wonder what this can sounds like when
i crush it against pavement
wonder what an ant thinks about
when he hears the word 'enslavement'
wonder what a star sounds like when
it's streaking across a night sky
wonder what your hand feels like when
it's held tightly by mine
wonder what a car sounds like when
you and i are ******* inside it
wonder what your smile feels like
and how your spit tastes inside it

my cheeks are blushed in the glow of your midnight kiss
i stand blinking in the corner
i am a smokestack, i rise above roofs and water towers
the space above this city is never populated by heaven
fear of ****** in the streets
in a hotel room
or a bus
bombshell crawling over flesh flashes metal neon
i am a coffee mug gripped by puncture-marked knuckles
exuding white dreams and pursed lips
I went into the dripping door
I drank the yoke of an ostrich egg
I am a hog in sunlight, a dead rabbit on asphalt at dawn
I lift a palsied hand to beg a cigarette.

all i have now
is ten toes in the sand
and the sun on my
chest, face and shoulders
i'm completely contaminated by
this bottle in my left hand,
the first drink i've had in days.

last night i spent
two hours knuckle-deep
in your fishnets, our tongues
were playing twister while
your daughter slept upstairs.

she was dreaming
of a car on fire
and a house exploding with
magnificent light,
downstairs you were wetter
than the deepest ocean
and i had the warmth of
your whisper in my ear.

i spent seven days in a foxhole
eating sand and burying the secrets
of former lovers.
i gave myself the silent treatment
for the first four days
then i sang for the other three.
i dreamed of cowboys and westbound trains
and i had an old sack full of bottles
so i wasnt alone.
i was a fine toothed comb
or a skill saw
and i felt useful for once in my life.
i crushed a box of lightbulbs on
the fourth night
and i found the prettiest place to sleep.
i hung photos on the wall of the prison
to keep me happy
and missing you.
now i live in the basement of the world
and i wish for nothing more
than a swiss army knife and
one word from you.

if it were left up to me
this whole poem could be worshiping
the shiny puddle of silver light the stars stained
onto your heaving collarbone when
we made love & connected souls first
under the third eye pyramid tapestry then
on a rough bed of flat canyon orange dirt
in summertime georgia

but it's not & can't ever be
because people don't know you
like i do for example they aren't aware
that you dance with a summer breeze
like the lighthearted yellow butterfly
i can never catch in a net or
that you're the reason
i became a writer to begin with

they probably aren't prone
to remember the october morning
you found me huddled just before dawn
in a half-lit safeway parking lot
burning my clothes & yellow wooden pencils for fuel
chewing the pink bubblegum erasers or when
you said i have a beautiful pristine voice &
i melted giddy into your wet violet
hair as the wind whipped it
i was around nine & in the third grade
so i sat patiently crosslegged & camouflaged
a lizard with my tongue out savoring
that moment like an unexpected
rainshower in the pre-puberty desert
listening to the rhythms of your salty blood
pump waves of breath out of your lungs

& they still don't know about
later on when i was walking home
shoulder bones barreled against the long fog
you picked me up again in the
immaculate rust wagon your brother left the keys in
you bought me firewood at a gas station got me
happy drunk on hot kisses & so paranoid ******
listening to thin lizzy on tape in your garage
you laughed hyena hard
when i asked you to marry me
that starless purple night on your daddy's farm
& so did he but he never really said no
& neither did your eyes they just glistened
like they were floating in olive oil as
you ascended the stairs to your bedroom alone
covered in magic enormous light

to the girl in the deli
whose whipped-cream face
is topped with freckles,

to the girl who winked back at me,

to the girl whose eyes
are sanctuary,
like a red-glowing fire on
a brisk autumn evening

to the girl behind the counter
wearing a hair net
looking cuter than
i don't even know what,

to the girl with dainty fingers
and shapely hips
and thighs like a sunrise
that creeps slowly across a room
to slap it's warmth across my face,





what time do you get a break?

i want to kiss you underwater
in an aquarium
while strangers admire us
from their captivity

i want you to be the only thing
keeping me alive

i want to taste your stale
exhalation of whisky breath
and you
can have all my spent cigarettes

i want to drown
with you grasping at my abdomen
digging into my chest cavity

i want to give up
all my oxygen and watch you
ascend into refracting light

i am like a water droplet
fearfully gripped
to the lip of a paper cup,
the same as you are
like a delicate kiss poised
on mine.

except i am not made of
purity and clarity,
instead i am
a convoluted storm
of desperate confusion and
utter disbelief
and depression,
and you are just
a delicate kiss poisoned
by mine.

crank up the old vitrola
and play me something ancient
let the static sing
us to sleep
let patti smith
**** us slowly with her blues

crank up the old vitrola
we can cram love poems
into empty wine jugs
and roll them down the street

crank up the old vitrola
as all hope dies and
the chorus repeats

crank up the old vitrola
i've got time to ****
and a lover to love

crank up the old vitrola
we've got nine more bottles
to drink
before sunrise
nine more poems
to write
before we close our eyes

maybe you were right: i never brought
home flowers or chocolate
cleverly arranged in the
shape of a heart and
i couldn't afford a day at the spa
but i'd always sit with my bare ***
on the cold bathroom tile for hours and
feed you toasted bits of cheese on ritz crackers
while you cried in the bathtub i'd
braid your hair as you
let your fingers wrinkle until
the water cooled off too much your
******* got hard and bubbles
stuck to the cut of your shoulders

because you were there when
my mom's little car died on a backroad
under the old black tree
that scratched up the sky
you pulled your pants up
over ruby knees and asked
me to fix your bra
smoked a cigarette lying upside down
across my damp chest
facing my feet and
made me make a promise
while i traced music notes into
the soft flesh of your back with
my ***** fingernails and found
the cracks in your porcelain ankles
with my tongue

you said my love for you is
something that will never make sense
and you never know what to do
with your hands when i'm kissing you
but you moaned the chorus while
i sang verses into your bellybutton
and tied a couple fingers to the
soft web of hair behind your ears
we were like two locusts
fighting in a gossamer heap

two weeks later you were dancing
in my kitchen like a daffodil drunk
on robotussin wearing only striped
peppermint legwarmers and
authentic dreamcatcher earrings
so i bought a theremin from
your favorite pawn shop
and taught you how to tickle it
and as the wind picked up
whipped your hair into a
crucial comet's tail and rustled
the caterpillar from the windowpane
back to it's home in the wormy grass
i could hear the warm whistle
it made when you played with it
alone in the bedroom

i am crying now while
driving down highway one
recalling how your nose crinkled
when you smoked crushed roaches
or the way your hair tasted in the morning
and how you used to spit a
little bit when you laughed
and i can still hear that haunted echo
even as the saltwater swells
and splashes past the rocks

that sun machine is just
a distant memory now
but it left burn marks on my skin
and the floor where we tumbled
and fought the first time
i called you beautiful

im too tired to drive now
jesus take the wheel
i will sleep for days
curled up in a ball in the backseat
of my own car
im too drunk to drive now
jesus take the wheel
my face is numb from the *******
my teeth are clenched into a smile
life gave me lemons today,
or i found a bag of citric acid
and i squirrelled it away in my eyes
jesus crawled out of a hole in the ground
and i nailed him to his place in the sky
he will bleed onto my palate
and i will be cleansed by
his desperate sweat.

I am lonely.
I am a moldy and forgotten
sandwich rotting in the corner of your fridge.
My ham is slimy and my lettuce droops.
My tomato oozes.

And you know nothing about it.

I am lonely.
I am a gnarled and frayed
left slipper hiding in the dark under your bed.
My stitches have been ripped open by dogs
but I was once a part of your favorite pair.
My sole is bare.

And you know nothing about me.

I am lonely.
I am a necklace I bought you in
the spring of last year.
I remember when you wore me out
almost every day and night.
Now I am kept out of sight and
Out of mind.

And you know nothing about me.
And you don't know where I am.
And you don't know what I'm close to.
And you don't know where that smell is coming from.

tonight is an
old-enough-to-vote-scotch-in-a-coffee-mug
kind of night i'm in one of those moods
where it's hard to communicate anything specific
i'm delving deeper into the vast emotional cavern because
i haven't found someplace open yet to flourish
& i haven't reached my usual vibration so i'll just bolt
the door wash my hair with hand-soap
because i'm a ***** guy with a ***** shadow body
i'll sit down in the shower to relax the muscles in my legs
watch the tears streak down the clear shower curtain
& accept the same marvelous sensation of wetness
tumbling across the skin of my face pooling in my top lip dimple
& soaking the soft yellow flannel splayed open on my chest

when the ball drops & the piano coda to Layla kicks in
i'll melt under the sweaty first-last moon of the year
as it sneaks up behind me bathed in the creature light
of the television shining out from the silent second living room
of my sister's house the one with the chandelier
& it's no surprise i turned out this way

last year i felt as cool as raindrops gathered together
in the shade of a wide tree & now i've never felt so alone
in my whole ******* life at least then i had roommates
to not give a **** about me because i'm nothing
i've come so far but sometimes
i'm still so scared i can't breathe
sweat trickles down my rib-cage as i re-inhabit myself
& next year i'll continue to dig myself out of this concrete hole
of low self-esteem this deep urban well of trembling
amateur sadness & feigned calamity maybe learn to not
blame them or make the tree feel guilty for blocking
the small bright sun from shining on my puddle because
i am no longer defenseless against my own racking fears
but right now it's too hard to see tomorrow's sunrise
from the wan of today so i'll just sleep out by the pool tonight under the stars to wait for it's richness & apprehend it's depth
if i get champagne drunk & can't
slide open the glass door i'll shiver my shoulders
& cry soul-struck blubbering in my sleeping bag as the
fireworks or flashlights cut
a Morse code dirge through the thick elm trees

the smell of spent powder or snuffed out candles
hangs like a noose around the throat
of the street with the fog in the morning as i brush
my sleepy-eyed teeth with my finger
i'm remembering the only summer you & i spent
together between college semesters
as you were getting over your ex-boyfriend i helped
by keeping pictures of you hidden in my room until spring
you said he took steroids & you liked a guy with muscles
so i did push-ups every morning before anyone else woke up
i did whatever you wanted in bed all night
but it didn't matter because you always left
as soon as you came

the weekend you got your wisdom teeth out
you made me promise to kiss you everywhere
except the bottom half of your face
starting with the swallowtail butterfly cocoon
of your collarbone or your belly-button at the bottom
of the neighbor's swimming pool
& you held your breath for me between
your swollen catch-me-if-you-can smile as
billows of your flaxen hair
floated into my open mouth
i was pretty sure i was the only guy
you hooked up with that desolate summer
but i was wrong

museums
and televison
soap operas
and rotting memorials

the nation has suffered

i cannot understand

without perspective, we flounder in the dark
in misery
being victimized

for what?

my view
is:

am i wrong
about bears?

Listen, children
I'm calling by phone
to teach you
of a bourbon sunset;
a time when it's best
to sit alone
on a river's beach
and drink and try to forget.

Forget about the past,
the sorrow and the pain
drink them down fast
or they'll slowly drive
you insane.
Drink away the pleasure
douse out the memories
Tonight I drink for leisure
and to burn away my arteries.

Listen, children,
quick, to hear
the story of the whiskey sunset
will surely bring you to tears;
This knowledge, do not forget
will pay dividends in years,
the doctrine of the bourbon sunset.

Now my tears flood this river's bank
and a blind man could see
this bottle's drank
so when the time comes
it's me you'll thank
for teaching you of a bourbon sunset.

Listen, children, really
do not curse lie or steal
just drink away the fiction
all that remains becomes what is real
you will die stone
cold and all alone
no matter how much love or hate
your heart feels

No one thinks I'm cute.
No one thinks I'm funny.

If I was really so astute,
I'd be in it for the money.
I need to be more rude,
I have to be less thoughtful,
I'll start calling everyone 'dude'
and I'll start drinking milk
straight from the bottle.

No one thinks I'm smart.
No one thinks I'm worth it.

If I really had a good heart,
I'd make everyone think I was perfect.
I need to be more greedy,
I have to be less austere,
I'll start taking food from the needy,
and I'll build a facade on every frontier.

No one thinks I'm special.
No one thinks I care.

If I could really deal with pressure,
I'd scream and throw things into the air.
I must be much less pensive,
I must try to be more gluttonous,
I'll start buying suits that are expensive,
and at least two more button-ups.

No one thinks I'm grand.
No one thinks I'm unique.

If I was really such a right-hand-man,
I'd reach down and scratch their oblique.
I must be much less generous and
substitute it with daring,
my handshakes will be venomous,
and I'll start littering without caring.

No one thinks I'm the best.
No one thinks I'll go higher.
I must do away with being honest, yes
and I'll practice becoming a good liar.

i have a headache. i have sore arms.
from drinking at 3 in the afternoon.
from holding you up on a pedastal for hours.
i dreamt about a salty girl
riding in a parade & confetti
made of dollars.
the golden rainbow is no bigger than my fist
and is blinding the dangling lovers.
next march the taste of flowers will
return to **** the garbage men,
they will be struck down by
flying swords of grass.
you will see the way the calvalry
becomes twisted up in drugs,
like a tornado singing a misty song.
it will let the dancer drift into orbit,
and i will watch as a pirate dies
of laryngitis.

I have been buried in a flowering sofa
I have been buried in punk rock guitar
I was swimming in a sea of orange juice
I wish I believed in unicorns and innocence
I wish my roots ran deeper
I was ******* us over in the middle of November
I was in way over my head
I have a cramp in my side-stomach
I have terrible sleeping habits
I have been carried by prophets up hills of redemption and
I have spent Sunday afternoons with ****** in basements
I have spent days huddled around burning xmas trees
I have a mind that suggests disease, and is riddled with laughter
I have drifted directionless on an autumn breeze
I have prayed to the gods of ***, before and after
I have been tossed about on shapeshifting seas.

to the girl who looked like new confetti thrown into a vortex
who went streaking around christmas trees with me after
the 1st annual ugly sweater & cheap tequila extravaganza:

i live inside a piano unable to tell the difference between lust & love
the only way i'll get to heaven is with the sun & your eyes on me
fighting for supremacy to write a poem & shout it at strangers
bursting from the ground like a masculine transcendental cornstalk
or a thin-***** blond haired man smoking a cigarette
with my hair in a bun finding new secret ways to touch you
my eyes closed & mouth open & armpits smiling skyward

your sweater blossoms now the way it never did in highschool
because your ******* are beautiful tumors that you bought
eyebrows plucked into gentle brushstrokes sent me into a fever-dream
you say you have scars on your ******* & i want to kiss them
after i tasted your raspberry lipstick daiquiri on a shared cigarette

i forgot my middle name when you leaned in & whispered
pretty things in my ear & your long hair teased my shoulder
you said something about a giant rumored t-bone steak but
i asked you instead to sing to me in the dark through a
shining steel microphone wearing a snakeskin trumpet
with your giant-bulbed headlights shining over the
empty shot glasses and half-eaten slices of lime
your hands dancing over the triumphant big pink ****-head
under the neon table beside your bar-lit bestie
bumping & dipping & snapping your fingers but
before my ******* mutilated your ***** bone
                                wait you said
please keep
                               the tv & radio on softly
my face tender-lipped like a deer shivering in your high-beams &
the shadow of my ***** growing up under your skirt
like a black horse bending its head to the stubble underneath your
belly button & around the hollows of your quivering knees

finally squatting on throbbing meat in my
bed at midnight doused in oil & fully on fire
your tongue orbiting around a hard universe
your marvelous face pressed into the seismic mattress
golden buttocks arched toward the sky like a skillful camera
my fingers sweep like feathers down your spine to your waist
shimmering like a teloscope in the blue light of the television

in the morning we held a funeral & buried my lips between your thighs
you are a beautiful new skyscraper untouched by wrecking *****
stiff-necked & wearing loose boots & an italian style blouse backwards shivering in the glow of the fireplace beside a big tall rock in the desert
your scent is still in my bed-sheets & now you are howling eyes
bloodshot & nagging across the fresh dawn prairie of i-10
                        toward         the       endless       coast

i've got to get you out of the sun
because your smile is
making it's way towards my heart
it's wrapping around my head
and i feel dizzy

you are a sunflower,
i will stop to admire your beauty
on my traveler's journey

if i close my eyes
i am alone in a black hole
being eaten by elephants and eels

but when you smile,
oh god you smile
and it's so sweet,
even from so far away

i am burning in
intense white sunlight, but
your silhouette brings water
flowing between rocks and kingdoms
you bring hot shadows of x-ray light
in the twinkle of your eye

i am an ant pushing a cart wheel
in the streets of your mouth
i crawl over your hills, in between
your whirling mountains of grief

i dream of blue skies and freedom
i live in my mind, around paths of
earth and under blue rocks
i can swivel on my heels and
pluck out my eyeballs
throw them in the dirt
but i can feel the sunrise
with my hands

with my hands, i will feel
your undulating valley
and i will pinch
your empire
with a towel wrapped
around my head

my thirst
lives in my cheek
and my tongue

your dress
will dance and
fly in circles
and turn round and round
in my head until i die
in your arms for the night

sweet rest from far, far away.

persistent
Sisyphus
engulfed
in
flame;
saved
by
a
Rolling Rock

Without the audience I am nothing.
If I believed that there was no one out there who was listening
or who cared
or who loved
or who chose to listen
I mean read
I would be a desiccated pear
I would be a tired excuse of a shoe.

I have to know that I am better than nothing.
If I received no feedback at all, no encouraging words from friends,
Sometimes I don't know if I would do it
if I would press on
and walk
and write
and rebel
and destroy
and rebuild
and light up then
burn out.

Sometimes I sit and I think about nothing.
and honestly it's great to know that nothing is something and
maybe I am something
or nothing
or a mouse
or a servant
or a shoe
or a revolutionist
or an egotist
or a *******
or I am a perfect uttered silence
a ****** quiet
or maybe I am Jack's shiner, his swollen-shut eyelid
but maybe
just maybe

I am there for a chivalrous reason and
I got just one good lick in
or maybe I didn't
and I took one like a ***** but
I walked her home
and I kissed her
and she liked it
and I did too

And I am nothing,
And I know this.

What I'm saying is, I wouldn't be able to sleep.
What I'm saying is, I hope I'm something you'll keep.
What I'm saying is, keep reading and I'll keep breathing.
What I'm saying is, and I'll shout it in powdery tones
What I'm saying is, don't make me be alone.

i was a simple grain of sand
on a beach
but i did not get caught up in your sandal.

i was a shining star in the sky
but i did not fall
and you did not wish upon me.

i was two hands outstretched
but you did not run to me
and i did not hold you tight.

i was a crumpled newspaper
wrapped up in a homeless man
but you did not find warmth in me
and you did not give me your extra change.

i was half a bottle of bourbon
that you've been staring at for days
and now you drink me in,
and now i'm in your mouth.

i was a pair of transplanted eyeballs,
if only you could see the way i do.

I wish I held a microphone
every time I went to speak
each person would be forced to listen
and shut their ******* beak
This may sound harsh
it might offend your features
but I'm standing
knee-deep in a marsh
surrounded by brain-dead zombie creatures
These people are dull
ignorant or crazed
and deciding if they like gooseflesh
grilled stuffed or brazed
These words are a knife
and with them I will cut
a line on their throat,
a hole in their gut
there's only two ways
to get out of this rut
The other way I know
to make them scatter like rain
is to open this heart
and show them this pain
These words may be putrid
they may offset your senses
but ooze fills my shoes
my legs are cemented in fluid
and I'm reaching out for fences
praying to gods both demented and Druid
I wish I held a microphone
every time I went to speak
but my voice is worn out gravel
I'm stuck up ****'s creek
without a paddle.

i'll never give up longing.
i'll let my hair grow long like a prince
and tangle with the leaves in autumn.
let the pinecones fall around me like dead money.
i'll let fall become winter.
let myself become a crusty savage in a cave.
i'll let my teeth clatter against my tongue.
i'll let winter pass unburdened.
let the nights grow long and deepen.
i'll let the slow inertia of sleep come heavy.
then i'll let spring.
i'll let the tangerines ripen on the bough.
i'll let the afternoons stretch long and hazy in front of my feet.
let the fleeting birds find me on the lawn.
i'll let pollen collect in my bellybutton.
let the dragonfly light on my finger.
i'll let my jaw unclench.
let myself be shattered into fragments.
i'll let myself forget the bad stories.
let the rain wash away another year.
i'll let into my raincoat.
let my throat open and sing.
i'll let the breeze take my voice away in the field.
let myself become astonished.
i'll let the smell of the summer mist
enter my nose and stain my cheeks.
let the ocean impress me.
i'll let the sand bring me under.
i'll let myself cry on a mountaintop.
i'll let the sun guide me up a tree.
i'll let rage and calm and joy come together between us.
i'll let my body writhe.
i'll let kindness unbutton the fence i built there.
i'll let this impossible planet get lost.
i'll let america forget my name and orphan me.
let the elastic mirage just lazily dissolve.

I still don't know if
I've ever "made love"
but if I have
the first time
was definitely with you:

******* on the ***** carpet floor
of your best friend's house
in Tallahassee. we knocked
tattoos against the coffee table
both our knees red
rugburnt from scooting the length
of the living room + hallway.

we moaned into each other's mouths
as our friends passed out drunk
not seven feet away
we tried three positions & your
body told me the last one was your
favorite so we bumped bellies
pulled each other's hair
your chest on my chest
your shoulder blades
drenched in moonlight
small in my careful hands
stars camped in our eyes
you bit my
lip too hard.

I'll never forget the wet way you kissed
my salty forehead as we
climbed connected onto
the couch, but the most vivid
memories from that night
are your legs
still quivering but clenched
ankle locked together at the
***** of my back, & falling asleep
inside you because it
felt like the right thing to do.

i'm dawning
i'm dashing
i'm dancing
i'm dwelling
i'm dying
i'm digging
i'm dishing
i'm diving
i'm dozing
i'm dragging
i'm dabbling
i'm drawing
i'm dropping
i'm dosing
i'm dredging
i'm dreaming
i'm drifting
i'm drinking
i'm driving
i'm delaying
i'm drowning
i'm dumping
i'm drilling

i'm dandy
i'm doleful
i'm delicious
i'm dapper
i'm daring
i'm dangling
i'm dangerous
i'm damaged
i'm ******
i'm daily



i'm david

in a dream, you were a nuclear bomb and i was a village
and you blew me all to shreds
i mean complete obliteration

in that same dream, i was waiting for the Man
and i was at the bus stop
i mean i don't actually ride the bus

in a dream, you were a grown woman and i was a man crying
and you held me in your hands
i mean we had rough *** for hours

in that same dream, i was lying through my teeth
and i was a trigger happy ***** cop
i mean i didn't actually take the money

i have
some vague idea of
any possible universe
without any laws
designed by an idiot

designed by a diety
thinking of something much more abstract

if i was a mystic
if i had strong magic
if i were born inside a star
& you weren't already
my older sister's best friend
i would trap time forever
inside the hourglass of
your green-eyed memory
holding a skinny ultra can
shoulders deep brown from
catching two sunsets in a row
standing chest deep in
a clear water river
with the ***** bottle coozy
& your torn-up shorts rolled
halfway down

i was a six-foot-something anxious baby with
wavy blond hair and blue eyes when
you gave me a triumphant pinch inside my ribcage
under the table at dinner one night
my chest still tremors when i remember &
when the brave sunlight touched my knees
& bony nose after a long night with you
paralyzed for ten hours tangled
nestled so tight together
the nerves in my fingertips
& eyelids went numb
like waking up in the middle of a first kiss

i remember our
fun-drunk voices echoing flatly
off the popcorn ceiling of your apartment
when you giggled & told me
i'm better than all the ballcap guys
in all the dusty saloons you've tried
sloshing free ones across the bar at you
or bouncing their farmer's tans against you
& off of you on the wooden dance floor
i grabbed your waist tight & whispered
you're better than all the girls in
all the hash houses & hookah bars i've seen
absentmindedly holding a ukulele on their hips
smoking & yelling over the boys swarming around them

i want to catch every warm
slow second of the sun or your lips on mine
i want to taste the dawn &
your sweet skin fresh like rain
i want to smell the dew being burned
off the st augustine grass outside
& when my forehead glows sharp
like feverish red sunlight
you will press whatever part
of you is coolest there &
all the muscles of my body will
relax & sing to you

it was dawn when you
mounted me for the third time
wearing $600 cowboy boots & nothing else
except the red lipstick you found
under your messy bed
naturally you practiced
spurring me with the heels
& hollering like a wild bird in the
big open fields of america
as the colors bled through & into
my forced closed eyelids
turning them pink like
the inside of a curved seashell
or the curtains of your bedroom
your daughter came in
rubbing her eyes with tiny fists
& a healthy smile her cheeks
rosy with warm sleep & sunshine kisses
you dismounted quickly & swung
a shirt over your shoulders

i stand stretch to yawn & scratch my chest
as you both run away screaming
about sausages & pancakes
i'm left there feeling like a heart transplant
you swore we'd never stop dancing
& there you are sure enough
boot-scootin' around the kitchen
in just my workshirt & your lace *******
checking the cabinets for champagne
to sift over the last bit
of florida's natural o-jay

but you really are
my older sister's best friend
so i should just forget it because
you like to scoff at me
& make half-jokes
that you have terrible taste in men
or i couldn't afford
you anyway

my mother was a dental hygienist and dad thinks he's an architect
which means i'm used to sharpened stainless steel exploring the interior of my jawbone and lying to my father to let him keep believing he built me from the ground up.

I thought
I was just going to write
a poem about your eyes
but then I caught a glimpse
of the nape of your neck
and your throat
and your ***** line
and I watched a bead of sweat
trickle down your heaving chest

I thought
I was going to be fine
but then I saw your cleavage
and I melted into sand
and I sank into the ocean

I thought
your eyes were the moon
and I was being tossed by the tides
but then you turned away
and I drowned in self-doubt

6:43am
My blankets are so warm,
it's like being buried beneath a bear.
My mattress is a cocoon made of bread.
6:44am
The world does not exist.
I am in a black hole.
6:45am
bonk-bonk-bonk-bonk-bonk-bonk
and I am no longer suspended in time, space.
I am in the world.
I am of the world.
6:46
I emerge from beneath my bear.
My mattress crumbles beneath me.
I lumber toward the bathroom.
Time to ****.

I find hope
when there is none
But love is a fine wine

I sleep when I'm tired
I fight when I'm drunk

I'm always tired
I'm always drunk

I lay my head down
on your shoulder
If my head is light
I am drunk

I see your headlights
over my shoulder
My head is not right
I am drunk

when i first saw him
he was wearing untied boots without socks
sauntering across a hilly grass field
to calypso music playing in the
background or my imagination

i was so overtaken by his spirit
when he brought me home that
i succumbed to drowsiness for three days
curled simply into his armpit and
danced upon the galaxy

when i awoke he was massaging my feet
checking my reflexes for sun damage and
soothed my soft bruises with a milk plate

he kisses me in the morning with enthusiasm
and we share a room for breakfast as he
teases me with ecstasy eyes and i'm
no longer nervous around strangers

last night i danced across his bedsheets
he giggled and rolled his eyes at me as
i stood with the light of the sunset shining
behind my ears his rhinestone eyes locked
into mine for more than a moment and
my knees went weak my fragile hips collapsed
reclining into his chest like a middle eastern
pillow

i think his sweaty neck is delicious
as i sing to him through a vibraphone
in the magical kitchen
licking his skin clean i'm bathing
him in a sunbeam stretched across the tile
beneath the bay window

although i'll never understand why
he leaves or where he goes i know he'll
always return to me as the sun grows cold
and the white moon begins to weep her new
lust onto the blooms in the front garden

and in the meantime i keep myself warm
wrapped in a ball of yarn talking in circles
to myself spinning and catching strands of
cloudlight in my unsure hands

when i finally see him in the driveway
at the sky's edge picking flowers for me
the confusion melts away and the pain
from my wonky leg becomes
suddenly forgettable

as i watch him putting on clothes
in the morning just before dawn
or towelling off after a long day away
my eyes play with him and i let him know
how i feel with my body aroused
merely by his tone of voice nudging
him with my cheeks on the tight spots of his ankles

he is beautiful and strong full
of compassion and i'm so afraid of
being alone again i'll do anything
to squeeze him and keep him so
i scratch his back every morning at 5am
exploring the sharpness of his shoulder blades
to remind him of the things
we can do together
and to make sure
he's still alive