“some say love is a burning thing. that it makes a fiery ring.”

so kiss her.
or don’t.
and always regret.
always bike home thinking.
always think of love.

she’s in a parking lot somewhere drinking cheap wine,
balancing on the bumper.
he’s on the river somewhere drinking cheap beer,
balancing boulders.

a dog sprints by and forgets all heartache.
he is happy.

the town and the people and the job and the dreams.
the nothings
and the everythings.
and the little life this is.

to slipstream years gone by.
one fire in the sky, or another in the hills
just west of town.
something said about the smoke.
we take a weekend to spool through the story of your folks.
film cans or video cassettes,
or home re-sets. rewind.

words and faces scrawled in a tome of note.
spoken little memories,
little mysteries.
stories to tell no one.
stories to tell those who will listen.

the boys with dirtbike brothers.
the brothers with drunken fathers.
the fathers with dead wives.
the wives with ancient mothers.
the mothers and their children.
and the children living well enough.
living calm, then free.
far away, then close.

an empire.
of highways and histories.
of songs and the souls they swing.
of old money/new money,
betrayal on the horizon.
blacktop jamborees and assassinations.
driveways and nicely neighborhood lit-upon lawns.
well-trimmed trees.
a never-ending tree of lovers,
grasped and gasping for the sky.
listen and wait.
for the sun to kiss the moon goodbye.

                              [a family and their dog.]

this chrysalis.
this coincidence that is us, on one good gust.
from heart to hand to sons and daughters.
synchronized to die and revive and imbibe along the ride.
a tableau of animalia.
feasting and sleeping and awoken
by the wide little world all around.

“we are fires in the night. let us bathe you in our light.”

Be subtle with how you feel
For not everyone has the strength to hold
The heaviness that you may bestow on their hearts
But forgive them
For they too
Will never know
True happiness
As they will also never know
True sadness, in your heart.

God will always forgive me.
It is in his vocation,
but I will always remember the mess.

I think sight is very much visceral, and
I will wonder about all the other times

that were like this.

Occasionally I'll
see her voice, in the current, up in the air
and a emphatic whisper washes behind my ear
like a stable vacuum, it is static.

And perhaps, even sometimes, in the street--
I'll watch the shadow of her figure.
And see the sweat
trickle
off her brow
onto her cheek.
Like a clogged siphon, it seeps.

Often, I will catch a glimpse of an
alabaster shoulder
or two.
Like drywall, they creak.

And always, but not at all, I sometimes
hold my breath long enough, and hear my heartbeat.
If I hold it longer, I hear yours.

Maybe I'm too accustomed to your being.  I’m too forgetful of mine.

I led her down the river, but she treated herself as if she was not there,
as if she did not want to hold my hand,
but I'd see the spaces between her fingers flap and rustle
and her joints would crack
for some in-between hand, or object to hold

We looked at the river, it was
mighty fine and blue,
blue like her dress, and blue like my shoes.

It was like that one day,
in July, where she and I snuck into that hole-in-earth, the hole, smack dab into the center of the dry river. It was where she taught me how to smoke,
and I would then unravel her dress from her body, on concrete,
and sneak a quick touch,
or two.

We looked at the river, and I led her here,
by myself.
It was quiet, running, and grey,
but loud.

We looked at the river,
and it reminded me of you.

We write about two AM because it is simplicity and we are underexposed. Overtime, simplicity becomes complex and subjective and harder to define. Soon you associate two AM with her hair holding on desperately to her shoulder blades, but at that point it doesn't matter what time it is because all your brain understands is her mouth and how badly you want to kiss it. Everything is clinging to something: hair to skin, sheets to mattress, mouth to teeth; but the real fear lies in what will end up letting go and this is why we are born with out fists clenched, because from the moment we are living, every insecurity spills like air out of a bag you thought was vacuum sealed. See, life is full of complexities and we can't seem to find permanent serenity, but, in the midst of it all, there are small things that resonate within us and soon we collapse into a string of cliches and we fight not to drown within them, collectively babbling and trying to make sense of the concept of never letting go.

You find the reason to everything and anything because
it makes you feel safe, but I
--can't kiss you without you
wanting to tell me that
my eyelids flutter because my eyes
get dry and they need to protect themselves from all the
pathogenic **** that flutters around me but I'm
really just trying to get a better look at you,

why don’t you let me look at you.

Then I begin to cry and you say why tears are tears,
and that you wanted a “simple life” with me  but
youre too busy identifying the complexity of things
that you can’t even feel because they lay within your heart, not your hands.

I’m right in front of you but your
voice begins to raise and you speak the science of presence
and you tell me that i’m your soulmate because your subconscious doesn't always feel so alone when i’m standing right beside
you and that you need me to survive but you
can't always kiss me because you’re too busy saying that the reason why
I think you taste good
when you kiss me is because
we meant are for each other.

While I’m in your arms you begin to analyze
my paragraph of life and how
it fits so perfectly beneath yours.
But then you rearrange your words
and place some in between mine
and then I realize I’m the just the loosely placed parenthesis around your
syntax of life.