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Jon Tobias Feb 2012
I had never seen the truth turning into a graveyard
until it passed through my tombstone teeth to
sit in your ear like a ghost

These aren't sweet nothings
my sweet nothing

And you deserve much more than  the devil
living inside of my cheeks

This is the way truth sets us free

The same way a suckerpunch leaves us winded

I imagine that is how our souls leave us

But you try and explain that to a nurse
who is busy checking your mouth to be sure
you've taken all your medication

You know how you're supposed to live like you are going to die tomorrow
I say
How 'bout six months from tomorrow?

I really have tried everythin
including ******* down the backwash of a sunday baptism

It only tasted like fear

The kind of fear I don't need right now

We bought a casket

Plotted a plot

I got a tattoo of an expiration date on the bottom of my foot

No day or month
just this year

And you've been brave
saying
You are saving your tears for when I am not here anymore

And I honestly never saw how the truth could turn into a graveyard

Til we both started talking to each other

Like ghosts whispering all the things we never got to say in life

No matter how you look at it
I tell her
*The truth always feels like it's arrived too late
Thank you so much g for that amazing first line. I hope you approve of what I turned it into.
Jon Tobias May 2012
We are brutally beautiful
We are
The soft red glow of a nuclear sunset
Pooling like blood
From wounds
Like that one time I cut my forearms open

Oh so that’s what a heartbeat looks like

It is sign language after a fist fight
When I’m so angry I can’t speak
So with my hands I tell you
No one should talk to you that way

It is the assbackwards way we allow ourselves to heal

For instance
When I had cancer
My parents took me to church when they could
Asked people to pray for me
And I thought drinking holy water might help me

It only made me sick
And I spent three days in the hospital

This life is *****
It is ugly

We are ugly
Like
Crime scene photos of bathtub suicides
Shortcutting life
And still getting into heaven

How after so many years
Just to make things interesting
Peter takes bribes now

And we are beautiful
Brutally beautiful
Endearing in our passion
Because it’s just a little too conscious to be animal
But we try

It is shotgunning a dove
And the rain of feathers
Even when damp with blood they are still soft

I wanna hold you tightly
You coarse cut angel
Your jagged edges rub
But neither of us wants to fall asleep alone

We will never be perfect
But we were supposed to be

Remember that
When your ugly rears its head
Like a mental mirror showing you only the things you notice about yourself
Know
nobody sees you the way you see yourself

Just remember
To smile more
And laugh when things are funny
Make love when you can

These things are good for you
Balance out the brutal
Because you

Are brutally beautiful
This poem is inspired by the poem "Human the Death Dance" by Buddy Wakefield. He is my poetic hero, and I recently met him, which was one of the most amazing experiences ever. Thank you for reading. Here is a video of him reading the poem. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQWlnFMOgbE
Jon Tobias Dec 2012
Underneath the burning building in my gut
So much is preserved safely
In the memory where you are smiling
I find peace
I want to be lonely in private
But there is no space for that

Under the rubble
Compound fracture of bitter jawline
That same smile a photo
Warping in fire

I want to preserve you
Like a wasp in amber

But we are not as slow as that
Not as gentle

The theory is
Two objects fall at the same speed
Regardless of mass
Except for people
We do not fall for each other at the same pace

I felt like the man with the rescue dog
That heard your heartbeat
After the cement settled
And the wood grew cold
White ash
Black cinderblock paperweights
Your body preserved under
Layers of broken building
But you felt safe
Because you set the fire

And I was the man that found you
Some secrets can’t stay buried

We were cave people
Found and revived

I’m not new to this
Just rusty
Just dusty
There are burn marks on our bodies
And I have almost forgotten how mine got there

There were things you thought you should go back for
Things you wanted to leave behind
But in the saving you took what you could carry
There was baggage in your desperation
To save what you thought was important

When you burnt yourself to the ground
You forgot that fire is a funny thing
It lives too
And you can’t control it

There were some houses
Left standing
Whole acres unlit for no reason

Not everything gets burned

And there is a photo of you
Cigarette hole dimples
A smile that brings me peace

And you brought with you
Bits of burning ribcage
And smoke filled lung
To hide your heart minimally

I brought nothing
Mine is slightly weather calloused now
But it works just fine
It’s just rusty
Just dusty

So take this
What is left of my burning breast plate
Carved message on the inside
like an oversized locket
Underneath the black and white negative of your film strip

“Thank you for trying”
Jon Tobias Feb 2012
He wants to tell her of a story he read once
About that gorilla who could sign
And taught its baby to sign
How when the baby died
The flailing of her fingertips
And the movement of her hands
Said more about loss than anyone ever cared to know

She looks at him
Hot pho steam moistening her face
There is a man pacing outside the windows of the restaurant
It is a whole in a wall
In a small city
The city is *****
Next to the restaurant is a bar
They listen
Juke box bass hick thunder through the walls
She ***** a noodle into her mouth

“Is this a date,” she says
    If you want it to be
“It’s not exactly romantic”

He smiles
thinks about what it means to be romantic
Remembers the list with the boxes to check off
  Of will she **** me later

It’s all too generic
And we are so talented at romanticizing the trivial
That people forget how to be charming

He thinks of death-beds
And what she might say to him

Maybe it isn’t now. But later, you’ll remember this guy
And you’ll think of that weird place he took you to this one time.
It wasn’t exactly romantic.
But for whatever reason
You will remember me for doing things like this.

He wants to tell her of the gorilla
With the sad hands

His own hands tremble

He thinks of languages people spend lifetimes learning

She sips her water
Wipes sweat from her face
She smiles
It is beautiful when she smiles

He smiles too
Shivers as the doors open and the cold comes in

Maybe in some other universe
The words would have meant more to her
They would have made sense

He fills the silence with the sound of soup
She looks at him again
The thunder through the walls stops
And all he can think of
Is the gorilla who learned the language of love
And lost the need to use it
This is inspired by a short story written by Amy Hempel. (One of the most talented writers to ever set foot on this earth) The title of the story is "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried". I forget how good it feel to write until I have a really ****** day, a few beers, and some time to myself.
Jon Tobias Jun 2012
At the library I look for old books
Ones that might have actually been owned
Before they were borrowed

I write fake love letters on the inside
How I want these stories to change some person’s life

Now these novels are secondary
And the people finding them make up their own stories

They constantly ask themselves what it means
How it relates

In some I make lists
Of the parts of my body that still function

Some
See you final chapter

Some
This is the reason I almost didn’t **** myself

Some
I write what I really want to tell her

How seeing her sometimes
Is a punch to the gut
Like a fire at a library
And I dry heave barely blank pages

She comes here a lot
And if she knew
She might read them and wonder
Why I chose the books I chose

So in one I write
I don’t know
I’ve never been good at telling stories
I thought you’d make up some beautiful reason
And I could say yeah

In the bible I write
I never believed in god
But I also never believed
The story is over
After reading

The end
Jon Tobias Jun 2012
Loneliness is like hunting for redwood trees
Their gnarled faces
Gritting teeth

They bite the loveliest poison

Out of all the holes your heart couldn’t fill
Sprout carnations
Sprout dahlias

All crimson petals
Blooming from the places
You wanted to be held

Loneliness is a garden
That no one tends
So you choke on the roots

Your tongue turns green
And little tendrils tickle up your throat
Looks like worms at first
But those come later

Pretty soon you’re planted
And collapsing blood red beautiful

Loneliness kills you sometimes
Turns you into a garden after you go hunting
For redwood trees

And on the brief occasions the light breaks the treetop
It shines on you
Just a few red red flowers

A little girl sees one maybe
She plucks what’s left of you

Places you in a vase
That sits on a kitchen table
Without much sunlight

Loneliness is you in a vase
Trying to be as beautiful as you can
Before your petals fall
And your stalks wilt

For a girl
Who thought you were worth taking home
Long enough to brighten up a kitchen

A few days maybe
That’s all we can hope for
Jon Tobias Jun 2012
When you live with someone who has Alzheimer’s
your house feels haunted

Mostly at night

Only ghosts wander like that

            So aimlessly

It is metal pounding in the garage
a knife in my hand
and the deep breathed fear of

         What’s behind door number 2

It is him halfway inside a dryer

             Trying to get out

I sleep with my door open
listen carefully like a ghost hunter
for the way he haunts the halls
for the soft pat of skin on tile collapse
fnd the moaning

I carry him to the bathroom

He is the heaviest ghost ever

              A different kind of dead weight

I light him a cigarette
The cherry glows red in the dark
The tobacco crackles with each puff

He calls me nurse
calls me some other name
one I’ve never heard before

He is just practicing

                  It is hard to be good at being so lost

Even now that I am a man
he still scares me
scares me differently

Startles me in the dark
comes around corners
crawls on the floor towards me

              I am not always ready for that

Before

He scared me
the way a feral dog scares living food
A certain kind of animal inside of him

Now he isn’t so wild

           Taming takes so much away

He is dark spots on tan paper
crusted blood on nose and head
yellow ET cigarette stained fingertips

                He is me in thirty years

He is barbiturate slack jaw
Forward lean balance struggle

And at night he is so much a ghost
I forget about his good days and wonder

               What’s the point?

My house is haunted
by a man who has never not gone
Bump in the night
Jon Tobias May 2012
He is red
Flakes of skin breaking away from his arms and face
He smiles stretching the cigarette stain on his white mustache

You young people have got it all wrong

Let me tell you a story
Don’t worry it’s a funny story

He looks behind him to make sure he can soak up my time
I tell the cashier to stay and check if anybody comes

One time there was this really dumb bird
Had a nice beard like yours
Real busy guy
And he waited til winter to fly south

If this story is about me I’m not sure

Some of us work real hard
And still manage to justify that we have nothing

I wonder if he knows I can see the boogers in his nose

The bird finally took off for home
But it began to rain
He kept flying
Then it started to hail
The hail beat his wings
It was getting hard to flap
His body began to shiver

He smiles again
It makes his lips crack and bleed a little
Underneath the stretch of yellow
He exhales and his breath smells sweetly of beer

It began to snow
Lightly at first
Though it was cold it was easier to fly
But the snow fell thicker
It coated his body
His heart slowed
He began to feel really tired
He started to descend
He was dying

He places a hand on mine for a moment
His is comfortably rough
Shovel callous rough
Cinderblock stack rough

If that touch was for me or him
I’m not sure

All these stories are just ways we beg people to stay
This poetry is just a way to keep you here
Touch you with my rough and tremble
So you can look at my cracked broken and ******
A little longer

The bird kept falling
Until he hit the earth
And you know where he landed?
Right in a big cow patty
But the warmth of the fresh ****
Melted the snow
Gave him his life back
So he rolled around in it and began to sing
He sang and sang and sang
And a hawk heard the singing
It was winter
The hawk was hungry
And he ate that bird with the nice beard

He slaps the counter separating us
Eyes widen to mounds of earth
Two big fat piles of cow **** staring at me and smiling

I don’t feel like laughing

And the moral of that story young man
Is if you’re covered in **** and somehow happy
Keep your mouth shut

These stories are just reasons
And I don’t feel like laughing

I laugh anyway
Jon Tobias Mar 2012
White painted lines on grey asphalt
The paint makes the gravel smooth
Andy knows them
Even at 60 miles an hour can count them
Like a stutter that is so fast it almost flows

There are humming birds
Beneath his breath
His breath is a sweet nervous wind

She wants to hold him
Like a nervous lover
Shivering in a warm room
Because her breath cools his sweat

He is skinny
Xylophone bone ribcage of hollow log thump

He counts the specks of rust in her green eyes
Without her noticing

Th th ththththth er’s th irty five five five five in your left eye

His hands play an invisible piano
Body a snake smooth sway in the wind

When she kisses him
She knows
By the way his hands move
And the nervous breath
And the blind sway

The only thing that’s really wrong with him
Is that there’s a song trapped in there

He looks out the window
White lines on grey asphalt
Andy counts them
And almost doesn’t stutter
First line donated by Andrea.
Jon Tobias Apr 2012
I’ve written all these first lines
But I am out at the moment
And
I am drunk

So here is mine

It is 1 am and raining
I want to stand in it naked
Feel the wet and cold bite my body into shivers

Feels almost as good as being punched for the first time
Where you realize that these the people you’re afraid of
Can’t hurt you as badly as you thought they could

I am a body practiced in resilience
We are bodies built soft enough for the bounce back

Only now I am not so sure I can bounce back from this

I want to want someone so badly that thinking about them
Helps me sleep at night
He said

Thinking about her helps me sleep
And I want to be wanted like that

Right now I am tired

Maybe it’s the beer
Maybe it’s the comfort of a bed
That I no longer get to sleep in

My ex is out for the night
And I am in our old bed

If I wake up early enough
Leave before she knows I was there
I will still have slept shamefully

There are days where I remind myself
That the strongest men
Are ones who let the chinks in their armor show
And keep walking
I’ve got some nasty holes you might’ve noticed

But I’m trying

And I’m sorry I push you away sometimes
Just that I don’t want you to see me
When I have to retighten the springs in my knees
To keep the buckle at bay
Or when I have to loosen the screws in my jaw
Tightened from a tear-bite

Holding up this armor is hard
These shoulders want to hang heavy
I don’t want to rust in the rain

I want it to break
So the truth might punch me perfectly
Into understanding that this hurts right now
And even though for the moment I want it to **** me
It’s not going to **** me

I am better than that
But I am lonely
I am out of first lines. I wrote this while very drunk and decided that drunk me and sober me are different enough that this counts. The second stanza is drunk me's line. Also just to be safe I threw in something my friend said to me. I did it without his permission so I won't tell you what he said.... or his name.
Jon Tobias Oct 2011
The Grand Canyon
Was once a shallow river bed
Until the water wore away the earth
So far down that when you look over the edge
Many have the urge to jump

When you leave this planet

As you rise

You’ll see

Waterfalls are really mountains
Weeping your departure
Tears enough to make oceans

The thought of your ghost
Quakes the earth in shivers
At the imbalanced caused
By your missing weight

You are that important

Tornadoes are just the sky’s
Way of funneling your soul back down
To the ground where you belong

But we both know

You’ll never stay

If the earth is not strong enough to keep you here
Can’t imagine there is any way
I ever could

I could never mourn
As loud as thunder
I don’t have lightning defribillators

And
I don’t sleep at night
Because I am used to sinking to the left

Your weight is that significant

And yeah
Sometimes the earth wins
Tidal waves
And earthquakes
Even tornadoes claim people

But not you

Not when you leave on your own accord
Not when you have the urge to jump
Making mountains weep
And the sky mourn thunder
Jon Tobias Jun 2011
Never realized your lungs were a cannon

Spittin’ words back in my mouth

Keepin’ me tongue tied and twisted

Never realized how the lead in my feet

Kept me neck deep in your sorrow

Never realized giving up

Meant handing over my pride

I gave it over willingly enough

You kept its backbone

And returned it

So I ate it

Tasted like envy and heartache

Slithered like spaghetti into my gut

Kept my voice breaking during songs of tomorrow

And took out my knees on days I decided to run

I found my voice

Buried under the rocks that I threw at glass houses

I ate that glass and the rocks

Built boulders of bone

Crushed from inside of myself

Now

My voice is made of scar tissue

And my heart is made of rocks

I got a train inside myself

Hellbent on breakin’ daylight

Whistle blowin' the sound of home

I have seen

Nights beggin' to break the sound of lonely

Rustling in bed by myself

And dreamt of days

More meaningful than this one

I’m done waiting for people to save me

I’m done trying to keep a tune

I am done eating my glass houses

And picking up the pieces when I'm through
Jon Tobias Dec 2011
She kicked me out of bed first thing in the morning
I didn’t even have time to make us breakfast
Not that she was hungry
She seemed satiated enough
So I left
and later met a friend for lunch

He was kicked out of bed first thing in the morning
He didn’t even have time to make his new lover breakfast
Not that he would have eaten
He seemed satiated enough
So my friend left
And he met me for lunch

Our attempts at fuckery find us
Not too far from one another
It is the distance of a coffee table in a diner
After we make our way to the wayside again

We both have water
And it washes our pallets clean
Of the liquor
And the cigarettes
And her mouth
And his mouth

Still lingering a little bit bitter
So we sip some more

These are sheets we leave behind so stained
That you hope the passion will stay
Until there are so many it doesn’t matter anymore
These one night stands will never feel any less *****

The spots of sweat and memory
That still won’t wash out
So many
They look like constellations
As the sheets hang to dry

I imagine they trace out your body
Not just your body
Any body

So generic now
It makes The Shroud of Turin
Look the aftermath of Babylon’s midnight bustle

These are the ways that love leaves you
Hanging you wet to dry
Stained and *****
And equally alone again

Forgive me for the way my mind wanders
I am still with you
I just didn’t want to *** yet

These are the ways my body leaves me
And then you
The morning after I accidentally told you I love you
Even though we just met

I have found and lost love
Enough times to secure my spot in hell by now
I mean
My fear of death his hell enough
To love you as much as I can

Forgive my neuroticism
As I leave again
Finding myself where my fuckery leaves me

At lunch
With a friend
Who is equally awkward
As we make way to the wayside again
Break from finals studies. One and a half weeks left. It is 1am. I can't wait to come back to this site fully. I feel like I am missing so much.
Jon Tobias Mar 2011
I’m sorry

I know there are days where I burn at both ends

And not even your cool waters can subdue these flames

I

Regret every word that’s burned past these lips

I didn’t mean to take you for granted

I swear

I didn’t mean to point out your stretch marks and laugh lines

I didn’t mean to forget your birthday  

I

just lose myself sometimes

Like

Last night when I laid in the darkness of our bedroom

And stretched out to feel how cold the other side of the bed was

And I

could hear your voice keeping me awake like white noise whispering
from some other room

And I just can’t seem to turn it off

I know that this is broken and left for dead

Forgotten in a box in an attic in some house

somewhere

Nostalgia’s never seemed so bitter

Because sometimes I smell you

And my heart breaks a million times a day

I got a box of red confetti here

Barely beats

Buckles my knees when it does

Beats me breathless

Holds me under

Keeps me back

Makes me wonder

Where everything turned sour like milk

Mighta seen your face on the side of that milk carton

I’d’ve known

I should’ve let you go

But I couldn’t

Not so soon

If I had my way it’d been never

Now all I got is this sound

White noise coming from some other room

Sounds like laughter sometimes

Sounds like music

Sounds like my heart shatter confetti burst

Feels like crawling skin

The lightest touch that almost tickles

Press harder if you could

I can almost feel you

Sounds like a match being lit

Lettin’ me burn at both ends
Jon Tobias Jun 2012
Where did the circus go?

Not like the Del Mar fair
Or the Barnum and Bailey skinny cow version

I want someplace nasty
A bit sticky
Someplace that picks up and leaves
before you have time to go get your watch back

All that’s left is a lot
Full of trash and ride screws
Because the rush to leave was more important
than safety

It’s a place most days now
I wish I could run away to

Slap on fake **** and be the bearded lady
Or warts and green paint and be frog man

Be something along the lines of
Homemade make believe

Be happy believing that
This other place doesn’t have things
Like rent
And car payments
And work that ***** you harder than your own girlfriend will

And don’t tell me cirque de solei is hiring
That’s not a circus
That’s people in costumes dancing and flying around on stages
They had to go to school to do that

You don’t need school to join the circus

You just need the desire to leave
Before anyone notices you’re gone
Maybe leave behind a sticky mess
And take with you something valuable
Like a watch
Or money from the purse on the counter
Or someone’s heart

Maybe I could be tattoo man
Or the ***** Mouthed Poet
And freestyle psalms that ache behind a glass window
That you have to pay a quarter to see through
And another quarter to listen
Or I could be a wax statue of Jesus
The one that if you stare at long enough
You see him breathing

Enough to restore faith in the make believe
That keeps us going

Let me be your side show
Let me be your fortune teller
Let me be the dark room in that back
Only the men are allowed into

Women and children this way

Let me be the ***** talk of town
And leave before the lynching

Let me leave in the night like a piper
With the promise
That I will give you the life you’ve always wanted
If you leave behind all you’ve ever been

Remember him?
He joined the circus?

Where’d the circus go?
Jon Tobias Jun 2013
I am as tasteless
as the boiled chicken we are about to eat

Her hands tremble
as she sips her beer
The glass taps her teeth

She exhales like an ocean
made of bone

skeleton secrets
and rolling clatter

It is not cold in here

I don't remember what I said

But I do remember something my grandmother
often said to me

"Whatever man has been here before
and whatever man will be here again
Do not let him speak for you now"
Jon Tobias May 2013
This poetry is bad art now
As fragile and as tasteless as a communion wafer
In the mouth of a murderer

I thought this poetry would make you love me
But your body stands like a marble statue
In a Stendhall suicide exhibit

Looking away is easy

Maybe I gave my heart away to easily
That flattery is bad manners
When everyone is a subject

Forgive me
For I have sinned poetically
Lived solely for the stories I want to tell later

So that my chest might be a campfire
And voice the gravel trail that slips beneath your feet
You listen to maintain balance

So yeah
I ****** up
I feel ****** up

Like poster board
Covered in Jackson ******* blood spatter
And called an "Homage to the ****** of Failure"

It's lazy

This language is lazy

My heart is lazy
Pulsing with the same low voltage of the moon

I don't care anymore

I don't care
For some people the hardest part about giving up on something you love is as soon as you do, you find a reason not to.
Jon Tobias Nov 2011
I know there are days
Where this depression gets so strong
It feels like gravity is making up for
All the times it accidentally let you fly
And after pouring yourself a bowl of cold cereal
The weight of the spoon as it goes to your mouth
Stretches time infinite

So you don’t eat
Hoping gravity will let you go
You let yourself go
Let it all go

You and I are characterized by deep breaths
And bad timing
Sick jokes
And a mouth so *****
You have to bite your tongue at times
To keep the flies out

Perfect is unattainable
Just try to be good
Do it for me
No one ever hated a man
Who kept his heart in the right place
Out of his chest
And on a mantle
Away from dust
In between
Bibles and poetry
Coloring books
And old *******

You might not care to be good
But you can’t be complete until you are

I wouldn’t be telling you this
Unless I knew that
Unless I knew what you would become
After making some of the hardest decisions in life
Like making it a point to stay alive

Stay alive
Be good
I love you
And trust me
In the end
You will be so happy

Signed
An ******* from the future
Jon Tobias Mar 2013
Writing poetry is a lonely thing
It looks you square in the eyes, smiling
It asks you to write alone
Even in company
When writing poetry
You are alone

And even lonelier still
It asks you
To go inside of yourself
There are things there you must find

There is a man inside my body
A boy
And they look just like me
They each hold letters
I do not know what they say
I must find them

Poetry is love you want
Is someone you want to be in love with
Poetry is a child tugging at the pant-leg of someone
You want to be in love with

Poetry is the coffee stain on long sleeve shirts
Right over the wrist
Your mother called them chocolate stains
Never blood

Poetry is my drunk fingertip stumble
My white-boy wasted
My way of loving less awkward

Poetry is someone telling you they love your poetry
Poetry is loving someone for loving your poetry
Poetry is also kissing that person

There is a man
In mirrors he might be me
We have a letter we want to give to you
But they read like a feeling

We spend hours in solitude
Finding ways to step into the daylight

Poetry is convincing you
You need a reason to step into the daylight

There are words etched into your teeth
All white
No bling
The letters change with the shape of your mouth

Smile more often
Even when you don’t want to

Poetry is trying to teach you to speak peace
with the words in your smile
To people you don’t want to speak peace to

Poetry is an angry father
Is neck bruises from belt loops
Is rug-burn from being dragged across the floor

Poetry does not love you
It simply asks you
To find space inside of yourself
And then it wants you to give it to someone else

There are people inside of you
With stories

Writing poetry is a lonely thing
Giving it away
Until no one can be a thief to your soul

That too
Is poetry
Jon Tobias Aug 2012
Lisa looks like she’s stood a little too close
To Dante’s Fireplace
A *** soaked ham left in the dirt
Small crust spots where the skin broke

She’s stopped wearing her dentures
Looks like her face is sinking inside of itself

I was napping
Dreaming about a rock on a hill
That overlooks my city
Was dreaming about what the gun said to the mouth
About how the bullet wanted a kiss

Found her lying in a window
Like a fish whose bowl has just shattered
A bowl that has been ***** for too long

It’s a mixed blessing
The glass bubble burst
The blood

I keep my window shut
The smell of the *** I dumped into the earth
Creeps in
Juicy apple pie smoke fingertips calling

Lisa’s kids
They don’t understand the anger
Don’t feel the neglect until it’s too late

I patch up her face
As she begs
Just don’t call the police
Don’t call anybody
I’m okay
She passes out
On a ***** couch
The kids crowd their mattresses
So they can sleep near her

I think about something I read once
About a company called LifeGem
And how for a small fee
They can turn your ashes into diamonds
Enough for a necklace
Or two bracelets
Several sets of earrings

Even when you’re worthless
You’re worth something

I buy dinner before work
Something fatty and saltier than their tears

She would always say things like
YOLO
You only live once
And then have a drink
Or hang up on a police officer
Or shut a door

YODO
You only die once too
I know how I want to be remembered
Jon Tobias Mar 2013
You are as pretty as a moon-****

The moon
so heavy inside
Almost solid
Crashed into the Earth during its formation
Taking bits of the Earth with it

Then the Earth made oceans
And sky
Birthed life from the places inside of itself
So much color and movement
It did not need the sun for beauty
The Earth is even beautiful in the dark

And the moon
The moon watched
Spun full rotation
Keeping its face always looking directly at its skies


The moon cratered like acne
Scarred like someone without an atmosphere

Battered and beat up
But every crash
The moon did not let parts of itself go
There is no room for more moons here

And occasionally
With the calm cold rumble
Moonquake shiver
Shakes dust from its back
The sunlight stolen into white shimmer
Stars way too close to be real

Looks like the ******
Of a firework show
Only every cannon misfired but yours

The whole world was watching

And everyone said
What
was that?

What was that?

You are as pretty as a moon-****
Jon Tobias Apr 2011
Just in case you didn’t know

You are perfect

You are a freak of nature

A happy accident

So fragile

Like some old century vase on a pedestal being thrown across a room

You

Have a voice

A voice that when you speak all I wanna do is stay

You put me in awkward situations

Like how sometimes we sit close and I just wanna put my arm around you

No reason

I just get this urge to do it

How I sometimes just want to tell you how lonely hallways feel,

And how empty the ballrooms are

Why don’t they have those anymore?

‘cause I’d dance with you

Hold you in my arms nothing short of forever

You

are perfect

Because you have eyes

Eyes that see better than most of the blind things
And feet that help you move, but never take you far

When we walk away from each other it always feels like slow motion

And there is strange music in the background that makes me feel like the Beast

I stay up nights just waiting for you

You are perfect

Like shallow breathes of air

After almost drowning

Reminds me life is short

Can you hear it?

That music?

Must be getting ready to leave me again

Just know

before you go

You are perfect

Perfect like

Hands

And old people

Perfect like awkward situations

Like those silly sad reminders that life is short

Just

Perfect
Jon Tobias Apr 2012
The snuggles and the kisses stopped the pain for only so long
Until one day
They didn’t stop a thing

Around the time you stopped using the word snuggle
Around the same time you tried calling her Carol instead of mom

Around the same time you learned
If you lick your own wounds
You heal just as quickly

We are practiced in healing
The small miracle of single cell resurrection
And finding enough blood to fill the deepest heart fissure

And sure
You scar up sometimes

But we are also practiced in remembering
Everything but the pain itself
You can’t physically remember pain
But you can-recreate it

Unless you’re practiced in remembering
Then you won’t
First line donated by Amanda Van Zetten.
Jon Tobias Aug 2013
How it starts is there's an apartment your family lives in
You do not live there
but your stuff does
Then you find out your mom brought bed bugs home from the rehab center

They are downsizing everything now
You show up with 3 boxes
and tell yourself
these can hold more than enough

Mostly you fill them with your favorite books
and in the heat of it
even that feels trivial

But you look at the photos in the frames
The pictures of you at six flags on your last birthday
You let those go
The paper towel painting Monica did at the lake
It's all in a box marked trash now

You joke to yourself about how silly
they would look on the dashboard of your car

The old electronics
and journals
writing contest trophies

You take an inventory
of everything you've ever owned
all your clothes have been thrown away

and you leave with just three boxes
and you ask yourself

"If my life were on fire
what would I save?"

only you can't answer that question
because when the fire is burning
it's not that everything looks as important as everything else
so much as nothing does
not even you

So you smile
and say that you are happy to leave everything behind
because now you have the joy of the memory of having it

Only this time
there is a girl
and she is riding shotgun in your car as you drive away

And maybe she can see the mixed emotion on your face
like driving of a cliff in your boss's car
only he is in the trunk

And she scratches the back of your head
and says
"Tell me a story handsome"
Jon Tobias Mar 2011
You can’t leave without getting what you came here for

I know it’s hard

Finding meaning in life is about as cliché as a needle in a haystack

Just achin’ to fill in the empty spots

With anything you can get your hands on

Got some gaps festering

Afraid to unplug and let the hurt bleed out

Cuz at least you know your holes are full

But life

It punches us toothless

Won’t let us sleep at night

With the ache of mystery

You want a purpose

Hold tight and live

Just live

Like plants and housecats

Someone once told me that there’s a forest of redwoods out there

So big with roots so tightly woven you can’t tell where one tree begins and another ends

You got roots planted in my heart

Each step you take is a purpose

I can feel you even when you aren’t close

So don’t leave me

Not yet

We got too much fire fueling engines in our feet

Just walk with me

I’ll find you a purpose

There are haystacks everywhere

And a heartful of needles buried beneath

Just don’t leave

before you get

Whatever it is that you need
Jon Tobias Oct 2011
You came along as pretty as a nightmare

Some six headed beast

Spittin’ your venom of

Self fulfilling prophecy

You

Darlin’

Hid your devils inside heartbeats

And kissed like promises

Kissed like broken promises

Lied like lovers do in moments of passion

There was passion in your poetry

Sweat that sizzled like the boiling of flesh

My teeth felt like coals from the heat of your breath

And I gag reeled our sunset

To slap stick and circus music

I never felt so awkward

But you saluted the setting sun somethin’ ***** anyway

You

You nightmare

Dressed in gasps of air

And quaking eyelids

Dressed in moments of

Let me turn the lights off before I get naked

At least we are more like insects in the dark

Crawling and feeling

And biting til it tastes right

I was always afraid of what I couldn’t see

And I felt you like a nightmare

Inside the gaping wound that is the time it takes

To love yourself

So that one day

you can love somebody else

And then I awoke like a nightmare

Lungs filling slowly

Like clown head carnival balloons

And the shapeless dark

And the relief

That whatever it was

Is finally over
Jon Tobias Mar 2012
You’ve got rain falling down your cheek

You natural disaster

Dressed in a slow building thunder storm

You’re too strong to cry
So I know that those heavenly heaves
Are just tornadoes beating in your chest
Winds whipping away heartache

Know you can discard your debris here

Because when the smoke clears
And your coal corrupts the sunset

I can lay beneath you
Point out the stars on your back
Imagine that home is ******* to the right
And ******* down
From your left shoulder blade

Laugh for me a hallelujah of thunder
So I know how much longer this will last

I am helpless beneath you

Not enough sun in my smile to clear it away

I mean

I am glad the last time
Your cheeks were wet
It was raining

It’s a different kind of helpless

Because we accept it

And if we were children
It might have been easier

How telling you your rain tastes like tears
That won’t kiss away

Is like saying
Okay
You perfect storm
You natural disaster
You lungs filled with cold front
Breath the sweetest fog I can’t see your face through

You are only raining again

*And this too shall pass
First line donated by Nicole (Lady) Adams.
Jon Tobias May 2013
After the sweat cools on your now
***** neck
it changes the scent of your skin

I want to place my mouth there
And taste you like the ocean
Filtered through a cloud

I get so mad at the sky
Pulling itself inward overhead
I swear that it is a breathing thing

Then rain comes
And it's breath is now laughter

It pleases the sky to keep us here
inside

But I am still a child
Man sized
Holding you

I suggest we walk in the rain

It is not cold
But we are getting wet

The rain changes the scent of your skin

Your neck is still a little *****
I want to put my mouth there
Jon Tobias Apr 2012
Your smile inspires me
To write

I have already spoken about hearts
and their inability to affect other peoples hearts
I'll never go there again

But your smile
makes me smile

You've got dimples designed for sailing
kiss me
and we'll make a ship
big enough to break the bay

Brave enough the beach our bellies
to kiss new land

Smile so big you chew the tip of your tongue again
I want to make you laugh so hard
and so often
you have crows feet by the time you're 30

You are an ocean-throat whisper
of salty air
and sand that sticks to the bottom of my feet like a memory
the way my feet always remember how to land
to cushion the blow

Inside your smile are lists
lessons on living
that you might one day tell me
it's hard to talk when you catch wind like you do

I want to kiss the words out
taste your language

Run my thumb along the bottom crescent
curved first finger under your chin

Your smile is a language
anyone can learn
I can read your lips

At least I think I can read your lips

They always say kiss me

say

There is a secret hidden between these teeth
Tucked under this tongue
Buried in the back of this throat

Coax it out
I dare you

Secrets are prone to laughter
find safety in the crevices
of dimples designed for sailing

Tell me what it is

Your smile inspires me
To write
To kiss you
To mirror back your language
With my
Broken toothed
and ***** dimpled
secret

Your smile
I want to kiss it
First line donated by Nicole (Lady) Adams.
Jon Tobias Aug 2012
Some things don't hit you


                                                       til you tell somone else.              
                                                      
                                                              "She's
                                                                      never
                                                                                  coming
                                                                                                 back."
Jon Tobias Jun 2011
God done ****** up again

This time by lettin’ that halo slip from around your holy head

And because he’s full of excuses

he said

“You know

Her halo was so big it must’ve got caught in the birth canal”

Really

that halo was a birth control ring

one of the clear plastic ones

And really

you were a miracle that you came out so perfect

And God done ****** up again by lettin’ that halo slip

In my whole life there have only been 3 miracles I have ever seen

And God can take the credit

Only

Because he didn’t stop them from happening

1: My brother is the most perfect thing to happen on this earth since innocence found its voice and used it
to cry because people are mean sometimes.

2: In my almost 23 years of life, I have almost died 8 times. The miracle in that is, that no matter what my brain might tell me, my body is too dumb to give up on life that easily.

3: You were born into this world. I consider it a miracle that I met you.

I’d give you a halo if you’d let me

I’d become a priest just so I could get close enough to god to tell him

“Man

Quit this crap

We both know the world is ugly

We both know I lay awake most nights because I can’t turn off my brain

We both know that when we finally meet

we will sit at a table

Over a deck of cards

And some cigars

And my favorite beer

Just so we can spend the lifetime it will take

Discussing how I ****** things up over and over again

But Man

Just own up to this one mistake and give the Halo back”

I saw it once

Shaped like a battle field

Or the spilled milk you sometimes cry over

Or a childhood race track

One that in your memories you go to

Over and over again

In my whole life

I have only witnessed a few miracles

And the last one

Was you

— The End —