You've eaten two chicken burgers in front of me

and the second time
I realized
you were beautiful.

That sounds stupid, but hear me out;
your eyes
they're perfect
your lashes are so delicate
like gossamer black frames of thin, long, lady's gloved fingers.
I sound crazy, I know
But I'm writing a poem about it
and Art is a license for madness;
So leave me be.
I'm stalking pictures of you on the webs
of the internet
But these golems
these flat, lifeless, smiles
leave me unsatisfied
None of them capture that moment
when I was
suspended
in a state of silent staring
like cobwebs in empty, abandoned room corners
hanging
quiet
undisturbed

your voice muted by the screaming
in your eyes

as you
romantically
perfectly
delicately
bit into that burger.

I wonder how I looked then.

Let me be the Bonnie to your Hyde
I can be the Z to your Scotty
Let's, let's ruin each other baby
Arms and fingers locked
Drugging the other down
We're two gnarled bodies, writhing on the ground

No morphine needed
We're both about the pain
Inhaling you fast
You're my line of pixie dust
I fly to fall down
Faith? Hope? I just need to suffer now.

You're the apple tree splinter
Poking my eye so I can't see.
The mirror on your door is me
And the fairest is anyone but you.
I'm your painting mr. Gray
Hide me in the attic; can't throw me away

Let's, let's ruin each other baby
Oh wait we already did or do.
These brass scales are getting heavy,
It's me for you

And do you hear that sound?
It's our siren lullaby.
We crash into each others'arms
Tied to each others' masts;
Drugging each other down
There's the frog and the water-sound.

We're one, we're done, well that was fun.

palms are masks
that cover nothing
fingers, frustrated fishermen
combing dark waters, searching
for the uninhabited isle.

the tree stump pitifully trying
to grow,
melody of the typewriter,
the letter opener's song,
withered daisy in a plastic display,
hidden bookworm art
carved into dusty paperbacks,
overgrown, abandoned houses:
sleeping animal,
dormant jungle.

wet asphalt puddles of fallen sky

dead butterfly

blind blue eyes;

tragic, difficult, poetic
         you are

poetically
(unplayed piano furniture)







          useless.

Whoever said,
"Parting was such sweet sorrow"
obviously never meant/met
you

because

when you go
you take all the light with you

NO

not the light
for all light does is help one to see

what you have taken
is but every single shred of happiness
and
hope of ever getting these shreds back again.

Maybe it was Shakespeare?

How lucky he was then to have lived
and died
meeting only people he could bear
to part with

and how unfortunate
am
I.

Alone again in this four-room house;
the wind stagnant, like water.
empty beds
crumpled
from bodies that have long ago left.

On the table there is but one placemat
and eight chairs.

I have turned off all the lights
to look at myself
reflected
on the moon on my table.

I wish you were here

but you never are, never were.
you are a ghost
hiding behind words from far away.

It's been days of us reading
each other.
letters, commas, question
marks dancing
into a person.

I crane my neck to hear your voice
but there are only faint echoes,
like murmurs
from distant mountains.

There is a house on Trepidation Street
and it is where I have often lived.
You are beyond

a poem
you are beyond me
you are my fear in human form
because you are so many things I am not,

talented
intelligent
interesting.

you are what I've been looking for
and more,
it is this more that makes me fear
the distance
between us is further than my imperfection can take.

My own fear rests
in my occupation of this space
you've given me: between loving you
and wondering
if
you love me too.

or perhaps
in the realization
that no good poem will come to me untilyouleaveme
but I don't think any poem could be worth losing



you.

I’m talking to you
in my head

been cultivating this shyness
since I was three years old

talking to inanimate objects

painted smiles, rubber-skinned
metal frames
turning wheels

the family minivan kept me company
as mountains rose and fell
like held breaths
let go.
playing games with pregnant raindrops
rolling down the glass
obsessed with the shark’s fin triangle
the wipers could not
reach.

I’m obsessing over seeing you.

always trying to be invisible
your eyes beginning to skim past I,

they didn’t used too.

“The voices that once spoke love
but did not mean love.”
the withered rose living
in the trash,
abandoned friends in the attic
forgotten songs
unfinished books

I am the forgotten
I am the abandoned
I am the left behind

cobweb-and-cotton-dust-collector
the silence connoisseur
I wear loneliness like an unwashed favorite shirt

If I die
Will you read this?
Does anyone else think such things
or is Tonio Kroger my only brother?

I am Kafka’s cockroach,
everyone is waiting for me to die
or to change into what you want me to be.

my name will not be in the history books
by the time my children’s children will have children
I am no one.

Everything fades in this world
like whiteboard-marker on acetate lives.

Desolate corners and garbage
tell stories
art is vandalism, vandalism is art.
and people wear diamonds but they are worth nothing.
and babies inherit their father’s eyes.

I am not yours.

You are not mine.
Isn’t ownership objectification?
If a man owns a clock
does the clock own the man?

Let’s be
money and greed
or
greed and suffering.
one cannot survive
without…

Let’s be
the mismatched pyramids
of wealth and population
form a parallelogram
like bricks on an unstable wall
never falling down.

you are

gone
pounded footsteps unto the floor
keys clanging
on the bowl beside the door
crashing like mother's china.

still feel
your hand on the shelf,
my shoulder.
the shaking cupboard,
my heart

these the ghosts
the shadows
the flicker
of the wet-paint-traveler?

covered in reds and pinks and sunsets
dragged his colors,
streaked my insides,
marked my rib cage

or

is it the make up
once swallowed
attempting inner beauty?

wanted to change

but you told me to stay
the drab old wallpaper.

You left
and it looks like
ended up changing after all.