Rain-ing out-side,
think-ing of you.
It could be the
drum beat you play.

(fast, cha-o-tic)

My jump-started heart
when I see you.

(long-ing, crav-ing)

Or the sound of
Flesh, skin on skin.

(ea-ger, play-ful)

But, I think its
Be-cause its set
to the same time,
(Four. Beats. Per. Bar.)
As when I struck
my closed fist to
my ach-ing chest,
ster-num crack-ing
(four-loud-thumps-to
-my-rib-cage)
Try-ing to stop
cry-ing, gasp-ing.
(four-with-each-****
-ed-rattl-ing-breath)
When you hurt me.

It-did-not-help.

I found this love
like playing tetris

Anxiety at the falling of pieces
too fast

There are still holes in there

And I stand like a brick wall now
full of peep-holes
and glory holes
all places to let the cold in

And maybe I held you like a blanket

And maybe we played each other like Jenga
pulling out bricks
to restack somewhere else

A smaller structure
But stronger than we are

It's on them nights I drink alone. Find myself thinking of home. These beers bottle bones empty and shatter. Liquor lung sigh. Chest heavy like a white trash wind chime. Like a six pack of bud ice hanging from some fishing line. Hear them low notes bouncing of the lips in the wind. And maybe you worry, but ****, I'm fine to drive. And on those days when my gut isn't a gas tank for beer refilling at a pity party pit stop, I drive on love. Write love poems on phones before the ***** knocks me out. And sure, maybe my love makes as much sense as the words I slurr. And maybe my love is as unique as the crackheads needle in the haystack, but I'll still love you serious as a heart attack. Like a stroke... of genius... an epiphany about the realness of God. That maybe the story is flawed, but you're welcome to believe. And maybe I'm drunk right now, but I never meant to deceive. So kiss me with your break lights, while a pray to the slow light that I can live life like an old man feeding birds on a bench in the park. Got nothing else on his mind... just love... you maybe. And whatever you might think. I promise. I'm fine to drive

Perfection: skewed over the years;
in our quest for longevity,
in our denial that good things do end,
we have tried to make perfection
into a permanence.
We chase it all our lives:
the perfect car,
the perfect lover,
the perfect relationship.
We've forgotten somehow that
perfection isn't a state of life.
Perfection isn't normal.
Perfection doesn't exist naturally.
Perfection is something we create,
and like all things humans make,
it is temporary.
Perfection is a moment to be lived in-
a glistening diamond moment that
we get to exist in for such a
precious little time.
We breath in and are filled
with satisfaction,
that most powerful ******.
We glow in our souls
until it radiates from our faces.
It is the second right after a first kiss,
when you draw back and look into your lover's eyes.
When all things are brimful of possibility and all
futures are open to you.
It is the moment after you achieve
something you worked for your entire life.
Something you bled for, lost sleep and friends
and years of your life over.
It is the second when your child
screams and draws breath for the first time.
When you see reflected in their tiny face everything you were
and everything they will be.
We are perfect in that one moment.
Of course all of it will end.
Your girlfriend may leave you behind after a time.
She may break your heart and carry it with her,
leaving you scarred and unable to love again.
You may lose everything you've worked for
in a single, capricious moment.
In one simple, thoughtless mistake.
Your child will be with you for a time,
but they will grow old and leave you,
never to speak to you until you are on death's door.
Still,
as we sit on our unbelievably vulnerable world,
one of billions in a universe full of singularities and solar flares,
comets and quasars,
evolution and extinction-
Shouldn't we just be glad that the moment happened,
instead of realizing it will end?
Life has so very few of these anomalies of perfection;
enjoy them while they are there,
do not miss them when they are gone.

I haven't found words
que encajen a tu ser
I write poems
llenados de palabras de tu alrededor
where your flowers bloom constant
sin pensamiento de lluvia

My little brother cuts himself
And I wonder about the scars

Imagine that they are more like
the lines inside the trunk of a fallen tree
An indication of how long he has lived
or how fast he grew

and time is a funny thing now
Because it is easy to forget how old he is
because of how old he looks
and on the inside
who knows

I just think of counting rings
on a fallen tree stump
like a warped record

after the day grows quiet
if I placed a needle to the wood
What song would it play?

After reading my first love poem
And misunderstanding my first love story
Romanticizing your bleak hope
I knew I was ******

And in trying to explain this
I am left feeling like a schizophrenic Walt Whitman
Scrawling poems about your beauty

As if love is something you can actually seek outside yourself
While inside you there are walls
Mine fields
Trapdoors leading to deadfalls
All to keep you from it

I want to stand at the entrance to myself
And be baptized in my own sweat
From the work of this deconstruction

There is heaven and peace in the rubble
Blueprints for a home without safeguards
A simple place you can rest your head at night
This chest

Love is not something you seek
But you tell that to these hands
This pen
This mouth
Tell these eyes without losing my gaze
That it is not hiding somewhere behind you

It is not
I know this now
I know that love is this
Your heart is this
Your body is this

A spare room in a small house
You had intented on living alone in

And everytime someone comes to your door
Know it is always nicer inside
And be grateful that someone came to it
Let them in with your smile
say
"I have been expecting you"
Then let them leave if that is what they must do
They might

Just remember to be grateful for their presence
Everyone who sought your door
Sought it because there is something good there
There is always you

Look at us, I'm carrying a basket made of trash
and you're carrying a mouse, well
the dog chewed up your glasses
but you're still rockin it
you have a single drop of coffee on your nose,
we're ready to go to D.C.

I had another where-are-we moment, it was fun.
Good, that's downtown Baltimore right there,
****** capital of the world.  

An elaborate mural graffiti.
Wall after brick wall.
A rustbelt city like Grand Rapids
Detroit Cincinnati.

Did you sleep well?
Yes I woke up feeling like a clam in a cocoon.
A sea creature inside of a forest insect, okay.

I've wasted too much time on both desire and regret.
Yellow bridge.
Blue-green supports.
Singer on the radio saying, we're young right now.

There's a healthy and an unhealthy way of dealing with pain,
I'm sorry for my selfish behavior in the islands.
I want to go back and leave a better legacy.
'Word.'

Last night to come see you I drove I-95 N, the overpass
and though the rest of the city was really moving
I was all alone up there, it was like
driving in the sky.

We pass signs saying: Icy Conditions:
bridges and ramps freeze first.
And a billboard: Learning Kick Flips
Takes Work, So Does College

We listen to our favorite island song:
love the islands, love the islands, oh.

You look like a rasta snowboarder girl
There's something really right
about having you in this car

It kills me that I can't keep you in words,
The more I write the more I seem to miss.
Like meaning from my pen is far off lured,
I can't put down your smile, your eyes, your kiss.
A kiss that for my life I can't describe,
despite how hard I try or oft I write.
Transform me hence into your willing scribe,
I'll work to make dark ink match your eyes light...
and though I know I'll fail I still write on,
hoping beyond hope that I'll succeed
in writing down some truth before I'm gone,
one truth might then find others and so breed.
Not unlike I found you and you found me
or how our I's met up to forge a we.

All my life
I sought
an angel.
And he appeared
in order to say:
"I am no angel !"