There is a ballroom
full of gorgeous off-beat
dancers who wear dresses
made of childhood dreams
and shoes that sometimes
still sing
when they jive.
It's a terribly chaotic
and heart wrenching scene
where you can find peace
on a dopamine drive
as that airplane chases the moon
through an open sunroof,
your lifeblood tuned in perfectly
to its frequency.
Go ahead,
play in the traffic
of the extraordinary things
you regularly neglect.

Sometimes
it gets so bad
that I stop drinking
or smoking,
or, god forbid,
both.
Sometimes
it gets so bad
I think I might
do something really stupid
like pray,
or move to California,
or get a tattoo
of an empty pale blue dot,
or throw myself to the lionesses,
or write poetry,
or call her.
Sometimes
it gets so bad
that lilacs turn black.
Sometimes
it gets so bad
that I make statues
of happy people
out of the rocks
at rock bottom.
Sometimes
it gets so bad,
that I shoot
hummingbirds
with 24 caliber regrets.

There are sidewalks
soaked with apathy.
There are ladders
that were intentionally
built to be
almost tall enough
to reach the fruit
on the tree that your soul aches for.
You'll thank yourself later.
It will always mean more to you
if it is constantly just beyond your fingertips.

Sometimes
it gets so bad
that I see the ghost
of the person I thought you were
In the smiling
eyes
of a brand new human.
I see fire escapes
and think of the best hypomanic episode
I ever had.
And then
It gets so bad
all of it rushes back
and the knife
that once cut me free
guts me.
Sometimes
it gets so bad
that I dare it to get worse.
And then it does
and I start to laugh
like some kind of
*******.
Sometimes
it gets so bad
that I start
to love myself.
Sometimes
it gets so bad
that caterpillars
make me cry.
Sometimes
it gets so bad
I melt away,
and all that is left
is the music of revelry.
Sometimes
it gets so bad
that I wear down cinder blocks
with my tongue,
and those black lilacs
don't get their color back,
but I see them as August.

He fights a good fight.
You can say what you want
about that boy.
But he fights a good fight.
It's okay
if you don't understand him.
No one does,
not even himself.
But he fights a good fight.
And all around him
butterfly wings freeze
and old women hack up
mucous.
Baby birds wait
in a wet November nest
for a mama bird
that never comes.
He blows kisses,
with a mouth
that limps
when it smiles,
to sinners just like him.
He's not always right,
but he fights a good fight.
Waters his garden
with tears,
reaches with scarred hands
into bushes full of thorns,
pulls out berries
and gives them to people
with thin and tender skin.
You can say what you want
about that boy.
But he fights a good fight.

It hit me
so much faster than I could fly.
And here I am
on the windshield,
immobilized by glue guts.

The mornings
are the worst.
Writhing between my sheets
like a night crawler cut in half
by the piercing apathy in your
permafrost eyes
the last time I saw them.
I'd cut off my own arm
before I went back to Barcelona.
It's that special kind of pain;
where I feel sick to my stomach
when I see young people holding hands,
kissing.
That special kind of pain,
where no girl is beautiful anymore.
I am the black hole,
the mouse hole,
in the bottom corner of the room.
It ***** out anything worth savoring.

I can act like I'm fine
for approximately 22.2 minutes a day
22.2 years I lived without you
two too many to count.
I used to be two
Now I am barely half of what I was
and I can't bear full moons.
I have the right to bear arms.
Especially after what you and I did to me.
But now I'm armless
You're careless
I'm handless.
I can't pick up the pieces
you scattered all over Denver
Appleton
North San Diego County
Barcelona
Valencia
Bilbao
Cumberland
and West Falmouth.
Maybe you can retrace that trail of blood.
I can't,
but that doesn't stop me from trying
every day.
And I keep arriving
at the same dried up
empty ocean
where only salt is left behind.
9 months later I'm still too ripe.
I'd cut off my own arm
before I went back to Barcelona.
I want to salvage
the parts of me
that sank with that ship
struck by whatever
the **** that was.
Whatever the ****
we all keep writing about.
In your defense and in mine,
no one as young as us
could ever be ready for that.


The world has two poles.
I was 23 when I was told
that I do too.
You brought them both out of me
and everything in between.
But now I'm stuck on the lower one;
a windless white flag at half mast.

Nightmares are just dreams
and nothing could be more real.
A heartbreak to a poet
is just a dream that came true,
and so are you.
Daymares are not real,
and neither is the frozen hemoglobin
they **** from your veins.
I used to get so high,
and laugh.

I've had one first cigarette
and a million last cigarettes.
I guess that pretty much sums it all up.
And back I go to Barcelona.
With one arm.

There’s a bird with one wing
that still flies,
but only in circles
and so it sings many songs
where the birds with two wings
never bothered to sing more than one

There’s an old lady
with curled fingernails
and proud wrinkles on her face.
She has worn a vinyl record
and a bird’s nest
atop of her head, for all of her good life.
The nest brings the music of the birds
the vinyl gives her shade from the sun.
She’s never thrown that vinyl on the record player
She doesn’t need to,
And that’s not what it’s for.
And as the birds sing
Dust comes off  
of the dancing shoes
she wore
when she fell in love with it all.