When I dream
I find myself in places
I never go to awake
Taking chances
I never take
For fear I will break
Or stumble.

So instead I grumble
That I never go anywhere
And let myself scare myself
Out of doing what I need
To do in order to be true
To the person I am
When I am awake.

I fully flimflam and take
The easy, the coward’s road.
I hop away like a toad
Then whine to myself
In my dreams.

It seems ineffective.
But it seems inelective.
It’s like I have no choice
But I still listen
To my sleeping voice.

Someday I may stop
And drop this bad habit,
Choosing to have it my way;
Me on the highway, walking
Instead of lying in bed talking
About how good it could be
If I were the dreaming me.

In geometry we learn how to measure the distance between things
The space between things
The empty space between lines

How long is the shadow cast by a branch on a tree if it is two o’clock and the branch is east facing and 7 feet above the ground

A train departed Madrid in rush hour at 5:40pm and arrived in Barcelona at 8:15pm it went 63mph for 50 minutes how fast did it go the rest of the way if it is 386 miles between the cities

A trove of treasure held 300 cubic inches of gold and had a six inch square face, how long was the box

If it takes 3 seconds for my phone to chime after you send a text message and it takes 2 seconds for my brain to recognize your name on my phone how long will my stomach flutter if I’ve loved you for a month

Assuming my stomach flutters for that long and you ended our burgeoning relationship yesterday to stay comfortable in your current surroundings and we both don’t want to give up how real it all feels, how much silly putty does it take to fill the empty space in my chest

If Wal-Mart sells silly putty for $1.36 per package and each package contains 4 oz. of silly putty and I work for $13.51 per hour and $13.30 of each hour’s wage goes towards bills and other essentials how long will I have to work in order to save enough money to buy all the silly putty required to fill my chest with it, assuming I live in Oregon where there is no sales tax and that I only drink one six pack at $8.99 a week

More importantly though
If I fill my chest with silly putty, will my heart bounce back after it’s dropped next time

I can sing The Animals poorly to my son a million times and he will never understand what that song does to my heart

I wrote a song once he calls it The Ocean Takes Her and loves it
Asks me to sing it **** near every night
Nothing like making your son smile with the memory of your great heart break

It’s strange to make up meanings to my tattoos when customers ask why I have them
The boss says I can’t tell people about my depression and familial disappointment
So I make up stories about this one time I met Charles Schultz’s wife
People seem satisfied with my made up answer to their polite conversation question

I have lost lovers
To this day I still can’t figure out where I put them
I mean I’ve checked under all the couch cushions

My door is never locked
I know she knows where I live
It’s just that she left her key on the counter
And I don’t want a locked door to be the reason
I mean aside from the whole other life she’s living now

I spend hours watching compilation YouTube videos of the best The Voice Blind Auditions for other countries
You know, The Voice UK, The Voice Thailand, The Voice Sweden
I do this exclusively when I should sleeping
like the 2-4 o’clock hours of the still last nights
I can’t tell if I really like them
Or if they are just entertaining enough to keep my mind occupied
I guess if I make it through the night it doesn’t matter which

The older I get the more I relate to Charles Bukowski
Not the poet, of course, the man
The broken
The bitter
The lost
The never found

I could never write a poem gritty enough for the punk rock crowd
My sadness isn’t gritty
It’s sad

My stomach is 73% beer at this point
But I don’t often get drunk any more
I just forget to *** in the mornings

I really should clean this house
There’s no telling when she might get here

But before I let you go
I can never really tell if the her in my poems
Is one of the ones that have already broken my heart
Or the one I’m still searching for
Sometimes I give you too much credit
But I always know when it’s you,
You’re the only one I call you
The rest are just her

Bye now

In the stillness of the night, my hands ache to take yours in mine, tracing lines on your palms, facing each other, in lasting calm.

I yearn for the hair that shines so bright, burns like the sun I crave in sightless dark. I run to my dreams to feel your hair, falling around my face as I play the part of your pillow.

My skin, on fire with the desire of pressing against you, caressing your back and arms. Keeping you safe from harm, no alarm creeping towards the breaking dawn.

My eyes long to fall on perfect features in the fading light, the prettiest of all Gods creatures. Locking mine with emerald pools of passion, a lasting gaze to amaze my fasting soul.

Eager for your love to fill my bowl, knowing, as the wind is blowing beyond my windowsill, thirst is a distant, fading curse.

Our hearts intertwine above the sea, parting waves to save romance, so free. No love compares to the one we share, as we celebrate our eternal dance.

Looking at the ground,
She sees more beauty
Than she ever could have
If she had looked up.

Eyes trained on her on her toes,
She understands,
Beauty is in the person
Who is seeing.

And her beauty
Is just a little
Different
Than everyone else's.

Tonight,
There is no love here.
The honey ***,
Once overflowing,
Is full of flies.
I am paper-thin.
I will burn easily.
My teeth aren’t as white as they once were.
My eyes don’t sparkle.
I am blue and purple
And jagged.
I am cold to the touch.
My eyes sting
With cigarette smoke.
My tongue,
With its sandpaper softness,
Will not grace your skin tonight.
Let the black sheets of my bed
Shroud me from moonlight and
The warmth of your hands.
Maybe in the morning
It will be better.
Maybe in the morning
I’ll forget that once
I loved you.
Maybe I’m just a little bit sour.