Thomas, Tommy baby,
you are both hot,
and sweet.

Tom Cat you’re red hot--
when I catch you in your Tom Cat Strut,
sauntering across campus,
strolling like it ain’t no thing,

cuz it don’t meant a thing
if it ain’t got that swing baby.

So dig this, Tommy Gun,
you groove with the best of ‘em
when I spot you strollin’—

Your head, teetering left and right like a seesaw, boppin’ baby,
arms hangin’ loosely, swinging freely, wildly, go! go!
legs scooping forward in boisterous trombone slides--
Groooooove Tommy baby!

You’re Louis’s best blows--
ten feet from the mic and the Fives baby,
you’re hot, red hot,
any closer and I'll burn up!
Go!

But you’re cool, real cool,
and oh so sweet.
Super sweet--

in your beard like a pepper and salt shaker tossed across the table,
I look to see those rosy lips part,
and peep those pearly whites shinin' like the bell of Louis’s cornet
brandished in the air, under those ballroom lights--
you’re screamin’ Tommy!

Let me hear that laugh that shakes the room,
punches like Blakey’s bass drum,
thumps like Mingus--

T-Bird you’ve got that hard bop in your soul,
you’re gonna bop to the top TB,
into the third heaven where the angels fall in line to your swing,
that incessant strut that keeps the devil at bay,
Blow! Blow! Blow!

And I see you now Tom Cat,
up there in the clouds,
digging your way across eternity,
bopping and jiving, swinging and blowing,

in your faded khaki pants and worn tennis shoes,
loosely buttoned collared shirt,
tight rectangular glasses that glistened the bell of your eyes even more--
I gotta stand twenty feet away Tommy baby!

You glance down at me and wink,
rearing your head back to let loose that Mingus and Blakey
bottom-end laugh,
guffaw guffaw guffaw!!!

--so hearty and rich,
the backbone of every nervous first-year classroom,
and the sniggering seniors you continued to befuddle and dazzle
with your mysterious ways
and insatiable swing.

So blow, Tommy Gun, blow!
Go Tom Cat go!
Dig T-Bird dig!
Let loose Tommy boy!

Swing for us, swing swing swing--
Hot and Sweet, Tommy baby,
hot and sweet.

We sat outside the coffee shop
next to a fire,
watching the sun set behind decrepit buildings.

I lamented over the lack of a roller rink in the area,
reflecting on memories of wobbling around in circles
with dizzying lights and blaring speakers
ejecting Pink, Daft Punk, and Eiffel 65 onto my critical youth.

I felt like a king.

We finished our smoothies and retreated
to an empty hotel parking lot,
where I taught her to skateboard.

One foot over the front bolts,
the back foot over two of the back bolts
but resting over the tail,
kick, push,
it's in the ***** of your feet--
weight distribution.

Tic, tac, scrape, thud--
she falls repeatedly
and gets back up.

I admire her resilience and perpetual smile--

This is what skateboarding is all about.

We roll around the hotel parking lot,
our endpoints being a lone luminescent lamppost
and a telephone pole beleaguered by a plot of shrubbery
that demarcates itself from the pavement.

We circle around the poles for hours,
forming an imaginary oblong track between the two,
our laughs carrying into the cool summer night lullaby
that sang the drowsy small town to sleep.

The fading throb of the wedding reception
at the bottom of the town square by the wharf,
carrying over to us.

The stores closed up hours ago,
silent empty windows reflecting the lonely streetlights
and our ambulance back at us.

We skated on unperturbed into the night hour.

A man walks outside the hotel
to have a cigarette on the sidewalk--
I imagine he is watching us and admiring our glee.

Rolling between this telephone pole and lamppost,
the glare and reflection of the empty silent windows,
the soundtrack singing above our heads,
our laughs, and the tic-tac of skateboards
and groaning of wheels over stubborn pavement
bringing my melancholic reverie to a halt,
recognizing and understanding happiness in the present moment--

This is my roller rink.

Twentysomething Emo
looks at teenage Emo
and laughs.

It was something purely aesthetic,
with brain chemicals churning
and wiry bodies yearning

under the guise of straightened bangs
and perched beanies,

skin tight black outfits
parading the dusty grounds of Warped Tour.

Twentysomething Emo is the real deal--
lamenting over high school salad days
because real life is so unsure,

college degrees and full-time jobs,
watching friends and lovers come and go in our lives.

After a long day of responsibility and groveling,
we drive home (or somewhere just as distant)
with our emo anthems blaring through the speakers.

We scream the songs back at them,
truly feeling the words for the first time.

I'm the same age as William Beckett, Adam Lazzara, and Pete Wentz
when they wrote these songs--
and though the bangs have receded
and the jeans have slackened,

I am perpetually Emo.

The unrequited love and the nearing distant future--
it's come too soon.

I hope thirtysomething Emo looks back
on my meandering twentysomething Emo
and laughs--

as he plays the melancholy tunes pouring out of the speakers
with some more of life fading away in his rearview mirror.

This town gets smaller every day.

To the class of __,

I hear them call my name
as I briskly walk across the narrow stage.
Encumbered in my regalia
weighing me down like chains,
I peer up into the blurry faces
protruding a hand from ambiguous bodies.
I shake rigidly looking across the stage
to face a mass of opaque beings
accumulating into one lump of ambiguity.
I know not their names nor their lovers and dreams
I dreamt alone I sat alone I cried alone I ate alone I worked alone
I sighed alone.
Though in the company of many,
their ship had sailed and I sat in the lonely rowboat
moored to their rear listening from afar
to their ecstatic shrieks of glee
glimpsing the glow of fire in their eyes
flames like distant stars finally reaching me
a dead and gone ancient memory.
A diploma weighing in my hand,
I exit the stage and take my seat to wait patiently
then once we turn our tassels to the right we rocket
into the air blissfully triumphantly
bodies joining hats soaring I amidst it all
the aimless rowboat in a sea of smiling faces--
tossing and turning in their wake.

Feeling like the kidney transfer in a foreign body.

I'm dreadfully afraid of silence,
so I play the music loud in my stereo--

falling asleep with the ringing in my ears,
like the distant echo of heaven.