Our bodies are dumb
but we use them well
Like last legged engines
Like ugly cars you drive into the ground

This is how we live

Moriah Carter dances diligently
A body of prayer
Til all she has are heavy heaves
And the choreography of a long lost language
Leaving the speakers speechless

Kelsey Martinez is a ball of energy building
And he’s begging some beautiful woman
for an angel fist of light
Punched right into his dark side
An eye bulge duet of disgusting duality
But this **** feels good

We just wanna feel good

Janelle Gibson ***** like music
***** like a jazzy slap bass in a dark room
Like gritty distortion during a slow jam
Like this has the potential to be so much harder
But it won’t be
Even if you want it to

Kacie Brumley knows how ******* our bodies can get
She never forgets the importance of her own breath
Even when she’s holding it
Here
Hold her breath she’ll be right back
She is gasp and knee buckle praise for
Awkward types of beauty

Jennifer Smith is embracing fragile
The fragile ties that link lives to other lives
As if she were a knife
Sharp enough to sever
But patient and still enough not too
It takes patience to stand that still
And she wants you to know
She doesn’t have to

Amanda Lee Van Zatten wears her rose colored glasses backwards
Because she’d rather be naïve beauty
than see naïve beauty
So she dresses up in childhood
And still does things
Like wish on wells
And stars
And people that break

Tim Pagaard teaches English
Respects the breath that speaks like it has something to say
Knows that all this poetry and language is just practice for our mouths
So when it comes time to actually speak for something
We can
He believes we can

We’re all in this process of becoming broken
And in the short time interim
Are learning how to live
It takes a long time to learn to live
And I feel like I’ve been here for that long

I think you should live like you’ve got aids
Not so much that you are going to die tomorrow
But you might
But you don’t have to feel so bad if you like rest a day
But then you gotta get back out there

I fall asleep in other people’s beds
So often I am too drunk to go home
Not that I’d want to
I am clumsy bear hug boney
Begging my roughness to rub people the right way
Am broken and fake toothed smiling
Because I believe even when you are unattractive
Smiling is beautiful

And Christoffer Jones is man still finding ways to fit in his own skin
Not that he feels he doesn’t
But there are more ways to fit than one
Is obnoxious in the mornings after
He lives
He lives

Life isn’t short
Seventy some odd years is a long time
It’s just not long enough

We know this
And this is how we live

Reminds me of when I was a boy

  And you’d wake me to a punch in the gut

Say

“Sometimes life knocks the wind out of you”

So when I finally got to scatter you to the wind

   You managed to catch the wrong gust

So that I could choke on you one last time

  Made me hold my breath till my eyes watered

What no one knew

  Was that your mouth was full of firing pins

And that spit sizzled off the empty shell casings you capped over your teeth
  
   *******

If I had a nickel

For every potential broken rib

Or bruise so big it could’a’ been a hole

For every day I looked like dying fruit

  I’d have enough nickels to win your well every time

I look so much like you when I am angry

  I have to remind myself

This is not him when I’m angry

This is me when I’m angry

Reminds me of that time I grew *****

Shot out so fast their weight flung me forward

And I accidentally punched you back

What no one knew

Was that it felt amazing

  And it scared me

  Still scares me

So much that I have to remind myself

This is me when I'm angry

And I can stop

This is not a poem

This is a revelation of self

This is me finding the staples that tighten my skin so that I can finally look like
a man

I know this

I love to share what makes me feel good

Especially people

I want you to feel good

I know

That I am afraid to take showers

Because the moment the water starts running there is nothing to distract my
thoughts

I can stand in the tub for days and never get wet

I know

That so many pieces of my heart

Are in way too many back pockets

My love is like a dime store flier

Beggin’ you to throw it away

Go ahead take a number

I’ll never really be whole anyway

This is not a poem

This is a revolution

Where I finally protest my body like a seizure

And give up on my heartbeat that’s beggin’ you to put your hand on my bare chest again

I know this

I am not characterized by the cancer that I thought once wanted to **** me

And I am not some cutting board

This skin is too calloused to be back stabbed again

And I will no longer stay up nights waiting for anyone to love me

And I am not

And never was

Made of anything designed by God

I know

that if you want me too

I will love you forever

And I know how to hold a grudge just as long

Like an egg on the end of a spoon in a one-man relay race

This is not a poem

This is me

Finally putting together the patchwork

And replacing the stuffing

Double stitched

so that I will not fall apart again

It was the only year that I got fat

From eating chocolate bars that my mother bought with the left over EBT cash

That way when she did my laundry

she could get mad about the

Chocolate stains on my sleeves

So I ate until I got sick

And bled until I passed out

It was the year that hangs heavy in the hallows of my heart

The same year of my second suicide attempt

You should know this

I know the crash of the gallows hangin’ from your shoulders

Sends thunder through your ears

I know the angel that’s supposed to sit on the other

Looks like a gargoyle sometimes

I know there are days where

You freeze up

Locked in place until someone finally touches you

There were words trapped underneath my skin

So I cut them out

So I could finally makes sense

Of the irregular morse code of my heart beat

There were words comin’ out of my mouth

Always the wrong words

So I tried to lasso my throat shut

What you should know is

There will always be days where gravity tries to trap you here

It’s why I ring doorbells all the time

My angel needs its wings

I want your angel to have its wings

This year

This is the year that

I find the words

To explain to you what my heart’s been sayin’

The year the gallows no longer crash

The year my angel gets its wings

If you didn’t know this before

You are so perfect

You are so amazing

Your smile is amazing

On the days you are happy to see me

I swear I could take your cheeks sailing

We never needed the words

To explain what my heart's been saying

At any given moment

As long as I am breathing

There’s a guy

Thumbin’ doorbells as desperate as impatience

Teary eyed and trembling

Just trying

To get you back your wings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You are ******* beautiful

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

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

If you arrive here
You will show up laughing
like a sigh
Headshake and shiver

It tastes bitter on your tongue
The last poem you will ever speak
When catching your breath is like praying backwards
Pulling heaven back inside of yourself
A struggle for composure before you lose it all

There is a man or woman
That looks like you
With a chest like a tree trunk
So heavy
And a stomach that rumbles
A body so empty

It asks of you everything
So you place before it
All that you have
Which it devours
Bits of all you’ve ever had
Confetti burst from the corners of its mouth
And then it asks for more
Until there is only you and it

With nothing left
You place its fingers into its mouth
It eats its own arm
Then the other arm
Then both legs

You watch it eat
Sounding so satisfied
It hums and drools
And bleeds to death

You catch your breath
You are alone in this place
So you laugh
And the sound of it startles you
An echo inappropriate
When you find this funeral funny

You pick it up
And sling it over your shoulder
Limp like a flower sack
Like a bag of potatoes

You tell yourself you are just going to bury it
And at the same time wonder
Why you didn’t walk away

Vera once told me Mickey Mouse used to be a bisexual
That she can’t have kids
That I should never get old
But if I do
Don’t get diabetes because
Sugar free chocolate doesn’t taste nice

Her hair has that blue hue
Almost purple
It brings out her eyes

Her voice
When it is not overpowered by her walker
Is smooth and sure
Like sandpaper on velvet
She talks like she is already a ghost

I had a dog when I was younger
And he got sick one day
Really he got old
Something about his liver
And he started to bleed out from the inside
I asked the vet if he was in pain
He said no
Basically he got really tired
So he thought it was time to take a nap
And he went to his place
And never woke up
That’s a nice way to die

She smiles at me
I give her change
For the diapers
And the sugar free chocolate
And the 16 ounce bottle of orange juice

I touch her hand
It feels like that one time
Paper tried to be human
And begged you to play along

I played along

I don’t want her to die
But she’s 93
She’s cool with that

She tells good stories
And I know I won’t see her one day
I’m cool with that

Forever from now, after we are dead and gone, scientists will x-ray our bodies. They will see the way our backbones sit behind our breastplates. Our chests will resemble busted church gates. Any soul big enough to do that to a body is ******* beautiful.

It was nice finally hearing your voice again

The anticipation like staring down the barrel of a gun

Only to hear it jam

It is nice to know you are not some big bang

So that I may finally lay my weapons down

This shield was so heavy from the weight of your motion

My legs grew tired from keeping me faced in your direction

They spelled dizzy

In dirt brown cursive

The grooves I wore into the pavement

The siren’s song singing so heavy

Working the cotton

Pulling it lose

You are not some siren song

Or a stampede when I put my ear to the ground

You are breath and bone

And break

as easily as I do

So let me learn to regret your whisper

Teaching my tongue

The taste of the secret Braille

On your teeth

Breaking my pattern like dancing

With all 4 of our left feet

The distance it takes your voice to travel

Thins out the shape of your longing

I know you

I know you

Like the nights where I thought I could hold you

But then realized my arms

Could never meet the circumference of your pedestal

Until you taught me to hammer

Dull chisel tip to your armor

I’ve finally lain my weapons down

After your voice misfired I love you

You can see my scars

Like a runway sash

From the top of my shoulder

Down to the opposite hip

They say

This Was Supposed to be Beautiful

And let me tell you again

That shield

It was so heavy

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

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

It always does”

And I know you like a fingerprint

How each swirl is supposed to be unique

But when you touch me

It’s always the same kind’a love

Same fire burnin holes in my skin

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

“You should know this about me

As a boy

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

And then

I learned that if something you loved wasn’t broken

Break it

And as a man

I learned I break everything”

So now I lay under bath water until everything is still

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

And I know forgiveness

Like the leftover guilt in the gospel pews

Like the swell under my kneecaps

I know you

Like the voice of god in a tornado

And you should know me

Like the rubble of what his voice left behind

I was looking at your chest x rays on the lighted wall

Your straight spine centered behind your rounded ribcage
Looks like busted churchgates
from all the times you let your ghosts go

And there are bees buzzing in your shoulders only
you aren't cold this time

So much faith in what I do with words
Willing to love me like a half written gospel
we are filling in as we go

And I want to write us poetry
like the first man was asked to play the first piano

Come
dance with me to my deathbed

I am afraid
That one day I might kiss you
like a deaf stethoscope
that no longer hears your heart

That this language will grow stale
Along with your faith in me

but my knees
are riverbeds for prayer

And I carry my chest heavy like a library
full of books that hate the silence

You should know that
being a poet is more than just a choice

and maybe my body is like a library
but when I pray to you
I'll never use my inside voice

Just like I know that god used nails
to make the iron in your blood stream

That you'll be strong even when you're old
and even then
I still want you to believe in me

When we are like trains that no longer run the tracks
when we've fully mapped the topography of our bodies

But some days
our engine chests come back

and I write a poem about you that is new

And you listen
To my huff and rumble
you lift your tea and saucer with shaking hands
I close my eyes
and hear our train coming

I wonder if the big bang
was a response to god's loneliness

And maybe he sat alone for a long time
half braining ideas
about making things that
might love him

God never said
let there be light
he just put a gun in his mouth and splattered
stars across the wall of the universe

His black hole brain
something like regret
trying to **** all the stars back inside

And I think about the days you tried

But that's not like you kid
Even though you had blood
spilling out a hole in your gut
Bone white shallow breathed

There are still stains on the passenger seat of my car
Which I now call my living room
because I am homeless

And there are no walls that could hold the contents of your head
like jackson ******* bloodspatter
a pretentious painting titled
and homage to the ****** of failure

And you are not our mother
suicide cocktail
no ice

and you are not our father
an Alzheimer's ghost
Haunting a history
we never lived through

You are skinny like water
running down the zylephone of your ribcage
tinny laughter

Asking me questions like
if love is as powerful as they say it is in the movies
then why do people give up sometimes

I'll never give up I said

You asked me if I thought god was mad at you

the doctor chalked up you living
to just luck

and I think of when god made molds of men out of mud
and breathed into them
and the mud men lived
Mud must have felt lucky then

But for us its not luck
we make so much fuss
Just so the world knows
we're alive as ****

Forgive me for my silence

Just that

My mouth has only ever been good

For ******* things up

I know

The cherry pie you baked your heart into

Still tasted like the lucky side of copper

I know all that sweet

Is the only way to keep it down

I know you might think you deserve this

You don't

These scars are not some secret cuneiform

There are no answers waiting

In the the long nights you wish would just end

What we all keep forgetting

Is there is always a place of rest

You can rest here

In my silence I am still learning that

You wanna walk with me

Through valleys

And forests and deserts

and hell at sunset

Feet achin’ ****** swollen

Stairways don’t have anything on us

That loosely linked ladder that leads to heaven

Rungs that won’t catch or stop the swelling

Can’t prevent these hands from grippin the firmament

I’ll plant my roots so deep I **** up the foundation

So those gates better open

Because being a good person stopped

The moment you stopped caring

We need more than a miracle *******

We need the end all be all moment of clarity

Where we finally understand that we can be held accountable for the
decisions we make

Phones aren’t filters

Cameras aren’t just methods of documentation

Reasons to hide than fight

You’re not ready to buckle by the realization of purpose

Not ready to save a life

Not even your own

So don’t act like nothing is your fault

Because

Everything is your fault

Including this poem

In my house there is a cupboard

Full of VHS tapes

One of them is a recording of a news broadcast

On it I stand

Hospital gowned and smiling

Clowns are there on the terrace where it was filmed

Painting our faces

They all smile

I smile

The other kids smile

None of us over 4 feet

But balding

Black eyed and missing toothed

A clown takes my hand and begins to paint

It is cold

The paint

And the Terrace

I tell her how I want to run away with her

She smiles

Maybe

On camera

You can see my back through the open gown

The bones make me look like a brontosaurus

I turn to the camera

Remembering I was told never to smile with the paint on

or it will crack

The circles under my eyes are gone

My lips are red

My cheeks are tan

I look normal

Off camera

mommies and daddies are crying

Off camera

the clowns are crying

On camera

There is a terrace full of dying children

In a hospital

And we all looked normal

1
Pete sets off the alarm as he walks in the doors
Tells me his new heart must be talking to the machines

He talks like Jimmy Stewart was from Boston
All elbows
While I am bruised ribs

Vera sounds like an airplane concession cart
With all the right liquor

Her faded blue walker
Drowns out her sighs

Maybe it’s her knees
I am not sure

2
Before our bodies blend
And I am part appliance

I want to love your sound

If your navel were a ****
I might turn your soft belly
Into a music box

So I could listen to your heart
Through your ribcage
After I bury my head there

Put me to sleep with your
Human sound

I want to hear the rust in your hips
With my head on your lap

The sweet sound of our lively decay

There is no better music
It is simple

Like my name
You can still say it while being punched
In the gut

You breathless barbarian

Just dance with me
Until it is all that we have

To know we’re still human

Dance like flames
Without the fear of swelling joints

Dance like waves trying to break the boardwalk

Dance for your future fake hips

Just dance

3
We link arms as we walk

Even through your jacket
I can tell how soft you are

I want to tell you about our footsteps
How when we are old
And we both have canes

When walking down hallways with linoleum floors
I know we will sound like the saddest horse

So I tell you that I will still love you
Even after our bodies are made into glue

You know me well enough by now
That this is just me being sweet

I kiss you goodbye
Listen to your car’s engine hum

It is so quiet
You might actually hear me sigh

When the sound of you driving away
Sounds like the horsepower of one sad horse
On his last three legs

Like
One sad old lady

Even if we’re just friends by then

I won’t forget
The sweet music of our decay

My father is an old truck
Sunbleached red

Breathes broken bottles
A faulty catalytic converter throat
All the smoke trapped inside

But the nicotine helps his brain function

Cinderblock sturdy
But skinny
A single pillar holding the roof up

A man built in a time when you had to tell things it was time to die
Leave them in a field somewhere and forget about

How do you write a love poem to a car of a man
Built in a time without airbags?
A car of a man who crashed with you inside so many times
You learned about rebuilding from experience
From trial and error

And how do you forgive a man who can no longer tell you he’s sorry?

Trucks
Don’t feel
Don’t give up
Don’t hurt you on purpose

Sometimes something inside just breaks
And no one catches it
And maybe you crash
Break a nose
Black an eye

As far as I know
I am not a broken man
But I’ve learned where all the parts go

And if I am my father’s son
A mechanic more often than a car maybe
Then I will be fine

The truck is dying
And beyond repair

You forgive it for that
It is old and past its time

And maybe it can’t say that it’s sorry

But there is a field somewhere that you plan on leaving it
To collect weeds
And rust
And be forgotten

So you forgive it

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

I don’t know his name
He is drunk
Eye bags swollen
Loosening jowls
And feisty

He asks if I am working hard

I tell him I am doing my best

He says I am a liar

Your best is for scientists to decide days after you die
And they map out your life until they find that one day you actually were
You can only be your best once young man
Do you really want it to be today?

I don’t want it to be today

I can be better

There is too much beauty in the potential of kissing

And I am still healing from the fighting

Am ready to fight some more

There are engines revving in my bones
A takeoff of fire
And the shaking of dust

I wanna leave this life so *****
From mud
I’ve been dragged through

Be ******* me dear life
Dear lover
Dear friend

I smile and sell him his beer

He nods his head
Puts a cold paper hand on my check
Tells me I am so much better than this

I am so much better

Is what I am doing the plight of my existence?
She asked me

Sitting on her lap
I notice the beer on my breath
Heating my mouth like a furnace

In giving answers I always feel like
A hundred Schizophrenic Walt Whitmans
Scrawling math problems on walls
With bits of coal
And we keep saying to ourselves
“But I am a ******* poet”

And what I wanted to say was
Probably
Or what are you doing exactly
Or if you are truly honest with yourself you won’t be

Here is how to truly be honest
It will feel like words in the mouth of a toddler
Learning how to speak to its mother
And you just keep saying, “Yeah” and “Wow”

Only this time
What you’re hearing makes sense
And you turn white
And you want to puke

It is the secret things we say to ourselves
Like
After my mother almost successfully killed herself
Well enough to be gone forever
I now secretly bank on my dad dying soon
So my aunt can take my brother and sister
And I will no longer feel responsible for anyone

Walking away
And feeling good about it are two different things

There is plight in our existence
In the monotony
In the repetition of sorrow
But that feeling fades
the fear of being alone
And unloved
and lost
and whatever

Like being in a nightmare
They all go away
As soon as someone touches you

Now be honest about what makes you happy
Do that
Do it well
Make others happy with it

“And if it ends in flames
At least we’ll be warmed by the fire”
She said

And to be honest
I don’t remember what I really said

There are monsters eating at your soul

Just a few bites now and then

Just enough to make you wonder

Where the drain is

What tub are you filling when that emptiness sets?

Where does your heart go when you have nothing to pour it into?

Where has all the time gone?

Because you’ve got bags so big your eyes look like caves

At least now you know where all your tears went

And why don’t you sleep anymore?

You’ve never been good looking enough for beauty sleep but still

Didn’t anyone ever teach you what it means to be sacred?

When you die

You’ll see me one last time in this mirror

And I’ll show you everything sacred you missed

Every time you make someone smile

Is sacred

The gloves you wear when you box the hell out of yourself

Are sacred

Every girl you’ve ever wanted to kiss

Their lips are sacred

Every moment you spend reminding your brother and sister how important they actually are

Is sacred

Every morning

Every afternoon

Every evening for the rest of your life

Should be sacred

Your poetry even if it never passes your lips

Even if it never changes lives

Even if no one ever likes it

It is sacred

The time it takes to finally learn to love yourself

Is sacred

I know you’ve got years to go

And scars to heal

Your flesh is not done bubbling from the heat inside of your soul

And the monsters you are too stupid to ask to leave

Are not even close to full

And it might not be long before we meet again

Just know that not everything is going to make sense

Yeah you might have been a mistake

But so many mistakes

Are sacred

David is so much ****** origami by now

It is 4 am and I find him folded to the floor
A cigarette in his mouth
He is trying to stand

He is immune to his sleeping pills
But we can’t give him more

So he wakes dreamily to smoke

He breaks things

He broke things

Threw me through a plate glass window once

I carry him to the couch

Don’t ******* touch me
I can walk *******

I take the cigarette from him and finish it

I don’t smoke

I wipe the blood from his nose
And the torn shreds of skin peeling from his paper arms

I think about what people have said to me
About how abused kids abuse what they can

I wonder how I will hurt the people I love
When it finally comes to that

When loving me back is dangerous

I tuck him in tight enough so that he might not get up
The rest of the night

He laughs to himself

Maybe he hasn’t stopped dreaming

I’ve never wanted to hurt anybody

Even him

Especially because

I don’t love him

For Christmas

I want a bible with all blank pages

I want a butterfly butter-knife
For surprise attack sandwiches

I want a time machine
So I can go back to when I was a ******
To my first cigarette
And my first lover
And my first broken heart

To where my eyes didn’t have the green tint of jade
Lightening up this solid brown
My favorite color

I want a new harmonica inhale
And exhale
I want to breathe heavy into your wind instrument
CPR your song back to life

I want to slow dance on dying yuletide embers
And regift your laughter til I am not funny anymore

Don’t be mad that I recycled the stockings
You made me remove so slowly last night

They are stretched out now
And filled with crumpled photographs
And candy
And sticky notes full of bad one-liners

Like

“I thought I loved you until I loved you
And now I’m not sure of anything”

Forgive me
It was all I could afford

I want
More than just blankets to keep me warm at night
I want you to keep me warm at night

I want a type-writer big enough to run myself through
So I can rewrite the rough drafts my parents never finished

I want to bring the stars back west
So I can wish some more

I wish I knew how to be quiet
When beauty demanded silence
So her feet could echo proper
Drawing eyes to follow her sound

I want the trillions of miles my mind has traveled
To finally stop somewhere important

Like right here

Near the end of this poem

Where I tell you
I want so much
And need so little
Just the promise of tomorrow I guess
Until there are no more tomorrows
Then just a fair warning
Long enough to make you laugh maybe
That’s it

Forgive me for forgetting
The purpose of this poetry

I got lost in the prose
And diluted the feeling
Distracted enough
To not kiss you completely

I feel like a man who has eaten
Food with onions in it
Self-conscious syntax between my teeth

My tongue attempting to describe
All the things your lips are like

I forget that I am supposed to feel first
Then write

I don’t feel like playin’

People already confuse me enough in person
Now there’s trying to convey emotion electronically
I know there’s always static in my nerves when you touch me
And the guy sending all these texts messages is trying desperately
To make you understand

Games are for people who have something to lose
You don’t lose people
I don’t want to lose you

Game is bar talk for getting your dress off

Keep it on
Why don’t you

Let me be me
And you can be you
Let’s not pass go and not collect 200 dollars
Let’s just sit here a while

Yes that is a pawn in my pocket
But this was checkmate the moment I saw you
And my battle ship is sunk
And if you let me take you home tonight
I promise not to yell

“King Me!”

So don’t send me signals
Radio or Smoke
My receptor is off
You obviously have been missing the Morse Code
I’ve been nervously tapping onto the floor

“Just Kiss Me”
“Just Kiss Me”

Right up front
This one card stud
Always plays the joker
And will play tag if you promise to touch me back
Might get nervous and make it freeze tag
But I won’t jump ropes
And half the time I’ll catch half of the things you’re trying to secretly tell me

So if you could
Let me be me
And you be you

No games this time

He had a clock in his stomach
Time is a hungry crocodile
After eating your hand
And learning he likes the taste

That is when the arthritis kicked in
Or the unexplainable pain
Caused by a broken wrist
Or maybe just aching joints in the cold

I think of all the times I wanted to sever my own shadow
Question my presence
Even in moments of light

Where do I stand
If I cast no shade?

There is a boy
Who one time for hours
Pointed at a can of pringles
In the hopes that he could make it move
With only his mind

The bike he learned to ride on
Had flat tires
He one time shaved down and spiked the back of his head
Then grew his bangs out and dreaded them

He had an albino rat named snowflake

Those were his angsty years

Then he found this crocodile
And it was so cool
And it ticked like a time bomb
It didn’t hurt him or anything
So he kept it
Until one night it tried to eat him in his sleep

So he ran
But maybe it thought he was its mother
Or love wasn’t enough
Or it was just mean

He wonders if his got hungry too early
Burning bridges at both ends
Forcing him to jump in the middle

He was a darling child
And he was lost for a while
Then he was found
By a crocodile
With a clock in its belly
And really
Who doesn’t want a pet crocodile?

There must have been at least a couple hundred pounds of it
All trash
All things to let go

I find pens
A glittery black heart shaped paddle from Halloween
Old poetry
Stories
Photos
A set of drums

This how you body-bag your excess
Give your heart fat a proper burial

It is shedding weight

Take what you need
Take what you need
Enough so not sticking around is easy

I have a runaway pipe-dream
That in the telling
I have whiskey lung
And a voice like carnival gravel
Like semi-ground teeth in a bag you hold on your tongue

A comic strip hobo
With a stick and a red rag

Fresh starts imply shaking dead weight
That includes people

So much **** gone
**** I never needed
And was never going to use
But I was living with it

I tell the rain beneath her eyes
A story I know

With my forehead pressed to hers
I can feel her thunder building

She is still a natural disaster
Beautiful and dangerous

I know some things you can’t control
Like who comes and who stays
Or the moments you do everything you can
not to cry
And you burst like a balloon
Caught in the rain

I speak a story into her mouth
About a boy living in a hospital
who wouldn’t let go

So a woman came to see him
The doctors called her a specialist

She was dressed in
A calm riptide

It ****** the air outa the room
But begged everyone to stay
And drown


She rubbed his hands

Rubbed his boney kneecaps

With her index finger
She ran circles over the giant bump in his chest

The chemo goes there?

The boy nods his head
She asks him to close his eyes

He is seven
Already has grown in his adult teeth
because his child’s ones have fallen out

He smiles like a man

I want you to imagine
You are jumping on this bed

She pats the bed
Her riptide coats his skin

He imagines it

Now imagine you’ve jumped to your own bed at home
You jump so high

Now you’re on your parent’s bed

You’ve been jumping for a long time
You’ve been jumping for seven years
It will be your birthday soon
You can’t jump much longer

So you jump off
You jump off

The boy falls asleep

I tell her I slept for two days
before I woke again

Nature does not take orders

I tell the rain beneath her eyes
To fall warm, wet and heavy
I rub it away with my thumbs

There will be days when tears aren’t enough
To wash things away

You need a riptide
You need a flash flood
You need a natural disaster as beautiful as yourself
To make the dam break its promise
To never let you flood again

Sometimes even god needs to be a liar
In order to rebuild

You need to be helpless
Then when all hope is lost

You need to accept
You’re going to survive this

If only to prove that you can

I am a bear inside the church of bees
There are people in here I am in love with

They are covered in bees
They tell me that the bees hurt

I am hungry
The pastor tells everyone it is god’s gift to them
This sting

I want to hold you like honey
I have been eating daffodils
There is sunshine in my belly always

I am not afraid of the bees

The buzzing is loud
If you listen carefully it is god sending you a message through white noise
Listening for it is futile
You are in pain

I begin to pluck the bees from the bodies
Of the people I am in love with

Though I try to be gentle
I hurt them still

There is honey and blood on their skin
I want to lick both

Who am I?
Not name
Not address
Not occupation
Not body
Not thought
In an instant I can open my eyes
And take you in
And know what is in front of me
And that you are beautiful
And it would take days
For the voice in my head to describe what is in front of me
I am not that voice
I am that instant
I am a series of instants
I am constantly changing indescribable awareness
That feels
I feel **** sometimes
I write poetry
I am poetry
Read this again once I am dead
Feel me?
Feel me
I dare you

Part1
This body is full of worms
Glowing
And moving forever
If I could match their movement
I might know what it means to be still

This body is afraid of rusting
I shave ***** red banjo strings
From the creak in these joints
This body moves like a song
String snap at a high note

I want you to kiss me with your brake lights
Fast enough to snap a knee cap
Reset my gait

This body is falling apart
Like an old Volkswagen in your dad’s front yard
All rust and ***** engine rumble
Even at red lights
We idle like earthquakes

Feels like a bike rider taking up his own lane
In front of you
Makes you nervous
It takes patience
Not to speed up
It takes patience to stay

Part2
She smiles like I am a child
Asking silly questions

Think softly she says

Your body is dust
Swirling in daylight
There is your rust in the soft glow
It is free
And you are alive

You are still like water
A steady current
Your body is fish and worms now
They move and eat
They are free
And they are alive

Your body is a furnace for glass blowers
The men inside make marbles
They are blue
And gold
And green
And warm

Let her hold you awkward now

You are free
And you are alive

I’ve got plenty of ghosts I promised her. I leave them wherever I go.

At the house on 711 Ellen St there is the ghost of a dog named Hessa and a dog named Mac. They don’t play together, but they pant heavy, waiting my return.

There is the ghost of a cat named Charles. He chases a raccoon out of a busted window that my mother fell through.

There is the ghost of my mother pacing the living room, contemplating suicide.

When ghosts die, they become useful fire, burning as long as necessary, and then blowing out forever.

There is the Ghost of Louie, helping me fix my car. There are the ghosts of our tall cans crushed to the curb. There is the ghost of their fullness. Little drops that are left sit in the rim of the mouth.

Every moment makes a ghost. Every time you move something from stillness, there is a ghost for it.

When I come to see you, I will leave behind the ghost of laughter, the ghost of my warmth growing colder. Miss it if you want to.

There is the ghost or your taste in my mouth. Certain foods bring it back to life. I let the Bud Light sit on my tongue. I almost tasted it. Something is missing.

There is the ghost of your smell. It tricks me into craning my neck, eyes searching for you. There is the ghost of your smile which haunts me when the ghost of your smell tricks me into thinking you’re there.

There is the ghost of my cool breath dying on your neck, then dying again. The fire it becomes extinguishes quickly.

Behind your couch there is the ghost of a cricket. He has stolen a harmonica and plays only the high notes. Tell his family that he misses them.

There are the ghosts of apples that I skinned when I learned to make pies in high-school. I have made many apple pie ghosts since then. I will bring one to you. It will be a slow ghost. The steam rising from the middle is its spirit returning home.

Home is your chest. Breathe the ghost of my pie, the ghost of my cologne, the ghost of my eyes wet with poetry I have just read.

There is the ghost of poetry as it mixes with my breath and exits my chest. Let it die and die again. Let it haunt your heart, your belly, the back of your neck like a gentle hand.

I make graveyards. I make ghosts. I leave them behind wherever I go. I miss some of them. There is the ghost of my irregular heartbeat, when I feel the ghosts that I miss pass by. I breath slowly trying to feel them, but too soon they are gone.

Ghosts don’t stay long. I can stay long. Make ghosts in the meantime.

When I come to see you, I will leave you with ghosts.

I can’t stop dreaming about you

It’s almost frustrating that I remember you so well

How even in the background I can make you out despite the chaos

You stand out

Like a ghost on a Polaroid

Now I sleep till noon so I can see you again

This is how you help me remember

That when I wake up sweating

Heart beating a train engine

Tears I forgot I could still make

Drying salty in my beard

There’s nothing to be afraid of

And suddenly

All I wanna do is go back to sleep again

I daydream about sleeping

At work

And in the car

Turns out the recipe for sleep dust in not crushed up Tylenol PM

But I try

And the recipe for happiness in not tucked away

Underneath a blue blanket on an uncomfortable bed that I no longer wish to
sleep in

But I try

With all the pressure of pushing eyelids

Squinted tight

Had me lookin' like a kid again

Afraid of some bad thing in the dark

So I pray for sleep again

And find you exactly as I left you

Like a ghost on a Polaroid

So haunting

And so beautiful

From the age of 7 to yesterday

I wanted to be a magician

I wanted to saw people in half

And make friends with tigers

I wanted so badly

To own the smoke and mirrors

That distorted the world in front of me

It was in my blood

This house was built on rigged floorboards

I can fall from any height when the rug is pulled

And land safely

I am practiced in

Slight of hand

And slight of tongue

My voice is a distraction

Only convincing because of the

Way it builds

Causing whoever is listening

To expect something magical to happen

         Hocus Pocus

It really is magic to think that time and time

Again

You’ll listen

And believe me

There is nothing up my sleeve

I am still trying to find stitches

Big enough to reattach the parts of you

I sawed away

And hammers big enough to smash the mirrors I used

To lie about the way we look when we’re together

And the smoke

So much smoke building

Like a fire that was never meant to be put out

There is a fire escape

Right behind the trap door

To this whole thing

You know my tricks

You know all my secrets

You’ve fanned through all the pages of my work

Just know

You can leave any time

Right over there

Next to my pens and my poetry

Past the loose floorboards

And the hanging body of my last assistant

Is the EXIT sign

When I wanted to be a superhero

I forgot how important it is to have a sidekick

I forgot that when I tried to go into that good night gently

I did not have to go in alone

That when I fell face first into mud thick puddles

In places so dark it feels like drowning

You could have been by my side

I forgot that I am only human

That the only weapon I’ve ever held is a pen

And the notebook I keep in my breast pocket

Would burn up at the thought of a bullet

Superheroes don’t wear pocket protectors

So when my editing pen broke

I saw what a bullet wound might look like

But I still let you fall behind

The voice of reason

Of clichéd comedy sayin’,

“Holy Ginsburg crazy man

Poets don’t save people

They just look for reasons to cry”

And if you had gone in there with me

I might have come out alive

Gone back to my day job

Loved you proper

With 9 to 5 weekday normalcy

And nights so silent

I’d have to press my ear to the wooden floor

And listen to the sound of the cold expanding

Just to fall asleep

I made it to the other side of the city

I’ve since removed my armor

It sits wrapped in slowly thinning paper

Trapped between the lines I secretly wrote you into

I never had any powers in me

Just a lot of passion in me

But I still keep forgetting

I can’t do this alone

Paint splashes of dirt on the bathroom floor

Kyle coats the room with war paint

He shakes dirt from his ****
and it splatters walls with childhood

This is when being ***** was a good thing
When showers were a chore

He is still muddy when he steps from the tub
Pigeon chest protruding like a plate of armor

She is not mad at Kyle
His smile is a saving grace

She is practiced in spit baths
And spankings that didn’t hurt
Only scared him

Kyle is a little warrior
With long skinny arms
And long skinny legs
And a smile like a lighthouse

She ruins a white towel
Is rough when she rubs the dirt away
Pays much attention to his ears

Kyle knows this is pointless
She knows this is pointless

It’s what boys do
They get *****

And mothers
Can only do so much
Acknowledge that they are helpless to the process
Of becoming a man

Kyle will always find ways to get *****

She won’t always clean up his messes

But parts of her
Will always want to

She said
When you're done slaying dragons
and fighting for thrones
will you come back and stay for a while?

But there are not enough puddles
Not enough dirt

He is the king of the living room
when the carpet is lava

Don't come out of the kitchen
The carpet is lava mommy

She says okay
and watches as he jumps from couch cushion to chair to tile
to save her

There will never be a man in her life who can save her like he can
No man who knows the exact distance from doorframe to bedframe
so the hands underneath will not get them
if they jump right

No one's ever thought to save her
From the things she cannot see

I wish I were old enough to use a saw

He is stomping a tin trashcan lid flat
Cuts kite string with his teeth

Discovery says its duck season
If I have armored wings
and get hit by a shotgun
I'll still be able to fly home

I wish I were a shark
I wish I were the wind
I wish I was a lost boy but didn't have to be lost
Can I be a boy forever
and still get homesick?

If peter pan came and offered to whisk him away to neverland
The hardest thing would be for her to let him go

Maybe he can be a boy like ten more years
she thinks

With fistfulls of crayons
and constant pleads for one more of everything

Just one more night as a boy
Just one more day as a dragon
Just one more day as a bird with steel wings
One more day as the wind

But she knows he'll be a man
And he'll visit
and call
talk about
The damsel in distress he met in college
When he saved her at a party
How she spent the whole night laying on his chest
While sleeping on the grass
And for some reason
The cold biting air smelled like home

She knows mothers raise the best men
Because they know what they want in a man

It's not always okay to be your father's son

She says,
When you're done with dragons
and steel winged flights
and being emperor of the living room

Be honest
Women love men who are honest
Smile about everything
Smiling is attractive
and sometimes it's all you need to make yourself feel good

Call me now and then
Or I'll call you every five minutes

Now go
*The wind is calling you home

I want to go back
To when I was a child
And I didn’t know what it meant
To be self conscious

When beautiful was synonymous
To how nice a person was to you

When I used to fit in the smallest of places
Like in the cupboard under the kitchen sink

I never imagined it was anything other than
Underneath the kitchen sink

But I felt safe there
During bouts of my father’s fury

Like a mouse in a jar
When the dog’s tongue could still lick its cheek
Close enough to understand
The severity of teeth

In my living room
there is a hole in the floor
From a house fire
Just big enough for me to fit into
If I took the shape of a ball

I know I could never fill the hole in your chest

But my heart
Is a bomb shelter
Big enough for the both of us

And if beauty really can be synonymous with nice
Then call me gorgeous
‘Cause it’s all I got

No

Call me, Gorgeous
Why don’t you
You should have me on speed dial by now

I mean
I can bullet proof vest your lonely
And if you tell me I am handsome
I’ll probably fall in love with you

I mean
I am too awkward and lunky to fit anywhere nowadays
Other than a hole in a floor
When cigarette ash crop circled my fears back to life
And I realized that being a man means

Really

You have no place to hide

Unless

It’s in a bomb shelter
I built in the back of my heart

Probably

We could be safe there

Dear poet,

Dear ***** talker of some unrequited nasty,

Dear slow admirer,
Noticing my detail like a detective

Twist this halo into handcuffs
And love me already

Or don’t

I’m not real

And if I were

I’d hate to be her

You perfect pitch psalm sayer
Waxing generic

Quit the verbal dance

And dance with me

I am glad you know I’m not perfect

I am as faulty
As a topographical map of California

This body is chills

Is goosebumps

Is legs that were soft yesterday

Kiss them

Prickle your cheeks

Does your beard know the difference?

Do you?

Do I feel like scented sandpaper love notes
Still stained with a kiss?

I know I might just be squid ink to everyone else

But you dear poet

Dear detective
Black lighting my flaws into glowing beauty

Put your lips to my stains

They still taste like stains

You made them

You made me

You made me Dear Poet

Stop talking

And take me

She smothers me with her words of desire
So I kiss her to stop it
And choke

I choke on her words
Choke on her soft tongue
Like a vicarious seizure

Put a wallet between our bear traps
So that I might catch my breath

Her lips brand my brain
With short circuits
So I stutter responses

And if she were any less beautiful
Or I could somehow be gay
I might actually have enough confidence

To say
Shut up and bring them gnashers my way

It’s okay if you bite
I like it rough

And
Already I can barely breathe
Suffocating under a blanket of words

I can smell the alcohol on her breath
As she speaks
As if her words could be any less flammable

Makes me wish I could drink gasoline without dying

Do you hear that dark room dancer?
You liquor breathed torpedo tongue
You cat eyed lighthouse
Reminding me where I want home to be?

You make me want to drink flammable liquid just to compete

I pull her close
Like the gentle slam of a car door

Are we dancing?
Or swimming?
Or drowning?

Go ahead **** me with your words

I give up

Won’t you leave me alone

No please don’t go

I mean

Just stand there and let me think a minute

While I walk backwards out the door

This is my entrance in reverse

How I’ve turned myself into an optical illusion

Like the one with the mean old lady

Or is it the princess

Or

you know

the two old people in love

no

that’s not it

It’s the wine glasses

The ones I make you drink whiskey and beer out of

Because we’ve always thought it was classy

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

I have this black and white photo of you

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

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

So what I mean is

You can leave now

I got my two left shoes

And my knapsack full of road maps

I always circle back sooner or later

I mean

You have that black and white photo of me too

And one of my right shoes

I leave things places

Just to come back for them

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

The parallel line that redefines my optical illusion

I walk backwards through doors

And run circles in floors

And drink whiskey from wine glasses

And I always come back

For the things I leave behind

I can sleep on her thighs if she’d let me

Hear the ache in her hips when she moves

She is a body of bricks crumbling
Succumbing to the soft

It is my head pressed to the wall of her belly
Her hand on my face
Like a shield from the noise
Of her bombing

She is a fort
Still standing
Months after the ***** ricochet
And I know I could sleep safely there

She tells me I’m cute when I’m comfortable

I want to tell her she feels like shelter

Want to tell her I haven’t slept well in months

From nights where I drink til my eyes shut proper
Nights where this bed is one person too close to being empty
Nights where I wake up from dreams
Heart so heavy
I sink into staring
And don’t go back to sleep

I want to take refuge there
On thighs like trench walls
Hatched with bed post notches
From lovers who have lost

I don’t need you to love me
I just need to know what it’s like

To sleep in safety

She is salty lipped ocean throat
Warm morning fog
Mixing with her overcast

I want to place my head on her treasure chest
Listen to her wet ruby cascade and thump
A metronome for people who dance lightly

She is a mildly ******* mermaid
Born with the deformity of legs

We were all born a little bit broken
I tell her

I know you’re a body of water I want to drown in
When home feels like it’s so much bigger than these four walls
But not much stronger than the skin I’m in

So here’s to jumping off cliffs
With the hope to land a little painfully
So evolution might give me the wings I was meant to be born with

She walks like a riptide
Often risks drowning in the off chance

Nature might be kind enough to understand
What it really means to have sea legs

This is for the soft shelled crab
Who was tired of the heaviness of home

For the mockingbirds who never studied music
So they copy sound
Sometimes really annoying sound
But they hear the beauty regardless

For the Dumbo Octopus
Who clearly watched too much classic Disney

The beluga whale who can crane its neck
When its sonar song of home is not enough
To know their kids are coming back to them

For the penguins
Who are fine being flightless
Because they’d much rather swim

They didn’t think it was stupid
When they wished they could be different

And she is the ocean
Hips sway like a high tide approaching
Hiding sirens’ secrets
Skeletons in her closet
Lovers who have lost
And drown in her pitch black

She wears the water like a second skin
Smiles like the wind is pressing back her cheeks

She chokes on sea water
Drowns a little
With the hope that this place might feel more like home

Sometimes home is the hardest place to get to
But there’s nothing wrong with going home

Forgive me for my lack of articulation
I don’t speak as retardedly prophetic as I used to
Or welcome death because no one knows it
When the fear of leaving
Is hell enough to stay
And the finish line is miles away

We will all meet it
At exactly the right time

We’ll both come in first
I promise

And

You

Well mouthed
Keeper of my darkness
Forgive me if I war trench your back at night
I’ve just never really known safety

Surprised at the size a man can be
When pressed to someone’s back
As the night covers all fronts

I know
I got love’s lashings scarring up my liver
When I drink myself to sleep at night

This morning
I awoke shortly after midnight from a text message
That took me an hour to respond to

Forgive me
I was thinking in dreams again
You were there
Watching me steal a pineapple popsicle and a Dr Pepper
From a vending machine

We then hopped in an airborne submarine
Only it was really a long broomstick between my legs
And your legs
And the legs of two others I’ve never met before
And we weren't ever really airborne

Even the figments of my imagination have to humor me
At times

And my ghosts are kind enough to leave before I awake
Playing poker over my body as I sleep
As I dream
As I startle
***** Drunken Poorly Invented Modern Sanskrit
Into the thick air

So cold I have to chisel the sweat away

I don’t sleep as soundly as I used to
Or speak as well
Or think as thoroughly
I just know what feels good when I don’t want it to

And I don’t know any other way to tell you
To slow down and wait for me
Because I am sure that
We’ll get where we’re supposed to be going
Exactly when we’re supposed to

Rhyme in my poetry is the kid in me

Having fun with the things

I’m supposed to take seriously

Since when was anything sacred anyway

I’ll let you watch me bathe

If that is the kind of naked game you wanna play

Like *** is sacred

I mean your body is no chapel

I’ll pick your shrapnel with my teeth

And yodel in the caverns of your canyon

Till your hips jive-talk my mouth a mountain

I mean you’ve got the youth-iest fountain

Woman

This is ***** talk

Why you laughin’?

No I don’t remember last time

I slipped myself the roofie

Didn’t think this’d happen unless I was loopy

Not that I’m a catch

Or that me getting you’s a stretch

Or that thing I asked you to do

Is really all that far-fetched

Just don’t ask me to take you seriously

Because like this ***** rhyme

And what we do on any given night’s a crime

And because when these clothes come off

You meet the kid in me

Who can’t take you

Or anything else all that seriously

The sound of you chewing broken glass

The way it crunched beneath your feet after the mirror broke

The best way to get blood out of clothes is
To accept that you can’t

On good days
You are a gumpy smiled
Heavy footed
Head hanger
Curls that branch out like leaves
So much weight your neck branch hangs heavy

And I know there are days you want to die
Like Friday

And I’m glad you are still afraid enough of leaving
That you got your palm instead of wrist

In the tremble
In the passion

We wrestled on broken glass
Until I pinned you down
I’ve never had someone else’s blood on my face before
It tasted metallic and warm
Sprayed a fine mist when I blew it from my lips

Every page in every book
Remembers the tree that it came from

We stole life from the same tree
So many of our pages come from the same story

Of father who left mother
But came back to care for sick son
And made you

Thanks to me
He made you

I think how crunching glass
Sounds so much like ice breaking
And how cold the floor we both lay on is

And how you kept saying

I want to go home
This isn’t right
I hate you
I hate you
I just need to go home

To keep calm
I remind myself how some people
Chew with their mouth open
Sometimes
They chew on glass