The city spikes that peer out over
rock-spires in the distance taste like
coffee grounds and finger paint.
They're bitter, but they matter.

Maybe someone north of Washington will
read our S.O.S. and send an airplane full of
urban-types to gentrify our graves.

And maybe Jesus saves.

Or maybe Jesus raves with coked-up
Gandhi up in Jersey, when the
winter turns to mush.

....              Growing up,
I                     thought I was the hero in our family. You never whipped out hate                 in the form of a belt; You never left a mark. But it didn't hurt your                case any less; It didn't hurt us any less. I offered my bruised
face                for you to vent your rage on; I took hard words and hard shoves
so...            the rest of them didn't have to. (You had too many kids by the way.)


"Go              for broke" doesn't apply when it comes to kids. With Mom
away"          you never had a chance, and I get that, but seven punching bags?
"Stop              at two in the next life, don't go for seven. You couldn't handle
it."                  You didn't deserve us, I don't care if you do now. Do
"You               even deserve us now? You've changed, you're stronger. You
are                 not the man you used to be, and I get that. But that man was fine
hurting          me whenever he didn't get his way, or work went bad. You left
me."                alone in the dark to rot into this hateful, bitter man I am today.

You                are a good father, now. You're raising the youngest with so much
care.              But I don't know if that's enough for me. God help me, but
I                     can't forgive you, even now. Even after all the effort I
know             you're putting in, because it's not for my sake. It's for his, and
that                isn't good enough. It's too little too late. I'd sign "I love you" but...

I just
don't
any more.

She had memorized the train schedule, but
our speech bubbles overlapped the
right way, so I paid for her ticket,
thinking maybe there would be a tunnel
or two to keep our hearts in the dark until
London lay between them once and for all.

My uncle has a can for what goes in
to his mouth, and a bottle for
what comes out.

She knows I’m supposed to end up with him someday.
She doesn’t know where or when or how.
She doesn't care.

But she knows
Like she always has
And she reminds me.

I held the book too long but ended up a content reader.
She wants to rip out the back pages and add a million blank ones
The last inscribed with promises instead of apologies.

Nothing can stop her from whispering to me now and then.
No hands of Time squeezing her neck if only for a chance to turn her cheek
Or bridges built of closure,
Band-Aids disintegrated into flesh.  

She’s a fighter, one much braver than me.
Her stubbornness peeks through her passion
And I cannot help but stare.

She knows if the breathing doesn’t match then it’s worthless
I know I’ll have to dig until enough letters can give "worth" a new definition.

She cares about my happiness.
I care about her.

Sometimes I can’t sew her mouth shut
So I straighten the thread out repeatedly hoping everything will soon follow.
The needle is too big and unravels into every poem he ever wrote.
Her fingers peel my eyelids back as she fills me up with his words.
Their voices swirl together and I swear I can hear mine.

Her words are quiet but so articulate I feel each consonant strike my ear
Sent on a smooth path straight to my chest before my brain can even take a breath.

She knows the heaviest thing I carried away was her Welcome Mat a few months ago
But I pity and admire her for making that a reason to stop knocking
For actually wanting to stay.

At night, my tears scream out that I think she’s wrong
That my progress is in the palms she constantly shows me face-down.

She doesn’t believe that I don't want her around.
She shouldn’t.

Her claim is that we’re on the same team
But I spend every moment justifying my losing score to my conscience.

She is determined to win.
I am often determined to let her.

The esophageal chill of fresh rain paired
with Bozek's tire stove undertones
slipped through the chain link tennis court.
Love all, love-fifteen, love-thirty, love-forty, game.
I love you, service box Suns, fault one fault lines,
Grandma's crochet centerpiece. Cornucopia coping
with deuce, add.  in, deuce, add. out, deuce,
you get it. Lost ***** in the transformer pen beside
the playground where I watched my classmates
fall off the monkey bars and expose themselves daily.
Racket strings like pantyhose girls surrounding
the sink applying lipstick and stabbing each other dead.
They don't need monkey bars to show off.
Slice serve pizza at Pudgies to kids barely making it.
Grades lower than the pepperoni from the seedy
gas station they sit in and thumb-spike quarters
into each other's knuckles. The "grown-ups"
buy instant lottery and feverishly **** the tickets
with misplaced pennies, and then toss the moneywastes
when they score a free ticket. Free ticket to what?
The tennis match in Addison so far away?
A clear view through chain link?
A wet, elm bench some kid made in shop class?
An alternative to what we waste our lives on?
******, marijuana, drinking at the basketball court, and
flicking cigarette filters into Berger Lake like we're hot ****.
We are ****, not the ****.
Just ****.

Is it my counter-counterclockwise
mind wasting time? Elbows
on the dining table pulling my angel
hair into grid-like times tables.
I’m invested in this non-conversation
table. Ich liebe dich, mein Freund.
I’ve got commitment issues and four-ply
tissues for when my eye lashes start
peeling apart. My grandpa died in 2005
and I’m all but over it. I’m holding
his kite string, but the reel is almost done,
like VHS tapes rewound then fast-forwarded
to the good times. Power Ranger birthday
and everyone’s wearing dunce caps
with elastic chin straps ‘til they snap.
Snap! Snap! Snap me back to three-years-old,
and I’m singing in a Robin costume
‘cause I knew I’d always be second best.
I had an identity crisis around fourteen,
so I stopped buying sunglasses
because I found myself in other
peoples’ shadows. But now the only shadows
they’re casting are the ones from their headstones
and from the fields of flowers cradling
them like they once cradled me.

Fast-forward, I’m genuflecting in gym shorts
before myself in a mirror smudged with plum
felt. And I seem small compared to my life
spelled out in Expo marker markings.