Y’all ever had a bad date?
Man, that’s some ****.
Y’all ever fall in love on a bad date?
Man, that is some ****.
Y’all ever fall back out of love?
Ever watch it as it leaves her
eyes? Falling out through fumbling
lies ‘til you realize that deep
down, she never loved you to
begin with.

Ever sit across the table while
she struggles to find the words
to destroy you? And just to
save her from that struggle,
give her the words to excise your
heart? The only words you had
left. And then you watch her
march away victorious, handbag
in one hand and your heart in the
other.

Ever give yourself so completely
that she contains you? That
when she walks away, she hasn’t
left anybody? They say one is
the loneliest number, but sometimes
2-1 is zero. So I sit
here, a body without a soul,
a crying shell of what used to
be a person. And I ask myself,

Who Am I?

I want that real type love.

I want that text message right after
we hang up type love.

I want that sitting on the couch, but not saying
anything, but wouldn’t rather be anywhere else
type love.

I want that never decide what to eat for dinner
because we both want to pick the other’s favorite
type love.

I want that meet up for lunch even when
I only have seven minutes type love--
and then I’m late to work because it
takes at least seven minutes just to say
goodbye type love.

I want that get good news or bad news
or any news and call her immediately
just because I finally have an excuse to hear
her voice type love.

I want that wake up after she’s gone
and panic because she’s not the
first thing I see type love.



I want that start writing songs and poems
and letters, but give up because you don’t
want to spend time away from her writing
type love.

I want that scouring the app store
over and over looking for more ways
to talk to her type love.

I want that kiss her like you’ll
never see her again just because
you’re going to the bathroom type
love.

I want that lost in her eyes only
to find myself choosing to stay
lost type love.

I want that call her up and realize
while it’s ringing I have nothing to say
say, but keep ringing just to hear
her say hello type love.

And I want to find it with you.

When I was a kid
Before I could walk
My mother would hold my hands and
Carry me across the living room
While I pretended to know
How to walk.

Over time, her grip loosened and
I stopped pretending.
King of the world, I would go
anywhere. Well, anywhere without stairs
If the doors were already open.
But my mother watched over me
And gave me the places I could not take for myself.

Time passed with haircuts and hockey games,
Trips to the zoo and preschool at Kids’ Harbor.
That’s when I learned to write my own name.
Justin. Big J. Big C. Michael’s learning
cursive and Stephen’s right behind me
and Mrs. Burns teaches me Spanish and
It’s the first day of grade 3.

Ms. Hailey’s class.

Wait, no. That’s not what happened. Go back. July 1999. I can’t. I-- This isn’t. I don’t have the words. This is not what the poem is about. I can’t cope. The poem is my vehicle for coping and I’m out of words. I can’t.

It’s the first day of summer.
1999. School’s let out and mom doesn’t have to teach anymore.
Home is different now, home is family.
Just like every summer.

But we don’t talk. And when we do, I’m pushed out.
I’m not ready, so I pretend. My hand in hers, but hers isn’t
there. Soon Dad works even more hours and Michael never stop hockey
and fighting. Stephen retreats into himself and Mom? is just a voice
behind a cold door at the end of the hallway screaming

I need you to take care of yourself.

And I don’t know how. And I reach for her hand to lead mine
but I’m met only with a cold door and screaming.

I need you. To take care of yourself.

Pull back my hand. Walk down the hall, holding the wall for support.
It’s cold. And I’m lost. But I pretend to know.

And soon I’m not reaching out anymore. And then I’m not asking anymore.
See I loved my mother. And I was afraid of losing her. So I did
all I could and I disappeared--learned how to take the world for myself.
Learned to move crowds with words, figured out the password to
everyone’s heart, valued language and excellence over all else.
In 2001, I taught myself how to ride a bike.

But the whole time, I didn’t know why.
Conditioned for solitude in a self-governed rendition of aptitude, I investigated
on my own. I only needed me to take care of myself.
I gathered that a bad man named Chemotherapy
had seen something valuable in my childhood, so he took it away.
Excanged it for a box full of hats and a script of questions for
everyone I know.

What is the evolutionary benefit
of loneliness?
How does a
Darwinian thinker rationalize the
disconnect between intro- and
extroversion?
Our world is generated by
our need to feel as though
we are together.

Not alone.
Not solitary.
Not separate.
Not disparate.
Still alive.
Still here.
Still breathing.
Still seeking the heartbeat as it
thrums through our souls
and echoes across a pillow into
the eyes of a dispassionate and
apathetic lover.

“maybe love is just muscle memory
a body next to a body
you just react how you learned it the first time.”
An empty bed full of two people waiting
to believe, maybe love is just that.
An empty bed next to an open window as curtains
flutter and we plummet past the 23rd floor
together.

Hand in hand we fall through the surface and
become a tuxedo with tears and bells standing
in front of strangers without faces reciting
lines from ancient vows written without words
in the air that floats
between us.

And it goes Dearly beloved.
Barely beloved.
Barely here.
Why do we pretend?
sorry

And it goes, Dearly beloved,
We have gathered as a people around
the need to find another with which to
fall tumbling through a woven tapestry
of inaccuracies, ineptitude, an incision to
free us from our search.

And it goes, I, the seeker,
take you, my apathetic, beautiful witness--
to have security in knowing I am now tied
to another. Not unique, but made
to hold until our until our bodies run out of time
and our sense of humanity waves to wither
to dust to nothing to death to dust.

And it stops--we transcend ourselves
into melting wax and darkness while stars poke holes
in our blanket of lies when we lay for our
final sleep. We rarely go together, and when
there’s time, we search again.