught me to crave everything that was wrong. adrenaline has become the new form of oxygen. you are speed and I am the streets and everything inside of us aches to be free of the roles we are still forced to play. the lines in your palms are more familiar to me than my own, but you never let me hold your hand.

4. you were red in a world of black and white. I watched you fall like waves at my feet and I felt you pull back over time. you were the tides, you were the new moon covering me with shallow darkness, silent as I stumbled in the sand. you were the whistling wind pushing my hair over my eyes just so you could have the chance to pull it back behind my ears. you were salty kisses and warm skin, but you were too hot to touch.

5. you were a fairytale I so desperately needed. you gave me purpose like 1, sleepless nights like 2, had the same name as 3, and held thoughts as loud as 4 but a mouth just as silent. you were a thunderstorm in a four year drought, a fire in my mind, a force I could feel and never see. you held flashing lights and warning signs but I only squeezed my eyes closed even tighter. you are the scars along my wrists that show me I am so, so fragile. you are the suicide note waiting so patiently to be read, a reminder that I am not the only one who doesn't want to breathe anymore. but I would die for you.
I feel so lonely...
And the darkness of today seems to never end..
Laying in my bed listening to my best friend talking... Im Looking at the Celing I can't keep my mind off of the things my mind deeply wants to linger in.
I wish I could just sink into this old carpet floor.
Because I'd feel safe there.
A human being can be used...
A person can be treated like a used toy....
But my old rugged carpet can not.
I wish I could blend in with the ocean and not the sand.
So u wouldn't be able to walk all over me.
Does the poet live his own words
Measures up to what his verses promise
Strives for the heights his thoughts reach
Plays the part his writings reflect
Goes to any length to be good
Rids himself of all meanness
Is generous kind faithful trustworthy in his personal life
A lover a friend an aide a benefactor,
Or at the end of the day
Just a preacher
Who never is as tall as his sermons
But remains a run-o-mill guy
Who endowed with poetic skill
Spins in self-deceit webs of lies!

Does a poet ever endeavor
To become a poetry in motion?
the question includes myself.
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