When I lived in the hospital

Once a week a woman came and read to me

Then I read to her

And every week she asked me

what I wanted to be when I grow up

I always answered

With all the seriousness of a little boy

Who wanted to one day be a man

Could muster

“I am going to be a super hero”

The kind that can control the forests

so I could build everyone houses

Or be like Jesus with the fishes

so no one would ever be hungry

I wanted to be strong like my father was

I wanted to be brave

I told her how I was happy for the chemotherapy

Because  nuclear radiation usually only makes villains

Told her

How after the nurses injected me

My body felt like fire

And how I hoped

it would give me the power to control my body temperature

That way

If I ever held anyone

They would never have to be cold

And if you asked me now

What I want to be when I grow up

I’d tell you

I still want to be a super hero

I want to fight back the darkness

With all the strength of the sun

Or wrestle your demons

Or talk to animals

Even if it was just bunny rabbits

I’d find use for it

But I can’t do any of those things

I know we never become what we thought we would when we were kids

I don’t have a skylight calling me to action

Or extra senses alerting me to danger

I barely have my normal senses

I do have this though

A super power I call a cell phone

It’s always on

And I’ll always answer

Because

I at least got enough presence

To keep you from falling asleep alone

And enough spark in my heart to set my words on fire

Enough soul in the songs that I sing

To keep you from leaving again

Enough fat on my bones that I’m comfy to lay with

So if you’re lonely

Or tired

If you need a ride home

Or want me to back you in a fist fight

Or just need a friend

I have this magical thing that I call an ear

Mine

It listens so well

So pick up your super power I call a cell phone

And call me

Supposedly beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Which is super gay
So when I say you are beautiful
This is what I mean

You are beautiful in the same way
That the word, “believe” in sign language
Can translate to being married to your own thoughts

When a person sees something beautiful
Their pupils can increase up to 45 percent in size
I’m not high today I swear
Just that
You surprise me every time

Your left lung is smaller than your right
So it can make room for your heart
That’s just biology

And when they say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach
When people blush
Their stomach lining turns red too

Laughing lowers stress
A 7 year old can laugh almost six hundred times in one day
An adult
13 to 100
I want to make you laugh like we are 7 again

I was 7 once
I’ve had seventeen years practice since then

When you put a shell to your ear
What you are really hearing is the sound of your own blood
Rushing through your ears
There is a ******* ocean inside of you
That swells like lungs
And rushes a steady current of mostly
Unattractive creatures
You are like the bottom of the sea
All single celled and fight for life
In darkness

And maybe that doesn’t seem too beautiful
But you don’t really know what’s down there
Do you?

You are beautiful like old people
Who think you are sweet
Because you’ve had enough patience
To match their pace
“I don’t know when I got old” she said
“But I wasn’t ready. It took me ten years to figure this place out.
“I’m 94. I don’t have another ten.”
And she kissed me

Beautiful like poetry
When poetry hurts the most
When it gives you goose-bumps

And I bet if I stuck my arm inside a music box
To let my chilled skin pluck the metal keys inside
There wouldn’t be music
I am too soft
And it would hurt
But it looks like if I were hard enough
There might be
It would sound like chaos
The keys are beautiful
But the sound inconsistent

Beautiful
Like the collaboration of molecules
That understood pointillism enough to make me
But still experimental
So they gave me cancer
And I’m shorter than I want to be
And I am pretty sure they are laughing
About what they did to my brain
But my lungs are perfectly uneven
So my heart can pump oceans
So I can move and be stupid
And do things like tell you

You are ******* beautiful

Every thought I have is you

Even when I finally managed to stop involuntarily whispering your name,

On cold mornings

I see it on my breath

Like Carrol’s caterpillar

Askin’

Who

Are you?

That’s the problem

I already know who you are

Now I am tryin’ to forget

But I can’t

I made some promises that I need to keep

For instance

I said I would never let them bury you

And we somehow managed to find our way into burning buildings

I told you how I keep my heart in my throat to trap the air in my chest

So that I would stop gasping in your presence

I inhale smoke sometimes

And I cried

When they brought me your blackened breastplate

Heart still beating a fire

Looked like the sun

There’s a universe in you

And now it’s in me too

Gives off this light that is almost blinding

So that when I rub my eyes

The iridescent reflection of them on the back of my lids

Is the same color as yours

Same color as gasoline on pavement

Makes me wanna set this world on fire

Only way to stop seeing you everywhere

Like the ****** Mary

I saw you in my oatmeal

Heard you in a wind chime

Whisperin’ like the wind

Beggin me to consider life like a skipped heartbeat

You ****** me when you left

Forgot me like a puzzle

Soda stained on a coffee table

I got black holes in my universe

And now every thought I have is you

You are in every word I speak

In every sound I hear

Even my breath

spells your name

I keep your ring because it’s a fantastic memory
but what's a memory good for
if you’re never coming back*

It’s a mantra

Too many young people not living long enough
She says

It’s true

She tells me about how a boy
Was found dead in his car the day before
at a community college she goes to

She knows life is fragile
She feels it in the ache in her knees when it’s cold

Her eyes are painful
In their beauty
And understanding
Of the things our stupid bodies do

Our bodies are stupid

Insanely stupid

Cancer is the body attacking itself

And so often we can be cancer for ourselves

In the same way we love our livers
Just to feel numb for a while

Because I’d have never spoken to you
If I still wasn’t a little drunk the day we met

On dance floors
In bars
At house parties
We need something to give us an excuse to **** up

So we can blame it on the cancer
The kind that breaks the ice

This is me breaking the ice
This is me letting things go
This is me doing everything I can
To live for a living

I do a lot of stupid things
Just so I can tell a good story later

and in the end

Even if we get in our seventy
Punch out perfectly

It will not have been long enough

Just ask David
Who knows he will never naturally feel as good
As the coke
And the adrenaline pump of near death experiences

Tells me
About happiest day of his life
Was when his father for the first time
Taught him how to tie a fishing knot
Tells me his father’s hands were the kind of comfortably rough
That only certain men can earn
Rough from the labor
But soft enough never to hurt
Anybody

He regrets not being able to be that man

Don’t let a day go by that doesn’t remind you
That you are made from the same things stars are made of

That at any given moment
You can shine just as brightly

And please **** up
Shameless
Excuseless

**** up for the love
For the smiles

No one ever thought badly of someone who tried and failed

Trying is the bravest thing any one person has ever done

I dare you to try

Try to find something to live for

And live for it

And in the end
I’ll grab her crippled hand
Worn from the life that
Broke them down perfectly
Worn from the years of sign language
And the holding of heads

If we are going to be cancer to ourselves
Let the break down mean something
Break yourself down to make things better

She knows this
Has shown me this

Now I have something to live for
I live for the poetry
And the laughter I cause when I am an idiot
I try so hard to be an idiot
Work my body rough for the laughter

In fact

I live for it

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

Turns out
I am a man sized
Inappropriate
Bad idea machine
And I wish I had someone to blame

Like you maybe

I’d like to cause and affect your beauty
How I drink to stop my stutter
But only when I see you do I stutter

Is that beer on my breath
Beautiful woman?
Or is it the burning smell
Of leftover courage

I found it in a cup
Cost me five dollars

I mean

Chivalry is not dead
He and I just got lost in translation

How I still think it’s cute
To drunk text
Or type

Or

I mean I am drunk right now
Writing this
A six pack alone
And still
I can see you in the fog
Of my memories movies
Just as clearly sober
And just as hauntingly beautiful

Probably I shouldn’t tell you that
But phone in hand
I say

What’s up?

I’m drunk again.

Goodnight.

I mean
Not even fake courage
Could settle obnoxiousness enough
To be truthful

So in permanent marker
On my bathroom mirror
I remind myself

“You are an *******”
Turns out
I’m an *******

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

It was nice finally hearing your voice again

The anticipation like staring down the barrel of a gun

Only to hear it jam

It is nice to know you are not some big bang

So that I may finally lay my weapons down

This shield was so heavy from the weight of your motion

My legs grew tired from keeping me faced in your direction

They spelled dizzy

In dirt brown cursive

The grooves I wore into the pavement

The siren’s song singing so heavy

Working the cotton

Pulling it lose

You are not some siren song

Or a stampede when I put my ear to the ground

You are breath and bone

And break

as easily as I do

So let me learn to regret your whisper

Teaching my tongue

The taste of the secret Braille

On your teeth

Breaking my pattern like dancing

With all 4 of our left feet

The distance it takes your voice to travel

Thins out the shape of your longing

I know you

I know you

Like the nights where I thought I could hold you

But then realized my arms

Could never meet the circumference of your pedestal

Until you taught me to hammer

Dull chisel tip to your armor

I’ve finally lain my weapons down

After your voice misfired I love you

You can see my scars

Like a runway sash

From the top of my shoulder

Down to the opposite hip

They say

This Was Supposed to be Beautiful

And let me tell you again

That shield

It was so heavy

I
It is your birthday
The drool stains on your shirt have not dried yet
Your jaw hangs slack from the weight of the ******
You remove the red tissue paper from the blue gift bag
Blue is your favorite color
When the paper is in your hand
It mocks the texture of your skin

II
I used to be afraid of those hands
They used to move
Until I hung slack from the weight of your terror
I promised myself
that anger
Will never carry out through our bloodline
I lose myself some days
Trapped in the process of patience

III
You never needed me to forgive you
Cleaning up your blood is forgiveness enough
I am humbled by the weight of your helplessness
Forget the fear you caused me
The window you threw me through
The constant tests to keep my hands in my pockets
To be the better man
Forget that today is your birthday
Your memories have smashed
From the weight of this disease

IV
You pull out a pair of pants
And some t-shirts
You probably don’t want them
But you need more
“Oh,” you say.
“Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. This is good,” you say.

V
I finally forgive you
For everything
Because at some point
I promised myself to become
A good man

“Happy Birthday,” I say.

Some things don't hit you


                                                       til you tell somone else.              
                                                      
                                                              "She's
                                                                      never
                                                                                  coming
                                                                                                 back."

One day

I am going to look out my bedroom window and say

It’s a nice day outside

One day

I will learn to love the heat and not the cold cushion of my bed

I will love the sand under my feet

And I will not be afraid to get wet

Run face first and dive into the hissing water

And say

**** my phone

I don’t need it anymore

Let it soak

Because if you’re not here with me now

You’re probably ******* your computer with your fingertips

What’s my status?

Alive ******* and not at home

I never will be again

I have seen one too many earthquakes

From behind the white walls of this house

Wondered too many times

what a mountain tastes like

Blood and teeth I bet

What a river feels like

Rushing white and rapid beneath me

What adrenalin feels like when I have to catch myself from falling

Rather than catch my breath from watching

Another bomb explode in some cliffhanger I am not hanging from

Here is your noose

Made of zipties and wires

The day I die

I will greet god

diving into a valley of his own creation

Rather than in a place of mine

The last thing I will ever text

I am not here

And if you are not with me

You are reading this

******* your phone somewhere

You had your chance

I got mine

And I’m taking it

1
This is the song of you leaving
It is the lead finally soaking into my brain
Dumbing me down
This is the de-evolution
To perfection
Turning me into the animal
I knew I always was
Taking us back to the state where
True communication is the sound of something primal
You don’t have to be human
To understand the sound of desperation
It echoes off of lead paint walls
When we are left alone
It is the sound of my heart
Used as a door jamb
A last ditch effort to stop you from leaving

2
This is the song of quaking
The rhythm of helicopter blades over head
Rattling my windows
It is the sound of a faulty foundation
Reminding me all things are breaking down

3
Break me down to beastly
Howl my heart to heaven
You never misunderstood the rumble of my hunger
After the deep breathed sighs of my lust
The salivation of sizzling fat on a skillet

4
I always know where to hide
When the crack of bullets go off again
It is the air raid sirens of ghettos
It is the goose-stepping thunder
Of misled solidarity

5
I always know to walk the other way
When I hear someone crying
To hide my head under a pillow
When I hear weeping coming from another room

6
These pleads for help are wordless
But tug at my heartstrings
As painfully as any music
Only now the speakers are speechless
And the sound is without pattern
And the dancers are still
Fear is the sound of the quiet
Listening for a reason to move
Waiting for nature’s echoing bass drum
Telling you to run

7
Scatter you new found animals to safety
And lose your need for love
This is the sound of my saddened clatter
Keyboard key’s snare drum
It is the sound of a final poetic solo
Because as for being human
I am done

8
This is the song of me leaving
Wordy as it may be
Living a lifetime
Thinking this body is the pinnacle
This body is the tip of the bell curve
Before the hourly gong of descent
This is the song of becoming perfection
The song of de-evolution
It is me
Finally becoming an animal
Again

When I had a heart
Shaped like two red canaries
Holding each other
Wings flapping so hard
I coughed up feathers

I knew

I am not a big man
But I feel like a big man

I feel important
Like the glints of light
In a man’s muddy fingers

I shine in places

Trench my sides at night
I will keep you warm

In dreams I lumber
Break bee hives
With my bear hands

Dip my hands in honey
Like it was holy water

The bee’s tiny sting
Is worth it

The buzzing is a hum
I wish I could make with my chest

The pain is worth it

In dreams
My eyes are still brown
But darker
Reflect and camouflage
The landscape
The trees and dirt blend into the
Globes of my eyes

I dip my bear hands into the
Honey again

There is the sting
It feels like god

Tell the bears I am coming home

Won’t you leave me alone

No please don’t go

I mean

Just stand there and let me think a minute

While I walk backwards out the door

This is my entrance in reverse

How I’ve turned myself into an optical illusion

Like the one with the mean old lady

Or is it the princess

Or

you know

the two old people in love

no

that’s not it

It’s the wine glasses

The ones I make you drink whiskey and beer out of

Because we’ve always thought it was classy

I’ve always fantasized about the ways I might leave this place

I have this black and white photo of you

And if I stare at the center of it for 3 minutes

When I shut my eyes I see you on the back of my lids

So what I mean is

You can leave now

I got my two left shoes

And my knapsack full of road maps

I always circle back sooner or later

I mean

You have that black and white photo of me too

And one of my right shoes

I leave things places

Just to come back for them

You’ve got the part of me that’s just off center

The parallel line that redefines my optical illusion

I walk backwards through doors

And run circles in floors

And drink whiskey from wine glasses

And I always come back

For the things I leave behind

“You look like my son,” he says.
But he does not look at my face
He looks over my head and out the window

It is the look of a man that while drunk
He has kicked his dog in the ribs
Because he can

But now he is sober
And can’t really look at it anymore

I understand that look
And run my own fingers along my side

I wonder
If he still has the rain in is breath
And as if to answer my question
His chin quivers
He fixes his glasses

“How old is your son now?” I ask

“We’re both old men now, ” he says

I give him his change
52 cents
And two plastic bags

“Happy Birth-
“Merry Christmas I mean.”
Merry Christmas I say

God done ****** up again

This time by lettin’ that halo slip from around your holy head

And because he’s full of excuses

he said

“You know

Her halo was so big it must’ve got caught in the birth canal”

Really

that halo was a birth control ring

one of the clear plastic ones

And really

you were a miracle that you came out so perfect

And God done ****** up again by lettin’ that halo slip

In my whole life there have only been 3 miracles I have ever seen

And God can take the credit

Only

Because he didn’t stop them from happening

1: My brother is the most perfect thing to happen on this earth since innocence found its voice and used it
to cry because people are mean sometimes.

2: In my almost 23 years of life, I have almost died 8 times. The miracle in that is, that no matter what my brain might tell me, my body is too dumb to give up on life that easily.

3: You were born into this world. I consider it a miracle that I met you.

I’d give you a halo if you’d let me

I’d become a priest just so I could get close enough to god to tell him

“Man

Quit this crap

We both know the world is ugly

We both know I lay awake most nights because I can’t turn off my brain

We both know that when we finally meet

we will sit at a table

Over a deck of cards

And some cigars

And my favorite beer

Just so we can spend the lifetime it will take

Discussing how I ****** things up over and over again

But Man

Just own up to this one mistake and give the Halo back”

I saw it once

Shaped like a battle field

Or the spilled milk you sometimes cry over

Or a childhood race track

One that in your memories you go to

Over and over again

In my whole life

I have only witnessed a few miracles

And the last one

Was you

You sound so beautiful
In the rhythm of your heartbreak

So regal in the words from the mouth
Of a giant trumpeted over the plains
At daybreak

The way the elephant stands
Ivory gnarled and precious
Perfect and rare
Like the words you spin from your ivory teeth

Sometimes only glinting from the
Corner of your coyote snicker
A bitter trickster
Playing the beat

And I am in awe
Expecting there to be thunder
From the pound of your feet

But you manage to muffle the
Roll of the rain clouds
So as not to scare the other animals into hiding
So we can all rejoice at the rain

Then the crack of lightning
As it strikes the temples of those
Who stick around long enough
To appreciate the burn inside

You are the regal sound of
elephant trumpet thunder
And the late night
Howl of coyote’s laughter

Knowing perfectly
That it’s your timing
That keeps all the other animals
Up at night

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

You came along as pretty as a nightmare

Some six headed beast

Spittin’ your venom of

Self fulfilling prophecy

You

Darlin’

Hid your devils inside heartbeats

And kissed like promises

Kissed like broken promises

Lied like lovers do in moments of passion

There was passion in your poetry

Sweat that sizzled like the boiling of flesh

My teeth felt like coals from the heat of your breath

And I gag reeled our sunset

To slap stick and circus music

I never felt so awkward

But you saluted the setting sun somethin’ ***** anyway

You

You nightmare

Dressed in gasps of air

And quaking eyelids

Dressed in moments of

Let me turn the lights off before I get naked

At least we are more like insects in the dark

Crawling and feeling

And biting til it tastes right

I was always afraid of what I couldn’t see

And I felt you like a nightmare

Inside the gaping wound that is the time it takes

To love yourself

So that one day

you can love somebody else

And then I awoke like a nightmare

Lungs filling slowly

Like clown head carnival balloons

And the shapeless dark

And the relief

That whatever it was

Is finally over

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

Not a poem. Just shameless self promotion of a short story.

http://normanshine.wordpress.com/2012/12/01/this-little-patch-of-earth/

The dust settles on your bare back while you sleep. Sometimes tries to bond back to the skin, but in the morning you shake it again as you rise. It shimmers in the sunlight like smoke. Though patternless, it does not look lost.

Ugly started the moment air filled lungs

Making breath

That finally became wails

Hollering heavy and hollow

Into an already upside down world

Something completely ugly made us

Unless beautiful is unto perfect

And perfect is unto unique

And unique

Is the pattern of pock marks

A bitter snowflake reminder

Of the days my blemished face has bled enough

A broken pattern of scars

From the cancer

And first suicide attempts

And tattoos

That remind us

Whatever is left behind

And is still standing

Is permanent

Including me

Beauty is unto statues crumbling

Still standing

Despite times blunt chisel tip

Let’s be broken down to perfection

Because there’s all this beauty inside

Inside awkward snowflake patterns

Of nervous breath

Making my voice break

During the days when I need to be the most confident

Like when I finally tell you

I love you

And mean it

This messed up mound of flesh

Was given life for a reason

Even if it is just to love

Whoever is around to be loved

I can do that

Despite the hand tremors

And broken toothed smiles

And bitter snowflake reminders

Of ****** up fingerprints

Smudging everything

I touch

I can do that

Because this

This is as beautiful as any of us are going to get

And I am cool with that

“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?

I want to put my hands in your pockets

To feel the muscles in your thighs

And it makes me want to wear you like a crown

Until the weight of you doubles my back into tantric

And forces out of us the sounds

Of open windowed honeymoons

And shameful moans

Slipping through the jail of my fingers over your mouth

And it’s only shameful this time

Because we are outside

Please if you could

Keep the ***** talk going until

We’ve soiled the blood-money to sopping

In the imaginary world of the things you make me say

Guilty started once you took your coat off

We’ve shed this skin to sin

And now I’m just lightning

Stabbing at your thunder

What’s your name again?

You can make it up

I will shout anything you want me to

Into the darkness of wherever

I am open to anything

Promise

You don’t have to feel bad in the morning

I can pretend we never met in public

It’s not like I can take you dancing

I have two left feet

I won’t buy you drinks

You wouldn’t take them anyway

I will even look the other way

When some other guy dishes out

His disaster for you to break your bones in

He doesn’t mean anything anyway

Just know

I am probably sleeping alone if you’re not here

But I won’t always be thinking about you

Stop what you’re doing
Cut to
My old math teacher

The one who I saw at gay pride a few nights ago
Wearing neon rainbow fairy wings
And an open, white, feathered vest
And ***** shorts
And glitter
So much glitter

How even at a place where you are supposed to be wholly accepted
You can still find yourself comin’ up lonely

He stands to the side
Head down
Messing with the batteries for his glowing wand
As if once his whole ensemble is complete
He’ll be okay

I try not to watch
No one wants to be seen while changing the batteries
In their confidence

Cut to the next day
Where my friend Monica asks me to write a poem
About how god is a pointillist

We are both drunk
It his hot
Even though I don’t think I can do it
I say ok

Cut to the actual poem

Space is ******’ huge y’all
And from the distance of godliness
We form a complete picture
Like bleeding dots
Waiting to be human

How we probably smell as good as a perfume shop
From the distance of subtlety
And how the hate in our cacophony
Becomes a human white noise
How it all blends beautifully

How if we were created in god’s image
Then after 2000 years
In the cold blackness of space
He rests his head on his hands sleepily
And can only daydream about us
Because his sight and hearing have failed him

And as a collective
We represent an emotional spectrum
As big as his ego
And as large as the hole in his heart

All this has ever been about
Is finding ways not to feel so lonely

Cut to the molecules making me human
Cut to the bits of space dust that made us
The iron in our blood was once star parts

Step into this with every ounce of yourself
So I can hold you like water

Cut to the days that I get so ******* scared
That I have to think about friends just to sleep at night

Go ahead
Take a look at all my bits of broken
Stare holes into me
I promise
All my insecurities are placed where they’re supposed to be
So are yours

So are you

Cut to the grass under our feet
Being stomped flat by the dancing

Step into this
with every ounce of yourself
So I can hold you like water

So from the distance
Where bleeding dots blend
Into uniform color
Our chaos becomes trivial

I want you to know
it always has been

Because from whatever distance
We see each other from
Right here is where you belong

If it wasn’t
You wouldn’t be

On most days I feel like a cave on the outskirts of a small town in Iowa. A lonely hermit lives there. The cave is a body of tunnels. Some have lanterns waiting to be lit. The hermit lives somewhere in the center. Sometimes the children who have made up stories about the hermit visit the mouth. Full of fear, they yell into it. Yell, "Hello! Are you there?". After a moment of silence their own echos bounce back and startle them. Realizing he is not real, the children laugh. Their laughter fills the small tunnels, and the sound makes the hermit happy. On most days my body is heavy with that sound.

I have just enough time on this earth to love you fully

If you let me love you now

There is an eternity beyond this moment

Where we can go our separate ways

But while my soul is still trapped inside this

Messed up mound of flesh

It would love it if you joined mine

Let’s be messed mounds together

We’ll look less like human beings and more like drying play dough

And when your skin is cracked and your marble begins to

Shatter and lose its sheen

I will polish you off until my hands no longer work

A lifetime isn’t long enough to make things better

But it’s all I got

So don’t keep me waiting

Because I will be there even when you turn into a child again

And those “oops I crapped my pants” commercials will no longer be funny

We can be children together

Helpless until we finally go our separate ways

But let me love you until then

You are more than second chances

And more than redemption

You are the mouth singing softly

The song of fornication

Grapes juice themselves when you speak

And turn to wine

Your voice is that illicit

You still my stutter to speechless

You

cruel lady

Are so careless with the hearts you impale with your heels

On the rare occasions you wear them

And please stop throwing your head back when you laugh

Or speaking so softly that I feel I need to move closer

I can’t get any closer

Not without knowing you love me

Patience is for people who have the time to wait

I have a lifetime

And it isn’t nearly long enough

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

If I were blind
I could still appreciate the topography
Of your smile

Forgive my trembling hands
They do that sometimes

Forgive me for standing too close
For too long

Just that I could’ve sworn
Your halo felt like handcuffs
And I’d like to get stuck in there

I mean
I’d pillar of salt your gaze
To season the earth you walk on
Forget that I’ll **** the plant life if I do that

You’re not a biology major

And I don’t care if I destroy the flowers

This is California

The desert part

I’m takin’ something down with me

I mean
This poetry is its own reward
Even if you never know

I mean
I got laughter on remote control
And I worry that I’ll wear your buttons down

Funny bones aint so funny when they break

I mean
I could love you if you let me
And you are more than welcome to break my heart

I mean
I am just so tired of writing love poetry

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 ∞

This is super secret loving
Like when my foot accidentally touches yours over coffee
I ask if you want to play footsies
And then move my foot away to make sure
The whole thing isn’t weird
And you tell me I don’t have to move my foot
So I then rub my leg against yours
Like a one legged cricket who’s sure
He’s found the set that plays his song
Only your face turns red
And the song doesn’t play

I look to my super secret decoder
Mood ring that tells me what you’re feeling
Only if I can touch you long enough for it to change colors
So I hold your hand like a zipper
And you shake mine away like a stove linger
I half expect you to **** your finger like a cigarette burn
The ring looks like antifreeze
Caught in the glare of sunlight
With no definite answer
And I don’t know what to think

This is super secret heartbreak
As I apologize
Even though I was being myself
Like a man who never knew a mirror
Like a boy
Who wanted to say something like
You smell really good
I know I should have learned
To keep my hands
And feet to myself by now

But this is super secret loving
And the storm swirling in my super secret decoder mood ring
Is fading to green like envy
And now blue

Super secretly
I say
Let’s try this again
As you stand up to leave
After reading a text message
About how your dog died

Super secretly
I say
stay

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

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

Her confession for lack of a better word
Was confusing
Like that one time we lived in that house made of paper
And chain smoked
Till the draft came in
Just in case you didn’t know
You have to love someone
Before you don’t love them anymore
And you have to put the hell inside of me
Before you scare it out
It was almost as bad as that one time I was gunned down
On the corner of
Bad luck
And lonely
Maybe love has its casualties
But you can’t be a martyr for it
You can’t say you stuck around
Despite my anything
The door has always been right there
And I have always been right here
Perfectly human

So don’t **** the dawn
For rising the sun
Or expect the earth to stop spinning
Don’t tell me you don’t want me to love you
I’ll do it in secret
Like that one time
I sent you flowers
Signed
That other guy

The current love of your life
Perfect because of whatever
I couldn’t care less

Just
let’s go back a few years in time
So I can write you this note
“Check if you like me
Check if you don’t
Check if you’ll **** me
Check if you won’t”

No?
Too bad
I am two tall cans into this poem already
Least now
You’ve managed to put the hell in me
And as for martyrs
What do they do again?
Really
I just don’t wanna die lonely

The foam floats in her glass lookin’ like a ***** snowflake

     Her fingerprints still in the frost


No matter what any sober person tells you

     No two lips are the same


No two dances on dimly lit dance floors

     The scuff marks scatter in so many directions


Even the music is a remix

     Of something that could have been perfect


Even if it’s the same bar over and over

     My memory the next morning is foggy


Even the warm spots on the other side of the bed

     Change shape like crop circles


If you ever stayed long enough

     To try my French toast


You’d see how the swirls look like galaxies

     And the thought of spinning might make you miss the flavor


But I know what perfect feels like

     Through so many filters


And every night now is a remix

     Of something that could have been perfect

He is red
Flakes of skin breaking away from his arms and face
He smiles stretching the cigarette stain on his white mustache

You young people have got it all wrong

Let me tell you a story
Don’t worry it’s a funny story

He looks behind him to make sure he can soak up my time
I tell the cashier to stay and check if anybody comes

One time there was this really dumb bird
Had a nice beard like yours
Real busy guy
And he waited til winter to fly south

If this story is about me I’m not sure

Some of us work real hard
And still manage to justify that we have nothing

I wonder if he knows I can see the boogers in his nose

The bird finally took off for home
But it began to rain
He kept flying
Then it started to hail
The hail beat his wings
It was getting hard to flap
His body began to shiver

He smiles again
It makes his lips crack and bleed a little
Underneath the stretch of yellow
He exhales and his breath smells sweetly of beer

It began to snow
Lightly at first
Though it was cold it was easier to fly
But the snow fell thicker
It coated his body
His heart slowed
He began to feel really tired
He started to descend
He was dying

He places a hand on mine for a moment
His is comfortably rough
Shovel callous rough
Cinderblock stack rough

If that touch was for me or him
I’m not sure

All these stories are just ways we beg people to stay
This poetry is just a way to keep you here
Touch you with my rough and tremble
So you can look at my cracked broken and ******
A little longer

The bird kept falling
Until he hit the earth
And you know where he landed?
Right in a big cow patty
But the warmth of the fresh ****
Melted the snow
Gave him his life back
So he rolled around in it and began to sing
He sang and sang and sang
And a hawk heard the singing
It was winter
The hawk was hungry
And he ate that bird with the nice beard

He slaps the counter separating us
Eyes widen to mounds of earth
Two big fat piles of cow **** staring at me and smiling

I don’t feel like laughing

And the moral of that story young man
Is if you’re covered in **** and somehow happy
Keep your mouth shut

These stories are just reasons
And I don’t feel like laughing

I laugh anyway

Hit heartbreak in a Hyundai goin’ about 45

Still jerks you like it was a hundred when the breaks are finally hit

Been shaving the rust from my bones

To make guitar strings

Because I still got a song in there

Might not be much

But it’s somethin’

Comes out all tinny

Like when live radio sounded like it was comin’ from a can

Hide the fact that I can’t sing

Sound isn’t even affected by 45 miles an hour

Still perfectly audible

Didn’t even have to raise my voice so I could keep on sayin’,

I’m Sorry

For the battle I caused you

And for the place that I left you in

From across the street

Even houses sit on the side of the road

Any side can be the wrong side

Any throat can be a gutter

When the noise starts pouring out

Sounded more like rushing water than anything else

Anybody can be a trash can

With all the soda and beer and broken wine bottles

Makin the outside sticky

Lemme sing this to you

While we both wash away our *****

I know I’m done letting my glass poke through the plastic

Never even realized how much it cut you

Le’me sing the song before my voice starts breakin’ again

Before my throat becomes a gutter

And my eyes become a fire

Before I wake up on the wrong side of the street again

******* you back lit screen

And boredom

And the helplessness that comes with waiting

I hate

The sound of my fingernails as they click these keys

And I hate

how nowhere feels like home anymore

And this is me

Thumb in ***

Heart in throat

Eyes fixated on the holes in the wall that I made when I got angry

******* you bed

And old books

And harmonica

Used to play you sweetly

Now

My sharp’s a little flat

And my gut’s a little wrenched

And my tongue won’t stop moving in my mouth

This is me when I’m nervous

One deep breath away from black-out

And this is me when I am lonely

Humming

Hoping

Someone else will notice me by the sound of my voice

And now

I got this song in my bones

Feel it tuggin’ on my heartstrings

like a set of tin-can-telephone wires

I never meant to sing it

Never meant to feel it

Never meant for it to turn into a love song

And this is me

Trying to forget

The one good piece of advice you gave me

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

**** defining heartbreak

Because in the lifetime it takes to forgive yourself for

Not learning to let go sooner

You could have learned to pray backwards

Pulling god inside like an inhale

And keeping him there

Emily could have learned that

After her father left

It is the memories she held on to

That really made her lonely

Every room is an empty room at some point

Just like her throat some days

Felt like a hallway

Stretching like a bad dream to keep

The moans in

She knows sometimes

You gotta let it out

Her shrapnel soul

Is practiced in picking up the pieces

How some days you have to pluck out the shards

Despite the pain

She knows that if she doesn’t

The jagged bits of breath

Still stuck in all the wrong spots

Will fester

She knows

She’ll probably never get to breathe deeper than this

So she counts breaths like steps till she hits her limit

And then she waits

For someone to tell her it’s okay

To cry in public

Again

So **** defining heartbreak

Because you could have learned

To pray backwards by now

Taking in god like an inhale

And keeping him there

Long enough for the pain to stop

With love they still wilt

                          
                                                                It's okay to let them go



                            
                                                                                                                                Plants don't have feelings

I know grace when I see a man spend his last dollar on a chocolate bar for his son

And I know God like a geezer with a crystal ball sayin, “life’ll work out

It always does”

And I know you like a fingerprint

How each swirl is supposed to be unique

But when you touch me

It’s always the same kind’a love

Same fire burnin holes in my skin

Don’t let me walk away from here without sayin,

“You should know this about me

As a boy

I never learned mouths are equally good for closing as they are opening

And then

I learned that if something you loved wasn’t broken

Break it

And as a man

I learned I break everything”

So now I lay under bath water until everything is still

And beg for my heart to quit knocking its rhythm in my ears

And I know forgiveness

Like the leftover guilt in the gospel pews

Like the swell under my kneecaps

I know you

Like the voice of god in a tornado

And you should know me

Like the rubble of what his voice left behind

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

I can’t even remember how long it’s been now,

But a really long time ago

I asked God for a safe place to pray

And I’ve been down every alley

Walked through every broken back door leading into

Houses I knew I should have never entered

Had me turnin’ up psalms

Paced to the rhythm of footsteps and rain

I found this:

My church

Will never ask you to give up anything

In exchange for your soul

Keep it

It’s probably ***** anyway

My church

Sounds like the ocean on Sunday

Keeps the wine flowing whenever you need to numb the pain

My church

Will set itself on fire on the days you just can’t get up in the morning

It’ll burn until you’re ready to come back

My church

Is in a tree house

It’s the wrong tree though

You know

The one you are always barking up

My church

Will never make you feel guilty

For anything

You do that well enough yourself

Now

I can’t promise eternal happiness


And I can’t promise virgins

I can’t promise anything other than

In my church

You’ll never feel ugly

You’ll never have to wonder what my church is thinking about you

I promise it will answer every question honestly

And hold you when you sleep at night

My church highly condones cuddling

Also

There’s a good chance that Mel Gibson wants to **** me and my church

Here I write poems to the rhythm of thunder

And sing praise to all your beauty and wonder

My church will never purposely make you hurt

Here it’s just me

With a few words

You can come when you want to

You can leave whenever

Leave forever

If you want

But I promise

My church

Will always be right here

I didn’t mean to frighten you
When I walked towards you with part of a broken mirror in my hand
I wasn’t going to cut you
I just wanted you to see
How your smile makes me feel when I am able to make you laugh

You asked me where I was gonna be when the world ended
I said I was going to be livin’ in the woods somewhere
Making pancakes for my new forest friends
And you laughed again
I watched your lips move in the reflection of the glass

We forget how not to take things so seriously
We forget that skin
Is not synonymous with a cutting board
I don’t splinter
Not anymore

When the world ends
If you’re not in my arms
I’ll be six feet under

Remember how I want to be buried?
Naked and directly in the ground
I want you to fill my mouth with seeds
So that my body might finally grow something beautiful
Even if my soul’s not here to enjoy it

I’m done singin’ songs for heartache
I just want to watch you laugh
I promise
It’s the only way I’ll ever bring tears to your eyes

We forget how not to be so scared all the time
I can’t stop every stray arrow
Headed directly at your heart
And I don’t have a time machine to go back and fix everything

But if I did
I’d go back and meet your mom and dad
And tell them
Your daughter
She has her mother’s smile
And her father’s sense of presence
I’d say
Don’t let this one walk away from me
And then I’d ask where they were planning on being when the world ended

We forget that the future is supposed to be a mystery
I had no clue where this was headed
But before I left and while you were in the bathroom
I wrote you a poem on a bar napkin:
                                                              “I know I never really have the words
                                                                    And your lips make me nervous
                                                            And your laugh makes me want to kiss you
                                                                      So that I can feel it in my chest
                                                                           I’d recycle your laughter
                                                                                           Also
                                                                                  I really like you”

This is after my fourth near death experience

And she came to visit me

I was still unconscious

So still I could have been dead

And she kissed me

So often we bring people flowers at funerals

But who brings soup to keep people alive?

My lips longed for your love then

As much as they do now

So in the future

Don't wait til I'm almost dead to kiss me

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

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