I feel like a big man
in a straight jacket
who has just learned
despite all his strength
he'll never break the restraints

I'm not saying
you should ever give up

Just relax when you can
Don't fight so hard
You'll be free soon enough

It is  what loneliness feels like on late nights
and I find myself drunk texting poetry

I want to make your ears time capsules
for the things I have to say

Sometimes I settle for your phone

I want to wake up
in the morning
with a message from you

A picture of your smile
Your smile
Your stupid beautiful smile

It is all I ever really wanted anyway

I don't know how to be scared anymore
I don't know how to be cold anymore

I've spent some nights in this car
Not worried about anything
Even though the transmission is failing

Drive back and forth most days
Trying to understand this thing we call home

And I want to repay you in something more substantial than money
This poetry posted on websites
and left on coffee tables
but the transmission is failing

And I am falling in love with you
And if I knew that love was the answer to homelesness
That in the shedding of weight
and in the cutting open
Was this

I'd have left long ago

Vaggabond heart
Finding safety
In your chestplate
Like a sea snail who has
shed his shell

To squeeze into yours

There is so much room in there
So much room

Your body
a cabin
made of welcome mats

An extra plate of food at the table
I am always hungry

This body
A broken radiator
always overheating
Give me your feet
To keep warm

Keep me
like a humble savage
Saying grace
In a language
You'll never understand

Changing clothes in a closet trunk
3 backpacks for different things
Worn like heirloom rings
Like they are all that I own
That mean anything

They are

And not that I know what it means just yet
but
Take me home tonight

people do not die.

they
fall through pavement
or slide under semi-trucks
or glide off bridges
into the soft embrace of water
into a place
in another state

and i don't ever see them
because they moved away
but they will be back
and maybe it's hard to keep in contact
long distance
relationships
****
but someday we'll hang out again
and it will be weird at first
because we will have changed
and
grown
but after a while
it will feel
just the same

I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm,
your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm,
yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new,
in city and in forest they smiled like me and you,
but now it's come to distances and both of us must try,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.
I'm not looking for another as I wander in my time,
walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme
you know my love goes with you as your love stays with me,
it's just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea,

but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't
untie,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.
I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm,
your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm,
yes many loved before us, I know that we are not new,
in city and in forest they smiled like me and you,
but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't
untie,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.