Paul Simon says, “There’s angels in the architecture”

I know that they are poised at the edge

Wings hesitant at the idea

That they should not open once the angel jumps from the failure of another building

That babbles the broken laws of physics

Because it could not reach heaven

The angels know now

The only way up is down

Sometime even Angels forget

The only way to make it to morning

Is to survive another night

There was no fire licking their backs

No gun coaxing the plank

Sometimes the chute doesn’t open

Or the wings don’t catch the breeze

Sometimes the fire

Is just a form of depression

The kind that makes you believe

The only way up

Is down

Maybe it was weird that I didn’t move my hand

When it rested against yours

Or that I didn’t move my leg when our knees touched

Or that when we slept facing opposite directions

So we could share the same pillow

I pretended to be asleep when my lips touched your forehead

Just so we could be close a minute longer

I know I cry in my sleep

But you don’t have the same dreams I do

And you don’t have that awkward belief

That all people fit like puzzles if you press hard enough

What the hell do you think hugs are?

Or holding hands is?

I know I can’t accidentally fall into you

And sure

maybe it’s weird that I rub my socks into the carpet

With the sole purpose of shocking you

But how else do you make sparks fly?

I know that my life’s story is an open book I tell so well

My pages are shameless

And my words are honest

And yeah

I know I stare at your mouth when you speak

It’s just that

Eye contact freaks me out

And I’m sorry I spaced out while you were talking

It’s just that I was staring at your lips

And I suddenly wanted to kiss you

I know I have no filter

And am practiced in the art of bad timing

And poor explanations

But we’re only human

We only want simple things

Like to be needed by other humans

Go ahead

Need me like a parasite

I’ve already got so much excess baggage

The weight of your monkey on my back

Might as well be an anchor

Keeping me next to you

There should be dents in your memory foam by now

Pretty lady

There are dents in my cheeks from all the smiling you cause me

And I’m pretty sure you could light a match

From the heat in my face

So I am sorry if I can get a little creepy

It just means I like you

The grain of salt I mistook you for
Still tasted bitter on my pallet

Forget that when
We buckled
We never broke
Just bent

Like the tense end of a ruler
Like childhood daring
Teasing the ends to touch
Before the snap
Sent you home for being disobedient

You sent me home
So many times
I got the path back memorized
The same way Ice skaters know
When to move

There is a special kind of cursive
Etched in the dusty back roads
Of my misbehavior

Spells out
Perfect
sometimes

Spells out
Forgive me

Spells out
Last ditch effort to make you like me

I barely know where I am going

Barely know where I've been

Just got this itch to move

I guess

You are welcome to stop reading this
Right
About





Now

Seriously

You wanna see self hate
Then stick around friend
I got so much ugly
I can’t keep it to myself
It spreads
All I wanted was for you to love me
Can’t hide it
Can’t disguise it
Can’t play it off
No
Watch in the way that you hold me
Like a coal
Trying to set fire to more than just your skin
I’ll set fire to more than just your skin
I’ll melt mirrors with this
You wanna feel distance
I’ll push you away so hard with nothin but my crazy
You’ll beg fault lines to sink you into the sea
And scratch until you bleed
‘cause holy ****
I’ll make ya itch
And work you past breaking
Beg you down to knee height frustration
I
am so ugly
I am surprised you can even look at me
Or listen to this poem
Because
I got so much *****
Aint comin out in the wash
Got so many lies workin at my spine
It’s now bent like a question mark
Got the Hunchback’s bells clangin in my heart
Always striking midnight
So keep your distance
And hold your breath if you come near me
Because I am made of so much ugly
It spreads

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FOUND

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

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

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

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

Ps…………. I hope you pooped well

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

Run your fingers through my face fur again
You sweet demon

Touch my face

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

Only I can drive myself home

I know I am so much smiles
And bad words

I like bad words
They feel good

So much passion in them
Like a Tourette’s prayer

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

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

I dunno

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

Touch my face again
With your rough love

And then I can walk away

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

Run your fingers through my face fur again
You sweet demon

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

Only I can drive myself home

I know I am so much smiles
And bad words

I like bad words
They feel good

So much passion in them
Like a Tourette’s prayer

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

I mean,
This poetry is so much sound

That I might make a better wind instrument
Than a man

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

You perfect pedestrian
Dressed in slow moving smoke signals

Push all my buttons again

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

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

Nothing pretty comes from this

Even the music

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

Each version
There’s still you in the middle

Still you at the end

And If I were a man

A good man

I’d pick up the confetti
That falls

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

Trying to tell you

If I were a man

I’d love you like one

1
The hardest thing you will ever do
Is care for someone who has no interest
In caring for themselves

It is grocery shopping at 2am
Shortly after work
When this morning I realized
There is no food in the house

It is a week’s worth of food I can barely afford

2
Growing up there were 2 churches in my neighborhood
On Wednesdays
The one closest to the elementary school gave away bread
On Fridays
The one near my grandmother’s house gave out canned goods

It was always fun to see what arrived in the big brown boxes

It was like Christmas
Except if it was close to Christmas
Because the boxes were always a little more full than usual around then

3
She sits all day in a robe
Mismatched socks
A cigarette between permanently pursed lips

She is the closest thing to crazy cat lady
That I have seen in real life

Except
These are not cats

These are children
Still dumb enough to not see that something is wrong

4
He is an old man
Doing what old men do
Around the time of forgetfulness
And the time where your body stops doing what you tell it to

Like to not **** your pants

5
They are like houseplants
And goldfish purchased from the same market
Living things whose only interest is dying

Like sheep open mouthed at the beauty of the rain
Sheep sometimes drown in the rain

6
I feel like I’m drowning
In a shallow pond

The kind of drowning that takes effort
And humility

The kind where the gasps of air are enough
To fill me with hope for a little longer

It is water-logged hope
At the bottom of a drying well
When the mouth at the top
Look so much like laughing

7
I know
Airing out your ***** laundry in public
Doesn’t clean your clothes
As much as it lets everyone know how bad you can smell
Which reminds me
I have laundry to do in the morning

Her mind is as loud as a whistle blow
I can see it in her smirk
As we talk over dinner

I hear her silent sarcasm
I’m not psychic
But her wheels turn quickly enough
That I know to be ready to dive into the dirt
And out of her path

I hear her train comin’
See the coals burn in her eyes
The way her eyelashes flicker flakes of cinder away

I feel one fall on my arm
It singes my arm hair
It smells like the square-root of burning bodies to an over exaggerator

This feels like

People who have prayed in silence
And caught fire
Because they were begging for the answers
Before the bomb went off

They are souls who have been told
Praying is a waste of time
Wondering is a waste of time
You don’t always get answers when you ask for them
You don’t always get answers when you ask for them

Sometimes you’re lied to

Souls who have to learn to accept
The helpless agenda of living

Whatever happens was supposed to happen
If it wasn’t
We wouldn’t be here

Ready for the fire
Ready for the whistle blow
Ready for the hog-tie train track love she has to offer

I ask
Do you still love me?

She picks up her glass of wine
Sips it
Leaves a stain of lipstick on the rim

She says
I do

She says
I do

I want to write this poem
Like a band-aid
For a knuckle scrape the stucco frustration

The adrenalin shiver
Maybe you look at your fingertips
And know you'll never be a doctor

A poem that finds you peaceful

We go to exrtremes so often
This middle ground has leeway
Move around in it

There are things I need to say
Halfwritten letters
Stacked inside a gut-heavy dumbwaiter
And if I ever found the courage to pull the rope
I might choke

This poetry gets scared sometimes
I know you get scared sometimes
There are memories you re-live
Like a masochistic dvr
Or a photo album labeled
"Let's not go back to this place"

I want there to be poems in response to this

A literary anitbiotic
For the sickness we create

There is a reason chemistry makes use of the alphabet

And I find myself searching for the language
Like a child holding his head up to the rain with his mouth open
And wondering why he never feels a single drop touch his tongue
Like a scientists he decides that the water evaporates because of the heat in his breath
So he holds it

It has taken me years to finally understand
You don't need to hold your breath
But you do need to be still
And the reason you think the rain never touches your tongue
Is because your tongue is already wet

And you
Every moment of you
Already is poetry

I have traveled back in time
Or maybe I have dreamt this place in 1987

A bank
My mother a teller
In the middle of a divorce
Or maybe the divorce hasn’t happened yet

My father walks in
He is a security guard
College dropout
Ex-marine
Loves fighting as much as I do

She never went to college
Maybe she thinks he is mysterious
He prevents a robbery
Beats a man in the parking lot

He flirts with her over a coffee break
And this is the part where everything goes fuzzy
Because I could never see my father as a charming man

I want to tell them to stop
If love at first sight
Cared enough to have foresight too
They’d stop

Maybe they were nice people once
If we all knew what we’d one day become
We could fix things

I want to tell them that they will have children
I want to tell them about the things that they will do to these children
And then to themselves
And back and forth and back and forth
Like a pendulum made of knives and soft things

But I do not exist in this place in 1987
And even if I did

I want to live
I want to live

I want to make love to you violently

I want to put my hands on you

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

Forgive my fingerprints
I am still learning how to be gentle

And

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

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

It is your hair
And skin
And sweat

In my nails
And teeth
And sheets

I have never done things gracefully

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

I will dine on you

Leave my sweet tooth in your naval

You can scar up my empty spots

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

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

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

And I want to put them on you

Until none of this makes sense

I’d rather die young

Than grow old

I will not follow in the footsteps of deliriousness

Hands trembling

To grasp at the memories

Or names

I refuse to forget my own name

Or stutter at heartache

Until I bite my own tongue

I refuse to grow old like you

To give up like you

I’d rather keep a noose

Tied tightly to my birth

To yank me like a ripcord

The second my voice sounds like yours

Trap the hate in my throat

Keep the old out’a my bones

The quiver out’a my knees

My son

Will never have to carry me to the bathroom

Or wonder if I loved him

He will never grow old like we did

Embrace the cold like we did

Beg people to hold him until he falls asleep at night

Just so he can remember

The warmth

**** going gently

And crying at the light

**** being forgiven

For letting the world fall apart

My son

And my brother

Will be so much stronger than we were

They will know that I love them

And they will know that they are safe at night

They will never carry me anywhere

Even if it’s my coffin

To its grave

I am an earthquake

In the desert

Working the rough sand to settle

In my belly

So that the ache in the pit of my gut

Might lose its shape

These shoulder blades feel like wings sometimes

Too bad these hands are prehensile

Not feathered or webbed

Just full of chemo-quake

And tremble

Unless I can hold your hand

Hold my hand

I’ll reverberate your ***** soul to settle

Till we’ve shaken the dust a firmament

Big enough to stand on

I need redemption enough

That stuck in the filter of my cleansing

Is enough dirt to build a hill to stand on

Forget heaven

When I can stand on the land of my past mistakes

And revel in the beauty I left behind

Don’t get left behind

And don’t go to heaven

Just stay with me in the middle

Where I have managed to compact this broken to solid

Like a ghost in a landfill

Haunt these hollow halls of filth with me

Until ***** is all that’s left

***** is all that is left

I understand that you might want to bathe sometimes

Not everyone can live like I do

Not everyone shares my infatuation

With broken things like I do

Let me get you just a little *****

Let me break you too

Let me recycle our fuckery

Till the filaments fit

I am a “found” artist

Making the broken beautiful

What everyone keeps forgetting

Is that even we are recyclable

And there isn’t anything that cannot be rebuilt

So let me make a new heaven

So that I can be like a ghost

Haunting a landfill

I would be so grateful

If you could short circuit my

“I really ******’ like you” Button

Because every time I see you

You push it like my heart is really just one of those whack-a-mole games

I would love it if you could

Turn down the static in my head to a simmer

Temper my blood when it boils

Bathe me in ice water

and throw in the blow dryer when you walk away

Nothing more shocking than waking up later

Still alive and breathing

You can’t even **** me

My body’s that dumb

And my heart is so dumb

It forgets how to beat

And my knees are so dumb

They can’t keep me standing

And my mouth is so dumb it never ceases to close

And my brain is so dumb it can’t stop remembering

How you phantom limb my body

Turn me into some puzzle piece

Unrequite my butterfly gut

Makes me wish I were a candle

So that I could burn down to nothing

Got this feeling that forever’s a long ways away

And that you’re going to be at the end of it laughing

I’d be grateful

If you could let me choke on this pillow

To keep the sound in my throat

And to let my serpents go

In order to get this rattle out of my brain

And cool the bubbles in my blood

And the teeth in my tongue

I only ask because these words are poison

I wouldn't call it a fear
of falling in love

But how this feels is like
A child's drawing of infinity
But he tells you
Actually it is two people kissing

And I want to cut the image in half
so I can talk in circles
and filibuster the time
I should be using to kiss you

Kissing does not mean you are falling in love
But it is a start

In the same way I sleep best with a body against me
But I have a twin bed

*** is not falling in love
But it often ends
with you falling asleep  
against me

And from there
what do we fall into?
and
Who does the catching?

As I look up at the sun and burn my eyes
I realize the world looks more beautiful when it’s dark
Looks like waves of light against the black
Like a music screen saver on a computer

As I hold the rose she gave me
I realize it is far less beautiful without its thorns
Looks naked and defenseless
Like rusty bear trap dentures

Grandmother always smelled like
The green part of the garden
And bit like the bitter bark she fed me
When she didn’t want to waste soap
On my ***** mouth

She said even my feet were too large
For the garden she tended
So I could not smell the roses
Or pick the tomatoes
Or rub my fingers against the thyme

I could not climb the trees
Or pluck worms from the earth
Early in the morning
Before the sun warmed the soil

So I stood
like a sunflower
Praying to grow tall one day
And stared at the sun
And realized
The world is just as pretty when it is dark

Gag gag and gargle
Draggin’ through the muck of
That place you said you’d never go back to
Screamin’ like a devil in the dark

The bump and grind of his *****
Bump and grind
Got you buckin’ backwards like a
Bulldog
But we both know you should’a’ never brought a dog
To a gun fight

Too late for tears darlin’
Bite lipped quivers never saved a soul
Can hear the fear in the breaks for sobs

The door to his apartment never beckoned
But you broke down the doors
Like you had something to prove
Bent you bilaterally like
The corner you backed yourself into

So perfect in your symmetry
Till you left me for him
Now you got the heart-sag
Jaw dropped
Dope fiend look

Tearing up at the sky
And the flowers
White powder pluggin up your nose holes
Can’t smell the **** on your knees now
Or the muck you got stuck in

You said I wasn’t as fun as he was
As he is
I never wanted to save you anyway
I just thought it was beautiful
The way you praised me for the things I say
And the way I say ‘em

Ya know
I got blasted backwards
By the backlash of you leaving
Kicked up so much dust in the rubble
And left me dizzy with the rumble
Of your feet fleeing the song of some ***** stomp
Headin’
Farther and farther away from safety

At least I was safe
I wasn’t bitter
Even my bite was gentle
Kind enough to remind you I still got teeth
But I won’t use ‘em

So before you leave me
Again
Take the burden
The baggage
The weight of my shoulders
The wait for the phone call sayin’ you finally
****** up and died on me
The mix tapes
The t-shirts
The memories of every moment my heart kept sayin’
“She won’t stay
But hold her for as long as she’ll let you”

Take it all
And go

I want to know if a venti
Will hold a tall can for my jog home

As I type the word “how” into my phone
Recent searches pop up
Only one starting with the word how

“How do I know if I am having a heart attack”

I skip the beer and run
Until my heart beats so much warm blood into my face
I feel the pump in my lips

If only someone had kissed me just then

You sleep earthquake some nights
like a puppy
Whimper and swim

You dream like the grand canyon did when it was just a shallow river bed

You never expect to get so big
to create so much space

So I know holding you won't make you still

Your head in my hands like a sunrise
strands of gold
drizzling between my fingers

Your body
like a lonely bear living in a city
you miss home
eat only yellow things
Dandilions
and honey
bumble bees
and chips of paint from fire hydrants

Inside you belly it is always
daytime
always spring

So much light
you don't sleep well most nights

And I wish I could place my hands
inside the space between your shoulder blades

and take it out of you
hold it swirling in my hands

I will put it into a jar of water
and in then in the fridge
so that it might learn stillness in the cold

I will come back to bed to you
a beer bottle still in my hand

I will pull the blankets from you
and let the dark settle
Inside this new space

And maybe this night
You can sleep peacefully

Even in complete darkness
there is no chance

Beer and benedyrl
like a pink and white bumble bee sting
only adds to the heaviness

So I do what used to help
Think about what my arms are missing

back of neck
a stomach
and my fingertips in slow circles

The weight against me

Right now I feel that heavy

In times like this
the only way to fall asleep
is to give up entirely that you are going to sleep

Then morning comes
and so does rest

Stop your stuttering heart

And attempts to explain how this is complicated

Let me lap the language from your mouth

Until the words become sound

There is nothing complicated about a moan

Or trying to catch your breath

Let me love you primal

Let me rewind your dizzy gut

So I can love you backwards

So we can start at the end

And you can see that we both die happy

There are no words to explain your presence

How I know that at least

One of those hits on my poetry page is you

Even then

You’d need a stethoscope to hear the subtle changes in my heartsong

So don’t give me reasons why this won’t work

You should know by now

That I was born to surprise people

I’m an underachiever

You can let slide by this time

We both know how this ends

Let’s get past this and

Go straight to the good part

Where I turn your doubts into sounds

Even a baby can understand

Adults coo sometimes

Let me be a quiet sigh of relief

In order to mask the mumbles

Of your fear

Let me turn you into a sound

A moan

A sigh

A quiet breath

And then

Let me love you

I know I aint much for looks
And you might not disagree when I say
Statues have more substance than this
I know I can’t Stendhal you to a standstill
It doesn’t mean that I can’t make you breathless
Like when I make you laugh

There is so much beauty in your laughter
That while you are wiping tears out of your eyes
Doubled over like you were trying to find your breath on the floor
I forget that I don’t like the way I look when I smile
And I smile

I know the math of aesthetics is lost on me
But you can save your symmetry
For building blocks and butterflies

Bad habits
Scars
And an awkward affinity for lopsidedness
Made me

Come

Balance me out

Because so often I feel like a fat kid
Sitting on a seesaw
Alone

Or a ******
Trying on different sizes of life
In carnival mirrors

Or a Greek artist
Who has chiseled all the wrong parts
To perfection
Before he understood realism

Realism
Is a twin sized bed at 3 am
After the cold seeps through the window pane
It is cobwebs stained black from a house fire
Before
I never realized we had that many
It is a vanity
Reminding me how not to be vain
Unless you mean this poem
This poem is vain

Realism
Is this
It is me
And it is you
Perfectly human
And nowhere near beautiful
Unless beauty is symmetry
And symmetry is when you balance me out
By being the other fat kid on the seesaw
Or the person who makes normal mirrors
So I can see what I look like in my own skin
Not perfect
But that doesn’t mean I don’t have ways
Of making you breathless

Come

Let me make you laugh again
Let me make you breathless

I want to put my hands in your pockets

To feel the muscles in your thighs

And it makes me want to wear you like a crown

Until the weight of you doubles my back into tantric

And forces out of us the sounds

Of open windowed honeymoons

And shameful moans

Slipping through the jail of my fingers over your mouth

And it’s only shameful this time

Because we are outside

Please if you could

Keep the ***** talk going until

We’ve soiled the blood-money to sopping

In the imaginary world of the things you make me say

Guilty started once you took your coat off

We’ve shed this skin to sin

And now I’m just lightning

Stabbing at your thunder

What’s your name again?

You can make it up

I will shout anything you want me to

Into the darkness of wherever

I am open to anything

Promise

You don’t have to feel bad in the morning

I can pretend we never met in public

It’s not like I can take you dancing

I have two left feet

I won’t buy you drinks

You wouldn’t take them anyway

I will even look the other way

When some other guy dishes out

His disaster for you to break your bones in

He doesn’t mean anything anyway

Just know

I am probably sleeping alone if you’re not here

But I won’t always be thinking about you

I got your **** right here darlin’

My jaw is the hardest workin’ part of my body

And it never ceases to ***** chomp

Like premature bear trap

I mean lover,

I’ll sing you songs under the covers while you sleep

And wake you up

While standing over you lookin’ possessed like a bad horror film

The light from outside blinds you and blacks out my front

And maybe you won’t ever talk to me again

Been known to do that

Scare people off

With everything I do

This aint neediness love,

I just get so excited when you talk to me

Like a kid ready to run his mouth about his day

Me?

I’ll ***** talk your head off

And dance naked in the daylight before I leave

Make you coffee and eggs in the morning because

I can never sleep

Two eggs over easy, a sausage, and some hash browns

I call it my ******* continental

Please laugh for me one more time before I go

Thought there’d be more humor in my breakfast

That’s when you tell me that you can never be with somebody who can never take life seriously

Woman,

I’ll take you so seriously

Like the clap and the ***** we might’a traded

I don’t put people on pedestals because

I like things I can actually reach

Actually hold at night while they fall asleep

Let’s make a baby

Name him Norman

You know I am serious

About the name

not the baby

I’m not a father figure even though my figure aint good for much

Got it in sad clown college

It’s the one people go to when they want to make people laugh

Not because they want people to be happy

But because it’s the only way to get anyone to like them

Just when you tell your friends later

About that one time that I was your lover

Remember

I never wanted to be anywhere close to the best you had

I only wanted to be your favorite

The guy who can make you laugh and moan at the same time

And pluck your heartstring like a frustrated lullaby

The only guy who can actually make your breakfast *****

And then write you poetry

Still chokin’ on my thank you note

While I got my apology burnin’ on the tip of my tongue

This is me bursting at the seams

‘cause I am a walkin’ talkin’ fault line

Cement cracking at the epicenter of heartbreak

And water logged

From all the sweat

Building on my cheeks

Livin’ in a parking lot

And couch surfin’ this wave

Till I run lines in the floor

It gets cold at night

Too warm in the day

Now though

Just need some mercy

And just enough strength to finish this

Just enough words to regurgitate a reason

For leavin’ like this

Just enough time to learn to walk away

Just enough God left in the souls of my feet to keep me standin’

Not nearly enough heart to break anymore

Not enough weight in this place to tie me down anymore

It’s all I got

And now I’m letting it go

Something about the smell of rain soaked pavement
Just after the storm settles
Just after the winds whip
My wet hair into my eyes

Something about the gentle slide of tires
Occasionally losing their grip
Because I get lost in the heavy thud of sky
Begging to break in through the roof
And I step a little harder on the gas pedal

The way the earth smells
Just after the storm passes
The way the palm trees regain their height
Despite the hurricane of your sighs
The way the water always finds its way back to itself
The same water that is on my lips will eventually be there again

And it makes me almost believe
That I might actually be able to come clean someday
That forgiveness is the rain pulling the dirt away
Knowing that once it leaves we’ll be ***** again

I tell you this as I drive with the sunroof open
And the windows down
My hand is out the window palm up and cupped
You remind me how stupid I am

So I let the flood in
And we both get wet
And while the rain runs down my face
I secretly cry

And just as suddenly as it started
It stops
I wipe my face and step out

There is something about the smell
Of rain soaked pavement
Just after the storm passes

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

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

There are some things he needs to let go

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

Let her go

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

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

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

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

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

Admire the broken patchwork of your poetry

You are not a naysayer
You are a yes man

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

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

Do not be somber sweet child

Stand like gravity is your slave
Bow down to nothing

Unless you want to

There are some things that require kneeling

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

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

No one told me that there was lightning at 4 am

How often does this happen?

Mine was the only car on the road

While driving from your apartment

And there was lightning

Instead of stars

No thunder

No people out that I could see

Just sleepy San Diego

And me

Happier than I have been in a long time

Despite the fact that I could not sleep

And the fact that I am sure parts of me are missing

And the fact that I feel the least alone when I actually am alone

I saw flashes of lightning

As I drove back to my haunted house

But for whatever reason

I was happy

And I wonder

How often does this happen?

Part 1
"How about some long beautiful hair" the Santa says
The little girl rubs her head bald and veiny
She looks like a baseball

"No. It doesn't get in my eyes anymore when I play basketball" she says

The bunch of us
Sunken eyed and balding
In wheelchairs and on crutches
Some of us holding our I.V. stands for support

I can only imagine how the Santa feels
The tiniest zombies
All waiting for a turn

Me
I have silver caps on my top front teeth
And dentures
Look like an old Cadillac
Insides all rust and rumble

We all want to know if we were good this year

Part 2
Cut to the bunch of us
Watching the Blue Angels air show

All getting pictures with a man dressed as Shamu
He is supposed to write something on the backs of all the pictures

I try to imagine
What you could possibly write
To a group of kids that looked like us

Each photo
In shaky black ink
Because whales aren’t prehensile

He writes
I love you

Part3
When the circus came to the hospital
We all gathered on a balcony
The news was there

Clowns painted our faces

I asked if they had room for me
Told them I could be like that guy
From the 007 movies
With the silver teeth that could bite really big stuff

They said I might miss my folks
I told them I wouldn’t
Then took off my gown
To show them my scars

They weren’t impressed

Ever since I’ve wanted to join the circus

Part 4
Despite our qualifications
We could not join the circus

But that is okay
All we wanted really
Was to know if we were good
And that somebody loved us

We were
And somebody did

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

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

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

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

Even when god made us
It was from earth
Damp earth

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

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

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

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

This is the year of the search party
The year we stop looking for the answers
The year our inner commotion
Winds down to a clockwork steady

The year where everything is okay
Because it is
Because you are not your lame job
And you are not your last semester
And you are not your bills piling up

You are the moment your lungs erupt
A steady stream of your own breath
Taste it like biting cold
Or cigarettes
Feel it like a mudslide on your own skin

Let it go

Let it go like the millions of choices you can make today
Let every choice you have ever made fall away
So that you may take a moment to be satisfied right now

Assume you had no other options
And because you had no other options
Where you are is where you were meant to be

This is the year made easy
The year the search party found the answers
And hand delivered you note

The year you are a nuclear reactor
Every time you stand still
Feel the hum of your breath
As it fills up your chest
And you get so hot
The snow bending your branches melts away

The year you do not still yourself because of your anchors
You still yourself to watch them fall away

This is the year you make peace with the past

Be in the moment
Make this the year of forgiveness
And the year of less stress
The year you shake hands with your vices
The year of really good ***

The year the search party stopped
And you walked away
Dropped all your gear
Because what you found was a mirror
And it felt like you saw yourself for the first time
Because you did

Because there are no answers
Because every choice you have ever made brought you here
And right here is where you were meant to be

When I made Santa Clause cry for the first time

It could have been the expiration date in my smile

Or the Charlie Brown Christmas tree

On the desk by my bed

He brought little blocks of wood

Shaped like

Pine trees

And Trains

And Snowmen

And he brought paints the nurses didn't want us to have

I asked him how close heaven was

To the North Pole

With all that white it had to be close

He said it wasn't far

Maybe a mile into the fog

I asked him if next year maybe I could visit

And then I wondered if that meant

Heaven was cold

If god were real
When he’d appear

It would be out of nowhere
In mysterious ways

God would be dressed as a clown
His front top teeth are missing
And he slurs like a drunk
Sometimes you can’t understand him

He does this on purpose
God was never cryptic
He just had trouble enunciating

DON’T BE MEAN TO PEOPLE
JESUS CHRIST

You have trouble looking at his face
It is hard to take the message of a clown seriously

So you look down at the globes of the tip of his shoes
Red shiny bulbs

Inside the reflection
You are ant sized
You feel small in that moment

God says something but you are busy looking down
You see other ant sized people walking behind you
Towards work
To get food
To go to school

God makes you a halo
Out of balloons
It is white because he ran out of yellow

Before he puts it on your head
Turned sideways
It looks like dangling handcuffs

He makes you a sword and belt too

You have just been turned into an angel
A human angel armed with the necessary tools to fight on his behalf

You don’t feel strong in that moment
You still feel like an ant
God gives you a holy water balloon
Just in case things get hairy

You decide you might be able to surprise baptize someone with it

Then god walks a way
But you totally feel better because he just gave you a halo and a sword

You cry that night
Because you have never felt so small and helpless in your entire life

You never felt so silly
Wielding you faith as firm as a balloon sword
Wearing your blow up halo as a badge

So you throw them away

Not your faith

Just the balloons

DON’T HURT ANYBODY
God says
His tongue pressed to his gums to prevent lisps

Then he begins to pump up another balloon
He honks his horn
And you are so confused

Punch today in the face
She said

Today you will make a stranger happy because you can
Today is your day to be charming
Don’t waste it
I said

Just so you know
That wasn’t a sunset you saw
That was bruises on the face of the ending day

And I smile
Every time I think of you

Charming is a birthmark you just found out you had
You find you like its shape

Be charming like a birthmark
It makes people trust you
You can have oodles of charm
When you want to

This song ended like a dry heave halleluja
Like the auction caller ran out of breath
Like we both had nothing to sell and nothing to say

And I've been waiting fo that gasp
So this song can come back.
Been adding gunpowder and tobacco leaves to my coffee
For voice like the earth
To sing a song written like dust kicked up in the ways we walk away
In dirt brown cursive
And choke on your harmonica inhale

You left me speechless
With the things you said to me
Your rusty bear trap dentures gnashing

Spitting out the venom
you ****** from your own wounds
Your music tastes bad when it's lost it's tune
When Captain Morgan set your soul to sea
Poppin' pain killers because the pain aint free
And momma's got a new song now

Long after the men have left to the stairs to smoke
And the women wait with them to be walked to their cars
You sit on your piano alone
Still singing
Warped wreckord throat
A song all slurs

I leave with the men too

And it's just you
In your tiny room

The door slowly closes behind me
and your song is cut short

And I catch myself singing along in the silence
And realize

I'm out of tune

She struck a chord although off key
She heard the beauty

So much noise like an overly passionate remix
Of a song that should have said one thing

To her there was language
In the rough off key finger press of her piano

To the rest of the band class
She was noise

Even after the teacher explained
She would never learn piano
How some people can’t be good at everything

She still showed up for music practice
With a song in her heart
So heavy
It made her consider opera
And Latin as a second language

Some of us will never learn some things
Like how to give up
When all we ever wanted
Was to make enough noise
For people to notice

So after practice
As she walked home
Her teacher picked her up

Explained to her about wasting time
Left out how secretly he wanted an entire successful band class

Explained how the truth hurts
But better learn it now
Than discover it later and feel like a failure

“You’re the only one who feels like a failure”
She said

And the next day
Her bench was empty

Though every note was perfect
And the music teacher was smiling
What happened was a tip-of-tongue beauty
Like something was missing

Even without her
They all felt a little off-key

She looked at me and said
I think you could be someone
Who I would want to cry at my funeral
Because you would have loved me forever
By then

Even in my nightmares
You have no clothes
And I wake cold-sweat
And my ***** is confused

It would be cliché for me to tell you about
The doves
Beating beneath my heart-heavy breastplate
Only most days I feel like a sad piñata
And I want you to beat the heaven out of me

I know what Satan saw
In his decent
And it was worth the trouble

It wasn’t you
(Conceited)
He didn’t see you

Just the passion
The things I want to do to you

Like a lynching
After being dragged for miles from a horse
By the throat
And called a suicide
Only because I didn’t try to stop them from taking me

I want to love you like I should have known better

I want to catch your breath like a harmonica
With my hand over your mouth
A bent note all heave
Slip between my fingers

Let’s be wrong together
Like a nun in a church
Playing I Want Your *** on me
As if I were a ****** pipe *****
Tuned to the key of hallelujah
With a distortion pedal set to laughter

She shook like a love letter
Dropped from a balcony
I didn’t offer my jacket
Just my arms
So much rusty bear traps
Their damp hinges closing is a lonely song

I want to leave here feeling like a shotgun shell
Thrown to the floor hot
And used for killing something
Like the time between now
And your next misfire

Even if we’re just friends by then
She says
I would want you to be there crying
I couldn’t imagine you
*anywhere else

He stretches his arms in my direction

Hands limp and exposing his wrists

Eyes beginning to sweat

He says

“I think my hands are broken

Because they don’t know how to make things”

He begins to tell me how he imagines that he can draw

Anything he wants to

And when he puts pencil to paper

The lines don’t make sense

Or the sculptures he tries to build with play dough

Are mushy

And stupid

And shaped like the insides of his hands

Which are also stupid

He goes to punch the wall and misses

So he tells me that he can’t even break things

His hands are that dumb

Then finally

Because there is nothing left to do

He cries into them

And I wrap my arms around his thin body

And say

“That is a start”

I sleep with the lamp on now

Only I throw a black dress shirt over it

I press my arm over my eyes

And pray that it’s only my imagination

That it’s the sound of the fan losing its pace

And not someone testing the doorknob

I pray that it’s just my fear making me realize

The actual weight of the blanket over my feet

That it’s not hands learning the curves of my skinny ankles

And then like clockwork I am awaken

To the smell of her perfume

It smells old as it lingers in my nose before fading

It is not my mother’s perfume

It is sweet and at the same time full of must

And fills my lungs with fear

Makes me hold my breath so that I cannot see it

As I feel the room suddenly get colder

I am just waiting now for a whisper

My ears are begging for it

They are on fire for a response

From the emptiness

Speaking directly to my imagination

I don’t want to see you

I don’t want to hear you

I already feel you

And the only solace I find

Is the answer to the emptiness

Existing in a world where people die

That I might one day

Breathe fear into a man

To remind him what it’s like to be a boy

In the middle of the night

When the night is ready to overtake him

When really

All I ever wanted was to remind someone

I existed

Like writing

“I was here”

On bathroom walls inside movie theaters

I was hear

And you better never forget it

She is so good at burning down bridges
That I don’t know what to do with the singed rope
Hanging from my backbone

But thank goodness
She birthed a crash-lander
In the off chance she severs our last ties
Because if I pinch my vocal chords tight enough
They double as a rip-cord attached to a parachute
I got buried in my heart

This doesn’t feel so much like having the wind knocked out of me
As much as it does landing safely

It’s how she made me
Raised me to crash and live

I am broken bone-callous- heal
Knuckle-scar and broken tooth smile

And you made me

Like that one time
You let him make me
Place my hand on the car door frame
So he could smash my fingers in it

I don’t even remember what I did that day
So doing it again?
Probably I’ve done it

My hand used to hurt some nights like a memory

It takes long time to forget
How to phantom limb our trauma
Like we might learn from it

I am not perfect
Which is why they remain nameless
I have probably been guilty
Of doing the things I am accusing them of

Hurting people I love

But thank goodness
Nature is the kindest architect

And I am ready to rebuild

First draft of a short story. Check it. Lame title. Having no internet ***** until you use your new found time to do stuff like write. Who'd of thunk? Should have time to perouse soon. ;-{)

http://normanshine.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/new-heaven/

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

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

Head shake tongue wag cartoon coyote horn howl

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

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

I have nowhere to go

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

Even drenched in sweat
You smell so sweet

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

I want to heat you up again

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

Well
Gorgeous
Now I can

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

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

This gentle ache
Of dancing
And drying joints

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

I ask because I have lost any desire for grace

I have fallen from it

And want to stumble into you like a locked door

Fumble for the house keys

Might actually make it inside

If you took your hands off me

The best part about waking up with a hangover

Is that I feel like so much ****

That six hours later

After the headache has passed

And solids stay where I want them to

And you suckerpunch me in the throat again

I find comfort knowing

At least

six hours earlier

I felt worse

Oh so I guess it was infected
On so many levels

Probably my fault for loving
an angel ****** Scorpio
who gives ******* like a greasy exhaust pipe

who swaps ****** fluid
like a last ditch transfusion for a cure
done in an ally in Mexico

I thought you could save me with your shameless passion
The vibrating underwear at dinner
The dare to straight face in public

You were *****
And you were *****
And I was trying to make a mess
So cleaning myself up might look drastic

You were an adventure I can’t shake

The kind of adventure you can’t catch twice
Until you catch it twice

I have been told
Learning is a change in behavior
Learning is finding ways to not make the same mistake
Over
And over

Clearly
I am still learning

Still infected with
With the self-inflicted wrong decisions
Of loving people who don’t love me back
And filling holes
With the parts of myself that are designed to do that
Hoping mine will be filled too

I’ve put a pillow in my open chest wound
So you might still think it’s safe to lay there
So you won’t hear the heartbeat race of hope
That things won’t hurt so much later
Won’t feel like a film on my skin that doesn’t wash away
When I watch you leave me in the morning
And all I want to do is beg you to stay

Stay and pretend this is real a little longer
I’ve never been one to tear band-aids from wounds quickly
I pick scabs
I have scars
I am ugly
And I am still learning
Still trying different ways

To love healthy

So yeah,
I guess this is infected