we both admit to still having our pictures on our phones
the one where you shredded yourself into pieces,
and tossed them into the air,
telling me to catch you
but I lay on the ground--
waiting for you to reach me

I want to be able to tell you something
Not sure what I want to say
All I know is that I want to say
Something to you
Something that won’t leave you
Something that leaves an impression
Something from the deepest part of me
Something that makes up for
All the other times I couldn’t
Something to make you stay

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.

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

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

So much information
So many stories
why one extinguisher?

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;

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

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—

I don’t know what I’m doing
I have no clue where I’m going
Parts of me are scattered in people
Who no longer think I care
Days melt into month and
I’m being devoured by a girl
That has eaten more men than
Cigarettes
My hands are sticky; been going
Through my parents old photo album
Divorce is hard when you’re 18
You chose who you go with
And I’m terrible at decision but
I wish I could say I didn't have to pick
My mom
Honestly, I would chose either of them

Fireworks are a lot like promises
But I like the ones during New Years
Rather than the fourth
They have more meaning
Like:
Bang! : I promise to treat my parents better
Bang! : I promise to spend more time with the kids
Bang! : I promise to cherish her more often
Bang! : I promise to never look back

And then there are fireworks that
Can be heard more than once
The ones that shatter the sky and
Echo throughout the whole neighborhood
The ones that are lit to make a statement
Like:
I wish you were here right now.

I haven’t started to pack anything yet
trying to find a way to bring
you with me first
only to discover
that airplanes can only carry so
much baggage
so set it down
plot it in the Himalayas
where it belongs
it’s not about letting go
it’s to make sure a part of you stays
when you do
they will always tape that yellow line
in front of you at museums
and at train stations
the difference is whether or not
You're brave

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

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 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

I found myself peeling the skin off post it notes
I was lost
You okay they said, like a statement than a question
People get annoyed like I’m adding oil into their drink water
When I sprout about my sadness
Relax, I’m not asking you to hold an anchor
I’m asking you to listen
Happiness is a bridge on fire with no one on it
Sadness is a metal detector through the streets
Depression is when the roof tops, knifes, and middles of bridges
Start being friendly

I’m stealing thumbtacks off walls
And putting the in people’s
Pizzas to teach them
How to swallow sadness

The problem is I like to pretend,
Which is to say I like to fall in love
We would date for a while
And then I would realize
I’m only in love with the story we made and the ***
Which is to say I was looking for poetic material

Like, Teenage poetry is awkward
And Young poetry is selfish
Middle-age poetry is about my ex-wife
Old poetry is boring
Dead or Near-Dead poetry is what we remember
And all poetry is filled with cigarettes stains and mistakes

Life is short. He says
I hand him a cheese grader
And said back
“Make like a slice of parmesan
and go **** yourself”

Life is long for the people who wait

I was on the bridge with the sun high above
Taunting me and pinching the back of my neck
Do It, You *****!
Around me were families
So I decide not to,
And never again;

Birthday cards, I keep stacked that I’ve made
copies near the entrances to my window—
the virtue of having a friend
bitterest of ways, I am daffodils, saltwater.
mason jars of onions, old peanut butter we save
singing together, little notes of you
pieces, bit by bit— scatter into summer

I’m running out of pages to keep myself calm
I’m running out of time
And I’ve only answered so many questions
I am no longer authorized to print
Handle-with-care packaging
And I am running out of blue crayons to color in the oceans
As fast as it takes to finish this Carpi Sun
I’m running out of words to make you forgive me
And running out of Uhms in between sentence
To buy some time—
Maybe, I’m losing my ability
of a first grader gazing among tall buildings

I thought you bought me for a sandwich or something
I thought I was going to become butter toast to you—
Now you’re pouring paint into my ears while I sleep?
Stop,
the dreams are nice but I always wake up with a headache
And what are these you tuck inside my dough,
Indigo? Great—

You go to the coast and have the ocean tempt you with freedom
While painting me black from the inside out—
Good job, You’ve managed to convince everyone I’m a rock
I give up
Pour all the colors you can inside me, I suppose
Paint me scarlet red,
stick a few pieces of fresh green grass on top
And Start telling your friends I’m a tomato
Then feed me to seagulls when you’re done,
they’ll **** me out somewhere over Nantucket
And some tourist there with an obnoxiously large camera will shout out
Wow!, what a colorful lighthouse!

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

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

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

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

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

I remember how amazing it was to get high with you that night
in her car, everyone looked alike back then Black leggings with tight Black shirts
Black hair and Black shoes
everyone wanted to be mysterious and wanted by the sun
I wanted you furiously but I was running out of time
running out of excuses to give myself
tired of running in general
so I stood still while I sat in her car next to you
back in the passenger seat
nervous as a stone on the edge of everything
all I could think about was how many kisses
would it take to fill up the space where our
lips touch like two galaxies
your hair a magnificent avalanche of night
my eyes digging through the whispers tattooed
on your hair strands dyed in yellow shading me
from your eyes
I sat there
and imagined an infinite number of scenarios
where we ended up having ***;
passing out and waking up the next
morning decorated in tiny red bruises
but no
you were something I felt for a moment
high sitting in the back seat of her car
while you debated about Lana Del Rey

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

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”