It is times when we are ripped away by facts,
That we hate this illusory dream,
Of tangled hair with kissing fingers,
Tantruming under lovers seams.

Oh to touch such dark hair,
To line my skull with such thoughts,
And decorate a house unkempt,
Destroy the cobwebs and chaos.

I am but a single placement in the sky,
A blip of light etched to the back drop of night,
Attracting, making a binary star,
Kissing into cold airs space finding his broken piece of heart.

Who said cemeteries are for the dead?
For those who celebrate such silence
A commotion’s something too.
Crow about the stones, smeared by sun  
All gawking formal and sharply dressed, rung  
A black congregation that drilled and sermoned  
My ears down to coffin nails beneath  
My feet, a voice that hung the wanting
Waves.  

And over head I saw the braised yearling  
Eagle bobbing past the undivided sun,  
Who tottled about the sky in circles out  
Of center, a wearing down of gear
Churning with the grave
Bruising birds, that spoke  
And wheeled over dusty  
Stones.  

Sea spray, leaning trees, slant  
Of cloud, spilt green grass of one  
Sided mosses all pointing which was to be —
The way,  

And leaving there, I saw the sign and it read:  
    ‘Ocean View Cemetery,’
Opens at sunrise —
Closes at sunset.

I always wanted a treehouse
somewhere to escape
to a world that might someday be
something like
those fantasy books I'd read.

A place where magical creatures might finally approach me
and take to me on an adventure
And my life would finally begin.

My dad and I built the treehouse
from remnants of an old porch
with a giant glass window
to look out from
and see the passing deer
the chirping birds
that one white tree in the distance

One day I heard noises
Looked into the backyard
Saw a group of boys jumping out of my treehouse
I thought it was locked.
Went back there
only to find the glass wall in shatters on the ground.

A new wall was built
out of wood
but by then I had outgrown the treehouse
and moved on to other dreams
that wouldn't live up to my expectations either.
But I keep on wishing.

you are sitting next to the boy who drove you
to the fast food restaurant, who drove you to
prom, who drives you crazy,
the one tapping his fingers
down the swell of your forearm,
the one you love in pictures, in postcards,
in senior photographs with his tie askew.

you love him the only way you know how,
call him crying and ask for help
but desperation is not reciprocal,
and needing someone will not
make them need you.
it has taken you much of a lifetime to
learn this.

in the passenger seat,
in the plastic bucket chair,
in the doorway as you convince them to stay open.
you are sending dark globes flying down a polished lane,
all flashing lights and glossy surfaces,
stale breath and obscenities.
you bowl a gutter ball.
you bowl a strike.
this will be the night you realize
he fits you no better than the lurid shoes
cramping your toes.

at his house, at his kitchen table,
in the chair he eats breakfast in every morning,
you are staring down the fist-shaped
hole in his wall, jagged edges
and dark spaces,
it keeps showing up in your poems.

on the artificial green of the mini golf place
down the street,
on the metal bench with the arms
too cold to hold you,
on the luminescent dance floor as he says your name,
watching him heal from heart surgery
wondering what you’d have to do
to make him love you as much
as his body loves catastrophe.

in the backseat with the broken subwoofer.

under the fluorescent lights, your hands unintelligible,

you are crying but you don’t know it yet.

here I am leaving you warnings, here I am
singing you to sleep,
here I am bookmarking your memories
with the words you should have heard.

when he speaks, listen to his words but do not
picture him speaking, do not crinkle with the creases
beside his eyes. do not fall.

he will not catch you.
he will not care.

do not call him next week, on your birthday.
do not tell him about how your father made you cry
or how you feel alone at night.

he will not love you for it.

here you are reading the pages you’ve written about him. don’t cry.
wrap the ribbon from the bouquet he gave you
around the handle of your dresser.
do not think he’ll give you anything else.

on the sand glazed with seawater,
on the overstuffed couch with the cool kiss of a cell phone
against your ear,
in the arching concert hall with the chapped wooden seats,
you are saying his name.
he is there and there and there, laced through your life
like a child’s frayed ribbon, unraveled and imperfect and beloved.

he is beautiful and he is broken
and you love him for the scars he leaves
but you can’t will people back together.
you cannot fix this.

he is telling you he’s leaving and he means it.

he is not yours to miss.

Love is a terrible thing.
A horrid and invisible thing.
The one thing that defies the human
Fear of the unknown
Oh but we want to know it.
We want to see it to hold it
So badly that over the millions of years
Of both our and its existence
We have died for it, killed for it
Begged and sobbed on our hands and knees for it
This invisible force of good feelings and warmth
That we think circles tangibly around us-
Swims and ebbs around our fellow man
Connecting us all and touching the lucky ones
But it isn’t enough.
We want to see it.
We want love to take a form we can mimic
And hold forever
So over the years we have thrown things at it.
Hoping love could somehow catch it
Be consumed by it, covered in it
Its illusive form reveled to us finally
With our clever trick
Writers douse it with ink
Artists with paint
Bakers with flour
Churches with gospels and white ropes
And smartest of all
Teenagers, who throw at it their own bodies
Hoping to trap it somewhere
Between both of their naked beings
Those teenagers  who don’t have anything else to offer it yet
Nothing to throw at it
Nothing to lose in it yet
Still thinking love isn’t a terrible thing.