Our workday selves are here.
In collared shirts and typing on a desktop.
Our emotional selves standing nearby.
Silent, carbon see-through copy.
I pause from the spreadsheet
And remember seeing her on an ad yesterday.

The me, standing silent next to me
Lets out a groaning scream
Like someone lost in the woods hysterically
Trying to put a new tire on a truck.
About to break into sobs from the helplessness.
Shrill and extended the scream
Makes the air and the walls and the computer screen
Rattle like they're being throttled.

I stop typing and stare blankly at a
Paint chip on the wall.
Floating on my back in the waves of the
Screams filling the silent room.

"Eh." I shake my head.
And go back to the spreadsheet
As the screams go on
Full force
Without me noticing.

Surfing channels on your car radio,
And there’s a great song covered by static.
A few words to know what it is, but oh well.

I closed the book on her a few years ago,
But at dinner yesterday I could almost hear it.
It breaks me like glass every time.

Writing is just like *****.
It spills out.
Until it doesn't.
It's been years since I wrote anything
That I cared about.
And even this feels fake.
Forced.
Yeah it's late, and I'm drinking, and sitting in the same room I
Used to.
But its a different life now.
Like remembering thunderstorms I watched as a
Kid, I beg the skies to rip open again.
Then maybe,
What I write will feel like its real again.
And I can stop waiting for a reason.
And live in the vertigo of the retching and
Writing.
How I want to be sick again.
To live again.

Remembering a ghost.
A shadow waits in a room now.
While the hollow body walks.
But the body and the shadow,
Remember a ghost they'd rather be.
He died and they're the leftovers.
That ghost really lived.

And he was so powerful.
That after his death.
Past time,
After all the comings and goings
Of a million imagined heavens.
Into the deep black frothing at the sides with stars.
They would scream his name.
And he was so powerful.
The most that had ever lived as we could understand it.
But, the scream never made a sound.
Against it, it found the rushing of a roar.
The deaf wave of a quintillion and many more.
Souls deafening any single brightness.
It was only what it was at the time.
And it was all of what it was.
There is the matter and the motion.
The matter, didn't matter.
That it moves is important.
That a half dozen billion other carbon made,
Things are moving with it matters.
To look at any one.
Is meaningless.
To look at any moment.
Is meaningless.
It is the rise and fall,
The roar of millions across the thousands of years,
Becomes the lapping of waves.
From incoherent screams,
To the soft speech of a force.

We don't.
"I don't write to be understood."
Some author or other said once.
Maybe. I want a creative answer.
Write up a Rorschach test.
And hold it up waving until someone sees,
Something worth having.
"Oh that must be...
I understand."
I don't.
But someone does.
That's a start.

Vertigo. Maybe it's like that.

Like.
going blind.
Like
from that science show
Where a man said he couldn't see,
But walked down a hallway,
With obstacles.

Where. You.
Keep doing whatever you're supposed
To be doing.

But your eyes.
Your real eyes.
That ***** of the intellect.
Slipped right out of your head
Down a curvy,
Sticky, bumpy metal slide.
And he isn't having a good time of it.

I don't think he planned to.
It's just so hard in there.
And you have him running around
So much.
Lately.

And you're sick. But you're fine.

You turn the tap and there it goes.
You hide in this, and where do you go?
I can put together a life.
I can make a hell of a pitch.
And Lie Lie Lie
on a resume.
To a board.
In a suit.
I can lie and not even try.
But what is it?
A lie until you find the right thing?
                                   the right thing?
What's that?
Is it like The One?
Where songs start, "making sense?"
     "Oh you'll know it when-"
                                                     -
      "Make your hobby into your job-"
                                                                    -
     "If you love what you do you'll never
      work a day in
                          your
                          life."
But let me work. Maybe.
Let me do my thing that I'm supposed to,
                                            only I can do,
And let it just be done.
Is it so much to ask?
Like a guy in a suit goes into the office,
And clicks away at keyboards.
And clicks away at pens in meetings.
And clicks away
An click away the day?

And all day he wants to go home.

Because home is better.
             We ALL know that.
He's a working man.
              We ALL know that.
He should want to go home!
              We ALL know that.
               we all want to go home too.

He checked in, and did all the work he was
supposed to do. So go home you're done.
You did your thing.
You were built for it.
You reached it.
                             Take.Some.Time.Man

I want to do it. Whatever I'm here to do.
But I'd like to get it done quickly.
And just, check out.

I hate it.
For a musician,
Maybe it's fun. The beat.
To keep you alive.

But writing is just like *****.
That sometimes,
Spills out all night
After a terrible day.

All I want is sleep.
All I get is words puking out.
Sharp little hands crawling up my throat.
Scratching on my teeth.

So up I go. Fumbling for the lights.
Again.
In the dark.
To let them out.

I feel like there's this second life being lived around me.
One of those toys. Where you wind it up. And it
Spins all over. And falls over. Spent.
The other life might be like that. Where a gear gets to winding,
In this standing thing that,
Thought blank I guess. Seems quite not
discontented with all this standing.
And there's this burst. All this flying around
and schools and cars and highways and highways.
All these roads swirling around on, riding
on?
And then I drive up after my morning classes.
And just don't want to leave.
But the winding has to start again.
Some law. Nature.
I get cagey. But mostly I'd rather not leave the cage.
So this other guy with all his motives and ****.
With his resume. And his fantasies of
martyrdom and heroism and political
winningism.
His campaign t-shirts.
His volunteering.
His training.
He stands there and puts up with me.
     Real me.
        The. Me.
        The guy writing to you. Real me.

He puts up with me until all the cranking bit
is finished and he zoom off away.
Sometimes though I think. When he's walking.
Or when all the walking and talking and training
stops.
He thinks about me, and why his chest feels so cold.
He's off with his fire fighting.
       friends, work, homework, campaigns, life.
And I'm just shivering. Waiting for a body again.

How else could I write you this letter?
I have to wait for him to circle back.
To miss this chest full of fear.
To come on home.
To what he should be doing if he could make any money at it.
and if anybody ever saw they'd put
it in a magazine.

But we don't care about money.
I've never wanted anything that badly.
There's no place I'm furious to see.
     (though I like those relaxing ones)

We just want to do that thing we're supposed to do.
The ticket out.
I'll keep on writing.
     (I feel good about it)
And he'll keep on with the life saving.
And the TV show happy face,
Real jobs and everything.

Until it washes over.
Like a cliche preacher would say.
Or warm surf.
But I hate the ocean.
Hot air in a car after all day in the cold
classroom.
It'll come.
And I'll just go.
Warm.

You ever stand there,
In the Fall dark.
Hearing the City as a groan.
And dogs fighting past the yard.

And think. That's something.
They have something.

In some yard I've never seen,
But I know is bare of grass.
From kids and paws.
Where there's faded plastic
Rotting toys.
The kind you pedal around in
Or gnaw on.
Or pick up and know the cracks.
Because you bought it new,
But now.

And those dogs, with another
dog for each.
           They've got something.

I've got bread. Good dark stuff.
And a pen. And lots of other things.
And people. And places.

More than those dogs.
I don't know if I want any of it.
Love and comfort, great tastes and sights.
I know I'd feel sick if I ever lost it.
Just, sick at the void.
That I'd have to fill of go down
The change would worry me.
And my stomach.
Who really does his own things.
All those kids at that pep rally
Who watched how that warm soda unfolded.

Unfolded may not be the
best way to describe horrible
acid ***** humility that I brushed
off then but worries me so much now.

The change.
I think mostly I'd like to sit in the
Same place, and do the same things,
And drink the same couple of root beers.
And just see how all that goes.

He stands there alone in a forest.
He kneels there. Alone.
"Devil take my soul. If you want it."
No Devil hears.
No God shakes his head.
He lays down alone in the forest.

And the night is as dark as it ever was.

Maybe we think lights are so beautiful,
Because we're just trails through space too.
Maybe what you're made of doesn't matter.
Any more than what you're not made of.

I'm so tired.
And it's so late.
My eyes are blurred.
Slower.
I'm skipping letters,
Or just writing the wrong ones.
But I know there's still something to say.
Some weight before sleep can lift me.

She texted me this thing.
A guy she was hanging out with.
How he was such an artist.
I immediately thought he was a *******.
He had taken her phone and
God knows why,
Was texting me.

Didn't know it was a guy.
Thought I was humoring
One of her girlfiends.

He tried to convince me
Raleigh was the "cultural capitol of the south."
"If I could go anywhere, I'd go to Savannah."
"...nah."
That ******* line. "Nah (my opinion is more valid than yours."
****.

Any guy that had Jessie's phone
Would have been a ****.

Because I saw that girl one day,
She's never
Out of my head.
God.
Three years.
Or two?
Still.
Two years and nothing happened.

Nothing even came close to happening.
I can take a hint but,
Is she even that good of a friend?
Why?
The hell am I upset of this?

I'm planning some crazy trip.
Risking the life of my car
(she's on her last cylinder)
And...
I can't think of a good reason.
She doesn't even like me.
I'm not sure I even like her.

Unless of course I'm stupidly in love
with a person I've had two years to
barely know.
And all that was denial.
Grasping at reasonable straws.

God I'm lost.

You know when your grandma makes something and you ask why it's so good.
She says some terrible cliche like,
"The secret ingredient is love."
You blow that off and ask for a recipe anyways.
Then you make it and it isn't any good.
You make it again.
You go to work.
Have *** with the girl from class.
Mix a drink by yourself.
And even the weekend baking isn't any good.

I'm not a poet.
I don't care if this **** rhymes.
Or if when I deliver it
I keep in time.

If this was a rap battle.
Bet I'd get destroyed.
They'd walk rhymes around me.
Fill fat purses with on the fly verses.
Drop that **** on me.
Thinking they're so ******* cool.

But for all the jumpin around
I see all these people doing on stage,
For all the time they're up,
Standing stooped like a dragons
In fits of rage.
They aren't standing for ****.

You can shout louder.
And talk faster all you want.
But this isn't the O'Reilly Factor.
Those rhymes,
Come from a dictionary.
Arbitrary and praying for cash.

That game's from the streets.
And those mother ******* streets are cold.
Put up the fire.
I don't need you in here with
That ice in your chest.
And flaming head.
Licking and spitting them.
Feet stepping in them.
Stomping around like a kangaroo,
Reading the map all upside down.

You're seeing the world all wrong.
"**** ******* get money?"
******* go home.
Give that **** to a shelter.
Because a lot of people don't have one.

Like all the other stories I want to tell you,
I don't know how to start it.
The hook is that I'm this tall, strong, clean cut, put together looking
Adult.
Last night I screamed and cried.
For the first time in a long ******* time.

I'll start from the day after I guess.
So I was watching this really sad animated movie.
And it.
Somewhere in the weird haze of time after I started it.
It's like my mind fell out the back of my head.
I was sort of sick.
Like how your stomach lurches,
When you skip a stair.
Falling?
H
O
W
L
O
N
G
? I shouldn't be happening like t
                                                         h
                                                            i
 ­                                                             s?
T­hen I hit.
And I was just really lonely.
On the pavement next to that seventy story building.
Rolling around on that **** stained carpet.
With my mind flopping around.
Bleeding thoughts that were getting soaked up and lost.

Then my ******* kept feeling like it wasn't getting enough blood.
Which is ridiculous.
It's a finger.
There's nothing on my wrist or anything.
Like stop you itchy tingling ******* thing.
And all the despair was so ridiculous.
I went and stood in front of a mirror.
And tried to talk myself into feeling
Better.
But the words took so long to bounce back.
Where they'd have any meaning.
They felt so weak.
Like they didn't matter.
Like they were getting whipped up in the wind.

When I started screaming.
And crying.
And begging for God.
And to just die.

But not in New Jersey.
" Just want to ******* die but I ******* can't because then I'll never leave New Jersey.
...
I can't die in New Jersey."
Then I tried to calm myself down.
Talking like there was a mirror there.
"Get a hold of yourself."
Came out.
But the words were weak.
So I cried. Because I was weak.
And screamed. Because I wanted to feel strong again.
And lost myself.
In all this noise that wasn't mine.

Tonight. The movie paused on some stupid scene.
The silence.
Buzzing in the air and lights of passing cars.
I lost myself like I had in the screams.

I oughtta just die.
I oughtta just die.
I oughtta just die.
I oughtta just die.
I oughtta just die.
                 Just kept coming up.
I can't shake it.
Can't even write it away.
God, I was close for a minute.
To just doing it.
**** it.
Just get out of this.
I kept thinking.
While I was staring blankly in the mirror.
...
"I can't die in New Jersey."
And I went to bed.

I wanted to wait until I could hold you.
But now I want you to tell me.
Show me the scars.
And tell me about the cracks.
Tell me how you're broken.
You already know mine.
You're already my other half.
Let me be yours.

Show me the gaps I can fill in.
Lay me over what you want covered.
The jagged space between us.
Where you fill a valley,
And I hide a ridge.
It'll be ours.
Our own private park.

For feeling this much from this far.
For not knowing if I'm meeting in the middle.
Or already jumped off the deep end.

Maybe it could have been anybody.
Maybe I just needed somebody to remind myself,
I could feel anything at all.
But maybe,
If it had been anyone else.
I never would have remembered.

Maybe hers was the only one that could,
Drag me out.

Maybe it is something of fate's
Maybe I don't need a reason.

I don't need a reason.
How do you know if you're in a love story?
Wait.

You think the first person to see a tiger,
Stopped and thought about how beautiful it was.
I bet they ran.

The next time I hold her I might have a heart attack.
If I live.
Or as I convulse dying.
I'll know how beautiful she is.

What I'm doing here.
It's weird.
It's gotta land heavy. Sharp.
All of it getting thrown at you at once.
But you're so strong.
I can feel it.
I feel like I've gone so long knowing I can really care about someone and just not doing it!
So I'm gonna do it.
If it ******* kills me.
If I never do it again.
I'm jumping in.

This is the part at the ledge.
Where I grind my teeth and teeter.
Bend my knees and straighten them.

Put my cards in my hand.
Squeeze them.
*** them up because there isn't another round.
Throw them all in.
Throw myself in.

It's not about winning
It's about hoping I win.
It's living or dying and feeling alive either way.

So I'm making roots.

I'm giving you everything.
So if I start to worry,
Lose my resolve.
Think about an easy way out.
Cheat my way out.
Go cold.
Sink in again.
Try to run away.
Pretend you're not important.

I'll have to tear them out.

I don't care what happens.
It's not on you.
It's on me.
For the first time I can remember.
I'm growing.

**** that.
**** running off all those amazing people that want to know us but just can't crack the code we're too ******* selfish to give the key to.
And **** "sharing," our art expecting people to figure it out.
"Here let me crack these prescription glasses, smear a little vaseline on them....
Okay. Now tell me what you see.
**** that's all wrong. Why can't you figure it out!
I just need some space right now."
Acting like we're saints.
Off to the monastery.
To figure out God.
All this self exploration and we can't draw a map?

I can't.
I know I shouldn't demand people do things I can't.
Who the hell am I to give orders like that.
But I want so desperately to be able to.
I want you to want it as desperately as I do.

"Yeah."
...
The follow up questions,
"Was there a note?"
Yeah.
"Did you have something to do it with?"
Yeah.
Next to the notebook.
That boring blue notebook.
It didn't start out like that.
It was a ******* admissions essay.
But it ended up like that.
...
Then I got up.
And got it.
Laid it on the table.
And looked at them together.
...
For a while.
...
Then I think I walked out.
And went back to sleep.
...
I hid them before anybody say.
I don't want any of this,
To sound like a cry for help.

I'll ask softly for that.
Or lay down by myself.

Until we're in love.
We'll throw anybody under the bus.
Until we find the person we can't
So we throw ourselves.

"Bear with me here. I'm no Oscar Wilde.
But when I read your writings I get sad.
Forgive me, but I figure you're sad.
You speak of heroes and villains as if either is a direction.
Not all bad guys are all bad.
And the same the other way.
You have no idea who you are.
But you can't just decide that.

You look like a human Superman.
Clark Kent.
Brilliant. Reserved.
Official in a suit.
Intelligent around everyone.
But you're hiding something.
That's brash. But you aren't being honest.
With yourself or absolutely anyone around you.
And it's forming you into a human brick wall.
You won't find yourself.
Sitting there like a ******* wall.
You gotta form into yourself.
Answer your own questions.
And anyone else's.
I figure you will.
In your own time.
I mean obviously.
But if you want to...
You can start with me.
I can help.
But I can only help if you're honest."

I wrote about you being guarded.
That you were holding your sword close to your chest.
I said let's start lunging.
Then I looked at mine.
Here next to my face.
In front of my heart.
If someone has to start swinging wildly,
I guess I should be me.

Here's my point.
If we don't start lunging.
And falling.
And getting cut.
And living.
We'll stand here alone.
On opposite corners of the world.
A thousand miles.
Or a foot apart.
So before we turn into stone.
Before the marble smiles start sticking.
Before they start cracking.
And we fall apart before our time.
Let's fall on our own.

Before we we have careers.
And swolAnd swollen joints.
Or get paid to be smart.

Let's be really, really stupid.
And swing wildly.
And run off without any plans,
Or reservations.
Crash parties.
*** joints.
Or get paid to be smart.

Let's be really, really stupid.
And swing wildly.
And run off without any plans,
Or reservations.
Crash parties.

I'm gonna tell you all the little things.
That are keeping me afloat.
"Did those intake forms all by myself today."
"Made a kick *** breakfast today."
"The chef said the funniest **** today."
"Dude I found a sick playlist today."
No they're not that important.
But I'm making a raft out of them.
And it hurts.
And my hands are tired.
And I'm almost out of rope.

If this falls apart.
And it might.
At least I yelled.
And someone knew I was here.
Because I sure can't see anyone.

Well, we could tell ghost stories.
Or we could tell the really scary ones.
What makes you?
What broke you and made you?
Can I hold you and feel the scars?

This might be a new chapter.
I can almost feel,
A growing fire.

Things are awful dark here.
But I can almost see,
A glow on the wall.

It's strange, I know.
But I can almost hear.
Someone coming.

I've been lost here,
A long ******* time.
But I know,
It's almost time to go.

Where there's a light there's a lantern.
A hand to hold it,
A hand to hold mine,
And pull me out.
Not cold like the one that dropped me here,
But warm and strong.
From the light she's carried so long.

Seamus would talk about those,
"Sexually liberated Ithaca College girls."
I guess that's what I thought you were.

Cornell with it's ******* frat houses.
and ******* nasty frat parties.
We met in the basement of mine.
I was still hungover.
I don't blame you for thinking
I was just another frat boy.

I don't know for sure,
We were so far apart.
But I think we were both shocked,
That we had found real people.

Normal people.
Caring and sensitive.
Doing cute little romantic things.
Saying the right stuff,
And in between, saying the wrong stuff.
Letting the weird stuff spill out.

Then thinking maybe it wasn't so weird.
Maybe there was somebody amazing,
Hidden behind the person I made them out to be.
Maybe that wildness I saw.
It was't exotic.
It wasn't ***.

It was familiar.
It was looking in a mirror.
It was a sunset at the farm,
And morning coffee with my family.

I knew it when I saw it.
But it took me a long time to know what I saw.
If I hadn't learned who I was.
If I hadn't looked in the mirror and
Understood,
Finally,
What I was seeing.

I wouldn't have understood
Why I wanted you so bad.

I want to hold your head in my hands.
See that fire in your eyes.
Relive the first time.
Every time.
See home,
From so far away.

I think too much.
But I think I knew it.
When I say you.
Something,
Your eyes maybe.
It was weird.
I was a little weird.
Too much energy.
But you were so calm.
Everything you said,
Every. Single. Thing.
I thought,
"I like her."
First it was with a head tilt.
"I like her?"
A flash of narrowed eyes.
Curious of myself.
I was staring dead ahead,
At someone else.
Then this movement in my peripherals.
Like leaves rustling.
Like apples dropping.
"What was that?"
A bird flashing its feathers.
"Wow that..."
From the other side of the trail,
A doe huffs at me.
Big indignant eyes.
Shining in the sun.
What fire.
I can't linger too long.
My eyes,
Back to the trial.
The path clear ahead.
But.
But now silently,
I'm begging.
For the rustle of leaves.
The call of the wild.
Something natural.
A call I can't ignore.
A haunting on all sides.
But I'm through the trees.
The sounds only echo.
As I walk alone again,
On the grass fleeting under foot.
Infinite but alone.
The trees spring up around me.
A long time later.
As if I'd wished them there.
My confused head,
With all it's begging.
The forest came again.
And again I followed the path!
Indignant.
Decided.
On the trail.
The clear cut path.
Eyes fixed.
Feet marching.
They march down the clear trail.
But my heart,
Breathing in gulps since I saw her.
It had eeked it's way up.
Into my eyes.
It,
Finally,
Looked to the sides.
Into that hidden expanse.
Begging for movement again.
Beautiful birds to sing.
That doe with the fire eyes.
And my heart.
Pounding agianst the will of my body,
Could not,
Stop my stride.
I marched on.
The clear road ahead.
Through.
Past.
That beautiful place.
It haunted me.
The movement on the sides.
How I had been watching the
Wrong person.
The whole time.
It was strange.
How it lingered around me.
"I'll go back.
Go back.
I'll go back."
But I was lost.
In the haze that had caught me.
Wandering lost and dead.
I only knew gray.
Couldn't see tomorrow.
Even the echo was lost.
Bouncing at the border of my prison.
Begging to find me again.
When I was through.
And it had found my ears again.
I didn't scream.
I want to say I did.
I want to say
It was a dramatic awakening.
But my world built again in peices.
When I remembered,
Finally,
I said to the wind,
Broken.
Wishing.
"Come to me."

"No. Come to me."
So now I dream
Awake because they keep me up.
My dreams determined to be real,
Won't let me sleep.
I'll have to make my days as
Perfect.
Catch up with reality.
I can't wait to lay in the shade.
Run away into the woods
And be lost.
Lost and found and warm and free.
I knew it when I first saw her.

I tried to write out the reasons.
Why it was you.

I couldn't.
It got scrambled.
And lost in itself.
It stopped making sense.

Like us.

And in the middle of it,
The list,
With your name at the top.
I'd write something,
Something I was feeling then.
A reason to give my heart to someone.
Some amazing quality.
Some wild romantic thing.
And in the middle of it.
The sentence,
I'd look up a see different eyes.

I was writing what I was feeling about someone else,
Under your name.

It wasn't a lie I guess,
I was just lost.
And that was for someone else.
I'm still lost.
And maybe it'll get to them eventually.

I stopped putting things on that website
Because.
Because, I think.
When it stopped being about you.
It stopped being about anything.


I stopped putting things on that website.
Because.
Because I think when It stopped being about you.
It stopped being about anything.

I stopped putting things on that website,
Because when it stopped being about you.
It stopped being about anything.

When it stopped being about you.
It stopped being about anything.

When it stopped being about you.
It stopped being about anything.

Those may be the most honest lines I've
ever written.
They're missing something.

A beginning and an ending.

They're the middle of a story.

That's hopeful I guess.

From a light
At the end of a tunnel.
But I'm facing a thousand
In a thousand directions.
Dead ends running away.
Above me and below me.
Through my chest and in every
Direction my arms can point.
To a thousand black dead ends.
From somewhere.
Maybe not one but a dozen.
A glow finds me.

When you're on the ground, I will bring you up.
Break my hand and dislodge my elbow.
I will bring you up.

When we're standing together, get on my shoulders.
I will bring you up.

If I fall and can't stand again.
When I'm gone.
Stand on my corpse.

I will always bring you up.

Dark movie theatre.
A third into Kingsman.
Phone buzzes.
Can't check it. Have to guess.
That name.
That's who's important.

**** it.
I'm trying not to lie.
But sometimes wishes slip out as facts.
"(I wish) This got published."
Silent.
Crickets.
Blank air.
Right here.
Look up.
Nothing there.
Drawing
Breath.
Hiding.

I'm talking to genies all day and it's getting distorted.

Loosing something that has no interest in you.
Freeing yourself and finding that you have nowhere to go.

You fall on your ***.

I got to imagining things like I used to in high school.
I thought, maybe I was an alien hidden here.
I imagined them charging in there. Tearing at my collar for a mark.
Some irrefutable proof that I was theirs.
I imagined it happening in front of all those people.
Having my people stand me in front of them and claim me.
Five hours later I clocked out.

It was easier at Cornell. The day dream was constant.
It was wrong.
It was a mirage in a dry, sleepless desert I had lost myself in.
But, it was nice. Living in the daydream.
For a moment.
A single godly heartbeat lost in the enormity of time.
Flying away into that void,
Before I could catch the flap of its wings.

It was insignificant.
It was a dream.
But,
God what a dream.

How do you write a love story?
You go backwards.
How do you know if you're in one?
You wait.

Rolling around between extremes.
Convincing myself I'm a sensible guy.
I can wait it out. Hold on loosely, like that 80's song said.
I doesn't bother me. The waiting.
But if there's something better. That bothers me.
I'll go down a checklist.
Obviously it's perfect. Or will be I guess.
But I did that with college. This major, this job.
Well it doesn't work like that. For me.
I've gotta be wild. Maybe, if I "stop chasing the wrong things...
the right things have a chance to catch up" - Lolly Daskal
If I start paying attention to those inspirational quote pictures.
Listening for what I want instead of what I have.
I might be brave enough to chase it. A sky that doesn't end.
Chase it until die happy from running,
Instead of angry I didn't catch anything.

A fish can't see himself in a school.
Throw him out.
Yank his mouth and with terrible pain
Bring him up.
Out of water. Gasping. Stuck. Flopping.
And looking for meaning.
He can finally see himself reflected in the water.
He can finally see himself.

It's like trying to repaint a Jackson *******.
It's so ******* easy. But you can't.
I tried to do the same thing E.E. Cummings did.
Attack sight with a keyboard.
Drag it onto the page.
Semi-colons for fluttering wings.
But it didn't work.
Of course it didn't.
I'm not him.
I didn't see it like that.
It's not that it's bad to copy something.
It's just a thing.
But **** me for lying through somebody else's words.

The howling wind.
Through the shrieking trees.
The creaking fence.
The clanging chimes.
Everything I can see, I can hear.
As what I can't wraps around it.
And carries sight to my ear.
It's all an echo. Deja vu.
Meeting again those dull things.
Alive tonight.
The fury of a storm is not in the wind.
It's the ordinary finding new life.
Ghouls on halloween and the trees roam,
In the hurricane.
Don't be afraid of the foreign winds
From far off seas. Now in your yard.
Fear the familiar.
The family dog biting.
A tree house in its jealousy destroys your own.
The still and the quiet are loud in the wind.
Alive again.

It's the changing perspective.
How deep is a puddle? Cool your hands.
What about when you've seen a pond?
Wade to your knees and feel the mud on your toes.
A lake? Swim on a summer day. Dive under
with the quiet. Sleep by it on a calm nights. With
little rushes of air. Stoke a fire with your friends.
Make little circles on your expensive boat. Know all of it.
From the two kinds of fish. One frog. Seven sunken logs
and the dam on the other side. Your lake.
Then a sea. How deep is a sea after the puddle and the pond and the lake?
there is no bottom to see. No other side. Salty water. Floats you up.
How easy it is to swim here! Like it's keeping you up. Out.
Full beaches. To mountains to tuck it secretly in.
Windward waves and wild things in it's belly.
Sunken ships in the harbor and in the deep.
How deep is the sea with it's wild things and
buried boats? How deep are they hidden?
Sail away and the ocean begs. Did the sea scare you?
Could it hold you?
The oceans call.
Surely the seas were shallow when in your strong heart
you drop as far as any have dared go here.
What rests in the dark is not wild. It has never seen the tame.
In the dark there are monsters.
And mirrors.
When your light shines on them, which will you fear more?
Take one breath. It's one face twice.
How deep. How far.
Then Dante's door. From the deepest circle of hell
to heaven.
In the worst of someone else, there you are.

A crow lights on a low branch of a bare mesquite tree.

Yesterday a hunter shot a deer. His aim was poor. So was the light. He ran a long time before he remembered he had died.
'Bang.'
"God. I must be dead. But run? I should run?"
A long ways off. Deep in the woods he slid down to his knees. The adrenaline faded fast. When there was so little blood left.
"God... I forgot... It was only... So long ago... A minute... When you're bleeding so much... It's slow."
His big, cold body slept there through the night.
His chest looked to breathe. But it was the swirling, slicing winds tearing the night in all directions. Swaying his short fur.
The morning crept in blue. After a mourning black night. Navy skies swept in.
Coyotes catch his smell as the winds choose a direction and slice that way only.
The Family trickles in.
Drip. From the woods. One. Lonely. Follows the air.
Splash. He finds him. Deep in the woods. But darts away.
"Deer don't fall like that."
He watches crouched behind a cactus. Watches for kicks. Shakes. To see if the fur moves like he's breathing.
The wind made its mind and his chest rests still.
Still as the dog. Nobody else is. So he does.
He rises up and cracks int the morning with short, sharp howls.
And the family drops in. Rains in. On that dry navy morning.
There's eight now. They watch each other.
Not the body. They watch each other.
"It's free." They say.
"Free to me." They say back.
"Howl lucky we are." They laugh and laugh and lust. Lust for the free wet meat on a dry day.
Circled they tear into their free meal. And each other. A little.
When they get in the way. Can't blame them.
There's so many. So hungry. Don't get in the way.

A crow lights on a lights on a low branch of a bare mesquite tree.

The first to see.
The sky shed its navy suit and starts to see.
But first came the crow. The first to see.
The day began. It shines first on his feather. The first they see.
He drops neat to the earth and rips the lid from the eye of a little coyote.
'A test.' He tells us he thinks.
To the family. Blood is blood. From the little nip they rip more. A hole as wide as their hunger has made their lust. For blood. Blood is blood.
It took a little nudge. A nip. To do what's natural.
Little coyote died more naturally than the deer. He was splayed much more quickly. In the dust and the blood and the fur. Who could tell?
'Who can see this but me?'
'What you've done to the least of you, you've done to yourself.'

A crow lights on a low branch of a bare mesquite tree.

This day as the last day. Begins as it ended.
But the night was quiet. Still.
And the crow is quiet. Still. On his branch.
What more is he to do? They can't be taught better than any of the others.

I'm gonna take you up on that offer. You're
right I have to get out of here. It's a trap
that will hold me forever if I only wait
for rescue.
there's no pain. No screams to draw soft
hearts attached to thick arms to pry me
out.
They told me routine would make it pass
easier. But it passes too far too fast.
Go into work everyday at 3. Off at 10.
Get up at noon. Watch tv until I throw
on a tie and those ugly shoes I hastily shined.
I'm scared.
I'm looking into a well wondering how far to the
bottom. I'm a million and one too many
analogies for falling in too deep. Screaming
in anticipation of the water slapping against me.
It would be deadly if I hadn't died in the air
already. I can't breathe now and I should
know by now why.
Fly or die.

I deserve you.
And you deserve me.
This isn't about time or ***.
Distance and days apart
Can't hold me back.
My heart is raging forward.
My body is just the foam on the wave.
A pretty face,
With no control
On what's below.
But I want to come for you.
I want to be yours.
I don't have a choice.
But I want to ride the wave.

Had to stop. The color outside
Drew me.
The air smelled like a lake's.
And I begged for the water again.
That's gotta be the next step.
Find water. Float under it.
I gotta see it. And smell it.
The dying light of rain.
It makes me feel like
Dust floating.
A million different pieces.
Thinking for themselves.
Held together. Happy like that.
The dew makes me see lines,
in the grass blades.
Follow us.
I wrote about those connections
In my little pocketbook.
There were flowers.
Thrashed in the wind.
Didn't care.
Wanted to.
Maybe I can. Floating.
Looking at the water.
Maybe paradise is at the shore.
Atlantis. Happy. Under water. By water.
I can see it.
Lawn chair. This book. Me.
Smiling or too happy to move my face.
Just laying there. Sun. Orange with the evening.
Sunglasses. My grandpa's.
He can see it. I can see it.
Found it.
Paradise.
Fresh water. I'll fish in it.
I can run down and swim.
For. Or float.
Not feel nasty when I walk out.
Let the sun bake the water away.
While I figure myself out. In here.
Paradise. I'll go.

If I'm going to wait for the
Big
little earth shattering thing I do.
By holding my breath.

I might die.

I can take the little things.
Maybe?
And use them to breathe.
So I don't pass out when the big one comes.