Still chokin’ on my thank you note

While I got my apology burnin’ on the tip of my tongue

This is me bursting at the seams

‘cause I am a walkin’ talkin’ fault line

Cement cracking at the epicenter of heartbreak

And water logged

From all the sweat

Building on my cheeks

Livin’ in a parking lot

And couch surfin’ this wave

Till I run lines in the floor

It gets cold at night

Too warm in the day

Now though

Just need some mercy

And just enough strength to finish this

Just enough words to regurgitate a reason

For leavin’ like this

Just enough time to learn to walk away

Just enough God left in the souls of my feet to keep me standin’

Not nearly enough heart to break anymore

Not enough weight in this place to tie me down anymore

It’s all I got

And now I’m letting it go

Remember how I said that I would write you into something perfect

  so that you would stop walking out on me?

  So I rewrote you by bending the lines of

STAY

Problem is

People change

   And I found you stretching into

HEART BREAK

   and

HIT AND RUN

And me trying to find anything better than

“Please don’t leave me”

That’s when I learned to write you into

AGAIN

    And

TOMORROW

Then I figured the math of

FOREVER

Is 2xtoo long

   When you factor in the absolute power of

ME

Turns out

Father

  Sound too much like

Forever

And

DAD

  Is something neither of us ever really

HAD

  And the

Past

   Is something we are both running from

Now

MAN

    Is the thing I am most scared of becoming

I find myself begging my reflection to stop me from it

That’s when I learned to write myself into

FORGIVE

And how to factor myself into the equation of

ENDLESS

My name was the first word I ever learned to say

It has 8 letters in it

Sideways it is ∞

Watch me make things complicated

It’s a gift

So much a gift I never got much further than long division

Or tying my shoes

Or learning when it’s okay to touch people

Turns out

Life is not the game of tag I thought it was

Not everyone touches you back

Never learned that

Gets so bad

I break handshakes for hugs

and then I stand there way to long

I can never go back to my dentist’s office again

After he finally pried me from his shoulders

He was kind enough to loosen the foot in my mouth

Told me I got toes for teeth

And I was thankful

For the suction tube

And the Novocain

Asked him for more

And more

Just enough to numb the jabber in my jaw

Took 2 vicadin after to keep my arms at bay

If I could have

I’d’a told him

Every word burnin holes in my brain

And I am thankful

Knowing that I’d’ve at least stopped at long division

And tying my shoes

I never learned how

not to say all the wrong things

Never really learned anything

This is so much more than a love song that there is no music to keep your heart bouncing along with my tune. Never could’a anyway. I speak so fast sometimes you know just to nod your head and say, “yeah”. Can hear it in the way that my tongue cracks against my teeth. Sounds like *** sometimes. Not the good kind either. It’s the kind you never really walk away from. ******* like a bass drum. Feel it puttin pressure on your heart. But that’s fine with you. Knew I never really had a beat. Never really had a song. Too tone deaf for something as smooth as that. No. I just say ****. Like now. Puttin fingers in all your wrong places. This is more than just a love poem. It’s a *** poem. It’s a ******* revolution of quivers. Tryin to shiver ourselves to fit like shaking will rub away the edges. Rounding out the bad spots till our bodies make sense. No **** necessary. Not this time. As for me. I’m a poet. ***** talk is as natural as breathing. Forgive me for the freestyle I played on your money spot. Too classy for a money shot. Too ***** not to do it right. I’d trade my arms for flight. Gust away your sweat with more than just my breath. Know that you’ll never really tell me to stop. This is more than just a *** poem. More than the revolution of quivers that finally made sense of the sporadic tone to my heart drum. This is freedom. Breakin’ away the chaos, and the bad habits, and all the **** that scares me. Getting lost in the action of it. This is for every lonely bedroom, and bathroom, and pool, and for the backseat of every car that’s held the momentary refuge that keeps me from finally breakin down. This is for you. And all the ***** things I wanna do.

Reminds me of when I was a boy

  And you’d wake me to a punch in the gut

Say

“Sometimes life knocks the wind out of you”

So when I finally got to scatter you to the wind

   You managed to catch the wrong gust

So that I could choke on you one last time

  Made me hold my breath till my eyes watered

What no one knew

  Was that your mouth was full of firing pins

And that spit sizzled off the empty shell casings you capped over your teeth
  
   *******

If I had a nickel

For every potential broken rib

Or bruise so big it could’a’ been a hole

For every day I looked like dying fruit

  I’d have enough nickels to win your well every time

I look so much like you when I am angry

  I have to remind myself

This is not him when I’m angry

This is me when I’m angry

Reminds me of that time I grew *****

Shot out so fast their weight flung me forward

And I accidentally punched you back

What no one knew

Was that it felt amazing

  And it scared me

  Still scares me

So much that I have to remind myself

This is me when I'm angry

And I can stop

I just wrote this to thank you

For fanning the fire in my words again

You were kind enough to do it slowly

Temper my passion for writing

so as not to denature my heart

But lady

You’ve denatured my soul

Into dripping dots of ink

Not enough words in my soul

Not in enough time in my world

Not enough ink to last

Just promise

When this fire finally turns me to ashes

You’ll mix me into paste

Write me into one last piece

Perfectly broken

And terribly written

Say something along the lines of

“This was never supposed to be perfect

And it was supposed to hurt

Right down to the end

There is no forgiveness

For those who go up in flames

To be reborn into ashes

And turned into ink

And remembered forever

On pieces of paper”

Thank you

For this fire

For this fever

For keeping the water from me

Thank you

For helping me

Live forever

In my house there is a cupboard

Full of VHS tapes

One of them is a recording of a news broadcast

On it I stand

Hospital gowned and smiling

Clowns are there on the terrace where it was filmed

Painting our faces

They all smile

I smile

The other kids smile

None of us over 4 feet

But balding

Black eyed and missing toothed

A clown takes my hand and begins to paint

It is cold

The paint

And the Terrace

I tell her how I want to run away with her

She smiles

Maybe

On camera

You can see my back through the open gown

The bones make me look like a brontosaurus

I turn to the camera

Remembering I was told never to smile with the paint on

or it will crack

The circles under my eyes are gone

My lips are red

My cheeks are tan

I look normal

Off camera

mommies and daddies are crying

Off camera

the clowns are crying

On camera

There is a terrace full of dying children

In a hospital

And we all looked normal