What ever happened to touching real things?
The brisk rapture of sand against cold skin,
the intensity of sandpaper to your finger?
What happened to things made by the earth?
Things not of space but of time?
What will happen to the things here before us,
when all we do is touch with our eyes?
A world,
a blank white room,
you touch and drag projected pictures,
and have fun with your awesome toy,
which will be upgraded next week,
left obsolete,
rotting along with trailer parks and
abandoned roller coasters.
What happened to digging down in earth
and seeing what she had to offer?
What happened to real? What ever happened?

She said, over and over,
That she went back to black,
but never was she anywhere else.

That moment, when you kiss Don
good night and then turn away
to switch off the light on your bedside table,
and the smile is suddenly wiped off your face,
those three seconds when you rest your hand on the switch
and then quickly engulf the room in darkness,

that is your entire life.

That kind of day where I can
stare at a blank wall for 30 minutes,
and never not have a random useless thought.

I can sit in a chair, half asleep,
half awake and just pretend to be alive while
I exist in the confines of my brain. It's a blank
day. A day where nothing happens. A day
where I don't feel right, or even
human.

Separate
but forcefully
one.

Only together
do we

move.

Haphazard, misshapen, colliding,
yes.
But one.

We are moving. Where are we going?

Collectively the captain of a ship which holds us all.

Where are we going captain?

I have been blinded,
guided by my desires.
Hopeless and tired.

sometimes
i just want to dip myself into a piece of music
lukewarm
and swirl around
without hunger or fear

The other day, walking to the dining hall,
someone passed by me
and smiled at my boots instead
of my face,

which was clearly marked,
and not hidden by garments
like you might think.

Boots, one.
Me, zero.

A dawn is breaking
Over the line of Atlantic expanse
A piano is playing
But only through modern implements
A soft mechanical din is
Heard over it
And children are at once quiet and asleep
As men and women scruffle to find comfort
A small light finds its way across the open Atlantic dawn
And blue takes over black slowly
And delicately
I am restless and racing
The destination must be near

A man,
reduced,
to a plaque
with gold lettering and
a smiling picture in the corner.
so nice and official.
so beautiful and honorable.
a man.
reduced.
to a room,
four walls,
in his name,
with carpet and
chairs,
and tables arranged
for meetings.
a flat screen tv,
framed pictures on
one of the four walls.
so nice,
so bright, so common,
so good.
a man,
fought in a war,
got blown up,
gets a room in his name
and his face on a plaque.
so beautiful,
so good, and right and true.
and so forever too.

My laundry tumbles away
and tonight I've chosen to stay
In the building's basement lounge
And maybe scrounge
Eighty-five cents for a candy bar

The sugar keeps me alert,
Though tomorrow's going to hurt.
          It's five AM oh-one.
                        And I don't want that sun,

You can tell she's a designer by her
fine-tuned dishevelment, the

unwashed bob, the unkempt wool sweater &
the neon green belt under it all. We're trying
on costumes and making adjustments with
safety pins and measuring tape.

Actors in and out, hands everywhere, lots
of slow looking and tiny movements that
change everything.

Morning still hangs
in the air like a slowly falling arc, it's
eleven o' clock. Smiles from
Artist to artist. Little moments.

The sting of caffeine still surrounds my
upper chest, sending shots of pain and exhilaration
to my brain. Morning light graciously floods
the windows and spills onto work tables and
gem-green linoleum.

Back and forth,
          back and forth.

i'm excessive and irrational,
I don't think clearly, i might have no morals,
and i don't make wise choices.
i'm a bad person, really,
and I feel inferior to you.

but it's nothing that you do.

you're smart and decisive,
you have an artistic eye,
and so do i,
but you use it better.

i'm silly and sad,
your a firecracker of many colors.
i fizzle and you shine.
i write poems of self-deprication,
and you don't.

And then I sigh
and call it a night.
I think,
tomorrow,
I shall wake up and
want to be a mechanic.
So I can fix myself up.

I see it play back in my memory like an old video tape,
So dark and crackly, sketchy in certain parts.
I don't see it from my eyes but from a distance,
I'm a spectator of my memory.

It is late at night one night when the family was young,
I was having a sort of waking nightmare.
I couldn't differentiate between the dream
And being awake.

Something terrible was happening
In my dream
I tried to drag you out of bed but you
Were so asleep and so heavy for my young arms
To move

I was trying to tell you that we had to
Get to mom and dad's room.
It was of absolute importance, I remember.
I remember
I had gotten you out of the bed and on the floor but
Your body was so asleep and
I was in distress.
I was terrified, crying as I desperately tried to drag you
Out of your stupor,
"If you love mom and dad you will come"
I said. But you didn't move and

I was stuck alone in that room that
One night in the dark so late at night
Worrying about what was going to happen
And that you were never going to wake up.

The surefire way
         To cure a rainy day
Is a cup or a ***
         Of one Earl Grey.

Water still hung on the grass,
so I laid myself down in the dirt for a while.
My back against a tree,
upright,
trying to fall asleep.

Sitting in the dirt, up
against a tree,
underneath a sky.
You:
far away from
me.

I hope you stay like this forever.
You don't hide like they want you to.

I want you to always be playing
In your Sunday's Best in the mud puddles
And not think twice.

I hope you never grasp what they teach you
In institutions of higher education.
I hope you teach them.
Even if they never listen.

I want you to never care
Like I did
I hope you never stop wanting more
I hope you don't settle
I want you to be always scared
And always fearless

I want you to know the difference
Between knowledge
And education.
Never forget what they'll never tell you.

Don't learn.
That would be too easy.

You would have seen me
and I would have been driving.

Driving down the road of the house,
the house where we all lived.
I was going there,
but as I approached with my champagne steel trap,
in a moment
I decided to keep driving.

I saw your car and with a flutter
my foot didn't graze the brake.

You would have seen me,
if you were looking out the window.
If you would have recognized my car.

Amidst the gathering of things,
the putting of books in boxes,
or clothes into bags,

between the hidden sips of beer in your bedroom,
and quick, terror-filled glances behind you,

did you see me? In those quick seconds when my car brushed past.
Did it matter?

You would have seen me keep driving,
past all the other small houses
and you would see me at the stop sign,
waiting
before a road clean of cars.

It happens most nights when I'm feeling sort of sad,
but mostly really tired and confused.
I've been thinking too much, about too many things.
And my brain has finally quit.
And all I want to do is cry my eyes out and feel better.
All I want is to be held and to be loved without reason.
I want to lie down in my bed, and feel a body wrapped neatly
around me. I want someone to cry onto,
someone to understand. I want something so cliche, it would be perfect.
I don't want to care about life,
about art, about my future, about myself,
I just want to cry and cry and cry and
lie there with someone and be held and be understood.

at times,
when after showers, as I sit at
       my desk,
I feel so naked and vulnerable.
And the door to the hall is open,
and I am terrified.

I want you in my arms,
but instead you are a pillow.
The emptiness makes up for my fingers in your hair,
the cold bed is your breath.
I want you bad,
but not when you want me.
That would be too easy.

A world passes by me, flowing images
Of houses and of streets,
Wires skewed betwixt concrete and mortar.
It is the blue world,
A world tinted by the glass of modern vessels.
The world is sad and bleak,
Cold through all seasons and knows
Little of the pleasures of red.
In the blue world,
Existence is a constant dream and
One comes and goes
Without pretense or destination.
The blue world searches to find
What is already given,
The blue world never understands,
Never stops, nor stands still.
The world is seen through a thick glass,
It is strange and unfamiliar.
It is the next stop.
It is our world after all.

a man is standing on my sweater
the rubber sole of his boat shoes
just brushing the hem of knitted stripes

only moments before,
I lay in my bed
on the white sheets
posed for sleep
and the room was empty
save for the scattered bits of clothing
and shards of private moments

crumbs of food eaten in solitude

but now there is a figure in my doorway
he has been dipped in the midst of all this
and he lightly places his foot
through the threshold
onto me

At times it seems I
Feel nothing. Other times I
Feel everything.

Some measure distance in inches and feet,
but when friendship is added, the hearts will meet.

For a distance is a slim match to a hope,
to a laugh, a smile, or a single allotrope.

if only you knew
the things that i do.

I need a vacation.

I need a break from my life.

I need perspective.

I need someone to hold me without asking me what's wrong.

I need to cry until the sun rises.

I need to not think.

I need a break.

I need time.

When I get tired,
My legs just want to move.
It's funny in a way.

The ways my body works against me.

all i want
is to be wanted
by the ones i want
to be wanted
by.

No.

You're a *****.

attracted because believe close
don't everything feel feels felt
gimme god
good her
his just kind know
last life like
love man me men
more my myself
need not now poems poetry read
scared see ****** something
stories thing think thought true
up very wanted
world
writing.

With the warmth of the air,
so does the spark of my soul leave.
For a momentary dance in
other places, places other
than my life.

i am trying to

get my **** together it's

just so far apart

rain, rain
please
don't go away.

things happen
people get forgotten.
the worst part is
people sometimes forget themselves.

sometimes we need others
to stop us in our tracks
and look at us in the eyes and tell us

you exist.

Wind,
Pass through me.
I'm a window