Wisconsin, fine--
We sit on state lines.
Across the street, Rodeo Drive.
Move a little bit
and East L.A. makes you feel alive.

Go to the diner
where the mermaids wear aprons
and hold out menus like personal stock.
Where the surfer-rama drama in the diner deep
allows them to let go of those they keep.

And you and me and those we love,
keep us finite, because why not.
I could tell you how to eat your waffles
if you will be the spoon that stirs my coffee.

Listen to me,
"Rachel, there's no one, right now,
that I'd rather sit and eat breakfast with than you.
And if it doesn't work out,
and we choke on our meals, that's fine.
I just want to try when I'm with you."

We exchange glances
and I'm sure, then,
that I adore the aplomb,
for your smile leads myself
into believing and being more.

In the gas deep under-park,
she sleeps between shadows.

My darling,
upon the mountain's caress.
My ******-friendly mess
in a pineapple dress.
I couldn't love less
or less of you.

Young explorer,
drifting from world to world.
A huckleberry eye
that shifts from trembling duress,
with my hands onto her back.
Why can't life cut you any slack?
The chair is going out under
as the skies are mumbling thunder.
My violin underneath the sin,
sounding from within
"...I love you."

Broken water
bounce from cheek to chest.
Your breathing sounds the best.
With my words onto your lips,
and how the saliva drowns and drips.
I grip around your hips,
with the world releasing a boulder,
that drops upon your shoulder,
and I shake you senselessly,
why can't god set you free?
I can feel from you to me.

Blood, down, to ever and let go,
with your body in the snow.
My river-drowned girl,
engulfed by the swirl.
Love, oh no, from year to year.
Your words so everclear,
"I love you, too."

Silver-shiner,
moon-kissed and ever so,
your feet on the bathroom floor,
the kills from the handled snore.
What I wouldn't give to drink
from your fountain.
What I wouldn't give to die
on your mountain.
My darling, from colored-t.v.,
with a kiss and a motel fee,
I could know what the known couldn't,
with my fingertips where they shouldn't.
Turn down the volume and say
that you'll stay another day
or three.

Why can't I be
the spinny chair
in your office
for two?
There's nothing more
I want than to
matter to you.

Please, Please
let me be what I am
trying and dying to be:
Your lover that you'd
prefer to be some other,
with our kisses
covered in fleas.

I'm remembering to miss you,
but you'd have to
be here at some point.
I'd miss you so badly
I would dangle
your intestines over my mouth.
Can we kiss in the shade,
if we pretend I'm somebody else?

I can be the running car
in your suburban garage.
I want to steal you and feel you,
or just feel at all.

Catch me in your water,
smiling with the goldfish
and the flakes of snow angels
that bleed out every wish.

We can tremble
and mumble,
and stumble
in our darks.

There's no love that couldn't
hurt me now.

I watch you breathe
as you sleep.
I'm afraid of what
you could mean
to me.

I study the stripes
on your shirt.
I think of all the
ways we'll flirt
and all the ways
we'll cry and I'll choke
with your hands
around my throat,
and Malboro Black
cigarette smoke
pouring down my
esophagus--
I wish I wasn't
so fond of us.

Love is for tin birds
in a flame cage.

clear thumbtacks hold the
few blades of grass
collected from the meadows
of the Magnificent Days.
no baby blanket can wrap up
these times;
no perfume from the 80's
mask such greatness.
driving home at 8:56
in february feels like four-thirteen a.m.
while it's raining
(how strange)
we don't feel like talking,
we don't feel like junk food
but scratchy blankets to tuck
in the snow-less mountains
this time of year.
something has to cover them,
because our society doesn't approve
of ******
or happiness, really
for our smoke detectors
are dead and the mirrors are stained
the rugs are frayed
and our poetry *****.
our candles smell like grandmothers
but that future for us isn't so
far away.
we focus on the water that will burst
past the controlled walls
in a few months;
that's so close (too close) to tell
because we are told
we won't end up being what we thought
we'd wanted at sixteen.
our christmas lights are getting dull
and we don't strive to make people jealous
anymore.
we just sulk on the loss
of the Magnificent Days,
bright and kind.

I made love
to an email,
inside my
mind's
sugar shop.
I guess
our blood is
detailed;
I don't feel
until you're
shocked.

You say the things
I moan,
and I wear the things
you swear,
like, "I'd still see you,
even if you were
to disappear."

You kiss me before
I tell you that you're
silver-spoon-
melted-heart,
reassuring me
that you're ****** up,
and to just push
to watch you
fall apart.

We shake
because it's what
we forgive the most.
So, let's bite our tongues
and float north.