Tonight I cannot sleep
So come to me
Fill my head with dreams
Of love-making and risk-taking
Of your sweet hellos and tender goodbyes
Or better yet love
Be my dream
And never again will I need
The quiet comforts of sleep

I look to see if you’re online again
A bad habit that I should get out of
It’s been a bad day
And you’re the only one I want to talk to
Just a look to the right
Just a glimpse to see if you are there
But you still aren’t like I wish you were
I’m three degrees away from obsession
Toeing the line and getting closer to it with each passing moment
You’re like a drug to me and I can’t seem to get enough
I just want to talk to you
Because I know you can make it all better
But then you come online and I do nothing
I’m like a teenager again—waiting
Waiting to see if you will say something to me first,
To ask me how I’m doing
To see if you need me like I need you
Although I already know the truth
Or at least I think I do
So I keep quiet and watch as you come and go
You’re gone again and I feel that emptiness inside me come forth
Obsession is creeping up
I’ll push it back as long as I can
And wait for my twisted mind to go back to normal

"The population is expected to level off at around nine billion," says my father
A nearly full plate of Thanksgiving feast food in front of him
but he has been asked to pontificate which is what he does best
and I hear a tremor in his voice like I have when I teach
I know he is in the throws of excitement about what he's saying
planning for his keynote in Brazil, and what plant scientists can do
to help save us from global warming and the lack of water since there isn't
even two liters of fresh water for every person on the planet for use every day at seven billion
I gesture as to what two liters looks like  and my mother snaps "I know what two liters is!"

It's cold in here, in this large Oakland short sale house that fits my cousin's family
and my Aunt downstairs, where I like it better because the children aren't there
Like two houses put together and there are no carpets just hard wood floors and
open windows that make it cold and it is anything but warm and fuzzy
My Aunt is angry with me that I shop at Walmart but that's what I can afford
Tomorrow she's holding a strike at a Walmart with her daughter which makes them superior to me
She's also mad because I don't like my "Union" which does nothing for me since I'm not tenured
"You have to organize" she condescends, like that is a reasonable thing with my one and two year stints at schools but she is the big Union Head for CSU so she should know
She was on TV with Jerry Brown after all, so what do I know
The kids are noisy since they all have their own phone and can play anything they
want at any time in addition to turning on the myriad of TVs and radios and stereos in the house
and the noise ricochets off he hard cold floors and walls that have pictures on them
of people from the family, but they don't look quite like they belong
and they hang there uncomfortably and self consciously
There is every skin tone except deep black at the table
My family--all that is left

Childhood: I loved going to my mother's family in Idaho
It was hot in summer or cozy warm inside in winter and
a wonder land outside for snow shoeing and skiing
It was quiet and they always had wall to wall carpet
I rolled from one end of the room to another in it the first time I felt it
It was warm and fuzzy.  
People listened and there were breaks from noise and chaos

Here, every conversation is disjointed like we are going
in and out of different time periods and different petty rivalries and
fierce competitions under it all and families are blending and being
torn apart and the latest one has formed from "OK Cupid" online
and my Aunt has to be right, the smart one, the good one, the one of the people
and it is so cold, so very cold, and the windows are opened to let in more
cold Oakland air as if there isn't enough of it and all the sounds of
kids and electronics are driving me slowly insane

What can plant scientists do to help nine billion people
without water?  Not a whole lot, except invent crops that
survive like camels, or can live underwater like fish
since everything will be either dry or deluged with water
and I wish there was carpeting, warm carpeting and less
noise and more harmony
and this is the family I have now
the old one is gone, like the glaciers that will melt all at last
and the rivers that will run dry forever.
And I think: what we need to do is invent a way to make water
Make enough water for everyone, maybe from recycled bags or used Nike shoes
and if we can do that, maybe the air in this house will warm
and it will become quieter and the hard wood floors will become soft and warm and fuzzy
and I will feel at home here, with my family

I miss you like the day you left,

with tears in my eyes,

forming angry rivers of deep seeded sorrow

and jealousy that I wanted to drown in.

We never said I love you,

But we could feel it trembling behind our lips with our last kiss.

Goodbye was painful enough without the dagger of truth

cutting into our chests.

When we found that one way ticket

my heart dropped like a pin in a silent room.

You were stoic like the Mona Lisa,

determined in your lack of discontentment

while I sobbed you away.

The worst of it was in the the future of irresolution.

I would never know if you’d come to love the world

more than me.

I would never know if I wasn’t Home

for you, anymore.

I would never know, if I waited long enough,

steadfast in my domesticated loyalty.

I’d sit, like an old dog, on your tacky foyer welcome rug,

waiting to tell you that I’ve not forgotten.

And if you never came back here

I’d still miss you like the day you left.

I had to tell myself that it didn’t make sense to count days,

or months, or years, if it came to it,

because even as my Sun rises,

and your Moon also does,

we still think

of that bed

that we’d fall in

and out of.