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.

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

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

I was asked why I write poetry.
So here are the facts,
and just to recap this sometimes called rap.

This is poetry.
It is in everything we do.
Poetry is your family stress,
your pregnancy test,
and your house cleaning mess;
and poetry is me
because it is in me too.


This is the sense that blind Vince sees in.
It is the movie young Julie wants to be in.
It’s the last minute Jack and Coke for alcoholic Jack
and the last free **** for a broke bloke to smoke.

Poetry is how a grieving widow copes.
Also a good joke told really well
because poetry is a heavenly punch line
and a one-way ticket to find hell.

It is the way the leaves pile up on the ground.
Every intricate intertwining of
never mind me, step on down broken brown.
Poetry is the “how are you this morning”
(a stranger wrote that line)

It is the "how-to-book" to have when times look boring and
“Poetry is the loud fan that sounds out over the snoring”
(an ex-girlfriend wrote that line)

It’s the epitome of a perfect day.
The rock and hard place when things don’t go your way.

It is the time spent learning  miracles at public schools
and I learned that “Poetry is all around. Class... Isn’t that cool?”
(my ex-teacher wrote that line)

But if it is all around then why have I found
the need to constantly write it down?
Why do I find that when times get thick
I find writing a really good poem does the trick?

Who can tell me why it is
when a girl falls for that guy
she fills up her notebook college lined
with a poem of his blue eyes?
“But I have green eyes”(a rejected me wrote that line)

Poetry is the captain’s stormed ocean.
Poetry is the pilot’s warm sky.
Poetry is like trying to throw knives
like words.

We exist where they hit
and we need to quit getting absurd trying to hit things.
Poetry is all about the truth,
getting kissed in ink.

You have to tattoo what the words mean to you.
The only thing I wish to do is find a Sharpie
and sharply write the words I’m sorry
because that’s the only thing I know how to say.

Poetry is spending the last 20 minutes looking at the words
"I love you" written across their ceiling
and not wanting to risk speaking them,
making the roof fall down around you.

Frozen in a time before this new one began.
Memories in black and white, don’t ask me why.
I can’t understand.

Glass wall, left. Sun, above. You, right.
Can’t exactly find what time I switched on my life.
Can’t go further, no matter how I seem to fight.
Recently seeing you in nightmares with my greyish sight.
Remnants of a laugh. Awake long into nights.

Oak tree, with rope swing.
Take flight.

Now, I’m 22 reading the Daily Bugle
and I see that you died and I lose control.
Start screaming!
Faded memories becoming the sole proof Life had meaning.
And yea I know that sounds conceded.
But that’s not why I’m without feeling.
Wasn’t expecting life checking in so soon with it’s dealing.


Her smile in the paper made me self-aware again because
the sun was above me and her smile was colorless.
This isn’t supposed to happen to people like me,
my age.
We are supposed to be immortal and have worlds in palms of hands.
But now I’m holding onto an image saying her death wasn’t planned.

Man, of course it wasn’t, no death ever is.
Something we forget about as adults and have no idea about as kids.
We forget to remember important people and opportunities are missed.
Then all of a sudden we stop. Someone else we know is in the obits.

Who on Earth needs the bright and yellowed Sun,
when you possess the full filled Moon like mine?
Her bright and whitened rays of light are dun,
cool and pale shining in this night of time.
Those who worship the Sun do so in loss.
Enveloping me in her snowy hues,
my own faithful crescenting albatross,
is beauty’s epitome full and new.
Every man knows the toils of the day,
contrary to my own lunar above.
For in her presence troubles sleep away.
At day I sweat and burn, at night I love.
          Shame, my lovely Dusk is shrouded by Dawn.
          I shall wait for Apollo to be gone.

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.

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

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.