On Fri-the-day in Physics
we spent all trying on movie scripts
cutting them down, wrapping them around our calves like
shin-guards, tight and vaguely reassuring
And have I read it? just the first
You tell me juice instead of grey
I wish you best but do not say so
a woman makes a cup of her heart, and in that way I hear
how he came home to
a surprise celebration of Gerald
(tunes with mountains and bears)
the hell's bells man, what a sweet sound
they were
some kind
of astounding

Cold, tilted
Despite the blood and the parchment
And the warm, dry tint
His eyes are closed,
He’s sleeping?

A warning, a memorial
A testimony
A revolution’s star,
Supernovates.

I do not know what his secrets are
I always wonder at funerals
My money’s on a hidden love
For Charlotte Corday
People tend to love their murderers

For K:

As I was sitting,
  legs lotus-folded (like human origami)
Listening to your message
Thinking how your wry wit always
  sends trickles of glory into my laugh

As I was listening,
ears cold without the warmth
Of your conversation to heat them
I wished for your kind of company,
  like a museum in the rain

And I was thinking
I don't know what this means

I was searching for evidence
like a deaf man for music
Or perhaps more like a dust mote
looking for home

Perhaps more like a map
Embossed vellum with names of
Places etched meaningfully
With red dotted trails leading
Looping and folding back into themselves
Except the X is absent

I was looking for meaning
in the ideas we'd shared
And here is the truth, I do not
twinge with dolorousness
I do not keep souvenirs of you

You will find no evidence of the time
          (chalk-dusted fingerprints on cold glass)
Spent with me until you
          (hush and behold the mystery)
reach to discover moments
          (hidden and higher than most)
Stacked tall in my memory
          (tip the shelves in the library, it all tumbles down)

Hold those words out
Eject them form hibernation
Toss them, set them
Let them hang in the air

Watch to see if they sparkle
           Or dart or cut or
                     Just hang
Watch to see if they lash back

Did you chew them seven times before you spoke them?
Seven and seven again before you woke them?

Heed history's dark edges
Clever words lead to high ledges
And revelry will flee
Without two glances back

So
   Hold them close up to you
      Cultivate them, flowing through you
          Hang them in the air like stars
To see if they will sparkle

I love the smell of gasoline
Blue flowers, and green neon lettering
Embarrassing-honest people
The words nocturnal, cavalier, and arable
Reading, reading is my second-best to humans,
Greek mythology, all mythology
Solving math equations, being surprised
The soft waves of my mother’s hair
All kinds of clouds and rain
Smooth fabrics, sharpened-pointy pencil-tips
Gravelly voices
      and exploring

With and without
  Hush now, don't pout
Running my hands through my hair
Quantum mechanics
And butterfly feet
  I can't tell you why
Elephants, unable to jump
Bats, with bones too thin to walk
  Just hold on tight
We are all the children of nine
With or without

You think my soul is lovely
  And my diction dazzling
    what kind of friends are we
       I ask, passingly

      We are so good

A moment's pause

I hold my breath
  In that instant you drop off to sleep
    And I whisper to the dark room
       *The best

Don't worry about what your aunts say
Or your uncles
I will protect you from the brunt of
Their recriminations and disappointments
Who asked them, anyway!
They don't know how you feel exposed
And naked when they heap lectures on you
They don't know what you went through
With your latest loves and failures
They do not know how I will fight for you
When push comes to shove and I grow claws
Friends? The very best, the best I've ever known

Yet you would leave me hanging
Out the window
Avid in my interest for you
Mid-gesture, mid-thought
Interrupted

Yet left hanging would I still sing
Thinking naught of chilly shoulders

Yet in laughing you are dying
Listener, I am, and sorrowed
Your softening whispers coaxing
Think you that a lower volume
Will set your words to a gentler scheme

Look at how we treat our dear young men
Appointed to do our ***** work
While we are sitting down in comfort in our homes
We ask them to ****** for our sins

Please do not hold your head down so low
And know that I forgive you from the bottom of
The hollow space that used to be my soul
Before it was stolen in the heartbreak of the world

Their hearts are laden down and bowed
With lead and the things we never should have left unsaid
Those things that are beating through their heads
And bruising all the beautiful clear air

“Little child listen close to me”
But do not hold their words as law
They have not seen the sights
That you wish you’d never saw

Maybe all you want is to go home
To curl up with the blankets up around your chin
To have a hand to hold as memories walk by
To have someone to hold you while you cry

The pain you go through
I do no pretend to comprehend
I will not insult you in that way
I can thank you for the days I live

But how can I apologize
For those who will not see the sun’s sweet light
Even one more time
With their dead and open staring eyes

Please do not hold your head so low
And pay your penance out with honor
Serve your sentence and know
That there is pridefulness in lingering too long
On things that only God above can heal

Let the gentling tide of evening come
But do not walk in shame you did not earn
Perhaps you did things you do not want to own
You thought once that you were serving for the good

My life and the lives of others
You have swayed
Are precious to us and our families
More than diamonds or foreign gems of jade

Please do not hold your head so low
Maybe you feel a debt
But do not walk in shame you did not earn
There is pridefulness in lingering too long
On things that only God above can heal

It is the long, hot summer nights like these
that leave me transfixed,
So hot, it feels as if my skin is glowing, as if
I could simply
burn up,
wasted by fire from
a deep within.

The water, cold tap, does little
but the
little
it
alleviates
is enough.

How can it be that I am so feverish?
Am I delicate?!
made of paper?!
to be consumed?!

I have always
been a warm sleeper,
my body raising the temperature
of a room,
and even
unconscious
I take care to kick away my covers
to get them away
that would so dare to cause my discomfort.

Yet this heat serves a purpose,
as, inflamed,
my brain quiets all distractions
and I am gifted
a blind,
deaf, intense
focus.

Often it keeps me up,
during the hot
dry
desert summer.

Nearly always, this
eerie focus
is aimed wistfully, agonizingly
on cooling down, on twisting, on cold and lovely thoughts.
Icy, unattainable dreams
billow like plasma
through my mind

But they
Are
Only
Dreams,
and it is a kind of torture.

And I loathe to think of it,
but when the nights
grow chill
and I grow
Still,
will not I be
glad of this heat?

Here it is,
here's your plan
there's nothing beyond it,
it makes me sad to see you reach low like this

You want a fancy car
A fancy house
A fancy woman
  (who only says
the right things,
   quietly,
at the right times)
A large salary
No problems
Miniature models of yourself
         well-behaved and clean

You want a stable, antiseptic love
Something static and sterile

Here's news,
If ever I was in tune with
Hermes and his speed and unashamedness,
(He was ever proud of being the God of Thieves)
His partnership with Iris as messengers
It is in speaking to you, now

My dream is not your 'American'
Because if it was,
It would be neat and profitable
Copyrighted to unnamed sources
I don't want that

I want, chiefly,
something frenetic,
Nothing tidy about it,
Cluttered with memories both wondrous and awful

A proudly imperfect man
To share flaws with
To say "You too? I thought I was the only one!"

Problems to muddle through
And be caught in
And solve, with a happy crow of triumph

A small garden, which I will probably end up killing anyway

Rambunctious, willful children
Who will not be afraid to challenge me
Whom I will teach to argue intelligently
Raised to be civil and
Above all, to be curious

I will not mind the mud
And the blood
And the pain
So much at the end

Because I will be able to die
Without shame for the life I lived

What I am trying to say,
with the hope you are not injured,
is that I don't want a part of your envisioned future
I don't want such sweet synthetic sterility
I supremely enjoy the whole of the mess

Delicate as thin, cold glass
I cannot give you what you ask
Why can't I have my time to be
Alone and growing, healthy, free

Where is my bright future now
The silver lining to this cloud
The golden horizon I shaped is dead
Traded for the daisies about my head

chlorine, sunscreen
  we don't breathe too deep
  I'm here, you're not
  I wish you were, I miss you lots
  summer sun, summer heat
  hot tiles beneath my feet

They don't care to ask
I shouldn't care about their cares
But I'm falling
Falling harder every day
Falling back into thirteen
And I have had a headache
(Pounding not through just my head
but my whole body
With every heartbeat)
Since seven-o-clock
I did not want
To tell you so

I have got something to tell you
That you might not want to hear
Or maybe you will. Want to.
I sometimes
When I'm calling you,
will dial my home phone,
Which is silly, because I've
had your number memorized since
8th grade
But I think it's because you feel like home
in my definitions of the world
And you make me feel at home
In myself

It isn't the days that hit me
hard, it is the nights
When, I admit it, I am overcome
and underwhelmed and shaken
I am ashamed to be a human being
To be a part of a race that so violently
mocks any shred of real humanity
And I am selfish and wretched
And I want to love other people
But all it does is make me feel sick
What are we doing to each other?
Self-destruction never stops with you
Perfection is unattainable and that is alright
Not enough understanding
And too much fear
I am proud and I am wrong and I sin
But I would rather dance the fool
I would rather never heal
Than watch what damage we do each other
This is our world we've inherited
But it will ever be on loan to our children
Children who will grow up
To be riddled with the fears of a dying world
And to be burned with the hate
And wickedness we have been sowing for ages
You can't fix it all
But when you are faced with a choice --
Your agency cannot be stolen
Your deeds will define you in ways none of us understand
And I wish to God
That I will make those who are yet-to-be gladdened

A wanting list to haunt
You
During your day
Days
A wanting

Blue rains
To drizzle into my hair
While the neighbors refuse to go inside

Franky-kind-of-fantastic
Glitzy-glamour red-hot nails

And here is our earth!
What have we done?

I want a haunting of
that peace
I felt sometime
Late last forever

Was it this morning,
or a year ago?

Blue rain
Red nails
Black thoughts
Silver stars
No peace

Sometimes --
Somtimes things just
   explode
and there's not a thing to do
So you have to sit back
and let them dazzle you
You couldn't change them,
even if you died trying

You're just a new soul
Swimming around with me
What are you going to say when they find you?
What's the highlight of your victory speech?
I'd like so to hold your hand
We plan your triumphs and mine
And pretend that we are worried
Everyone else will find us out
But these secret marvels are our own
This is something you can't synthesize
And I don't want it forever
Because it terrifies me
That I could take it as granted
That I can feel this wonderful.

I like
The way I smell like you
When I wear your clothes

The inconvenient plant on Tess' table
And the haunted laundry room at Jess'
(The ghost, we've named him Steve)

I can always be safe, if I want to
When I'm around the two of you

And Tess is always catching me from just around the bend of sanity
When I think that I don't know why I'm slipping
Because I think she knows much more than she lets on
About losing to your dark psychoses

But Jess keeps me in touch,
And I really love her for it,
With her dreams and wishes and driving lessons
And her bold vegan ways in a place that is so unfriendly

Sometimes when I'm alone at home and
Cabin fever is much too catching
I'll talk to them and it dissipates so easily
(like gentle mist)

Aside from their assistance, they are beautiful
Their minds are whirling marvels,

And they make me laugh
At awkward intervals
When everyone else in the room is trying
Oh-so-hard to wear austerity
But I am never ashamed

Dancing just outside my reach
Twisting little wraiths
Fractures of a beautiful creature
On the tip of my tongue
I can almost name its name
In a mocking manner
They twirl just a breath further than where I reach
Pretty pale pastels
And vibrant, verdant hues
Whisper just beyond where I can stretch
And they will go on turning
Lilting music murmuring
A background

I
Am not afraid of dying
As you are
I am not
Afraid of dying
With the dread
that you are
I am
Not afraid of dying
on the same level

I'll tell you the story
Sometime
When you stop with the winglessness

I am lonely for you
Which is strange to me,
I do not love you
I don't want your mouth on mine
I don't want your hand on my back
I do not wish we could be together
I do not wonder about the future
  (or try to draw you into it with a charcoal pencil)
But I am lonely for you
I want you, want you, truly, as my friend
But not very close,
I like to keep my distance until I decide
  to give permission
Maybe I will ask you
What you think of kelp
And myths
And a thousand other things
And still I will not know
You see!
I am not lonely for you for a while
And then I think
That I like your jokes
And I wish you could tell me one now
I could use a laugh

I kept a box in the corner
Little box in the corner
Bright colored paper with ribbon
I kept a box in the corner
And dressed it all up
So that no one would find it
Among the other pretty stuff
But now that you've found it
You don't want to let go
You say it's fascinating,
That you're learning things you didn't know
How do I know that
You're telling the truth
How do you do that?
Manage to point out my youth
I've got a little box in the corner
Bright colored paper and ribbon
Little little box in the corner
Where am I going to hide it now?
It's a safe for my letters
And jail for the darkness
A bowl for catching fresh-falling rain
Where am I going to put it now?
It's the closest I've got
To Pandora's chest
But it's still enough to incriminate
Box in the corner, blue satin wrapping
Box in the corner, tarnished brass clasps
Box in the corner, holding me inside

we're tip tip tipping
tap tap tapping out a rhythm for our breath
sweet ladles laden lady leaden candles
sticks candlesticks
lime sweet ricky baby
rolling rolling heavy cajoling
you want to know you want to know
greens orange peach and parkas
time with only embers
smelling sweet of sand glass green
lightning what a pretty king

I don't know if
                
                   what a terrible mundane

We can't go with

                   don't talk to me about staying sane

Please don't guard shift

                  you really don't grasp my brain

I never asked you for the things you gave me
I never asked
But you didn't even care

If I had asked,
would you have shut me out?
Or would you have given more?
Of your overflowing wine
of life or love or energy
( or whatever it was
  that you folded into my hands
  like the most secret-sacred treasure map )

You would sometimes catch me
In a gaze like a doe
Ask me things
That took time to sink in
Because I was being distracted
By my urge to count your eyelashes

We could never go outside in the cold
Because you were terrified
That your breath would crystallize  and twist inside your lungs
But you loved to see how long you could hold your breath for
Underwater

There would be pauses
As time stilled to take a look at us
To check that we really were still there
And everything around us swirled
Like autumn leaves or glitter stars
Our glances would solidify
And memory struck out to capture snapshots

Everly, I never asked
Not even once, but you still gave
Everly, I can't quite grasp

I see you sometimes
When the sunshine's wounding bright
Yellow, cheerful, heavenly
And I look into the shadows
To find rest for my eyes
I can never keep straight the present and the past
So when I look in the shade
I see ghosts of you sprawled out, laughing, head tilted back, hands splayed

Your sighs were soft
But you only ever sighed them
When your face shone
With a lovely glow of indulgence

We watched Hitchcock religiously
We wouldn't give them up
You said that you liked Vertigo the best
But you never told me why

I'll hold your friendship
In the cup of my hands
While wonder fills up slowly
Where my thoughts should be
I'll peer over my thumbs
To steal a peek at the clear blue crystalline
Effervescent memories

I will remember you foreverly
My word

I like the way that you hold your guitar, just as if it were the center of your being and all your smiles and scars were as engraved as you pretend I am upon your heart

We both know that it’s a ploy and we don’t stop, we dig right in with vengeance customary of the long-forgotten crusades against the ones we thought were wrong

And if I’ve ever kissed you a goodbye, please forget me now or sometime soon, you see, I only kiss the people I dislike, and please forgive me post haste

But don’t forget to tip the waiter, you always did, or was that just to con me into putting my arm ‘round your waist in an apology for paying my own way, I’ll never know

Your eyes reminded me of pearls, every time, and they opened up into the color of the sky on the brightest night, or can you ever understand just what this means

I couldn’t ever get over your tears, they stung me as if they’d been my own blood

You held me as if you were trying to imprint urgency into my soul to match the depth of loneliness you thought I held to cover up my ears, but you were wrong

Because the way I toss and turn and twist when I’m asleep you were so concerned that I had something you could not repair, renew, replace with silken sincere sweetness

But cold and desolate is something that I could never be, I’m built off center without the bit that programs things important such as
Self-preserving fear and envy, things that people say I need or I’ll just end up broken down somewhere, I don’t believe you, I can see just how you set things up to your advantage, that’s a human thing, rest assured, and do not be so afraid,
There’s so much reason to the way you think and feel

So I’ll take your hand as we walk to the tracks, I will not kiss you a goodbye, my precious friend we have told too much, the stories overlap and run.

I’ll turn to you as you tug on my arm, you think perhaps there’s one last chance to keep me here, don’t waste your time, Farewell, I loved you all the way

Your eyes reminded me of pearls, reflected from the bottom of the ocean up into the starry sky

Let's not do this again
I'm not going to be the one in the middle
You know as well as I do
We just can't take much more
She's the choice you've got to make


(Who's walking out the door?)

I fought
I caught
I tried
I lied
It didn't work out
Try a new thing
Your scent
Not meant
To steal
My feel
Away, the birds flew away
Dear Austin,
Don't throw
Yourself in front of trains
Your smile
Cuts wheat
From all the lit-up fields
The flow
The show
The things we hang from walls
You know
The drills
The chills
The thrills
Don't sweat
The things
That we stole from the sea
Your threat
The bet
Why don't they just see for themselves
We whiled
Our time
To things, things, things, things, things
You get
Your kicks
From novelty and svelte foreigners
I like to spy
On people in the library

Did I happen yesterday?
Did I see the sun?

Did I happen yesterday?
Where can I find a nook
To tell you what I stole?
Did I happen yesterday?

Intoxicating run
Purpled ink flowing free
Instead of eking blood

When shall we say the things we know?
When do you let me in?
Did I happen yesterday?
Is telling life a sin?

Do you remember Mexico?
How old were we then, twelve?
That place was so loved
It smelled like dust and slow-cooked beans
We caught a toad
We painted dorms
El Sauzal, the willow, the willow
A beaten-up concrete playground
Bright, yellow sun
Red, sticky Fanta
Worn-in smiles adjusting to the smell of strangers
I fell in love with a Mexican boy
We didn't even play soccer together
Watched a movie in a language neither of us spoke
Climbed trees with leaves that needed a rake
Cleaned a nursery room
Told scary stories around a red campfire
Letting the world seep into our veins
Saw the dolphins when we camped at the beach
Named and re-named the tick-ridden dogs
The water was wetter
The air was headier
The sun shined more unrelentingly, more heavenly
The blisters harder-won
The rain more of a blessing
The life so much more tangible and delicious

I've seen my, had my share

of leavings
of leavers
of being left

of 'oops'
of 'ouch'
of 'sorry'

And I'll keep coming back
Who doesn't?
Who wouldn't?

We put up
with thorns
for a scent
a sight
a feel
of the rose

We put up
with banishment
for a taste
of the apple

We forgo the apple
For armfuls of blossoms

But here's the line
I've drawn it
Don't cross it

Have your flings
your loves
your losses

Fall in
Fall out
Fall halfway
of love

I won't stop you

But don't dare
Don't you dare
Say it doesn't mean a thing

To see you with someone else

Don't tell me
That her caressing look
Her kisses
Your betrayal

Don't mean anything

They do

I am too inconsistent
I'm sick too deep to fully heal
    (in time for your bouts of playfulness)
I'm a little close to the edge
I have a hard time keeping
    up with the changes, broad view
I do not like your brother
I can't cook worth dirt

But

You do not see people as they think they are
You act a little slantwise
You can't stand my quiet disorder
You have some strange compulsions
You just need to grow up
You always cry wolf

I.  Attributes
She's quiet,
she smells good
People don't notice her
She loves like it's something to be guilty for
She's willing to let you go
In exchange for just a few seconds,
Even a passing glance
It would be pathetic
Except for the tragedy
She drips sorrow
It's painful to even watch
She's elegant,
reminds me of silk
And expensive lace
A whiff of jasmine perfume
She's leaking at the edges
With unrequited everythings

II.  As I Watch
You turn away and
With your back toward her
You don't see
or appreciate
The fragile smile she assumes for you
or how
It  breaks
In the fall
halfway between the floor
And her lips.

III.  Objections**
How!
Can you be so cruel?
You don't even notice her!
She's a person!
She's more real than you
How can you be so inconsiderate?
You should be concerned
As if your life depended on it!
Because hers might
And you are stuck

So ignorant

Anastazia*

            'Bubbly?'
I'll pass
                 shrug
           'Your funeral'
Hey. Do you ever noticed that the word* fun
is in funeral? I do. All the time.
                shrug
         'Hey. Don't be morbid.'
                pause
         'I don't like funerals. There's never enough alcohol.'
Yeah.
Never enough for you.
You crazy lush
Why do I love you?
                    shrug
Guess I asked it
out loud

I don't cry,
My eyes leak                            You don't cry,
                                                          You freeze up
I don't love,
My heart breaks                      You don't love,
                                                          You desecrate
I don't think,
My mind creeps                       You don't think,
                                                           You illuminate
I don't act,
I just live                                      You don't act,
                                                            You write the scripts
I don't guess,
I know you                                  You don't guess,
                                                            You feel it out
I don't survive,
I only sneak                                *You don't survive,
                                                            You outshine

Pacing danger streets at night
   Looking for you
   (Looking to fight)

Little girl lost

Dropped down into dirt
      You make me feel high
But I wanna *hurt

You held my hand and said goodbye
We laughed until we couldn't cry
You held my hand and said goodbye to me

I'm sure I'll miss you anyway
Don't make me be the one to say
I'm sure I'll miss you anyway, my dear

We'll always be the best of friends
No matter how our stories end
We'll always be the best of friends through all

Our lives have been so full of sights
And sounds and tastes and new delights
Our lives have been so full of sights and love

So farewell to you, if just for now
Fondest goodbyes, lowest bow
'Farewell to you, just for now,' you say

Sometimes I think
"I'm losing my mind"
It hurts me to realize
That we aren't built to survive
I wish
That we could want life
Instead of this clamor to die
Sometimes imaginary words
Can't heal
The black and blue hues of old harms

I want you, no lie
Just not now
Not right now
Can't handle your madcap adventures
I'm still recuperating
Because I think your love broke my heart

Normally,
I'd love to hear

But not today
No, sorry, no

You expect me to be okay with this
You told me how
You loved me
More than the other girls

And I just wanted to go
Somewhere else
Not in particular
Only away

I was tempted
Think of the status!
The smirks I could hand out
Like halloween candy
(bitter, isn't it?)

And the time I could spend
Just wasting away with you
Volatile and triumphant

And then I was at the edge of a pool
So calm and decided and right

Then the thought snuck in
That maybe you need me,
maybe forever, maybe just one night

And I was disgusted
With me for considering
(You're like a child, after all)
With you for discovering me
But only post-four-month-wait

I really don't mean
Half the things that I say
Don't be intrigued by
My careless lies
You don't deserve me
I don't want you

So let's just call it a day

I...
I just want to wait it all out
Maybe if I cry enough tears I can drown
But I...
I don't want to make any more holes
And I don't want to feel any weaker
So why, why can't we pretend
That this never happened

Next time, maybe, I'll withstand your storm
And next time, I will try to be prepared
Next time I won't get that close
I'll know what's hot enough to burn me
I find it hard to care
That you "didn't mean to"
Next time, I won't be so naive
And I'll be more than ready

So I...
I will find a way out
And I will not sacrifice myself for you
I...
I am growing old
And tired of litanies of lies
You will not meet my eyes
As you apologize
But I don't need you to

My shadow stretched out long behind me
To meet the shadow of my lover
I was jealous that she could brush
     Even a shade of him
She chastised me and whispered,
             "Do not envy
                    Do not mourn
               He rarely
                        But hurt you"
   So I spent my precious moments
Wondering how this wisp of me
                    (A reflection, in a sense?)
Could know such things,
      What did she know!
She disappeared as I walked further,
   Wishing I could saunter and sway
But I did not
      Because she had told me
Something to push the line of logic
   And bring tears of relief unshed to my eyes

I just wanna say
How unlikely  you are
Hey, boy, but I like you
And the stretch from truth ain't far

Multicolored lights
Dancing on the wall
Hey boy, but you fascinate
And that's just overall

How about you and me
Take a waltzy twirl
Hey boy, but it's wonderful
And I love the way you curl

I rose up
and greeted the sun
with pieces of a smile

My brain fogged over
filled with slithering dreams
made of sap

Dust motes
filled my windows,
golden wraiths
twisting to my heartbeat

Slow-motion thoughts
could not get across
so I sped away
through the air

We met halfway
With stories
And warmth

Busily, I swept away
The lingering
Of cobwebby sleep

My mind rose,
A lazy creature
Warmed by the sun
Into wakefulness