Must all beautiful moments
Di appear like th s?
Bef re I ev n          .

Sir

            In my hand is the only reason I need to live

                        [I have so many more

                        But if they all escaped through air holes in the jar on my desk

                                                            Then he would be enough]



Sir

            There’s a sparrow in my hand

                        [Broken

                                    Trembling

                                                Still alive?]



It’s my saddest thought, sir

            But this sparrow would’ve stayed

                        [He told me so]

            But I clutched it so hard I broke his legs

                        [And you tell me all I do is hurt]

                                    Hurt

                                                Hurt

                                                            Him



But I don’t

            I love him

                        See



My broken fingers

            [From my pathetic attempt to be the lopsided branches

                                    He was so happy sitting in]

And you tell me all he wanted was to hold my hand

                        [Sometimes]



My chapped lips

            [From trying to lift his wings with my breath

                                    So he could lose himself in flight again]

And you tell me all he wanted was to kiss me

                        Take my breath away

                                    [Sometimes]





Sir

            Will he

                        [Kiss me

                                    Hold my hand

                                                And stay]

            Ever walk again?

I can’t stand that I can’t understand
Why my heart heaved its contents into your content hands,
Tearstains dripping through my fingers as we [danced].
I remember the days I’d [collapse] in crowded streets,
Because my heart would [skip] too many beats.
Then you’d [spin me], kiss my cheeks and whisper
Something sweet about my [feet’s] defeat.
But I knew then that I couldn’t [keep rhythm],
So I must’ve suffered from heart failure.

And once you left in October, and my soul was sober
Not drunk on my tears,
I would wonder what could’ve persuaded you to stay,
But once my heart attempted a [pirouette]
I no longer questioned my place.
.. I don’t know if you watched after that,
But I’m sure you saw the {snowprints} I’d leave in your yard,
My only way of telling you that I hated being my own {saving grace},
Because a {fallen angel} drops too hard.

But icicles hung from your eyelids that winter,
And splintered your vision.
Looking back, I believe you cried as much as I did,
And the tears froze across your eyes.
Because you never looked me in the eye as our minds ran to pieces
As we raced to find peace with ourselves.

You spun me for a loop,
My skull kissing paintball splattered remains of my left and right brain
As they bled all over themselves,
Knocking my sanity off of the shelves
In an attempt to explain whether love is history,
Or chemistry,
And I didn’t want to ponder the prospects
So paper was my band-aid fix all.
I wrapped my mind around it,
Concealed my soul beneath my words,
Until I was my own mummified form,
Too afraid to rip them off.
Because what if nothing had healed at all?
I rotted beneath my façade.
My smiley face band-aids the only hands of happiness that hugged me for
Months,
And I
Sunk
Into depression,
Not unlike this current recession,
Not knowing where my silver lining would be;
Wondering if it would come only when withered lines worked their way across my cheeks,
A gray hairline visible in the sun,
As proof my time had come,
To be happy.

But something better came sooner with the rains of May,
And a new boy painted smiles back onto my face.
Removing the bandages that had bruised my body,
And punctured the skin of my poetry.
So I was free to bleed again,
With fresh pieces to breathe in.

Was it happiness, or freedom that flushed my cheeks?
Or was it the uncomfortable spider that would weave my stomach in knots
As another part of me was lost
To the boy who painted my peace
For a price?

I didn’t mean to hand so much to him, love,
But a measure of pleasure came with a cost,
And at some point my beliefs were tossed to scatter in the wind,
And the spider of guilt in my stomach sunk its teeth right in,
Sadness seeping through my veins,
The venom of regret.

Because you were the only one who ever held all of me and none of me at the same time,
Who never asked for what I claimed to be mine.
All of me was yours,
Even the things you never asked for
Were stamped with your name for a future date.
But mail gets intercepted sometimes,
And my contents were spread
Before someone I hardly knew
And I-
Missed-
You…

Because you never asked for too much to touch or too much of my love
I loved you the only way I was able to.
And now…
I’m just a tainted tin can on the side of the street.
And I know you don’t have use for me,
But I’ll do my best to undo the dents of my past.
All I know is that yesterday you told me you hate it when I don’t say what’s on my mind.
But my tongue was a sponge that soaked up the ways that I’ve wanted to say
That I’m sorry.

And I’ve skipped my own beats for a year and a half,
Letting my turn to tell you I yearn for you pass
Right over
In an endless drum roll.
But-
I feel a –rhythmic- rattle-
In my –beaten-aluminum-body
As your footsteps
[Stop].
Please.
Don’t let me suffer for my heart failure.

A decade from now,
            My words will only be a carcass even birds won’t want
            To pick at anymore.

I won’t be able to keep track of where my similes skip off to,
And maybe I’ll discover later that they crossed the street like a chicken
That wouldn’t know to look both ways,
Causing a six car pileup,
But never making it to the other side of the road as I intended them to.

Maybe my metaphors will age quickly,
            And ten years down the road
            Their doggy jowls will quiver with one last yawning breath
            As they collapse beneath the nearest tree from hip failure
            Resting at last beneath a pleasant summer sun.

I don’t like to think about it,
But I’ve entertained the idea
That perhaps I will neglect my words,
            Letting all the quatrains pass me by.

Yes, that is how my structured sentences will meet their end:
            With no periods
            But a blank space
                        Where your name should be.

I’d like to think that someday
            I won’t have this horrible need to write anymore
I’ll describe my perfect days because I want to,
Not to fill this void I made
When I handed out my consonance like candy
            And scattered similes in the air like skittles
            During that drought we had a while ago
When everything was black and white
And I thought everybody wanted
A taste of the colors I’m made of.

I like to entertain the thought that someday

Someday
            People are going to reach back through the decades and excavate my words
            And try to find deep meanings beneath all my poetry.
            Scholars will slit the throats of my similes,
            Claiming there was some philosophical point pumping through the jugular,
            And I might laugh somberly [a little] if they do.

            They’re going to find the rotted carcasses in the most random of places:
            A passenger seat,
            The floor by a bathroom,
            A stairwell,
            Under a tree.

I know that some might try to find the cause of death.
In fact,
I know they will.

But I’d much rather people look for the only reason of birth,
The only meaning behind all my metaphors,
I want these people to catch the quatrains I let pass me by when it hurt too much.

When it hurt too much
To just write-

I love you.

Sometimes, I want to beat you over the head with a hobo.

                                Or those ridiculous kiosk ladies at the mall.

                                                          ­      Eighteen times.

Sometimes, I want to stuff you into a bottle and watch you ferment in failure for a while.

                                Until the scent of success is gone from you,

                                And you no longer have girls pawing at your throat like the K-9 Unit, hot on the trail of bombs or drugs

                                Or at least until I have an idea of whether I’d really want to see you like that,

                                And trust me,

                                                If I saw you more often,

                                                         ­                       I’d try all of these things,

I’d take your biggest fears and sprinkle your mashed potatoes with them, and serve me up on a silver platter, ‘cause I know I’m the last thing you’d ever want, and seeing you get the wrong order for once would do wonders for my digestion.

                                But I never see you long enough to cook dinner anymore,

                                                And you’d prefer sprinkling airplane food with lighter conversation anyways

                                For reasons only I know



Remember the conversation we had a couple weeks ago?

-          The one that made me realize that I hate the idea of free samples and dates, because all guys seem to want these days is a Big Mac; heavy on the petting and light on commitment-

I quoted Shakespeare, for crying out loud!  And you-

You just sat there, and it was there in your car that I realized you prefer your “I love you’s” medium-rare; I don’t think you understand how raw I am despite that fact, or the conversation wouldn’t have grown cold and mushy like it did.  Picking at it with our forks until the meat went dry, I almost wish you had kissed me an 18th time, because-

                                I had leftovers yesterday, love.

                                I spooned him up on the couch, and we let our lips brush like melted butter 18 times as we spoke to each other, and we didn’t want to stop talking, because then we’d have to accept that we were kissing on purpose.

                                Oh, how I wish I’d quoted Shakespeare to him then! Because

                                Eventually, the words stopped coming, but our lips were still moving, and we had to accept that our kisses were stale and crusty, we choked on our re-heated passion.

                                Don’t be mad yet, love.

                                                It might be slightly comforting to know that this time he undid my necklace instead of a bra strap, and I felt protected in his arms, like I’d never suffer from food poisoning again, but I feel you’ll be mad, anyway; but you shouldn’t know for sure if my words make you angry yet.

                                Oh…

I wish I’d told you my biggest fear as you were explaining your own a couple weeks ago.

                                I heard once, that you have to try something 18 times before you really know how you like it, and I know all this probably doesn’t taste like chicken, so before I get too far ahead of myself, go on a love binge, swallow this whole 17 more times-

                                                         ­                                       And get back to me.

“I wish you could see yourself through God’s eyes

          And oh, darling, don’t think I wouldn’t lend you mine to look through

                   [I feel that no one can appreciate a beautiful thing like you

                             Like I do

                   And how I wish that I could change them, like they want to change you]

          But I’m so far from perfect, see

                   [My vision blurred as I cried with you

                               Though I really wished it wouldn’t

                    Because I feel I wasn’t really any help at all

                       (Your hand, I see as you rub your eyes

                                                      Is awful bigger than mine)]

          I know that coming from someone as despicable and worthless as me

                   [I tried to take the rust off the nickels in my pocket with those tears

I should’ve bottled them, instead

The cries of a tender soul are worth more than all the silver I could dream of]

          It’s not as wonderful

                   [I’d like you to know, dear-

I remember, I think, that I heard once

(The size of a heart is shown by the size of a fist)]

                             As speaking with and knowing the being who created the worlds-

                                       [Dear, He thinks the world of you].”

I’ll have you know that I only dream in purple now
            And that the only flowers I can smell are yellow roses
            That leave my eyes wondering why the daylight went out
                                                            Why the rays went dry and cracked across the petals
                                                            Why it isn’t special anymore

I’ll have you know that I took an Alka-Seltzer tablet for my heartburn
            And that the knot in my stomach is so large now
            I don’t remember if I’m tongue-tied or not
            There is too much to speak of
So I’m quiet now
Trying to swallow the orange juice you gave me when I’d just finished brushing my teeth

I’ll have you know that my eyes crinkle when I am happy
            Especially when the sky is so bright that even your smile can’t outshine it
And I know you dislike how ugly I look when I grin like that
            So I’ve been trying so very hard lately to crinkle my potato chips instead
                        To save for the night when we’re finally outside
                        Alone with the Moon as our chaperone
                        He, there to make sure that I wouldn’t shine brighter than him
                                    The Moon is jealous in that way, I think
                        And if I wore yellow like you’d like me to
                                    He’d retreat behind the clouds and blush
                                    Because he remembers the way the sun used to dance like that
                                    And he would miss her a little, I think

But anyways,
            I’m saving the crinkled potato chips cooked in sunflower oil just for you
            In the pockets of my very simple sundress
            For that night when we’re finally outside

And I’d toss them at you in the moment I was happiest,
I’d look most beautiful then
And those are my least favorite kind

Knowing they’d bounced off your shoulder would make them taste lovelier, somehow
            So I’d eat the whole bag as a midnight snack
            Dancing by the light of your smile with my arms outstretched
            Inviting the Man in the Moon to lick the salt from my fingers…

And when he wouldn’t
            Well
                        I’d notice, then
                        I’d gaze into the sockets of his pock-marked face
Feeling quite foolish and child-like
                        Staring blankly at my own crinkled, chipped hands
And trying so very hard not to weep
                        I’d retreat and rest my cheek against your neck
Asking very quietly who cut out his tongue
                        And how long the wolf has howled for him

My shallow breathing would crack your eardrums
                        But at least I would know you were listening
At least you would finally understand
That the sunflower petals were shriveling up in your hands
                        And if you tossed them at me, they would be fuller, somehow
                                   And yellow again just for you

I’ll have you know that I can’t remember my favorite things anymore
                        And though I’ve squeezed my short-term memory so hard it’s cracked down the middle,
                        I’ll never remember why the only flowers I like are white roses
                        Or why you consistently make my dreams taste purple and frothy
                        Like a swelling tongue that puts my stomach in knots that even Alka-Seltzer won’t
dissolve

I’ll have you know that I’ve awoken so many times
To wring the neck of a withering image,
That I’m gagging on the thorns I never noticed in my sundress pockets
Mixed with those crinkled potato chips I’ve been crushing to toss at you
            In the moment that I am most happiest
            And we find ourselves outside of the dream
                                                That I never want to live