My heart can’t hold
True
To anything

It has been rumored that if you hold someone long enough
Their heartbeat will match yours

If this were the case you would have seen me for who I am by now

Hearts are ugly blood pumping engines
Keeping us alive

I’d like to say you keep me alive
But you don’t

And if this works out and I lose you some day

You won’t

I mean
I am tired of the love poems
About the longing
And the passion
And the
If I had you’s

Love happens in stages

That is stage one

And you are stage two
After we drop the five acre metaphors
All forming like words from the mouth of a man
Who is still learning how to swoon something honest
Still learning what it means to make things right
Still listening for the flaws in his passionate stutter

I have counted them all
Made notes on my own
So let me learn yours
So I can write about
The years of learning

The study of your mistakes
I will write them beautiful
Even if they’re really bad
Even if they make you really mad

Woman
I know I am broken
If I can’t change me
Then you can’t change me
I will write about your stinky feet if I want to

Maybe they’ll smell like the miles you
Walk on sunny days
Because you’re trying to lose weight
Maybe they’ll smell like losing weight
And therefore
At least for you
It will be beautiful

I will always think you are beautiful

And stage three is when you finally leave me for good
Even if we have been broken up for years by now
You leaving
Is you leaving
Is your heart finally failing at doing what hearts really do
Because if me holding you causes mine to beat like yours
Then I’d be leaving too

Here is the truth
I have been told
The heart is deceitful above all things
This is the truth

And I or you will be left
To pick up the pieces
Still alive
Still breathing
Still bathing in the stages of love

But I am still stuck in stage one

And you beautiful future deathbed lover
Are stage two

In a sea of lost souls
I can’t believe you haven’t found me yet

I mean
I’ve never seen so many people
Get so close to each other without touching

And I want so badly
To tattoo in thick black letters
Over my heart
The word

FOUND

This is for the people who
Are still waiting to be found

For the boys who thought they had her heart
and lost it

This is for the bravery of trying
For the bravery it takes to let someone hurt you
On a chance that they won’t

This is for the bootstraps
Caked in the dirt that you fall in
For how white your knuckles get in the rising

For the ones who have something to give
But think they have nothing to give

For the ones who have nothing to give
And try and give anyway

You will always have something to bring to the table
If you are willing

This is for the ones who’s walls of strength
Are so thick
They can’t feel the touch
So it doesn’t have to hurt when they see you leaving

Press harder
Press until you hit the soft
Find something worth holding

You are worth holding

The game of tag and all its variations
Were just preparation
For the time you spend hiding your heart diligently
Until you see the joy in being found

Know
If you are reading this
I found you

Which means it’s your turn
To find someone else

I know it takes courage
To touch someone
In a world where no one touches

But you did it once when you were a kid

I know you have doubts
I have doubts

I don’t see in me any of the things people see in me
I own a mirror
I mean ****
I shave me
No one knows how ugly this mess gets better than I do

But *******
We have got to be found

Know this is the year you do everything right

Ask someone to dance
Show them how they’ve been swimming all wrong
In this sea of souls where everyone feels so lost

Even Christians have to find Jesus
A man who can only save them
After he is found

I challenge you
To write a letter to a stranger
Telling them you’ve secretly loved them
Remain anonymous
Only send one

Hold a door open for someone

Smile like you do when you read a message
From someone you care about
And don’t realize you’re doing it
Until one of your ******* friends asks why you’re smiling like that

Smiling is ****
I promise

Do stupid things every chance you get
You’ll become a good story teller
It will make you interesting

Shake the dust from your tired shield
Let your walls fall like the crumble was healthy
You do not need walls in wide open places

Know whatever you have been made to believe
You should always love like you’ve never been hurt
You should not be afraid to be hurt

Know
Love is yours
If you want it

Want it
I dare you

Tag

I found you

Now find someone else

The snuggles and the kisses stopped the pain for only so long
Until one day
They didn’t stop a thing

Around the time you stopped using the word snuggle
Around the same time you tried calling her Carol instead of mom

Around the same time you learned
If you lick your own wounds
You heal just as quickly

We are practiced in healing
The small miracle of single cell resurrection
And finding enough blood to fill the deepest heart fissure

And sure
You scar up sometimes

But we are also practiced in remembering
Everything but the pain itself
You can’t physically remember pain
But you can-recreate it

Unless you’re practiced in remembering
Then you won’t

The sound of you chewing broken glass

The way it crunched beneath your feet after the mirror broke

The best way to get blood out of clothes is
To accept that you can’t

On good days
You are a gumpy smiled
Heavy footed
Head hanger
Curls that branch out like leaves
So much weight your neck branch hangs heavy

And I know there are days you want to die
Like Friday

And I’m glad you are still afraid enough of leaving
That you got your palm instead of wrist

In the tremble
In the passion

We wrestled on broken glass
Until I pinned you down
I’ve never had someone else’s blood on my face before
It tasted metallic and warm
Sprayed a fine mist when I blew it from my lips

Every page in every book
Remembers the tree that it came from

We stole life from the same tree
So many of our pages come from the same story

Of father who left mother
But came back to care for sick son
And made you

Thanks to me
He made you

I think how crunching glass
Sounds so much like ice breaking
And how cold the floor we both lay on is

And how you kept saying

I want to go home
This isn’t right
I hate you
I hate you
I just need to go home

To keep calm
I remind myself how some people
Chew with their mouth open
Sometimes
They chew on glass

Ps. I also have to take a ****
He says

It’s what best friends do
They tell you things you don’t want to hear

Like
Ps. You’re being a ***** right now
We both know how badly you want to
Just ******* kiss her*

You are sandpaper laughter
So much grind in my double over we both tear up

This is the stuff I’ve been trying to tell people
For at least 12 years now

How we are so good at following each other’s lead
We get lost in the process and crash into a heaping mess
Of what the ****

Like when I pretend to be gay Christopher Walken
And you are his best friend some Australian guy
And the whole room laughs like this was a joke

I have stenciled SAFETY in microscopic letters
Around the outside of your mattress
For the days I can’t sleep at home

For days where rest
Is the warmth of 3 blankets and a room heater inside your freezing granny flat

You satiate my soul
Like the 12 packs we **** alone in one sitting

Inside your throat
There is a harmonica exhale
Tuned to the key of gritty

It was designed by people who have learned
The true definition of lonely
And It calls to them a song that has only one word

FOUND

I feel found in your ***** harmonica voice
It gets me
Plays my song when slow dancing alone
With my beer belly is all I need for company

You so much an ambidextrous best foot forward
That you occasionally forget which foot is your best
So you remember where your heart went
Always the right place

We might be a cacophony
Of whale farts
and silly accents
and ***** mouthed prayer
to everyone else who meets us

But I have only ever loved amazing people
And I love you

Ps…………. I hope you pooped well

Corduroy
by far
is the sexiest fabric

Zipper wisp you thighs a bit faster
You cat-call of body language

I wanna hear you coming

You are not a denim ******
Not cotton soft

My hands are rough
Let me feel your texture
Of parallel lines that go all the way up

Let me lose your button

You can find it later
Keep your innocence like that bear
In that children’s book you might read
To your own kids someday

Corduroy is ugly
So are we

Has texture
So do we

Is made from finely twisted fibers
Like DNA

Corduroy makes me sweat
Literally

And figuratively
If
We were trapped under a blanket of it
And could not tell the difference between

Scar tissue and fabric
Hair and fabric
I will have to bite you to notice the difference

Unless you holler like corduroy
A sound you could beat me with

Then we would just be a transcendental blanket
Of
This should be burned later

So
When I tell you
I think you’re **** like corduroy

It’s a compliment

Paint splashes of dirt on the bathroom floor

Kyle coats the room with war paint

He shakes dirt from his ****
and it splatters walls with childhood

This is when being ***** was a good thing
When showers were a chore

He is still muddy when he steps from the tub
Pigeon chest protruding like a plate of armor

She is not mad at Kyle
His smile is a saving grace

She is practiced in spit baths
And spankings that didn’t hurt
Only scared him

Kyle is a little warrior
With long skinny arms
And long skinny legs
And a smile like a lighthouse

She ruins a white towel
Is rough when she rubs the dirt away
Pays much attention to his ears

Kyle knows this is pointless
She knows this is pointless

It’s what boys do
They get *****

And mothers
Can only do so much
Acknowledge that they are helpless to the process
Of becoming a man

Kyle will always find ways to get *****

She won’t always clean up his messes

But parts of her
Will always want to

1
If unicorns were real
I can’t imagine much would change

I might own one
Get high on the finely chopped fibers of fur
Collected from his grooming

And when girls ask me how I came to be so sweet
I’d tell them how I was ***** once by my unicorn

How some sorts of sticky sweetness haunt your soul forever

2
In the second grade
I swore I had dinosaurs living in my backyard

This is after I swore that I actually had a backyard

Never mind the hand-me-down t-shirts
So big I often exposed a boney shoulder

I had the strangest tan lines then

3
Under my bed was a cave
Where the boogeyman taught me
I should be more afraid of my father’s feet at the entrance
And less afraid of things I could not see

In the shifting dark I could have been anywhere

Anywhere was somewhere
My father’s claws could still not get me

4
For the longest time I thought my grandmother’s ghost
Haunted me
I’d often wake to the smell of her musty home
Mixed with her perfume
and the sweet scent of the soft earth she often tended

Until one day I didn’t notice her anymore

Ghosts are the parts of the people we miss
When our stupid brains are still learning how to deal with loss

I’d like to say that once I finally stopped missing her
She was free to leave earth for heaven

I don’t believe in heaven

5
If god were real
And I could live forever by his side

I would still break everything
From bones to hearts

Because I can’t live for tomorrow
I need to live for today

6
As a man
I still tell stories in order to get people to like me

So
When my unicorn finally dies
Or majestically sacrifices himself
For my sake

I will grind him down to glitter
And unicorn glue
(Which is very strong)

I’ll make a sign so big you can see it sparkle from space

I was here *******

And this is how I will live forever

I let the towel drop and heard the first bird chirp of the morning

Strands of gold melted through the blinds
They warm my skin

It felt good to feel the warmth without actually being touched

Eyes shut
I find myself leaning
praying for the pressure of fingertips

I put my clothes on
Outside a cacophony begins
I think about the fabric of my clothes
How I don’t even notice what it feels like to wear them

I am more aware of being naked

I have been naked in front of you

And now I wonder how long it will take
Before I forget what your fingers felt like

I think of the birds outside my window
I think they live in the orange tree

Their sporadic music sounds like fear to me
Sounds like stress
Sounds like
What you do after you’ve put your ear to the ground
And have heard the rumble coming

I heard the rumble coming
And I waited for it purposely
Just so I could have a little more time

You are the most beautiful stampede
To have ever pummeled me

And to be honest

It felt good to be touched like that

My heart was in spin cycle and I knew she would hang me out to dry
Michael tells me

Tells me
I knew she would find someone to fill the gaps I couldn’t fill*

Dear Michael,

You knew this was going to happen from the start

But it felt good while she let you hold her
when her past came back to haunt her

How your arms felt like the biggest arms
And your heart felt like the biggest heart
And you felt like a man

A real man
Who can make her feel a little less lonely
Until someone comes along who’s better at it

She tells you about him

Tells you how funny he is
And charming
And about his mini crooked sailboat dimples

You are better than he is
You are better than the wind ******* back his cheeks

And you know what?

You’re brave for trying
Brave for giving someone else the weight of your arms
Brave for the buckle of legs when you saw them kiss
And wished he was you

You are so much better than that

And you’re brave

So don’t walk away from this
A lonely casualty
Or a martyr

Wring your heart out red again
Til your body is a fortress fire pumping passion
Into swollen arms so heavy
They dangle like chains

Let them know they can weld around anybody
But not just any body Michael

Not just any body

And not hers

I know
It doesn’t feel good

But boy

You’re so ******* brave

I can sleep on her thighs if she’d let me

Hear the ache in her hips when she moves

She is a body of bricks crumbling
Succumbing to the soft

It is my head pressed to the wall of her belly
Her hand on my face
Like a shield from the noise
Of her bombing

She is a fort
Still standing
Months after the ***** ricochet
And I know I could sleep safely there

She tells me I’m cute when I’m comfortable

I want to tell her she feels like shelter

Want to tell her I haven’t slept well in months

From nights where I drink til my eyes shut proper
Nights where this bed is one person too close to being empty
Nights where I wake up from dreams
Heart so heavy
I sink into staring
And don’t go back to sleep

I want to take refuge there
On thighs like trench walls
Hatched with bed post notches
From lovers who have lost

I don’t need you to love me
I just need to know what it’s like

To sleep in safety

To the simple minded man
This day would have been like the rest

Would have been an overdone steak dinner
Alone

But he plays a broken bone remix
Of ex-lover’s gritted teeth

It is the click in his jaw over steak
That reminds him of the gnashing

He nurses a beer
In between helpings

But there’s always the click
A painful metronome
For past music
When he was capable of lapping the language out of her mouth

Days when he was all noise
Like a hallway echo
Or a fist through drywall
Or a nightmare gasp

But now all he needs is the cotton he eats
To soak up the sound

So he won’t have to listen to himself keep sayin’

There used to be this growl my gut made
For your bitter music
When we choreographed a collision
Of bone
And breath
And teeth that touched when I still thought I wasn’t pressing hard enough

The masticating click
Reminds him of her smile

It hurts his jaw
And his memory
But he continues making her painful sound
Like it might actually bring her back

And it does a little
Just for today

And tomorrow?

Tomorrow is too far away

There is a woman I know and she speaks like she is dreaming

The fog in her throat pools on her tongue
It pulls me in and I wonder if I’m dreaming too

Wonder at what age my voice will be like hers
So gentle I listen carefully
Like what she is saying will eventually make sense

Like listening to that high caterpillar
Talk in tongues
And dancing language

I wish she were my grandmother
So visiting her at the nursing home wouldn’t be weird

A woman who looks like a coffee stain in red lipstick
offers her a ride back
Though it is walking distance

She takes the smoky dreamer’s bags
And leaves
Says she’ll help her with the bags at least

I’m so confused
Where are my bags?

I remind her not to worry

Oh I feel so lost sometimes
But everything feels familiar too
I’ll feel better after a nap maybe

This is déjà vu backwards

Like walking into an empty room
Still expecting to see you there
I still get surprised sometimes

I put my hand on her shoulder

She talks in dreams
And childhood mornings
Of stereotype
Of longing
Of knowing
That any day she’ll forget again

I still have to remind her my name
Even though she smiles when she sees me

Like
Why does this boy make me so happy?

And just like in dreams
Whenever everything makes no sense
You realize your dreaming
And then everything does

Justin looks at me from over the counter
He keeps his face in profile
Stops to pace

You know it just ***** because
I can’t see all of me
So I don’t know how to fix it all
It’s like the moon
It can’t see all of itself either

He nods his head as if he’s agreeing with his own thoughts
He steps aside so I can ring people out
Still paces
Still nods his head

Jon,
How do I get girls to like me?
I’m strong and nice,
But what if that’s not enough
Because I can’t see all of me like they can
Ya know?

I know
So tell him that I am still trying to figure that one out myself

I can see all of you
That’s why I come

To him
People are ***** you can hold
Glowing ***** of light
We pulse like stars

And this whole time I thought there was something wrong with me
Because I’ve felt it

Feel it when
Halfway through performing a poem about my brother
I burst into tears

Or how sometimes
I just want someone to touch me
Run your hand across my belly

There is a sun
Swirling fire in my breastplate
I just want someone to see it

It is made of
Fortified bone flint
And the slow breath made between lips while kissing
And is coated in palm skin
Because the only thing I’ve ever been good at
Is holding people proper

And I am happy to hear someone sees it

Sees me as a man
With a decent heart
And a sun in his chest

Even though I spend half my time ******* up

Everything

I tell him this

Justin,
I only know one thing to tell you
It’s the only true thing I’ve ever learned

As long as you want to be better
You will be

And
As long as you want someone to love you
*Someone will

She smothers me with her words of desire
So I kiss her to stop it
And choke

I choke on her words
Choke on her soft tongue
Like a vicarious seizure

Put a wallet between our bear traps
So that I might catch my breath

Her lips brand my brain
With short circuits
So I stutter responses

And if she were any less beautiful
Or I could somehow be gay
I might actually have enough confidence

To say
Shut up and bring them gnashers my way

It’s okay if you bite
I like it rough

And
Already I can barely breathe
Suffocating under a blanket of words

I can smell the alcohol on her breath
As she speaks
As if her words could be any less flammable

Makes me wish I could drink gasoline without dying

Do you hear that dark room dancer?
You liquor breathed torpedo tongue
You cat eyed lighthouse
Reminding me where I want home to be?

You make me want to drink flammable liquid just to compete

I pull her close
Like the gentle slam of a car door

Are we dancing?
Or swimming?
Or drowning?

Go ahead **** me with your words

I give up

David is so much ****** origami by now

It is 4 am and I find him folded to the floor
A cigarette in his mouth
He is trying to stand

He is immune to his sleeping pills
But we can’t give him more

So he wakes dreamily to smoke

He breaks things

He broke things

Threw me through a plate glass window once

I carry him to the couch

Don’t ******* touch me
I can walk *******

I take the cigarette from him and finish it

I don’t smoke

I wipe the blood from his nose
And the torn shreds of skin peeling from his paper arms

I think about what people have said to me
About how abused kids abuse what they can

I wonder how I will hurt the people I love
When it finally comes to that

When loving me back is dangerous

I tuck him in tight enough so that he might not get up
The rest of the night

He laughs to himself

Maybe he hasn’t stopped dreaming

I’ve never wanted to hurt anybody

Even him

Especially because

I don’t love him

You’ve got rain falling down your cheek

You natural disaster

Dressed in a slow building thunder storm

You’re too strong to cry
So I know that those heavenly heaves
Are just tornadoes beating in your chest
Winds whipping away heartache

Know you can discard your debris here

Because when the smoke clears
And your coal corrupts the sunset

I can lay beneath you
Point out the stars on your back
Imagine that home is ******* to the right
And ******* down
From your left shoulder blade

Laugh for me a hallelujah of thunder
So I know how much longer this will last

I am helpless beneath you

Not enough sun in my smile to clear it away

I mean

I am glad the last time
Your cheeks were wet
It was raining

It’s a different kind of helpless

Because we accept it

And if we were children
It might have been easier

How telling you your rain tastes like tears
That won’t kiss away

Is like saying
Okay
You perfect storm
You natural disaster
You lungs filled with cold front
Breath the sweetest fog I can’t see your face through

You are only raining again

*And this too shall pass

I want to make love to you violently

I want to put my hands on you

I have been told that I am a good lover
Because of the way I use my hands

Forgive my fingerprints
I am still learning how to be gentle

And

I want to ******* like a crime scene

So much DNA evidence in the aftermath
We both come like ******

It is your hair
And skin
And sweat

In my nails
And teeth
And sheets

I have never done things gracefully

But I have learned that loving proper
Is not seen in how well you say grace
But is seen in your willingness to sit at the table

I will dine on you

Leave my sweet tooth in your naval

You can scar up my empty spots

Until this hardened tissue
Becomes the secret cuneiform of regret
For all the ways I didn’t love you
When I had the chance

Now’s my chance
To love you like a vagrant fire in a forest
When I was busy building homes
At the base of your volcano

These hands are practiced
in callous
in rough
in firm grip steel kettle fire without the wet rag

And I want to put them on you

Until none of this makes sense

Dear poet,

Dear ***** talker of some unrequited nasty,

Dear slow admirer,
Noticing my detail like a detective

Twist this halo into handcuffs
And love me already

Or don’t

I’m not real

And if I were

I’d hate to be her

You perfect pitch psalm sayer
Waxing generic

Quit the verbal dance

And dance with me

I am glad you know I’m not perfect

I am as faulty
As a topographical map of California

This body is chills

Is goosebumps

Is legs that were soft yesterday

Kiss them

Prickle your cheeks

Does your beard know the difference?

Do you?

Do I feel like scented sandpaper love notes
Still stained with a kiss?

I know I might just be squid ink to everyone else

But you dear poet

Dear detective
Black lighting my flaws into glowing beauty

Put your lips to my stains

They still taste like stains

You made them

You made me

You made me Dear Poet

Stop talking

And take me

1
Pete sets off the alarm as he walks in the doors
Tells me his new heart must be talking to the machines

He talks like Jimmy Stewart was from Boston
All elbows
While I am bruised ribs

Vera sounds like an airplane concession cart
With all the right liquor

Her faded blue walker
Drowns out her sighs

Maybe it’s her knees
I am not sure

2
Before our bodies blend
And I am part appliance

I want to love your sound

If your navel were a ****
I might turn your soft belly
Into a music box

So I could listen to your heart
Through your ribcage
After I bury my head there

Put me to sleep with your
Human sound

I want to hear the rust in your hips
With my head on your lap

The sweet sound of our lively decay

There is no better music
It is simple

Like my name
You can still say it while being punched
In the gut

You breathless barbarian

Just dance with me
Until it is all that we have

To know we’re still human

Dance like flames
Without the fear of swelling joints

Dance like waves trying to break the boardwalk

Dance for your future fake hips

Just dance

3
We link arms as we walk

Even through your jacket
I can tell how soft you are

I want to tell you about our footsteps
How when we are old
And we both have canes

When walking down hallways with linoleum floors
I know we will sound like the saddest horse

So I tell you that I will still love you
Even after our bodies are made into glue

You know me well enough by now
That this is just me being sweet

I kiss you goodbye
Listen to your car’s engine hum

It is so quiet
You might actually hear me sigh

When the sound of you driving away
Sounds like the horsepower of one sad horse
On his last three legs

Like
One sad old lady

Even if we’re just friends by then

I won’t forget
The sweet music of our decay

I know I’ve always said
I’d make a better puppy than a man

Run your fingers through my face fur again
You sweet demon

I always walk away like the ending of a bad movie
With a dusty roaded hitchhike thumb

Only I can drive myself home

I know I am so much smiles
And bad words

I like bad words
They feel good

So much passion in them
Like a Tourette’s prayer

Let me sing your song of profanity
Like a compulsive howl at the moon

I mean,
This poetry is so much sound

That I might make a better wind instrument
Than a man

My lungs feel like a one way accordion
When you smile because of me

You perfect pedestrian
Dressed in slow moving smoke signals

Push all my buttons again

It won’t matter what keys you press
I am always loud, obnoxious, bitter music

Off key like the ***** twang
Of my harmonica exhale

Nothing pretty comes from this

Even the music

I’ve read between these lines
Enough to rewrite paragraphs and pages

Each version
There’s still you in the middle

Still you at the end

And If I were a man

A good man

I’d pick up the confetti
That falls

All inked up bits of paper
From words I chewed and choked on

Trying to tell you

If I were a man

I’d love you like one

I know I’ve always said
I’d make a better puppy than a man

Run your fingers through my face fur again
You sweet demon

Touch my face

I always walk away like the ending of a bad movie
With a dusty roaded hitchhike thumb

Only I can drive myself home

I know I am so much smiles
And bad words

I like bad words
They feel good

So much passion in them
Like a Tourette’s prayer

Let me sing your song of profanity
Like a compulsive howl at the moon

Or we could *******
Or something

I dunno

I just feel more like an animal most days
More than I ever do a man

Touch my face again
With your rough love

And then I can walk away

Robert comes in and tells me about how a bunch of his classmates killed his teacher
It was a freak accident
He says her baby died too
His eyes are deep brown wells
That drain when he is confused

I don’t understand
So I call his school

It was raining
A truck carrying steel poles for construction
Lost one on the road

At the same time that she never saw it coming
She saw it coming

I ask him why he thought that
And he tells me that he goes to the Freak School
And freaks have accidents all the time

When steel meets steel
There is always a fire
Always a spark
Always pressure
Snapping
Grinding
Melting to make harder

The process of building is violent

When he is upset he smashes things
Maybe in the same way people who want to learn
Take things apart

It is in the putting back together
The we understand what it is to be whole

He smashes his own head through a wall
So I hold him violently
His head hits mine and my nose bleeds

Every fight I have ever been in
My nose has bled

With my arms around him
I slide his boots off with my feet

His feet are large
He lumbers with them

I hold him as still
As I can

He hits his head again
Maybe so someone will
Put it back together

He says
Why is Emily so mean to me?
Sisters are just supposed to love their brothers
Sisters are just supposed to love their brothers

I call him Bootsie
Tell him I love him
Though I am squeezing him so hard
He passes out

He apologizes two days later
I tell him
Brothers are always supposed to forgive their brothers

I toast to him in my head

Here’s to becoming whole

Allan keeps forgetting that his knees are sacred
There is not always solace granted from the bodies he prays to
Neck craned howls for love
Some deity’s fingers running through his hair

Allen is not good looking
And he forgets that no one ever hated a man
Who wanted good things for other people
Forgets that true beauty lies in the hands
And is seen by what they do

Your hands are beautiful
She said,

They can buy someone coffee
When it’s cold
They can make people warm

They do more than his mouth can

They speak languages
Entire languages

In the 7th grade
Christy Turtch slapped him once
For making eyes at another girl
It made his face warm with pain
His eyes wet
Allan bought her flowers
Glued googly eyes to the petals
Gave her a note
See. Only ever had eyes for you.

What Allan doesn’t know yet
Is that to get into heaven
Peter checks knees for scars
Checks hands for beauty
Checks eyes for everything else

Allan’s knees look like the moon
From the ways that he prays
Spotty gravel craters
Dimpled with the fear of
Maybe I won’t feel so lonely this time

His hands can hold someone’s head
His own head
Can make someone fall asleep with them
Can hold them so tight
It keeps them from leaving

Allan keeps forgetting

He pushes against the ground to stand
Brushes himself off
Wipes his eyes
And smiles
He forgets

“It’s like a hand grenade,” he says,
“You only have so much control
But it is your responsibility to throw it out there”

This is poetry
This is my soul
These are my words
Shrapnel shards of
I shouldn’t be telling you this about myself
Let me pack them in

Pray I hit home
Hit you with burning chunks of truth
Burn you with passion
My passion
My stutters
Let me infect you with my
Poorly written prose

The only thing I ever wanted was for you to feel me
You feel me?

Do you feel this?
Do you?

Be honest
Because this metal will burst once the pin is pulled
And these fingers will tremble once the words are read
And I just don’t want to be lonely

I don’t want to fall asleep every night
Half drunk
With no one to hold
Maybe
Squeeze like a worry stone

Soak up my fear
You beautiful aftermath
Of word craters
And ink splatters

Let me stain you with a happy accident
Of simple passion
With the words you were looking for
So you can finally explain how you’ve felt

Know
I’ve felt that way too

It’s what I do
I feel sometimes

So take this
Ticking time bomb
Of bitter patience
And the need to be accepted
And the need to be useful
And the desire to be better

BOOM

You feel me?

This isn’t so much giving up
As it is the shedding of weight

He kneels down in a bedroom that isn’t his
He sleeps on borrowed furniture
Elbows on the edge of a twin bed
He wishes there was a body there
Any body

There are some things he needs to let go

There is always going to be a girl with your heart
And your veins wrapped around her fingers
Curling up her arms
Like vines on a trellis

Let her go

He knows that being good looking is 20 percent physical
The rest is all you

Sometimes weird things make him sad
That’s cool
Anything your body does without your permission
Is natural
You’re human
Get over it

Get over
The cancerous residuals
And the fear of silence
Between two people
When all you want to do is stare

Stare if you want to
Be charming
He knows he can be charming
If he smiles right
If remembers to be honest

Be honest with me
Lonely boy
Fearful stranger to self
Little lover of the things that get left behind

Admire the broken patchwork of your poetry

You are not a naysayer
You are a yes man

Yes
Hesitant kisses
Yes
Knee buckle trembles
Yes
Loving with the lights on
With the fire burning
Say yes to the breaking

You are not being broken
You are refining your badly built artwork
Molding your eyes less somber

Do not be somber sweet child

Stand like gravity is your slave
Bow down to nothing

Unless you want to

There are some things that require kneeling

Your knees are sacred
Use them only to make things better
To show honor
To shed weight

He knows this is not giving up
As much as it is shedding enough weight
So he can stand again

I want to stumble into you
Like the locked door at the end of the hallway
The one with the sign that doesn’t say
DO NOT ENTER
As much as it says
I ****** DARE YOU

And I dare
I dare to devour your deviance
Like a grungy punk rocker on a microphone

Head shake tongue wag cartoon coyote horn howl

What?
I have no discretion
Leave the lights on
I want us both to see why we taste so bad

I mean
Let’s pound like pistons
Until the oil dries up
And our engines seize

I have nowhere to go

I do not want to go home tonight
I want to sloppy seconds myself
Before passing out
With my head in the crook of your neck

Even drenched in sweat
You smell so sweet

I want to kiss you
I want to taste your body’s attempt
To cool what I do to you

I want to heat you up again

I bought the clapper and unplugged everything else
Just so you could tell me to ******* like a strobe light

Well
Gorgeous
Now I can

Come place your lips on my throat
And I will sing for you

You are so much more beautiful than I could ever be
Let me know what that feels like
By wanting me back

This gentle ache
Of dancing
And drying joints

I wonder if you’ll still be this **** when you’re old

I ask because I have lost any desire for grace

I have fallen from it

And want to stumble into you like a locked door

Fumble for the house keys

Might actually make it inside

If you took your hands off me

I don’t know his name
He is drunk
Eye bags swollen
Loosening jowls
And feisty

He asks if I am working hard

I tell him I am doing my best

He says I am a liar

Your best is for scientists to decide days after you die
And they map out your life until they find that one day you actually were
You can only be your best once young man
Do you really want it to be today?

I don’t want it to be today

I can be better

There is too much beauty in the potential of kissing

And I am still healing from the fighting

Am ready to fight some more

There are engines revving in my bones
A takeoff of fire
And the shaking of dust

I wanna leave this life so *****
From mud
I’ve been dragged through

Be ******* me dear life
Dear lover
Dear friend

I smile and sell him his beer

He nods his head
Puts a cold paper hand on my check
Tells me I am so much better than this

I am so much better

White painted lines on grey asphalt
The paint makes the gravel smooth
Andy knows them
Even at 60 miles an hour can count them
Like a stutter that is so fast it almost flows

There are humming birds
Beneath his breath
His breath is a sweet nervous wind

She wants to hold him
Like a nervous lover
Shivering in a warm room
Because her breath cools his sweat

He is skinny
Xylophone bone ribcage of hollow log thump

He counts the specks of rust in her green eyes
Without her noticing

Th th ththththth er’s th irty five five five five in your left eye

His hands play an invisible piano
Body a snake smooth sway in the wind

When she kisses him
She knows
By the way his hands move
And the nervous breath
And the blind sway

The only thing that’s really wrong with him
Is that there’s a song trapped in there

He looks out the window
White lines on grey asphalt
Andy counts them
And almost doesn’t stutter

He gazed at her face
In awe of her anthropomorphic beauty

He wants to surrender to her savagely

Come
Migrate your lips my way
Even if it’s just to devour
I want your mouth on me

He trembles
Skin tightens

More beast than human
Less beauty
More everything else

She is a dance floor
Splinter scuffed

He is so much sandpaper passion
That she might actually be smooth again

The way she howls scares him

The wearing down to perfect
Is painful

They both want something they can’t have

But press harder to find it

Teeth gnashing a ****** river

Her scars are ****
Battle bruises from lovers who have lost

He will not lose her this time
He will not lose

He wakes naked
Covered in earth

And the scent of her lingers
Something damp and warm on his mouth

He will not lose her this time
Not again

He thinks about the grocery bags
Crawling around the sidewalk
Like dying jellyfish

Thinks about sheets
And how cold the other side of the bed can get

You know most days I stand like a windmill with my mouth open
just trying to catch my breath
And I am just trying to get some sleep
And I want
You
To leave me alone

She kicks her feet into the air
Not knowing what feet are
Or why they move that way

Bits of white are breaking skin in her gums
Like a compound fracture of the jaw

Her fingertips are ****** from chewing

Her tears settle

He realizes we are not ones for not hurting
As much as we are ones for transferring pain

Your mother wanted me to get a goldfish
Or some plants before we had you
But I never saw the purpose in caring for
Something that is trying to die on me
As quickly as I am
And now
All I have is you

Her eyes are wet and glassy
Chin dimples like moon craters
She is so much softer than he is

He places the tip of his finger to her gums
She bites down
It hurts

But for whatever reason
He finally catches his breath

She laughs as I tell her how
The way she devours her stadium dog
Is so *******
I can’t concentrate

Only we are interrupted by
The crack of gunshot over an open plain

It is followed by a hoorah hurricane
So unison I stop trying to make her laugh

Think about the car ride later
And being stuck in traffic
And sliding gently into home

I want to tell her about years from now
Ninth inning deathbed passion
When my red seems finally begin to burst their cotton
About the splinters living inside of my hands
I was living with them inside of my hands

That’s why I was so rough sometimes
How the scotch guard kept the **** off of my knees

I loved to trace the outline of her ***** diamond
Until there were grooves in there
And my initials in her catchers mound

We are so much hoarse voices
Lost in the noise of ***** hands clapping

How I imagine
As I am sliding into home
In our shower
The soft patter of water on the curtain is stadium applause

Let me run grooves in your shapely pattern
Your laughter is a full circle homerun from heartache

Save me again sweet music
Open plain gunshot buildup
And then a noise so booming it is silence

And us
Ninth inning deathbed lovers
Gently sliding into home

The wind rushes the sound of
Horse powered hurricanes into his ears

He is silent as he drives to the beach
He is silent on the pier

He purposely gets himself lost sometimes
Tries to remember he parked his car at a nearby Denny’s

The boats bob helpless
But safe with their tethers

He eats a hamburger that he buys for 2 dollars
While walking by a company fundraiser for heart health

The man standing over the barbeque asked him if he was hungry
Neither said much else to the other

He eats slowly
Drinks slowly
Understands that everything happens slow when he is lonely

He characterizes himself through sighs that all say
Yeah I guess I should go now

He knows he shouldn’t be here
As if the salt air might rust his moving parts

But he sits on a bench eating a burger
And in his own silence creates osmosis
A space around his head so his thoughts dilute themselves
somewhere else

He plans on leaving them there
He thinks how this is an oil change for his soul
So he can slide back into his daily grind enough
To keep his pistons cool

How some days he needs the noise so much
He becomes obnoxious for laughter
And hungry for laughter’s love

He drives home perfectly empty

Gets lost along the way

Thinks about what it truly means for him to go home

Thinks he should have been there hours ago

Thinks of what it actually means to be better

And says to himself
People are never really lost
As much as they are
Arriving where they need to be
*Just a little late

The ****** tension between us is so terrifying
That if you were a praying mantis
You’d have eaten my head off by now

But you don’t
And maybe I’m mistaken

I mean
If we were naked mole rats
You wouldn’t care what I look like

Naked mole rats are blind

You can see well enough

And if I were an Indian Bull frog
I could croak
The same way I cough up cigarette smoke
When I see how beautiful you are when you smirk
At my burning dimple crow’s feet
And you would know
I wanted you

Turns out
I’m a gag reel of regrets
And should have saids

But if I could release pheromones  
From my butterfly wings
Like shaking dust from heavy clothes
After years of standing still
I would dance for you
And you would know

But you end our conversations the way sighs do

Maybe if the earthly population were at stake
I’d find words for this

Like the carnal cannibal black widow
You are eating up my insides
With all that goes unsaid

I might not carry your children in a watery pouch
But I would
Or I would Argonaut you a detachable *****
I would even serenade you with the cricket creak of rusty joints
A song that makes you whisper


I would do almost anything if I could
But I can’t

I just have this stupid poetry passion stutter

And you

I have you

Just maybe not the way I want you

You are so much bitter music you dancing devil
Like a last minute psalm for freedom
One that you have memorized so carefully
You don't recite it
You feel it
The buckle of your knees bends you beautifully in prayer
So many words in your perfectly timed gasps for air

Breathe on my neck again
Bitter sweet beer breathed passion
My fingers dance
Because I need so many ways to say unrequited
So many ways to say
Patience is something I can do without

And I stand still like a tree
Like the wrong tree
And I am barking up it

This is hot mess remix love
Through faulty filters
Burning up my coffee lung
Fingertip singe nailbite frustration

This is bitter music
Full of flavor for all the wrong reasons
A happy accident proximity
Of misunderstood gyration

Hands like dead tree branches
Fingertip curl to write
Sounds of late night windowpane taps

The songs dont match
Though the music ends at the same time
Shoulder shrug and careful backstep

My friends are waiting
It was nice meeting you I guess

You broken bone remix
Of passionate smile
Right foot forward fire
Perfect pitch like a ***** psalm for freedom

And bitter music

He wants to tell her of a story he read once
About that gorilla who could sign
And taught its baby to sign
How when the baby died
The flailing of her fingertips
And the movement of her hands
Said more about loss than anyone ever cared to know

She looks at him
Hot pho steam moistening her face
There is a man pacing outside the windows of the restaurant
It is a whole in a wall
In a small city
The city is *****
Next to the restaurant is a bar
They listen
Juke box bass hick thunder through the walls
She ***** a noodle into her mouth

“Is this a date,” she says
    If you want it to be
“It’s not exactly romantic”

He smiles
thinks about what it means to be romantic
Remembers the list with the boxes to check off
  Of will she **** me later

It’s all too generic
And we are so talented at romanticizing the trivial
That people forget how to be charming

He thinks of death-beds
And what she might say to him

Maybe it isn’t now. But later, you’ll remember this guy
And you’ll think of that weird place he took you to this one time.
It wasn’t exactly romantic.
But for whatever reason
You will remember me for doing things like this.

He wants to tell her of the gorilla
With the sad hands

His own hands tremble

He thinks of languages people spend lifetimes learning

She sips her water
Wipes sweat from her face
She smiles
It is beautiful when she smiles

He smiles too
Shivers as the doors open and the cold comes in

Maybe in some other universe
The words would have meant more to her
They would have made sense

He fills the silence with the sound of soup
She looks at him again
The thunder through the walls stops
And all he can think of
Is the gorilla who learned the language of love
And lost the need to use it

A cube of ice resting on my tongue

                       I inhale

                                    It cools my mouth

Press the cube against my teeth until it hurts
           Then gulp coffee and listen for the shatter

                                                        ­                       There is no sound

Only the understanding that pain has layers

                                                         ­           I can hurt in just as many ways as heal

Kiss me bitter devil

I know I will feel guilty when I leave you in the morning
                      
                                                                ­                   But I will leave you nonetheless

You loved the way my mouth tasted when it was cold
                                                
           ­                                                  You shivered

                                                       ­            From the kiss or the cold

                                                           ­                                                     I don’t know

But you shivered
               And I lied
                 So you would shiver again

                                                          ­   And you loved me like a liar


An ice cube on my tongue
                      I chilled you
                                   Killed you a little more than
                                                            ­                                 Le petit mort


Sometimes

                                            Cor­pses can have goose bumps

You cold again?
      Or did you see a ghost
                         After you found my side of the bed empty?

I never said I’d stay for breakfast

                                                   I never said I’d stay

                                                           ­                                                               Th­ere are just as many layers to hurting

As there is healing

                                                        ­         Sometimes I can’t tell the difference


Hurt me like a lover

Who is frigid and fearful

Until we temper our bones to burning

And listen for the shatter

It never comes

And I always leave
                                                           ­          First thing in the morning

I had never seen the truth turning into a graveyard
until it passed through my tombstone teeth to
sit in your ear like a ghost

These aren't sweet nothings
my sweet nothing

And you deserve much more than  the devil
living inside of my cheeks

This is the way truth sets us free

The same way a suckerpunch leaves us winded

I imagine that is how our souls leave us

But you try and explain that to a nurse
who is busy checking your mouth to be sure
you've taken all your medication

You know how you're supposed to live like you are going to die tomorrow
I say
How 'bout six months from tomorrow?

I really have tried everythin
including ******* down the backwash of a sunday baptism

It only tasted like fear

The kind of fear I don't need right now

We bought a casket

Plotted a plot

I got a tattoo of an expiration date on the bottom of my foot

No day or month
just this year

And you've been brave
saying
You are saving your tears for when I am not here anymore

And I honestly never saw how the truth could turn into a graveyard

Til we both started talking to each other

Like ghosts whispering all the things we never got to say in life

No matter how you look at it
I tell her
*The truth always feels like it's arrived too late

Dear Devil,

Thank you for sin

Thank you for beer and bad decisions

Thank you for encouraging me to steal that twenty

The old man dropped

It paid for pizza

Thank you for my first arrest

Thank you for my second arrest

Thank you for my ****

Thank you for teaching me how to make bad decisions

And how to be happy I made them

Thank you for selective hearing

When I know someone is begging for help

Thank you for my father’s fists

And my mother’s manipulation

I have taken both with me

And they serve me well

Thank you for inventing rock bottom

If I could fall forever

I’d be in hell already

Thank you for nooses made of bungee cords

I only blew out my knee when I hit the bottom of my dry well

And I gasped at the choke of where I found myself

Before I shot back out

Thank you for self inflicted sand paper refinement of my soul

The grass is always greener after you **** it

I am thankful to see it grow back

Thank you for showing me what not to do

So I can decide to be better

Dear Devil,

Thank you and,

PS

You are a really ****** friend

Being drunk is not cute

Drunk texting is not cute

Vomiting is not cute

Waking up next to a homeless man you were cuddling behind a bush in order to keep warm is not cute

Homeless men are not cute

Stealing a stranger’s phone so you can sneak away to the bathroom and take a picture of your ****

Is not cute

Drunk *** is not cute

But it is awesome

Crying after drunk *** is not cute

Crying during drunk *** is not cute

Crying is not cute

Despite whatever I have set myself to believe

I am not cute when I am drunk

I’m not even cute when I’m sober

And when I find myself

With head hanging halfway into a gutter

While leaning out of the passenger seat of my car

Looking at the chunks of red-orange

Sour and burning

I know it is just my body

Trying to rebuke my ***** mouth

That’s what my mouth looks like

When I say the things I do

And it is definitely

Not cute

Your lips tasted like smoke
From the buildings you watched burn
While standing dead center

Our bodies are practiced in the art of
Collapsing

If these walls could talk
They’d be livid from your laughter
And semi-suicidal for paint thinner
To cause just enough wither so the broken glass can finally fall out

I will gladly buckle at the backbone
Bulging out my belly to
Reveal all that beauty inside

If it means you’ll forgive me
You can take it

Because I am sorry seven ways to Sunday
Just seven days till Sunday
Seven chances not to **** up before
I have to beg for your forgiveness again

This is the church of falling apart

The church constructed of the things
Tempers make
I am one baseball bat bash away from being broken and saved

You might’ve told me you were trouble
I should’ve noticed
After I saw you smash a
Cinderblock through a car window
Just to take a pack of smokes from the dash

And you could have called my bluff
After I ****** your best friend behind your back
For the fifteenth time

Lemme catch your deer in headlights again
Because our last conversation wasn’t ****** enough
Lemme bend willingly into your bed
And fall into whatever mess we forgot to clean up the night before

Stop quaking my fault lines with your fingertips
I know laughter when I hear it
I can see your sneers in the dark

And I can light a match
Light a cigarette
Burn a house down

This is the church of falling apart

No one ever asked forgiveness while standing

The church where the shape of prayer is a ball
Hands clasped behind neck
Head between knees
And morse code  shivers

Signaling

I don’t really know why you hate me so much
But Please
Forgive me

My love looks scintillating on you my blue

With just a hint of black

When my rough love meets your tough love

And the two wear us smooth again

I mean

There has to be something to justify how ugly I am

Be ugly with me

And grind sandpaper skin

Til we can shake the shavings away after the sheets dry

You’ve always wanted to know what it looks like when ugliness leaves you

It looks like dust illuminated inside beams of light

After you’ve decided you’ve collected enough

How good did it feel

When you notched my bedposts with your vampire teeth

Dulling them down so that you couldn’t draw blood anymore?

Not even with your words?

You said that becoming human never seemed easier

Let me second chance

Your too tough tugs

With my lizard tail laughter

And I have two cheeks to turn if you need a third

My shoulder is only cold

Because neither of us know how to hold the other

Being

Beautiful

And Nice

And Capable

Take practice

So I am sorry I rub you the wrong way sometimes

Just that

This kind of black and blue

Looks good on you

And these faded bruises means

We’re healing

He knows he will never be smart enough

To do much more than lift heavy things

He is eighteen and struggles to read

And walks like the earth wants to stand him still

And always smiles Jagger lipped and crooked tooth

Regardless of the reason

He just likes to smile

And knowing all of this about himself doesn’t stop him from trying

Everything was born with the desire to be better

Haven’t you heard of squirrels trying to grow wings?

They can be seen gliding between trees with the hope of a true takeoff

Or birds that prayed to be human?

Birds that live as long as we do

And then they learned to speak

Or small brightly colored frogs that wanted to be as strong as giants

So they made their own skin poison

And other creatures learned to fear their beauty

He is afraid of his own reflection

Once threw a television through a window

While watching the reality show COPS

He watched a police officer be mean to a woman for no reason

I found him after the crash

Staring at the broken glass saying

“People aren’t supposed to do that to other people”

He knows he doesn’t know much

And is confused when everyone isn’t nice

He knows

You can keep a loaded gun and still trust everyone

If

Keep it in your heart

And

Use is to fire off adrenalin when you need to be fearless

He knows he is going to feel like a real man some day

Despite his everything

Nothing’s going to stop him from trying

Why does this have to be so difficult
When I just want them to like me?

Why does my mouth not stop when it’s supposed to
When I find myself being disgusting again?

I mean

If I really believed
And you had the chance to die in my name again
Would you?

I’m only human
There are like
Billions of us

And I was never kingly
Or knightly
Chivalry sounds like something you do when you stab someone
I’ve never stabbed anyone

How come you made all these other poets famous and not me?

Do they serve beer in heaven?
I like beer
But beer is bad for me
Am I bad for me?

What part of me does audacity come from?
How
I survived cancer
But somehow feel defeated
When I can’t get a phone number

I mean

I am only human
But am made from your image
And I know everyone says you’ve got a sense of humor
So I just wanna know what carnival mirror
I fell out of

Careless like a soda stain on an end table
Bitter like my mouth an hour after coffee

Why can’t I sleep at night?

Are ghosts real because I think my house is haunted?

If I was born to do something when will I know?

Or if there really are answers somewhere
Where should I go?

Is my life really just some kind of TV show?

Is it boring?

Is it long?

Is it going to be short?

Hey Hey Hey

Do you hear me?

If I truly believed
Would you tell me?

Because I know for sure I was built funny
My ears aren’t small enough to withstand
The bass drum boom
Of the things my heart keeps sayin?

Speaking with a sound
Like a train
Always heading forward
But never knowing
Really
Where to go

Show me your pastel shades in water colours

And hide your laugh lines in candle light

Please

Keep your grimace in your sneer pocket

No one wants to see your teeth

I know how sharp they are

I know your growl is so guttural

It is hunger

This canvas soaks up everything it touches

But can’t force anything to mix

There is no texture in your vibrancy

And too much in your shading

So much green in your jealousy

That no one is debating

I know what shades of orange to be

When I need to light a fire

What shades of grey to fill my mouth

When I need to be a liar

But you

Dear model

Airbrushed to centerfold

Show me

Your pastel shades

Where your humanity should be

Watercolour your water colours any hue of blue and green

Picturesque my sunset

And lay me on the grass

Between the fading of your daylight

And the dying of my earth

And don’t dandelion my locks

Because

I won’t turn to face your sun

Don’t dampen my clay

With whatever colorful tears you drip

Some things just never mix

Even though

They look so beautiful

Together

On paper

Come one come all

*** inside everybody

Please do

Fill yourselves and spill yourselves

Wet your dry spots with your wet spots

Don’t sweat the petty things

But please pet the sweaty things

Dance like a warped record stacked on a broken record

So you can gyrate over a Led Zeppelin ****** of

OOOHHHHYYYEEAAAH and it makes me wonder

Soak my curiosity in your nearly naked

Let’s walk away from this mutually *****

You cantankerous carnivorous man-eating jellyfish

Stumbling to engulf me in your morphine

Lying like amazing lovers do

“No

I won’t leave you in the morning

But it doesn’t mean I will ever love you

I just want you to feel me

You feel me?”

And you left at 4 am just after I passed out

Leaving me stuck with

The wings made of chain-link handcuffs and sheets

Going  from my wrists to my feet

Because you said you always wanted to make love to a butterfly

I thought I could be an angel

Or at least a stingray

So my venom might stay with you longer

But you left like I knew you would

Took the keys and I had to pretend I was wearing a white kimono

And because of the handcuff chain

I just started telling people I was the ghost

Of ***** lovers past

But you go ahead and go on back to your main attraction

I don’t mind workin’ side show

Standing like a man made *******

Pulsing at the thought of you potential

Waiting patiently like a secret

Verbal donkey show

Hollerin on the tail end of dawn

With a secret song on a broken record

When played backwards

“Don’t go”