The heavens are salt gray
and the sound of soft thudding
is the only proof of me
in the vacant slot between night and morning.

Each thud presents itself to all my senses:
a heartbeat,
a blink,
the soft shock running through my knees
when my feet hit the sand.

I stop,
and so does the thud
as I pull in the pangs of sea air.

I try to remember if I was walking or running.

Thud, it goes.
Now felt by none of my senses,
something intensely non-physical,
without sharpness,
devoid of definition.

Crackling snow on a dusty TV,
suggesting an idea of lateness.

Late
is the thud that comes to me.
My father
and how I feel him with every sense,
then none at all
as I lose him all over again
in every heartbeat,
blink,
and footstep.

Shapeless memories
are all we are offered of the dead.

Pictures that fade.
Stories too,
and even love.
But never the pain,
sensitive and senseless
always there
in every thud.

I bury my face in the wet sand
and kiss the holy ocean,
the only religion that ever brought me peace,
and I have swum in them all.

Yet even here I am unbaptized,
absent are my father’s eyes.
Ash now,
like his smile,
his broad chest,
that bitter, smoky smell of his.
Scattered over an infinite expanse of ocean.

But I imagine he is here.
Some chunk or fragment,
atom of molecule,
has worked its way here
between the salt and sand.

So I kiss the wet ground
knowing maybe,
even against infinitesimal odds,
I am kissing his cheek.

And here he is not trembling,
not soundless,
not empty.

Here I feel him
and I feel nothing.
Thud.

I don’t think it’s so bad to see ghosts.
I imagine
it would be like a movie or music video,

something simple
just appearing, oddly, in the open air instead.
It might be cool.

My problem is that I smell ghosts.
They don’t glide or vanish,
they waft and linger,
cloying in their persistence.

[My father has been dead nearly 9 years
and to see his face
is pain,
lancing lightly in the belly
and boiling in my blood.
But there is no sight, no pain with the ghosts.]

Only the smells that I know
mean love and softness.
Trojan horses, riding down the shortest drawbridge to the brain.

With one whiff of aftershave, filled with chestnuts
I am whipped into sharp light and hospital rooms
where I am thirteen, shaking and empty,
my face nuzzled fiercely into my dad’s chest,
refusing to be called away,
breathing as deeply as I know how,
hoping to capture him in the only sense left of him.
Knowing noise and sight are well beyond him now,
and every inch of skin is ice.

The rich cologne wafts back into my windpipe
leaving me tasting lilacs,
and I am beyond sleep.

These eerie perfumes
are with me everywhere:
hot dogs, sunscreen, leather gloves,
barbeque, disinfectant and California poppies
find me on the street or in the park
and shove me aside,
laughing with hate at any living done in the present.

They show me the man I love more than anything
still
through pure synesthesia,
a rainbow of smells past every day
of my first thirteen years.

“How dare you,” the age old scents cry,
“You are not allowed to let this man leave your mind,
who everyone you now know has forgotten.”

I am desperate to disagree
to disregard

but how can I
in the face of raspberry lime sugar syrup
and the airborne dust,
heavy in the Arizona heat of Spring Training.

At least a decade ago. More.
I am eight years old
and the boom of his laugh is shaking me,
squeezed inside the safest of all bear hugs.

So why should I ignore this guilt
my ghosts have brought to me?

Why would I wish to be twenty-one,
a man myself,
cold and quiet in New York City;
when I can breathe deeply, swim backwards in time
and feel him there—
my dad, as bright and loud as ever
branded under my eyelids,
hiding in every wisp of pine smoke and almond soap.
For his smile,
his hugs,
his chuckle,
his crowded workbench, sooty aprons and tattered baseball cards;
for him,
I will happily be haunted.

There is somewhere
I have never gone to
yet I have
always been.

There is blackness there,
but there is light too;
the candle dance
of ubiquitous stars
untouchably far away.

There is a moon,
thought I do not know it,
and the pearl of strange nebulae
yet to become friends
to the soil bound.

The days and nights
shuffle
as I wish
space
time
like fields and oceans
instead of roads and rivers.

I can see the moment
those first stars
opened their eyes
without a hint of hubris.

An endless mosaic of years,
eras and eons
captured in a moment:
like pebbles of sand
slipping through an hourglass,
waiting to turn again.

I observe,
a fish in an endless bowl,
yet I am still on the inside
of nothing.

There is a dais
and a small helm
which calls for a captain's hands,
waiting
in the center of nothing.

I turn it
with eager reluctance
past two thousand nine hundred and twenty ticks
of days,
sailing back past seas of stars
I've already seen.

I start
the celestial clockwork
going again;
the planets, comets,
suns and moons,
all the movements, crashes, and orbits
from the night my father died.

I weigh my anchor
at the crux of my small life,
and sift through
the universal indifference,

Combing through the indexes and atlases
of the heavens,
searching for some sign
of a flitting or fleeting light
called out from our Earth,
which seems to be heading home.

i never seem to fall asleep.

it is a ****
a crack,
like a snap of the neck
that heals itself when I wake,

afraid of the feathers in my pillows
and whatever they are singing
to the me
who wants to stay in this bed
until the sun has made the shift in its allotropes
and blue is black again,

the me who gulped his coffee
and always ordered french fries with his meals,
who always felt tired enough
that nothing was worth doing.

i feel his face in the folds of my pillowcase,
and tell myself that i am not him
unless i choose to be.

i am always somewhat convinced.

Here
it seems the water is always churning.
Always white and gray and
never clear
until the winter comes.

Maybe like me
it understands certain seasons
better than others.
It understands that I am a son to snowfall
but simply a second cousin to soft breeze and summer haze.
It understands that I am unsure why
we call it Spring
but never wondered the same for Fall.

We know each other as well as the seasons
this water and I
who have changed together so much,
frozen and emptied,
silent when they sing the Christmas Carols,
but reborn and baptized with the first rain;
quiet and kind to each other,
not white and gray
or even clear,
just half dark with a hint of pearl
in the after midnight,
more empty than we cared to admit,
glad we were not churning
but morose for it as well.

This water stays fixed
and I am never so
but we change together all the same:
freezing and melting,
solid and liquid,
but never feeling
like more than a vapor,
lilting above the August heat
and the bite of March.

We have hidden together
when the basin is dry
and the square is empty
except for me
sitting with my friend,
knowing the water is still running somewhere below,
less a thought than a feeling
that we can rise again,
that I have dried up also.

To walk quietly with you in the rain,
the ferries calling their greetings
and farewells,
the blur of Ellis Island out in the fog,
taught me how every color becomes brighter in my mind
as it softens in my eyes.

This is why the New Year should not come
with the calendar
but simply arise from within
as all of our cardiac clocks and gears turn,
at their own pace,
until at last the cycle revolves
and the year is new.

The droplets and rivulets slide from the rooftops
and park walls;
they come to rest on your face,
so calmly receptive like the rest of you,
and I am reset;
ready to begin again.

We steel ourselves,
ready to fall,
knowing the rise will come.
We reach our redoubt: just a subway station,
but the rain makes it feel like so much more.
I am baptized in water you have somehow made holy.
My mind is silken and freshly made
and we are heading home,
running in our rain.

Here the rain has come and gone for the day.

The windows are dripping as the fire is burning
and the sun sets the clouds aflame.

Breathe in the swish of salt air, and the spice
of all the earth
that tumbles down the hillsides; born again,
and lies safe in the garden,
punctuating the perfume
of dusk,
rich with smoke, laden with the words of the sea.

It breathes again and so do you,
learning that even a crash can come softly.
Here peace and quiet will come as surely as spring
as the fog melts away.

Here the hawks are singing in their perfect silence,
and the rocks are wrestling the waves
as only brothers do.

Here the dove cries its mourning as it turns east again,
and the breeze calls you somewhere forgotten.

Here the sun is dripping through the cracks in the clouds;
its distant diamonds are drifting to sea.

Here the bluffs are steadfast and the trees are alive
and when you sleep, the ocean—it whispers.
Of all the lullabies, hers is the oldest,
the most calm, the softest, the coldest.

Here the ocean froths white in the still dawning hours
as it laughs along with the gulls.
At noon it leaps aground on the cliffs
and the sun twists its mists into rainbows.

Here hours are eons and a week is a breath,
for nothing stays gold but the sun.

Here the stars are much closer when the sky ripples black
and the Earth is not all that there is.

Here the food holds new flavors and the wine tastes far richer;
each breath grants new life on its own.

But listen
to each wave as it tells you the lesson
the ocean itself knows too well:
though all time here is yours
it should never be squandered,
love and learn all of this
while it lasts.

"Gamer."
"Nerd."
"Shut-in."
"Loner."
"Loser."

Synonyms to some people,
jokes for others,
but painful for most.

The kind of pain that sticks with you
not like a scalding or a stab-wound,
but like a little shadow
some small, slimy version of yourself
that blocks the way
whenever you turn to the mirror.

I’ve been followed around
by that monstrous little thing
wearing my face
who manages to whisper away
the few hours I would find in a day to be free
“You’re lazy.”
“Fat.”
“Useless.”
“Ridiculous.”
“Childish.”

I would be lying if I said I never believed what he told me.

But I realized something
about the word “Gamer,”
and “Nerd.”
“Shut-in.”
“Loner.”
even “Loser.”

I like them.

Because when someone else uses them
to turn me into a joke
they don’t understand why those insults
are really compliments.

When I reach for my controller
and turn on my TV,
it’s no different then opening a great book,
starting up that perfect song,
or staring at any marvelous canvas of acrylics or oils.

For a few hours
every few days,
I get to escape.
To fly away.
I’m no longer any version of myself
that I don’t want to be.

This world is mine.
I have no shadow here.

Video games don’t melt your brain,
they save it
if you need them too.

I’ve ticked away more late nights
and countless lazy Sundays
on dungeons and puzzles,
boss fights and battlegrounds
than I care to think.
But I needed to.

I got to be a hunter
an assassin
a superhero
and roam the open plains of alien worlds
when I was glued to my bed
for six weeks after surgery.

I got to laugh and shout
and curse and stop caring
after endless high school days
when I came home without a smile
feeling like nothing at all

I got to slay dragons,
wage wars,
and explore galaxies
on the worst days of my life.

I got to learn
that when you fail and fall
sometimes all you need to do
is “Press X to Respawn,”
and start over again.

I got to be a super soldier:
I was strong, charming, and indestructible
on the day my father died.

I have lived a million lives
with nothing more than a big TV
and a handheld piece of plastic.

And if the price of all those lives
all those adventures,
those galaxies,
those heroes,
and those conquests on those horrible days when I was starved of a smile
is to be a “Nerd,”
or a “Shut-in,
a “Loner,”
or a “Loser,”

that seems like one hell of a deal.

the world breaks everyone
and afterwards
many are strong
at the broken places

is something I heard

but I also heard that Kinsukuroi (keen-tsoo-koo-roy)

is the repairing of broken pottery
with gold and silver

                                                                        well it’s metal lacquer technically
and I thought that sounds
more honest

that we get broken
and don’t really get any stronger,
just repaired with something
that we never thought would be a part of us

I don’t think of scars as strong
but I do find them interesting,
like little splashes of gold and silver
                                                                              well metal lacquer technically
that happen to tell some story

and maybe we can’t read
other people’s stories
their gold and silver
                                                                                  or metal lacquer technically
because they’re very small
or deep beneath a coat of paint
that makes it look like part of the person
                                                                                             or the pottery, rather.

and honestly
                                                                                                                   or oddly
I’d rather be a broken piece of pottery
filled with hidden gold and silver
                                                                                       metal lacquer technically
still somewhat fragile
than get coarser and harder
                                                                                                          and duller too
whenever I was cracked.

You seem to be fading
tonight
even though I know that tomorrow
you will be back
brash and solid and blinding as ever

and I know
that this is just dream smoke,
some cloying cancer that creeps out
when I switch off the reactor and wait
for the core to cool

but what if one night it isn’t

what if I wake up
you wake up

in 5

10

15 years

and you’ve faded
an after image
that I can only imagine anymore

logic
or something
tells me that it wouldn’t happen like that
like a blackout or a bee sting or burnt toast
I thought was fine

but what if
keeps me awake
keeps me drinking dream smoke
keeps me dizzy
and nauseous
and full of acid
every night I pull the blankets up

what if
keeps me jumping awake in the early morning
checking to see what was broken

The starlings are sitting in the snow tonight,

but not on the poles and wires and rooftops where they are expected.

They litter the ground, the streets, and the park paths

in staggered formation.


Broken ranks.


A taxi driver splatters one

unaware that he has strewn the soft entrails of a galaxy child

onto the curb and down the storm drain,

unaware that he has mixed nebula residue with day old sewage,

unaware of his vile chemistry.


Nobody know this,

but the starlings are indeed sired by stars,

incubated in the frenetic furnace of the gas giants

and born in the wake of supernovas

they hurtle to our little Earth

and enjoy the serenity of unknown importance,

of sequestered vastness.


Truly listen

the next time you catch a starling song

and you will hear the tapestries of the cosmos,

the biographies of endless energy.

The rain came and we lost the trail
and I was soaked to the bone.
We were lost and hungry and my leg hurt
and all I could think about was that cute way you bite your lower lip

You threw your Iphone at my face
and broke that vase filled with purple marbles
the night we made out in the library
and you tasted like that peach liquor

I blacked out thinking that no one had ever taught me how to be a victim.

Down a scramble of broken boulders
and moldy trees filled with phosphorescent algae
was a whiskey bottle,
smoky and smelling of cheap cinnamon.
The alabaster glass split the sunbeams
into a cheap font like Comic Sans
onto a piece of pink granite.

I hate you.

Your text read when I woke up.

Then that night when the city died down you called me from the bar
and told me what you were wearing;
told me your roommate was at her parent’s place.
I could feel that smirk right then,
dripping with power,
a coiled cobra,
knowing the mouse is heading her way.

Knowing that I never rode the sea in my sleep
one more time.
I want the surge of the night waves
to rock me slowly,
to wake up to the sound of gulls,
and see the shore so far away.

There are a few things out there
magical enough
to keep my eyes open
even if they were supposed to shut.

I want to stand in the Piazza San Marco in Venice
and hear the songs of the gondoliers
go wafting by.

I want another day in Santorini;
half buried in the soft black sand,
hearing the sound of the ocean
and the market wash over each other.
I want to throw myself into the cool cerulean sea
and float for hours.

I want another bottle of scotch
celebrating its 18th birthday,
full of smoke and honey apple all to myself.
And then I want another, to share
with the best of friends, wherever the stars are shining
brightest.

I want to be called back to bed
on a rainy morning,
to smell rich, Ethiopian coffee
and then make love filled with laughter,
wrapped in the warm quilts.

I want to hear jazz at Yoshi’s again.

I want to stand on the deck of a small sea cabin
in Bodega Bay,
and breathe in
as much soft fog and ocean mist as I can.

Cross the Golden Gate bridge again.
Stroll the piers.
Climb the cliffs.
Lose the directions.

I want to sit in Central Park
and write
one more good poem.

But most of all I want to sleep,
I want to sleep like I slept as a boy,
when I woke up light as a feather,
with only the promise of daylight
in my heart.

Give me that.
Just one more time.
Because I won’t leave without it.

Losing myself in a field of graying burlap flecked with glowing screens
And the sound of fingers clacking like a thousand jabs in a featherweight bout
Dropped me down
From some old memory;
A fading dream of something
Else where I knew how to breathe
And the sun set slowly
Enough to see all its colors.
No one was taking pictures.

Looking at watches, computers, even donuts
And feeling fine.
Guilt forgotten
Like so many other things I don’t know why
I remembered in the first place.

A thousand things make me smile.
I am unsurprised but unentitled.

I start to dial my phone
But smash it on the ground,
Then turn and run some way I never knew
Sprinting and jogging, but not
Furious, or spiteful, or ashamed.
No complication or destination guiding my strides.

I just guide myself to a voice
I hope to never hear through a telephone again,
But only next to me
As I roll out of uninterrupted sleep,
Amazed that I was not the first to wake.

I laugh without walls, restrictions, or censorship,
Then collapse asleep again,
Reveling in my newfound power.

I wake up whenever
I cook and eat
As simple as that
No numbers, or pains, or seething shame
Just the savoring of coffee steam and buttered bread;
The pride of feeling full.

I step out onto some ledge where I see the ocean
And smell it
And could touch it if I wanted to

As if to break apart the swirling salt air,
I yell
With no subtext
Or direction,
No ceiling or floor, anger or doubt,
Just a pure burst of volume
To hear the echo telling me I’m alive.

A life
Chopped clean of all the measures, walls, and shadows I ever built.
I destroy a life’s work
And am overjoyed.

“Last Call,” I hear the bartender gurgle
him with the potbelly, and tousled red hair
slick with pork grease and beer slosh.
I hate him.
He withholds my whisky with dignity and disdain,
remembering when I said I’d never see him again.

So I tell him the toilet is overflowed
and as he waddles off
I grab a bottle of Jim Bean, wishing it were Scotch,
and sneakily amble out the door
hitting my head on the frame.

Quicksilver
is spouting from the rooftops,
sloshing, washing
or burning
clean the gutters with its molten-ness

Drops sizzle into my skin
and I am
a few hundred dollars more valuable.

Some neon pamphlet slaps my face
and tells me of sales on lingerie
while the sky cracks open;
burning vermillion.

An aging drag queen shouts,
“The poles are shiftin’, honey!”
but they seem fine to me as I slump
on a lamppost and knockback more bourbon.

The sky’s red mouth smile has split
into a yawn
and somethings like oily pigeons flutter out.
Instead of hovering, they thrash the air with angry swishes
and dive to earth, spearing my bartender
before throwing him
off of the Chrysler Building.
When’s last call now *******?

And around the corner of Houston and Broadway
I see a skeletal horse:
all bone and gristle
and glowing chartreuse.

Feeling clever, I walked over
and told him he was looking thin

He raised a bone-eyebrow and smirked a bit,
told me I was looking sickly.
Being cleverer and far more ironic
he shook his flames
nodded to his friends
and cantered off;
flanked by blurs of black and red and white.

War
Conquest
and Death
ride on ahead
But greeny looks over his shoulder-haunch
as if to say,
“You sure about this?”

With something like a pout,
I drop my unfinished drink in the trash
Fine, fine.
I lob my flask in too.

The night is just night again
and skin is less valuable
but my horse remains,
glowing with awkward judgment.
“Jesus Christ, really?” I say,
and move my bottle to the recycling.

I want to be told stories I don't understand.
I remember when each book I read
or movie I watched
had some idea I didn't get,
and mystery was everywhere.

I was little
and knew nothing of the world around me.
So I made my own world: fresh
and bright, and heroic, and romantic.
I dreamt of kissing girls,
throwing punches,
suffering greatly,
and telling of how I survived.

Now I am big,
my dreams have melted into memories,
and I can't say I understand the world much better.
I've simply learned to ask intelligent questions
which have no answer.

I understand the books I read,
the movies I watch,
and mystery is dead.

At least I understand now
why I understand so little.
I've learned words like philosophy,
metaphysical,
quantum,
ineffable.
I've been taught to express my ignorance
with erudition and elegance.

I am a master of small questions
and can tell you the difference between
a lateral and ventromedial hypothalamus.

But should you ask me,
"Why is there something instead of nothing?"
I will falter,
but answer, knowing I am a blind mute trying to describe
the taste of cinnamon and the softness of sunset.

Ask "What is meaningful?"
And I will wince,
aware that death has meant nothing and everything.
So has love,
and poetry,
and romantic comedies.

My father is nothing more
than soggy ash at the bottom of a bay.
But he is in hundreds of sentences,
has starred in thousands of dreams,
and inspired a million emotions
since I shook his powdered remains
into froth and foam.

So who can tell me what matters in life
when one of the best talks I've had with my dad
was 6 years after he died,
performed for an empty chair
and hundreds of college students?

I am paying;
life, money, tears, love,
in order to better understand
just how stupid I am.

And I'm just fine with that,
because mystery is still alive,
somewhere out there in the nexus of my ignorance.

I'm just a pebble.
I've fallen into an ocean,
and I'm sinking deeper every day.
What I don't see
are the ripples I caused,
splashing somewhere far above me.

I just keep learning,
and reading, and watching.
I still have a lot of questions to come up with,
and the ocean floor is a long way away.

A mile I marched when I was young,
Eyes forward, lips stiff, fists clenched.

A mile I marched and it felt like a league,
As if each step was six, each bruise a broken bone.

I marched and marched to prove I was a man,
Never stopping, never drinking, never whining.

I made it quite a long way, longer than I like to tell,
Before they pulled me aside and laughed at me.

They asked why I had been marching when I could have strolled, could have slept.
I told them I was marching because I chose to, getting my work done early.

And so I strutted on, so sure of my resolve, and strength,
Knowing my many miles would show the world one day.

I grew sick of stomping boots, tightened nerves, and tired eyes.
Nausea sloshed and swelled in the bay of my belly.

So when I stopped, it was with no small pride  
That I turned back to see how far I’d come.

Yet all I saw was a curve in the road I’d never felt before,
I saw a circle where everything I’d ever known was wrapped inside a shell.

I’d marched a lifetime and it felt like a mile,
And I was a man who felt like a child.

A woman walked over from the center of the circle
To ask me how many laps I made.

I stuttered and said I didn’t know,
But I had marched a great long way.

She winced a little, then walked off chuckling,
“Best of luck son, best of luck.”

I stood still for longer than I ever had,
Scared of seeing all I’ve ever known wrapped up so simply.

Life can begin and end,
Be important and pointless all at once.

You can make it a long way, have it count for nothing,
And the world doesn’t end.

Maybe you’ll march a lifetime of miles
And have none of it matter.

Live a life, and maybe no one will remember.
But you will.

Enjoy your steps.
Enjoy your circles.

I am not here to fix anything.
It is not my job.
It is not why I am here.

I am here to tell you
That it is okay to not be your best.
There will be mornings
when you will open your eyes and know
right away
Just how bad the day will be.

And that's okay.
You are okay
when you collapse under the stares of people on the street
when you hyperventilate on the subway
and when you consider
an eight hour shift, a 10-page essay, or a judgmental friend
the worst thing that could possibly happen.

Mama never said there'd be days like this:
When every little worry grows
under supernatural lamp light;
because they were her secret.
These little multiplying monsters,
they're everyone's secret.

But I'd like to share mine with you.

Sometimes
I want to be pathetic, laughable, and supremely odd.
Because I've had days
which felt like death
for no reason at all.

I've been yelled at, with marvelous power,
by the man who works at the bodega
down the street
and worried about it for days.

I've launched a string of terrifying mathematical torrents
every night
I couldn't find the 8 hours I was looking for.

I've tortured myself over B minuses,
screamed at slow traffic
cried during Disney movies
sulked over cold pasta
fretted about a stain on my shoe
and hated myself for eating two extra potato chips.

I have buried myself
under a mountain of stress-pebbles,
convinced each one was a boulder.

So it's okay
when you're all alone
and an adult is the last thing you feel like.

When you are sweating, hungry, and sobbing
in front of a half-finished paper
at 4 in the morning,
say to yourself:

"It is okay to feel lost."

There will always be a part of you
hoping for someone to wrap a blanket around you, hand you some tea
and tell you tomorrow will be better.
But they probably won't.
And tomorrow might not be better.
And that's okay.

You will be lost
and worried, and depressed, and exhausted,
but you won't stay that way.
And you won't be alone.

When your small sailboat is tipping and drowning
amid rough seas and sharp winds,
someone will throw you a line,
tie their ship to yours,
and you will float a little easier.

But until they do, remember this:
you are but one of many troubled sailors
searching for simpler skies.
You will reach them.
It has been done, is being done, and will continue to be done every day.

Eventually, when you have left the fog and foam
and thunderclouds behind,
you will be amazed at how far you've come.

So it's okay to feel lost,
to feel little,
to cry and scream and sleep too much
over little things now and again.

But don't give up when you do.
You are always floating forward,
sailing onward,
and this storm is only so large.

Even when you don't want to,
stay afloat.
These waters may be rough,
but you were born to ride their waves.

I wonder how long
it took me to understand that time
changes like everything else.

Because I remember when 1 minute seemed like a long time
to be stuck on time out, facing the corner of a whitewashed room
and yet 6 hours felt like no time at all
when I had a five page paper to write
and the city was cold
and my eyes were drying.

And with you
6 months
feels like a monument

As if the last half year is not just time,
not just minutes and hours and days ticked by
but also gold, alabaster, silver and diamond
it feels like something I would type up
in Helvetica Bold on expensive cardstock
as if to say
I DID THIS
and
SHE DID THIS
when many people,
such as myself
were whispering and shouting that it was impossible

And you’re still an enigma
for my time
because 5 minutes is a marvel
and 6 months is monumental
but forever
feels like no time at all.

You are some capricious catalyst
of continuum
and constancy.

You change everything all at once,
and always when I least expect
to be hopping on a train
or hike a mountain for 5 hours in the rain
or dance
or make love and have it mean something too
or be told I am special
and believe it too.

You read an old book
smelling the gum Arabic,
that ancient mix of grass and vanilla
breathing the short, hushed breaths I did
and I rejoice
with your every discovery
smile
with your every treasure
and wince
with your every tear
and there you are again
reaching across, around, and over time
to show me that you are there
doing what I did
loving what I loved
all over and once again.

And here we are
with half a year.

I will pretend that I did not remember it
and make you laugh when I say so
because I want you to learn
that me forgetting you is humorous
and ridiculous
and impossible.

Because time can change
and cause change
but never to all the empty spaces
filled with soot and dusk
which you washed out
and filled with sun and fire.

Here I am whole again
after a half
of a year
and it is all because of you.

Some things will always change
just like some times will always change
like the 3 minutes that grow when on the screen of a microwave
or the 6 weeks which stretch when spent apart from you.
But 6 months is something solid
something real
and can grow to 12, 24, 48 and on
but it will still be there
still reminding me
(and you)
that I did this
and will keep doing it
keep stacking halves
upon our two person whole.

I sit in front of fire
while you stare out at falling snow.
In many ways we are watching each other,
despite the many miles between us.

You are so soft, so simply bright
in the way you burn
despite your icy blue eyes
and your freezing cold fingertips.

I watch hunks of cherry wood crackle,
fading from red to brown to black,
and I cannot help but wonder
if you see me in falling flakes
as I see you in flickering flames.

Perhaps there is a frozen lake you have trudged past
with a smirk,
thinking of all the ice
I blanket my bed with,
only to have it so mercilessly melted by you.

Or maybe I am a fallen tree
you amble over, taking care not to break my branches.
I am not just torn and toppled,
but also unseen:
my chestnut and emerald now snuffed
by silent, muffled snow.

Yet I am still a mighty pine
and not some timbered log
as you navigate my wreckage with care.
I like to think that is when you see me:
in knobbly, solid roots still holding on with stubborn strength.

And then I am not just needles and bark,
but fallen ice,
now a part of some new whole.
And you are not just brilliant tongues of ruby and ochre
but also the gold of glowing embers,
and the black of burnished soot.

You are the fire and the fuel
just as I am the falling and the fallen.
There is fresh snow and rotten wood,
leaping flames and tired ash,
and we cherish it all the same.

I douse my fire
and you climb past your pine.
I ***** out a brilliant blaze with a half smile,
knowing it will not need to warm me
for much longer.

The city shifts the winds at night to serve its needs
like sweeping streets or twisting smoke
or swishing the curtains of softly sweating lovers
who feel like this city is theirs alone.

I guess the gears and cogs
paid me no notice tonight because I wake up with numb toes.
I hop over my slate schooner so it shelters me again.
I move to hit snooze on nature’s alarm clock
but pause to put on the silver man’s red tie
to keep me warm.

On my way to brunch pizza
I trip on an old bottle and face slap the curb
where I am greeted by a lost Abraham Lincoln
who is surprisingly made of paper and not copper.
So that does it.
New strings and the train to take me there.

I hop down the stairs to the tunnels,
for once a traveler instead of a performer.
Dipped in sunshine I start to laugh,
but Case gets carried away and trips
into the little puddle beneath me.
He shouts, “Woman down!”
Which makes me confused instead of shocked
as she is crushed by the Q train
because I thought she was a man.

I don’t get on the train.
It means wasting half of honest Abe,
but I can’t be inside my friend’s murderer.

I am now briefly rich
but permanently poor having lost my way
to talk to the world.
That $30 goes to smoke instead of strings
and I try to think of what Case might say
as I plunge into the Kennedy reservoir,
soaking until I become and instrument.

A xylophone of bones,
I clatter the tune to Beatles songs
as I shiver under some willow tree.

The city shifts its cogs and gears,
and in the breeze, all I can hear is some ****** voice shouting
Strawberry Fields Forever.

“Winter damns,” is what she would say
because it sounds wise and I would laugh,
because like all good advice,
it came too late to be used.

I like fried egg sandwiches because they taste good
and Blackbird or Banana Pancakes
will earn me one or two
at the nicer fronts in Brooklyn.
Take these broken wings and learn to fly,
says the cute West Coast redhead as she tosses me my meal.

I’d make another stop at Seattlebucks just for kicks
and caffeine,
but I know they’d kick me out.
My guitar frightens them.
His cream and seafoam green
clashes with their black and emerald,
and his whammy bar looks too much like part of a cappuccino machine.

My jacket is stinking again
so I truck on over to 7th street
where a trendy Asian kid nods his head to Otherside
and cleans it dry.

As long as I’m there
I put on my sunglasses at Union Square
so I can stare at the clouds while I strum.
Case throws himself on the stone
and sighs philosophically, “Why Donate?”

Now I’m no second rate city musician,
I’m the best of the best of the best sir.
I play gently and never yell.
I remember how stressful morning commutes were.
Don’t let me darken your door
that’s not what I came here for.

A big guy in a silver suit strolls over
and asks me if I sell CDs.
I scoff and tell him only losers listen to CDs.
I tell him I like his tie
and he throws it to Case.
Case catches and says, “Well ****.”
I will wait for you
I tell the man
and he says
the sun it rises slowly as I walk.

I exhaust all of my Ed Sheeran
searching for lunch but come up dry.
When my stomach’s empty my pipe isn’t
so I sweat a little
and Case channels his inner Yoda
saying, “Worry don’t.”

He hands me a granola bar and I protest
because it’s one of his last,
but sometimes you just can’t argue
with a grumbling belly
and a good friend.

I try my luck in the squares today because the circles are too open.
Herald treats me better than Times
which isn’t surprising
because in one I’m a novelty
and in the other, out of date.

Hey get rhythm
when you’ve got the blues
seems like silly advice from a sad musician,
but apparently not everyone’s a critic.

Case scoops up enough for a Big Mac and fries but
I forget the fries while Case protests
saying, “Will, don’t,”
but he knows just as well as I
that guitar needs new strings and now we’re only short $1.66

I walk and talk to myself
while I eat and end up back home
or one home
at the center of Central
where there’s a boulder like a schooner in an ocean of grass.
Tonight there are 6 stars out which is pretty good
all things considered.

Collective sigh
as guitar hums Coldplay,
I spark a cig,
Case yawns, “We done,”
and we doze off.

Leather coat. Oxblood.
Denim jeans. Faded gray.
Rhinestone belt. Black.
Wrinkled button-up. Charcoal.
Old Ray-Bans.
Silver necklace with a brass cross.
Canvas boots. Burgundy.
Three Moleskines. Brown.
Two pens. Red and blue.
Six picks.
Twenty seven dollar and thirty four cents.
One beaten down carrying case. Black.
My guitar.

The whole is greater than the sum
of its parts
but just barely

I might as well be a polystyrene box floating through the city
dodging traffic
bartering breakfast
strumming heartsongs in subway dens

Oh. One glass pipe. Clear.
I forgot that, it belongs on the list.

Okay I didn’t forget it.
I lie, sue me.

Getting high
or low is just a part of me though
and some people think it’s all of me.

Some people look at me like
I don’t have a home, which makes me angry,
not because they’re wrong,
but because they always look disgusted
with I think they should look concerned.

My guitar case likes to change itself from time to time.
Sometimes it’s with the seasons
and sometimes it’s with the sun,
but generally its with the sparks in my head
and how it reflects them.
I’ll wake up round 6
underneath the Williamsburg brudge
with warm bacon in my nostrils,
cold sun on my skin,
and my case will show me the WD
on it’s back
and tell me it means “Wonderful Day.”

On snowy Sundays in Battery Park
it’ll flop down on a quiet curb
and whine, “Warmth ******.”

I’ll amble up Prince Street through the holidays
looking for breathing buildings.
He’ll jump from my right shoulder to my left
and whisper, “Where’s Dad?”
He goes back to my right shoulder.

I like to laugh when I walk past Starbucks,
any old Starbucks,
because everybody in there is from Seattle
and they came all this way for a cup of coffee.

I came all that way too,
but I don’t think it was for a cup of coffee.
I lived with a girl named Cat
or a girl who had a cat
in an old walk up across from a Quizno’s.
Cat gave me coke.
The girl
not the cat.

I remember she
or we
had an ivy green front door
because I’d stay up and stare out the peephole
watching people come home late.

Send me a yellow envelope filled with your tears.
It will be soggy, and sloppy, but that is how it should be,
like crying:
Messy, undignified, and reserved
for those who deserve to see it.

I love you
with bloodshot eyes and frizzy hair,
taking short, sharp breaths
while your nose starts to drip.
I love you
with no walls between us.
No makeup or small talk.

You can show me your fear
and I will cherish it,
like a shooting star I found in the pit of a peach.

You will teach me how to be soft
and I will stare, full of awe
at vulnerability.
At the the strength of admitting weakness,
and emptiness, and shame.

I will hold you
and bring you peppermint tea.

I will tell you about how I am afraid
of mirrors, and voicemails, and family dinners.

I will tell you about being afraid to pick a profile picture
and how close friends can hurt you gently but deeply.

I will tell you how laughter can cause tears
like a lamp casts shadow.

I will tell you about losing a father, almost losing a mother,
and constantly losing myself.

I will tell you how hard my shell is,
and how soft I am underneath.

How I cry reading paperback novels.
How I love rom-coms and
how there is a girl who fills my belly
with butterflies when she kisses me.

Share your weakness
and I will share mine.
You are so brave
with your tear-stained cheeks.
Teach me how you cry.

Green Tea. Peppermint. Herbal Lemon Zinger.
Deep Roast. Vanilla Hazelnut.
Milk. Sugar. Honey. Half and half.

These choices don’t matter much to me. I get them all for free.
I yank out a packet of deep dark roast coffee and slide it into the slot of a machine
which I believe makes hot drinks.
To be honest I don’t know for sure.
I put a tiny plastic bucket into a chrome and black kitchen appliance and click brew.
It brews. I believe.

In 8 seconds I have a small, steaming cup of black coffee.
I double take, wince, and select another miniature bucket.
Green Tea.
Just in case.

In a New York winter, coffee is power and tea is life.
I feel like some Egyptian deity, carrying my mugs of styrofoam down Bleeker Street.
“Behold Manhattanites, I bring ambrosia unto you.”

My hands are already beginning to shake.

I take the long route to the corner of Mercer and West 4th
knowing that extra 60 meters equates to 30 extra seconds
and about 9 extra deep breaths.

I approach the small chestnut colored woolen boulder very slowly
and walk past it one pace at a time.
I stop.
I check my Facebook.

I take one small step in reverse and then another.
It feels like all of this city is looking at me.
Anxiety without explanation. Something new and old all at once,
like a first kiss. Or a funeral.

I bend, then kneel, then crouch, feeling like an altar boy all over again.
I pat the boulder and it shifts, stirs, and splits apart.
Creamy brown eyes with a hint of yellow
ask me why I’m here.

“Hey man, I--I brought you some tea.
Or coffee, if you want.”

No.

I start to laugh and shake and sweat all at once.
He’s staring at my watch, my shirt, my polished shoes.

I don’t want that.
“Are you sure? I’ll just leave it here…”

My deep dark roast coffee is rejected,
and just like that, the boulder is closed,
Part of the same city I live in, but very far away.

I carry my cups down sidewalks and streets,
not wanting to throw away something which had a purpose once,
like a father’s necklace,
or an expired credit card.

I retreat indoors, confused and covered in some new flavor
of guilt.
I throw my coffee away but keep the tea.
I sip it as I sit down and it tastes much better
than it should.

I stare South out the window,
where I know that boulder still sits on top of a an old milk crate and cold concrete.
I think of my mother, my clothes and my kitchen.

I think of how two people can speak the same language that neither of them understand.

I think of that man inside the boulder,
and how a person might look at him or I and say
“He earned it.”
With completely different faces.

I wonder if Hazelnut Vanilla would have worked better.

Last night I dreamt of autumn leaves
convinced it was something I saw through your eyes.

There was a tiny brook
filled with sludge and animal grease.
You told me you were a vegetarian.

Down a scramble of broken boulders
and moldy trees filled with phosphorescent algae
was a whiskey bottle
smoky and smelling of cheap cinnamon.
The alabaster glass split the sunbeams
into a cheap font like Comic Sans
onto a piece of pink granite.

Don't call me.

Somewhere I heard a blue jay singing—
“Danke schoen, darling danke schoen…”

8 million people crammed into 302 square miles
bump into each other every day and don’t say a single word.
Countless stories collide every moment in this city of stone
but all we remember
is the unshaven hipster who steals our seat on the subway.

Sometimes I stare out at black and can’t help but see a thousand pictures:
The tales of loneliness in the most crowded city in America.
The chance to find someone who savors your smile.
The hum of bright dreams hanging in city smoke
like the lost souls of all of the insects who ever lived.

I ache to someday hold invaluable pieces of glossy paper--
Future photographs torn and browning, wrinkled
like the hands that hold them, cracked and soft and full of love.

I dream of future recollection, of the chance to look back on all that hasn’t happened yet.
The night sky I examine produces only pictures of you.

I long to be the man who lived through it all, through rain and fire and blood
with a full heart and a twinkle in his eye
reserved for you like the empty space I create in my sleep.

The man who did not let this cold city make him hard, the man who remembered that

There are over 1700 parks in New York City, 843 acres boiling with emerald beauty
in a city of smog.

That there is a woman who shines like all those beautiful autumn trees on top of stone.
If I were Times Square and Rockefeller Center,
she is Central Park. And Bryant. And Battery. And Washington Square.
She is all the green among the gray.

Each day she is growing; spilling light and love
and grassy hills onto the crumbled grayness inside me.

I cannot wait until she covers me,
Until I can look back and never remember my life without her in it.
Until she steals away my desperate need to dream.
One day I will open my blinds, stare at the night sky
and see only stars.

I would like to be a teacher
despite the fact that I never want to be a teacher.

All things could fall within my curriculum of wishful thinking and zero
fulfillment, of empty promises and unwritten letters and missing parents.

We all have absences within us, empty spaces where something should be
but never came, or left a long time ago.

This morning’s breakfast, self-love, memories of Disneyland, dead parents,
ex girlfriends and boyfriends, nights lost to blackouts.

We are all sewn together with voids, the missing parts which stitch
the rest of us together.

And I would tell my students—the young children, the angsty teens, the bitter old men—
that absence is always an infinity, an incalculable blank space of nothing.

To say that one person possesses more absence would be incorrect,
all you can say is that some infinities are bigger than other infinities,

But they are all limitless anyway. We all
wake up reluctantly on a Monday morning and feel that empty pit

Deep in the caves of our stomachs, growling softly or loudly
and announcing whatever it is we want most to fill us.

I would turn toward the chalkboard and bow my head and announce sadly
that we will always appreciate most that which is missing from us.

And admit that occasionally I go to bed early in the morning and dream of myself
as a teacup, slowly being filled up with the warm chai of lost love.

I wake up feeling not just sad but cold,
as if there should be a flowing, bubbling warmness within me which isn’t.

“You see class, nothing will teach you the truth quite like
contrast. You will never notice the cold more than when you forget your coat,

And you will never feel more tired than when you get up at 5am on a Monday morning
after the longest night of your life, with a full day of work and class and meetings ahead.”

Perhaps a young man who still has much left to lose will raise his hand one day
and ask, “What makes you so qualified to teach this class?”


And I will say that I am not especially qualified, but just as worthy
as anyone else.

I have walked north on Broadway, watching the shops around me get richer
and brighter, and feeling the emptiness of my bank account with every step.

I have stayed up late on Friday nights, doing nothing but sitting at my desk
and watching my phone out of the corner of my eye, waiting for it to buzz.

I have stood alone in a room full of people, watching smiles and kisses
and sadness and joy while feeling nothing but static.

I have opened up letters from universities and colleges and tasted
the combination of postal glue and bitter chocolate over and over again.

I have walked away from a woman I love, knowing that all the things I shared
with her every day will now never be within my reach.

I have watched the clock beside my bed reflect sunshine, then moonlight,
then sunshine again, all without ever closing my eyelids.

I have slapped my grumbling stomach after leaving the gym, hating myself
for my hunger and my appearance. I can never seem to take care of both.

I have sat down in front of a birthday cake, surrounded by people I love,
and begged my ****** muscles to do anything but frown.

I have held a rickety pocket knife against my forearm, wondering how
I ever felt like a normal person.

I have shouted I love you over the dead body of my father,
unwilling to leave until I received a reply.

And I have written a thousand poems, taken a million deep breaths,
waiting after every one to feel something shift inside me like a closing door.

I’m not interested in whose absence is bigger than whose,
I only care that we learn to see our emptiness in the people around us

And understand that pain is never an isolated incident,
but a universal language, which we all learn to speak whether we want to or not.

Some infinities are bigger than other infinities, but they are all limitless
anyway. We are all endless blackness, surrounded by light.

Some days are better than others.
This is an empty envelope sent from an absent father.
This is an excuse to indulge a fear of feelings.

This is like feeling nauseous while eating your favorite food.
This is like waiting for a bus that never comes.
This is like wishing for love and getting only brussel sprouts.

****.
I hate brussel sprouts.

This is like watching the smartest man you know sell hot dogs at the ballpark.
This is like smoking a joint filled with oregano.

When you’re really hungry. And allergic to oregano.

This is like never knowing how to respond to people’s compliments.
This is like a cherry missing its pit.
This is like green tea that burns your tongue.
This is like listening to Chopin but hearing hustla rap instead.
This is like staring at clothes you can’t buy.
This is like being afraid to dance in the rain.
This is like a Miley Cyrus music video.
This is, like, endless repetition.

This is a meaningless manifesto

Of empty words written with cranberry juice on burning paper.

This is like slowly dying of a stuffy nose.
This is like sitting alone in the park when you’re used to playing Frisbee with frat guys.
This is like an 8-hour wait at the DMV.
When no one showers the night before.
This is, like, so totally awesome.
This is like falling in love with the moon.
This is like a girl who smells like snowflakes
But melts just as quickly.
This is like wanting to quote Shakespeare on a first date.
This is like heart nausea.
This is like trying to write an ending to an empty story.

My computer screen hurts my eyes.
Thousands and thousands of photons leap forth
from tinted glass, bringing light and beauty but
also pain.

My irises are lucky, they have steeled themselves
with sheets of toasted almond.
Had they built with blue, who knows what pain would have been caused.
Beauty is too delicate.

Dilation.
Unwanted energy springs into my mind,
reverse geysers spraying fountains
which are less wet but no less scalding.

The optic nerve has pinned up a sign
nailed to splintered pine boards:
DNR
right next to another of beige tin:
TRESPASSERS WILL BE LESIONED

But the neurons have had enough
of old man optic nerve
and they shoot gold, white, and alabaster
action potentials
down his throat,
forcing him to cough up his life blood
to the brain

Drips of sparkling joules pour onto
my posterior hypothalamus.

Pathways primed by years of restlessness
sparkle with the nexus of neural lightning fueling my insomnia.

Light never dies,
it just gets born again.
And I will never sleep,
I merely slip through shadow to shine again.

Hey you.
I love you
With such passion even I cannot forge into words.
This heart of mine is barely big enough
To hold what I feel for you.

You sleep
Clinging to my arm like the world's last life raft.
Soul food.
This casual touch nourishes
Everything I am.
Everything I was.
Everything I hope to be.

It takes your soft, shallow breath
To remind me you are human
And not the pearl likeness of some goddess
Hurled from the heavens.

You kindle me.
And even when you burn
My skin is thankful for it.
Any touch of yours is heaven sent.

Where did you come from?

You are unlike anything I've ever known.
Your smile
Your body
Your soul
Fit into mine eternally.
I believe this is impossible.
Yet it happened anyway.
You happened anyway.

Home
Will never be a place for me again.
Home is wherever my heart goes to rest.

So I reside somewhere deep and dark
And light
And burning
And chilling
Inside your soul.
Where my crackling essence belongs--
Sparking for you with wonder.
Your love.
Your lightning.
Your thunder.

Hear me roar
night skies
hear my anguish and pain and emptiness.
Receive what I have tried to release
all these years
through the **** of a cigarette
or the mouth of a flask.
Pick up what I have tried to throw away.
please.
My spiritual litter always comes home again.

I beg
I plead
I'm even willing to pray
if it will take away this virus pain.
The cancer
spreading through words
intoxicating ideas
melting meaning.

A muck wall
of slime and soot and silk;
cloying, clammy, clawing
into my flesh,
pulling me into its mortar.

I am its mother,
its father,
its lover, its brother,
its spirit, its tender.
I nurture that which knows my pain.

Whatever is out there,
whatever is left,
save me
from myself.
I do not wish to live this life
producing pain.

My heart was not hewn of metal malice.
It was made for peace
it simply cannot weather war.
I cannot maintain this self-directed siege.

Hear me roar
whatever you are
that listens.
Hear me cry and hear me scream and hear me wail.
And know that I will not live any dark destiny.
Pain is not my purpose.

Mourning
is how the early day feels
before the sun
has risen.

The limbo between what some call yesterday
and others call tomorrow.
Sunlit moonshine sprinkles down,
seasoning an insomniac's omelette
with the silver pepper of stars.

Add a pinch of diced night mist,
a smidge of lost sobriety,
a paper,
a pen,
and your dish is best served sloppy.

An introvert's enigma:
will the night sky judge me for what I do beneath it?

Sleep is a foe best fought
with a little fire in the belly--
poured speedily down,
sent off by clinking ice and shuddering skin.

You can teach a mind to be nocturnal--
any fright can become a freak's new friend.
Fear can only flow in one direction.
Point it in,
and it can't pour out.

Hello
my dear darling.
Hello
is such a simple word,
and yet it's all I long to say to you because--
"I love you" and
                                              "you're ****"  and
                                                                                               "you're magnificent" and
          I long for you every night
          as I try to fill a bed meant for two--
would all sound so much better if proceeded by that one simple syllable:
                                    
                                                                                     Hello.
my love.
my sweet.
my lust.
my lovely little fire-born lion.
                                                                                     Hello.
would mean that you were here.
Pleasantly partaking in the simple nighttime pleasures that this world takes for granted.

A kiss.
                      A stolen stare.
                                                                                         A spot of sleep.
                                                                                                                                                           ***.
The kind that is often searched for but rarely found.
Invisible to all except those who whisk and mix their lust with love.
      
                                                                                Hello.
is what my lips say to yours as they part them
while you sleep.
I want to see the crackle of electric life surge into your eyes.
I am addicted
to your recognition,
                                   and the moment between sleep and awake
                                                                                                              when you learn my face anew.
My soul surges when I see again how much I mean to you.

Those limpid pools of soft cerulean, lit by diamond light. Artemis bathing in her own moonshine.
The sun and skies and stars above all rejoice to see your face.
They live to light upon beauty such as yours.

Your soul awakens through the oval opening of those brilliant blues,
burning bright with love and light and longing
and all I can think is--

effervescence.

Ebullient bubbles of heartsong and heat,
bursting through the chilly oceans of the night
of the soul
of the darkness which almost swallowed me whole.

Your love is a light which puts the stars
in pale comparison.
I refuse to live without it.
I was not meant to weather the nights without your radiance.

Take your zest, your zeal, your life, your spice,
and bring it here.

Your light is one I do not mean to miss.

11 hours
756 miles.
19 minutes
0.9 miles.
One time, I even had to deal with
914 hours
2,841 miles
which was pretty much torture after the luxury of
35 seconds
25 yards.

But I suppose even that wasn't good enough.
The only time those numbers ever felt right was at 0.
When time and space convalesced into nothing,
and you were right there in front of me
with no delay
no travel time
not just your voice, or your face, or your words,
but you

cradled in my arms
staring at me with endless pools of aquamarine
skin soft as moonlight
smelling like a sultry summer
and a kiss was a reality, not some late night fantasy.

And the nights were lovely
making me ignorant and fearful of losing you.
So when you left
and that 0
that luscious little 0
grew and grew
to tens, hundreds, thousands more,
I didn't know what to do
except pray for something to turn into nothing;
to wish destruction of distance.

Some simple vibrating buzz
shouldn't be the only taste I get of you
each day.
;)
is such a silly substitute for the sneakily suggestive
charm of your face.

I've had laughs and loves
and smiles and shakes
and drinks and views and stares and sighs.
There were mountains and rivers and soft nights
and slivers of perfection,
but they all lacked you, and for that I will never forgive them.
You make every beauty better.

So when I want you,
it isn't on a phone screen
or a laptop
or a letter
756 miles away,
it's right here
closer than arms reach
my own tremendous treasure
sharing the same breath of ocean air as I.
My most played daydream.

Come here.
Waiting is for less wonderful things than you.
Patience is not a virtue
compatible with my love.

They say depth over distance,
but I refuse to love you from afar
pledging romance while
circling this drain of nonsense
and empty space.

The only place I want you is in my arms.
Untouched by time and space.
Occupying only
that glorious 0.

Good morning my dears.
Good morning.
Do not rush to rise,
breakfast will wait a few sleepy seconds.

Come forward; grab a bite.
No, not of me, thank you.
Play nice.
Take a chew toy, we have time to play
with friends.

Please stop nuzzling.
No cuddling.
No purring.
No licking.
No tail-wagging, please.
stop loving me.
Just eat.

Eat more. Crunch as much kibble as your hearts desire, even if
your stomach protests. Enjoy.

No don't play with me.
Frolic with your real friends.
Go and eat and play and love and live and
****.
Back to bed everyone.
Lights out.
Farewell for now.
                                    no.                 stop whining.            stop. stop.
never be distraught by my departure.


Good morning my dears.
Good morning.
Do not rush to rise,
the day will keep a moment more.

Please, do not rush to me.
Please
take your time
slow down i'm begging--

This way, friends.
No, we play in another room today.
stop trusting me please.
This way. Through here.

Yes, everyone into the cage.
Hold on, I cannot play with everyone at once.
please stop fighting for my affection.
no don't come to me please. no.
not you. don't--
Very well. Let's go play.

No, I'll carry you.
stop purring please
your love is lost with me.
Onto the table.
Everything's going to be fine.
Everything is--

Yes.

It's what you think it is.
run please.
fight.
claw away from me.
resist me i'm begging you.
i'm begging you
i'm begging you
**** me **** me **** **** fuckfuckfuck
stop.

fight me.
do anything but give up.
do anything but burn into me with those sad, shiny little emerald eyes
and stab into me with wisps of wilted innocent love.
Such simple beauty is wasted on me.
It brings me pain where there should be pleasure.
See how lost I am.

at least show me
you hate me.
let me at least be innocent
of betrayal.
give me one crime to not be party to.

Oh.
Don't be sad little love.
This is just another sleep.
Your soul is safer than mine.

Pour me
out
on you.
steel me.
cast me cold.

Hold me under the soft silken spell
of those luscious, lying, lips.

Scratch me, tooth and nail
leave rot and rust
dripping through my skin.
Leave some scars.

Bite and gnash.
Toss and turn.
Give me a wince to remember
when you're gone.

Ooze me out
like melting shadow milk
dripping
dripping
on your bone white bone cold skin.

Squeeze me.
Peel me.
Skin me
to your heart's content,
my blood is mine
to give.

Take
Receive
Taste and
see
the goodness
of violence
and a promise
of sweet, sultry pain.

Let me burn
and kindle
a fire left cold these last few years.
I can sear
a few old memories
away.

Forget
for a second.
Leave sense and pretense
behind.
I am here
for you.
My shadows, my chill,
are yours
to fill
the night with.

The red hour
is yours, burn it away.
Spark it with the cries of the night.
Shut the stars up for a while.
It will be our light
that shines
tonight.

Why yes.
I suppose I do.
I think there’s just something simple about it.
and it’s nice to know
that love
doesn’t always have to
exist.

I think some dude ******* a girl under ****** lighting while she pretends to ******
can be reassuring.
*** can be meaningless and
it doesn’t have to matter and
losing your virginity when you were 13 to a girl who was 18 wouldn’t matter and
no one would care that you did it because you were scared and
not because you wanted to. No one would care.

and that’s why I like it I guess. Because there are places where love shouldn’t matter and
shame shouldn’t matter and
the religion of your parents shouldn’t have to matter and
“I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed in you” shouldn’t leave a
permafrosted puncture wound in you that just adds to the emptiness and filthiness you feel all over your skin your pale, eager, sweaty skin just waiting to be touched.

it may just be that complicated things don’t interest me but I don’t want to know what
light through yonder window breaks and I don’t really want to compare anyone
to a summer’s day. Because
love isn’t always fancy, dignified, or poignant. Sometimes it doesn’t even matter.

and when I hear these young boys word vomiting sexually
Bang, Tap, ****, Stuff, *****, Rip, Tear, Ravage
I just want to show them how pathetic
the tombstones of their collective virginities will look and how
each one will display in engraved granite:

HE LASTED 3 MINUTES

and maybe some of them would understand that it’s stupid
to go through life
feverishly
eagerly
barbarically
striving to lose something
instead of find something.

It was bad. crazy. eh. horrifying. media. nothing. odd. saddening. terrifying. unbelievable.

Who the **** are you? No. No. Naw. Nah. No. No thanks. Sorry, no. No time. No. No thank you. No. No time. Not now. No, what? No, what? What happened. Oh my gosh. Oh my god. Oh jeez. Whoa. Why? When? My God. Where? How? Why? I heard, yeah. I heard, why? I heard only two people died. two deaths. two fatalities. two souls. I heard only 14 were injured. only 19 were injured. only 23 were injured. only. only. only. only 71 were injured. Wait, 3 died? Wait, 144 were injured?

It was horrible. I don’t care. inappropriate. scary. terrible. wild. it was like. It was like.
9/11. 9/11. Like 9/11. Reminds me of September 11th. Just like 9/11. All over again. Again. Terrorists. Bin Laden. Osama. Taliban. Al Qaeda.
Hate. ****. ****. Revenge. Angry. Rage. Destroy. Attack. Invade. Retaliate. Hate.
God bless America. **** America.

4 bombs. 2 bombs. 1 bomb, I heard. I heard. I heard.  I heard it was an explosive finish. Haha. Yeah, I heard they had a blast. That the runners were really blown away. I heard. *******. I heard. Go away. I heard. Sorry it’s my last cigarette.

I have friends. I have friends at BC. I have friends at Northeastern. I have friends at Boston College. I have friend at BU. I have friends in Boston. I have friends. Thank God they’re ok.

At least only two people died.

Have I what? No. Go away. Don’t touch my dog. What’s wrong with you. Not today thanks. I don’t want to donate. Leave me alone, please. Go get a job. I don’t care. No, bye. No time. Maybe later. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Sorry, no change.

Who did I think of? I don’t know. Maybe. My mom. My dad. My brother. My wife. My sister. My husband. My family. My son. My daughters. My friends. My best friend. My girlfriend. Kat. Sarah. Jamie. Joe. Jocelyn. Reggie. Owen. Brian. Jack. Rosa. Abe. Chen. Colin. Gail. Gabe. God. Joe. Andrew. Jesus. Anna. Allah. Vicki. Vishnu. My mother. father. sister. brother. Everyone, I guess. I pray for them too.

I’m sad. grateful. angry. thankful. depressed. hopeful. shocked. confused. Only 71 people were injured. 144 people were injured. At least only 2 people died. 3 people died. I can’t believe two people died. Poor, sad, hapless, helpless, hopeless. Why? I should watch the news more.

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I sat, starving and
half-drunk
on the center cushion of my couch
now lying on the floor,
It was not spared from
my whiskey-induced rage.
It faired no better than the dining room chairs,
the window drapes,
or the crystal cocktail tumblers lying on
the floor,
strewn apart in shattered, jagged triangles.

I peel myself from the remains of a
living room
And stumble towards the toilet,
Each step ringing in the sorrowful consequences
of alcoholism
and a gin-soaked broken heart.

The bathroom does not welcome me,
It hides the light switch,
And I do not find it until
My fifth attempt.

My Sisyphean efforts to **** straight
Are ignored, and
God
adds a *****-soaked carpet
to the list of regrets
that rob me of my dignity.

He chalks up another
As a grown man vomits into
his toilet
And sobs like a lost child,
All while avoiding the cold gaze
of the Mirror.
It holds no surprises for me,
I do not pretend that I will look up
And like what I see.

I stumble backwards and flop
onto the section of carpet not covered
in the domestic debris of
my love-sick hurricane.

I do not wash my hands
I have lost all hope of cleansing
Myself.

I just roll around in
my grime,
and massage the empty spot
on my shoulder
where you would rest your head
during a movie,
or after late-night, spite-fueled ***.

And I clutch my chest,
Feeling my heart slowly atrophy,
Now freed from all the pain
And all the love
You gave me on nights
like this.

I seek a light in the darkest skies
To teach me to answer the deepest cries
Of my fellow man, my fellow woman, my fellow soul;
Though I gladly pay the toll, I know little of my own true role.

I know not the best way to follow;
But I do feel a little less hollow
In the giving of myself to others,
And the healed hearts of my sisters and brothers.

Pain pales in comparison to love,
And human hearts will gladly greet the mourning dove.
The burden of a thousand mountains I could bare
In your service, my soul will happily stand the wear and tear.

I have many questions, and few answers,
But how often is the harmony heard by the dancers?
Lord, it comforts me more than the warmest hearth,
To know that it is you who calls me forth.

I am home,
Far from where the sun may find me.
I am alone,
Running from the light behind me.

I ran because I did not know,
Ran somewhere I couldn't go
Just because the light can't shine here,
And I'll never be found with no one near.

Why did I go?
If only I could tell, I want so much for you to know.
I stepped over the line, frozen in time
And lost myself in swirls of the sublime.

I am home,
Far from where the sun may find me.
I am alone,
Running from the light behind me.

If you don't know why I ran, do you know from who?
It's simple, that who is you.
With your sunny smile, and your innocent heart
Loving me, who was broken from the start.

You thought you could fix me by putting me in the light
But I born to live a life in night.
I'm not warm and bright like you.
I'm dark, I'm shattered, and fixing me won't heal you.

In the fog, the dark, I am home,
Far from where the sun may find me.
Don't you see I am alone, ?
I'll always be running from the light behind me.

In a dream long ago,
I went to a place I thought I knew,
I went with a girl I used to know,
My light, my one true love: you.

And in the day's fading light,
I fought for love with all my might,
Held to you with all my strength,
Yet felt a gap of increasing length
Every time I reached for you
And I watched as you melted into night's pale blue.

Falling back in the shadow of an old willow tree,
I held my heart, and set my emotions free.
As I fell for the final time,
I watched the wind blow my love from my mind.

I awoke in the dark, in the cold of night
And ached from want to hold you tight.
I walked through cold, to that place I thought I knew
And amidst wind and fallen stars, I wished for you.

A drooping willow cracked and fell
As the darkness bound me, and condemned my hopes to hell.
The sun rose and I felt so cold
And without you, this world felt so old.

I lost you so long ago
But this pain feels so new.
I can't bear to sleep, because now I know
That my dreams left me when I lost you.

I want to love, I truly do,
But there's not much left after you.
My heart is so cold, so weak, and so small,
I wonder how it even beats at all.

Look at me.
I'm so much less than what I could be,
Because my smile blew away on the westward wind,
And my once happy heart is now badly thinned.

I love you so my dear.
I don't know how I ended up here.
Just one look at your smile, one glance would suffice,
But I lost your love when I gave up on paradise.

Take a step closer, and really see me
From where you stand, there’s no way you’d believe me
You don’t see what lies behind me
All you do is take that shallow, simple glance and remind me

Remind me of just how much space lies in that one step
That one step you’ll never take
Just because you’ll never take
A chance on me, because that step could be a misstep

And I’m worth so much less than one mistake
I’m much easier to forsake
Than the proof you face for taking a chance
That faded photograph from one last dance

If you took a step closer, you wouldn’t see the man you knew
But in fact a face that’s entirely new
And you’d see a place where what once mattered no longer does
A place filled with all that is, and all that never was.

Morning, it was morning and I was mourning.
I was beaten here, twisted here, shoved here.
The ground is rotten brown.
The sky showed no sign of happiness.
It was morning and I was mourning,
For my lost home.

Small, swaying flakes, crystalline
Float amongst the frozen pines
Carried by wind, then land at random
And the breeze and the snow now act in tandem.

Breath, a warm cloud of air
A man extends his arm, and combs back his hair
Picks up his pack, lighter now than once before
Takes a passing glance toward the home he adores

Swaying thrashing limbs of cedar
Used to weather far much sweeter
Old wood cracks, hits the ground, splinters
Unprepared for this cold dark winter.

The crunch of the snow, the breeze on his face
The man eagerly resumes his old pace
Hand to his brow, he gazes ahead
And shivers not from the cold but amazement instead

A long winding path tapers off and ends
The road no longer turns or bends
It leads but one way, to this end in the road
Which ends at the mountain, where the sky has not snowed

Calm and warm, the air surrounds him, he gazes in wonder
At an emerald green mountain, with no ice or snow under
A peaceful meadow, untouched by the frost
Lies quietly in the shade, of a place believed lost

Wearily, the man trudges forward,
His heart beating fast, to the mountain he faces toward
It has been miles since he slept, he’s never marched on stronger
But to get what he has come for, he must march a little longer.

I stand alone
On a chilly mountaintop
I stand alone
Because I simply didn’t stop
I stand alone
Because no one else could reach the top

From high, atop this mighty summit
If I sung a sorrowed song
Would someone know who sung it?
Or was it pointless all along?

If I shouted, I cried out,
"Help me, help Me, I’m in Pain!"
Would it echo all about?
Or would it be in vain?

From this frosty mountain peak
I know which goals I now must seek
If I called out all around
Does it matter if it makes a sound?

I must sing,
I must cry out,
And it will echo all about
My message is heard without a doubt

So I sing the unsung stories
I tell the untold tales
These don’t speak of splendor and glory
But perhaps of something a bit more gory

To draw attention, to shine some light
To work on things, to set things right
Can it be heard, well it just might
Now that the blackness is more bright

I cry out, I yell to the skies
For the simple point, to open your eyes
They might knock me off,
I might fall to the ground
But now I can drink in the sound
Because my message echoes all around

My eyes open. I’m awake.
I am sad. I do not know why.
I know my life is perfect.
I have seen snowy mountains and warm beaches
I have tasted the finest fruit, eaten freshly picked peaches.
From dawn ‘till dusk, I have lived; I have loved; each day more than the last.
The sun was shining, the storm clouds past
In a sunny field, a girl is crying
Long moaning sobs, not stopping, not trying
Beside her a boy, a young man
Wanting to please her in whatever way he can.
His innocent happy eyes swing back and forth in thought
The girl tells him of this sadness he has brought.
It has left her broken, expectantly empty, hollow.
She speaks between sobs; he tries to follow.
He hears her say she loves him, it is the first time he has heard it.
But he frowns as she sobs another fit.
His young brown eyes squint in confusion
Then widen as they reach a conclusion.
The girl weeps for how she would wish things were
But pauses in silence as he leans close to her
He knows she is unaware of how she is adored,
And he whispers to her, “I want you, and nothing more.”
The crying ends, replaced by a beautiful smile
Shocked, they realize they’ve loved each other all the while.
Blurred, the field melts away…
I’m awake, midmorning of day. I am smiling, my life is perfect.
But my heart lurches. Hollow. I look outside and gaze in sorrow.
Storm clouds. I feel chilled.
I search my thoughts; my heart is stilled.
I see no mountains, no beaches, no sweet summer peaches.
I run to the mirror. My soul screeches.
The eyes, the worst part were the eyes.
It was now I knew the happiness was lies.
The young man that stared back at me had eyes filled with sadness, with pain
Now I search frantically, in vain.
I know what I will find. Nothing. Not a thing.
No trace of the smiles, the tears, the hugs, the laughs.
That he shared with that girl in the past.
Broken, a young man steps out into the rain,
Closing his eyes, he searches in vain.
For a sunny field, a girl and a boy.
And a smile that never happened, which had given him such joy.
As water runs down his face, he knows his happiness was not as it would seem.
And that smile had been nothing but a dream.