I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

ever time i think about the perfect girl she comes to mind,
yet all she wants to do is press rewind
And I'm tired of livin in the past.

i don't watch home movies
hate them
reason being because
when i was young
i was looking for a movie
my mother
had recorded for me
and accidentally
put one in the vcr
that i'm not sure
i was supposed to see
i know the obvious response
"uh oh, ****"
sorry to disappoint
they were only marked with dates
  1991
on live television
montel williams asks my father
"how can you just throw
your child away like a piece of trash?"
   1994
i spend so much time
in the emergency room
that my parents stop
penciling in growth marks
on the frame
of my bedroom door
i always thought
it was because they believed
i would never grow out
of this sickness
sometimes i believe
the reason that they
never bought me a dream catcher
was because they never thought
i'd live long enough
to see them come true
   1996
i am eliminated
from a spelling bee
because i didn't know
the 'dad' is silent in 'family'
   2013
before i got into poetry
i used to do standup
none of my jokes were funny
one of the other comics
tells me my skits are dry
sometimes sad
he says "why don't you joke
about something like your family?"
so i say
"i never wore any sunblock
because i didn't want anything
to keep me from my father"
i say "what do you call christmas
without lights or heat?"
before he has a chance
to answer
i say "1997. better yet
why don't you
make like a dad and
leave"
   2014
every time we drive
past the hospital
my mother reminds me
how much it cost to save my life
like she'd rather
have her money back
she doesn't have to say
that sometimes she wishes
it was me who had died
instead of my brother
i can hear it in the way
she says "love you"
sometimes i imagine
that if i were to die
that she
would pick out a casket for a child
because she never loved
the person i became
yesterday i told my father
how close i'd been
to suicide lately
and he said
"that's my boy,
livin on the edge.."
and i can't remember
if i laughed
or cried

they say write, say write, write
all i hear is 70's french music and static.
all i think of is you,
      last night i took shots until i couldn't hold a steady glass,
      remember thinking this is it, this has got to be it.
      this is how you forget.
contemplating calling you- dreaming that i did
      on, on and on
my english teacher said to write for poignancy,
i wrote on a coked out father,
sometimes i dream i see him at a grocery store, a church
he's all screams, i'm all "you have the wrong person, sir."
i've forgotten how to write,
maybe i'll call you in a year or so, maybe i'll forget

There is a timeless fashion and

I don't know what to do with the wind outside of everything you've ever believed in
But I implore you to reach out to be a thorn in my side

A sharp reminder that I'm still alive and well

How deep is your love? I want to drown where others only wish to soak in
You cannot fathom the depth of my devotion. Left within the ocean of a love that had no motion
Still waters still bother, my will falters at ill altars. At will I will myself to swim farther
How deep is your love?

As the world defends itself from the anxiety of death,
a wind-caressed woman waits by the water,
and signals for silence, unceremoniously.
Waiting for the blood-banks to breed ideals --
which will, inevitably, be exported --
that will turn Natives into faceless, finger-painted  
neo-orphans of the broken nuclear home;
old souls, convinced to be the youth in revolt,
and to be the scrambled egg individuals of a melting ***, that disguises uniform for diversity.

Her lavender dress dribbles the spiraling air, as the copper dust swims by her ankles, knees, and thighs.
I do not remember when she told me that everything we do and say is a defense-mechanism,
distracting us from the fact that one day we will die and be as imaginative as the roles we give ourselves,
as the people we think blend into us,
and as the gods we use as an alternative to a morphine drip.

I stood by the bad river, knowing that all of my attempts at being more than what I was,
was my grasp at an out-of-reach eternity,
and a dream of a humanity that could be affected by one person.

I do not remember when she told me,
"All of our attempts at progressing,
is our way with dealing that we will someday die
and may not have been successful at living forever."