the world globes were given at Christmas,
the creation in my synapses that i could have what
the childhood singalong claimed:
the whole world in my hands.
what a weight on my shoulders,
pulling me beneath my self.

i began reading horoscopes on each
country, with the ambiguous reflections
encountering consequences.

i used to find that fun.

We never cry together anymore.

I used to see my body as a ship,
wood and nails and ***** hands keeping
me afloat -
Gathering speed from the sails,
salt in layers on the bottom of my body.

Folks once said that men would cry saline liquor
above the waters
for their loved ones when they were
missing out on the sea.
Now, the salt is a natural part of the water.

But now, my bones are
docked on the bottom of the floor of
the forgotten sailors.
Ship wrecked, the water replaces my marrow.
They are sick, those bones,
eroded into sand;
Just another fact on
the earth and we never cry together anymore.

I was compared to an animal today.
I know we are all animals because our instincts take hold at desperate times.
we know what we need,
when we need it,
and how it affects us directly and
indirectly.

I need you.

I will not struggle for affection,
I will not accept anything less -
unlike an animal I have a voice,
I deal with daily hassles,
and exert more energy than most.

don't give up on me,
don't take me for granted.
I can find what I need elsewhere if need
be.

we brought home this puppy,
black fuzz with caramel spots -
he has german flowing through his
small bodied, big pawed liveliness.
he is already wise like a shepard,
he lives up to his breed.
the boy that i love, his affection has
bloomed for something so stealthy,
so strong;

all he needs is his dog.

i thought i was just irrationally thinking,
but,
he only grazed my skin, kissed my lips
a total of four times today.
maybe tomorrow, it will be five.

we smile like sunflowers,
spitting our seeds through our teeth.
they taught high winds to swim across
glaciers onto my skin, backstroke,
trying to shiver down my spine.
Indian summers save my hydrophobic
structure from the flooding.
i like to drive recklessly under the
speed limit, leaving a sense of
significance tanned inside my lip.
today feels like Indian summer
and your sunflower leaves keep
me warm until the next northern
attack provokes, down my backbone,
where the shells are where we left
them
sink.

we are bystanders at heart.
you always thought fools gold was beautiful
and we knew how to reach for highlighted
books in tattered low lighted bookstores
where people used to show compassion for
the little things.
old men croaked in these heavy feathered seats
but that didn't matter much.
it gave the place some history it never really had.
we would read each other excerpts that had no
significance and you would think of me as
kind of beautiful.
some nights we would drink wine, but then switch
to spiced *** to try and knock out the
thoughts that left bad tastes on our
swollen tongues.
i'd end up too drunk, and you'd find your
fingers woven in my hair that was too soft to
hold on.
sometimes you wished it was like wool,
keeping your hands from rigor mortis and
keeping me close to your bee hive body case,
busy with engulfing my bystander heart.
wool quilting to your shoulders,
you wouldn't give this up.
we may be patch work and hungover,
but at least we can keep each other warm.

i saw a glimpse of you in that landscape.
it was painted with the colors of your time management
but sometimes you were too impatient.
i swore on biblical verses and too many shots that
you had skyscrapers for fingers and you knew
how to take the best out of me.
we shaped play doh into giants that would walk,
just to renovate and play god for a day since
sometimes we felt too little to even be alive.
we heard the top of buildings laugh,
golden cities never found a place in my heart,
but what do i know?
maybe we just tried to direct, reflect, dissect.
i can't pinpoint my points on your cork board
because there are too many ads telling me about
the things we lost, the moments
we left on the grounds, like low light second levels
and fish bowl blemishes on saturday afternoons.
your catholic boy demeanor, or lack thereof,
was nothing short of a misunderstanding and those who
had the time wanted the resources but those who mattered
didn't have the watch to tell them when to listen.
heart listeners don't show up and god only talks to
skyscrapers,
building off of what is closer when we all need
something to reach out to touch.
heart listeners negotiate by linguistics and wooden
tables,
mapping out the streets and yet
some of us just recycle the paper so we can start
all over again.
some of us just want to be a city,
beating hearts leading giants
to maybe someday talk to time.