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

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

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

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

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

Her fingertips are ****** from chewing

Her tears settle

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

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

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

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

But for whatever reason
He finally catches his breath

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

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

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

The boats bob helpless
But safe with their tethers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He drives home perfectly empty

Gets lost along the way

Thinks about what it truly means for him to go home

Thinks he should have been there hours ago

Thinks of what it actually means to be better

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

My bad choices were borne of good intentions

I just wanted him to hurt a little

So much like a lost boy
I explained to him how things are
And how they are going to be

And he is gone now

He is skinny like water cascading
Down a xylophone ribcage

He is a clumsy song
A constant struggle for a high note

“It’s the thought that counts,” he says

Says, “The cream takes the pain away in my feet
Don’t worry I am making myself better.”

So many days I wish I had his dumb hope
Believed that people are only bad in movies
That everything works itself out

I have the wool
And is eyes
But lack his energy
There are holes he has made
Through bitter curiosity

It comes honest
His head throw-back mouth-agape cackle

“I am making myself better. It doesn’t even hurt right now,” he says.

Only because I love him

I wish it did

Hurt

Just a little

I found this love
like playing tetris

Anxiety at the falling of pieces
too fast

There are still holes in there

And I stand like a brick wall now
full of peep-holes
and glory holes
all places to let the cold in

And maybe I held you like a blanket

And maybe we played each other like Jenga
pulling out bricks
to restack somewhere else

A smaller structure
But stronger than we are

It was like the time our cat died
And we buried it in a shoebox
And made a wind chime out of the bell
Carved her name in the tree we buried her under
Just says Beans

I imagine this confuses the family who now lives there

Coffins shouldn't exist for things that small

I asked a friend to sew you a quilt out of her clothes
So you still might know her warmth

Babies grow fast
So much clothes from the shower
It will be a big quilt

Your belly still a bulb of life bursting
But hollow
In thick black sharpie you wrote
                MORGUE
Just above your belly button

You maker of life
Giver of the good stuff
Holder of the second heartbeat

You can only make good things
Your body is a mess
Genuinely ugly on the inside
But it creates good things

Remind it of that
When it rebukes its purpose
And lets go

The next one will stay

Because there shouldn’t be coffins
For things that small

You said I could be Uncle Jon
I have never been given that
I’m not allowed to see my own nephews
Because of how the past eats us

The past is a morgue
Of heartbreak festering

And forgiveness is not a time machine
Set to 10 minutes before regret kicked in

When my own children bury me
I hope they do something with what I leave behind
So I know that I actually have something worth
Leaving behind

You did not leave her behind
Even though you named her
Ellie
Elizabeth
But we knew it would be Ellie
She is not how you will be remembered

You do not make mistakes
You make life
In everything you do
As long as you are living

You make life

So when your body forgets this

Remind it

With breath
And tears
And sleepless nights
And anger
And happiness

Make life

I am too patient to hold my anger for long

But I’d hate you forever if you let me

My short fuse diffused

By your apathy

Just the other day my cat brought me a mouse

Its legs kicked trying to catch invisible ground

So it could find someplace to hide

I watched it die slowly

Because I never learned ******* anything

I think of days where I have been filled with fear

Days where the bubbles in my butterfly gut

Burst the psalms of some unrequited

Love song with the title of your name

The gentleness of your other cheek

Remind me that those are

The same days where I try to catch ground that melts beneath my feet

And I have nowhere to hide

And how I wished someone would have put me out of my misery

Put me out of my misery

There are days where

It would be easier to forget

That I ever loved you

Than tryin’ to hold on to the anger

I create

In order to forget that you don’t love me

Anymore

At first I felt so small
As the oceans in her eye sockets
Threatened to tidal wave

At first I wanted to be charming
Then I wanted to be funny
Anything to stop her from breaking her bay
and anything to keep me from drowning

Whatever man has been here before
and whatever man will be here again

Do not let him speak for you
*now

It is similar to when you get so drunk

You eat just to feel yourself eating

Or you ****

Just to feel yourself *******

There is this thin glove covering

The memories of us

And I am ashamed knowing that

You fell asleep in my arms

And I can’t remember what it felt like

I tried to sleep in the shape

Of a hollowed log

So that I could feel like

I might actually be able to protect somebody

That the thin shell of myself might at least keep the rain out

I know we kissed

Through the thin veil of inebriation

And you laughed saying that my beard tickled

I want to remember what you smell like

But through the buzz

My olfactory

Became an old factory

That shut down

In the morning my mouth tasted like copper

From biting my cheek in my half sleep

And you smelled like a perfume shop

From the distance of subtlety

Still beautiful first thing in the morning

And I felt just shy of *****

And mostly ashamed

That I couldn’t remember

What you felt like

Got audio published. Check December's entry's for my name.
http://dimestories.org/news/san-diegos-best-dimestories-updated/

The apartment still smells new
It’s all new
Save for my dad’s recliner
That no one sits in
Not even my dad
But in that corner
It smells like our old place

It feels *****
When I sit in it

At the dinner table
It is in the second thing I open
In a birthday card
A note from my sister

“I know your a grown up and your still here. I just don’t want you to hold back on your dreams because of us. I want you to write books and people read them. I want one day for you to walk down the street and for someone to stop you and say hey you wrote my favorite book. I don’t want you to think you are leaving us behind because you are not. I don’t want you to stay because you think you are gunna miss is us growing up like when I go to prom or if you need to beat up a boy who hurt me cause you can do that from a distance while living out your dreams. I want you to travel the world and for your hand to break from signing books. So live your life with no regrets.
Happy Birthday Jon
Emily”

It doesn’t matter now
That mom is gone
Or if dad dies soon

I can leave

No regrets

Pizza just before bed

reminds me of you

And it makes me miss your couch

So comfy

And brown

Which is my favorite color if I haven’t told you that yet

I saved my sleep dust between your cushions

Trapped some memories just behind the zippers

Tried to wear my shape into it

So that it would not forget how to hold me

I lay so still

Like a wheat field without wind

Listening for the sound of settling

Didn’t even breathe

Pizza before bed

Reminds me of you

And your couch

And that one time

I had no way of thanking you

for everything

It's on them nights I drink alone. Find myself thinking of home. These beers bottle bones empty and shatter. Liquor lung sigh. Chest heavy like a white trash wind chime. Like a six pack of bud ice hanging from some fishing line. Hear them low notes bouncing of the lips in the wind. And maybe you worry, but ****, I'm fine to drive. And on those days when my gut isn't a gas tank for beer refilling at a pity party pit stop, I drive on love. Write love poems on phones before the ***** knocks me out. And sure, maybe my love makes as much sense as the words I slurr. And maybe my love is as unique as the crackheads needle in the haystack, but I'll still love you serious as a heart attack. Like a stroke... of genius... an epiphany about the realness of God. That maybe the story is flawed, but you're welcome to believe. And maybe I'm drunk right now, but I never meant to deceive. So kiss me with your break lights, while a pray to the slow light that I can live life like an old man feeding birds on a bench in the park. Got nothing else on his mind... just love... you maybe. And whatever you might think. I promise. I'm fine to drive

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

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

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

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

Do you feel this?
Do you?

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

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

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

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

Know
I’ve felt that way too

It’s what I do
I feel sometimes

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

BOOM

You feel me?

As we walk to my best friend's house
My brother and I cross a bridge

He suddenly walks slowly
Like a penguin with a hunchabck
Closes his eyes a little
Steps towards the street

Tells me he is afraid of heights

I hold his 711 bag
And press my hand to his boney spine

We cross

When I can read
I am going to move to New York
Live in an apartment til I can buy a house

Toffer lived in New York
You should ask him about it

It snows there

I don't ask him about how he'll pay for it
All he need is to know how to read
Everything else falls into place after that

Jonathen
Jonathen wake up

She stands in my doorway
Green knitted scarf
***** pink pajamas
Eyes and skin jaundiced yellow
A ***** Babushka if I were Russian

If this were a movie I'd be cursed by now

There is a man with a shopping cart in the driveway
I think he's trying to break in*

With my baseball bat
I step outside full of all the anger I had reserved for the day

The street is empty and cold

It's the fear
We make it up
We always do

I believed in the easter bunny
And Santa
And god

There was chocolate in  church grass
A gift under a tree
And I pray when I am helpless

And one day you find out the truth
Realize parents are good at keeping secrets from you

Then they do things
Like drink themselves to near-death
Fall apart

And you see they are not superheroes
Thery're human

Makes me understand what it is to be a man

Norm sits in his honda. He has whisky breath so ***** he feels it change the color of his teeth as he breathes. His voice has become all gravel from a circus pipe-dream about how he'll leave here one day. He feels it like rusty train tracks tracing his bones. It itches his joints, the rusting. He starts the ignition and heads home.

Willie has an awkward gait
Looks like a man
Who can keep steady under the table
Wipes sweat off his face
With a spare shirt hanging from his back pocket
He walks heavy on one side because of calcium deposits in his knee
He’s a veteran he says

Still has his New York accent
He’s a man who looks like he’s seen some ****

You think you were living in a slum
Only two people stayed at the place I lived at
In New York
People prove they resilience

I help him lift a dresser

Gimme a sec man
Not that I don’t have strength
I’m jus getting old

We take our time
Paced steps
I give him a beer

I thank him for his help

When I heard the story and saw your brother and dad
My heart broke
Then I saw you
And it gave me hope

I am just glad things got a bit better
I say

He shows me his hands
He holds them like he is miming half opening a book
It is “Boat” in sign language

You’re always in good hands

I laugh

He wants me to believe him

It’s time to move the couch
I say

The backyard is the smallest dead wheat field
Raccoons visit without fear

I come to leave food for my cats
Who I could not take with me
They already act like they don’t know me

I punch a hole in a wall
To make this place look more deserted

The giant broken window
The toilets filled with **** and bleach
Because the water stopped
The cigarettes in the driveway

I’ve never abandoned anything before

It feels like a place where bad memories come to pray
Like weeds finding life in deserted places

You make lists
Giving yourself reasons to come back
The bedroom fan
The screws for the bed frame
The beer in the fridge
To leave the cats food and fresh water

To pray in a church
By punching holes in walls till I uncover an answer

Outside
Raccoons are waiting
For the food to be left alone

Come one come all

*** inside everybody

Please do

Fill yourselves and spill yourselves

Wet your dry spots with your wet spots

Don’t sweat the petty things

But please pet the sweaty things

Dance like a warped record stacked on a broken record

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

OOOHHHHYYYEEAAAH and it makes me wonder

Soak my curiosity in your nearly naked

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

You cantankerous carnivorous man-eating jellyfish

Stumbling to engulf me in your morphine

Lying like amazing lovers do

“No

I won’t leave you in the morning

But it doesn’t mean I will ever love you

I just want you to feel me

You feel me?”

And you left at 4 am just after I passed out

Leaving me stuck with

The wings made of chain-link handcuffs and sheets

Going  from my wrists to my feet

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

I thought I could be an angel

Or at least a stingray

So my venom might stay with you longer

But you left like I knew you would

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

And because of the handcuff chain

I just started telling people I was the ghost

Of ***** lovers past

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

I don’t mind workin’ side show

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

Pulsing at the thought of you potential

Waiting patiently like a secret

Verbal donkey show

Hollerin on the tail end of dawn

With a secret song on a broken record

When played backwards

“Don’t go”

Before walking through the doorway
Made of trash bags
A woman checked our ID’s

We passed the booth with the feathers and the ball-gags
Passed the woman selling *** toys
Just a white awning with plastic chairs

We sat and watched a man dressed in leather
He was the kind of expert who understood his passion
But for him there was no teaching it

Beer saturated my white shirt
As I sweated it out
I could feel the alcohol in my lungs
I breathed slower as if it would hide the sensation

He explained to us puppy play
The dynamics

He had his own puppy with him
A man so good at making wet eyes
So good at seeming lost

He barked and wagged an invisible tail
Chewed on rope
Probably he thought about burying his bone
What his wife might be making for dinner
Wondered if I had recognized him as a regular
At my work

While taking questions the leather man said
It takes time to discover the puppy inside

It makes me think of how
In order to view ourselves as anything
We need a filter

I want you to **** me
With a ****** full of yes

I told them
If I were a puppy
I would be very stupid
But great to cuddle

We can admit these things about ourselves
While in character

If I tell you
I am pretending to be anything
I can still find ways to pretend to be me

It is like an electric chair
Disguised as a lazy boy
It will not hold you for long
Your skin does not fit proper

It makes me think of my father
The Clown
Who bent me into shape
With his balloon animal breath
Only he had asthma
The empty static

My inner puppy
Is a half deflated balloon poodle
Ends pulled tight like amputee sausage link limbs

Looking lost and lonely isn’t hard
What’s hard about it is
Looking like that was your intention

In character
Some invisible narrator
I can admit anything

Breathless and still, he stood there
And still fell the rain
That soaked
Saturating every fabric
A darker shade of lonely

Rain
It’s his favorite color
So he stood breathless

All silent save for a lone heartbeat
Pulse in his ears
Like a sunken head in still bathwater

The steady rhythm reminds him
He is still living
And helpless to stop it
Like the rain
His favorite color
Darkening his view
So it can be brighter again

He knows
Fathers will forget when they get to that age
And brothers will always need rough love
When it is hardest to give

With hospital

And phone

And car

And credit card bills

Still in his hand

Getting heavier

And darker

And wetter

He stood in his driveway
Breathless and broken
Buckled at the backbone of forever
Never finding center
But for as long as the weather permit
He was at least happy

If I were going to change for the better
I’d have changed by now
The end is a wasted incentive
A new beginning is for those who believe

I’ve cashed in all my second chances
And am burning up all my passion

I’ve derived my devils into
The salvation of saliva
When our sweat is not enough wet
To anoint our ***** sacred

Let me leave here without a language
Because my idea of living for tomorrow
Is found in the stories I leave behind

You can’t be chaste and live forever

I have learned in LIFE IS FICTION 101
The endings of all stories need closure
For the reader and the character

Let me leave my legacy
In the places you are afraid to touch

Because
I’ve always been that guy who went a little too far

Let me take you a little too far
Just to the tip of forever and I’ll pull out
I promise

I may not die at the end of this year
But I will be dead someday
And the fear of being forgotten
Is enough to make me stay
And car crash my mouth again

Take a good long listen rubbernecker
And later you can tell your friends
There is this guy you met
And he said some things you’ll never forget

I mean
Really really really
Nasty things

But you liked it

I mean
I never wanted to be the best poet/storyteller/dirtytalker ever
I just wanted to be someone’s favorite
Enough to not forget me later

Because it may not be at the end of this year
But I will leave someday
And the fear that you might forget me
Is hell enough to stay

You look like a fire escape in a dress
Flower patterned
Sunday's best
I don't have to fall so hard anymore

The first night I held you
I dug your neck into a trench
This body was not at war with itself

Your shoulders are battlements
Your chest a drawbridge
I am waiting
Horseless
For you to let me in

I know you are so much softer than that

Lay across me again gorgeous
Let me sleep under your strength

Why must we destroy language with abbreviations?

In my phone

And on my computer screen

The words lack worth

Lack depth

Lack the luster

The way they taste on my tongue as my jaw works the syllable

ILY means I LOVE YOU

See also: If I had to choose between holding the world up like Atlas or holding you

I’d hold you till the earth shattered.

BRB means BE RIGHT BACK

See also: I am not leaving forever and in a few minutes

You can once again have my undivided attention

*** means WHAT THE ****

See also: I can’t believe you left me like that

I mean WHAT THE ****?

BFF means BEST FRIEND FOREVER

See also: I don’t care if it takes forever for you to say that

Take all the time you need

DTF means DOWN TO FORNICATE

See also: DOWN TO ****

See also: For an evening

I am going to leave my best friend forever

For a girl who makes me wonder

What the **** I am doing with my life

For the chance that she may actually one day tell me

I love you

But the first morning after

As the breeze cools the sweat off our naked bodies

As she finally wakes up

Looking like the safety of bad memories

I kiss her on the forehead and say

I’ll be right back

Only this time

I won’t be

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And us
Ninth inning deathbed lovers
Gently sliding into home

This is so much more than a love song that there is no music to keep your heart bouncing along with my tune. Never could’a anyway. I speak so fast sometimes you know just to nod your head and say, “yeah”. Can hear it in the way that my tongue cracks against my teeth. Sounds like *** sometimes. Not the good kind either. It’s the kind you never really walk away from. ******* like a bass drum. Feel it puttin pressure on your heart. But that’s fine with you. Knew I never really had a beat. Never really had a song. Too tone deaf for something as smooth as that. No. I just say ****. Like now. Puttin fingers in all your wrong places. This is more than just a love poem. It’s a *** poem. It’s a ******* revolution of quivers. Tryin to shiver ourselves to fit like shaking will rub away the edges. Rounding out the bad spots till our bodies make sense. No **** necessary. Not this time. As for me. I’m a poet. ***** talk is as natural as breathing. Forgive me for the freestyle I played on your money spot. Too classy for a money shot. Too ***** not to do it right. I’d trade my arms for flight. Gust away your sweat with more than just my breath. Know that you’ll never really tell me to stop. This is more than just a *** poem. More than the revolution of quivers that finally made sense of the sporadic tone to my heart drum. This is freedom. Breakin’ away the chaos, and the bad habits, and all the **** that scares me. Getting lost in the action of it. This is for every lonely bedroom, and bathroom, and pool, and for the backseat of every car that’s held the momentary refuge that keeps me from finally breakin down. This is for you. And all the ***** things I wanna do.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m so confused
Where are my bags?

I remind her not to worry

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

This is déjà vu backwards

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

I put my hand on her shoulder

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

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

Like
Why does this boy make me so happy?

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

She told me it was endearing

The way I move my hands

Never mind that I was drunk

Again

Never mind that if hands could stutter

Mine were half loaded cannons

Threatening to hit anyone who got too close

So I showed her the sign for

“I love you”

And

“Beautiful”

And because it’s my favorite

“Dream”

With her back to my chest I told her a story with my hands and her body

She told me that she never realized hands could say so much

Forget that they feel like zippers sometimes

The way they clasp into love

Forget about the days

When fists were held in the air

You acted surprised when so many people looked like superman and solidarity

Forget that mine tremble with no sign of stopping

From the chemo

And the fear that anyone I love will someday leave me

When we hold hands you can feel it

And I’m always asked if I’m cold

I show her the sign for

“Butterfly”

And

“Stubborn”

And explain my second favorite sign is

“Believe”

Because you’re really telling people that you are married to your thoughts

I jokingly sign

“Marry”

And

“Heartache”

But I tell her it means that I am trying to keep my heart trapped in my body

Like it might try and escape

These hands

They will bake you a cake on your birthday

And they will rub your shoulders when you need to relax

They will squeeze you like they were trying to remember what you feel like

These hands

They can do so much

I watched you turn into

A punching bag

Until the sand worked to settle in pit of your stomach

It’s the kind of love so heavy and jagged now

Like a kidney stone that you thought would never pass

Until it passes

Painful and ******

And you think

“How could such a small thing like that

Hurt me so badly”

And you finally understand forgiveness

Like the pinstripe scars on your back

You have to feel the metal leave you

Before you can let anything go

And you have to remind yourself

Someone is always going to love you

Despite your broken record

Skipping at the spot where

Your song hits its chorus

You have to remind yourself

That eventually

The thin metal fibers will

Find the next groove

And then you can groove

Into the beat breakin’ happy

Of your constantly confused smile

And settle your doubts

Into the arms of someone

Who doesn’t have all the answers

But knows exactly when to hold you

You have to remind yourself

How often the right thing to say

Is sitting between a bitten lip

And deep breath

And finally a smile

A laugh

A tear

Don’t offer answers to the questions you never wanted to be asked

Don’t tan the leather

Of the thickest parts of your skin

Even punching bags break

Don’t hang your head to watch

How your feet pace towards the end

The end is always gonna be there

And remember

Someone

Is always going to love you

I dropped her off on the other side of the city
Lights blur past my window
And I lose focus
A different kind of space travel

I don’t know why I drove here instead
The house on Ellen

I had always imagined it as a sad thing
Keeping the shape of comfort
Waiting lonely for me to come back to it

The shattered window
And the holed walls
The singed edge crop-circle in the living room carpet

I broke in
The place smelled new
Like fresh paint
And good credit

I am not a vandal
But these places don’t feel like home
Unless something has been broken

Tonight
It was just a lock

My tires hugged the road like it didn’t want me to be there
Like hydroplaning without the rain
And every red light turned green
Just after I hit the breaks
Like a bully placing a hand on my chest and then saying
“Nah, I’m just ******* with you. Keep on going.”

There’s this place I sleep most nights
Only
I am still in the parking lot writing this
And I don’t want to go upstairs yet

By my parking place
Frogs ribbit
They sound content
Though they live along the water drainage line that seems like a stream
Only there are more flies and crickets to eat here

Home is a funny place
So I have decided this

Not that I believe in God but
I’ve decided
His hands are as big as the world
So big it is easy to feel like no one is holding you
Even when you're being hurled a million miles an hour

And maybe that is why I feel I have no home
I mean
Hold me like you are small too

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

     Her fingerprints still in the frost


No matter what any sober person tells you

     No two lips are the same


No two dances on dimly lit dance floors

     The scuff marks scatter in so many directions


Even the music is a remix

     Of something that could have been perfect


Even if it’s the same bar over and over

     My memory the next morning is foggy


Even the warm spots on the other side of the bed

     Change shape like crop circles


If you ever stayed long enough

     To try my French toast


You’d see how the swirls look like galaxies

     And the thought of spinning might make you miss the flavor


But I know what perfect feels like

     Through so many filters


And every night now is a remix

     Of something that could have been perfect

Woke to the smell of smoke
Only to find my family
Standing around our couch which was on fire
Like a group of homeless people trying to stay warm

This is just practice
For when the money runs out

Forget the missing smoke detectors
Forget the old man just standing there
Saying, “I’m sorry” like old men do
Forget four walls
Walls are flammable

There is this distance
The size of apathy
And we
Are in the middle
Huddled around a fire
Trying to stay warm
As our house burns down around us

Until finally
Dry lips whisper water
And ***** lungs
Die for air
And I grab a hose from the porch

As the smoke finally clears
As they huddle in the car
With the heater running
As I learn to finally see my home as broken

Still
I will always have a safe place to cry
And we will always have a safe place
To lie

Pooping makes me sad sometimes
Sometimes it hurts
Sometimes it takes a while
Sometimes though
When it’s over
It makes me smile

People make me sad sometimes
Sometimes they hurt
Sometimes they take a while
Sometimes though
For no good reason
They make me smile

Words make me sad sometimes
Sometimes they hurt
Sometimes they stutter for a while
Sometimes though
Their timing is perfect
And they make me smile

You make me sad sometimes
Sometimes you hurt
Sometimes your love takes a while
Sometimes though
Mostly when you’re not making me sad
You’re making me smile

So often I feel like you are fruit
Placed gently on me, a sandpaper offering plate.
I do not want to hold you so roughly,
But there are things I am still learning

Placed gently on me, a sandpaper offering plate
My rough rubs you slowly,
But there are things I am still learning.
How we are unto diamonds.

My rough rubs you slowly,
Until we are evenly raw.
How we are unto diamonds;
I wish I was that soft.

Until we are evenly raw,
This feels like the devolution of beauty.
I wish I was that soft.
Something similar to dying fruit.

This feels like the devolution of beauty.
Soon you will no longer be sweet.
Something similar to dying fruit.
And I am a sandpaper monster still learning,

And so often I feel like you are fruit.

I have been breathing deeply lately
trying to find permanence I think

Because the money will not stay
and the car will not last
and the days turn to nights
and I sleep for tomorrow
and not for the dreams

I have been lost in wonder

And I wonder if there is a sound
for the breath of the spider
that Delia has just sprayed with raid

Or if there is a sound
for the parting of clouds
that reveals the sun

Or if there is a sound
for roots breaking a seed

And if that sound might be similar
to what my bones do sometimes

And right now
safety sounds like the click of the lock in the frame

and peace sounds like the hiss of the can seal breaking

and happiness sounds like the suction of lips
to my neck
to her neck
to our mouths

Each sound is a second
maybe less

Like being under hypnosis
snap
snap
snap

And as far as permanence goes
I have enough

This needs to be said

Before the words burn down to nothing and

I am once again alone

I’ll make up stories to keep you here

And I’ll stare my phone down till I see my reflection in the black screen

I’ll wear crop circles into the carpet with my impatience

I’ll stare at nothing in the dark that I can finally sleep in

Listen to the heater hum from the ceiling

I’ll beg God to keep you here forever

I bargained with him

Everything I had

He wouldn’t take it

Told me he couldn’t make a promise like that

Said,

“You can’t have her

Not like that

Or in any way

Ever”

So I wrote this to give to you

The only gift I ever had to offer

You can keep my words

And my voice

Just stay

A few minutes longer

I’ll tell you any story you want to hear

I’ll write you into every poem I’ve ever written

I’ll cut the sound from my memory’s movies

So I don’t have to hear you walk away

Again

It’s what I do

Run my mouth till my teeth rattle louder than my voice

Thought there was a black hole in there

So big it ****** the air out of the room

Tried to play it off as a gasp at your beauty

We both knew better than that

So before the words run out

And you walk away again

Just know

I’ll tell you any story

And sing you any song

I’ll lie like you’ve never known

And trade God anything

To keep you here a little longer

Her bones sound like the shaky clink of a glass teacup

On a glass plate

And she’s trying to keep it all steady

Her eyes are blue and huge inside her glasses which

I hope make me look as larger than life as she pretends I am

As I pretend to be

Even though it’s against protocol

I hold her hand as we walk through the aisles

And it feels like that one time paper became human

And asked you to pretend it was

Just long enough to know what love felt like

I wanted to tell her I love her

“You’re so sweet,” she said

“So handsome”

“Such a nice smile” she said

I wanted to push the red beaming sun of my face to her cheek

so she could feel me blush

First we looked for hair spray

And then we looked for lipstick

Her favorite chocolate

Which she confided tasted like ****

But she had to stick to sugar free now

And then we looked for her arthritis medicine

Adult diapers

A bedside ******

Please take the years I am not using

I’d die young to keep you here a little longer

To fight back the dust in your bones

And the paper of your skin

I want you to wake up every morning

So when I ask you how your day has been

You can say more than

“Well

I woke up again”

******* lady

If you knew what I would do to stop this

Her smile never fades

No shame hidden in the wrinkles of her face

I let her out the back so she can get to the street corner faster

“Such a nice young boy” She says

And I just want to tell her

I love her

It is summer
And the wind presses the thin fabric to your body

Every woman’s *** looks perfect in a sundress

You have been sweating
And the fabric sticks to you in the next breeze

In stillness you are a Greek statue
With wet folds of fabric outlining your frame

There are wrinkles in some places
And I think that you might look like this when you are old

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

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

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

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

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

Super secretly
I say
stay

Black flakes fall from my side like
Charred skin

Shapely scars
Poetry mostly

“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt… so it goes”
This hip don’t lie

Of all the scar-stories this body tells
I like poetry the best

Though the ones I didn’t pay for
Are more poetic maybe
Their stories longer
A journey
Across the throat
Chest horizon
Knuckle toothed

This body once holie
Now healed
Inked in poetry
Now holy

Like charred skin
Stained black
Falling
from my side

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

I knew

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

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

I shine in places

Trench my sides at night
I will keep you warm

In dreams I lumber
Break bee hives
With my bear hands

Dip my hands in honey
Like it was holy water

The bee’s tiny sting
Is worth it

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

The pain is worth it

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

I dip my bear hands into the
Honey again

There is the sting
It feels like god

Tell the bears I am coming home

A cube of ice resting on my tongue

                       I inhale

                                    It cools my mouth

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

                                                        ­                       There is no sound

Only the understanding that pain has layers

                                                         ­           I can hurt in just as many ways as heal

Kiss me bitter devil

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

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

                                                       ­            From the kiss or the cold

                                                           ­                                                     I don’t know

But you shivered
               And I lied
                 So you would shiver again

                                                          ­   And you loved me like a liar


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


Sometimes

                                            Cor­pses can have goose bumps

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

I never said I’d stay for breakfast

                                                   I never said I’d stay

                                                           ­                                                               Th­ere are just as many layers to hurting

As there is healing

                                                        ­         Sometimes I can’t tell the difference


Hurt me like a lover

Who is frigid and fearful

Until we temper our bones to burning

And listen for the shatter

It never comes

And I always leave
                                                           ­          First thing in the morning

Dear Devil,

Thank you for sin

Thank you for beer and bad decisions

Thank you for encouraging me to steal that twenty

The old man dropped

It paid for pizza

Thank you for my first arrest

Thank you for my second arrest

Thank you for my ****

Thank you for teaching me how to make bad decisions

And how to be happy I made them

Thank you for selective hearing

When I know someone is begging for help

Thank you for my father’s fists

And my mother’s manipulation

I have taken both with me

And they serve me well

Thank you for inventing rock bottom

If I could fall forever

I’d be in hell already

Thank you for nooses made of bungee cords

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

And I gasped at the choke of where I found myself

Before I shot back out

Thank you for self inflicted sand paper refinement of my soul

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

I am thankful to see it grow back

Thank you for showing me what not to do

So I can decide to be better

Dear Devil,

Thank you and,

PS

You are a really ****** friend

These are the angels of bread

They fill my guts like cotton just thick enough

To hide the rumble of my hunger

They find their ways into the empty spots that you made when you

Stopped talking to me

They soften the longing

Their crusts just crunchy enough to substantiate

The desire for the texture that’s somehow gone missing

They get stuck in my throat so that it sounds like smoke

When I speak

Soft enough to remind me not to place so much anger in my words

Speak softly

So the world listens carefully

So when it finally speaks back

It is soft too

Like the angels of bread

They rise slowly from pools of fungus and warm water

They give life from things as simple as flour and heat

And patience

It takes patience to bake bread

It takes that same kind of patience to want to be around me

Catch me at the wrong temperature and I don’t mold so easily

So go ahead and give up on me

These are the angels of bread

Who tease our hunger

With the smell of something good

And always manage to come through

When I was little

I slathered them in peanut butter and jelly

They satiate my soul

Like the idea of Georgia

It’s a place I’ve never been

But it always sounds like home

These are the angels of bread

Kind enough to silence the earth so

All I hear is the click of my jaw when they hold me

Working out the memories you left behind

Couldn’t pack up everything when you left

You had to leave me those

And this recipe leaving my home smellin’ like a bakery

Only now it smells like Georgia

A place I’ve never been

A place that reminds me of you

Home

I don’t come home some nights
And my brother tells me when I don’t
As if I didn’t know that I did that
He asks me why

I always answer
Just stayed with a friend

But he knows what drinking all night looks like
I remind him of his mother

Weekend mornings
When he’s still home
I walk in smelling like suicide

He talks for hours
Nonstop
His hands hold things I can’t see
“This is how I am going to squeeze the toothpaste from now on
Are you mad at me from doing it wrong?
Hey I wish I was strong like you
It’s hard to help dad when you’re not here
I need you to buy name stickers for the Christmas presents
This is your shirt but dad doesn’t have enough money for laundry
I made too many sandwiches today
I ate them all
My best friend Louise farts a lot
It’s funny when he farts
Do you have to work today?
I know how it feels
Work is so ******* hard”

Sometimes I feel so unprepared
Feels like a ricochet for wrists
Axes chopping bricks
But yesterday
I fist fought a mountain
Some of us get practice

I tell him to relax
To bug his sister

“I love you,” he says
“When you become a writer can I draw pictures for your books?
I wake up some nights and hear you type
Mom used to stay up all night too
I don’t ever want her to come home
Are you going to move out soon?
Before or after Christmas?
Before or after my birthday?
Will you still get me presents?”

He is a one man search party
And has found most of the answers

In the end
The answer is always
Yes
The answer is always
I love you too

The movement of her body was entirely too loud

She is desert throat gasps
When the water is so good
She doesn’t stop for air

Can hear her comin’
Her rusty train wreck tremble
On loose tracks

Her collapse is a cinderblock rain
The crumble is so much quieter than the crash
Her crumble is so much quieter than the crash

Her hands shake as she swipes her EBT card for the fifteenth time
She puts back the bacon this time
Throws down 5.50 for the Marlboros

She talks to herself
Angrily
Slams ever door she enters
Every door she exits

Her children think she is crazy

She is crazy

She is a body built
On passive aggression
And the threat of a shaky foundation
When the earthquake hits

Any day could be my last day you know

Her son turns up the tv
Her daughter plugs her headphones into her cd player

Do you all think I am talking just to hear myself talk?
And if you don’t stop sleep talking
Telling me you’re going to **** me
I am sending you to the hospital

The boy mutes the tv
Dries his eyes before they’re wet
He shakes his head
Begs her not to do that
Says he doesn’t know he’s doing it
Says he doesn’t want to **** her

She walks away
And he is left wondering

I remind him later
That we were not raised on truth
So it’s hard sometimes
To trust people

I put a lock on his door
Tell him to shut himself in at night

As for the mother
We don’t talk anymore

Like I said
She’s crazy
And I’ve got too much of that myself already

Somewhere a door is slamming
Somewhere cinderblocks are crumbling quiet
There is a sizzle like slowly cracking glass

I feel it crawl my spine
It crawls his

The girl misses it
Head buried in pop culture
Going deaf in trying to drown out
Her mother’s noise

Do you think I am talking just to hear myself talk?

As a poet I ask myself the same thing

Ask how far the apple can fall from the tree

If any one of us are lucky

It will be just far enough

The ticket stall is empty
Sunlight bounces off the pavement
And reflects off the double doors

There are no posters in the frames

In my town
Most places are too cold for pretend

Against the white
In thick black letters
The headlining show
“Theater Closed Broiler Broken”

I signed the DNR form
And steeled myself
As if this cancer were a battle I could fight with my fists
I felt like a man
Standing before the open mouth of a cave marked midnight
Like grimaced teeth and the desire for life were enough
To withstand the fire the chemo caused my skin
It made my skin crawl some nights

I was sure I would wake just bone
Until I looked just bone
Like an ill fitting skin sheet
Draped over a science project
And enough voice to remind whoever heard me
That I was somehow still human

I felt like a man
Who could do this alone or die trying
That if I were given a scalpel
I could cut this out of me
Pull out whatever caused this
It would look like a gnarled black ball
Humming contently
Like lip shushed fingertips
Begging for silence

I chewed on my pillow
Until my jaw taught me to sleep

I felt like a man
At the end of a road
Who finally realized
The difference between battles you fight with your fists
And battles you fight with caves marked midnight
And battles you fight in a sweat drenched hospital bed
That smells like bleach
And makes you miss home
Battles that remind you
No matter what sort of man you feel like
There is always something
That can make you feel like a child