It feels like the right kind of leaving
Like the end of a movie
Late at night
And secretly
I wish we didn’t have a destination

With her in the front seat
Him and his boyfriend in the back
They sleep
To the elevator music of my generation

White noise wind
Adds static
Like cards in the spokes of a bike
All spades and hearts
In the blur they dig sometimes

How this feels right now
Is like riding a bicycle
And a man in a car slaps your ***
As the car drives by

It is how life pats you one the back
Good job
But keep going
This **** hurts sometimes

It is a 25 mile an hour slap to the ***

After everything
And all the places I could be right now

It is why I got us lost I think
In the need for no destination

But right here

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.

Every day as the sun rose
the sand sparkled like broken glass and salt

The ocean saw how the sand sparkled
and collapsed on top of it
A steady hush and hiss with every attempt
No one ever wondered why the ocean sounded like that
Like a fatigued Darth Vader

The ocean was sick
The ocean felt lonely
It is hard to have a body that big
to ever feel full

One day people came to swim
They did not swim like the animals did
The animals swam naturally
No one ever notices the way their own blood
pumps inside their veins
so much that they are happy being alive

The people splashed awkward
Stood sometimes letting their toes
graze the sea floor
This made the sea happy
But the people who were not of the sea
grew tired
and started for the sand

The sea became upset that they were leaving
and created a wave so big
it pulled the people back inside of it
A crash that sounded like lung cancer
A heave skipping the heart a beat
One that begs for any kind of breath

The ocean felt the people splashing hard
Fighting for land
It felt good

Eventually
They slowed
Gave up
And drowned

The ocean was lonely again

It calmly wheezed
at the shiny sand

If anybody feels like taking a break from poetry, here is a short story I finished last night. It's very short. Feedback would be much appreciated.

http://normanshine.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/a-good-man/

In the darkness of the living room
the street light breaks through the blinds

He sleeps on the couch
A flannel blanket so small
every night is a decision
Shoulders?
Or feet?

I give him a fresh diaper
and light him a smoke

Tonight
before bed
he tells me a story
the only one I have ever heard from him
about the war

His best friend was named Mike
Mike got sick
Fever and blood in every cough

"I kept telling him everything was going to be okay"
He said
"but he kept asking me to leave him
Said to just send his wife a letter.
I never found any letter.
I wrote one later as if were him"

"I found him one morning
Cut his own throat"

My father's gone through five cigarettes by now

He lays down
covers his feet tonight

"When you're a burden to the people you love
it is okay to give up
That is what I am trying to tell you boy"

Just like that
he gave up

I am not saying my father was a good man
But in the end
I forgive him
for everything

Looking for love in different faces
Looking for love in carnival mirror beauty

Alex does this
Tells himself that she might actually love him back this time

He sees them all perfectly
Falls for their touch
Can’t tell the difference between passion and love
The difference between being caught up in the moment
And when the moment actually ends

I am going to ******* as hard as we hate ourselves

It takes a long time to actually make love to somebody

And being caught up in the moment hasn’t ended yet
So Alex doesn’t realize this

But it ends eventually

Ends with him wondering

Why is there so much wrong with me
When all I wanted
Was a warm body
Because I don’t know how to sleep alone
I don’t know how to sleep alone

Alex looks at this new girl
Gives her his weight
In patience
In presence
In hope

She doesn’t bite
Doesn’t take the bait
She smiles and removes her clothes
So he can see her carnival mirror clearly

He only sees himself
He wants to stretch her out
So he can make sense of the lies next time

He knows
If he were really broken
She wouldn’t see herself either
Wouldn’t run scared at her own image reflected back
Alex no longer has a carnival mirror

The truth is the scariest thing on the planet
Since like
Ever

And Alex is honest
Knows
People don’t shatter when they feel broken
They melt and make harder
They stretch out

It takes a long time to love yourself
It takes even longer for someone else to love you
Like you want to be loved

Alex has been waiting around
For almost that long

He hasn’t seen that yet
He doesn’t know what his own reflection
Really looks like

But if he’s lucky
He will

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

Watch me make things complicated

It’s a gift

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

Or tying my shoes

Or learning when it’s okay to touch people

Turns out

Life is not the game of tag I thought it was

Not everyone touches you back

Never learned that

Gets so bad

I break handshakes for hugs

and then I stand there way to long

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

After he finally pried me from his shoulders

He was kind enough to loosen the foot in my mouth

Told me I got toes for teeth

And I was thankful

For the suction tube

And the Novocain

Asked him for more

And more

Just enough to numb the jabber in my jaw

Took 2 vicadin after to keep my arms at bay

If I could have

I’d’a told him

Every word burnin holes in my brain

And I am thankful

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

And tying my shoes

I never learned how

not to say all the wrong things

Never really learned anything

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

If I could say one last thing you'd know I was different

You’d see these walls as something else
You’d see the holes for footing

The scars on my shoulders
From the grappling hooks I’ve shaken

It’s a reflex
I’d like to reset

If I could
I’d rip the seesaw from my spine
Break the balance in the fulcrum of my chest
So when you jump away
I don’t fall from you

Call me swing set
Give my arms monkey bar bravery
So I can shimmy close enough for you to see
I want you here

I won’t try and nock you off
I am done playing chicken

I am done playing chicken
Foot on the gas pedal beggin god I run you off the road
Again

This path I am on
Is lonely

I know this

I want to tell you I love you
When I know you won’t say it back

If you could
Shake the dust from your knees
After my walls reflexed a shiver
In your embrace so hard
You fell to the floor

If you stuck around long enough
You’d see
All the cotton I swallowed
So when I heard you leaving
You wouldn’t hear me say

Stay

If I could say one last thing
You’d know
I was different
Was better
Might be ready
With enough patience

Please stay

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

Probably

I shouldn't have drank so much

At that gay bar last night

Because the hicky on my neck

Is a little too big

A little too purple

And she was so ******* gorgeous

She was

I think

At least I have comfort knowing

We are all beauful on the inside

I am there
Wishing that if I pressed my fingers to your lips
I could understand the broken Braille of your breath
When your throat locks in the noise

Gentle butterfly gut
Fanning flames over burning cinderblocks in your belly
I am there

When you wished the moon in a rearview mirror
Heading west
Wondering if you really could go far enough to see its dark side
When you wanted to turn back
I was there

When she drank razorblades
And Tylenol ink
Into a botched suicide note
I was there

This is the journey

When he wondered when he could hold somebody again
Like a waterbed full of blood
Without the motion sickness
I was there

Every moment y’all
Of your ***** sacred
I want to be there
So when you see that this place is so big
And you are so small
And our souls might be stardust and minerals
Burning blue so far away
At least you’re not alone

Your body is built for love
She said
Beer breathed and true
I smiled
I was there

Kiss me with your car parts
DUI this knee buckle
I want to be tried and arrested
Spit out and spanked
And I will still kneel before you
And praise all that is good in you
Because you are holy

Every moment of you is holy

I was there
Begging to be baptized by your presence
Because in a place so big
I don’t want to feel so alone anymore

I want to kiss you
I want to kiss you
Like you are better
Than everything you’ve ever done
You are

I was there
When the world inside your breastplate
Spun natural disaster
And sunshine
Anvil remorse
And sweet laughter
When I held you
Any of you
And our worlds
Vibrated a conversation only our souls could understand

I was there
And all we could speak was “LOVE”
All we could speak was “Us”

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

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

His finger fidgeted with the small hole in his jeans
Right above the left knee
It caressed the rust of a healing scab

He knew boyhood was sitting at the tense end of a slingshot
While balancing on a thin branch
Creeping in through the window
Of his tree house

His shins were permanently bruised
From hitting the edge of the bed
After jumping and missing
In order to avoid whatever may be living underneath it

Ten years from now he will regret
Not being in enough family photos
And for placing too many boxes full of old clothes
Underneath his bed
For anything to truly live there

He will know manhood sitting at a red light
Begging the breaks to go out
So his only option will be
To go

When he is old
And so much a baby again
He will beg time to be patient
Long enough to understand

Why when he was a boy
The slingshot band never broke from the tension
Before releasing rocks to break windows
He had to spend the summers working off

But as a man
Trapped at a red light
Why not once
The breaks ever went out
So that he might have an excuse
To go

This one is for the ugly girl

Who wears her awkwardness like a kick me sign

Who stares at you with squinted eyes

Mouth agape

Thinkin’

I really wish I understood this mess

She is not an ugly duckling

Passing time till that one moment where

She just shines

No

It was just me that day watchin you in the audience

The way you play

Like your fingers were hammers

It sounded like a warning

And suddenly we all knew there was a fire going

Vagrant and unnoticed in some corner of the world

But you managed to hear its sound

And pounded it out for as long as it lasted

So I went straight home after

That fire burning in the hollow of my chest

I wrote this

This is for you

The girl who does more than just wear her heart on her sleeve

She wears it like a compound fracture

Sticking out of the front of her chest

Red like an apple placed on the head of a small child

And there’s always someone with a bow and arrow

Bulls eye is always heartbreak

Near hits a dime a dozen

People say she’s ugly but her heart is huge

Not because she’s nice

But because its swollen

His hat says
I Remember Pearl Harbor
He asks me to put the wine in the basket
Hanging behind his motorized wheelchair

He smells a little like ***
His sweatpants have dark stains all over
Like a leapord who has gone old and grey

"They can put a motor on one
of these things
but they can't make them comfortable"

"When you're an old man like me
maybe yours will fly
but I bet your *** will still fall asleep all the time"

I tell him
that when I am old
I hope they make wheelchairs
that feel like a father's shoulders

He shakes his head after I say that and laughs
"That sounds like it might be nice
But i couldn't say I know what that feels like"

Me neither
I tell him

"I am leaving to see your mother"
He tells me

He hums
But it is not music

The doctor says people in end stage COPD
make noises like that

I hope that when I am old
my body will uncontrollably make music too

"Dad," I say

"Hmm"

"You know you ****** up at being a dad right?"

"I know" hmm hmmm hmmm hmm

"I'm proud of you anyways though"

"What for?"

" Time I guess. I couldnt say. Can you tell me just once that you love me?"

"Will it change anything if I do?" Hmmm hmmm hmmm

"No"

"I'm going to see your mother."

"You've gotten so tall"
she says

"It's only been a few months" I tell her
She looks directly into my mouth as I speak
Her face is different
Hair
Even the way she smells
I can't place it
but it is ugly

"You're taller"

"You drank yourself blind. I haven't changed"

"You know you were a c-section
Cut out like a tumor?"

"I know"

I remind myself
that forgiveness
and being cordial
and finding peace
can often be different things

She holds her elbows out
and my father helps lower her to the couch

"I'm coming home soon," she says
"You're going to have your mother back."

I am leaving soon I tell her
and I am never coming back

Sue tells me that there used to be
a railroad
a few streets down

The shopping center was just a big dirt feild

"When we were kids"
she says
"We would put our hands to the windows sometimes
You'll never know what that feels like"

I imagine her bones
As railroad tracks
No one traces the topagraphy of her body anymore

Her hands shake as
She picks up
her saucer and tea cup
I hear a train coming

After a day of unfamiliar faces

His eyes are glad to finally settle on mine

As we walk though the mall

He keeps his head down

   Tells me he is afraid to look at people

How they might see what he is thinking

   Spelled out on his face

He always looks cold

     always looks tired

    walks like he is trying to remember that life is as simple as

Placing one foot in front of the other

With his head down

I know he counts his steps

He can only count to 100

Between this morning and now

I don’t know how many times he has counted to that

When I ask him why he doesn’t count higher

     He tells me

I’ll just lose track

And I just wanna tell him

You got a heart bigger than the best of us

So pure you got water coursin’ through your veins

So golden you shine like the sun

And it’s a suckerpunch to my gut

  To see you bow down to gravity

‘Cause if there was anyone

   And I mean anyone

Who could stare you in the face

And not see the light

  Then ****’em kid

There are days where I pray

The world could be as simple as you

Days where I pray that you might fight gravity

  As simply as

Placing one foot in front of the other

To slowly rise on steps of air

  Counting them as you do

And know it’s okay if you don’t come back

   ‘cause

There’s nothing wrong with going home

C West

Sounds like directions on a map

Problem is your topography knows better than that

How you always drive your heart east

But you and I both know

On still nights

You can hear my laughter beggin’ ya to come home

Out west

C West

Nothin’ wild about it

We are not the end of some movie

I refuse to let the credits roll

Nothin’ sets out here

Not even the sun

So if you must know

I got a horse I call colonel

Chasin’ the horizon

We kick up so much dust that there is nothing to see when we look back

But I do

I look back

Expecting to see your shadow

Like the end of some movie

Where there’s a stand off

Between you

and me

My money’s on the bullet that hits my heart

We both know you never miss

Just like I never let the sun set on me

Or cattle call my laughter

Or let our credits roll

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

Death cures all sickness.
Freud said the goal of all living things is death.
Can I get a witness?

So then it is slow torture for us to do things,
Like keep houseplants and goldfish alive.
Death cures all sickness.

It makes the will to live seem pretentious
When we make it point to continue on, survive.
Can I get a witness?

But I don’t believe in cheating.
Not all living things understand suicide.
Death cures all sickness.

Drunk at night I bear my heart repeating,
That I not go gently into the night.
Death cures all illness.

No, I am bone and breath
And will not strive for death.
Death cures all sickness.
Can I get a witness?

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

I feel like a big man
in a straight jacket
who has just learned
despite all his strength
he'll never break the restraints

I'm not saying
you should ever give up

Just relax when you can
Don't fight so hard
You'll be free soon enough

It is  what loneliness feels like on late nights
and I find myself drunk texting poetry

I want to make your ears time capsules
for the things I have to say

Sometimes I settle for your phone

I want to wake up
in the morning
with a message from you

A picture of your smile
Your smile
Your stupid beautiful smile

It is all I ever really wanted anyway

I feel like I have fox-holed my gut
Sleeping only in the shape of a ball

And I have folded the thought of you into a trench
so that I might sleep safely tonight

But I have learned how not to be lost
In the sharpening of my shoulder blades
I have learned never to shrug
In the off chance I will
shed my wings
and truly be lost

Come back to me

I have been drunk for a week now
and I feel like your breath will sober me up

I want to hold your head like a sunrise
strands of gold drizzle out to the tips of my fingers

I am buzzing
Lacking structure

Your smile
like a hammock hanging from the laugh lines in your eyes

You laugh like a runway held up by your own cool breath

I want to place my mouth there
In darkness, aquatic nightlight glow

Your skin, goose bump braille
a language I am still learning

My fingertips
tracing the topography of your smooth

Your landscape
I want to get lost

My hands
your skin
My drunk
your breath

Come back to me
Sober me up

After reading my first love poem
And misunderstanding my first love story
Romanticizing your bleak hope
I knew I was ******

And in trying to explain this
I am left feeling like a schizophrenic Walt Whitman
Scrawling poems about your beauty

As if love is something you can actually seek outside yourself
While inside you there are walls
Mine fields
Trapdoors leading to deadfalls
All to keep you from it

I want to stand at the entrance to myself
And be baptized in my own sweat
From the work of this deconstruction

There is heaven and peace in the rubble
Blueprints for a home without safeguards
A simple place you can rest your head at night
This chest

Love is not something you seek
But you tell that to these hands
This pen
This mouth
Tell these eyes without losing my gaze
That it is not hiding somewhere behind you

It is not
I know this now
I know that love is this
Your heart is this
Your body is this

A spare room in a small house
You had intented on living alone in

And everytime someone comes to your door
Know it is always nicer inside
And be grateful that someone came to it
Let them in with your smile
say
"I have been expecting you"
Then let them leave if that is what they must do
They might

Just remember to be grateful for their presence
Everyone who sought your door
Sought it because there is something good there
There is always you

I am falling
No
I am about to fall

There are instructions in my hand
something about landing safely
Something about floating
Not flying

I do not know who has decided this for me
There are tools in my hands
I am expected to build a kite in the freefall I think

Somone pushes me
If I land safely then she will love me
this is dream truth

I am a kite now
I let my string drag along the surface of the earth

Reel me in as I pass by
Or don't

I don't care
I can't fly
But I can't fall anymore either

The metal in this brass knuckle heart
punches my chest from the inside out

The valves, a semiconductor for the static
electricity of your touch

Who ever thought a defibrillator could be so soft?

And in the challenge of this love
I wonder what kind of mettle you're thinking
of now

And I think patience is found
on a molecular level inside the iron
in your blood

And love then, a stone ground down
from your ashes

I mean, pressure and heat are
what diamonds are made from

Tell me again of the struggles you shone through

And through that logic, we are precious stones
but so much softer than that

I want to hold you like the focused light
from a jeweler trying to make a sale
but so much more earnest than that

And what of the contradiction
between hardness
and softness

Because there is you

How can you be so hard
and so full of life?

How can you be so beautiful?

If loose lips sink ships

Then this buzz has unanchored the foot in my mouth

And now I really have some **** to say

Because the only time my mouth might look like it were about to launch torpedoes is

Now

Similar to blowing a bubble

Or anticipating a kiss

I aim to sink heavy metal devils with this drunken word stumble

I am done feeling lost in your sea

Waiting for your wind to take me away from unrequited

To simply sunken

Bring on your lovely devils

And apology notes

I’ll grit my teeth and bear it

I mean pretending not to care has never really been easy for me

I mean if I were an ostrich

I’d have my head in the ground right now

But thank god for beer

And best friends who owe you money

And the silence and patience it takes to decipher

The mental drunken slur of

“Stop hurting me like that”

Like Frank Sinatra said

“The best part about waking up with a hangover is

the only thing you have to look forward to

is feeling better”

I can’t wait to feel better

So bring on your jazz and work me up

And trumpet your lies

Mock love forgiveness

This headache was worth the trouble of forgetting

Sea foam

Beer foam

Either way I’m drowning with this ship

And either way I’m waking up

Missing you

And regretting everything I’ve said

For a moment, right now, pretend that forgiveness will never feel like taking a bet. That the phrase, "I love you," Is not just another form of turrets. Pretend that you've got a pocket heavy with change and you walk like a wishing well wind-chime. And you've got a nickel in there for every time you cried for something. And your chance to change is as easy as flicking your thumb. Launching a coin into a pool of water. Pretend that you've got a penny melted and molded from the iron in your blood. Pretend that that wish will come true. Pretend that I just put mine down on a bet on you. Double or nothing, because ******* kid, to me, you mean something. And I don't mean any big life success. This is deathbed memories type ****. Who was there when it mattered type ****. Pizza on the car hood when the mice are asleep in the oven and the birds have nested in the old stove burners. Finding safety in a hammock held up by the corners of a mouth. Warmth in arms when you realized how cold it was actually going to be down south. For a moment right now pretend. That you've got a friend with a body made of drawbridge and hands strong enough to close it when you need to. Eyes like a moat. A blanket quilted from your lover's muscles. For a moment right now pretend that that friend isn't me. It's you. Forget God. Forget finding forgiveness and love there. On the inside that friend is you. Making penny bets like a Philippino woman in the smoking section of a casino. Double or nothing. 50/50. Pretend now that I'll be there too. Tossing coins in a well. Wishing only the best for you.

I wouldn't call them scars. Our bodies are ancient calendars marked with times and places. Tonight, you are not real. You are the desperate ocean lapping at the shoreline trying to take back the secrets in the bottles cast off by lovers, and children, letters to the dead sometimes. They are not your secrets, but they came to you first. They are full of feelings you have once felt or will feel. The bottles glisten in the sand mockingly, beautifully, painfully, like window shopping for jewelry you'll never be able to afford. You never expect to want the glass back after it has been pulled out of you. But the stories inside are your stories now too. You cast them off in the same manner hoping somone better than the sea will find them. The story about your cancer, your mother, the love you feel right now, the love returned, the time you thought of the beauty of a flower, the flower you killed to show someone how beautiful it was, the realization of the importance of stillness. All those stories like broken bottles in your skin. Like jewels encrusted on a big brass door leading to a room you live in. But tonight, you are the ocean at high tide, finally getting your bottles back.

I wish the traveling circus were still around to run away to. It's not about being afraid to leave as much as it is needing a place to go. But my father was a mountain and my mother was a hole. And we're caves, mouths open and full of the cold. Been sitting so long myths have been made about the things that live inside us. The children come on dares to look in there. And yell in fear, at first only to have those sounds echo back. Then they laugh. There was never anything to be afraid of. Our bodies are full of that noise. Mostly the laughter. It lasts longer. It feels better. But is easier to forget because no one ever learned anything by laughing as much as being brave. You have to be scared to be brave. And moving from this place takes the strength of an earthquake sometimes. But you should know, your hands will never be big enough to hold all the rubble when the mountain crumbles. I remember when the cancer hit. The chest x rays from when they removed the portocath. Backlit, your chest resembles a busted cemetery gate from some ghost scene in a Sherlock Holmes movie. Broken. From letting all your ghosts go. And don't focus on all the things your hands can't hold. Your head fits just fine. Your hand. Cupped over your mouth to catch all your sighs. Can hold a cup of coffee to give to someone. Flowers. A poem. Tonight. Tonight you realize you're a mountain twice removed. A marble statue. So strong and so beautiful people will come a long ways just to see 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

Every word I have ever written
Has been some sad attempt to make you love me
I can’t hide my flaws behind walls of words
These black ink blemishes
Are like smears of blood
When you thought bleach would actually clear the crime scene

Not even the smoky morning rasp
Of my voice
When my spoken word sounds best
Stays steady
No
My brave voice breaks
In the same way my thoughts wander

They take me places
But I will always come back to you

Until you love me
I am showing what’s behind my wordy walls now
Before it is too late

Because years from now
After I have finally convinced you to love me
And I become a ******* again
Because I know you will love me
No matter what

Please leave me
And take all this poetry when you do
Because believe it or not
Everything I have ever written
Has always been for you

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

**** 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

Forgive me for my silence

Just that

My mouth has only ever been good

For ******* things up

I know

The cherry pie you baked your heart into

Still tasted like the lucky side of copper

I know all that sweet

Is the only way to keep it down

I know you might think you deserve this

You don't

These scars are not some secret cuneiform

There are no answers waiting

In the long nights you wish would just end

What we all keep forgetting

Is there is always a place of rest

You can rest here

In my silence I am still learning that

Still learning how to properly hold people

Still trying to get my timing right

Because

When is it ever really a good time

To say I love you

I know we’ve all been told

These types of things get easier

But even if they did

I wouldn’t want them to

We are supposed to be complicated

Like my awkward silence

While staring you down in a parking lot

Wondering again

Why I didn’t say what I was thinking

If you wanted to know

I was thinking

My hands have only ever been good for squeezing

And my heart has only ever been good for pumping

And my mouth has only ever been good

For ******* things up

So forgive me

Just that I wanted to keep you here

A little longer

Cigarette smoke and **** colored beer
Family is a suckerpunch epiphany
For people who’ve spent so much time
Saying they no longer had one

I swore forever
Mine was missing parts
This heart carved shells
Let’s swap odd shapes
Re-sew them and **** up our beats forever
Together

If the world is ending and you find me here
Kicking up the earth
Dirt scatter to the wind
Brown blood spatter
That’s just me trying to escape faster

Join me or leave me
But I got this beef with gravity
Like a severed head tetherball
This face senseless

You make me senseless

Numb to all the bad parts
In the same way salt makes everything sweeter
You make everything sweeter
Your salty skin
Sweet mouth
Sweet speak
Sweet laughter

Make me feel a little less stupid
About giving in to the movement
This mouth
This body
Like a knee-buckle kick to the gas pedal
And I peel out by accident

And you can still love me
Like family
I’ve slept in so many beds
And on so many floors
All so much more comfortable than my own

I swear I have bed bugs
Drinking my blood as I sleep
Getting drunk most nights
Them and me
Wake up itchy and fatigued
Like an allergy

But you
You smile like a hammock
Held up by strings hanging from your eye squint
To your dimples

Without speaking
“you can rest here tonight”

This is for the beds
For the people who say ouch when I hug them
For the family I thought I never had

For the appreciation that
Every moment of sadness
Means I’ve known so much joy
To feel that way

I’ve known so much joy
Thank you

For the sake of discretion, when I retell this story, I am a fish, gill-hooked, near gutted, and thrown back. You are a goose with swan beauty, but not swan grace. There is a girl throwing bread onto the water above my head. Competing for the same crumbs, through what could be a mirror, our mouths met. You took the bread, but I kissed you.

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

“I wish someone had a quarter
For some candy”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today I wanted to buy the copyright to the process of hallelujah
******* in joy the same way whales eat krill
You just bottle it up inside your lungs until you have enough

Inside my fridge I have vacuum sealed jars of hallelujah
There’s nothing religious about that
Jars labeled things like
Loss of virginity
Rob lived this time
The homework is complete

Hallelujah

It’s the same way prayer works
Backwards
Pulling bits of god like an inhale

I want to hyperventilate on your hallelujah
Like a gospel choir on speed

It collects
Over time
For instance
It was maybe a month in to sleeping at Delia’s and Toffer’s house
Before I realized
I didn’t have to sleep in my car anymore
You go into the bathroom to **** and realize
Hallelujah
A jar labeled
Found a Home for now

I know science can do this
For the sake of all that is a monument to a single life
So that on your death bed, or at your funeral
Everyone there can hold a jar

Cold and warm at the same time
Vibrating in their palms
In violent joy
Like mozzletoff cocktails
They are thrown
And when they shatter there is a song
That has been collecting for years

The same word in different tonal joys

Your life

Every good moment

Hallelujah

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.

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

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

This is a true story of ******’s ally

The old man carried a cello and a stool
Bullets divided wind
So many straight lines he could see them like sheet music

He sat the stool down in the middle of the street
Held his cello
And played under the gunshots
Until everything was quiet

And in the outdoor acoustics
Made by apartment buildings and the morning cold
He played a fifteen minute rendition of heartache
On a cello tuned to the key of thunder

His high notes were so much screaming
And the deep low notes bellowed his hunger
It was the simple sound of savagery
When people needed another way to know what pain sounds like

They could hear it in the way that the strings
Absorbed the rust from his arthritic fingertips
Scraping the sound of struggle

It was the most painfully beautiful music
He played to the soft continuous metronome click of reloading
Beauty like a rose that dies in the hair of a girl
Whose own rose is a blooming ****** chest wound

Thought maybe he could replant her
Like the earth might give her back

Anything plucked from the root dies shortly after
He played for her
He played for courage
He played like a prayer to be shot doing what he loved

We all wanna die doing what we love

She was shot picking roses

He played cello
On a playground of bullets
A song that begged
**** me

Where is your god now?
When all you wanted was to be a casualty of love and music

He finished
Beads of sweat like ***** diamonds
As the morning sun mocked him for living another day

Some of us get to walk away from this
Without a single scar
Even if we wanted one

He walked away

And shortly after

The bullets began to do what bullets do
When they pierce flesh