When I die,
I don't want to be buried.
I don't want a casket.
I don't want a tombstone.

I don't really want much of a funeral.
I simply want whomever desires
To say something about me
To do so
(Whether it's good, bad, or funny).

I want to be burned
In a cardboard box,
And as I'm being cremated,
I want someone
To read a poem that I have written
For that very occasion.

When I'm all turned to ashes,
I want them to put me
In a cheap little container
And throw my ashes into the wind.
Maybe over a field, a forest, or the ocean--
Whatever, so long as it's windy there.

Mostly,
I don't want my loved ones to have a
Specific place to visit me

Because
I want to be the one
Who visits my loved ones

So I can give them kisses
When the wind
Brushes their cheeks.

kissing you was like swerving into oncoming traffic

i can never tell if i am more haunted by empty picture frames or the ashes of their contents

you taught me that the saying "pick your battles" meant not answering when love was at the door

sometimes when i drink whiskey i swear i can hear your voice in the creases of my bedsheets & i sleep on the floor

i still catch myself running my hands over things you touched the most, looking for the echoes of your fingertips

i practice things i'll never say to you

i remember the day you told me you didn't like poetry, how "everything's already been said" & how "nothing meaningful can be captured without being cliche" you know, i don't miss you like the sun and moon, i do not miss you like tide bent waves crashing on the shoreline, i miss you like a chernobyl  swingset misses children

rumor has it that drowning is a lot like coming home, that drinking bleach can **** the butterflies in your stomach

for your love of cigarettes, i would have been an ashtray

this halloween i want to dress up as the you when you loved yourself and show up on your doorstep

i never understood what you meant when you said i was an instrument, back when you would cup your hands around my chest and breathe through the holes in my heart, i still wonder if the sounds i made remind you of wind chimes

i never paid much attention to abandoned buildings until i became one

in my dreams all the flowers smell like your perfume

i am the only person who has ever wished for the same snowflake to fall twice

if i could go back, and rewrite the definition of audacity, it would be how when we lost the bet of love, you said "we never shook on it"

i love you, if the feeling is not mutual, please pretend this was a poem

the only apology i want from you, is to have you repeat the names of children we will never have in your parents living room until they *****

we are the same person if you find yourself up at 4am dry heaving promises, or if you are kept awake by the laughter of those who've abandoned you

nobody ever told you that goodbyes taste like the back of stamps

sometimes i'm convinced that the only reason we hug, is so you can check my back for exit wounds

I'm not good at expressing myself, not verbally.

When I say I love you, I might not.
When I say you mean everything to me and that I couldn't live without you, I might mean that I'll forget you in a year.
When I say you are my best friend, I might hate you in a matter of seconds.
Nothing I say is definite.

But when I hold your hand,
and feel your fingers in mine,
and maybe our breathing is synced, and our eyes are locked,
and our hearts beat in a rhythmic war
(rivaling the emotions in our gazes),
maybe then,
I mean everything I've said
(and then some).

truths triage could not spare him as he was
trying to look angelic on a boatload of sinners
hes chained to his uttered story despite its flaws
he wrote it with the ink of despairs wisdom
despite knowing despair will lie to you as often as its dark brother fear
he carved his fate in the slippery wet stone of his pasts deeds
and theres no escaping the truth in that mirrors face
three am in a ***** motel room
the greasy light reveals the man within
unleashes the beast
and mourns all that could have been

(((thirty six dutch girls holding hands
walk in the shadows....
thirty six dutch girls
smooth to the makeup perfection on arrival
laughing and giving peck on the cheek hello's
the crowd into the booths at the back
a noisy forest of chatter and purses clutter
thirty six slender dutch girls
powdered and perfumed
come to build a romance of the mind
every single one of them dreams vividly of
real love and wanting something better than this emptiness
this is no way to live)))

bent tens ways to sunday but never really broken
he keeps on keeping on pounding flesh to footpath
hoping to escape reason with muttered excuses
hoping to beat the dawn keep the night alive for
just one more whimsical delight
he writes his fate indelible while lying to no-one
that its just a phase he's going through
****** his chained hands at the obscured waters
but once you start down the trail of tears
only the truth will set your sight free
four am in the motel parking lot
and the birds herald a coming dawn
this is no way to live