She was dancing absurdly on a bread-shaped roof top
She checked the direction of the wind with her dress
She took photographs with her thumb and index
You could find her planner on her palms:
Do laundry, Write Essay
She made February 31st a thing because
It was unfair for people to be forgotten
She would say her eyes were falafel brown
When everyone would describe them as muddy
She said once, the ability to see is the ability to catch the sun

There would be Garage rock playing in the back ground—
Yeah, that would be her theme song
And the smell of Brooklyn would follow her
That one time; or first time
When I walked along the Brooklyn Bridge Park
And there was fog; that time
She was standing underneath dim lights with a strange
San Francisco flavor
Tossing notes in to a notebook and tossing that into her music
And tossing that towards everyone else
On her back she had a tattoo: If lost, please return to;
Which I guess was her way of losing that smell;

He would run to his house, emergency or not
And they would go to Lake Erie to bathe in April,
They would watch the seasons go by in the water,
hijack golf carts from the course nearby
And cruise around the neighborhoods
Millennium falconing it through suburban
Michigan, dubbing it The Night We Took Down
The Empire
And eventually they would tucker out and
Afternoon on the asphalt, cul-de-sac, kissing
Waiting for the Detroit to catch up to the sun
They dreamed of places to go
And he would often say Where?
And his response would often be
Anywhere;

Will you stop pouring paint into my ears while I’m asleep
The dreams are nice but I have to address the pigeons
perched on the window in the morning
what are these you tuck inside ice cream sandwiches
They taste like Indio during spring
Let’s go to the coast and have the ocean temp us with freedom
Like it used to
Remind me of the clouds, untouchable to everyone except fireworks
And the children who light them, even if it’s only for a second
I suppose I can’t stop you from painting inside me
Just be careful of the water lilies you left
Pour all the colors inside me, I supposes
Feed me to seagulls, they’ll **** me out somewhere over Nantucket
And some tourist will say
*wow!, that lighthouse is so colorful

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”