Minding our own
barely making it rhyme,
it's all coming out
there's dust in the drought
but the rain comes in time.

Nothing held back
I've got nothing to say,
let it roll off my shoulders
puts less your mind
and it's better that way.

And isn't this nice?
you like hot tea on ice
thank you, yes, I can follow directions
so please don't think twice.
And isn't this great?
we can stay out real late
watching millions of sparkling stars
while you're lickin' that plate?

I said nothing at all
it's that horse in the stall
my foot fell asleep but I'm not gonna weep
I can drag it or crawl.

Now the wind's in the trees
and your hand's on my knees
and the warmth of your breath on my neck
puts my tired mind at ease.

All I wanted
      porch
                    swing
            rhythm
 ­   back
              and
        forth
        with you babe
                         All I needed
                          porch
                 swing
        rhythm
back
       and
                  forth
                with you.

Minding our own
barely making it rhyme,
it's all coming out
and there's dust in the drought
but the rain comes in time
Distracted, it's true
idle chatter won't do
Better nothing to say
put the music on play
and be quiet
with you.

She must've gotten tired
of slicing her wrists with razors
And setting fire to her skin
So she burned herself on lovers
And cut herself on friends

Kiss me in the corner with the lights raking across our skin.
Kiss me until I forget her.
I dare you. I challenge you.
I'm asking you
Make her irrelevant
Make her insubstantial.
Make me forget her name.
Make me forget mine.
I'm begging you,
Touch me until I am different.
Pound that music through my chest like a stake
And **** what loves her
Because I can't.
Make me new. Make me the darkness between strobe lights.
****** me and bring me back, cold and hard like a jewel.
Breathe me in like smoke, toxic and rough.
Crush me like a soda can in the alley way.
I can take anything but this.
Kiss me until it doesn't hurt.
I beg you.
I dare you.
Demolish me.

You look best in my lamp light. Your belly scar
rough underneath my fingertips as I jump the scratch
and attach myself to your hips, kiss your pelvic bone
until even my teeth can taste your sweetness. I can feel
black kettles and the burn from the ironing board crash of 1999.
When we’re wrestling in my duvet covers, the shadows
cast your memories up like a sanctuary projection. I see red race cars,
your brother jumping on the couch, fishing bait kept
in your back pocket. Your lips taste like liquor but I hear nursery rhymes
from when you were little, wobbly, an over-all dream
in the yard seen through the kitchen window. I know,
that you’ve dressed yourself in bad dreams
and broke yourself over footballs and houses of green paper,
but you look best in my lamp light when my hands
cram your face into my palms, your blush dripping
from you cheeks. Because I see the way
you burrow yourself into my chest when you think
I’ve gone to sleep, and I’ve seen the way your foot catches
on the edge of the woodwork right before you fall.

there are postcards you wrote me that will hang on my wall
and i will keep for centuries, pretty pictures
and smeared handwriting, places where the rain ate away.
you left, and we sat there like nothing was wrong.
go on with life, move on from love,
nothing now to say. you leave and we all sit,
paper-blank faces hiding crying eyes, still bodies
hugging shivering hearts. clouds pass,
the wind rustles through the air, the sun bears down
on the high desert. no one says anything
worth saying. no one does anything
worth doing. dry flowers bloom but no one is looking.
cacti wave and stretch and poke at no one.
those mountains to the north loom and dare
and nobody cares. we all sit there, desert spirits,
paper-blank, hot bodies wrapped
like so much tissue paper around our trembling souls,
say nothing, and pretend
that God has not ripped from us
something as wild and as lovely as the summer rain.

this cinnamon realization
rolls around in my chest:
honeyed sunlight
apple-crisp mornings
laughter and fear in the name of fun
quiet anarchy
gardens, beaches, friends -
I am happy, or close enough.
what more could I ask for?
what more could I dream for?
to be home, to be with you: but
here is becoming home, October
has replaced July with orange glory;
clouds and mountains and salt water
all the same, absent sunsets,
huge-moon nights, hot sunrises,
stars and soul mates and folk music.
O that I could dance
forever in the evenings of October,
skeleton ghost and graveyard
pumpkin spice and falling leaves,
the endings that give us new life
all are here, *****-heavy
fear-free, future hallows blissfully
unknown, pasts blissfully
undreamed-of.