When I die
You can paint my body purple
And stick an apple in it's mouth
If you want to
I really won't care

Lay me out in a cardboard box
It's going to be burned anyway
So that makes sense to me
And as I say
I really won't care

The only thing I give a **** about
Is that you take my ashes somewhere high
And scatter them in the wind
Let them fly
Free
That's all I really care about

                                        By Phil Roberts

Soon I'll be far away again
the lapping shores the only thing keeping me from you
but you should know that I would swim oceans for you
even if it was just to see a glimpse of those blue mischievous  eyes
always the most beautiful in the setting city sun
How will I live knowing I won't awake with you entwined around me?

Where do the hours go?
With you I'm always losing track of time
I'm at your whim
Have I ever told you that I'm crazy?
That I'm a little bit deranged?

Baby
I'm losing my mind
Sweetheart
It's something about the way you laugh at stupid things
and make jokes just to hear a room beat with laughter
Your voice turns to a hum when I look at you sometimes
realizations like lighting striking me when you fall asleep
arm across my stomach like you're afraid I'll leave
because I've told you before how I learned from my mother how to run
and I'd been doing it ever since I realized boys stared at my waist
not ever listening to my words as I try to explain myself
****** hands hidden behind my back like a broken vase

My father told me that I was too beautiful for my own good
eyes alive  like the sky  at dawn the first morning you didn't sleep
hair wild as I slow down to look at the view
and he always got angry when I did that
stopped dead to stare at the fading pink light of a day coming to an end
You don't get angry
you  just stop and look at me with the same gaze I give that setting sun
and I swear
out of the corner of my misted eyes I see you smile
run your fingers through your hair as you wonder what I'm thinking
and I've always been afraid
afraid  that in the moments I spend with you that you realize
that you see that I'm thinking of one thing only
you
and I stare at the street lamps far below a little longer
tempting you to find out how much I really love you
to come closer and ask me what runs through my aching heart
but you  keep your distance
I wonder if you just know that later when my speech is clouded I'll say it
as I always do in the early hours of the morning
smoking out my deepest secret like trying to coax a ghost

I wish your lips weren't so protective
holding in lovesick notes even when drinking the clearest false securities
and she wants us to go far away
and when you express how fond you are of her company she looks down
everyday I see her I realize how similar we are
twin stories of mismatched fears and wanderlust
does she know about the way I claw at your skin as if looking for a way in
bruised ribcage under lust stained sheets
she used to eye me like I was a panther inching closer
irises daring her kin to set me off
but I'm no time bomb
and I think she sees that now

I'll always remember the time I realized I loved you
the first time, at least
it was too quick to know
and I was far too invested as you watched me glare at you past branches
only to fall asleep with my hair tangled in your fingers hours later
does time pass differently to you when I'm asleep next to your waist?
fluttering eylashes onto your knees like tiny dancers
I wonder if you ever notice the soft skin peaking under my shirt and sigh
thinking about how you'd long to slowly take off my clothes in the dark
teeth hitting bare skin of my collarbone as if I'm prey you've finally caught

I think of endings a year in advance
I always have, as if everything is terminal the second I say "I love you"
maybe that's why I don't say it
maybe I just assume with every lost memory I discover like a shipwreck
and ever passing whisper I recall
you see how entranced I am
my whole existence has bits of you like gems within it
or possibly they all encompassed you already
and the paint hadn't chipped enough to reveal you yet

When you're sad you sing songs to me about Venice
and the way your mother used to wear her hair to her shoulders
orange milky light stained every window like melted gelato
and you wondered if you'd ever find a girl who's heart was Murano
all lit up in the night like a summer sweet dream
when the air is hot and everyone's cheeks are a little red
their hair curly from the salty spray of the sea
you'd mark her neck until it looked winestained

but you appear  so sad when you tell me these stories
a faraway look in your vacant mind

I could be your merlot skinned girl
I can have eyes like the italian hills
rolling into the horizon
always having you search for the tallest one
Let me be your Venice
Let me be your home

A glass of water, twenty sit ups
I like the way you eye me like candy
yet avoid me like a time bomb
five minutes until detonation
six minutes to figure out what to say when I am near you

A walk around the neighborhood, one house with it's lights on
Some people say “I love you”
You say “Go to sleep”
they mean the same thing
but I'm not tired

A crooked chin, thirty minutes late
You only talk to empty chairs and darkness
You only love things from 1978
I could be your ghost
if you want me to

A tear stained face, two parents who don't care
“It gets a little lonely, pretending to want to be alone”
I only get up early on days you say you'll be there
Why does it always end up that I am on my own?
Always?

A calendar from last year, three bruises on my neck
What is your favorite type of silence?
Mine is the kind when everything that can be said has been spoken
The kind where no one has an excuse anymore
No more secrets

I saw a bunch of poets
on a line
at the Avalon
in San Francisco

They looked so tired
So, I approached them
then stated
"you guys look beat"

but, at a closer glance
they were just ******

Allen was there
with Corso and Ferlinghetti
Bukowski was around the corner
trading his wife for cigarettes

again

With your heart buttoned up tight
And your soul scrubbed to transluscence
You tip-toed around mountains
And visited the sand and sea
Contained in your selfness
And at ease in your skin
You glided without leaving footsteps
With the grace of angels
Perhaps a church ***** and choir
Vibrated in the air
But the world moved on
At a less sedate rate of orbit
And sadly
It would not
And could not
Wait

                                 By Phil Roberts