some days
i'd like to run away
from where i'm at
to another place
perhaps a wrinkle in
somebody else's face
or hide out
inside a crooked smile
anywhere
where i'd not be found out

jump into an eye
in the middle of a blink
slide around the back
and watch them while they think
after awhile
i would venture out
making my way north
find a bushy brow
change my accent and identity
to a cajon from the south

jump onto a tear
as it's wiped close to the ear
whisper subliminal messages
get me out of here...

Maybe it’s the way you held your head when you speak.
Or the way your voice sounded like you’ve never had a nervous day.
But maybe it’s the way I know you could see the stars at daytime
And the sky when it’s not as blue as it is.

The syllables of your name stretched like the British Empire.
Everybody else missed it at first
But I caught it the moment you pronounced the first letter.
I couldn’t get it out of my head.
I kept repeating it and it melted like honey on my tongue.

You spared me a glance,
that day when I was walking downtown.
Both of us didn’t know what to do
So we left ourselves hanging, in space and in time.

But you don’t even know my name
You don’t even know my name…yet
You still don’t know how I know that you will be
Somehow, this tragic love story waiting to happen

Because trust me when I say this
There hasn’t been any that ended well
There hasn’t been any that stuck for good.
I know you’ll tear my heart

And I’ll write you petty poems
I’ll find the perfect songs
And I’ll sing about you
Even when I know you’ll be
Another tragic love story waiting to happen.

when all is but gone,
books, words,
reduced to dust and
arbitrary faces I
will remember -
cats.

the absurd
pretension in
every line of
an ee cummings
poem.

every
numbered capital
letter.

and I
will
remember
birthday parties.

the little drummer
boys that made
them.

and the
gibberish that only
made sense when
you read it at night
beneath
flashlights.

and I
will
remember
rickshaws.

make-
believe pavllions.

and tucked away
homes hidden in
ol' Kansas bluegrass
half-
asleep.

we,
still somewhat up
at two
in the morning puttering
away at stories so
easily
forgotten.

it is here
where our
rooms stopped time to
break free of metaphors.

where the metaphors
become symbolisms.

where the symbolisms
become you—

I guess
I’d just like to say
that I
will remember
you.

and thank you.

note to self: you're normal.
it doesn't matter if you like girls,
or if you make stupid ****** decisions.
you're a human being. it's okay.

note to self: stop jumping to conclusions.
you're not a mind reader. sometimes
you're just looking for ways to hate yourself.
you're just fine, don't worry about it.

note to self: don't rush things.
you'll get better at your own pace.
you don't do things that quickly and that's okay.
these things take time.

note to self: things will get better.
as diana goodman from next to normal said,
"you don't have to be happy at all
to be happy you're alive."

i'm wearing a yellow sweater with the sleeves pushed up and it's cold it's dark and i can't find you where are you
there are stripes on my arm and it's dark it's dark i can't see my eyelids are so heavy and
i can't stay
is carved on the floorboards and i hear yelling and maybe that's you?
it's you it's you why are you yelling? darling don't yell i'm fine except i can only see red and gold and red,
so much red
and i can feel your arms around me and you're carrying me why are you carrying me
where are we going
why is everything so white all i can see is white where are we?
now i'm sitting upright and i can see and you're crying
(why are you crying? stop crying)
and i try to speak but the words stick to the roof of my mouth like a bad memory
i can't move i hurt everywhere i want to move why can't i do this
why do i do everything wrong i can't even die right what's wrong with me
i'm wrong wrong wrong like an answer someone tried to erase but couldn't quite get it done
i'm a failure why are you still here
i yell at you and it's a mess and you still stay and why aren't you giving up on me?
baby it's not worth it, you should go
and i get better and you're smiling and i don't understand why haven't you left?
stop wasting your time on me, go be an actress or something
but you get me in your car and you drive me home and you stay with me and my house is so clean
it's so clean how did it get so clean?
and you stay and you're always there and i keep crying and you just hold me
now i'm scared that you'll leave even though i deserve it but please don't leave
i see you and you're so beautiful what did i do to deserve this?

[to: E] hi, i love you

and you're smiling and you kiss me and why?
you're kissing me and i'm still scared that you'll leave so i kiss you back
and you're smiling, mon ange. even i'm smiling.

[from: E] hi, i love you too
[from: E] please stay

Come here.
Let’s.
Let’s?
Let’s…
Let’s.

Come here.
Listen to Edith Piaf
(So hipster, n'est-ce pas?)
and the scratch of her
voice on the turntable,
will be ours
to keep in Moleskine
notebooks of memory.
So that we’ll try to believe,
love is actually a thing.
Let’s.

Come here.
This quaint room will be
ours,
our guest, as we breathe life
into the coffee cups, wooden chairs.
We’ll give it a nose, yes.
Lightbulbs will smell red
wine in fingerprinted glasses.
Windows will drink
us,
to us.
And we’ll laugh, our faces
hot and sad, mouths
crammed with French
fries.
A scene blurred with happiness.
Let’s.

Come here.
Trash the hands of every
boy, who’s spread himself
out on marginalia of our days.
Slathered himself on pieces
of time we wish we had hugged to ourselves.
Hate, hate, hate
him, we’ll say.
And his **** hands.
Let’s.

Come here.
Our eyes will be fireflies
behind our glasses,
in this cinema’s night, as we ‘swoon’
at rom-coms as buttery
as the popcorn we bought in the interval.
Life’s too short, we say.
Eat about it, drink about it,
maybe even talk about it.
Forget about it.
Let’s.

Come here.
Talk, about nothing.
We’ll all be dead one day.
Let’s.

Come here.
We can be friends.
Let’s.

Let’s.
Let’s.
Let’s?


(And your giggle will end
all and every verse written.
I’m **** sure of it.)

Not that it was beautiful,
but that, in the end, there was
a certain sense of order there;
something worth learning
in that narrow diary of my mind,
in the commonplaces of the asylum
where the cracked mirror
or my own selfish death
outstared me . . .
I tapped my own head;
it was glass, an inverted bowl.
It's small thing
to rage inside your own bowl.
At first it was private.
Then it was more than myself.

I am in a crate, the crate that was ours,
full of white shirts and salad greens,
the icebox knocking at our delectable knocks,
and I wore movies in my eyes,
and you wore eggs in your tunnel,
and we played sheets, sheets, sheets
all day, even in the bathtub like lunatics.
But today I set the bed afire
and smoke is filling the room,
it is getting hot enough for the walls to melt,
and the icebox, a gluey white tooth.

I have on a mask in order to write my last words,
and they are just for you, and I will place them
in the icebox saved for ***** and tomatoes,
and perhaps they will last.
The dog will not.  Her spots will fall off.
The old letters will melt into a black bee.
The night gowns are already shredding
into paper, the yellow, the red, the purple.
The bed -- well, the sheets have turned to gold --
hard, hard gold, and the mattress
is being kissed into a stone.

As for me, my dearest Foxxy,
my poems to you may or may not reach the icebox
and its hopeful eternity,
for isn't yours enough?
The one where you name
my name right out in P.R.?
If my toes weren't yielding to pitch
I'd tell the whole story --
not just the sheet story
but the belly-button story,
the pried-eyelid story,
the whiskey-sour-of-the-****** story --
and shovel back our love where it belonged.

Despite my asbestos gloves,
the cough is filling me with black and a red powder seeps through my
veins,
our little crate goes down so publicly
and without meaning it, you see, meaning a solo act,
a cremation of the love,
but instead we seem to be going down right in the middle of a Russian
street,
the flames making the sound of
the horse being beaten and beaten,
the whip is adoring its human triumph
while the flies wait, blow by blow,
straight from United Fruit, Inc.