It's hard to say if I really made it out alright.
Like that, I hope and pray we never ever have to fight.
Previous loves always waking me up in these nights.
Nightmares of unhappiness spreading like a blight.

So don’t go on making inferences.
I recognize the instances my bad decisions is
I know there’s more than one so I don’t need the list.
I’m just trying to have fun, all right.
Why so serious?

If I said something wrong, I was joking.
Be careful with me, clearly my heart is broken.
I cover it up well though, with all of my daily smoking.
But depression is a fire fueled merely by poking.

It doesn’t need stoking; just a little coaxing.

Wishing wells are just holes that people throw their hopes in.

Why try and worship perfection? Even the pope sins.
The rich need to tread deep waters? Lucky you, your boat swims.

But this sea of lies we swim in seems to be endless.
Filled with countless tests, stress and constant tension.
Bad decisions and miracles unfolding right before our eyes.
Better make the most of it because we only get one try.

One chance to make it
and get out of it the most.

One state of being,
but seemingly endless seas and coasts.

Drinking by yourself or with family making toasts.
Making everything a problem, or seeing it all as a joke.

Like moving someone’s seat and losing it.
Or comparing my reality to his make believe and choosing him.
Or deciding to rent my heart out without ever moving in.
Offered a choice between heaven and hell and choosing sin.

Your house looks like it’s crying.

Red-sunset windows translate centuries of pain.

No matter how white you tried to paint those walls
your discontent and hyperactive sexuality cover it
with an indescribable yellow tarnish.


Your house looks like unbraced teeth
that smoke two packs of Camel Turkish Silvers a day.

Sharp.

The wishes of your windows
with lights from inside shining through them
scream out in the darkness

As I’m driving I wish you would let me stop by.
But I’m getting better
at learning how not to

Love like a cigarette

Hot and fast
Killing softly and slowly
Watch each lover disappear quicker than the smoke
But feel their presence in the way their scent cloaks you
And the way their taste lingers on lips once they’re gone

Love like summer’s thunderless rain

Hot and fast
Early mornings with windows open
When the entirety of the world is in rhythm with the droplets above your bedroom and the rise and fall of breath beneath sheets

Love like the sun loves shade

Hot and fast
Able to rest easy on the brink of blindness
knowing when to leave shadow behind

Love innocently like you did your childhood ghosts

When the bumps in the night were more than water heaters
when imaginary and unreal were labels only those who outgrew themselves used

Looking youthful.
This situation’s crucial.
Harder than a kid
with bagged rock and pistol.

A man craves a woman,
leave him suspenseful.
Subconsciously
you are driving me mental.

Tired of living this life filled with lies.
So tired of competing
with all of these other guys.
Exhausted,
running away from the fears.
Living in the moment
ages me a few years.

I used to be so youthful.
I used to be so truthful.
Never believed in sinners,
now your trees are looking fruitful.
Accustom to looking behind ,
missing entire view-fulls.
Cupid's arrow got me in one shot
didn’t need a few pulls.

Lay your head down.
resting here by myself
Waiting for reality,
know that it's cold in hell.

Get up next to me,
get down below.
Lose yourself in me
while I find myself in smoke.

This isn’t a ******* joke, it's so curious
by myself completely furious
waging flirt skirmishes

Now its nervousness
mixed with liquors and mary jane.
The thought of a woman like you enters into my brain.

You make me want to work for something,
40 hours a week.
I'll put in overtime
at any positions you currently seek.
If we’re talking performances
believe I’m talking peak.

Incomplete
is what they are calling the other women.
They don’t know what they want,
can't make a decision.
But with you, it's something different.
You hitting me with precision.
Take me like I'm given.

You are a work of art
worthy of being painted.
A genie in a bottle
consider this wish granted.
My talent is something I worked for
to me it wasn’t handed.
If you want another rap about you
a kiss will be demanded.

I've never enjoyed
The masquerade of  lying about
wanting someone

You are opening your eighth beer
you look up
meet eyes with the face behind four martinis
and she rests her cowboy boot on her ankle taking her final sips and you wish you were that straw because you would give anything to
touch those lips

women do the same because
I might be one beer down with a thirty-something suggesting my **** is an ice cube
Bra-less

We drink to forget how scary it is trying to find real love in the real world
we hide behind ***** laden doors and walls washing ourselves away
Hoping someone is drowning more
you can save each other

You knew me when I was sober
When I remembered still how Us started

for me, when you leaned over your seat and asked to borrow my pen.
Your hair fell over your eyes.
You brushed it to the side, I touched your hand in passing,
then there was a long silence.
You passed my pencil back to me, a no-thanks was spoken.

Maybe I was just really good at ***,
or more realistically I was great at making you laugh about the way I wasn’t.

There were men better looking,
With financially stable on their resumes
with healthy lungs and livers.

But you kept coming back to unshaven disheveled Camel and Pabst.
Maybe you like the way my taste lingered,
or always having habits to argue about.

You tell me of the other man you miss,
and that’s why
Us eventually ended for you.
cheers

There are faces on my refrigerator with smiling eyes,
like windows into my past.

My fridge can reverse death.

Photographic evidence:
my 60-year-old grandfather,
my 6-year-old self,
16-year-old brother ,
with his long curly hair that was "in" at the time.

My refrigerator has a better memory than me sometimes,
because unlike the freezer door suggests,
I do not recollect ever going to California.

What my fridge forgets:
all the frowns that weren’t photogenic,
all of the arguments with my parents,
the times the drugs made me look like a stranger.

We’ve had the same refrigerator for 17 years,
and following my father's hoarding mentality,
we will use it
until it dies.

An entire lifetime pictured amongst pots, pans, pickles, and plated leftovers.

When guests visit for the first time they gawk
at my youthful beardless self;
my innocent unknowing self.
They always say
“my, you’ve aged
well”
or they say
“my, you've grown up.”

But in reality,
all I’ve done
is kept on living,

while the fridge is the only evidence of my aging.

cars are speeding past us, laughing at our sunburnt bodies
i'm too busy comparing sunflowers to your eyes to even listen
we get high and decide to jump into the lake below us,
hoping the water will soothe and sate our sexuality

you ask me
if i have ever brought anyone here before
i jump, you stay
i jump, you stay

when i retire to the shore you are collecting your-eye-colored sunflowers
and as we make shapes out of clouds
to the sounds of traffic and trickling water
you tell me about the last man that brought you here

and we left the lake as we found it
except a little less colorful