Barnacles crunch like fast food under your sneakers,
my gnawed-on boots.

We pass over cat-eyed shards of glass
still spicy with beer bubbles
and still fizzy with teen rebellion;

It molds like an infection here.
In a town nicknamed "Little Norway." ~

This place hoards candy-colored suburbia in its pockets.

Houses like skittles weigh down its pants
and it belches out tourist traps weaker than expired pepsi,

yet it still manages these moments
where I can trot by your gazelle legs
and blast Julie Andrew's confidence.

And I want to heap myself on the oyster shells, say
STOP
Put this moment in a snowglobe,
sigh into it before we move on,
do anything before the wind whips it away.

Etch it into your hand if you have to.

But breeze dimples the water like a golf ball
and rips at the seams of the shore.



Please don't forget me when you leave.

Don't lick your fingers to flip a page
Find it

The fire is there
Between the pages

You open up your ears

And my voice comes in

We are both now

On perfect waves

We could talk about

Purple sunsets

Or white winters
Next to the sea

Crisp white paper
Long black pen

Draw my future

Draw again

How's it lookin'?

Do you see her eyes?

They're somewhere hidden

Hand drawn

On the corner of the pages

Where I knew you would see

Black storms of virtue
Black seas of greed

how well
do i know
that slow
heartache
of waking
to the moon
and not the sun

Like a million red nail painted dye-cast fingers
That push against my surface
Poking through like summer heat
Warm water
Reflecting back moonlight by night

Wind pushing her open back
Back Northward
And home

Only wanting to die
You sit back on your throne

Back to the wolves and road
Leaves falling and all that ****

Killed like my mother
Blood on the bathroom mirror

Ten dead smiles reaching ear to ear
Breathing in and out only smoke

After awhile
You start to drift
To any little town
That has a minute of music
And cold drinks

I plotted my revenge
Fingers round a dagger curled
Ruby hilt salvation
Paper white hips
Hearing a herd of elephants
Criss-cross by the sea

On the drunk lips of sailors
Truth is always spat

I don't want to weep for you

You have locked yourself in the glass tower
Up in the air
Where everyone watched you
Mourn your lover

I grab words from you

They are precious to me

I want to keep them folded

Safe in my pocket.

*But
I hang on to the end of your sentences
Like a starved man holds a crust of bread

I know that you are too beautiful for me to hold
Too precious and rare to belong to me
I am the humble farm boy
You the long haired princess

...the boy who hides in the garden
Just to hear you sing

I don't deserve you
Long legged  and delicate

(Keeping a butterfly in a jar
With a single stick to rest on
The hardest thing for the scientist to do
Is unscrew the cap
And let her float away)

Well look if it isn't sunset
The whole ground is black
As an orange sun slips
Behind the tree line
The call of birds
Where children still play at the edge
Glowing in lamplight

A broken vessel
Poured out on the kitchen floor
Dirt and dust
Chipped points of bone

I don't understand destiny
Or if it all hasn't happened
Dreaming in my bed