With you it's so easy
to dance in the middle
of an empty road
with a song on repeat

it's simple with you
to lay on the couch
with my hair in your lap
and feel complete.

Steeper hill
and darker valley,
descending to climb
new disaster after another,
ricocheting from high to low
the tunnels whisper you are a fighter
as you’re up for air, grinning with a migraine.

                                    Echoes of the shouts of down
                                           fade as you crest a tidal wave,
                                           and in these weightless moments
                                                        y­ou built a home, a whole life,
                                                           ­   you fell in love over and over
                                                           and carved strength from the iron
                                                             that allowed you down once again.

                                Rational heartbeat of the never-ending
                   keeps your will steel and your eyes hot,
           but when tunnels whisper I see an end  
          it is easier to smile at comforts
      and it is okay to be scared
  on a rickety roller coaster
with an expiration date.

This will be one of those things
you'll always be a little sad
that you had to let go of,
but you'll understand
why you could not
keep holding on.

Dying to live as if he was dying
he spoke of sleep in melatonin growl
all was grey in his sepia expression
and he dare not remember his name

with a twist of overqualified hands
he dragged the scratch ticket up an inch
across the faux-velvet subway seat
in regretful pull of the gambling fool

screeching between unsettled destination
he wrung friendly hands left alone for years
mottled digits that knew all so well
why his wife preferred the sofa.

If the moon
can embrace
the whole
of the sun,

you **** well
can be kind
to the earth.

Catching herself halfway through a smiling sentence,
She heard the familiar door slamming "goodbye",
And her jaw told me she knew exactly what was going to happen
But neither of us really ever know anything.

The white noise burst of a microphone dropped
As the last tear left, befalls
The audience stunned, silence, deafened
By the echoes within those walls.
With heart in hand and hand in heart
One feigns a mourning air
While bleakly scream, do we inside,
"None were ever there".

What's in your bottle, boy?
It's not what it should be.
Who's in your head, boy?
It's not who it could be.

Today
but you

I left
will

a rose
never

for you
see it.

Do not
steal kisses.
Ask for them,
politely.

After minutes
it's as if
I've known
you forever.

I was told it would happen
and I dismissed it as imagination

but now I know I was wrong then:
I see you in places you'll never be again.

I would tell you
                    that time is money,
                              if I had any of either.

                    I do not, and neither do you,
           so please understand,

                              your time
                                        is your life.

That is the easiest thing to break
something that is hardest to build*

you took your time with your words
since there was little time to say

what you had to, you drew out
each syllable, a razor blade

long and thin like your fingers
soon your sentence would leave

with it everything you wished for
and you will arrive with nothing.

I tried to **** myself again
you said into the subway window

clickety-clack* said the train
in December said your reflection

I know I said but I didn't really
I didn't really know anything

you should probably stop
trying that I mean I stammered

I know

I had nothing else to say
you had nothing else to do

we sat in broken silence
until the train found my stop

clickety-clack
it whispered to me.

Careful boy,
with love that shows
you're still unsteady
but passion grows
you've been disarmed
and now she knows
you're careful boy,
but that love shows.

On the 1:28 a.m. train
all that have left to ride west
are the night shifts
high on coffee and hope
the lonely rock climbers
with caves under their eyes
and the young lovers
too late to stay out
too early to say goodbye.

I like to call you
when I'm not really awake.
I only leave you messages, of course.
For I only let myself call
(I only allow myself
that poisonous release)
when I'm alone on the subway,
which happens very rarely.
So whatever I say gets lost
between forty-three thousand tonnes
of the strongest, sturdiest concrete
and the sky.

A rose by any other name
Is still a rose, if you play its game
But if you don't (and now you won't),
Any flower is but the same.

You will catch me up on things
I hadn't even caught to begin with
a rain of pieces of puzzles and prose
with gaps wide enough to fit your hand

and partially understand what you would
have been holding, had your hand held it

we will chase trains and hop thoughts
tongues exhausting themselves untiring
lengthy discussions on whether or not
we would find ourselves bored of one another

we never were.

Oh
how it hurts
to trust
so completely.

I saw
my reflection
in grandfather's
   old whiskey glass

                            when I
                                was not
                                     looking.

You can just have me
take whatever is left.

Today I got to be a hero.
I stood up to that man on the train
Who yelled "go home, you *******"
To the man without blue eyes.

I stood up, and I said with voice strong,
"You will show a little respect!
We are all different colours here,
And if you think you are any better,
You will step off this train now."

And he shot back insults -
Deflected with ease.
The man straightened up,
The man without blue eyes,
And he said, "Sir, the boy is right,
It's time for you to get off."

The people with me on the train stood now
No longer happily ignorant
And the man stepped off in defeat
As the train doors sighed.

I wish this was the case,
But I sat and closed my eyelids tight.
I am no hero
To the man without blue eyes.

Quiet

stretch
headphones in
touch

play

Tom Petty
the heartbreakers
are silent

free
free falling, falling

lights
off, dim
light through
basement
apartment window

too late
to sleep
too early
to wake

and I'm free
falling, falling

touch
pause

headphones
out

get some rest
goodnight Tom.

I wish
I didn't
know why
not one of us
is okay anymore.

Your grandfather’s cold cup of coffee.

Breeze on your toes from a hole in the door.

Dust and cobwebs on glass Geisha figurines.

A staircase the creaks twice every second step.

Beads.

Mildew and paper holding hands.

Milk crates with records in them, three.

Sinatra and Woody Guthrie.

Lavender.

Dense wooden chests of cloth, linen frayed.

Threadbare towels.

Woodrose pink.

White duster’s gloves.

Floorboards that whisper epics.

Bookcases that smell of mahogany dreams.

Cardamom.

Brown sugar.

A television older than you and your mother.

Playing cards, missing the six of hearts, neatly labelled.

Another cold cup of coffee.

Lace, white.

Winter sunlight and swirling dust.

China in a locked cupboard.

Skeleton key tied to the handle by a faded ribbon.

Paper, folded, an incomplete crossword in blue pen, lazy scrawl.

An armchair, plaid, brown, yellow, comfortable.

Hand-knitted blanket, stained in the top right corner.

Wine glass.

Sleepy.

Quiet.

I laughed quietly,
showing my grin through a smile,
looking up at her
as I lay my head in her lap.
Her stomach rose and fell against my ear,
and I felt her voice in my neck and shoulders
whenever she spoke.
It was dark outside
and not much lighter where we were,
a consignment store lamp
illuminating the tired couch
I somehow brought up the ****** tiny stairwell
in the back of the building
I know I can't really afford to live in.

Was
it
really
that
easy
to
leave,

or
are
you
just
as
hurt
as
me?

I see
a flag,
shredded
by much more
than just the wind.

How strange it is
that I don't write poems
when I'm with you.

We used to dream
in my father's old car

a dusty 1974 Camaro
red as a candy apple

we talked about driving to Chicago
with stratocasters in the back seat

but we each escaped the town alone
and the car never left the garage.

You and I
we are better
at being strangers.

Soundless and dainty,
pencil conserves her careful posterity
while paper pines for it
with everything it ensnares.
Paper blushes black
at the slightest seduction
of graphite gratification,
too innocent for ink
and too addicted to artistry
to just be a paper plane.

There have been

seventy six million
nine hundred forty two thousand
three hundred and fifty one poems

about falling asleep
next to someone you love

that was a lie, of course
but by God is it ever wonderful.

Seventy six million
nine hundred forty two thousand
three hundred and fifty two.

Dear man in the moon,

There are awful things on the ground,
and we can't escape the sun.
It's far worse here than when I was found,
but my days with you are done.

I'm leaving the city forever
though here, forever, I'll stay
I'm turning blue and me and you
have nowhere new to play.
There are no rivers in the city of blue
and tears do not see colour,
the sky is turning everything dull
and we don't breathe the sea.

You know,
for you have slept:
dreaming
takes a long time.

My father was
not a businessman but
a handyman, a blue
collared hope chest to
those he loved, gruff and
sturdy with stony hands and
crystal wit, sharp as the chisels
that sat in the bottom of the rough-
hemmed toolbox he fused to his gait
rarely used but sharpened, always present
a testament to the unrefined repairs
he had constructed himself through, my
father was always fixing never perfecting
he taught me how to do that how to
be imperfect yet functional, a fire
that warms not burns, a home
in winters that drag on past spring
and that I am not, but I know how to be
because he told me, he told me,
he taught me to be
good even quietly, work hard even
though it is hardly even you that
can notice what difference it makes
be strong for the weak because it is you
you are strong for that way he told me
and I know now I always must try to be
a handyman not a businessman,
a blue collared hope chest to
those I love.

We used
to talk
for hours.

"There is ice in my veins
and I cannot see,
for I am my own reflection,"
the river sighed
as she explained her sorrow
to the little boy,
after he asked politely.

There's a place for you
in the stars, in the sky

there's a home for two
under night

I've a hole for a heart
and I'm falling apart

but Daisy May,
you can stay,
if it's alright.

That night we fell asleep
to the sound of soft thunder
and the crash of quiet droplets
on the sheet metal porch

sheets wrapped us up in each other
and blankets held me to you
over the rain I breathed in your hair
over your breathing I held in my heart

you smelled the colour of your toothpaste
your laundry detergent and soap
dissolved me, slipping through my senses
as we stumbled between now and dreams

my arm laced gently through your t-shirt
the grey one you always wore to bed
while your fingers traced a silent code
in the ringlets above my ear

we should grow old together
you spoke with half words through the pillow
let's I mumbled or was certain I'd said
and I'd have smiled if my lips were awake

it's the night I tell you about
every time you ask me to detail
a night I distinctly remember

I don't have the heart to tell you
it's a night I'm beginning to forget

let's I mumbled with a sleepy grin
and you whispered oh, we did.

The ghost of your hand
held mine as I walked home tonight
I saw you smile on the street twice
but it was just streetlights
through car windows

the humid air tasted like your exhale
and every person I passed
must be using the same
detergent you used

the way home
was sad.

Before
you fall
asleep,

count the
reasons
you'll wake up

even if
there's only one,
now you have a reason.

Tell me
is there fog
in Vienna?

Careful boy,
she'll see inside
your act is thinning
her eyes are wide
you know you're sinning
so save your hide
be careful boy,
she'll see inside.

The grey in your fire escape window view
encompasses the sky and reflection
the glow you've missed for years
fallen from the sunset

a smouldering reminder of the dull days
you see ahead of you, a charcoal expanse
spread across skyscrapers and rubble
in that grey sunset reflection

oh, how the colours you miss so dearly
long to clearly see you, unobscured.