“No one is ever satisfied with the success, is ever satisfied with the success, is ever satisfied with the dream.  It’s the hunger before a meal when you realize how good it is to be alive.”

With each passing day I feel youth slip from my bones like scoops
falling off a summer ice cream cone to blistering pavement. 

All of my friend’s dogs are dying of old age just like mine. 

Childhood trees we used to climb have either grown too tall to reach
or were struck by lightning.  Decisions, no matter how trivial, become monumental
in the scope of time.  There is no end in sight…only the faintest memory of humble beginnings, leading us
blindly into the vacuum of tomorrow, ******* the dreams from our head to feed the plague of survival.

That’s why you bruise with a breath.  Your heart beats too hard for your house of card frame.  Your body—desert willow—thrives on nothing, pumping cells full of carrots, vitamins and codeine.

Last night, While you were sleeping, I sank to the bottom of the ocean
with a seven mile chain attached to a thousand pound anchor and a Swiss army knife.  Slipping
through seasons I fell colder and deeper and darker, waving and giggling as I sank
for miles, watching the surface light blur and fade completely until I was in night,
a gentle pulse of luminescence massaging me with it’s glow, the old-ironsides squid laughing,
the rave fish pulsing with dinner plate pupils, the leather armor jellyfish are calm as Sunday's first ****,
and the flat rainbow fish spin their data and vanish into black.

All I think I know at 22:
Why they call this the information age;
What Buddy meant when he said, “There is a distance the size of bravery”;
This is the best part.

Twenty-somethings, homeless,
but with perfect fashion,

in muted greys and translucent lilacs
sit outside Union Square.

They have the coolest tattoos
and the coolest carboard signs,

all more transcendental and valuable
than the sidewalk they sleep on.

Some are tweaking, some are sleep,
some lean and have spit dribbling

from their burned lips as they drift
into a coma, like war heroes.

I want to give them a bowl
of my homemade vegan chili.

They can have cheese and sour cream,
depending how righteous they are.

I want to speak sweetly with their mothers
while they prune geraniums
along the cracked and faded sidewalk.

I wont smoke in their parent's garage
like an outcast uncle,
or have more than one beer with dinner.

The next day I’ll go back to the storefront
to explain everything I've learned, over
instant coffee and Entenmanns.

This time it's their turn to share wisdom
as 13th Street muscles from slumber,
achy under the weight of lost bodegas
and barbershops.

I’ve been told every homeless person needs a sign,
no matter what variation or breed.

Some write a new message every day, some stick to one,
but only a few don’t write anything at all.

“Not even gonna lie:
need money for bud.”

The pulse behind the sign renders words irrelevant.

The 500 year old Chinese woman captures the room
like a drunk teenager.

The oily scarecrow with a leather hat dances,
rattling his tin can.

Only occasionally will an assertive hungry hobo be satisfied
with a granola bar in place of anything less than Jackson.

“This is what it sounds like,
when the doves cry.”

Southern church bells ringing through dive bars filled with sinners.

I made chicken soup in August.

The timing is terrible, but
you should still try a bowl.

When you go home,
tell your parents what I said:

You look better
in a prom dress
then you ever could
in a wedding gown.

Let's bury this corpse
underneath a church
hearse and all.

If you steal a carnation
to hang like an icicle
in your bedroom,
I'll never tell a soul.

Our war kept us safe
from the dungeons
of autonomous thought.

Now every time I step outside,
my summer skin feels like winter.

You are
delicious
And I am
greedy.
You are
generous
And I am
needy.
You are
experienced
And I am
learning.
You are
flammable
And I am
burning.

Some came in chains
Unrepentant but tired.
Too tired but to stumble.
Thinking and hating were finished
Thinking and fighting were finished
Retreating and hoping were finished.
Cures thus a long campaign,
Making death easy.