It might be your birthday today,
honestly, I never remembered and
I had to sneak your license out of
your wallet to check, something
I always felt infinitely bad about
and I hope you don't read this
because the conglomerate of
poems I've written about
you seems a little bit
obsessive. I had to
talk myself down out
of calling and the neighbors
continue to be weary of me behind
their little peach windows with the cream
lampshades because I regularly shake my
head at myself and my lips move in quick
stripped, phrases. Do you think, that maybe,
I should stop feeling guilty?

Maybe.

(but will you) love me
in pigeon's pose when
my tummy rolls over
like rice paddies and
the dimples in my
thighs are as moon
craters on that 27th
spoonful of peanut
butter, orbit on my hips
squeeze the fat beneath
my arms to relieve all
your stress, when I'm
singing zee avi in the
shower and you realize
I once told you a choir
teacher said I was a high
soprano but my voice is
so low on that ceiling
mingling with the steam
in the silver vents, don't you
know that

heat

rises?

Kendra posted a
faded picture of
you with the blurred
swatch of evergreen
at your shoulders,
I'm a universe and
a half, more pigmented
than I could ever be
at your side, at that
window, would we
have lasted? It's not
for me to tell.


Happy Birthday, Chris.

Moby ***** was a humongous
mess of religious garble that threw
everyone for a loop in the shadow of
Typee and Melville was publicly shamed
for writing such a flop so outside his genre,
supposed.

But bound by blue canvas, inscribed in
gold, would you find failure to be subjective?
oh, don't be scared to reach beyond your known
talents, beyond what is said of you,

beyond your genre.

in Urdhva Dhanurasana
you can see your heels if
turn your head, also called
the upward bow, or, the
wheel pose.

Yesterday, the wind
blew me uphill when
I was trying to go down,
I've been trying to get
closer to myself, to
my heels, and too
often do I ask
the wrong
questions.

In a devotional by Oswald
Chambers he goes on to say
that god is unimpressed by
earnestness, so then what?

I reach for my heels.

be slow
be heavy
be gentle.

La Liberté Guidant le Peuple, or,
Liberty Guiding the People is a
painting by Eugène Delacroix
used as cover art for Coldplay's
Viva La Vida and Liberty seems
to guarantee life above her head
with ample ******* that seem to
tell me everything is going to be
alright.

You used to tell me that the first
half of *Death and All his Friends
reminded you of me, so, when I
hear it, I am you, listening to me
with Chris Martin telling me to
come over, just be patient, don't worry
and I am seventeen again, beneath your
dim desk light, in those acid wash shorts
knowing you for the first time, knowing
all winter we got carried, oh, let's get
married, all through summer we
hurried, so come over, just be
patient...don't worry.

So come over, just be patient, don't worry.

i had a dream I
was loving you
but it was not
that           simple            for
you
and i left
wearing a hospital
gown

I crave the dens,
the brick caves strung
with lights where no
one is above the murmur
where girls come to leave
necklaces wrapped in lined
notebook paper (here, take
this, take this from me, please)
and the various spaces are lined
with a thick aroma of espresso
and the burberry perfume from
the woman at the table over whose
thighs could stretch across the atlantic
but ships could never sail across her
in the way you can't tread over hot
coals, climb mount everest in a day
or ask her out for coffee.

I miss the things I never
did, the ferry ride I never
took, the brittle cold that
sunk to the depths of my
toes and the sushi place
down the street from my
house. You can whisper
that I'm doing the same
thing but I miss the leaves
at EDCC and the rain,
quality frozen yogurt
and the front row at
Loews Theater, I miss
the sound of my wheels
privy to the Boeing freeway

You can whisper that I'm feeling
the same way but I miss things I
don't recognize, the drive past
the lighthouse and the neighbor
who had music too loud, the
shy cashier at Fred Meyer
and also their apple
display that was
aesthetically
pleasing.