If I were going to change for the better
I’d have changed by now
The end is a wasted incentive
A new beginning is for those who believe

I’ve cashed in all my second chances
And am burning up all my passion

I’ve derived my devils into
The salvation of saliva
When our sweat is not enough wet
To anoint our ***** sacred

Let me leave here without a language
Because my idea of living for tomorrow
Is found in the stories I leave behind

You can’t be chaste and live forever

I have learned in LIFE IS FICTION 101
The endings of all stories need closure
For the reader and the character

Let me leave my legacy
In the places you are afraid to touch

Because
I’ve always been that guy who went a little too far

Let me take you a little too far
Just to the tip of forever and I’ll pull out
I promise

I may not die at the end of this year
But I will be dead someday
And the fear of being forgotten
Is enough to make me stay
And car crash my mouth again

Take a good long listen rubbernecker
And later you can tell your friends
There is this guy you met
And he said some things you’ll never forget

I mean
Really really really
Nasty things

But you liked it

I mean
I never wanted to be the best poet/storyteller/dirtytalker ever
I just wanted to be someone’s favorite
Enough to not forget me later

Because it may not be at the end of this year
But I will leave someday
And the fear that you might forget me
Is hell enough to stay

Forgive me for my lack of articulation
I don’t speak as retardedly prophetic as I used to
Or welcome death because no one knows it
When the fear of leaving
Is hell enough to stay
And the finish line is miles away

We will all meet it
At exactly the right time

We’ll both come in first
I promise

And

You

Well mouthed
Keeper of my darkness
Forgive me if I war trench your back at night
I’ve just never really known safety

Surprised at the size a man can be
When pressed to someone’s back
As the night covers all fronts

I know
I got love’s lashings scarring up my liver
When I drink myself to sleep at night

This morning
I awoke shortly after midnight from a text message
That took me an hour to respond to

Forgive me
I was thinking in dreams again
You were there
Watching me steal a pineapple popsicle and a Dr Pepper
From a vending machine

We then hopped in an airborne submarine
Only it was really a long broomstick between my legs
And your legs
And the legs of two others I’ve never met before
And we weren't ever really airborne

Even the figments of my imagination have to humor me
At times

And my ghosts are kind enough to leave before I awake
Playing poker over my body as I sleep
As I dream
As I startle
***** Drunken Poorly Invented Modern Sanskrit
Into the thick air

So cold I have to chisel the sweat away

I don’t sleep as soundly as I used to
Or speak as well
Or think as thoroughly
I just know what feels good when I don’t want it to

And I don’t know any other way to tell you
To slow down and wait for me
Because I am sure that
We’ll get where we’re supposed to be going
Exactly when we’re supposed to

For Christmas

I want a bible with all blank pages

I want a butterfly butter-knife
For surprise attack sandwiches

I want a time machine
So I can go back to when I was a ******
To my first cigarette
And my first lover
And my first broken heart

To where my eyes didn’t have the green tint of jade
Lightening up this solid brown
My favorite color

I want a new harmonica inhale
And exhale
I want to breathe heavy into your wind instrument
CPR your song back to life

I want to slow dance on dying yuletide embers
And regift your laughter til I am not funny anymore

Don’t be mad that I recycled the stockings
You made me remove so slowly last night

They are stretched out now
And filled with crumpled photographs
And candy
And sticky notes full of bad one-liners

Like

“I thought I loved you until I loved you
And now I’m not sure of anything”

Forgive me
It was all I could afford

I want
More than just blankets to keep me warm at night
I want you to keep me warm at night

I want a type-writer big enough to run myself through
So I can rewrite the rough drafts my parents never finished

I want to bring the stars back west
So I can wish some more

I wish I knew how to be quiet
When beauty demanded silence
So her feet could echo proper
Drawing eyes to follow her sound

I want the trillions of miles my mind has traveled
To finally stop somewhere important

Like right here

Near the end of this poem

Where I tell you
I want so much
And need so little
Just the promise of tomorrow I guess
Until there are no more tomorrows
Then just a fair warning
Long enough to make you laugh maybe
That’s it

Doing laundry at night
A place down the street from me
In between a liquor store and a save-a-lot foods
Eyes buried in a new poetry book
and the washing machine’s timer
In my periphery
A little blonde girl sits next to me
And says very clearly,

“I wish someone had a quarter
For some candy”

She opens every metal spout
Tries every blocky butterfly key
Repeats herself, repeats herself, repeats herself,

She is with two men who keep calling her over
Until they don’t notice
And she comes to me again

This time her hand to her ear
Whether there really is a phone there
I can’t tell

She says,
“Yeah mommy
I really just want a quarter for some candy
Uncle J won’t give me one
And daddy isn’t listening
I wish you could have stayed in San Diego longer
I miss you already
Can you tell daddy to give me a quarter?
Are you coming back soon?
Mommy
I still want to talk to you
Just a quarter
Just a minute
Don’t hang up
K?”

I know this is barely halfway between Halloween and Christmas
I also know how long that sweetness really lasts
Not nearly long enough
And as supplies dwindle
It all becomes bitter

I leave a few quarters on the bench where I was sitting
Act like I don’t notice they fell out of my pocket
She acts like she doesn’t notice them there
We watch each other like adults watch the washing machine timers
So no one steals their property when they ding

I leave
And she does whatever she does
And that sweetness
Never lasts

There is nothing more exhausting
And equally refreshing
As crying yourself to sleep

I know this in how much lighter you feel when I hold you

In all that racket
And shaking
And heaving till you are breathless
Something heavy fell out of you

The dust that settles in your lungs needed to be shaken out
It’s okay if it made your tears muddy
Pain is *****
Life is *****

Even when god made us
It was from earth
Damp earth

For all we know
In the loneliness of space
And its coldness
And lack of light
God cried himself to sleep one night
And made us
By accident
From the dirt that settled
On the days he needed to be breathless
And he wasn’t lonely anymore

And you
You don’t have to be as lonely any more
I can hear you
And see you

I understand the sound of weight shedding
Pounds lighter till you can walk head up again
Without gravity workin’ overtime
On your heart
And eyes
And hands when
I try and Heimlich-hug
The heart stuck in your throat

You can never really see anything as clean
Until you see it at its dirtiest first
Because in the end
All we have is the mess that we leave behind
Leave your dirt behind
Where we’re going
We won’t need  it

Hope there’s someone
Standing like a statue
Cold and silver eyed angel
Waiting
I will kiss his feet
And rest my head on his shoulders
The nights he is kind enough to hold me

The floor of the middle ground
Is the softest earth I know
And I sink slowly as I walk
Not even faith will keep my feet above it

It is a vast expanse of lonely
Damp air but otherwise waterless
This is the place my prayers go
I can hear them like landmarks
Echoing my fears back to life

Home is the distance of a sunset
That never changes
Always in my sight
And always sets so far away

I savor it
And I hope there’s someone
Who will hold me
The nights I get so tired
I risk the earth’s hungry swallow
And give up

There’s a man on the horizon
Statue silver eyed angel
And there’s you on every horizon
I miss you

I am afraid of this place
Wasteland of mistakes
And picturesque landmarks of nightmares
You on every horizon

I don’t want to go
Wherever he is leading me
it is not home

You are home
You are sea sick waterbed *******
Fire sizzle sweat steam
Damp rag soaking up my deathbed
Perfect balance to my off kilter dance steps
You are home on the days I give up
And sink into whatever broken bed I have made this time
You are love in the long hours of insomnia
Head in crook of neck
Even though I know my collar bones aren't comfortable
You are sweet smelling
Rough around the edges
But still so much softer than me

And I hope there’s someone
To hold me
When I am tired
When I die
Because I am scared of that place

I don’t want to go