We rang in the new year
On a mattress thrown on your
Living room floor
With the ball drop
On a desktop computer screen

The sound was lagging
Behind the images
And we were laughing
At how we always end up
Stuck in the past

You threw your arms around me
And let your kisses land
Carelessly wherever
They fell

And I outlined your jaw bone
With my pointer finger,
Threading it through
Your beard
And looking into your
Lazy eyes

You counted the times I said
"Like okay" at the beginning of a story
And by 5 AM , you announced
We'd reached a healthy twenty

You kept apologizing
For the way your dog
Was relentlessly
Licking my neck
But honestly
Even with her slobber
And yours
Dripping over my collar bones

And even with the night air
Tingling on my thighs,
Just a little too thick,
Just a little too warm,

Even with my straightened hair
Curling at its ends

And your brother's girlfriend's
Faint moaning sounds from behind
A locked door

There was nothing I'd rather be doing
Than watching your eyes expand and contract
To the rhythm of your stories
Before the blue light of television
Overlapping moon lit window sills
And dark spaces

You are the yellow light love,
Symbolism with a pulse,
Saying "it's officially 2017"
With a begging grin
And an undercurrent of
Gentle laughter,
Standing for change
And growth
And warmth
And simplicity

You are transparent
And in the palms of your hands
I see the year panned out
In blue veins
And freckles

And it is kind hearted
And it is forgiving
And it is kissing my forehead
And letting me breathe

I know this is going to
Be a good one

The sirens blared that 4th of July
Officer Duncan gave Mammy a ride
An emergency dash to the hospital
He’s 2 months premature Mammy cried

Deaf, dumb and blind is what the doctors said
To our mother when Sammy was born
But none of us kids ever were told
Until Sammy was stable and grown

Pappy declared that they’d both be fine
Not believing dire news doctors gave
We happily named him Uncle Sam
Trusting in him to be strong and brave

His 1st 5 months in an incubator
Hooked up to every device
In Newton Wellesley Hospital, 1959
A miracle saved his life

Reaching gloved hands through holes in the side
Weighing just a bit over 2 pounds
Looking more like a spindly ET
I was amazed to be hearing breath sounds

Sam worked on doubling his weight by Christmas
Nothing seemed easy or fast
Still Mammy survived the eclampsia
And Sammy went home at last

Returning a few years later
Sammy’s doctor she would find
To show off to all the nurses
Her son NOT deaf, dumb and blind

I so love my brother Sammy
Always felt like a sister and mother
I’d give all I have for the time
Just a minute more with my dear brother

I’d speak to you of those 57 years
Of the great whirligig you carved with your hands
All the times you showed up for me
Through the good and the bad our love stands

You wasted no time hating anybody
Children and dogs always your friends
Quick for a laugh despite any lack
I draw comfort that all your pain ends

The sirens blared once again for you
The ambulance came, the paramedics tried
Racing you trying to save you
All in vain, in the OR you died


Like Tommy’s rock opera is over
Perhaps you paused to speak to a stray dog
While keeping your divine appointment
By reaching right into the hand of God

You
You drive me nuts
All I can do is think of you
And how you so easily control me

I pride myself on being independent
But all you do is look at me
And craving your control
I become yours

Craving your hand on my throat
Your marks on my body
The immobility from your control
Your body pressed against me

I must feel your bite on my skin
You pulling my hair
Your hands roaming my body
Your breath on my chest

I must hear you say "mine"
The quit sound of undoing my bra
Your sigh of approval as you look at me
Your breathing next to my ear

I must see you smile at me
The pride in your face for having me
The relaxed version of you
The controlling you

You make me crazy
But I'm addicted
I must have more
You

Please close your eyes, close your eyes
I can't bare to be looked at in the light

If you can't see beyond the silhouette of a personality then you can't judge the soul
Who could I be that you would love me
Who could I be that  I  would love me
All I can control is the pose and the poise being lent to my silhouette

Whisper songs in a broken tune
From him to me, from me to you
From us to them the cycle goes
None if it is mutual, or so I'm told

Colors don't matter when you're in the dark
Lipstick stains are scattered, leaving waxy marks
You laugh and I wince praying you can't see
Don't notice the anxiety sweating off of me

As long as the lights are dim I can play this foolish game
But turn them on and I shall melt and fall again

There's a tingle in my chest
Hair going up but,
I'm not cold.
Finding a moment of rest
Deep within my soul

She's like Angel,
Flying within the breeze
And she sees me...

How could I ever lose her?
If I did,
What would I do?
She's a million miles away from me
Yet, it all still feels so new

She beautiful...
And only God knows for who..
But she saves me.

Yeah she saves me...

If I could only see her,
Day after day..
I wouldn't ever care if we ran out of things to say.
All I need is this women
That's all I really need.

She's my baby.
And she saved me.

Snowflakes fall to the earth like suicide jumpers.
And I laugh because if I don't I have to listen to the silence.
Or worse.
And I laugh because I don't want to hear myself crying.

Waiting for icicles to form, and splinter, and crack under their own weight --
These are the games that plague souls;
Wishing away the snow with feet planted in blizzards,
Staring at the moon and trying to bathe in the last dripping morsels of sunlight shining onto the earth.

I lay buried so far beneath laughter and snowflakes that I am too cold to touch.
Touch me and scatter the blisters on my tongue,
For words are only dipped in honey, but it cannot hide the hollows inside.

And here I am, like a snowflake.

in the early morning hum,
in the beat of the drum of the white noise and the misplaced light, i
treasure you.
the sole familiar thing.

an old, cloying taste
clings to my mouth.
i think you are sleeping.
i know? you are sleeping.
i awoke to silence filled by your silence.
i know you are sleeping;
i felt loved by your silence, still.

i know this is love i imagine for myself in the ways i need it most;
i know how this goes.

in the early morning hum,
in the beat of the drum of the white noise and the misplaced light,
i allow myself to feel a very real fear that you
will be everything i needed
and almost everything i want.

and so in preparation,
a separation:
i shift and twitch and shiver until i am at once here
and not,
until i am at once here
and in the moment,
some way down the line,
that old, cloying taste magnified,
when all comes to pass as i knew it would and i can say
“i knew it would.”
i know how this goes.

you take the morning bus to secaucus,
and i, the one to new york.
when sleep greets me and leans my head
gently
against the window pane,
i will let it come.
i will let it try to fill your absence
in ways i know to be short-lived, for naught,
but i will let it try.

i will miss you when i wake up,
miss the silence that i thought you crafted for me,
but which was really just
silence.
i will miss you when i wake up as i miss you when you are next to me.
i want, for us, something infinite:
that which we cannot have and which you do not want,
hard as i wish you did.

but.
the sun rises —
i know how this goes —
and the misplaced light finds its place again.
the silence i thought you crafted for me, which was really just
silence,
becomes noise.
hectic. colorful without order.
i will miss you when i wake up,
but what ache is strong enough to pull something personal
from all that noise?

you take the morning bus to secaucus,
and somewhere in new york i try to live a life as though you have already left me.
if i had my way,
hopeful, futile grasps towards the infinite would not hold ample weight for a haunting.

and yet,
that old, cloying taste.

still.

(a.m.)

I once held stars in my lungs but I burnt them all out with cigarettes
as I tried to rid your name from my lips

I had the moon on the tip of my tongue when I whispered love in twilight affection
But that **** tided heart of yours shifted again and now all that hangs in my mouth are evasive words and the sickening taste of the seas' breeze.

That garden you grew in my stomach died when your sunlight no longer reached my skin
The butterflies you gave me shriveled with it.

The ***** I choke down doesn't rid me of those memories
Every night I spent with you was a threat to abandon my morals;
Go back on your word and cut the sky from my veins.
You kissed every cloud from my wrist to my sundered ankles.

You once traced constellations on my chest and with a single breath they shown brighter
They too burnt out when your words were no longer for me and I hurt even a little more

The ones etched in my swallowed pulse cried as they spiraled from our little piece of the galaxy
I watched them go lonely and lost when they traveled south into my pity-shaken excuse of a soul.

When I smiled and you'd look away.
It haunted me until I stopped sleeping
It was at that moment I had realized I fell for you like Icarus had the sun.

You burnt me and I melted until there was nothing left.
I was reckless with pride as you fed me slanted promises
I'll put good use to the knife you left in my spine

My throat burns more with every drink,
This liquor can't rinse my soul the way I'd like you to
But I'd rather remember you as my favorite sorrow than the love who left this fruitless heart.

Is this your mind?
I found it elsewhere
Where are you going?
That paths leads nowhere

I feel compelled to say...

A glimpse at your scene
Leaves a shell worth breaking
A moment in your mind
Leaves a hole worth making
Deny your creator
This fate lacks clarity
Stop the climb
This world lacks a reality
I stole your time
Hoping to stop your progression
I gave you mine
Hoping to avoid a misconception

Know that its only reality
That demands your attention
Know its only society
That demands your affection

Here

Collect your mind
Complete and confused
Push it back in place
Pray its not refused