We were born screaming
hounds roaring from the belly of midcontinental lakes.
We would grow by learning to bury ourselves beneath the brush of Midwest forest.
The leaves are more sibling than brothers.
Can you hear them?
They are ruffling through the darkness,
They have nothing to teach you.
You light a fire from the brush
You hear only the death of family -
Can you hear me?
We never believed we could birth such darkness.
In the event of calamity
We will call this a forest fire/
an arson/
an accident waiting to happen -
Can you hear me?
I have been waiting for this to shatter
for us to again fold inwards on ourselves
Begging each other to find a way to stop the burning above us
We will bark into the darkness
towards all we had made
Hoping for it to enter the fire/
to burn away/
to forgive us.

We never meant to burn everything that made us.
We got lost amongst the lighting of matches.
We didn't think we needed to put them out,
We thought we could just be
With paws dug into the dirt
we will seek to unmask what lit this flame
if somewhere in the dark we had kept our creator around
If it saw anything beneficial in our pyre
Would it learn to forget us,
to regret sending us roaring into the forest
only seeking to consume all it had to offer.
We didn't think we would do so this way
With all our plunder becoming tinder around us
Hoping we might make it

When you approached me,
I was smoking a cigarette
listening to Macklemore
outside my favorite coffeeshop
in the rainy city

You said something,
but I didn't hear you,
so I removed my headphones
as you asked
"Could you help a veteran out
by giving him a cigarette?"

I said yes,
asked you where you had fought
you told me Saigon

"Oh yeah? Vietnam."

you looked at me
dressed in a coat
that was a color of blue
not found in nature
face of canyons
and told me
"We got those ******* good.
We did.
We got those ******* good.
Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."
and you walked away.

I was stuck in a trance of
What the **** was that
and yeah,
we did get them
but I don't know if I'd lay down
Agent Orange
and call it "good"
Take Civil and Guerrilla warfare
and try to tie it next to butterflies
and welfare checks

I don't know
what you think is good
But me?
I can't find any other words
for 1.9 to 3.9 million casualties
in a war that should never have been fought
Than sad
and wrong

I wonder how many Vietnamese women
gave birth to half American babies
That they never wanted
that didn't even desire to participate
in the act
of child making

I wonder how many
Loved their children anyway
how many were honest with them
how many of those children burnt that odd color of blue
that should never exist in nature
But then again
neither should the bombs children are still unearthing
in the North
and South of Vietnam

I want to know how many of their parents
learned that American
is another word for a *******
How many of these parents
grew up telling their children
never trust an American
until you know where his gun is pointed
because he's always got it pointing somewhere

I want to know
If you would understand
where Saigon, now ** Chi Minh city
is on a map
if you had never fought there
Would you be on the streets of Portland
alone
asking a college kid
who was not alive
when you fought in Southeast Asia
for a cigarette

I wonder where are you going?
How many people did you ****?
how many are you sorry
for killing?

and then I realize I really don't want to know.

The moments spent acting like you’re making love to a person
are the most blinding of them all.
Turn us into ashen cocktails of white and blue
from the flames of setting stars.

Those nights you become whitecaps on oceans,
she is sunset orange,
and only one of two wants to be there -
that is why you are always churning.

Each time you whisper “I love you,”
before her irises set behind eyelids
you will slowly realize you have been an actor
and this play has not been paying you.

You will one day quit pretending,
let this star exhale its own mortality,
begin finding the smiles you overlooked
while she flared above you;

When your waters calm,
you may find a new star to whisper to,
but this time without scripts;
this time Honestly.

When loved by an addict
you may run the risk of them finding another addiction in the softest touch of your skin
or the happiest gazes of your eyes
or the way your mouth curves into a smile

Maybe just your voice

When I think of my grandma, Bettie,
I want to know how she felt when the doctors plucked
one of her husband’s lungs from his chest like it was the petal of a flower
I wonder if she whispered
“he loves me not”
like we did as school children

When I think about the day he died
I imagine Bettie holding rib cutters over his body
cutting through his chest
pulling him open,
Plucking the right lung from his chest
saying “He loves me”

Before my grandfather’s death
I never saw Bettie smile the way she does now
I wonder if she walks with Marvin’s lung in her right pocket
whispering
“He loves me.”
“He loves me.”
“He loves me.”

To know you are loved by an addict,
You must see they have the ability to pull away from the substance they have come to love as much as the oxygen they need to survive-
But without asking them to.

I wonder if there will come a day
when I find a woman
that I would keep myself
on this planet longer for
try to save myself from the family tradition of dying due to substance abuse
Some nights
I drink shots of gin
1. “I’ll find her.”
2. “I won’t.”
3. “I’ll find her.”
4. “I won’t”
At noon,
I wake to an empty bottle,
But I don’t remember what phrase I ended on.

I am plucking away at these flowers
trying to find the petal that could draw me away:
It goes:
“Not this one.”
“Maybe it’s her.”
“Not this one.”
“Not this one.”
“Not this one.”

At dawn,
the flowers stand
with petals outstretched like they are getting ready to fly
every one of them is shining due to the glistening dew
I ask myself
staring out the window at this floral covered plain
what life was for my grandfather
wish I had taken the time to know how he knew
my tiny, brunette, curly haired grandmother
was the right woman for him
and how he found her petal
in this field
of flowers.

I saw you in the night as you drank your coffee.
Sipping down caffeine like you were taking in gasoline
Wishing for that fuel to take you a few hundred miles farther than this.

I’m sorry that your addiction could not take you farther
Across this country of methamphetamine addicts and alcoholics;
I should know,
My nicotine has never gotten me farther than another cigarette
And my lungs can only line themselves with what we pave our roads with;
They say “Thank you, for smoking.”

It feels good sometimes

To know
That even though both my grandfathers have died due to this addiction
That I carry a legacy, a legend,
A map to where my blood has been going
Living through tradition like it was not something forgotten by our siblings,
Parents,
Even our friends.
It’s like we’ve fallen deeper into preservation
Putting no chemicals into our lungs, but plenty into our stomachs-
I wonder how we justify it.
I guess it’s cheap can serve as satisfactory,
But I can still remember being a child and hearing:
“Erik, nothing in this life is free.
Do not be cheap.”

I’m sorry that the maps still show that New York is three thousand miles away from Oregon
I cannot rewrite them and manipulate the ways in which we travel
Take Minnesota and place it next to
Montana
Or Florida
I’m sorry that it seems we are still children
sipping on Coca Cola on the docks of Lake O’Dowd
Or teenagers still smoking **** in Kenwood park
Or like we are still college kids
Not doing our homework
So we may drink Pabst.

I am only twenty years old,
But I can already see how the paths are only highways towards the destinations we wish we could reach-
Yet sometimes cannot.
We are only children,
Wishing to be older, to find
We wish we could still be younger, only to
wish we could live forever,
To wish we could still be mortal
To wish this was not inconsequential

I am only twenty years old,
But I can see that we are already lost.

If you would trust me,
enough,
to lay your hand in mine
I’ll find the best drawn highway
on this barely marked map
And take us to the end.

You can take your coffee.
I just may take my cigarettes.

I’m Eighteen now.
Never been more afraid of the ups, the ends, or the downs,
But they still come.
This is birth’s end and death’s start.
This is forever banging her fist against my heart.
And here’s me wishing for her to stop.
For her to slow down,
to cherish each moment.
Don’t believe Forever is now.