Maybe if I were a
hummingbird. Wine-throated
in Guatemala, would that be
far enough away, or is it such
a romantic notion to want to
to be fast enough to escape but
beautiful enough to be noticed

Through the twigs and savory green,
dry yellow sun bits. A wet vanilla perfume
lingering in sweat droplets, staining
that white tank-top too busy being
baked in, dead grass fastened to your
thighs a bit like tassels. I am sometimes
positive that you grew from the thirsty
dirt like a

cactus

My understanding of things, important things, has left me.
It doesn't make sense, to make sense of this
How can it be, how can this follow a plan?
There is no plan, no divine decree or meant to be.
There is no reason, not for this, not for this.
Can we ask, or dare we, who hurts more, who hurts most
It doesn't matter.  Heartbreak has no calculus
Apparently hurt, fear, isolation, loneliness, desperation, anger, and retribution don't either
I wonder if that's the the lethal parade,
and what's missing?
Abuse, neglect, weakness, genetics, propensities... Or just evil
Evil makes it simpler.  Evil makes sense.
I need someone to blame, i want someone to blame,
because I'm angry...
And I want to make sense of it
No wait,
I'm sad and heartbroken and bewildered,
     at the senselessness.
This just won't make sense.
But, I will awake tomorrow, my life, my wife and son and daughter, in tact.
What's left then,
     when there's no moral,
          no lesson,
               no purpose to it?
Just to love and mourn and feel, and cry...  For a while
It's hard to know, when there is no sense.

This one's for me
and I'm gonna watch it burn.
Watch it flicker and pop and crackle and spit.
Gonna take lessons on how to dance with the draft,
also hoping she doesn't ******* out.
I'll make poems out of smoke and shadows
and fading, lonesome, sepia-tone summer photographs.
I want to make dusty picture frames feel like well-loved tuxedos.
I'm gonna see if candlelight can be all the company I need to keep.
Gonna sweep this floor clean,
like it's not what we say, it's what we mean
between the lines of
one too-polished table setting:
one knife,
one spoon,
but two forks for wishful thinking.
I'm gonna eat my fill
and fill my cup again and again,
to the point that I begin to make conversation
with my reflection in the bathroom mirror.
I'll tell that *******, "My friend, you are drunk."
and he'll tell me, "Kid, look who's talking."
Then it'll be back to a glass
that treats its brim like a suggestion.
Gonna have whisky and black lager and champagne
'til my toes and thumbs tingle.
Thin blooded and numbed;
Steeled by my father's novocain.
Come morning, this house couldn't get more hollow.

In these hallowed halls where I wallow in the way that
I only seem to appreciate the preciousness of days
Once they've passed,
here's what I'm gonna do:
I'm gonna write questions on one side of the wooden window blinds,
and write punchlines to completely unrelated jokes on the other.
I don't know why. Maybe just to **** with people.

I'm gonna reminisce with full streets of ghosts
That glow like kerosene lamp posts
all the while, stomping my feet, just to prove that I can.
Gonna make toasts to the isolated;
to the quarantined and the misanthropes.
I'll boast that lovers are not unlike poachers,
but I'm not gonna mention that in every other under-cover dream
I seem to swoon like ivory elephant tusks.
I'm gonna gamble on Dusk
because I think it's got a little less honesty,
but a little more promise than its
attention-*******, good-for-nothing, go-getter big sister Dawn does.
That flirtations *****.
Gonna give Christian names to half drawn caricatures
of people who only ever existed when the lights died out
and the snow fell heavy.

I'm gonna let the levies break.
I'll go insane, just ******* lose it--
do the Boot-Scoot-'n'-Boogie in a onesie
with the hind flap flying free and the Greek Theatre masks of
Comedy and Tragedy painted on my *** cheeks,
(because no one should ever take their art too seriously)
And I'm even not gonna even care who sees,
partially because there's no one around to watch anyway,
but mostly because I want,
more than anything, to just be me.
Or at least I want to want that.
See, I read somewhere that,
"You should always be yourself…
unless you can be a unicorn,
then always be a unicorn."
And that really struck home for me because,
even though I've never really ached to be
the ******* love child of a Narwhal and Zebra
(In my imagination, unicorns are
striped and impecable swimmers)
I truly believe that Men will always dream of being Titans
and Titans will always dream of being Gods
and Gods want nothing more than to be Wind--
to twist with lit candle sticks
and teach the lonesome how to dance.

A one-step waltz tip-toed to distract.

But the fact is, I'm bound to take a few back steps.
I'm gonna think about her.
Gonna harbor hard feelings towards back bedroom dealings
that I have no right knowing about.
Gonna pray like a desperate atheist
that they keep their knees locked in a one night stand.
I might break down.
Only once, just long enough to regain my strength.
Then I'll tame the earthquakes in my hands, like I always do.
Gonna find what it takes to move on.
Not just regenerate, but to grow stronger than I ever was before.
So I'm gonna meticulously straighten these place settings:
One knife.
One spoon.
A healthy dose of wishful thinking.
Gonna try my hand again at dancing with the back draft;
I heard she's been aching for a duet,
and with all the life of candlelight
I'm gonna ignite the coal shafts beneath my eyes.
Gonna finally see me as the man I am,
not the titan I wish to be,
because I heard somewhere that,
"You should always be yourself…
Especially when all you've known
all you've ever shown
is some mythology."
So raise your glass because this one?
This one's for me.

Your sheep skin drapes
Far too loosely, boy.
You're much too starved
to be taken seriously.

You've spent too much time
Grinding your teeth against the wind,
And too little whittling
Courtship with your claws.

They're all going to laugh at you, boy.
Your wool-woven fool's crown
Tells you it's true.
They're all going to laugh at you.

These ideas of Limits and Ties,
Infect the brain.
Their murky ink spreads and soils the neurons,
all while polluting the soul.

We imagine such boundaries will fade,
And say words like,
"When I'm older, wiser."
"When I'm more educated, cultured."
"When I'm free to do as I please."

That is when,
These ideas of Limits and Ties,
Have finally swallowed you whole.

Do you remember
When we were just stars
Dancing in the sky
Shining bright for the universe
And wonder of its beauty

Yet one day we knew we'd fall
Right through the clouds
Of a planet that nests lovers
Like you and I
Yet so much different

They boast of passion and pain
Hunger for love
Unlike the stillness we have above
Their fire burns us and we yearn
To be like them

And so we did
Become man and woman
Bearing beating hearts
Like fire flicking skyward
Yearning for some depth in height

Yet we never knew
How heartbreak crushes us
An other worldly feeling
That compared death to a friend
Shattered like the asteroids that wandered endlessly

Do you remember
When we were just stars
Falling into earth's grasp
Our lights flickering dim
Replaced with hearts that burned

Burned like the torch of a sun
Rooting deep into veins of passion
We are reborn into a world
Of love and most of pain
Without regret of ever becoming beings of love