Do walls listen
Do chairs
Call up their friends at night
To tell them all my secrets?

Do couch cushions ever
Groan with the weight
Of people
And their feelings?

Do rugs spy?
Do pillows fear?
Do end tables lie?
Do bookshelves hear?

Do stuffed frogs comprehend
That they're hearing all my thoughts?
Or are they merely upset
That I squish them too hard?

Do lamps remember
What I said last week?
Do potted plants and decorations
Gossip among themselves?

Do floors ache
When they hear the truth
Finally spoken from my lips
Do walls listen?

you could knock
me over with a
puff of smoke

you know why
i've had a headache
in my sinuses
for three days?

it's from forcing
tears to
stay
up there

you could knock
me over with a
puff of smoke
but please don't

i hate
feeling
this way

weak

weak

weak

i feel
weak ******

like you could
knock me over
with a puff of smoke
and i wouldn't
be able to
get back up

and i hate
feeling
this way

worn down
like an old
washcloth
more holes
than fabric
begging
to be
ripped in half

weak
if i open my
mouth to
speak
i will be
drowned
out in my
own sobs

wanted to believe
i was strong
as strong as
any man out there
but if i can't even
speak how can
i possibly be
that strong?

weak
my body is tired
my mind is tired
my emotions are tired
and worst of all
i'm weak

and you could
knock me over
with a puff of smoke
and i will break

*i hate feeling
weak ******

We all need
A sanctuary.

Admittedly, I've got
My own
Maybe most of us
Do.

But mine has cracks in
The walls and dirt
On the glass and too
Many memories.

But we all need
A sanctuary.

Admittedly, sometimes I
Borrow someone else's
Lie on the floor and stare
Up at my anxieties.

Watch the yellow light flicker
Under the dim wooden
Pews, the lines where the
Walls meet.

We all need
A sanctuary.

We do not speak
Of what happened in the woods.

It was a
Smashing good
Night
Smashing good
Show
Simply
Smashing.

I brandished a golf club
And the remnants of
My self-respect
But didn't we all?

We do not speak
Of what happened in the woods.

Three wine glasses
One mug
Three jars
A house fan
Two buckets
A glass globe
Half a tent
A milk jug
And a lawn chair
Met their demise
At the hands of a string
Of curse words.

I doubt that you could
Break the five of us apart
Now that we've shattered
This glass together.

And I'll start checking off
Those daring
Squares on my
Bucket list.

But we do not speak
No, we never
Ever speak
Of what happened in the woods.

teeth shouldn't
lie on pavement
and blood shouldn't
run down your face

and as i dragged
myself along the
side of the road
i thought to myself

this is the lowest
moment of my life

flat on my back
staring into the
12 o'clock high sun
and sobbing

i wanted to die before
this moment but now
it's only reinforced
cemented in place
that in fact i can't
do anything right

some wise woman
supposed sage of ages
once told my mother
that for every great emotion
a person needs a physical
container to put it in

but what should one do
when their container
has always been a retainer
that now doesn't fit?

hit where it hurts most
my mouth
years spent suffering
so i can wake up
every morning with a
fresh twenty dollar smile

and now that's
all gone i suppose

maybe i'm vain
or maybe i'm dumb
but the smile makes
the woman and mine
is looking like i'm
not so human

penny for my thoughts?
i'd give a lifetime of
change jars to get
back my perfect teeth

as a child my mother told me
i would be a writer someday
because i was always asking
"what if?"

but now i'm twenty
years old and i only
write when i'm
trying to forget

as a child my mother told me
i would be a writer someday
if i just kept asking
"what if?"

but i just grew up to have
an anxiety disorder

you’re free now
to live your life
the way you want
for the first time ever
it’s all your choice
to make

and until you find
someone who can live
without telling you otherwise
it will stay that way

and what i forgot
to tell you is

(now keep in mind that
nobody can tell you
what to do this is just
a suggestion but
as you know i am blessed
with superior knowledge)

that you and me
(maybe macklemore
but we don’t plan
our futures around
such fickle creatures
as that disreputable
species known as men)
will find a cute little
lake town
the kind with rich
snobbish retired folks
and tourists
and boat tours and all
that watery nonsense

and we’ll open an
adorable little shop
and sell flowers
all sorts of
artistanal gifts
and we’ll have coffee
and warm homemade
pastries in the mornings

and we might not get
rich but we’ll make a
living which is all
that really matters

and we will retire
about 70
sell our shop to some
young whippersnappers
that remind us
of who we were when
we were younger
and more foolish

(but don’t assume we
will be significantly less
foolish at this point
in fact i hope that we
will actually age like
some sort of hilarious
variety of moldy cheese)

and we shall retire
to our tiny little
lake front residence
and occupy a front porch
with a glass crystal pitcher
of well-spiked peach tea
and jeer at everyone under the
age of eighty who passes by

and that, my dear
is what i wanted to express to you
that you’ve got
an entire life ahead
of you and cannot afford
to be put on the back burner
for somebody else’s
shimmery dreams of grandeur

so don’t think
too hard about my plan
because that’s all just
castles in the clouds
the story i tell myself
at night when i’m too
worried about the future
to get to sleep

but think
about this

today was not
the end
today was another
day in the very
mucky and unsubstantiated
middle segment of your life

(the middle is
the worst
like the middle of an afghan
or the middle of a poem
that is quickly derailing
from the original point
and i am afraid that when we’re
neither young nor old
but middle aged
nobody will laugh at our jokes
except ourselves
so maybe it doesn’t even matter)

and now
you get to
wake up tomorrow
and continue on
with your life
the way you want it

(which isn’t to say you’ll
live it alone forever but
you must live it alone until
you know you can survive alone)

so this is what i’ve been
meaning to tell you

other people come and go
(except me
you’re stuck there)
but you will spend
more time with yourself
than anybody else

and i’ve been
meaning to tell you
life goes on and
you’re going to get old
and it’s better to grow
old at peace with your
choices than to be
young forever and fooling
yourself into thinking
things will change
so there’s no doubt
you did the right thing

so here’s the
point of all this

i love you
and have always tried
my best to be your
biggest supporter
but that’s going
to change today

because today
was your first lesson
in being your own
biggest supporter

so cheers to this
the future
growing old
and growing happy

now get out there
an knock em dead

first i would take the
grassy fields that
touch the blue

and i would roll
them up
like when i was

a child helping
put away the
tape-lined carpet.

next i would skim the
clouds off the milky
backdrop of your mind

and i would stir the
sunset from straight
red plains

into a hazy
blur in the
eastern sky.

and finally i would tightly
wrap the stars in place with
a wire jewelry kit

make sure the elastic thread
around the moon was
glued and secure

flip some hidden celestial
switch and watch it
glow against cool skin.*

and i would
do all of this
for you.

here is what
we are not
going to do

we are not going to
play taylor swift’s
latest album a
half dozen times

and we are not going to
get drunk on ****** sweet red
wine from a three liter bag
mixed with lime gin

and what we are most
certainly not doing today

is crying
and crying
and crying
and crying

mostly over what
didn’t happen
and what won’t happen
and what can’t happen

not
doing
that
today

and we are not
slipping darkly
down into the space
between the bathroom floor
and reality where
the bath mat lives and
i start to get afraid of myself

we are not falling
into the trap
of blood on skin
like drops of that bad
red wine dried and
left to oxidize

so here’s to what we’re
not going to do today

but then what
are we going
to do today?

when did the
mirror break?

a different angle
for every mood
sharper lines
and harsher truths

jaggedly cut through the glass
same stripes up my sides
personal lightening storm
down my shoulders and thighs

when did the
mirror break?

when did fat stop
being a feeling
and more of just
a state of being?

seek immediate emergency help
if you are hearing voices
having urges to hurt yourself
or feeling suicidal

but emergency help
won't always help

you can't call a hotline
in the middle of lunch
can't leave your job for a
week while you're in the hospital

can't stop everything
just because the thoughts
that follow you around don't
quiet to a dull roar

the dishes must be done
even if the knives are screaming
to be used on skin
the medications must be taken
every morning and not
swallowed in handfuls

the dog must be walked
leash attached to the collar
and not wrapped around your neck
and showers need to be taken
even while you feel yourself
drowning under waves of
things you do not understand
and emotional hurricanes that
threaten to destroy your cities

the world must keep turning
as you keep resisting

and you
must
keep
resisting

please
keep resisting

i can't say the fog will
someday lift and leave a
golden vista every morning
for the rest of your life

but i promise
it might be worth your
pain to find out that
some days are distinctly
lighter shades of gray
even when it rains

My therapist has a
white noise machine
Outside her
office door.

It sounds like a
box fan in the
Summer and a
coffee *** in the
Morning and a
distant vacuum cleaner
All at once.

And you can hear
voices over it but
You can't hear
what they're saying.

I have a
white noise machine
Somewhere in the
back of my head.

It sounds like
radio static
The loose noise
they put in the
Backing tracks of
songs and it never
Shuts off.

And I can hear my
thoughts over it but
I can't hear
what they're saying.

Empty church chairs
Keep the light on upstairs
You said You had a plan
But here's the moving van
And I wonder why I ever cried
To leave these halls and whitewashed walls
And learn to be.

Woodgrain runs through the patterns of my youth
And I keep running from the truth
Those hundred and eighty eyes were blind
To what they put me through
The truth, the truth
I just keep running from You.

Dewy morning haze
Lazy pajama days
We just need perspective
To find our real objective
And I wonder why I ever tried
To fit myself into that shell
They made of me.

Woodgrain runs through the patterns of my youth
And I keep running from the truth
Those hundred and eighty eyes were blind
To what they put me through
The truth, the truth
I just keep running from You.

I can play the victim well
Walking on the line between Heaven and Hell
We're living in this great divide
Of time and space and sin and pride
To take a stand you will need nerve
So choose today who you will serve.

Woodgrain runs through the patterns of my youth
And I keep running from the truth
Those hundred and eighty eyes were blind
To what they put me through
The truth, the truth
The truth
The truth is that
I can't stop running from You.

i can picture it
dusty desert roads
old motels when the
sky opens up and the
holes in the tent leak
the empty rooms and
bare mattresses of a
creaky single wide

a patch of wall where
a cross once hung for
so long the wallpaper
holds its faded image

payphones and
diner booths
card games and
cold pews

(sunbeams dreamily
landing in your eyes)

i can almost taste
cola flavored slushies
cans of beans and
cigarettes and coffee

and smell burnt pancakes
egg casserole the way grace's
mom made it at home
secondhand smoke a bonfire
made from incense and an
abandoned white church

i can hear the songs
the laughter tears and
screams to heaven over
rumbling rubber tires

i know the way they
talk and theorize
argue and laugh
cry and pray

i've felt it before
somewhere here
and there in
twinges of time

but nobody ever claimed
you could wander the
world in one day or that
writing a gospel was easy.

you've tried
to pinpoint
the exact time
and place in
life that i
went wrong

(not wrong
i should say
changed
depressed)

and so far you've
come up with a
whole bunch of
different situations
you believe
contributed

and i've come up
with a whole bunch
of questions
as to why i can't just
be wrong in
peace
instead of wrong in
pieces.

It's so
yellow
The walls are
all yellow
It's so
empty
And I can't
look up from the
Golden
table.

I guess I just
don't have
Anything
to say.

It's got some
yellow
Sticking my toes
between strands of
Scratchy acrylic
my mother's words
An unintentional reminder of
who I am not.

Sunlight
yellow
Containers
yellow
I DON'T HAVE
THE PATIENCE
to pick at the beaded
lint
MAKE IT ALL STOP
YELLOWING

I won't
yellow
I'll be
YELLING
screaming
IT'S ALL
yellow.

there are two floors
in my house
an upstairs
and a downstairs

separated by a
gray and green
concrete stairwell
where the footsteps
echo and voices bounce
against the fluorescence

i like the stairwell
it's transient and
i spend a lot of
time just running
up and down it
down and up it

there are two floors
in my house

the upstairs doesn't have
a roof. it has a white
background and blue
skies. the carpet is the fluffy
enough to sink your toes into
the wood floors are
pale. there are parachutes
hot air balloons. birds.
paper planes. kites. all things
aerial swirling around my head

the downstairs has black
ceilings and a cold concrete
floor. it stains your feet black
and sends chills up your legs and
up your spine when the chains
and cages rattle. chains. cages
are mostly what's down there
and they rattle. they rattle a lot

the upstairs has a piano and
polariod pictures. soft blankets
sweaters and a coffee fountain
right in the middle. there are
puppies and yarn and the puppies
play in the yarn. but the yarn
never gets tangled or linty and
there's always a sunset or sunrise
a fresh start or a peaceful end
depending. hot tea twinkly lights
candles and old movies or shows
oh and a lake. my very own lake
and the colors! there is every
color imaginable upstairs

but the downstairs is very quiet
very dark. no windows or sun
and the only creatures playing
are the ones in the cages
knitting shadows into gray
monochrome striped ski masks

there are more things upstairs
things even more pleasant than i
even just described. like fish tanks
and umbrellas. bicycles and
brightly painted cows. but i often
forget the lovely tableaus up there

when the groaning and clanking
from the basement echoes up
the stairs and i creep down
to see what's happening

and the black
begins to seep
i get trapped
down there sometimes
down in the musty damp
with the ghosts and fear

and i wish i had
a yellow helium balloon
tied to my wrist
to pull me back upwards
back to my safe world
of fresh paint and denim

there are two floors
in my house
an upstairs
and a downstairs

where shall
i sleep tonight?

the best gift
i got this year for christmas
was beginning to
understand who
you are as a person

what happens when the
emotions i know you keep
deep down inside somewhere
bubble up and you
explode a little

and how you see
the world
and people
and life
and me

the dimple in your right
cheek when you laugh
a genuine laugh
the tiny wart on
the back of your hand
the patch of fuzz
at the bottom of your back
the way your lips remind me
of peaches in the summer

how looking at you is
gazing into the sunset
how leaning on you is
everything i ever needed
how kissing you is
soft and precious
some days and
fire and chills the next

and i say i love you
an awful lot

but i mean it
an awful lot

and i’m used to making
your coffee every day
but every day i think about
how much i want to make
your coffee every day
for the rest of our lives