i love you this morning
it's a come home safe morning
fog on the road
& no seatbelt kind of morning
the sun is over easy
& nothing's on fire
there's punctuation
where i don't want it
and extra love
in the glovebox of my car
been thinking about being honest
how these poems are all me
but they tell the story
how someone else
might believe it happened
within reasonable doubt
no copy & pasted love letters
no 'who ever says hello first gets my attention for the day'
try a little tenderness
in my ears and today
there are instruments
in the back of my head
i think you love me
because i'm sunburned
felt it in a 'come hell or high water' kinda way, that 'touched from far away' kinda way that 'if i touch this piano one more time one of us is going to break' kinda way
and i drove over 17 bridges yesterday and today i'll do it again
and i think nobody gets
what that means except maybe you
i just tell them i love the scenery
that somebody must've made
these trees blush just for me
you know how i love
to change the subject
i bet they'd love the view
i bet you would too
and all these metaphors
for other things are beside the point
this is a metaphor
for why i don't wear my seatbelt
a metaphor for why whiskey
knows me better than you
could ever try to
all the buildings seemed to sag yesterday and all the stars
are doing that cliche thing
where they talk
quiet jet noise
& some lumbering giant
made everything shake
not those hand metaphors
not another one of those
& keep the sea to yourself
i think it was a train
it's sound hugged the embankment
for a moment
and then trailed off into nowhere
and that's kind of like me
how there's a town called 'rescue'
close to my home &
it's no coincidence
that i've never been there

I'm in love with someone's daughter
living in the shards of a broken home
Cutting herself on two year-old letters
These are moments she can't fake;
reasons to feel alone
So used to abuse, her tears start to shake
I hold her close as her head starts to ache
"I love you too much,
so I can't let your heart break."
She said, "I know you love me,
but you've made a mistake."

I never meant for anyone to be my pulse.
I promise not to step on your feet
if you teach me how to waltz.

I loved the way your secrets felt at night,
how I felt poetry between our skin,
like silk
as you peeled back my fragile incapabilities,
alive within my bed sheets
and always asked for a million
forevers.

this poem is written in past tense
and now I know how different
quiet and silent
feel.

At this point I know it's over
They've told us where the plane is heading
I've always thought I'd know what to think if something like this happened
But I'm lost here
I'm not thinking about my beautiful wife
Or my daughter
My parents who will outlive me
Or my friends who are off living their lives

I keep thinking about the mailman
No really I do
How he'll have to go around tomorrow
Passing this tale of tragedy
Gracing my family with statistics
Thousands dead thousands hurt
I feel bad for that mailman
For he will never truly understand the pain he will bring

This mailman does not know my name
He does not know my wife, my daughter,
The man next to me,
My first grade teacher, my first girlfriend
He does not know my dog
He does not know my true dreams or my hopes
My ambitions, my musings, my innermost thoughts
No this mailman only knows he is passing out the paper

Delivering news to millions who do not want it

His name purred on her lips; 
She loved the way it
Rolled around on her tongue,
Loosened her vocal chords 

Every time she said 
his name aloud,
It felt as though she were 
Becoming more and more
Well versed in him; 
His character,
His very being

You perpetually "see" me shining amongst stars
and call me your entire galaxy,
whilst reminding me that the constellations
will never equate to the size
of your heart for me.

This is not starlight,
or moonlit ***.

This is dilated pupils and the ***** light of 2am
shattered on cold bathroom floors
where the fragmented coldness of my skin
freezes
the feelings you say
should thaw my scars, melt them
and heal me.

you were fleeting
gone
in an instant
but you left scars
on my heart
and in my head
and I don't think
they'll ever fade

A person sits and cries
Knees together, holding her face
Lips quiver, and tears leak from cracks
Hide from the world
Not just a girl
But full grown
A woman, long

A clock clicks
Wordless in the night
It's not the precision preferred
Everything is not all right
It's face so pretty
Decorated with scrolls
Beautiful in architecture

It tells the time
But cannot really see inside
It's mind isn't shattered
It's still beautiful
Cogs, levers, springs and gears
It can only look at others
Knows something is wrong

It sees the world, all the other faces
Clocks themselves, faces hiding minds
Only hears the tick, click and tock
Sometimes it rains, humidity brings
Another tock, and knows it's off
Just one more tick
Make it work

One has to look past the face
See it's mind, complete
Not the pretty, but
Admire the precision
Mechanical beauty
Revenged emotional
Struggling time

Always trying so hard
Get through the hours
Minutes in seconds
Maybe it's ok, a little slow
A little fast, time makes time
Looking at clocks
Feeling only wrong

But it's the slow and fast
Moments between
When someday, it seems
That ticks and tocks
Patchwork healing
Shrugging, painful seconds
Keep perfect time

The other clocks
Faces hiding broken minds
Look to that grand Ol' tock
See only that it goes
Not its struggle
So in her hands
Tears slide down

Her woman's cheeks
All red, eyes puffy
A mind restrained
She hides her face, not
So all the other clocks
Can all go tick, tock
Click, whir

She only knows her
Ignoring the fact that
Her time is perfect
For everything he needs
Because the beauty of
Elegance is precession

His sense is timeless
Wonder not measured
For hours, creep
Minutes, tick
Seconds, wander
But altogether
She is everything

and here i am again
at the intersection
of pedestrian language
& old wives tales
swallowing gum
like 7 year memories
opening umbrellas inside
cause i can't seem get away
from all of this rain
i ******* with my left hand
cause i was told
back in highschool that
"it feels like someone else is doing it"
it gets me wondering
about the difference between
losing you and finding out
that some one else found you
or my sleep
or lack thereof
its starting to tear me apart
i keep having this dream
where you are in
an unfamiliar body of water
trying to wash my poetry
off of your hands
or the one where
something happens in my chest
every time you sit
on someone else's bed
i'm tired of feeling like something you've misplaced
but don't have the heart
to look for anymore
tired of you saying my name
like you're trying to bury it
i'm tired of wondering
if you can tell the difference
between the absence
of my voice & silence
the other day
i almost started sobbing
at work when a woman
asked me about
our equipment
i was explaining how
things come apart
and almost mentioned your name
it made me think
of how you used to say
things like "what would you do
if i showed up on your doorstep
one day?" now, i haunt
the windows in my house
i don't leave for weeks at a time
i sit on the porch like the dog
you didn't shoot behind the shed
the one that refuses to die
until you come home again
i told somebody once, that
you didn't even know
what my voicemail sounded like
i wonder if they thought
it was because you
are so important that i never
let it ring that many times
before picking up
or if you dont know
what it sounds like
because you've never called
you can't be the ****** weapon
and the search party
i'm tired of all the seats
to the ferris wheel in my chest
being empty
tired of your voice
being the one i look for
in abandoned places
that one sound i beg
to bounce back
down vacant hallways
i just seem to stand there
in all of that quiet
like someone looking for a mistake
on an eviction notice
so i guess the hardest part
isn't letting go
it's forgetting
you ever had a grip
in the first place
and since you've been gone
i wonder if when
you pushed yourself away from me
you used your left hand
so it felt like someone else did it

ink is running through my veins            
     your words sink into my skin            
       giving my heart an addictive dose
            words are all it ever took to win
               poetry-anything-even prose
                 every rhyme like *******
                     i swear i'll overdose