I remember
when growing up
was desired.
We swung our lungs
upwards,
towards the sky,
so we could steal
the air of the
universe's river.

I'd call you on
my parents' red landline.
You'd call me on
a broken cordless phone.
Your father would yell
and I could hear your mother
knock over things
as she was either
running, hiding, or
fighting back.

You don't exist.
You're a figment of my
imagination.
You're a poem,
but I want you to be
a memory that is real
to substitute the ones
I wish were fake.

You don't exist.
Your name is not
Kimberly or June.
Your ears aren't pierced.
We never played games
or shared deep thoughts.
We never talked about
running the **** away.
We didn't grow up together.
We aren't close.
You were never born.

You are just a phantom
stemmed by an unoriginal
imagination. imagination.
imagination. imagination.
But I want you to be real.
Please exist beyond my mind.

In my head,
you confided in me.
In my head,
I wasn't so ******* alone
from ages 6 to 16.
In my head,
you're a phone call away.
I don't want to write a poem
to communicate to you.
Be born. Be born. Be born.

I have so much
I want to share.
I want you to meet
my girlfriend Rachel.
I want you to hear
about how everything
is going well, for once.

Be born. Be born.
Be born. Be born.

When I was little
I played with plastic toy knives
and dragged them across
my brother's throat
saying, "You're dead!
You're dead! You're dead!
I swear, you're dead!"

And we pretended
kool-aid was blood,
letting it drip down
my chin and neck,
down my chest,
past my pec.

I wrecked my bike
and ran for days.
I was stung by bees and swore,
"Nothing could hurt more
than this."

And when I turned twelve,
I learned how to ******* to dreams.
The grip on my skateboard
wouldn't let go of me.
I ollied over plastic bags
and stared at lottery tickets
sleeping in the garbage.

She and I played with fireworks
faster than shooting stars.
We waded in the lake,
being a cliche.
She and I rolled on the grass, naked.
I don't know where she is, now.

I don't know.

We were just hanging around.
The car park with a cardboard fence
to separate us from **** Alley,
treble bars playing noise
from speakers that faced the street,
enticing the bingers, the splurgers,
to throw up on their cocktails.

A couple walked past,
talking about the morning after pill.
We listened close from a distance,
eyes reddened in the street-light glow,
crime silent for the night,
only in our eyes,
only in our eyes.

We were just hanging around
in our semi-darkened corner,
beer in the back seats,
a box of superkings,
your queen-size bed
our eventual destination,
after the **** and the rain,
after taxis and broken heels.

The moon shone in malignant pain
through the neon and the stalactites,
traffic fumes and traffic lights;
we leant undisturbed on your car door,
a long journey, no direction,
endless travel without motion,
without emotion.

We were just hanging around.
The misfits in a flat-pack world,
half-functioning lighters,
your lipstick still untouched,
the stain of rain on the cathedral.
We were just hanging around
when I fell in love with you,
the way you remained a stalwart blue,
your happiness, and your sadness too.

Train track sonnets, the drunk piano,
old trumpets and dreams of West Virginia;
gold tobacco in an antique pipe,
finding a new look in outdated surroundings.
Patients of self-hate stand in bandages,
long sleeves, and in brickwork formation,
all this to the beat of the white man blues,
a country guitar, harsh vocal, the sleepless smoker
on the bedside; new speakers for old tunes.
A new look amongst past disguises, ancient lies,
angry blisters on the road to recovery,
pathetic bottle of emptied red wine.
Tom still sings Hold On through bad hands and lotteries,
he will stay to drink with me, when on a winning streak.

There is something to be learnt from
the trees that let go
Of autumn leaves so silently: no grudges, no scorn
It is nature's way of telling
Parting is the price we all have to pay for love.

There is something to be learnt from
The leaves that hit the ground
After being held so high
It Is nature's way of telling us
It has never been about the fall
But how gracefully we do it

There is something to be learnt from
The empty sky at twilight
How it bleeds every time the sun leaves
Yet it tries to find solace in those thousand little suns
There is always something to be grateful about.

I asked her why she cut herself,
and she said,
"Because death has an edge
and life is pointless."
She asked that I not
write a poem
romanticizing suicide,
just a poem about
how hard it can be
to celebrate life.

The night
sky spills
past and
fills the store
beneath with
pools of
blue shadow
and silence,
they are all
there, the
books, on
the shelves,
waiting
ready to drop
like Sundance
and Butch
making good
their escape,
if only I'd
seen how
they'd been
squeezed
in I could
liberate them
all, wrong
verb (perhaps),
but.....
     ...... what
use will be
tomorrow's
sunrise
with no
book to read
by it's light ?