We're romantics,
pretty gossipers.

We try as hard as we can to escape the world with pens,
and we soak page after page,
imagining the ink to be our tears.

We're depressed,
lost travelers.

The words; each hand picked to portray something only we can understand.
Our desperate search for empathy is sickening,
and yet it continues.

We're sweet,
helpless lovers.

We fall in love with every person we see with a symmetrical (enough) face.
Picking up habits that we've read in books,
or saw in an old film.

Why are we poets?

By accepting the terms of this agreement, you represent and warrant that you have the capacity to love.

Any similarity to a previous love is circumstantial; this love is not affiliated with other loves.
We assume no responsibility for for the shortcomings of prior loves;
we do, however, assume all responsibility for any loss, error, or communication failure incurred while in possession of this love.
It is, after all, love.

Love is available as is; no specific results are promised.
If you are at all unhappy, you are encouraged to return love.
If you find love to be damaged or defective, well, it's love.
Slight imperfections are to be expected, and add to the character of love.

Love may occasionally send you poems, letters, or declarations of its continuance. If you wish to opt out of this correspondence, you may cancel your account at any time.

The service may be temporarily unavailable from time to time; this may be due to maintenance, or periods of reflection. It in no way implies or forecasts termination of love, unless specifically stated so.

By accepting this agreement, you agree not to abuse love by acting in a manner inconsistent with the provisions listed above.

(please say yes)

Liz had hers on a Wednesday afternoon
in her car. She tells me about it over lunch;
a backseat full of groceries and halfway home,
she felt something breaking inside her,
so she drove to the lake and sat very still, waiting.

Then it happened, she says, I broke right open.
I wept, then sobbed, then wailed. There was no bottom.

She says she may have even fallen asleep, she doesn't know;
she does know that she eventually stopped crying,
that inside she felt like the fields must feel after a hard rain.

Here, she says, moving her hand to her chest, I just felt brand new again.
I'm a better wife now, she says, a better person.

Good, Liz, good, I say.

I don't tell her about that morning in the shower,
when the water warmed me but could not console me,
or how I'm no better for it.

even when I'm with you I miss you,
but I try really hard not to when you're gone.

I keep trying to love you less,
or love you different,
but I can't.

I need some more:
s                              p

                  a
     ­                                  c
        e.

I want some more:

s                              x.
               e

THE SEA rocks have a green moss.
The pine rocks have red berries.
I have memories of you.
  
Speak to me of how you miss me.
Tell me the hours go long and slow.
  
Speak to me of the drag on your heart,
The iron drag of the long days.
  
I know hours empty as a beggar's tin cup on a rainy day, empty as a soldier's sleeve with an arm lost.
  
Speak to me ...

i want to scream you through my mouth.
i don't have to exist any longer, as sun
shine or stretched clothing that doesn't
fit any longer, the shirts in your drawer,
the scarves fumbled with and discarded
underneath the stairs of a community c
ollege. if you want this, would you tell m
e. i don't have to step outside this door,
not once or twice without you. because,
of course, there are better things. i don
't think i make any more sense than pre
tty birds that cheep unicorn songs, and
grow shelters for their green-houses. i
could write you a song, if you'd like.

when the sun shines for the second tim
e, i'll let you know. right now the clouds
are labelled grey, and drawing islands i
n the discovering sand does not remedy
seasonal blues unaffected by the medic
ation of your smile and racing for play-g
round swings that cut up my thighs any
way. if i could put you on repeat, i woul
d, but life ain't youtube, and people ain
't paintings you can put in a frame and
hang on the wall, they ain't songs you
can listen to until you go cross-eyed wi
th giddiness. i'm not new anymore, i'm
words i've already written, places i've
already been, i am people unfamiliar b
ecause i've talked to them for so long.

I guess this is about someone else,
but I want it to be about you for nostalgic purposes.

there's something different about wanting to touch your face and actually doing it.
that's how it always is.
you're the black-ink-on-paper-to-get-you-out-of-my-head kind of guy,
you're the never awake past noon because you don't want to deal with reality kind of mind,
you're one of those half-drunk, half-broken, half-idon'tcarebecauseyoudon'tcare kind of lovers.

one day I'm going to quit everything.


the cat laps milk
instead of water
from the palm of a mothers hand,
it's rough tongue leaving
purple lines
broken and deep
like the stretch marks that map her body.

She'll talk to me about her children
and the little things in her life that don't seem to matter much anymore,
and we'll watch people and assume things like people do,
and we'll kiss each other out of boredom
and she'll tell me to braid her hair,
because she wants to feel young again,
and I'll tell her to read me her story,
because I want to feel closer,
and she'll tell me about the cat
and she'll let me pet it
but she wont let me sleep in her bed
or put away the dishes
or kiss her on the days that she wears lipstick.

She reminds me of you,
except she's something I can feel.