Like transient dogs,
the kind that come and stay on a porch
and leave later: the boys shifted in and out--swept up
through one door and out.
and They were a sorry lot
They were so proficient at being sorry
( it was a wonder anyone ever
accused Them at all)

Suppose that was the point.
remorse was Their method
of shameless safety

If I did go wrong more or less at once, I wonder where
The chop block decisions of grade school, when you first realize you don’t care
‘I just don’t care’ in whiney and off-pitch voices and messy drawers
Was it the first time you realized you couldn’t be perfect and so just stopped
Being
Was it sneaking on to computers and secretly learning more about life in books than your
Parents wished you to (***** things)
Or was it when you learned because you shouldn’t
And didn’t learn and didn’t learn, and that persistent bubble as you grew up got bigger and bigger
Some looming threat about your future dangled over your animal head like a carrot as you trotted through worksheet a, a-2, a-3
And exercises you could finish in two minutes or two hours and get the same grade
Or copy and get the same grade
And those grades mattered more and more, and vaguer and vaguer
And they guided you less as they shoved more in front of you and grabbed your nose to say
This is important, this is you
And your friends started laughing like lunatics as well as *******
And the first kids ended up crying in stairwells
And you slept in class?
Was it all that, or was it outside. Was it your parents admitting they weren’t happy.
Was it the first time you had to recognize dishonesty or cruelty in others
(you had long since seen it in yourself)
Was it the first time you wanted to die.
Is it now?

Outside approval is ten times more common, twenty less important, and thirty more strived for
The ****** of everyone talk and talk and talk and say little to nothing.
Ideas after idea after thought is thought inescapable, different, a singular miracle
How unique am I, the harlot giggles, but inwardly, outwardly he is coolly solemn,
How clever for that, he says
And ****** by the ones who shift the glass
And turn off the fluorescence of compassion, he is unchanged, untouched, unbothered.

It’s the careless who care about the less of caring-ness,
And lost are the ones with the maps etched on their palms by benevolence,
And cold are the ones who say what they must to avoid what they should, and what they say is silence.
And what the ones who know cry for is forgiveness,
For the misstep, for the crushing blows they intend to land
On the faces of those who think that the brilliant room will make them glow,

Those sick  q-tip figured devices
Who ravage the lighting, the upward slipping, causeless miracles,
Those ‘flightless’ birds, with no song, who soar for themselves out of caring eyes,
And past. Applause to the harlequin-assumed,
Who prance on in beautiful spectacle, laughed at; gluttonous and thick,
Forgive me.

I hate how it's never like it should
And I love the way you
Eat breakfast
Or say "what is it" when you get
Lost.

I've spent so much of my life crawling and crawling for that
Feeling of nothing but sticking down
Not getting anything back
And it's been beautiful but never
Correct. Like a like was always shoved off to the side

I've met beautiful people
And touched them and breathed them
But I never met people who danced as silly as you
Or talked so clearly in
Broad daylight, while I skippered
And listened (without effort)

But it's not it at all
And I know where I am and I'm up
(If you only knew the half of it)
So I know I'll end up ok

I would just think it would be cool
If I could be "ok"
With you

My mother made me clean the shower
It was today and I used cold water
and rumpled curtains over one shoulder
I am telling you that the water was up to my elbows and my phone, I checked it and I swear I was alone
And it was winter so my toes on tile when wet,
were angry and bit up my legs.
My toes were somehow as thick and slimy and
inconsistently out of order as my legs
And I thought that was absurd;
That,
And how my hands were raw, cold or not.

Not like it wasnt nothing at first
Just a heavy spin in a heavier room
Filled with people and pillows and spills

Not like it wasnt somewhat scary next
Like the sunburn and the goodbye
That was just awkward enough to be fun

Not like everything didn't blend and get
Different and slung underneath miles
And miles of bumpy stars and moon wisps, or rain and saké and leaving
Early and early

And telling your life close to my face
I know it's here you tell close
So just admit it and be close
Because I already am
And it won't make a difference to not say it anymore

The wind, it comes now, from a fan above my head
It draws me out like thread through so many needles
And sews me back from my pieces
Pieces torn apart by your
Hungry mouth

So many small spells spelt out with
milk white goosebump skin and
Red as blue flashes pulled out from
Every single touch, every contact
Of fingertips and palms

Theres an eclipse dilating on the moon
Expanding discs, breathing outward
Black and spreading in your eyes
Flown across my neck
And up your chest

You fold me up, and wing me out
But my legs are too heavy to walk
And what is there, what is here
Is a ghost
Of seconds ago.

A space I'll always feel as full when you have left
and I'm alone.

The dressing in the window is shadowed by the right corner door
Calling to the left sun he screams for more of less and for the floor to be lit
Like the bottom of ballerinas faces when they're sprayed by the stagelights.
He cries a last note to the minor scale blues number, switching to bass
And closing the gap between what he really knew and what he couldn’t face, he floats home
and up a stair,
Pulling down the sheet over the two pairs of killing drones, the lovers eyes
And regardless of the broken mirrors and the lucks flailing failing dream vain, he will not try
To quit.

Thirty-two. Adventure.

    Exotic was the word we felt. You rode beside me, small as we were on rickety
flippant and injured bikes, but it was so dark dark and your hair
your hair was *****, and the lights that neoned over our heads turned into lines and twists
fists of red and blue and green and the bricks were wet, like the dirt on the bottom of your shoes
shoes that we fled in, shoes that slapped water and collided with the pavement
You were just as cunning kniving knifing strafing dodging as I
and our lips cracked smiles of sharp white teeth and we ran
because we were bad, we were motors of deliberate disobedience
our eyes were glazed with dizzy daffodil poppyseed crushed ice and bottles hidden
and the room that was the city sky was spinning
weightless and confused and sure so sure, we broke window after window with rocks
and danced, out of character and space

I took you home late

I want to spread like fingers through the creases of your brain.
I want to flow like a solemn procession across your eyes, and wrap my hands,
I want to wrap them around your neck and pull your soul into mine
And squeeze the death out of you.
I want to draw your smile out like the smoke from a dead fire and
I want to crawl on my stomach towards your breath, and feel it against my skin because
I want to be the one you wake up for
So you can squeeze the life into me.