Flying through the sky with you
Anything was possible

Lichens swirled around us
And we swirled around one another

Tree bark crumbled and fell
Though maybe it was just old reservations

Two tabs of acid
Two sets of lips

One afternoon
And one unbreakable friendship

I stared at an old tire swing
Thinking that even when we grow up and forget
The playgrounds of childhood remain

Then I walked a little bit south though
And found the playground
I used to go to with my Dad
Torn down,
Replaced with a field

It's okay though
Because for a long time
Those happy memories were just like the pasta
In the back of my friend's car
Rotting away
But never smelling bad enough
To actually clean up

We don't have to roll down the windows
When we drive anymore;
The smell is gone,
The playground's gone
And we can finally let ourselves be warm
If a little bit sadder

"Come exploring with me, darling
Let's fall in love
By the side of a man-made lake
Which man has lost to time"

Letting gravity take us to its floor
I looked in your eyes
And you looked in mine
But the glances we exchanged
Were radically different somehow

"Hold my hand as I fall asleep
And remind me in the morning
Of how bad my lips tasted
So we can laugh about it
All afternoon"

Lying in that cozy little nest
I was off and on hard through the night
Never really knowing how hard,
As our bodies pressed together,
You were trying to love me too

"Let's ride our bikes
Still through that thunderstorm
Which somehow in all the time that's gone by
Has never ceased to rain."

Even as a writer,  the real world
Often seems too well described by metaphor
(You wrote on cotton candy clouds
"Rain, rain, go away
Come again
Tomorrow")

"And we can stay up late
Rolling joints; smoking six
Remembering all the things"
Through vastly different lenses
"That of course we could never forget"

I was so high that night
That I don't even remember all that happened
So I kind of hope I kissed you
Just to know I kissed you once
Not thinking it was a last kiss

"Maybe someday,
When the sun rises in the window,
We'll know that at the next sunrise
We'll both still be in that bed
Smoking joints and kissing
And falling even further
Into love."

I miss you
On mornings like this one.

"Come exploring with me, darling..."

Stainless steel **** spills
Out of my ****
As I hold my breath in restraint
Trying, failing to prevent my mind
From circling back in ******
To its constant

I drew a Baoboa tree tonight
And had the drunken thought that
If trees could bleed
There wouldn't be
Any more hate

I'm sorry that liquor
Always brings me back here
To sleep
Under a Baoboa tree

I just read all the poems you ever wrote
And at the end of the last stanza
I asked for another
But on second thought
Let's write this one together-
You don't even have to worry
About crossing the T's
Or dotting the I's
Because I've got your back
And I'm not about to look away

I can't help but feel
Like this rain
Is foreshadowing something
And to be honest
I'm really not looking forward
To having this conversation

But maybe,
Though all my life's goals
Contradict this idea,
Metaphor in the real world
Can't really stand
As much as I'd like to think

Maybe this time the sun
Is still shining above the clouds
And I can be happy
Despite how this conversation goes

I wonder if it might have been easier
For you to let go
If you’d just known:
I wasn’t in the process of loosing myself
But in the process of finding myself

Sure, I was on this road for hours
Before I felt like I’d moved
More than just one minute
From where I started
But somehow,
Sitting by a little lake,
And fishing without a fishhook
I finally got a bite
And I began to reel myself in

All of life
(Just a coming and going
From the house
Where I smoked a couple cigarettes
A couple months ago)
Conspired to let a few rocks fall
To the bottom of a river;
To finally let a little bit of water
Flow over this dam
And keep rushing onwards