right now my browning chest is
propped up with beach sand buried in my elbows
i was dozing off underneath my shades
with the salt spray at my feet
& the seagulls swarming overhead
you asked for a story so i'll tell
you the only one i know
it's about making an exodus
& the accident of my personality:

the last time i was shot at
i was making a collect call at a pay phone to my mother
i was living out of a backpack
                                                    in a hostel
in sticky sweet new orleans
in 2008 post-katrina

after spending half a year without a friend
i decided to live what i write and become
the mythical warrior-poet or
                                                 just a sun-haired boy
fighting with the sky searching for his spirit animal
wearing old wool dress slacks cut short above
the knee i was only cargo trying to get
as lost as i possibly could

they came out of an empty socket shop window
blasting through the doorway onto
                                                            ­ the steaming street
jittery & starving roaring on the collapsing mist
but i'm no one's pigeon crouched behind a sedan deathtrap
poised to flee but with nowhere to go i can only hear
                                                            ­  my own heartbeat
                                                       ­       mother screaming on the phone
                                                           ­   hanging limp

& my own feet beating a new path on gravel through a strange city
when the windows grew lighter &
i slowly emerged from invisibility
in a world sprung new not defined yet
shrouded in what i only assume was
                                                             ­   special magic

for a while i was scared to sleep alone at night sometimes
i heard downer & buzzkill other nights that i cried
                                                           ­                          beneath the ivories
& i thought i'd die alone if i had to
but i was too young
to be that cynical

now i'm rising like a big owl out of a meadow
finding good new ways to fall apart as lightning
blooms on the horizon & clouds gather unnaturally
into pale blue ribbons & dance in a pinkish sky
& the sunset burns the treeline down
                                                                ­no one else can fix me now
                                                             ­   no one believes in me
but i believe in myself more than ever
the only person i've ever really loved is my mother
& she says i can't make a name for myself writing poetry
but i'm immortal among these words like stars
being blown in plumes of dust across a night sky
i'm looking for a new better place to dive in from
so if you've got a certain star in mind or a secret
cliff-space combination treebranch hangout take me
there or whisper it to me while we're already high
& hugging don't kiss me unless it's hard & in a precious place
because i'm feeling invincible again instead of invisible &
i really really really cannot wait for someone to try &
                                                                ­                             ******* stop me

when i look at you now i see a woman
who is stronger than most men i've met
but i like to remember you as a teenage beauty
a weird girl with wolf-whistle legs
and white tan lines flashing beneath your
delicate wrist as you walk by in cutoff denims
and frank zappa t-shirt

i like to imagine your jade-inlaid navel in midair
at a romantic disco with soft ballet slipper pink
lips quivering but trying to build a castle and
i am slumped nearby on a dusty corner stage
waiting in orbit for you to notice me with your
notorious blue eyes telling me either to watch it
or come scratch it

the thought of you in a daisy print dress
makes me weak and warm in the secret
ticklish spot between my own navel and ****
but i am just a poet-artist humming the first
sixteen bars of in-a-gadda-da-vida with a
third eye glowing in my forehead

i am an inexhaustible trumpet player
transient and eccentric in a dangerous
helpless swoon in a citrus grove calling your name
and all you want to do is shut my mouth
or ignore the sounds i make but i found you
chirping in a bloom of tenderness on a clover bed

you had just drifted awake in full sunlight
engulfed by the tiger fire of your own hair
with a copper halo of fresh dawn on your
shoulders and we sat together on the floor
of that smooth gold green florida hillside
surrounded by dark patches of pine and oak
we were only children and you had a long smooth neck

this morning we sat witnessing an act of nature like
two peculiar dogs perched on a long screened porch
with a squeaky door my blond hair flying everywhere
and you blushing on your knees as the early morning
fog raided our skin and left the fragrance of the trees on
our noses and lips

the fog burned off after our daily adventure
leaving a light blue haze on everything it touched
and sunlight streamed through the open kitchen window
you made zucchini breakfast enchiladas and i
stood dumb at the table sipping a homemade
kiwi mimosa listening to you sing to the dishes in the sink

some nights you still cry and unhook your
earrings before joining me in bed and we
wait for the twilight reconfiguration discussing
moon-tides and planetary magnetism on our waterbed
until you've stopped crying but your nose is still running
you wipe it on my shirt curled up with your
head on my chest as the stress world melts away
or i'm up late at 3am in a tuxedo at the keyboard
tithing all my energy to you in the dim hallway
with your eyes still wet and shining like a night light

you are indescribable
and i'll sing to you forever
without adderall or **** in my blood
until you come again
by yourself alone
this time on the tile floor
feeling jovial and strong
and weak and slippery