they say a goldfish has a memory of only a few seconds

and I think, how lovely, to love and forget

a hundred times a day.

but the wikipedia page on common misconceptions says really

their memory lasts up to several months.

Well if I could forget you every 30 days

that would suffice for me.

Wikipedia doesn’t say whether goldfish

even have the capacity to love

but if they do

it must be often, and sweet, and forgiving

unlike me

who gets hurt once

and never forgets.

at least not this month.

have you ever seem the mouth of a person on psychedelic drugs
their lips stretch in all directions
blissful eyelids creased feeling
little lines
a smile that says
welcome to the limitless universe

you and i drove to oregon in my nightmare
but only after the scary part was over
cruise control
streaks of morning color on the highway when we got to the coast
and drove over the rock
and drove over the wet sand
and drove into the sea
and the waves crashed over us as if to say
welcome to the limitless universe
and silently we answered

at four in the morning you rode your bike to the gas station
the streetlights bled out onto asphalt
ice slick
the illuminated glow-sign posted in the lot
said welcome to the limitless universe
street tires thin as ribbons
4 dollars in your pocket

during a dissociative episode i hit myself over and over
i am still learning how to be kind
i motioned to the spaces around me saying
there is nothing left to find
it is all here, i am here, welcome
to the limitless universe

you breaking my heart is not a cosmic response to all the people whose hearts i have broken
but it sure as hell feels that way and i’m
sorry for the numb that settles over my face to mask
the feelings it wouldn’t be fair to burden you with
so i burden myself and i welcome
the limitless universe

Genius comes with revision
Like the way the best line in a poem delivers an emotional punch
That can't be described, only recreated
By other poets with their sharply focused emotions filtered through words like a camera lens.
Take your poem and photoshop it. Add in blurred edges for
Vagueness. Adjust for context.
Revise, revise again.
I want to revise the way I feel about you
Put it aside like a short story and return in a month with a red pen to make corrections
Love is for people who can't focus
Love is for people with bad photoshop skills
Who keep moving the eraser tool over and over your picture but can't seem to make you fade away
And the images are saved to a permanent file in my heart's hard drive
I want to delete the way I feel about you
It's the wrong extension, and a more experienced photographer would know not to make this kind of stupid mistake
Don't let your emotions get in the way of a good picture
Don't let a good picture get in the way of a major revision
Hold the pen in your hand and deliver an emotional punch
I want to punch the way I feel about you
Crossing you out in every stanza
Until revision makes me a genius
A poem with red lines over my heart.

the way I say softly to myself that 'I miss you'
which I know
is just a whimper into the void
that statistically you are not likely to hear.
I miss you like the sofa misses the softness of our bodies pressed against it
like the lonely astronomer misses the visible path of a meteoroid when it fades from the blackness and a trail of nothing but the glowing memory of burning elements is left behind, a wake for all that seemed to be living but was only a projection, a fossilization in the air, untouchable in the distance, not making sense
like the tv misses our eyes giving it a glance when, occasionally, we looked away from each other
like the everyday visuals of the world miss the added vibrancy of an altered mind
I miss you like my body misses drugs that make things tolerable
I miss us together making the world tolerable without trying.
I miss us like the bats miss the night sky when they sleep crowded in the day-caves, huddled and waiting
Only unlike the night you will not come to me again

The night we got drunk and told each other secrets
Wasn't a good night
But it was a reading poetry night
A looking up poetry on your iphone and reading out loud night
Our favorite verses
Leonard cohen, andrea gibson
We're very different for best friends
But typical, a boy and a girl
Stealing liquor from the grocery store
In my purse, under your shirt
Secrets
A few drinks and you're crying, telling me
People only see your looks
And I think you're superficial, get some real problems
Until you tell me
About how he held you down and tried to choke you
In the middle of the night
Another drink and I'm holding you saying I'm so glad they called the cops
So glad you're here now
So glad we're best friends
So glad we've bonded over shared
Awful secrets
Another drink and you're telling me not to feel self conscious of my scars
That even though they reveal to everyone
The worst thing I've ever done to myself,
And they show this without my consent to anyone who might look
That they are a part of me not to be ashamed of
And you have another drink and say you don't think worse of me
Not anymore.
And we have another drink and look up another poem
Read it out loud until the words are too slurred and we're laughing
Like the worst things that ever happened to us
Are only parts of us
And they can be remembered without falling apart
And forgotten without losing everything
And we have another drink.

You liked my status.
We broke up months ago, but
You liked my status


He broke my heart, so
No matter what facebook says
We're not really friends


I see you're online
I do miss talking, but I've
Got nothing to say

This is a poem about how I'm waiting
But it is not about how alternative I am or how I am writing a book in the coffee shop
I am not writing a book
I'm not writing a book about particle physics
I'm trying to figure out, instead, how love can be simultaneously the most pleasurable and painful feeling
In the entire universal lexicon of feelings
And why I work so hard to get you to say I LOVE YOU
Even though I know it's true from the way you move your face slightly to accommodate mine
And the way you hold me after we have rough *** as if to say
You are delicate and I will not break you
That's love
But I need to hear you say it
I need you to run to where I am sitting in this coffee shop listening to
Country western folk songs on college radio
And tell me
Come into my arms
I love you even when you let yourself go. Even when you dissolve into a million particles I cannot see or even comprehend
Like the Higgs Boson
Or the things they do in the LHC
And love is something, that, like those particles
I am not sure I understand
But it is something that I feel
And I feel it for you.

Do not say the first thing first
Or the last thing last
Do not read the book in order
Do not order yourself not to cry
Take the unordinary and claim it extraordinary
Take the take the fabric and rip it until the holes are wider
Than the holes in your circumstance
Or the holes in your heart

Put down the gun and bandage the wound
That was made without firing a shot
Do not shoot the extraordinary thing
Pick it up and tuck it lovingly in your pocket
Or in your brassiere
Sew the heart up without anesthesia
Wind thread around it tightly
And say out loud the last words you would ever say
Under ordinary circumstance
Do not start at the beginning
Do not rip the book and cry over the pages

Bandage the book
Put down the wound
Read the gun
Claim the heart
Sew the pocket
Wind the rip
Fire the cry
Tuck the words
Shoot the thing

the person who laughed yesterday
is the person who wanted to die today.
and as hard as I try
love will not leave this body.
it will not rise like steam from my skin
as from a teacup in the kitchen.
nor will it exit as sweat
that forms on my back
as I hold someone else in the dark
and gasp for air.
love will not leave in an exhalation
in a breathe that contains your name
and it will not leave in a plume of smoke
blown out through parted lips.
love will not leave this body
in a laugh drawn out on rare occasions
when I forget you for a moment
or in tears drawn out of your memory
when I remember.
love will not leave
this body
as hard as I try.

If I pinned a sign to my shirtfront
Wrote the words "Love Me" in sharpie
And went out into the world alone
And everyone I met looked into my eyes and said
"I love you"
It would still not be enough
Unless you recognized my handwriting.

All the little colors
Exploding from cardboard eggshells on the pavement,
stained with ash
Burning

Look around
Get inside of me
All the fragile heartstrings
Snapping over colored organs
Bleeding little colors

I ripped off my arms so I wouldn't be able to touch
But I still felt the softness of breath and the cold of the wind
And I felt you on my lips
I ripped out my tongue so I wouldn't want to kiss you anymore
But the ache was still there
I felt you in my heart
I ripped out my heart through my ribs, and broke them
So I wouldn't feel the boom boom boom boom under my left breast
But the ****** hollow chamber echoed in remembrance
You are everywhere in me
I tried to end it all so I wouldn't know pain anymore
But this phantom body still feels it all
Wrap your arms around yourself
Run your tongue over your red gums and feel
The chambers of your heart in your chest
Boom boom boom boom

In the movie she says "lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off, but it's better if you do."
And I don't know if she meant that lying improves with the removal of clothing, or that what you do afterwards is a kind of lie
Or at least a masking of the truth, behind need, by omission.
What I would say in the dark if *** had the prerequisite of honesty
Is that I want you to **** me until I do not feel anymore,
until I do not love him anymore.
That I am performing this act as a therapeutic redistribution of my sadness
Across a map in my brain that has beds with stained sheets and parked cars with windows fogged up from the inside-
I want distraction. A lie by way of sweat on your back and the pleasure of forgetting for a moment, hot breath on our necks
I can't ******* as hard
as I miss him.

Loving you is like loving water
So much a part of everyday life
So hard to hold on to
I'm so thirsty.
Loving you is like loving the wind
I don't know which way it blows
Or where it might lead my sails
You don't know either, and you refuse to use
The instruments of navigation.
Loving you is like loving an astronomer
Who stares at things so far away
And knows the alignment of the stars but not
How much I need you
You can't remember how to love anything up close.

Q:  When is the right time to tell someone you love them?


A: When it's true.