Could you love her anyways?

I tried to trade love for freedom,
but ended up finding out
that they are one in the same.

What am I to do
With all of this love?
Should I glue it
To a kite
And let the wind take it
Out of the atmosphere
So it can look upon
This earth
As a whole?
Maybe I should
Tie it around
One of my front teeth
And show it to the world
When I smile
As the world smiles back.
Maybe I should leave
It in an empty ballroom,
let it dance its way around
And out the window
To salsa with the moon.
Or maybe I should leave it
Right where it is,
Between your lips
And what remains of me.

The universe is in motion
And it feels like love.

There was a butterfly
With one wing
That whispered in my ear.
It said,
“Don’t make anyone
Your everything
Because if they leave you
You’ll feel as though
You only have one wing,
Just like me,
And then
you’ll have to fly
In circles
For the rest of your life.”
I replied,
“She’s prettier
Than a blood moon,
And that would be
A gorgeous kind
Of pain.
I could fly
In circles around her
All day.”

When she calls you
With that song
Of a thousand songs
And suns,
Don’t be afraid.
Let yourself fall in love
And hold on tight
To the madness.

I don’t know
where it comes from.
It’s not like
a song from a bird,
or a baby from the womb.
It’s less like a bullet
from a gun  
and more like
the constant
breaking and mending
of the heart
as it exhales cold chains
and inhales
the fireworks
on her lips.
I don’t know
where it comes from.
I only know that
it is one of the only things
still worth fighting for.

There’s a lighthouse
On the horizon.
It is the mother
Of the child in me.
For a time
I’ve worn
This cactus sweater
And have gazed
Through the lens
Of a night sky
Without stars.
But the way
That lighthouse
Throws its beams
Keeps something
Alive inside
Of the seemingly
Abandoned shell
That I wear.

Look at them all,
Falling in love
The way young people do;
Walking toward each other
On a bedsheet
Tight rope
Between two towers
While wearing
sparkling red
High heels.

For some awfully
Long time now
I’ve felt like
A blind man
Playing tennis,
Listening for the ball
To bounce in front of me
And swinging with all
Of my might
Hoping to hit it back away.
And while it’s away
I’ll have peace
Until I hear
The ball bounce
Before me again.
It’s just that when
It passes me
I feel like I’m losing.

Last night I saw something
Very clearly
For the first time in a while.
It was her and I
Woven together
Like a basket
Made of sand-sized
Stars.
I heard the bounce
And stood as still as I ever have.
I feel like I’ve won.

I wonder if the spider
is less lonely
with a fly in its web.
I wonder if the fly
is less lonely
in the spider’s web.
I’d like to think
they are less lonely,
just for a moment,
before the feast
in a world
where you die
if you don’t eat;
in a world
where you might be
tonight’s special,
served on a webbed plate.

It's the warmest day of the winter
here in Denver,
and I enjoy wearing a blue
short sleeved button up
with strange patterns
that I found at the thrift store
that belonged to some man
before it belonged to me.

I wonder how different we are.
I wonder how similar we are.

I wonder if he'd ever crawled
inside one of the great pyramids,
only to find a small room
that people slaved and died over,
once occupied by a king
who is no longer there
and was replaced by
cool, wet air
that smells like
some tourist
who forgot to wear
deodorant that day.

Maybe he'd have quit
smoking cigarettes by now.
Maybe he'd have never started
in the first place.

Maybe he would run out of breath
when introduced to olive eyes
complimented by olive overalls
and constellations of freckles
that spelt out the words
to the greatest poem
he'd ever read,
along with the letters
of his name.

Maybe he'd worn black jeans,
along with that same shirt,
that grilled his legs
medium rare.
Maybe they stayed rare.
Maybe they stayed moving.
Maybe they didn't.

Maybe that man
had spilt a bag of *******
on this shirt.
Maybe that's why my heart hummed
to the tune of Etta James' "at last"
the first night I wore that shirt
across the table from those
olive eyes.

Maybe that man didn't give a ****,
maybe he understood how silly
it would be
to glue fallen leaves
back on their branches in November.

Maybe that man was a brilliant idiot,
who really didn't give a ****,
and knew how silly it wasn't
to glue fallen leaves
back on their branches in December.

Maybe he said,
"**** the neighbors, watch me glue these leaves
only when you get tired of the news on T.V."

If you want to know what's happening to the world
don't just watch the news every night.
Watch what happens to yourself
after watching the news every night.

Maybe that man's thoughts
moved like gravel
under steel toed boots.

Maybe the moon moved that man,
the way it moves the tides to higher grounds
and brings life to those hot evaporating pools
where an octopus
contemplates leaving,
only by way of
scorching sun baked lava rock
and air that he can't breathe.

It's all for a better life,
isn't it?

Maybe that man
was a house with one small window
with a view of his well earned
green lawn
and white picket fence.

Maybe there were no windows
and he was a cactus
somewhere it rarely rained,
to his own delight and misery.

Maybe he figured out
that the only things that break our hearts
are the things we are willing
to let inside of them.

I'm eating apple pie right now,
and it's one of the few things
I have enjoyed this week.
Most people like apple pie,
including myself.
And maybe he does too.
Maybe that matters.
Most likely it doesn't.

Either way.
We've worn the same shirt
and it's a nice day out.

now it's just a tree,
then it was so much more
than just a tree.
i've been trying like hell
to get back on that street,
and in moments like these
i feel i'm getting
closer.
rain and garbage cans
full of beer cans,
fresh cut lemon
and a dog
of many homes.
a sister who said
it was always as
simple as our mother
told us;
some days I don't believe it
and live for the days
when I wholeheartedly do.
that rain on those beer cans
is the best show
i've seen
all year,
and the dog applauds
with his tail.

Life is a perpetual act
of learning and unlearning.
I remember the wisest
I've ever been.
I didn't know it then.
Intoxicated skies
where stars would spin.
We had smoke shadows.
We would two step
on curled boards
and swim with catfish
as the river ran,
as it always did
and someday
no longer will.
We put our bones
into motion
while the rest of life
was innocently
still.

I found god
on my front porch
and we drank vermouth
from 12:00 to 12:00.
He spoke of how
he's trying to quit
cigarettes and women.
We raised our glasses
to that one.
I spoke to him
about how much I enjoy
asking people
how they really feel.
I told him how the earth
is rotating very quickly lately,
and that the centrifugal force
is improving the circulation in
my fingertips,
and how I'm starting to be able
to feel again.
He spoke of how
he had quit his job
to pursue a career
as a ceramic artist,
though he also claimed
he had always been one.
It turns out that god
is a neighbor of sin,
cut wide open
by the hope that lives
in the hearts of people
younger than us.
I told him
that I understand.
He filled my glass up again,
and then his own.
We did not speak of women.
He lit us a cigarette
and we shared it.

I feel like god
has been misunderstood
all this time.

I think he feels
the same way.

Wisdom lives
not only
in knowing
our power,
but acknowledging
where it exists
(and flexing it)
and where
does not
(and letting it go.).

A large
and important part
of the human experience
is getting this
wrong.

I didn't really know
how I was going to feel.
I was in a room
full of things that sparkle
[champagne
streamers
firework pupils
diamond teeth
sterling saxephone
a ring
that was once hers].

Girls with castles
in their eyes,
princes in those castles
whose faces
the girls could not draw
with their minds.
Guys with hearts
in their hands,
and hands hidden
in their pockets;
maybe they'd use those
tonight for the first time
in a long time.

When the ball met the ground
and we met a new year,
lips met lips,
but mine remained mine.
I don't even know
where she is
now.

In a room full of revelry,
all I could hear
was my breath;
In.
Interval,
equanimity.
Out.

In a room
full of things that sparkle
[champagne
streamers
firework pupils
diamond teeth
sterling saxephone
a ring
that was once hers],
I found one more
[a part of me
that I forgot was there].
Spring in January.
I smiled.
And I didn't
even have to fake it.

Some of the best
of me survived
her.

I wish
I believed
in god;
that way,
I’d have
someone
to blame
and thank.

All of the factories
would shut down
when her eyes
took naps on mine.
Many moons later,
here I am;
Soot on the lips
She used to kiss.

Don't sketch me
the outline
of a broken heart.
That would be
like wearing jeans
to a funeral.
Instead,
paint me
a granite boulder
fractured
by the roots
of a cottonwood tree
that grew atop it.
Drench the rock
in golden
leaves
that the tree cried,
but leave a couple
on the nearly
naked
branches.

She asked,
"How've you been?"
He replied,
"I've been getting older."

If you want to know
what is happening
to the world,
don't just watch
the news every night;
watch what happens
to yourself
after watching
the news
every night.

In the courtroom
there are incoherent murmurs
whispers
"I wonder if it will change"
siblings
strangers to each other
bound by blindness
and gorgeous imperfections;
each an abstract reflection
of another.
Guilty.
Not guilty.
Human.
Human.

I remember a night

half smoked spliff
dipped in red wine
napping on the windowsill
I don't remember
when I first heard
I'd rather go blind
and when I turned off the lights
a handful of deep breaths
passed
before my eyes adjusted
to see a newly naked
old tree
posing outside my window
it painted my bedroom walls
with the shadows
of its anatomy

(what a blonde)

I saw your face
in the street lamp behind it
and I'm starting to fall
less in love with you
and more in love
with the shadows
you cast.

Somewhere
Along this rusty railing
sits a fairy who smokes cigarettes
and prays for all of the busy people
that walk by
with their eyes to the sidewalk,
who have given up on writing
their own songs.
She sees children in expensive suits,
asking stupid questions like,
"What is the thread count on this piece?"
She prays and laughs at herself,
but her days of crying are over.
People are like corks
flying off of champagne bottles.

This poem is for:
Bluejays that love the blues.
Tigers, not liars.
Beggars, not leapards.
Dogs that walk without leashes
and their human friends
trying to get rid of theirs.
Well rested trees in April,
and all birds....
even penguins.
This poem is for
people who don't take life too seriously.
It is especially for
the ones that
do.

Worms eat the dirt in
front of them
and leave their ****
behind them.
It is a ******,
yet noble existence.
And when the sun comes up
the robin will pull
yet another juicy one
out of the soil.
Until then,
leave me behind, love.
Eat your dirt, love.

The mountains never play dress up
and sometimes I feel
like we shouldn't either.
But that doesn't
cleanse us
of the sad reality
that we do,
the sadder reality
that we can't help it.
We throw lights on trees,
as if the moon doesn't exist,
like a child who makes a cake
only out of frosting.
We put lipstick
on cuts that need stitches,
and I'm reluctant to admit
I find that painfully gorgeous.
We pour dressing
on salads,
and talk about the weather,
and then pour dressing on that as well.
Even when we undress,
we still cover each other
with dots of infatuation,
but neglect the reality between them.
That's where the honey is.
There is a sweetness to our naivety.
It is an unpredictable ghost
that drinks the ocean
through a straw
and sings hallelujah
to draught stricken fields.

I've seen sorry clowns,
happy hobos,
and a sun that's tired.
Lucky black cats
intelligent rats,
and words that expire.
Today I played hopscotch
with my demons
and fell in love
with multiple strangers.
It's easy peasy
lemon squeezy.
Squeeze me tighter.

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.

I knew a boy
who wanted the whole world.
And he almost had it.
He wrapped his arms around it all
and just as it was about to finally be his
he realized
he had no place to put it,
except for exactly where it already is.
So he let it be,
exactly where it is.
He painted it with evergreen eyes.
And as he smiled at it,
it smiled back.

I’m learning
that there is no such thing as a ****
and that the space
in which we fall
is precious.
I’ve dismounted
my three legged horse.
I’ve cast aside my sword.
I made a coffee table out of my shield.
I’m learning how to untie my shoes.
I’ve learned that
when we love,
a tiny man
at the center of the earth
puts another quarter into the machine
and the world
continues
to spin.

It is the elephant
before it knew the big lights
and roaring crowds
of blind mice
at the circus.
It isn't the black ink tattoo
that you left on my heart.
It is the only bullet
I almost didn’t catch in my teeth.
It’s not you.
It was you.
The bus sized trumpet
that screamed sugarcane rain
through the soul in my spine.
Life sings to us
in tongues
we are no longer fluent in.
Sometimes I think
the only way to step the stones
is to burn between them,
burn like an ant
under a magnifying glass.
If you ever have the chance
to ask a burning man if he's bored,
ask him.