Stagnant.
Screaming in wet clothes
from the sprinklers in the ground
to the water that sprays on the windows
while you spray inside of them and create
what you'd destroy if you knew it existed.

With a laugh like Santa Claus I keep each day same as Christmas,
**** your blessings and your gifts,
I'll keep them in the same closet I kept myself.

Most of the good stuff is gone
but some of it stayed. Laughing for
one more day, tearing at the facts.
Too much all at once, I'm slower because
I know her. She's much too beautiful.

Empty and overflowing
all this patience is unknowing.

another one!
another one!
another one?
YES!

these are the days that remind me of you
look where we are! standing right in front of each other
wondering if it'll ever be enough, I want it to be.

pink background that turns my eyes black, shows my skin
how to shrink close to my bones, shows my insides how to
expand and layer and peel, repeate old habits, accept all.
Say, Yes! yes always to all ways because the barriers of love
are insecurities easily torn down in the moments before sleep
and release.

I'll let you go, watch you sink
ring myself out, bring my concentration out in a wet handful of your saliva
stick my tongue out for you to catch, flap it around in a white line of purity
based around my neck: inhalations!

destruction of self-pity
here we go again!
here we go for the first time: together.
bunches of banana colored lace
you're tangled
           so cute
                       it's stupid.

cracking my knuckles in anticipation
I want to make love in the streets
make love to myself, and make love
to people I don't know.

silence and reading
and testing and cheating
my vocabulary is reaching out across the dinner table
looking for something your laughter will reply to.

all my portals are open in your innocence
and removing age, removing space
some one who feels horrible for ignorance: silence
I'll fill those holes, create my own
so you're not alone.
problemsproblemsprob
lemsproblemspro
blemsproblem
s. blemishes,
redish and sore
soarsoresoar
so
our
truths
revealed
with the lights off
and the moon brighter than the sun
and not at all blinding, I'm howling and
you're glowing and what I would give to
have that tug kiss jump pull run and hide.

I found my voice in a pocket of oxygen buried in my gut,
it was a hot air balloon
backlit by the aura of my lungs,
my chest was the sky that coughed it up.

Knowing that we are water-based creations
spread thin
like the last spoon of pancake batter,
I wear my impermanence like Jupiter wears her red spot.
I wear my fears like continents wear mountains,
pointing them toward the sky,
hoping to someday adhere a sticker to my chest that reads,
THIS CAR CLIMBED MT. COMMITMENT

I have the scars to prove it.

My mother carried me like the last drop of water in a desert canteen,
there was no need for a soft spot; I was headstrong.

I brought the kitchen to the gun fight.
Held my hands to the stove top
turned my back to the knife rack
kept one foot in the door jam and my mouth to the bedpan,
just in case these words washed my mouth out.

Most people never get close enough to recognize
that the smile on my face is written in Braille--
but you've always been there with a blind eye
reading my innuendos
and holding me to my words.

When your marathon feet hit the pavement
it's a lot like Buddy Wakefield at a typewriter
striking the first letter of the word benevolence--

You taught me how to b b b b b in the moment.

Even at my most negative
when my body is a hearse,
this heart is a corpse
and this life is a road-trip from funeral parlor to graveyard,
so that I may have spent my entire life in the company of mourners,
who loved me.

Even at my most positive
when my body is a universe,
this heart is Hatch Shell located on the south bank of the Charles River
swelling with the sounds of the Boston Pops
and this life is everything leading up to the Big Bang,
so that I may have spent the entirety of my life in the company of creation.

Even on the night we met—same night I found my voice
we stayed up to watch Lake Michigan come to life in a pocket of oxygen
under a Chicago sunrise so inescapably underwhelming
it was covered by clouds.

But we were not disappointed.

Even though all of our rainbows have been stitched into flags,
draped over coffins
and buried by the same people who taught us to believe
in optical illusions.
Our hearts were not drawn by Jeremy Fish,
we're not weighted in fiction,
we did not have heartstrings rigged by Geppetto.

No, we were not disappointed,
this was nothing like (I still remember) when we learned
that we couldn't all be Mouseketeers.

Disappointment is a pastime that we reconciled
when we laid our grandmothers to rest
and recognized that their tombs did not believe in resurrections.

The past is a hot air balloon hoisting us up to a sky we'll never see.
I get it.
I'm not lookin' down.

We are old enough to know the truth.

The light at the end of the tunnel is behind us,
that's where we came from.
We are not running from it.
There's no looking back.

intriguing, yes.
fleeting, yes.
waving hello like a helium balloon taped to a mail box.
flap
     flap
smack!

"Share your body, spread your love."

stumbling while leaning against a wall
your eyes are wider than when we kissed
and it felt worse than saying goodbye,
more than anything
wanting to forget how good it feels
to hold each other
                                                           you push me away.

kiss me, I whine.
your tongue tastes like peppermint slime
oozing words that avoid the intended conclusions of your premises
broken promises   [unspoken, I'm choking].

I'll **** you out before breakfast.

I'm a baby, much older, much younger.
I'll cry myself to sleep.

hair drips over me like rain
open the windows and fall asleep with socks on
avoid the pain, of a twisted neck from where you slept.
wake up
I hear you singing
and smile
and laugh
and mash into the pillows beneath my comforter.
       give me something to dance to!
I'm alone and the dresser seems friendly,
still I take the weekends off for the presidents
some say sleeping on sunday is a sign of respect for religion
really ringing in rear-back
bare back
roads, and hills
of skin and bones
that stab you and grab you
goodnight!
                  it's raining.
don't you dare shut the window.
          I double dare you, don't want to share you,
but I will. the old shackles were beaten with brand new keys.
it'd be good to know a lock smith in times like these.

treat me like an Emergency Exit Only sign
good morning is a warning, you must be awake
standing on a rock at the library
we trick ourselves into good times
and
words
look
beautiful
when
they're
alone
         and
         so
         do
         people.
I'm    alone, but I don't feel beautiful
                           and I don't feel ugly,
happy to be alive. Ready to explode
around
you.
       Anxiously waiting, accepting
                                      rejection:
oddities, such as leaking,
                                 are unavoidable. and
you
will
try
to make faces and *** calls.
    I'm no longer on the end to
pick
up. I'm
           dropped off, not waiting:
                                moving forward.
smiling.

She was just a teen;
pretty ,blonde - and dying.
In a town in the Southeast
where she was born.

Cancer was her foe,
then in remission.
She’d been told
she would be sterile
even so.

A neighbor’s boy
escorted her to prom.
A special friend
within a
threatened life..

Could they be blamed
for trying to
steal pleasure?
Pain was her
companion all her life.

They joined their flesh
to share a moments pleasure.
Soon afterwards
her cancer had
returned.

A sick girl, thought sterile,
found to be with child.
She would not take
their poison in her veins.

The Doctor didn’t know
her heart and will.
She vowed her child
by cancer won’t be claimed..

She willed herself to
bring her babe to term.
Just barely lived to hold
him in her arms.

Like Simeon in the temple
she had lingered
Until, at last,
the torch of life passed on.

Her lover wept and held
her as she died.
Though she was then blind
she heard her newborn cry.