In front of them
Resisted the wind
Against their shirts
Resisted the heavy
Man- women
And pretentious
Jesus with a ****** up
Face from surgery a while
Back
They resisted each other
Went no where
For a while but home
Until they
Came across a road that
They dreamt up on a December
Morning in a living room
No longer there

So much information
So many stories
why one extinguisher?

Some people are raised
From a very young age
to believe that they’re
special and one of a kind.
And as they grow, they’re
Devastated to find out that
We’re all the same
They buy a home
They have a few kids
They conform to
The sociable
And they’re happy
Then there’s the people who
From the beginning of their lives
Are told that they’re worthless
And they succumb to the
Pressure of those crushing
Adjectives and they wither
And fall
Into drugs or crime or civil
disobedience to everything

We are made to believe that
The norm is to settle.
Is to capitulate to the standards
Of everyone around us.
Yes we’re all the same
But what makes us different isn’t
Our appearance or our race or gender
Or our personal style.
What makes us, Us.
Is our capacity to hope.
To dream.
To cherish.
To love.
To grasp something so tightly
to your chest that your body
has no choice but to make it
its own
Those exact things also makes us
The same  
We are all artists in the grand
Scheme of things
In our own universes, In front of us
Stands the canvas of decisions
Make sure you create something
Worth the trouble

There’s dullest in the walls
plastered with dried saliva
From the girl who ******
You, and him and her
The night before
The floor smells like ****
Because last night you
divulge to me your love for
the guy across the hall, Jamie
Your love for his ego and his
eccentric manner of being a
******* ****** bag
Aren’t you tired of roof tops
The crossed off words in your
mouth?
aren't you tired of putting things
Inside you that don’t matter?
I left my cigarette burning
Inside your stomach and Jamie over here
Left two more
Don’t be surprised if it gets that big
After 4 months
I’m glad the cancer isn't mine

I miss your breath after
a few shots
breathing on my neck
Corroding my skin
Leaving wounds the shape
of your mouth
the size of continents
seeping down
in to my bones
like radiation ,
rusting them
grinding my knee caps
my elbows
shifting the tides of
my blood
your fingers sail down
my spine turbulently
I could feel arthritis
On your lips
Taste myself on
Your tongue
and feel the collision
of a car crash being
pressed against me
everywhere

When I was thirteen
I had this awkward habit
of texting you at 1 o’ clock in the morning
about some crazy idea I had during the day.
And you would get so mad at me
that you’d reply in all caps and exclamation points
to which I would laugh so hard at.
But really, you didn't mind
because you would stay and
we would text until sleep claimed one of us.

I remember back then
I use to play basketball all the time
and you would always come out
when I was there.
It was annoying
because you would always steal the ball away
and I would have to chase you
all around the cul-de-sac.
Until you got tired
collapsing on asphalt
and I not wanting you to get hit by a car
stood guard right beside you
and you would always laugh at me
for being so paranoid.

I especially remember the night
when you were outside laying on the grass
wearing nothing but summer shorts and a tank top
Your legs gleam in the moonlight like neon
I thought you were the most beautiful
Thing I've ever seen
I remember asking you
“What are you doing out here?”
“My parents are fighting, what are you doing?”
“Taking out the trash” I said.
You asked me to join you
and I did and so we both laid there
cushioned by the thick uncut grass
covered in shining nightly dew
as we stared upward towards infinity.
and all I could imagine was you
climbing on top of me
giving my chest a reason to expand

I’m happy you found someone
That draws blue flowers on your
Porcelain every night
You leave your lip stick
On his night stand and
Your underwear on his bed
You walk to him like a horizon
like the floor is sand
like you leave foot prints
telling me where you are
just so you could see what
I would do
It’s been a month.
I've been traveling through Montana
It’s cold here, the snow is piercing
And the ice never melts
I’m at St. Mary trying to find
Where the lake touches the mountains
Some time before lunch
Realizing how you found
The world in-between his shoulders
And a history in-between mine

I want a love so furious
that I wake up to her
kissing the wounds she
gave me last night
I want to be decorated
with hickeys
tattooed with bite marks
I want to feel what actual
love feels like.
I want to wake up to the sun rising
outlining her body, highlighting her cheeks
smiling.
I want to wake up with post traumatic stress disorder
from the night before
and the aftertaste of her still
lingering in my mouth

We talked about it once
Near the window
With the broken frame
Underneath a night
Covered in cotton

We talked about it until
We couldn't talk anymore
Until we ran out of adjectives
To describe it and verbs to unleash it
Until our tongues were dry
From the saltwater pouring out from
Ourselves

We talked about the fire
You wish you could have
Been anywhere else in the world
But even then, you felt like
It would have followed you

So we kept talking about it
About the people without skin
And the people with too much
About how easy it was for you
To do it
That much iron in your hands
“I had to do it” You said

I wanted you to stop talking then
I stared at where your legs should be
Now stumps like deforestation
You knew too well what that meant
With your shattering eyes

You kept talking in your wheelchair
Hands brutal like mountains
Kept talking about that girl
And how easy it was for you
How you did it with only a couple
Of matches
And a gallon of gasoline

Hang your bones
In my closet
While I melt my skin
On to terracotta warriors
So I can learn
How to stand centuries for you

Dust off our ash covered knees,
We’ve waited long enough
Pierce your ancient stone temple
With eroding fingers
I’ll excavate your
Porcelain viscera
And rearrange it
With my tongue

I have known you
Sitting beautifully
With your legs crossed
Beside the shelves
Reading Catcher
Your hair bright as the book cover

I have known you
Stepping out in day light
With blackness
The white flowers in the air
Fail to resist your skirt

I have known you
Before standing shirtless
In my door way
Whispering drugs when we sleep

I have known you
Far away in the distance
Hair fading orange explosion
Catches me
I surrender like a moth

I have known you
Past the bus stops
And greyhounds
Driving in your Sedan
Singing December

I have known you
Skin as white and bright
As thunder clouds
Pink, as I press my fingers
Against your stomach

I have known you
Swimming in the nighttime
Walking on boats
Heading for the coast
With a hand full of smooth pebbles

I have known you
Deep by the riverside
Painstakingly trying
To drown your fourteen

I have known you
Naked in the night
Laying on the floor
Beside the shelves
Waiting for a fix

I have known you
Seen you catch rainfall
With your tongue
You are use
To tasting tears

I have known you
Running across
The dim valley
Eyes towards the cactus
Toes in the soil
Feeling California  

I have known you
Caught you staring
At the foreboding sunrise
Wishing for it to slow down

I have known you
The color of scarlet
Apples in the summer
Fresh blood of war
On your hair
That fire grows
With each breeze

I have known you
Beneath the avalanches
Near Everest
Above the clouds
Near the Eiffel

I have known you
But I cannot find you

I want you to scar my back
leave wounds deeper than
the ones they gave me back
In high school
Bite me in places where
she could only kiss me
because she couldn’t
handle what was underneath
I want to feel the crushing
weight of you pressuring my skin
to touch my bones
every place where you and I meet
There’s a moon begging the sun
For a solar eclipse

I could see Montana in your unopened eye lids
Vast valleys in your chlorophyll

Your fingertips dipped in rust
And then you shook them to
Dry

I love your sky Colorado
Split ends that could spilt
Appalachians

I would touch you if I had hands
Rub our rust like tectonic plates
My ridges are cold like Alaska
New England Industry booms me out
Like bullets

But I found you near the Delaware again,
Like I did back in the winter ‘76
Or maybe ‘74

I can’t remember

I hated the combat but I loved the war
Reminds me of yours

Your crashing Colorado
Runs down your spine
The Mississippi would cut through yellow stone

If it could

But

You are dying, I know that now

Like everything else, like Vietnam

I see your red and your white
But where is your blue?
I’ve seen the hands of America

I’ve lost mine too.

The grass knew back then
How easy it was to hitchhike
On shoes and knees

The Oak tree nearby knew
The kisses I gave her
Underneath its leafless
Frame of winter

The village below
Knew me
The time I stole
His peaches from his
Yard

The graffiti of my youth
Covered up
By Vogue and
Chewing gum

There in the little ancient house
With green shingles,
That knew me

Sits grandpa meditating
In front of her picture
Hung from the ceiling
Border with flowers

Over there, past
The wide dusty road
Yellow from the soil
Stood the brutality
That knew me

Can you still smell the cherries
Over the February gunpowder?
Everyone that knew you
Misses you
Your tone, bells in the wind
In front of service

You spoke the same
But I spoke differently
Now
A battered dream in my voice
But the optimism is still there
Still lodged in my throat
The people are still there
The weight of the peaches
On your shirt is still there
Everyone is still there

Someone had painted the trails with blotches of shadows
And the evergreens went into hiding within them
Crippled leafs descend and ascend beautifully, reinforced by gust  

Elsewhere, in the Gulf of Mexico, the sun had been drowned
By the approaching night
And the sea waves flirt with the crescent shore

Here, the trail traces the forest vertebrae
Its coarse finger tips rips through maple tendons
And fossil stone cartilage
It cries and endures

It bleeds as we carve whispers in to its bark
Things that we are too afraid to say

Elsewhere, at the summit of Kilimanjaro,
Dawn swallows the foreboding night
And a young sun crawls out from underneath the white cap
The savanna shifts its eyelids open
And with a fray the old titans emerge

The tent stood under a basking tree
A young man lays inside quivering
From too many exposed bones
The flies rally and take turns exploring
His skin rots invisibly
And the stomach bugles from the weight of starvation
He would have swallowed the world if he could

But here, we trace the shadows of these trails
And carve our whispers in to dying woods
A sun is drowned every day.
And these crippled leafs shatter.

There is no Kilimanjaro here.
No Gulf small enough to save the sun

In the forest near the
river, along the sides
of the bushes
towards the vastness
of nothing,
we walked on a
trail that marched
deep in to the tall grass
our feet were sore and
colored with earth mud
there was a wave of salt.
The ocean was nearby
we ran the rest of
the way
the tall grass split open
and in front of us was
a crippled house we could
hear it,  standing
on the hilltop
just before the crescent shore

I wish I
Knew how to
Build relationships out
Of construction paper
Instead of Styrofoam
Cups, something that
I could tape
Together when it’s
Ripped, something I
Could un-wrinkle when
It’s crumpled up
But Instead I
Have These Styrofoam
Cups they seem
Strong and sturdy
I don’t mean to
But when I
Step on them
They snap and
Break, their White
Beads come off
Flake by Flake
They are so
Easily blown Away
By breaths How
Do I Tape
Those flakes back
Together when I
Can’t even manage
To get all
The pieces

I hear you
Through
The gaps
In-between
The splitting oak

Whirlpools of dust
Lift from the steps
You ask me to
Leave
You ask me why
I’m here

I smell you
Deep in the avalanches
Of your mold
They had killed a child
In you
Asking me why I come
Three times now

Cavern of unheard voices
Your cries seep
Into my stomach
Fill it with ash
Enough to roll
A useless cigarette

I felt you
Aching and in pain
Those who touch
Your rust
Pour lemons
On your wounds

I heard laugher
In your wood
The scratches
Of tiny fingernails
And the screams
Of a boy




They told me you
Carried them
Said it wasn’t
Your fault
They have grown
Since the last
Time you saw them

No longer the children
You use to carry.

I’m sorry that I’m not okay enough to give you what you need
There’s a point when trying your best no longer matters unless
You actually succeed and I’m failing you; I’m not well; I wish
I was but all I want to do is feel something for once know how
It feels to grasp something and not let it run through your fingers
Like sand; I’m not dead inside; I’m very much alive, running
Savagely through my darkness away from what’s behind me;
I don’t know what’s behind; it looks like my childhood, like
My parent’s disappointment in me, the lack of everything; the
Problem isn’t because I’m scared. A building is set on fire inside
Me every day and every day I have to find a way to put it out
And save what remains of that building; charred black oak,
Crumbling walls, a roof torn wide open left on its tendons;
Photos outlined by carbon and touched by the flames leaving
Traces of embers and Polaroid ash; negatives were use as fuel
Every time it’s the same building, the same house; the house
That I grew up in; the house that’s still there; Why do I keep
Trying to put it out when I know what I really want
Is to watch that ******* burn;

I saw you a week ago
Your hands in the bread box
Fingers flipping through the slices
Like folders

You pick one
And pinch the barked color crust
You lift it from obscurity
And secured it in-between
Your rose petals

Crumb glazed fingertips
Dirt on your cheeks
You looked around
Made sure it was safe
And then disappear into winter

Coal covered flakes fell from the chimneys
And the snow needed cleaning
Furnaces burned all day like Hanukah oil
Rib cages grew out from their shyness
And your topaz eyes did well
To stand out from the sea of blue and white

If they tell you there are showers here
Don’t believe them
There’s a reason why it smells like skin
On Sundays

Those ******* with their black metal suits
Raising their hands towards the heavenly sky
In front of them
Making gold out of our bones
And lampshades out of our skin

Yesterday, I kissed you in front of the bread box
Felt the grime on your finger tips
And tasted the bread in your breath
I ran my fingers down your brittle
Spinal cord
Climbing and descending mountains
One finger at a time----

We dissolved into the winter

Made angels where no angels could be found
Danced in our skeletal forms

We both had seen death and his attempts
To lure us with hot showers, warm food
And an oversized fire place

He had made this hell on earth
And we chose to decorate it with bread
And angels

We were content with that




But today when you didn’t show up
I went outside

I saw him guiding you into that burning house
With a grin on his face

I ran as fast as my bony legs could
Trampling over the angels we made

And carelessly slipping on our frozen crumbs

All I could do was stare helplessly at the chimneys
Cement and vicious
Piercing in to the sky
Black smoke flooded the clouds like night

Grey and black crumbs rained

And somewhere in the distance
A train had stopped

I’m tired of these poems that talk
About dissolving in to the bed together
About spaceships on the ceiling
And dust on your forearms
I’m tired of these poems-
And tired of the crushing weight-
These poems that talk about love
As if it’s something we can taste
Or touch or smell or melt or dissolve
Or fly or crash or destroy ourselves into
I’m tired of these metaphors
The double entendres
The verses
The prose
The ulterior motive to sleep
With the girl next door

Stop talking about love likes it’s tangible
Like it’s something you can find
In the creases of your sheets
Or the pores on your skin
Like it’s something you can hear
In the tone of his voice
Or the pitch of her laugh

Stop looking outside
Stop telling her she’s an ocean
Stop comparing him to a rain storm
Stop howling your stanzas on rooftops
When they leave you
Stop expecting for the wind to be there
Love does not exist in the air
Or in your heart

Love exists when you learn how to-
When existing becomes the only thing you love
When you stop setting yourself on fire
To keep him warm at night
When you stop letting her freeze you
Just so she can keep you there

Enough of your Nerudas
Your moons
Your suns
Your mountains
Your stars
Your inhabitable forests
Your deserts
Your fires
Your oceans
Your seas
Your lakes
Your rivers
Your Niles
Your Paris
Your talk of good destruction

I have seen them throw their voices in to caves
Desperately wanting to hear an echo

Toss aside your shallow skin and knee deep words
So you can no longer hurt and no longer drown

There is a train filled with the thoughts of kissing the sea
It doesn’t stop at a station but at the toe of a boot
It shrieks its wheels to a halt near the cliffs of the Mediterranean
It gazes upon a violent shore
The waves pillage the roman sands
The flame descends
And with a whistle it collapses on the tracks
Healing its rust
Tasting the zephyrs with its skin
Yearning for the ocean
And then
With a thunder-
It rips its metal against the earth.
Coaling onward in a furnace

Never to leave these tracks
Never to kiss the sea

I left it back in high school
on the bench near the gate
behind it were some red flowers
and I always thought they were nice
standing out from the green
surrounding them
I left it back in the library
Near the encyclopedia labeled
Firsts , I was on my way to you
when I dropped it
Back in middle school
on the 5th field during P.E.
he was beating me senseless
when it came off
I was bleeding everywhere
he told me to pick it up
that day I decided to walk home

You texted me this morning
When the trees were being assaulted by gales
And the coffee in my *** had been sitting there
For weeks now collecting poison.

It had been a month
And I too, had collected poison
In the form of underage drinking
Tiny piercing viruses, bottle after bottle
In attempted to eradicate brain cells that held a picture of you
On their nucleus.
It didn’t work.

So I tried inhaling glass in to my lungs
Tried passing out so I could land in a coma
But I missed two feet to much to the right
And landed on my frontal lobe
Where you proceeded to dissect me with your tongue.
So when you texted me this morning

Memories came like cancer



I remembered that car dealership
Where you bought the 1960 sky blue Volkswagen bug
With rust on the side,
I remember driving to North Carolina with you
On a Monday morning.
Blistering cold at twilight
And all we did was whisper and hum
To each other
As we drove on empty interstate highways

You taught me how to cross state lines
And eat food so volatile that radioactivity
Spewed from my taste buds,
Down my throat
And in to my rigid spine
Where it shivered like arthritis.

My body isn’t hollow; it’s just frozen
Because tiny tundras fill the fissures in my rotting skin
My bones are brittle ice cubes bulging out from underneath the surface

And if people were snow, I would be a particle on a flake
And you would be Antarctica: vast, mysterious, uncharted, vicious, brutal, untamed,
And you would have had frozen me in to an arctic sculpture
To be hung over your brick stone fireplace
As you stood there watching me melt
With your blue corpse eyes.


It’s 8:34 now,
I’ve stood here for thirty minutes remembering what you once were
A continental mystery on my western cerebral hemisphere.
There was America,
Specifically Georgia
But you spoke Alaskan.
Talked about going there like 18 year olds talked about Europe

Everyone wants an adventure
But all you wanted was to know how it felt like
To have mountains under your palms
And snow peaks over your head.
They called it climbing.
I called it searching.
But those who climb would inevitably know how to fly

If they knew how to let go

So let go darling.
Stop calling me in December to tell me all the great things we did back in August.
If I’d had written down our phones calls
It would be enough to fill a notebook full of parentheses
Because all we did was whisper and say things we didn’t mean.  

So don’t come back and try to freeze me again.
I won’t melt this time, I’ll disintegrate.
I’ll fuse with my fissures
Become tundra and dissolve in to the soil


Where your body is, buried
Beneath layers of cement,
Dirt
And ash.
I place flowers on your head stone every week
But you still keep texting me and texting me
Telling me how great our trip was to North Carolina
And how we can do it all over it again

The whispering, the humming, the parentheses

All I had to do was drink the coffee

I want to wake up
With a voice on my back
That traces all the bruises
And the scars
That I’ve had from
Turning away
From things and people
Because I was too afraid

I want to wake up with a forest
In front of me
And the knowing
That I’m not yet done
Exploring
I’ll walk to the end of the evergreens
Feel the fall on my bones
And eventually
Find the courage
To turn around

Afterwards we were glazed
With them
Shot down like arrows
From an Indian mountain
The roof tops did not budge
Nor did the sides of walls
They came again
A hail of themselves-
Everywhere
We walked on
The collective of them
The ones that refuse
to be arrows
But lakes instead

That afternoon when the sky
Faded orange to blue
And the sun was tired of us
We crossed that bridge
You wanted one of them
You loved one of them
The one that drove
Her mom’s red bug
The one with the
Big house and the
Big pool and
The beautiful bedroom
That you wanted so bad
To kiss her in
You didn't care
About any of her
Things or what else
She had.
You only cared if
She was yours.
There were three
Of them in the car
One that wanted
Him so bad that she
Fell in love with
Him because she knew nothing else
And that was okay
To be young and fully in love
She wanted to drive to the
Palm trees with him
And imagine themselves
Grow old right there
In front of everything
And she would have
Been happy
She would felt something
For once
The last one in the car
You said not in a
Million years not
If someone paid you
You called her fat
And ugly and I’m
Glad you couldn’t
Get the one you wanted
Because you don’t deserve
Anyone if you can’t see
Beauty in everyone
She wasn’t fat
She was just living the
Way she wanted to live
Until we gave her a label
She started to change, wearing tighter
Pants and tighter shirts
She hated them.
But she was cute in
The way she never
Gave up on trying to fit
In
And if you didn’t know
She loved you then you’re
A fool.
In a million year you’ll
Be dust and she would
Have already learned to love
Herself just fine
Without you

That afternoon we drove
Across the bridge-
In to the island