Gnarl your toes,
Know that you can’t catch everything
That comes flying through the rye
We are rosebuds trying to
Find the right window.
The right person to pluck us apart bit by bit
Trying to make up their minds
Yes’s or No’s
Gnarl your toes
Because either way, you will face
Him, Bruce Wayne
And cast your conscience in to the dark
but somehow you’ll come out of it
Harry Pottering your way through the darkness
finding her in front of you
And you’ll show her all the reasons
To the hate the sun
You’ll pour galaxies in cups
Trying to measure what this feeling is
You’ll take her words like nebulas
meek and hazy swimming inside your
ears
Show her where the stars sleeps
Where they go when you die
tell her the stories that your
parents told you at night
you will love her until the snow falls
upward
and when she’s gone the streets will no
longer be slippery
So gnarl your toes like you use to do
For there’s plenty of things to be scared of
Plenty of things to be angry about
Plenty of things to corrupt you
To change your mind, to make you Darth Vader
Down the path you did not want
and if you do, know that it is fine
because you will grow like the universe before you
and in that process you will find
poetry etched in between chopsticks, lips, fingertips, maps of big cities
and small towns. first loves and second dates .
you will find them on the places you hate—
On your parents graves.
know that they were the ones that left them for you

I will call you
And tell you
I love you
Not after when the train comes
Or after when the streets lights turn red
But after I’m done
Finding pennies in
Precarious places
I will call you
With my lips chipping
Like sugar on a glazed donut
My forehead a red neon sign
Flashing Day Dreams

I will call you
When the earth binges on ice cream
She’s trying to form new oceans again,
Trying to get back what the sun took
From her
I will come, harnessing the speed of light
With sun rays for arms;
Lightning in my heart
And oak trees sprouting from my head
And you’ll know
That I was trying my best to find
You in places that existed
When we were younger but no longer
Now that we aren’t

I will hand you all the pennies
I find and though there’s not many,
There’s enough
Because theses—
Are for the wishers
The people who stare at the distant suns
And get nothing back but a wink
For the pessimists who keep trying
To see the glass sideways
And for the earth that keeps fighting
For the right days
Give them two
And tell them all to wait for me
By the nearest pay phone—

Maybe this is our generation
The batten down the hatches
Singing songs of the east coast kid
With west coast dreams generation
While the A.C. is singing songs for
The ocean sea
And ocean breeze
I could feel
My skin remembering
The blue sounds
And blue piers
Blue hands
I’m blue behind the ears
I remember how much my heart
tendered her
And I wondered
How high that bonfire burned—

On the beach,
she told me the truth
about her arms
That this one was for her ma
And that one was for her pa
And that one was for her brother
Fighting overseas

“What about that one”

“Well, that one’s for you
And for me
For proof that I was here,
That I was alive before all of this”

I talked about it once
The place where in the distance
Everything looks like
Dots of light
And where our skin would
fold and unfold
like pages from
A book about god
Not bible—
Because in the creases at night
I could see him dangle on the edge
Of your eye lash—
and he’s begging you
not to blink;
and when you go—
overnight
shifting to the other
side of the sea
asking the moon how to get home—
I’ll come to you—
I’ll tell you how these pages
In your skin are only temporary
And that the crashing coast is only a mile away—
So don’t listen him. Leave him out
Let him dangle like he’s done to us
And when you stop trembling,
When your chest closes
When your heart starts beating enough
To make an ocean
When you’re ready
when he’s holding on by a thread—
blink

Leave it by the gate
Behind the red flowers;
And In the library
Near the encyclopedias labeled,
Firsts
Leave it on your way to her
Leave it on the 5th field during gym
When they’re beating you senseless
And you have no choice
Leave it near the white ivory doors of
his offices
Leave it near the sun
Have it bake in the light
Grind its face in the asphalt
Have it taste your two thousand tons
of spit as you speak
Let them know—

Throw it at the lake let it dance off into the distance
Let it spin itself to pieces
Leave it in the creases of her lips
her Fingertips—
Chinatown misfits
Graffiti your name on every single  
Williamsburg, post no bill, post no hate
Post some self esteem
Let them know who you are
Have them find you in the fine print
Whispering sweet hymns in her ear
Have them chase you down the icy slopes
Towards the crashing coast
Leave it with them
Let it wash away in the swirling vortex
Of her, dancing till the sun sleeps,
Have it lie in the wake of your dust
Let it fall
and fall
and fall—
Let it tremble off in your voice
Watch it snow away with every move
Leave it in the pages
Close it in your book,
Let your tongue crash
Inside the hall of your mouth—
Let them know.

Tell me about the dream;
where you found yourself surrounded in a sandy vacancy
and the sweat on your face glistened like wishes in a American fountain;
Tell me about the dream;
Where you saw the remains of the house your mother grew up in
And how you were amazed by the black shade that skeletons could take;
Tell me about the dream;
Not the dream you had when you slept all night wanting to go back
inside to your mother’s womb; the dream about the inconsistency of light in your apartment;
Tell me about the dream;
When you were five in Philadelphia, it was snowing like bed sheets like falling stars like—
I can’t remember; is it amnesia— no I just can’t remember;
Tell me about the dream;
Where rain kamikazes across your windows; shattering themselves into millions,  for the sun to take back
Tell me about the dream;
*The inconsistencies of light; how a bulb dying is similar to us; the way
Its flashes in front of itself just before it goes dark;

Our bodies are untouched hallways and finger painting has never been more fun
I was there once and I left believing that swirls were the only good
way of trying to get my point across
But things aren't so subtle when it comes to understanding the physics of how to dance
I move like scattered leaves trying to collect myself against the wind
You can imagine how I am at galleries with a living room full of broken paintings
I accidentally bought.
But I don’t regret it and I think that’s the best way to live.
A mouth full of teeth collisions
A lot of people compare love to an instant but I think it’s more like discovering the warm ghost
of the person still lingering on surfaces in your home like metal bars, the ps3 controller, and the toilet seat
finding the body wash disappearing quicker than usual
Inhale not for the enjoyment of it but the possibility of finding a soul somewhere in all that smoke.
We wear all this black. I bet if I jumped into you there would be another dimension on the other side
Where the people wear nothing but white and all they speak is truth
and I’ll end up asking them what’s the point of everything
and they’ll say nothing, all they’ll do is place their finger on my chest and start swirling