Do not leave me, not me
Sweet one with the ecstasy
Sweet one with pleasure emanating from your body
Stand fast, don't depart
Under my calm, as it seeps from my palms.
Draped gently like a necklace
Hold your breathe, close your eyes
Return to where you belong, stay
I've only just begun drinking my tea
Stand there and let me feel your satisfaction
You'll shake your head, unaware of my pleasure
Your hand upon my jaw
Thrown down breathless
Lost in your touch
You hold right here.
Do not leave me, come lie with me
You keep me from going cold, I will have another sip?
Of course I will
I'd like to retain the taste in my mouth
Infinitely comforted
You are my eyes to me
How many days until you will no longer do this
I remember your replies.
You could never count all the grains of  bliss in the desert of my laughter
Do not leave me, and wander afar
Your dedication lends me courage
You provide me continued comfort
Let me be the unexpected rain shower
Cascading down upon your wilting desert flowers
It would be such great tribulation, if you left me
Not me, with such pleasure
I have just begun, my eyes are yours
Lie with me, for another cup of coffee.

Sir, most honorable one…
It is not in fear or disgust
or in disappointment or revulsion
no, Sir, it is not of such causes that I have
sought the solitude of these hills and rocks and trees
and the lake that whispers ever, even as I lie down to sleep;
but O most revered passer-by -
in the hustle and bustle of our lives in the capital
and in our cities, even there I found an embracing silence
that I could not ignore;
and I saw the shallowness of activity
and I saw the ambition of superficiality;
and let it be what word philosophy or ritual or religion
may call it, whatever labels Organized Thought revels in -
that Silence I found nameless and formless -
and even in the midst of activity
I found inactivity
But Sir, as you ask,
the Impatient saw Rebuke in my Silence
the Virtuous found their Guilt in my Quiet
the Enlightened glimpsed their Darkness in my Stillness
And so it came to be that natural outcome,
society receded from me
Most Honorable Sir, it was not I that left it…
And ah, here you find me now,
insignificant, part of the whole, still, and as content
as the dust that you might find on a blade of grass
amidst the natural wideness that is here…

It was nice finally hearing your voice again

The anticipation like staring down the barrel of a gun

Only to hear it jam

It is nice to know you are not some big bang

So that I may finally lay my weapons down

This shield was so heavy from the weight of your motion

My legs grew tired from keeping me faced in your direction

They spelled dizzy

In dirt brown cursive

The grooves I wore into the pavement

The siren’s song singing so heavy

Working the cotton

Pulling it lose

You are not some siren song

Or a stampede when I put my ear to the ground

You are breath and bone

And break

as easily as I do

So let me learn to regret your whisper

Teaching my tongue

The taste of the secret Braille

On your teeth

Breaking my pattern like dancing

With all 4 of our left feet

The distance it takes your voice to travel

Thins out the shape of your longing

I know you

I know you

Like the nights where I thought I could hold you

But then realized my arms

Could never meet the circumference of your pedestal

Until you taught me to hammer

Dull chisel tip to your armor

I’ve finally lain my weapons down

After your voice misfired I love you

You can see my scars

Like a runway sash

From the top of my shoulder

Down to the opposite hip

They say

This Was Supposed to be Beautiful

And let me tell you again

That shield

It was so heavy

This is so much more than a love song that there is no music to keep your heart bouncing along with my tune. Never could’a anyway. I speak so fast sometimes you know just to nod your head and say, “yeah”. Can hear it in the way that my tongue cracks against my teeth. Sounds like *** sometimes. Not the good kind either. It’s the kind you never really walk away from. ******* like a bass drum. Feel it puttin pressure on your heart. But that’s fine with you. Knew I never really had a beat. Never really had a song. Too tone deaf for something as smooth as that. No. I just say ****. Like now. Puttin fingers in all your wrong places. This is more than just a love poem. It’s a *** poem. It’s a ******* revolution of quivers. Tryin to shiver ourselves to fit like shaking will rub away the edges. Rounding out the bad spots till our bodies make sense. No **** necessary. Not this time. As for me. I’m a poet. ***** talk is as natural as breathing. Forgive me for the freestyle I played on your money spot. Too classy for a money shot. Too ***** not to do it right. I’d trade my arms for flight. Gust away your sweat with more than just my breath. Know that you’ll never really tell me to stop. This is more than just a *** poem. More than the revolution of quivers that finally made sense of the sporadic tone to my heart drum. This is freedom. Breakin’ away the chaos, and the bad habits, and all the **** that scares me. Getting lost in the action of it. This is for every lonely bedroom, and bathroom, and pool, and for the backseat of every car that’s held the momentary refuge that keeps me from finally breakin down. This is for you. And all the ***** things I wanna do.

Stop your stuttering heart

And attempts to explain how this is complicated

Let me lap the language from your mouth

Until the words become sound

There is nothing complicated about a moan

Or trying to catch your breath

Let me love you primal

Let me rewind your dizzy gut

So I can love you backwards

So we can start at the end

And you can see that we both die happy

There are no words to explain your presence

How I know that at least

One of those hits on my poetry page is you

Even then

You’d need a stethoscope to hear the subtle changes in my heartsong

So don’t give me reasons why this won’t work

You should know by now

That I was born to surprise people

I’m an underachiever

You can let slide by this time

We both know how this ends

Let’s get past this and

Go straight to the good part

Where I turn your doubts into sounds

Even a baby can understand

Adults coo sometimes

Let me be a quiet sigh of relief

In order to mask the mumbles

Of your fear

Let me turn you into a sound

A moan

A sigh

A quiet breath

And then

Let me love you

For the same reasons that I stay hungry
for dinner and tired for bed, I keep my
heart a little lonely for poetry; that way,
I can imagine your weathered hands against
my pale thighs as clinging starfish – my
fingernails, bleached cockleshells washed up
on the barely evening beach of your back.

Justin looks at me from over the counter
He keeps his face in profile
Stops to pace

You know it just ***** because
I can’t see all of me
So I don’t know how to fix it all
It’s like the moon
It can’t see all of itself either

He nods his head as if he’s agreeing with his own thoughts
He steps aside so I can ring people out
Still paces
Still nods his head

Jon,
How do I get girls to like me?
I’m strong and nice,
But what if that’s not enough
Because I can’t see all of me like they can
Ya know?

I know
So tell him that I am still trying to figure that one out myself

I can see all of you
That’s why I come

To him
People are ***** you can hold
Glowing ***** of light
We pulse like stars

And this whole time I thought there was something wrong with me
Because I’ve felt it

Feel it when
Halfway through performing a poem about my brother
I burst into tears

Or how sometimes
I just want someone to touch me
Run your hand across my belly

There is a sun
Swirling fire in my breastplate
I just want someone to see it

It is made of
Fortified bone flint
And the slow breath made between lips while kissing
And is coated in palm skin
Because the only thing I’ve ever been good at
Is holding people proper

And I am happy to hear someone sees it

Sees me as a man
With a decent heart
And a sun in his chest

Even though I spend half my time ******* up

Everything

I tell him this

Justin,
I only know one thing to tell you
It’s the only true thing I’ve ever learned

As long as you want to be better
You will be

And
As long as you want someone to love you
*Someone will

This isn’t so much giving up
As it is the shedding of weight

He kneels down in a bedroom that isn’t his
He sleeps on borrowed furniture
Elbows on the edge of a twin bed
He wishes there was a body there
Any body

There are some things he needs to let go

There is always going to be a girl with your heart
And your veins wrapped around her fingers
Curling up her arms
Like vines on a trellis

Let her go

He knows that being good looking is 20 percent physical
The rest is all you

Sometimes weird things make him sad
That’s cool
Anything your body does without your permission
Is natural
You’re human
Get over it

Get over
The cancerous residuals
And the fear of silence
Between two people
When all you want to do is stare

Stare if you want to
Be charming
He knows he can be charming
If he smiles right
If remembers to be honest

Be honest with me
Lonely boy
Fearful stranger to self
Little lover of the things that get left behind

Admire the broken patchwork of your poetry

You are not a naysayer
You are a yes man

Yes
Hesitant kisses
Yes
Knee buckle trembles
Yes
Loving with the lights on
With the fire burning
Say yes to the breaking

You are not being broken
You are refining your badly built artwork
Molding your eyes less somber

Do not be somber sweet child

Stand like gravity is your slave
Bow down to nothing

Unless you want to

There are some things that require kneeling

Your knees are sacred
Use them only to make things better
To show honor
To shed weight

He knows this is not giving up
As much as it is shedding enough weight
So he can stand again