Anxious.
Like the attachment style.
Becoming involved,
and over-thinking everything.
That's what you called that, right?
Over-thinking
these old insecurities that I can
never seem to
quite push
away
for good
while my pen bears its ink
down into and past the current
page because all my muscles
are tight
and my stomach is
sick
and my mind
is distracted.

You. You. You.

She'll pick you up,
put you down
once she's read your pages
and harvested your words.
Is it true?

I've been discarded before.

Tried to trap the bird,
what a foolish mistake,
and it flew away
leaving my hands full
of ashes.
I've pushed too hard
and clung too tightly
and lost it all
many times.

I get nervous, but I know my center.

I see your wings,
a magnificent ocean blue
which have been carved
through years of struggle.
Never think that I do not.
I would never deign
to clip them.
I would never make that mistake again.

But I, too, have my share of books
which I have picked up,
read fully,
or half-way,
and put down,
discarded.
I have lifted from branches
and flown further
when I've been trapped,
clipped.

I get nervous.

I want to stay,
more than anything,
but there is fire in my wings,
and fire in yours too.
We are certainly
birds of a feather,
so I wonder,
can we not,
could we not,
should we not,
fly together?

It's obvious, isn't it?
When two similar planets pass by
each other
and get caught in
each other's
gravity.
It's obvious what must happen here.
The words not said
scream loud enough to
bridge the hundreds of miles,
and we still don't
say them.
Not yet.
It's obvious we haven't been here before.
Into uncharted waters,
we move so
very
slowly,
careful not to create waves
before we meet in the center,
careful not to misstep,
so that we can
do things right
for once.
It's obvious.

Knowing smiles,
and playful eyes,
dancing into the night
with words rushing past
satin lips overflowing
into small,
but meaningful silences.
A light beckoning in the world,
to wait,
appreciate,
its singular illumination,
turning this place
more interesting,
and investing in all the
right places.
In these silly, same,
but so different games
we confess ourselves fully
in actions unveiled,
but tip-toe when
speaking, lest the gravity
of it all come crashing
through our lips.

Don't fall in love with a girl who reads.
The girl who feels everything, who dreams, who writes..

Fall in love with the girl you find in a bar. Find her in the squall of smoke and sweat of an upscale nightclub. Make sure she doesn't mix her coffee with bourbon. Love the one shooting tequila straight from a cheap, half-empty bottle. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure it lingers a little too long. Use pickup lines and entertain her with meaningless slurs from a long day and mistakes you know are about to be made. Take her outside and kiss her in the rain because you saw it in a film. Comment on its silliness.

Pull her into a tolerable relationship. Let the months pass by without remark. Then let years pass by unnoticed. Talk about nothing of significance and retreat into it when the air grows stale and the evenings become long. Fight about how the shower curtain needs to be kept closed. Propose a little later because you realize you'd have wasted so much time otherwise. Take her to a restaurant that wreaks of marinara sauce and sheepishly ask the waiter to bring a bottle of expensive champagne. Offer up a modest ring and don't become too concerned if you feel nothing of sincerity or commitment. But fake it, ******* it.

Do these things. Because a life lived in purgatory is better than one lived in hell. She will make it hell. I'm begging you, stay away from the one who reads. Who laughs or cries when she makes love. Who can neatly fold her spirit and spin it into prose and poetry. If she loves poetry, run away. Don't dare to look back. She is to be left alone. Dangerous little smiles should make you shake. Do not smile back.

Do not fall in love with a girl who thinks. Who is made up of magic and knows herself. Do not love the one who knows how to disappear inside of a book or a poem or a painting. If she spends any more than a few seconds looking into the eyes of a sinner, get out of there.

Don't fall in love with the girl who is interested in politics, who feels disease in injustices. Don't love the one who is intense, who is lucid and charismatic. Stay away from the one who has any sense of ambition, of rebellion, or even the smallest hint of wonder in her eyes. Be cautious of the ones who can't live without music. If she can draw, quit, and quit fast.

A girl who reads is one who knows herself; who is sure. She is educated and she is fire inside a bottle of rye. The girl who reads is one who is comfortable with goodbyes. Think about it: she's read millions of novels and each one ends. Most end with the death of her favorite character. They make her think. And she flies through the pages like they are wet wine on collarbones. And she is okay with each and every ending. Sure, she might cry, but she'll wipe her face and pick up another book. Just to do it all over again. Remember this if she ever says her favorite book is you.

She is a romantic and how can you match up to the princes and heroes in her books? She knows nothing else. You can't love her the way those characters could if they were to take shape. She holds a vocabulary that lays claim to her ability to distinguish between the specious and the soulless. She holds rhetoric hands that turn black streaks into the books she loves so deeply. She deserves a man who can hold her hand the way she holds her books. Someone who can write her notes and hide them in her lunch box. Can you write in cursive the way she can?

Please, don't fall in love with a girl who reads. Because a girl like that, you never come back from.

I remember picking up the urn
that held your ashes.
They were so much heavier than
I expected.
I was drunk off whiskey,
and it finally hit me.

You were gone.

You visited me in a dream last night.
We laughed.
We used to do that, remember?
I did something goofy,
you made a comment,
we shared a good chuckle.

You showed me what it means to be a real person.
You had your darkness,
like everyone,
but you had your light as brilliant
as anyone's.

You gave us everything you could,
and while I appreciate it now,
I wish I could've appreciated it more
then.

I blame myself for your passing,
I know I shouldn't.
I just wish you were here
to see things now,
see where we are,
as a family.

I called the sky tonight,
just wanting you to know
that the good so outweighed
the bad,
even if we couldn't see it.

I called, just to say
I love you.

It's your birthday today.
You would've been 56 years old.
You kept me, raised me
when I was young,
worked me
to show me discipline,
and believed me when I told the truth.
You made me apologize when
I had said cruel things,
and helped me love the difference
of others.
You believed in me,
and celebrated my differences as well.

One of my fondest memories of us
is when you baby-sat me on a Saturday.
We went to garage-sales.
You bought me every baseball I could find.
They were cheap then,
but I'd give anything to still have one.

I watched you drum away to many songs,
mesmerized,
knowing I wanted to do the same.
I was often behind your drums,
dreaming of things to play.

Today I sat behind a drum kit.
I've been paid to play.
That makes me a professional, right?
You would be proud.

I broke down today, behind that kit,
thinking of you.
I lied, said I needed a bathroom
when really I needed a floor to cry.

I curled up in a friend's bathroom floor,
and, finally,
felt your passing.

I miss you so much.

Be gentle to yourself.
You have fought for this skin,
These eyes,
This voice.

Be gentle to the child inside of you.
When it comes to you, looking up at you
With large, watering eyes,
Brush that loose strand behind the ear
And tell them

Everything is okay

Because no one else will.

Let your thoughts devour you
If they must,
But remember to come up
For air.

Be gentle to the tiny voice inside of you,
That makes you leave your bed every day
That only wants the best
For you.

In the end,
You are all you will have.
And when you leave,
You’re going alone.

Be gentle to yourself
I’m sure if you were able to,
You would swallow this world
Whole.