my skin is splintered,
it's not the wood inside of me.
maybe's are seeping through
my heart holes.
all form is out to play, I'm on
the 19th hole of destruction.

the way
you love me
echos
in my
hollow
bones

we, mistakes made in groping dark,
ironed and cheekkissed happy accidents,
told we arrived by love, and our purpose forward: to love.

we were chocolate milk runners.
we were completion grades.
coloring sheets of MLK and jagged cutouts of billy goats.
we were girls in sequined jeans with scraped knees.
on the basketball court we pushed pigtails to concrete.
rumors of us kissing in the lobby waiting for our rides
did circulate.

we, skinny white girls of Moore, Okla.,
skipped supper and laid at the feet of TV-watchers
like bleached branches of fallen oaks garnishing their standing brothers.

we were doorbells.
we were passenger seats.
peeking in the teacher's edition and handshaking answers in fluorescent bathrooms.
we were the first ones on the bus and the last ones off.
knees to chin, untied laces on heater's ****, winterlong sweat factory.
rumors of us agreeing to go to prom over fourth-period lunch
did circulate.

we, writers suffered writers' morality,
disregarded right, wrong, norm; lounged, waiting to be under the bus,
suffering for the story. tense matchstick lovers --  dim light for a moment and then.

we were someone else's *******.
we were someone else's hairpins.
as whatever ran so hot in us cooled, dried on thrift store comforters,
so did we. ceiling fans and ***. fingernails and boxed wine.
rumors sustaining.

and so it came, after announcements, after invitations,
after subbing in one bridesmaid for another, we were getting married.
we were grooms with empty pockets and full of sound advice.
our fathers took us behind the church,
chaplipped our foreheads,  and said,
"I know, we promised you were made from love and to love.
But I gotta be real honest here. You were made from whiskey.
And there's always the distillery."

we were jobless in wrinkled suits.
we were brown shoes; black belts.
and this will look good on your resumé. and this will look good on your resumé.
translation: how about ******* this ****? or how about this one?
a resumé was one page. we couldn't fit all the ***** on one page.

we, beardheavy and deodorant-streaked,
lived in dream houses in Ulysses, Kan., drove dream Tahoes,
watched dream Netflix, next to  portly wives who looked like
QUEEN MOTHER OF ALL THE BROTHELS OF THE LOWER MIDWEST.

we were childless.
we were wanting.
after consulting a physician and a bottle of whiskey,
we lifted and pinned the sagging belly of our wives with
a wooden board. one good **** in. one borrowed pregnancy test.

and so it came, the weddings of our sons. behind the church,
we took them aside and said,
*"I know, we promised you were made from love and to love.
But I gotta be real honest here."

Last night I danced like my dad
with a girl who resembled a dictionary definition
I read not long back.

Graceful eyes that could
stop traffic with a blink
and engaging lips that
would smile to sooth the pain of
the midday, gotta-get-back-home-now,
commuters whom step
on pedals with haste.

I lied. My dad can’t dance, so last
night I made a fool of myself
in front of a girl who resembled
a dictionary definition I read not
long back.

a day of chalk
and bruises.
your strength is flexible
I am curious how much
effort I have lost in thoughts of greatness
rather than making that greatness reality.

words have me in their throat
I can't help but scream with them.

I didn't wake up last night, not once.
It was a miracle and I woke up to blood,
which was also a miracle.

I threw cotton on my back,
I got caught on the door ****,
I thought I taught myself how to move,
guess not.

I sorted bottles from lowest to highest
I sorted ideas, just the same (how useful).

Using my tongue seems inevitable today
opening my throat, I'll talk to myself while I look others in the eye.
I'll let them know how I'm doing in robotic undertones
and wish I could bring the real conversation out every time.

It's too personal to know how someone really feels. It's too dramatic.
Love & ignorance & arrogance & waiting & chasing & giving up
trying to get over what you can't change,
about others & about yourself.

If this and because of that and you should have because I couldn't
and backwards again because I keep forgetting to breathe through the stress
that I inflict upon myself, so I choose another infliction and risk an infection.
You're not a disease but this won't last forever. I'm feeling like a tug of war tease
that can't stop begging for attention, although I can't seem to hold my own.

I've got a key to an open door and yet still I stand
with my frame in it's frame wishing for another
frame to place myself in. Maybe even hang myself,
suspension at it's finest. The elevation of my image might **** me,
so I'll save that trick for the dead and wait my turn like everybody else.

Take my number and count me out
ring me out like a wet rag and then
let me try and help you in other ways.

The graveyard was twilight and the fox was silent.
I was chalk-based chemicals, caffeinated and drinking, still.
He was worried about the unborn, our talking was a storm.
Emotions running wild through my speech, I wanted to shut up
but couldn't help speak. That happiness got me laughing, and it
got him a little too.
The madness was my walk to the car
but it didn't end when I got there.  

I kept on thinking like I like to.
I kept on talking like I like to.
Then I fell apart
because the most positive fact
that I will be alone forever.
The small pieces of chapped skin
which I ate off my lips
soon became a reflection
of how although I'm not always okay,
I will be after a good amount of pain.
Something shy of heartache shouldn't fall so deeply
for someone whose attention is so easily caught by
the seemingly unimportant. Something shy of heartache
shouldn't pay so much attention to the moment when
they finally hit the bottom of that abyss they fell into.

Something shy of heartache
and I'm turning into a ghost,
a shell of a baby that has the
ability to speak with knives
even though they're too afraid
to hold them, because they know
they'll just hurt themselves like forever.

I want to shut up about forever and give myself now.

I'm feeling lonely and I'm feeling raw, keep making fun of me.
I want to crawl back into the blue from which I came,
where everything was dark.
Ever since I've seen this light I've become increasingly more blind,
I'm torn in all decisions, keeping myself weak.
I'm buried in my own self too deep.
It's time to climb. I believe in myself this time, unlike the others (which aren't important).

Success is inevitable.

i'm going to wake up tomorrow.
i'm going to wake up and i'm going to go into my bathroom and shave. i am going to look in the mirror. i'm going to look in the mirror and i'm going to tell myself a story about who i am.

i'm going to say, "i am Patrick Wakefield. i am 25 years old. i am Patrick Wakefield, i am 25 years old, in the winter my hands get dry and crack around the knuckles and bleed. i am 25 years old, and one summer i fell in love. one summer i spent a hot week in a small room. it was hot, and i was in love. and i don't drink normally but i got drunk on plum wine. i got drunk on plum wine, it was hot, and i am 25 years old. in the winter my hands get dry and crack around the knuckles, and bleed."

I hear bones twitch in the flower bed
turning over their trembling groan to the
deep soil with bitter solitude in some strange way.
Autumn swirled her cracked wind that shook the
willowed branches as I clung desperately to my
rhythm in the wilderness blindly following the
flicker of an empyreal garden that glowed
along the path in a mysterious way.
And me happiest, when the earth offers
a place to sleep amongst the billows of the sky.
Most beautiful as sunlight pours itself across
my body, a reminder of simply being alive.