I don't need
you to be completed

I need you
because I love you

Need like water upon waking,
not quite dehydration, just thirsty

I feel
I learned
to speak

by reading.

I don't remember
the joy of shouting
with accuracy

some signified
entity aloud,

but I recall the sensation
of annoyance at sounding
out the toothsome shapes
at such a slow pace

compared to the force of
words creation exploding
in meaning and references

within such a
small space.

I feel the heat
combining and
multiplying to
achieve no higher
purpose:

Like that virus episode
of Jimmy Neutron

or

Like your furnace
abdomen and its
other appendages
broiling my back

I felt a
flower
in the sun:
like feeling
without touch

If fusion were just
a cheap trick to
make gems stronger,

then would Garnet
have even found
Sapphire and Ruby
to begin with?

Is our comfort made
from presence or
conversation and
which is stronger?

The side effect of
unconditions is that
thing expectation
dreads; some book
already read

turned its page and said:
I am made of love, boldly
with inflated lungs, but

what is love
even made of?

I followed you
from the hill
whose view
left you empty

I filled you in
-careful of the lines-
when that force came
to claim your mind

I even changed
my mane this time,

I followed you up the hill,
where it's frozen

If only
the youth knew

We do not last,
this is not our life

What came after and
when comes before

My smooth skin akin to
a knowing or lack thereof

If poetry
were
currency

We would
exchange
goods
for prose

Tip with
metaphors
or
similes
-if you're
rich-

Authors
on the
stock market
-portfolios
of long poems-

It'd finally
be like
how money
feels

I **** like a fairy
on funghi:

If a fun guy could happen
to *** by briny waves
ridden turned wastewater
that only perverts could swallow,
and turn rough like a flagellant

Beating against being submerged,
with wings going like mad, and hurt
charting pain like a map on the
body as it lay gasping, oars
grasping for dry land.

My luck lies fairly
on the one guy

I **** like a fairy
on funghi

One guy happens
to come by, and waves
ridden are quickly riddled with  

Wastewater that nobody wants beating
against itself, with wings going like mad,
and the kid's shout in the street still
the God of history, or so it goes...

If luck lies fairly
on the fun guy

I **** with
you heavy

Why else would
I be here?

But we ain't locked in,
you make sure of that

If you pile
enough
on top
it still will
not sink, but
it will be
hidden
away for awhile

I goad the goblin
bee into stinging

I harden my heart
to harshness

I want I love you
to be enough

I hate to even
call it love

I'm not sure
what it was
now

Perhaps it was only
a temporary
relief

I haven't
because
I know
you'll see
and read
and judge,
but mostly:

I've already
given away
too many
secrets that
I want back

I hear
the rain
so finely

Soothing
like a chord
progression
in harmonic
-then melodic-
in a minor
key

Drops not
waiting for
permission
to fall recklessly
-jettisoned in
the wind-
to the
ground

I joke about
being dead,

and it's funny
because it's true

I keep having
dreams of Okie
coming back, like
he was never gone
and I just didn't look
close enough, and I
wake up like maybe
he'll be there,

but I
don't bother checking

I **** the game, like
I'm Frankenstien's Monster

Tack the ***** to this rocket,
then I launch her

I kiss the sun
into your lips, and
the warmth from it
sinks into both of us

The moon is happily
indifferent without its
own light or heat, but
I warm you anyway

I know
my roads
will dry beneath
the snow -just
like a face I
remember
seeing-

I let you do to me
what winter does to forest trees

But I suppose they don't
have much say in the matter

I lost a will:
to write,
to life

it's gone like
an unimportant
memory

misplaced
or erased?

what made
a clean slate?

brain bleached like
whites in laundry

I’m more sleep than
I thought I was.

There’s nothing like a
good pinch of salt
to wake up the

taste buds from
such a bland recipe.

I'm no real
thing

some flash of
magical realism
-the force but not
the subject-

existence in the
vibrations and singing
of mushi, but not exactly
becoming those
tufts of light fully

I'm not looking for someone
to marry, but should I be?

What kind of excuse is 'I'm a piece of
****'? Are you stuck the way you are?

What type of end is beginning?
No need in talking of known knowns.

I'm on all fours
I'm on the floor
I'm on the force
that turns the day back into night

I'm on my worst behavior
like Drake

These ****** leaves in fall
and I'm a rake

I'm ****** at this.

I skipped class yesterday
and today and haven't seen

you in a few days because you
won't let me and that's valid.
I still wish I could help some

how I think of leaving you at
least once every day but
all I can think to say is
I love you and I'm yours.

My stroke of love
goes against your grain
and I am bade to withhold
in the presence of equals and
betters regardless of the claim

And the needs being
met with knees in the chest

I am uneasy.

I'm some real
thing, but no
real poet.

It's getting awfully
blank in
here.

I don't want
to waste time with
unsatisfied lines.

I need a new, sound
love. No use in chasing
poetic chord progressions.

I needed
to start anew:
A poet should have
a stance, not just
influences and a
romantic heart.

We are already
few
and too many have
gone before us.

Let me hypothesis
and theorize the following
until my death:
Is it the poetry or
the meaning of the
poem that is most
important?

In romance
there is
so much
less
so much
left
to touch
upon
to touch
a gone
in romance
there is

The sky would darken
to a terrible color.

It would tear
and bare orange
wounds as hail

like stars on fire fell
from the gaping sky

In sheets and stone
presently wrapped up
nice and tightly tucked in:

A close embrace
of the earth

Play mountain- with the
hill a slide- the slide
a hill and the swing

Drawn up on all corners:
the equating shift
of gravity and the
aesthetic

In the winter
when the fire's
alight and
warm

What do we
really run
from in the
cold?

What are we
returning to
in the spring?

Is it God
is it war
is it love
is it life
or the world?

I only listen
to K and J or
City pop
as of late.

I suppose even
the ears can change
its taste,

refine and become
a picky eater of what
it wants to ingest:

a palatable beat
with round sounding
words, the occasional english;

something lit,
a bop

I pluck her *******,
like a bouquet

Tie that *** up,
call me Christian Grey

I remind
myself
that you
don't want me
-you don't
want me- I
remind myself
nightly

As day
flits through,
the memory
grows weak
to remember...
want me,
...don't you?

No

I must
remind
myself
nightly

I saw him
for the last time
I'll see him
in awhile.

He's late by a day
and three hours and
on his phone reading
sports articles in french

with me tucked up
under his arm like
a football, cookies

in the oven for
his long drive.

He kisses me more
than usual and says
he'll miss me and that
we'll be fine, just fine
and I believe him.

He leaves, but
forgets his treats
and returns,

then turns and
leaves again.

I see it
-the poem-
and it sees
me from within
myself as well.
It tells me to write

not about things
that have meaning, but
to write things that
have meaning:

The stone and
the face of the stone,
and the voices
within it too

Is it its
happening
or that I
allow it to
happen?

Vascilating
affirmations

Signs of
sufficiency
to keep up
the system

Expecting nothing
the only level
of expectation
consistently met

Is it needy
to need more
than what you
think is enough

Relationship or responsibility:
Not mature enough for
either or anything more
than the bare minimum

I need a real love
waiting for me
when I'm gone. I
need a good friend.

Is my body an
expensive house:

Should I be careful?
Lock my doors?

I spit bars
like a pharmacy,

Got a ***** preachin,
like a homily

Is this disguise
is this the sky
is this the life that's turned out?

How many lies
how many lives
how many hives to break through?

Is this the sky?
Does it disguise
how seasons
play out?

How many
times?
Not yet
too many,
but more than
it set out to

Bound lightly
left on hempty
and winking:

Skylight
spreading
skynight

I still want
to talk to you

It all feels
false
now

I had loved
you with a
prejudice free
heart
-as they
recommend-
and was
punished for it

I feel a
child:
caught up
in figments
more so than
reality

-Infatuated
and unmindful-
willing and wanting
to have you take
advantage
of me

The day of
her affair

And Poldy
-in love-
allowing it

A father invites a son
into the kitchen,
talking before
he walks
him
out

Reentering
the house at night
filled with evidence
of Boylan

Crumbs brushed
off the bed
-ten years
since-

Feet at the head
and head at the
foot, a behind
kiss to Gea-tellus