Cigarette smoke and **** colored beer
Family is a suckerpunch epiphany
For people who’ve spent so much time
Saying they no longer had one

I swore forever
Mine was missing parts
This heart carved shells
Let’s swap odd shapes
Re-sew them and **** up our beats forever
Together

If the world is ending and you find me here
Kicking up the earth
Dirt scatter to the wind
Brown blood spatter
That’s just me trying to escape faster

Join me or leave me
But I got this beef with gravity
Like a severed head tetherball
This face senseless

You make me senseless

Numb to all the bad parts
In the same way salt makes everything sweeter
You make everything sweeter
Your salty skin
Sweet mouth
Sweet speak
Sweet laughter

Make me feel a little less stupid
About giving in to the movement
This mouth
This body
Like a knee-buckle kick to the gas pedal
And I peel out by accident

And you can still love me
Like family
I’ve slept in so many beds
And on so many floors
All so much more comfortable than my own

I swear I have bed bugs
Drinking my blood as I sleep
Getting drunk most nights
Them and me
Wake up itchy and fatigued
Like an allergy

But you
You smile like a hammock
Held up by strings hanging from your eye squint
To your dimples

Without speaking
“you can rest here tonight”

This is for the beds
For the people who say ouch when I hug them
For the family I thought I never had

For the appreciation that
Every moment of sadness
Means I’ve known so much joy
To feel that way

I’ve known so much joy
Thank you

she’s gone and my world becomes a small comfortable bubble of washing dishes, making phone calls, giving hugs.  things are simple again.  relationships are pure and strong.  the people who care are right there with help, the rest fades away. no mess.  life is black and white - it’s grieving and comforting - it’s sorrow and hope - it’s washing dishes and making phone calls.

the relationship to a grandparent is a strange one.  there is a difference between knowing who a grandparent is to you, and who they have been.  grandparents are known by their grandchildren at the end of their journeys – not as small children, or college wallflowers, or tennis champs, or young mothers with smooth skin and quick hands.

grandchildren should be more humble. they fit into the end of the intricate lives of their grandparents and are lucky to witness what they do.

Sigh again, my dear,
--
'though it's enough
to hear you to breathe.

Sigh for the lost days
and sideways glances
that you'd rather have
never even seen.

Sigh for being wise
in another realm of fools
and I'll propose a toast.
How unlike them you are!

Sigh like the last rustle
of an autumn breeze,
and I'll imagine
the hillsides ablaze.

I'll imagine leaves
whipped up in a whirl as
a flaming tornado and,
at its center, a girl.

Her long hair tossed
askew and her face --
her rounded, demure face --
curved in contented bliss.

Her dress rippling rhythmically,
syncopated, fully, with the twirling
wind and its fiery cargo;
how she smiles amidst the movement.

Sigh again, sweet angel,
and I'll pretend I'm not in love.

And what if I told
      you the world was on
           fire like a burning man,
        absorbed in his work,
              painfully turning to
                     productive ash

could this truth light
       the words from your
         lips, warm my
      sentiment as if
                  ignition is perpetually
                       within the scope of
               time like a teacup
           slipped under the table

It isn't what we had that keeps me up at night
Those memories will stay with me
It's what might have been, but drifted away
All those things that will never be
There is a resounding finality to it
Sending chills down my spine
A chapter closed, but not fully written
A heart not fully mine
I long for you in the deepest night
when self-deception is not a choice
I'd like to say I'm over you
But I don't have a voice
The words choke up, blocked by some
burst of feelings in my throat
Closed eyes, the world is gone
I am on the sea, a lonely boat
Sailing away from you, and your world
I'll never come back home
Your face follows me across the blue
I realize it's all I'll ever know
I wanted so much more! you and I
We were what should have been
And I long inside the mystery
That will never have an end

I think, perhaps, that I
may have been born for a different time
Maybe my soul rested too early
On an infant never meant to be me.
I look around, and it seems so strange,
People dig for shallow ore; I seek a deeper vein-
but those who skim the surface are rewarded
It seems like all my hopes are thwarted
by our reality, such a subtle thing,
that defines who we are by how we gleam
with gold and glitter, all so transient-
I think friends and memories are more significant
Everyone calls accepting this reality "growing older"
So you become less of yourself? Get lost in folders
and numbers and binders and paper; and days
are slipping by, as you're getting paid
For what? To own a house you never see?
Drive a nice car to a place you hate to be?
NO.
No, I say, this is a better solution:
NEVER. GROW. UP. That's my resolution.
****. Fight. Dream. While you're still young, retire.
Throw all your junk out and set it on fire.
Move to a place that you've never been.
Make friends, fall in love, and then do it again.
Never get settled; never set down your roots;
always try the new, and I tell you the truth-
You'll find you live richly with far less wealth,
and your life will have meaning-one you gave it yourself.

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

I stare at her across the bar, between the bottles covering the worn out stained oak
varnish tarnished, wood soaked
from years
of ashed out cigarettes and spilt beers
slopped spirits from over zealous cheers
she's younger than I imagined, aged as a fine wine
her eyes locked on mine
I see the solar system, galaxies
surrounding the
pupils blacker than the abyss of the outer reaches of space
a lovely contrast to the lightness of her face
I pull up a seat beside her trying to spark a conversation
on life, nature, hopes for modern civilization or even space exploration
she says "quiet now my son, patience"
you're to focused on what you're saying
without hearing what you're conveying
her hand pressed to my heart and she said 43 beats I remember
39 when you sleep, but 84 when you're tempered
I asked her the significance
she said it's all about the difference
how my world is at peace when I am asleep
but pointless rage forces the increase
this life can go no faster
and you will know no master
so focused on breaking the mold, or shattering the plaster
when we really need the subtle hand to make the cast first
she said you see me all in your own ways
I saw her as a woman, soft eyes with a caring face
for no man knows the subtle intricacies and nuances that make living worth the fight
I met god in a bar, she walked me home in the beautiful night
we spoke of love, happiness and the pursuit  of this life...

I dropped her off on the other side of the city
Lights blur past my window
And I lose focus
A different kind of space travel

I don’t know why I drove here instead
The house on Ellen

I had always imagined it as a sad thing
Keeping the shape of comfort
Waiting lonely for me to come back to it

The shattered window
And the holed walls
The singed edge crop-circle in the living room carpet

I broke in
The place smelled new
Like fresh paint
And good credit

I am not a vandal
But these places don’t feel like home
Unless something has been broken

Tonight
It was just a lock

My tires hugged the road like it didn’t want me to be there
Like hydroplaning without the rain
And every red light turned green
Just after I hit the breaks
Like a bully placing a hand on my chest and then saying
“Nah, I’m just ******* with you. Keep on going.”

There’s this place I sleep most nights
Only
I am still in the parking lot writing this
And I don’t want to go upstairs yet

By my parking place
Frogs ribbit
They sound content
Though they live along the water drainage line that seems like a stream
Only there are more flies and crickets to eat here

Home is a funny place
So I have decided this

Not that I believe in God but
I’ve decided
His hands are as big as the world
So big it is easy to feel like no one is holding you
Even when you're being hurled a million miles an hour

And maybe that is why I feel I have no home
I mean
Hold me like you are small too