I need daylight to be over
so that the octupus leaves in my back yard can breathe
all the dogs left them swelling and burning for daily bread,
daily milk, and last calls to board the plane.
It's really **** hard to understand what the person on the intercom is saying when you've got stalks of corn growing out of your ears
imitating how rough and useless everything that comes in is
how it's just sprouting out and some people are going to get hit in the face if they don't realize that personal bubbles are more important than an inhaler, at least at this point.

The ball in my mouse has fallen out and now I can't seem to get anywhere, drinking bottles of cough syrup to try and feel the sickening sweetness of your kiss, when all you really wanted was to be someone else. The lion painted on my shirt tells me I'm wrong for paying attention to the little things, like the color of your sweater and if you made it or not.

I feel like I'm following a snow storm in a bathing suit,
which makes it awkward during interviews but my mom tells me I need to get a job and start thinking for myself and thinking about others because I only have one brother and he might **** himself soon.

Teachers don't seem to realize that my answers sound like my mouths full of peanut butter and they don't know that when I turned 9 I used to smear it on my skin and let my dog lick it off. I hope that doesn't ******* off as boring or twisted, but I've got enough cough syrup to know that my lungs will stay inside my body, even if they're all chewed up digesting in my stomach with the rest of the things I said that I wish I could take back, with the rest of the tongues that fumbled and mumbled phrases that made me look like a tobacco spitting uncle from Tennesse.

it's not that I don't want to see you anymore,
or that I want you to grow up and be something more,
but I'm not the same person I was before,
I'm starting to lose myself and I feel it seeping from the very core.

Life.
It's like a black hole or a star that burnt out,
it's scary and not as beautiful as it was when I was a kid.
People are getting better looking, growing into themselves like marijuana plants.
These women have vertigo and not enough time to walk where they need to be, so they asked me to go to the store and they paid me with dinner, I sat at the table in a rocking chair and wondered why they had so much hair on the floor.
it wasn't like we were having a bad time
but we sure didn't know how we got to talking about ******* and cranberry juice.
All the while I felt like saying something meaningful,
but I knew they wouldn't get my jokes and I knew that my sarcastic tendancies would get the best of me and we'd be in a grinder full of bugs and rocks and all of those things we avoid when we're afraid.

I could feel my teeth wanting to break as I chewed my food
and clenched my jaw at the conversation.
The woman to my left said I looked like someone she knew,
I said,
"You do know me."

the words came out like a siren of warning,
I had gone too far.

I looked at my hand that held their fancy spoon
my reflection stared back like it didn't know me
and I could see my eyes turn away and I could see my hand on the door ****
but what I couldn't see was the woman,
who followed me home.
the woman,
the one that knows me best.

You are
delicious
And I am
greedy.
You are
generous
And I am
needy.
You are
experienced
And I am
learning.
You are
flammable
And I am
burning.

the night before your funeral
i coped by engaging in 100 different things
you would have never approved of.

i made the eyes at alyssa,
a girl who wasn't mine.

and i only did it because i know
she would never have me,
and that's always appealing.

lauren was late to the gathering.
she made four fractured souls
sitting around a wobbly table
at some arrogant sports bar.

i didn't touch her.
i didn't want to.
i wanted isolation,
yet invited these people
to make me play pretend
at some busy rednecker establishment.

i talked a lot about music.
LCD's latest mostly.
it's easy to hide behind the trivial.

we stopped at a gas station.
i bought beer for chase and tyler.
i hate beer, it just makes me feel
an idiot sense of accomplishment
when this 19-year-old pulls age off
via beard.

lauren left at 3.
i didn't say much.
i kissed her weakly.
she accepted it.
understood it.
had taken notice of my wandering mind.

alyssa slept over,
she had been locked out of her cousin's house.
in the morning, i made her breakfast, coffee.
asked her if she had decided to be my best friend or not.
it was a running joke to her, and she smiled, said she needed more time
leaving it in "potential" status.

i need a best friend.

alyssa left when i took a shower.
as i got ready,
i complained to tyler about lauren.
i don't know if i meant it,
but i listed quite a lot of grievances.
(is it my age?
am i restless?)

i put on a suit and tie. i didn't look at the weather.
i didn't realize it was forecasted to be a sauna.

i got in my car and drove to prague.
the Parks Bros. funeral home parking lot
was spilling into the streets, with SUVs
and heavy duty trucks.

i parked my car a couple blocks down.

walked into the parlor
where you were to make your great showcase
in that open casket.

my father gave your eulogy.
he had been your minister for a few years,
and had loved you for more than 10.

you had died in my mind months earlier.
when i found out about the leukemia.

when i walked past your body on display,
i looked briefly.
all i really saw were your sideburns.
they looked ridiculous.

everyone told me i looked handsome in my suit.
god.
was i so desperate for a compliment that i overdressed
for a funeral?

as we stood outside, it didn't take long for people to laugh.
talk about work,weather, ****** hair, baseball, and girlfriends.
"i hope the heat keeps us from being sad at the cemetery."

i drove to your final plot in the back of the procession.
my dad tried to explain some metaphor at the site, but it fell flat.
he said a prayer over your body.

then he asked me to lead a song i didn't know.
everyone looked at me.

i tried to pass the responsibility.
but eventually started lacklusterly.

i hope there's a god leonard.
i hope that you made it.
and if you get a chance to speak with him,
tell him to play favorites,
and make me a favorite.
that's the only way
i will ever make it.

Yes, I think it would be fine to say we are the
Sun and the Moon, respectively.
The world and sky of our disparate souls
nicely encapsulated.
To simple metaphor.

Yes. But it is incomplete, you know.
For sun may never touch moon,
and Day has no place in
the dominion of the nocturnal.
And the moon can have no adequate
view (but a sidelong glance) at
man and Earth in the sun's hand.

No,
I can touch you and you me.
Still more, I can see you and grow familiar
with what you beam upon;
Lie with the subtlety of a new night's
descent with my eyes twinkling
nonplussed to the crux of neck and shoulder.

Yes. We are, you and I, the Sun and the Moon,
if you say we are.
For you cast back the dark and shun the
dark places.
And the thin veil and living line that keeps
days apart, the Night, is the one corner
upon which I fear you shall never
Intrude.

Vestigial  seas
Pumped briny red
By chambered hearts
In pulsing waves
Lub dub
Dub.