Your mouth,
I bet it is a garden
where buried secrets
make flowers grow
and nobody  will ever know.

I want to know.

As I walked through my old room,
I stopped and swept
my finger across the dust;

My room and I,
we were both empty,
no one tended to us.
Every vacuous corner
a reminder of
that which had been lost.

My mother, she held me
but it wasn't close enough.
She could never again,
I was too big,
and she knew
all my sins.

My father with fist up
fighting shadows
to attempt to protect me from that
which we both knew
he could not.

Last time I was here
I slept with lights on.

I.

Your fingers danced on my knees so gracefully.

they knew their stage well,

the had danced there many times before

   but never so freely,

this was the first time we had ever been alone.

II.

There was a band aid on your finger and

you told me about some sander wheel,

or something or the other.

I showed you my scars from a previous job

but we only discussed the scars

that were visible to the eye.

I’m still convinced

you wouldn’t understand

the ones that lay beneath.

III.

The bar lights had a blueish tint;

while we waited for our drinks  

I watched them

gently grace your brow,

you smiled.

You have such a genuine smile,

it always seems to whisper, “come closer,”

even without a spoken word,

IV.

You pulled my hands into yours

and asked why they were always cold.

I thought it was because

most of my time, I spend alone.

So for just one cold handed, blue tinted moment,

I wanted to call someone mine

I kissed you,

and you looked at me

as if you could possibly love me...some day.

V.

As much as try to fight the idea of you,

and I fight it with both fist up,

as if to prevent you from hurting me

before you even try.

I’m starting to notice your absence

and even have come to detest it at times.

In this bed I lay with bended knees.
Bended knees like a bookmarked
page in your favorite book
to remind you where you left off.

      To remind you that you still can come back.

I am
an anchor
at the bottom
of this sea of people.

Sea - of - people,

funny,
the smallest things
always make me think of you.

Everybody drinks too much,
everybody talks too loud,  
everybody laughs at things they don't find funny,
and sometimes they dance;
bodies so close
I bet they could feel each other's heart beats.

Heart - beats,

Do you remember
how you laid your head on my chest
and claimed
you could hear the ocean?
When we kissed
you said our lips were the waves
crashing
against our body's shore,
over and over
and over again.

I can't believe
I thought this would
help me to forget that I love you
or maybe more so
forget that you don't love me.

With a drink in hand
I watch these fools
engage in one night stands,
and it makes me so incredibly
lonely.

I ******* hate parties.

I think about calling you

when I’m alone Friday nights,

I imagine you all alone too.

You’re probably watching action movies

and eating frozen dinners.

I think about all the things I would say like,

I’m sorry,

or I was wrong,

and would you like to **** me,

or can I have my record player back at least?


P.S. Have you seen my pea coat?

I.
My memory of you plays like an old film
I know it word for word, and scene for scene:

YOU* fall sleep on my shoulder, and
I whisper something
into your tousled brown hair
in hopes of instilling these 3 little words
and this feeling
into your subconscious being

I and LOVE and YOU.

rewind, replay, over and over and over..

II.                          
I yearn
         to be
           that close
                to *anyone again.

III.
There are days like today
when I remember that  
YOU are still breathing,
and someone knows YOU better
and holds YOU closer
than I ever did
or could ever again…
                  and I begin to understand
      why good men go mad,
           write poetry,
                 smoke cigarettes
         and drink too much.