you got a fast car
i want a ticket to anywhere
maybe we can make a deal
maybe together
we can get somewhere
anyplace is better
starting from zero
got nothing to lose
maybe we'll make somethin
me myself i got nothin to prove

i've been wondering
when it stops
people say it stops
when you want it to
but how do i tell that
to my dreams
when all i can think about
is running up to kiss you
in the parking lot of anywhere
it makes me wanna drink
and say everything
like sometimes i think about
what it would've been like
if i had let you go
when i
was still strong enough to do it
like i never knew hell
had such a pretty voice
like i tried to make it all day
without saying
"wish you were here"
like lately i've been going back
to all the places we've been
to see what it's like without you
it is the worst game
of hide & seek
every time i close my eyes
to count
you just go home
i seem to only wear my seat belt
on days you call
on days you're all *never been better
and i just wanna tell you
how much I hate window shopping
and daylight goodbyes
you just sit there
when you could say anything
you could tell me
you noticed i started drinking again
you could even make it up
you could say you miss me, too
you could say
you missed me so much
that the other day
you accidentally bought
two coffees instead of one
you could tell me
how you've been
without me
that you sleep so much better
these days
without having to worry
you can say what you have
to just don't say leaving
was like shooting fish in a barrel
cause i swear i'm nostalgic
for things i pretended were real
and i swear
i don't want a seance
until there's something
worth bringing back
take me back
to all the places i tried to love you
back to a time
where i knew my name  
without you having to say it

*you got a fast car
is it fast enough
so we can fly away
you gotta make a decision
leave tonight
or live & this way

having to talk about the weather
with someone who knew
*every inch of your soul

I want you to put me on your tongue and let me dissolve into you like the tiny white squares that turn those glossy hazel marbles into black holes and intense stares. I want you to kiss me and see negative colored rulers in the corner of your vision and I want you to have trouble making a decision between kissing me and observing me while I'm sitting on your chest and I want you to laugh like you did with your cherry colored lip curled over your childish grin over and over and over again and I want you to forget the conversation topic every time you close your eyes because the world inside of your mind is filled with blinking images that you can't quite explain aloud so you settle for little talks about Rosa Parks and Indian style kisses and how the ocean is the Earth's thing or the complexity of butterfly brains and whether or not they remember their caterpillar memories (they do). Describe to me the first time you saw your favorite color and what developed the affinity for it: yours, a glacier blue toy that resembled the ocean and mine, a lavender Easter dress that twirled when I spun. Tell me about your school crushes when you were four and what you got your clothespin moved to the sad face for and I'll write it all in ink on my knee caps because "God, we're such writers" and you'll check the clock in the gaps and search for tunes or lighters and I'll want time to slow down because the nights spent with you usually seem as though minutes are just a few seconds shy of sixty, which turns the little hand pretty quickly.
I want hours, weeks, decades, to analyze the freckles on your face or the pace at which you move your tongue and precisely how it tastes.
I want you to tell me that your brother would like me and about the mountains in Tennessee and maybe next time I'll try to stay awake, unless you want to listen to the way I breathe so fully when I dream.

When I close my eyes, I want to be able to see what you see.
I want you to keep burying the numb parts of you into the warm parts of me.

I'm going away for a while.
If you pass her by:
Tell her I miss her.
Her voice, her smile.
But tell her "boys don't cry".
Tell her I'm sorry,
though she already knows.
Tell her I still think of her,
say it though it shows.
And tell her I meant to say
that I wish things hadn't gone that way
that I wish I gave her a reason
for wanting me to stay;
and please tell her
that I'm not begging
or pleading
or wasting away.
Tell her I'm carrying on,
tell her I'm okay.

Tell her she's been in my dreams
and that last night I held her hand.
Tell her the cat gave my tongue back to me.
Just tell her, she'll understand.
Tell her it made me feel alive
to once again feel her touch.
Though feeling alive without her here
is not feeling very much.
But anyway,
tell her that I miss her
and that time we sat by the docks,
she knows,
I really meant to kiss her
right there,
but now I sit alone
and watch the clock.
"Time
goes by
so slowly"
Tick Tock, it goes,
Tick Tock
Tick
Tock.

But tell her I'm not lonely.
Tell her I'm quite alright.
I never needed someone to love me
or someone to hold me tight.
But tell her I wouldn't mind it
if she called me,
or took the time to write.
Even just to say good morning,
good afternoon, good evening,
or goodnight.
Tell her I was alone before I knew her,
that I got on just fine.
Just now it's but a little bit harder
So I'll sit down and sip on her city's wine,
I'll savour that bitter-sweet flavour,
and I will be
just fine.

Tell her Rome has fallen,
the war is over,
and I have lost the fight.
That she's better off without me
That what she did was right
But tell her that If I could go back,
and she knows that I would,
that I wouldn't hesitate to do it right
no matter what way God, fate, or karma
says it shouldn't or should.

Tell her I hope she's doing well
and that it isn't too late.
Though she might tell you
that too late it is.
And perhaps that's just fate.
Maybe we weren't made for each other,
like I had really hoped.
Maybe she's meant for another
and that's just how it goes.
Or maybe she needs nobody at all.
No one there to stand her up.
No one there to catch her fall.
But tell her I'm happy for her either way.
Tell her it's fine
Tell her it's okay.

But maybe you shouldn't tell her
anything that I have said.
I think it's best
for all of us
If any memory of me was wiped
away
from her head,
and she just forgets me instead.
It might be better if you tell her
That I never said a thing.
I think it's best if she forgets
Her forgetful little fling.

But wait.

I was more than that.
"And I know because she said so."
Tell her to forget my insecurity,
and please tell her,
because she might not know
that I was just scared
so afraid that she might leave,
that she might go:
That I pushed her away
that I pick up whats most important
disregard,
then foolishly throw.
But tell her I didn't mean it,
that it wasn't supposed to be so.

Tell her only good wishes to her I send.
That I was in the wrong.
that 'There are cracks in the walls
that I can't mend."
Again, to quote a song.

And tell her I'm a fool.
Not that she needs to be told,
because "only fools rush in"
and with her,
my heart was quickly sold.
Tell her I played the game,
I gambled,
and now all the dice have been rolled.
Tell her it's a strange feeling.
Tell her that "I will never grow so old".

Tell her when I asked for her kiss
and saw that look in her eyes:
I thought then she never wanted me.
Tell her I believed my own silly lies.
Tell her before I didn't see it
But God, I see it now.
Tell her I have to live with what I've done
but I'll get by somehow.

Tell her that in the airport
(for maybe she might laugh)
I was kicked out of a prayer room
for sleeping on prayer mats.
And as I lay on those mats,
a movie quote came to mind
"See you in another life
when we are both cats."
Maybe some meaning
I hoped she might find.

And tell her, before I forget,
on our last walk
she splashed a puddle
and I got wet.
But I didn't mind,
I didn't get upset.
Just tell her,
because I might not get a chance
that as she skipped, jumped,
gravity making her tied hair dance
"Well, it suddenly struck me,"
as she splashed that puddle:
and I knew, then and there,
I won't lie,
I would not deny
one
last
cuddle.
But such is life,
and life
is unfair.

Tell her I hope she finds her little house in the snow.
I won't be there, that much she will know.
Sad and regretful, maybe,
but spiteful I am not.
Tell her that I love her still.
Tell her
she'll always be my little teapot.

I can tell you about the girl.

Her freckles were beige constellations,
and her voice was husky and rasped
like birds before the churning of a storm.

She was weird and laughed at everything I said -
which made her even weirder,
because I'm only funny in certain photos
and in certain clothes.

Her left arm was covered in scars and burns.
"As you can tell, I'm right handed," she said.
Arthritis surrounded her wrists and other joints,
and all I could think about were my
grandmother's arthritis crippled hands,
and if the girl would thank the arthritis, one day,
for no longer allowing her to self-harm.

One of her feet were bigger than the other
and, when she walked, she would lose balance.
"I'm not sure if the world is too fast
or if I'm too slow. Then again," she winked,
"it's probably because of my feet."
I liked her because she treated me like a person,
but didn't take me as seriously
as I took myself.

I struggled with self-respect
and she struggled with a drug addiction.
Her arm was needle park
and sometimes she missed ******
more than she missed me.

She wasn't the type of girl to shake
without her drugs -
she'd, instead, talk about them
like they were old friends.
She understood them
more than she understood herself.

After a few months of ***
and, "I'll be sad when you leave,"s,
I called her my girlfriend
and she smiled.
Flecks of speckled angles, bright,
I saw her, first, she accepted
my night.

Five days later,
she overdosed on morphine.
I picked her up.

Her eyes were glazed over.
I said, "I love you,
but this is *******."
She cried and said,
"Forgive me."

I lain in bed, next to her -
next to the avoidance of death.
She asked how I was
and I said, "Everything I write is ****,
but I'm glad I can write ****** poetry
about how we'll be okay."

She asked, "We will be okay, right?"

I hope.

You lied.
You said you'd be leaving the country,
But you lied.
I still find pieces of you
everywhere I go.

You're the song that comes on the radio in taxis, begging to be missed.
I know it's you when my hands start itching to grab my phone to see if you messaged me.
Everytime I hear my phone ring,
For a moment I swear it was your name that flashed on the screen.


You lied.
You said you left the country,
But why is it that everytime
I look for you,
I always find you
in my heart?