have you ever believed
in something so blindly
so genuinely
that the moment you realize
it isn't true, something inside you
changes forever?
i wanna tell you a story, see
seldom do i ever
go swimming in drinks
deep enough to drown in
but when i do
i speak in tongues
about things that none
of my memories
are allowed to talk about
like that christmas
at the isthmus
where my girlfriend
plucked a conch shell
whiter than gods teeth
out of the sand
held it to her ear
and stopped time
that day she was a shade of blue
the could've made the ocean sick
see, she loved to play jokes
when she held
the sea shell to her ear
she gasped, called my name
and said "i want you to hear this"
i said "yeah, right, everybody knows it's just the same old sea"
she replied "no. not this one. this one is special. listen. theres music in this one"
she handed me the shell
like a promise she couldn't keep
and i held it to my ear
with all the potential
of seeing shore
after being stranded
at sea for years
only to hear
a tired dirge of silence
spill from its emptiness
i guess she didn't know
how desperately
i wanted to hear it too
because ever since
something inside me snapped
now sand pours out
of every post card i open
i hear seagulls
in telephone static
sometimes i have dreams
where i bury my hands
in every beach
i've ever been on
and exhume this graveyard of noise
every time i try to sleep
i spit up fishhooks
and i guess i'm obsessed
but maybe
if i hold my ear
to enough vacant things
then i could have back
the time stolen from me
since it happened
maybe they would get it
if they knew what i wanted
when i blow out birthday candles
maybe they'll find me
face down in a wishing well
i watch eternal sunshine
of the spotless mind every day
pretending i can forget too
because this sea sickness
has followed me for years
because yesterday
i walked into a music shop
and all the pianos broke
but the only thing
i can think to say is
*do you know how bad
a memory has to be
that you fantasize
about forgetting it?

if this is a warzone,
then call it a warzone.

i was a poet.
my words
counted
structured
organized
picked and chosen
so carefully
i stifled my heart
in the process
but i loved you --
-- silently
from the bottom of coffee cups
in the transactions of homework
[your spanish, my english]
and my phone history;
all those calls i missed
hitting the mute button
when you played piano
and you understood
you knew my words
didn't say much at all.

but i am a poet.
and fifteen months
after my words were too late
he fell for them, instead
the counting
their structure
my organization
i picked and i chose
like a calculator
starving my heart
in the process
but he loved me --
-- gullibly
from the bottom of his heart
in the middle of the night
never mind my phone history;
all those drunk calls i made
to you
feeding him pretty words
so he could love me
because he didn't understand
he didn't know my words
didn't say much at all.