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

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

It hasn’t been as cold lately
The train of shopping carts rattles
Vibrate my forearms
Especially as I cross the yellow speed bumps on the ground

The city put those there to trip up skateboarders
And to confuse babies in strollers

Old women on walkers avoid them

There are things designed to make us slower
More careful

I think about my last poetry reading while filling the coolers
And don’t ask myself why when alone
I take myself to the places that make me most happy

My cashier asks me when he can go home

You do everything slower when
You keep yourself company
When you’re lonely
You’re not savoring moments
You just taking your time
Because you can
I set the alarms and lock the doors
The moon has been out for a while
I will go home and write

Everyone is asleep except for me
I crack open a few beers
Open the window so the moon can keep me company

Forever I thought there was something wrong with me
But I have learned
Like the moon
Some things will only shine in the nighttime
Not everything looks like gold under the sunlight

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

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

He gazed at her face
In awe of her anthropomorphic beauty

He wants to surrender to her savagely

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

He trembles
Skin tightens

More beast than human
Less beauty
More everything else

She is a dance floor
Splinter scuffed

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

The way she howls scares him

The wearing down to perfect
Is painful

They both want something they can’t have

But press harder to find it

Teeth gnashing a ****** river

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

He will not lose her this time
He will not lose

He wakes naked
Covered in earth

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

He will not lose her this time
Not again

I felt like a giant
Holding fireworks in his fists
Fuses burning between my knuckles
I could silence the bang if I wanted to

Inside your chest are bibles
Full of psalms about hunger
And love
And letting go
Psalms about selfless
I want to kiss you like a prayer

******* like a prayer

I am small
And I feel the ground breathe beneath my feet
It is dark

I am a marble with a green cat eye center
Still hot and smooth
The glass blower that made me had asthma
I don’t roll like the rest of them
This dent in my chest
But you decide it is a good place to rest your head

You feel like the ocean
When I am sleeping on a raft
I made from fallen trees and rope
A steady rock just past the wave break
So calm I’m sure I could sail safely
As far as I wanted

I feel like I don’t exist
Like I am unicorn horn glitter
After the slaying
The men who have ground me down
Use me to sell toys to kids
Because glitter makes everything magic

I am magic
Clumsy magic
Like a giant learning sleight of hand
Fireworks in his fists
I could stop the bang if I wanted to

I don’t want to
I am hot glowing color
Falling from the palms of a giant
Whose hands are clouds

Someone has just prevented a car accident
Saved someone’s life
There are fireworks
A celebration

I am rubber kneecaps
For people who collapse
I bounce them back
People who don’t pray anymore
They just keep walking

I feel like a slave song
The simple message
When you sing these words
I can do anything

I feel like a giant

And I want to kiss you like a prayer
That stops someone from dying

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

I don’t understand
So I call his school

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

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

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

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

The process of building is violent

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

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

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

Every fight I have ever been in
My nose has bled

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

His feet are large
He lumbers with them

I hold him as still
As I can

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

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

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

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

I toast to him in my head

Here’s to becoming whole

The Carpenter ants

Walk through the cracks in the wall

The white stucco

lookin’ like the surface of the moon during daylight

It’s what living things do

Make homes in places that are broken

Little ants re-patch the woodwork

Till the tunnels spell home

in slightly destructive cursive

Dust is dead skin

I had cancer once

And it tried to eat me from the inside

There’s a hole in my chest now

Just big enough for your soul to fit into

It’s what living things do

Entropize the edges till we fit

Even if we were never supposed to

We’ve all gotta fit somewhere

Even if we have to chew our way through

There is a hole in my chest now

With just enough space

For you

1
I remember her body against me

She tells me she doesn't want to get hurt
That I will break her heart

You can break me like a wishbone
and keep the better half

Sharpen it like a prison shiv
and stab me with it if I do

2
She is the snow
I am a stove in a single room cabin

I have been cutting off parts of this home
and feeding them into my belly

There is sawdust
on the floor of my love

3
Most of this house is gone now
I am still a stove
she is still snow

We both think
this heat is a good idea

I keep burning

Call her iglu
Call her daring
Call me almost homeless

4
I have left the stove

I am a candle now

Slow burning

Call me always hot still

Call her always melting

The floor is always wet

5
I tried to trap the ocean
in a dresser drawer

But we were flooded roofless

I learned to hold my breath

She learned that warmth doesn't really change anything

There was the sun
and it heated her body

I bathed in the ocean
she made
a thin
near burnt candle

I sank down

Her heart was made of winning halves of wishbones
Sharpened like shivs

I did not go near them

I am not afraid of getting hurt
But I have always been taught
to respect the sea

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I don’t want to go

I remember the days when you wanted to die
When your face was on the verge of cloudbursting
Into such a storm
I could feel the traffic jam of the sound in my own throat
Creeping up to tell you I love you

But the words dragged too slow
And I gagged
And vomited in my mouth
Swallowing all the words that should have come out

I know you stained that razor red
And I know rope burn scars when I see them
And I should have known that the safety was off
On that loaded gun I never realized was
So much determination

If I had known
I would have held your hand
And fallen with you
In the same way I fell in love with you

Split second to pavement
Split hairs over who died the longest
Because
I am still here

In the split second between the moment
You laughed at something disgusting I said
And then kissed me for no reason
I knew how this was going to end

If you could see the way she looks at you
you would know

But you're busy building walls of doubt
nursung weary what-ifs
like feeding gremlins after midnight

I have this picture of the both of you

You are staring off into your imagination
always just above the horizon

And she is laughing
at something you said

She is looking right at you
smiling honest

Only you can make her laugh like that
Only you

I guess some of us need it spelled out
Our egos need to be reminded

You are not always going to be her favorite everything
You are not the best

But for whatever reason she chose you

Chose you like a raffle ticket
from a barrel full of so much better

You are not a jackpot
she is not a jackpot
but you both have won something

You're both walking away with what you came here for

You break her heart some days
How her eyes sadden
and she does that thing that girls do

you know
when they go
awww but it's pronounced oohh
(Men love that sound)

I see the tremble in her arms
the hesitation to hold your head to her *******

But your signals cross
and you beat yourself up later
for not acting differently
because she might fall in love with you
if you had done things differently

You can't act your way into a relationship
If you're not being yourself
You're being somebody else
and in that case
she's better off with that other guy

It makes me wonder about lightbulbs
and how many people it takes to ***** them in
depending on your occupation

I wonder how many pairs of eyes it takes
to notice what love looks like

Because if you could see the way she looks at you
you would know
and the only thing you might do differently
is continue to be yourself

You remember what you wanted to be when you grow up?

Right now

When I grow up

I want to be a poet

Even if I am homeless and I use all my green paper

To buy myself some white paper

Just to **** it up all over again

I have muddied so many perfect things

With my ***** hands

***** thoughts

***** feelings

If I don’t etch myself away on something

How can I ever come clean?

Especially if I am homeless

I will cut these words out of me if I have to

I will soap box my heart out

From anywhere

Even if no one is listening

I don’t mind being the self talking

grungy stutterer you step into the street to walk away from

That awkward smacking is just me working the psalms

From the roof of my mouth like holy peanut butter

They are bitter and equally disgusting to the pallet as they are the ear

But the truth has a nasty taste

And beauty is always buried under layers of dirt

And I can’t wipe hard enough

I will never be approachable

I need to find at least 10 ways to say

No longer negotiable

I want to be a poet

Just some guy who

Puts ink to paper

The same way he

Puts paper to face

In order to soak the bleeding of his blemishes

If I don’t use something

To wipe away my *****

How will I ever be clean?

Corduroy
by far
is the sexiest fabric

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

I wanna hear you coming

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

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

Let me lose your button

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

Corduroy is ugly
So are we

Has texture
So do we

Is made from finely twisted fibers
Like DNA

Corduroy makes me sweat
Literally

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

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

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

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

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

It’s a compliment

I feel like a comic strip hobo
With no money for deposit

And still I step from slapstick to cement
and hope court jester is enough here

I have come out of the rain
and into your home
Drawn to you
Though there is no pie in your window
No ghostly fingers of your sweet smell
beckoning me in

You make me feel
Like a ghost in a graveyard
Praying for a new harmonica inhale
and exhale
So that this music can sound more like a dance for two
A panic waltz for feet trying to match your grace

And today
Darlin'
There is honey between my teeth
A sweet sound

Our love is backwards
Blacklisted
An elbow torqued and knuckle gutted dry heave halleluja

Arthur Miller would have written a satire about our love

I remember our early conversations
You said you didn't believe in god
I said that he was a fantastic literary device
You said though you didn't believe in god
that people themselves could be godly
I suddenly wondered what you would look like with a jerry curl
"Let's not call it godly," I said
"What then," you said
I don't know

I just know that
Your eyes are like second winds
like Breathcatch memories
of highway carjackings
where you were the one left on the side of the road

The warm summer pillow of your stomach
And the peel of my face away from it
Is sticky like candy
Your stomach is like candy in that way
So is my face
I can be sweet too

Your smile is speechless
like the speakers are speechless
And the music has stopped
and our bodies are still
save for your smile
That quivers like fire

And I am a comic strip hobo
With a bandana backpack
and not much to offer

But I am drawn to you

You make me feel like harmonica breath
You make my mouth feel like honey

Your heartbreak is as cozy
As the fishbowl I still get dizzy in
After you took me off the back burner
And placed me on the counter to cool
I have to remind myself that
It is not an earthquake when you
Slam the kitchen cabinets
Even though
My world shakes

The thing about fish is
If you don’t put a lid on their bowls
They tend to jump out
Not that it is an attempt at suicide
Just that some of us were born
Without the capacity to understand
Our own limitations
Don’t tell me I can’t breathe on dry land
*******
I am a man
Which means I am too dumb to understand that
Unless I try

How am I supposed to know
That I can’t protect you from everything
Unless I try

How am I supposed to know
That I can’t love you forever
Unless I try

How am I
supposed to know
That duct tape
can’t hold everything together
Unless I try

How was I supposed to know
That we would eventually be
Nothing but gasps of air
On a damp cutting board
When the lashings of love
Have denatured the thickest parts of our skin

Maybe I don’t know how to fix everything
Or love you like a normal person
Maybe saying every thought I have out loud
Makes you uncomfortable
It makes me uncomfortable
My face isn’t always this red
My skin isn’t always this hot
I am not always this dumb

But I am a man *******
And maybe I just
Haven’t learned that yet

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

I never meant to look like a ***** floor

I bend the laws of physics when I ask mirrors to change my own reflection

Have this ugly soul

pushin’ all my ugly buttons

Doubled  back on my last straw so many times

I’m pullin’ splintered strands of yellow

From my backstab wounds

Got prickly bits of blonde  

Sticking out from the places I missed

They healed there

Got shards of my own teeth in my tongue

Puncture holes in my lungs

Makes it hard to breathe sometimes

‘cause I am still healing

Don’t call me good

Or handsome

Or patient

I do everything I can to sabotage the love you give

Not that I don’t want it

I am just not ready

One time you told me I should love as often as I breathe

So I starting breathing as often as I love

And I almost die in the intervals between our phone calls

Grace is you lightening the pressure on my drowning head

Patience is me staying under when you do

God is a child with a finger pointed at my heart and laughing

And you are an angel when you turn out the bathroom light

So that I stop hating my own reflection

Remind me that we are defined by more than the choices we make

That I might still have all the scars from the cancer

And the fistfights

And that one time I tried to end it all too early

But this heart beats more than just a war drum

It beats a ******* army

Can hear it like giant rumble footsteps

Can hear it finally change directions

Away from all the chaos

Shattering mirrors below my heart feet

So much glass glittering

Looks like a river

Too many pieces to reflect anything but the sky

Reminds me

I am not done healing

Bored at work
I take a razor to a white eraser

I slice an x down the marble white
So sharp the lines are invisible
Until I bend it

It will take much friction to hide what I did
But if I am too rough
It will break

I barely went to school
And was baptized underneath a rain gutter
But I promise
Despite my upbringing
I will die a poet

Birds never studied music
Nature never rough drafted its deformations
Including me
I was born perfectly broken
With heart in throat
And head in clouds
And head in ****

And head

Head everywhere else but center
Hands anywhere but to myself

I dare you to stop pumping fuel
Into my mouth’s motor
Dare you to make fun of me
For my special education
For my short bus
******
My education was special

I learned to walk on two feet
When I should have had four
And I learned
How to stop myself from crying
When I found out not everyone is going to love me

I’ve learned the language
Of your laughter
And can translate your sighs
To mean anything
Right now they are the exhalation of ghosts
You no longer wish to hold on to

Let them go
Let go of your ghosts
And don’t settle for anything less
Than the silence of your soul
As it leaves you
Take this poem with you when you do
It is a love note
Sending Saint Peter home

All are welcome here

Especially you

I mean
Nobody’s perfect
Especially poets
I’m not perfect
Which is perfect
Because that means
I can die
A poet

“I don’t believe in love”
He said
“There’s just this
Sycophantic idea with forever
And that somehow our passion
Could last exactly that long”

I think about you
And I almost believe him
But I know
I can love you forever

I am too good at bear hugs
And am fully flexible
When it comes to Kama Sutra napping
I can hold you in slumber
From any angle

I know there are days
Where I fall so far apart
The slow drag of my soul
Along the ground
Pieces me back together a little *****

I am a little *****
Especially when it comes to my mouth
I say things sometimes
That surprise the disgusting

I hope you like ***** talk

And I hope you can be patient
Forever is a long time to love somebody

I mean
Centuries from now
After my soul has doubled back
On it’s ***** self
So many times I come back as just a flower
I will still try and smell nice for you

And I will try and stay alive in
Whatever *** you drown me in
For as long as I can

I mean
I can’t live forever
But as long as I do
I am fully capable
Of loving you

“I don’t believe in love”
She says

As I speed through a yellow light
She presses her first ******* to her lips
Then touches the roof of my car with them
She shuts her eyes

I don’t ask her why
I just trust her intentions

In the same way I don’t believe in anything myself
Save for the passion that takes hold of others
When they believe

I like what that looks like

The word believe when broken down
First means to live
“Be” means to exist as
Or to live

And “Lieve” means love
And I think about the bravery it takes
To believe in anything
And the bravery it takes to love
And how that same bravery is made by love

How many stupid things have we done
Just by loving someone?

How many arguments are there against a belief
In anything?

I don’t believe in god
But I believe in you

When I watch you do things
Like superstitious knee **** reactions
To keep the light yellow a little longer

So on the ride home I do the same thing
As the sun bends it’s yellow into red over a horizon
That is kissing our sunburnt necks

Because I want this car ride to last a little longer

Even though we say nothing
And you don’t ask why for the last fifteen minutes
I’ve had my fingers pressed to the roof of my car
A satisfied smile pressing back my cheeks

You just trust that I feel this means something

So maybe you don’t believe in love
But you believe in something
And by doing so
You are partaking in love on some weird level
Subconsciously
Like breathing

But I want this car ride to last a little longer
So I say nothing
Let the wind **** the silence like white-noise
It’s as close to prayer
As either of us
Will ever get

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

I get so lost some days
I feel like I am rubbernecking lightning
Just waiting for the flash

And life is a Nissan brake-checking your awe

People say you can tell how close the storm is
By counting seconds between lightning and thunder
If you can see it
It is always close enough

I don't mean to romanticize everything
But it's what I do

The clouds look like scabs
In front of some bolts
Before they mesh back into the smooth blackness

I wish I healed that fast

There is this mountain

And this song that echoes through the valleys below it

Bellowing heavy and hollow

So deep that when you stand at the base

It fills your chest the way a bass drum does

Rather than mimicking the awkward music-less thump of your heart

It is constant

It begs you to find its center

Numbs you the way beer does

Breaks you down to this one feeling

Of forever

The way humming eventually tickles your lips

And you just can’t stop

Don’t stop

Just enter

If you ever wake up and find that I am no longer here

Know that there is this mountain

With a trail leading to its center

And it is humming the song of forever

Know that my carbon footprint is shallow enough

That the dirt my body turns into

Will fill it exactly

Know that home was never in cages

Not in dirt walls

Or wood walls

Or concrete walls

Walls do not belong in such wide open spaces

So if you wake up tomorrow

And find that I am gone

Know that there is this song

That anyone can sing just by humming

Until your lips go numb

Know that song is me

I never wanted anyone to love me

And I never wanted any more that what I already have

This whole time we’ve had it all wrong

And we never realized it

Keep the answers locked up like secrets

That we are too guilty to share

If the only thing my epitaph ever says is

“He was a good man”

I would have lived perfectly

So

If you wake up tomorrow

And I am gone

Remember the mountain

And its song

Remember it may be the hardest place for anyone to ever get to

But it feels more like home

Than any place ever will

I don't know how to be scared anymore
I don't know how to be cold anymore

I've spent some nights in this car
Not worried about anything
Even though the transmission is failing

Drive back and forth most days
Trying to understand this thing we call home

And I want to repay you in something more substantial than money
This poetry posted on websites
and left on coffee tables
but the transmission is failing

And I am falling in love with you
And if I knew that love was the answer to homelesness
That in the shedding of weight
and in the cutting open
Was this

I'd have left long ago

Vaggabond heart
Finding safety
In your chestplate
Like a sea snail who has
shed his shell

To squeeze into yours

There is so much room in there
So much room

Your body
a cabin
made of welcome mats

An extra plate of food at the table
I am always hungry

This body
A broken radiator
always overheating
Give me your feet
To keep warm

Keep me
like a humble savage
Saying grace
In a language
You'll never understand

Changing clothes in a closet trunk
3 backpacks for different things
Worn like heirloom rings
Like they are all that I own
That mean anything

They are

And not that I know what it means just yet
but
Take me home tonight

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

But you don’t
And maybe I’m mistaken

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

Naked mole rats are blind

You can see well enough

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

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

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

But you end our conversations the way sighs do

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

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

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


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

I just have this stupid poetry passion stutter

And you

I have you

Just maybe not the way I want you

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

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

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

How some sorts of sticky sweetness haunt your soul forever

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

This is after I swore that I actually had a backyard

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

I had the strangest tan lines then

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

In the shifting dark I could have been anywhere

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

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

Until one day I didn’t notice her anymore

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

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

I don’t believe in heaven

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

I would still break everything
From bones to hearts

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

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

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

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

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

I was here *******

And this is how I will live forever

I have forgotten how happy this makes me
But I am grateful for it

Grateful for the mistakes
For the learning that comes from the ****** up things my mouth does
When all I wanted was for you to laugh

I am thankful for the laughter
And the overwhelming smile that I am normally self-conscious of
When the laughter makes me think how much I love you

Come sit with me in the middle distance
Between the times I want to remember forever
And the fast approaching future
That I don’t want to miss without you

It’s not gay when we hold hands in public
Unless we’re being gay about it

Look around
Who is staring?
They’re just jealous of the love

Thank you so much for getting me
When I feel no one else does
For understanding me so perfectly that
You can stop my stupidity mid-sentence
Just by saying my name

Say my name again like a double negative

Let my mouth slip a little further into absurdity

Thank you for the dancing
On dimly lit dance floors
Slick with sweat
And scuffed with heel-heart grace

I want to remember my awkwardness like a scar

Your smile is a scar reminding me of us
When I begin to tell these stories again

Like that time I broke into a car to steal him a pack of smokes

Or when we sat in her car after class til 2 am just talking
Just laughing

When I remind her how much I like kissing her
Especially when we’re drunk
Sloppy and passionate

When I pull my face from yours
And you smile so beautifully

When I slept on her couch because I didn’t want to go home that night
So I treated her to pho the next morning

When I held her after drinking
Under blankets she warmed in the dryer

Every time I tell them I love them
I mean it

When they taught me how to dance
When grace is something I never needed
To move like this feels good

The beer
And the tears
The laughter
The mornings after

I am grateful because of you
And because of you
I am full of greatness

Full of can-do-fire
And won’t-quit-cliché-heart
Full of first attempts with the goal to fail
Because I want to experience it all

With you

So thank you
For the laughter
And the dancing
And the awkward scar smiles
That reminds me how worthwhile living is

It is worthwhile
Because of you

I don’t know where the right place is

But if you ever found it

That’s where my heart would be

Pumpin’ contently

Good intentions lookin’ like veins

Stackin’ up like a spiral train track headin’ up and out

It’s the only way they grow

Up and out

Like weeds

They grow from anywhere

I had a friend who’s car was so messy weeds were growin’ in his back seat

Love is synonymous with the way weeds grow

Makes me thankful for the fissures in the foundation that holds me

On days where the money runs out

And I can’t even keep my own head above water

On days where I collapse into the fault lines I’ve made for myself

There’s still love in there

I know I’m not perfect

But the intentions bleedin’ out from the cracks in my skin

Are beggin’ for forgiveness

Like it was all that I ever wanted

I hate the fact that I push people away

And I hate the fact that I can get so obnoxious

That even my laugh sounds like thunder

beggin’ ya to punch me in the face

Go ahead and stop lovin’ me if you have to

Just know

If you ever found the right place

Maybe stumbled upon it like a hole in the ground

That you somehow missed

My heart would be in there

Good intentions

Workin’ up like weeds

Beggin’ you to love me

I picked up the pieces of my shattered heart
and put them into my jar of fireflies.

Only way now to keep my heart-spark alive
To live healthy in the glow

I've left the lid open
Living with the fear that this light might leave me

I have to remind myself some days that dust still rises
So I walk like an oil well to keep your memory alive

I watched them bury you
and realised my biggest fear come true

Heaven can't be real

And coffins only trap our dead
I need to let you go

When I die I want to be naked
wet
and covered in seeds

Heaven is the transfer of energy
into new life

I don't wanna be a goddamm tombstone garden
I wanna be a real garden
With ******* roses
and lillies

And weeds
Weeds are hard to ****
Make me something strong again

Give me a reason to keep on going
Help me kick my own dust

I wanna make life
even after my life

and

I want you back
I want you back

Because I miss you so much some days
I drive sixty in suburban neighborhoods
Prayin the fire finaly takes me
and
I can't do it

I know I will wake up in the morning
and you still won't be here

Sent you an e-mail the other day but purposely got the address wrong
I just wanted your name in my inbox

Someone already has your cell phone number
I called them and cried
because when they answered
they sounded exactly like you

They've asked me to stop texting
Saying I have the wrong number

Did you know all the people on tv sitcom laughtracks are dead?
It is ghosts reminding us to laugh

Remind my smile
Remind my dust
Remind my firefly glow
To get bigger

Remind me that you're not really gone
Not gone gone
Even if you're just plant food
It means something

It's why grass itches your bare skin
Reminds you it's alive

I don't want to itch like your nightmares anymore

Just know
I am picking up the pieces as best I can

And I ******* miss you

Can I trust the eyes seeking mine?
I want to
Because they look like home
Through sepia tones
A bittersweet nostalgia before
We learned how easily people break

I want to trust your arms
They look just big enough to hold me
When I know the only way I feel safe
Is in the shape of a ball

And if you were any more beautiful
I’d be *******
Much like the ten beers I should’a
Said no to
Before you
And they
Had me sycophantic and stumbling
And already
just a little bit
*******

I want the smell of you to linger on my clothes
The same way fire does
After a book burning
Just a little bit shameful

I want you to stop my stammering
With a kiss
To preoccupy my mouth
Long enough to subdue my stupid

I want to let go
Of the fever that makes my back sweat
When I see you
And the worry
That your eyes might lose their shine someday

I want you
In all the ways that
I am probably not supposed to want you
But I do

I want our wrinkles to one day fit
Like ****** up Ziploc bags
It’s that bad
So kiss me
Before I tell you that

And maybe
keep your eyes closed
Until I can trust them
Because I want to

The word “Enthusiasm” comes from the Greeks

Meaning

God within the self

There is a god inside myself

Needling my fingertips when I touch you

I think they had it right

When they said

There is a god inside of everything

There is a god inside my mother’s voice

Calling me back to sleep

And inside

Broken beer bottles

On beaches

Inside the blood that runs from my feet

When I step on beer bottle beach glass

There is a giant of a god

In the ocean

And he’s dying to swallow me

There is a god

Inside every passing moment

His voice as subtle as a whisper

During an earthquake

Reminding you how to be calm

You have to be calm to listen

I have heard

If you play a piano

Tuned to the key of broken

You will hear the voice of

Humility

It is the sound of a god

Reminding you

Every beautiful thing breaks too

Every beautiful thing

Breaks too

There is a god

Kind enough to white noise my panic

Living in every deep breath I take

So that I might have just enough time

To explain how I love you

There is a god in the words of wisdom

Falling short of the ears they were

Supposed to take

Take my ear

Take my heart

Take my breath

And beat the dust of back country

Back into the god living inside the man

Who’s fingertips burn when he touches you

My fingertips burn when I touch you

I am pretty sure they had it right

When they said

That there is a god

In everything

Your voice is like a silent whisper that I no longer wish to hear

On any given day it breaks me down
like the soft hiss and hush of waves
working to break the levee

I feel your voice speaking from inside my cheeks

It feels like forever
and I still can't seem to shake you from my skin
how I say things the way you used to say them

how I sometimes think about things that make me uncomfortable
and say your name out loud to halt my thought's direction

I ******* miss you
but I don't want to miss you anymore

Moving on is the dilemma for ghosts
Who have nothing left to hold on to

I can't hold your ghost
There are people here who
are still perfectly capable of holding me

And when I see you again
Maybe you won't be able to hold me

Because I imagine
heaven
is energy

I know this in the way my skin still heats up
at the thought of your touch
you move my molecules a fire-friction-engine-rumble

You are energy
and this is how I know you are happy
because there isn't anything else you can be

This is how I know heaven is real
God is a ball of light that feels like a fiery smile when you touch it

But I still hear your voice at night
and maybe your memories creep up
like epiphany shivers
like

   oh
This is just me missing you
I am still human
and I am allowed to do silly human  things

Because I am alive
and so much self preservation
I haven't let you go yet

Which is why I still hear you
reminding me to do stupid things like take care of myself
and to not hang my head so wrecking-ball heavy
unless I am finally breaking down my own walls
to sucker punch my gut
in order to remind my lungs
that even without you here
the air still tastes so sweet

Reset my suckerpunch
to gasp
to fight for inhale
to understand
that my own breath
still tastes so sweet

I hear you
you silent whisperer
I hear you

I just want to not want this

But I do

I want this

Even though I can already see my heart

Dangling above a meat grinder

By a capillary vein

Pumping with the pace of desperation

That our lips might touch

I wish I didn’t want to kiss you

But I do

You are not supposed to stand so close

I can feel your breath

It is sweet when I inhale it

And I know your tongue must taste like

The coffee I am watching you drink

All the right kinds of bitter

I don’t want

To sleep alone anymore

And I don’t want

To continue guessing

What you might be thinking or doing

At this very moment

And because I don’t want anything to be unrequited between us

Right now

I’m drinking a tall can

And wondering how I can make my house not haunted

And am secretly loving you

I am secretly loving you

And all I want

The only thing

Is for you to love me back

In any way you can

The posted photo
made on somones computer
looked like loneliness
dressed as wisdom
and begged you to believe the fallacy

It said
Don't fall in love when you're lonely
fall in love when you're ready

You will never learn how love works
if you save it

give it away
get hurt
give it away again

Love takes practice

And even if finding my love
looks like the crackhead's
needle in the haystack

Know that my love isn't *****
You won't get sick from my love
It is just that my love has been used

And that is all that love ever wanted anyway
was to be used

It is not some Star Wars action figure
Meant to never be opened
to maintain value

Imagine Luke Skywalker's
Anger at you upon tasting fresh air
Thinking
Have you seriously been keeping this from me?

Have you seriously been keeping this from me?

My love is pure
Been refined
by the filter of bodies
and coming back to me

My love is top shelf
but it is always free

On the end table by the bed
A tiny Styrofoam cup
Full of unwrapped candy

In child’s writing
All caps and struggle

HAPPY HALLOWEEN
I AM SORRY
MOM

It is hard to stay angry
When you have an imagination

I picture her at a round table
******* a hospital bracelet

There are other people with her
Some have construction paper
Some have glue
There is glitter
And painted fingertips

I still get homesick
For places I have never been to
Sometimes miss people
I never even knew

There is a city inside my chest
It bustles
Pre pollution
But ***** is still legal

I have made homes there
You have a home here
In a city with
No hospitals
No graveyards
Just a cul-de-sac that starts at my throat
And double loops along my lungs
So many streets
My chest x-rays look like upside-down trees without the leaves

And when you leave
There is a house
Inside the city inside my chest
That stays empty forever

So much left behind
There is no room for anger to stay long

It exits like forgiveness
When you’ve given up all hope
When you can only reimagine so much

Some of these homes are condemned

Though it is hard to stay angry

Welcome to this empty house
Looks like it might sell any day
Only it’s not up for sale
The fridge is full of beer
And the doors are always open

In the back there is a room
Full of things you can break with your bare hands
Your bear hands
There are metal baseball bats
And hockey sticks if you need help

Take everything apart
Till you find replacements
For your missing parts
If you have to
We are so much duct tape and makeshift courage by now

There are days where it’s the only way to feel better
Don’t tell me
The ring in your arms as you connect
Doesn’t travel down your spine
And make you shiver like a good memory

Maybe this isn’t you
But some of us were born to break things
Some of us were born
To find our missing pieces
Inside piles and piles of missing pieces
We are so many badly sewn glassy eyes and awkward hinges by now

On the days
Where the murmur in your heart
Has you searching for some new tubing
Or when you need new wires
To reconnect your nerves
Or if you want to tighten your heartstrings
To play a calmer tune
Because there is too much distortion
In your song by now

Know there is an empty house
Stocked with beer
And in the back there is a room that I call a church
And the doors are always open

Lately I have been moved to tears

Whenever I catch myself alone

And I think no one is watching

Turns out I am still naïve enough to think

People talk about me when I am not around

Like there was anything worth saying

Or that I had the power to move words

Instead of them moving me

They move me

Still dumb enough for this poem to remind me of a joke

Does a bear sleep in the woods?

Does a bear **** in the woods?

If it knocks down a tree and no one is there to see it happen,

Does a bear make a sound in the woods?

Just like if I trap my sobs in a pillow and no one is there

To put their hand on my shoulder

Do I make a sound?

Or if no one is there to punch me in the gut

Do I still double over

From the pressure of begging God

For more patience than this

For more strength than this

For more love than this

For more hunger than this

I go days without eating

Just so I don’t have to feel sick again

Makes me wish it was the cancer

Just so there is something to take outa me

And it’s got me believing in fairy tales

Like God

Or the Wizard of Oz

telling me

You silly man

You had the patience

all along

You had the strength

all along

You had the love

all along

You had the hunger

all along

Bears **** in the woods

And the words move me too

And always remember

To ignore the man behind the curtain

She is dressed like an unmarked bottle of tequila
Smuggled and homemade

There's some dirt on your cheek
Leave it there
Out here looks good on you

There is the crunch and scrape
of dirt in the threading
little pebbles against my teeth

I spit them out onto a smooth portion of cement
Pray that in the blurr
I can read divinity
in the way the dirt falls

Another swig and I am heart heavy
Like scrap metal
and old houses
like fat sacks of glowing mercy

She smiles like a pipedream
of twisted shining copper

She speaks in head spin
This is what it feels like when god talks to you
without killing you

She says
You are not in the business of
feeling sorry for yourself

Name the year

This is the year of the shedding of weight
The year of the cutting in half
The year of shaking the dust
From the fragile places
Wiping the dirt from the threading
even if you have to use your own mouth
so you can finally seal yourself
without worrying if it will hurt this time

The year of hotmess
And young love
The year of leaving
This is the year
Not where everything is lost
But a new lightness is gained
In the way you can walk away

So pull your heart out from the rubble
of the past

This is the year of being charming
The year of fist fights and no regrets
The year where you finally understand
what it means to be honest

This is the year of shaking the dust

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”

I am pretty sure I should have been born a bug
These eyes have never been good for believing
But these hands
Stretch out like antennae
And will hold heartbeats till people make sense

I have never met a lap that didn’t look comfy
Or shoulders too bony to rest my head on
I have never met a bear
That I didn’t want to hug me

I am so much one man sized
Invasion of privacy
That I hand out **** whistles on first dates
Not that I’d **** anybody
I just need a painful reminder
Of appropriate distance
Even though
Distance is painful

I mean
I get lonely sometimes
And if you invite me to bed
And don’t ask me for ***
I will skip straight to the cuddles
Till we sweat salty *** puddles

I mean
Goosebumps is the human kinda Braille
For hold me
I know that
Because
I can read your skin with my fingertips
Every chill
Every pock mark
And scar
Has a translation

And If I were a louse
Or a flea
Or a lone cricket
Chirping cuddle-bug morse code
In the silence of your naptime
I’d take the time
To translate the language of your body

All you have to do
Is hold me

The answer sits awkward in my mouth
Like an Egyptian vowel
Some language I have yet to learn

And I stand like a third world country that there are no commercials for
There are no heartstrings to tug
No Sarah Mclachlan songs
No one sees the hunger
Building in the bellies of my motherless country

But if there must be indifference in this love
I want to love you more than you love me

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

My little brother cuts himself
And I wonder about the scars

Imagine that they are more like
the lines inside the trunk of a fallen tree
An indication of how long he has lived
or how fast he grew

and time is a funny thing now
Because it is easy to forget how old he is
because of how old he looks
and on the inside
who knows

I just think of counting rings
on a fallen tree stump
like a warped record

after the day grows quiet
if I placed a needle to the wood
What song would it play?

It is grey and snowy here
And I kinda miss the sun
She said

Woman
I am wishing you the warmth only a lover can offer
Via breathy nothings into your ear

Fills you like a balloon
And stands you so still
That your shadow on the snow
Looks more like a stain

I know you
Like the snowy backdrop of my foggy thoughts
When poetry is all that is left
To know who we are
And what we’ve become

It is us trapped in the porcelain distance
Between scalding hot coffee
And your shaking palm

So this is me
Wishing you warmth
And love
And burning belly cinderblock butterflies
The kind that don’t make you tremble
Just settle
Into the comfiest spot you know

Still cold?
I didn’t think so