true love litters my life
my list of highs and lows
for certain the genesis
of the highest highs
and lowest lows
as with anything,
the higher the climb
the further
and more painful
the fall

love is a living creature
it needs to fed
to be nourished
but even when nourished,
it is infinitely fleeting,
dying

I've always tried
to cherish it while I have it
and brace for the loss
when it's fate seems uncertain
that's all I've found to do

it is unpredictable
it can't be tamed
or held captive
a wild beast
relentless in its thirst

She moves free like the breeze
Going wherever it takes her
Floating high above life
Above the complexities
Her mind follows gracefully
She speaks only art
Through soft pink lips
She shapes and creates
Floating sculptures, art exhibits
They flow from her mouth
Elegantly crafted and vivid
But the real art
The best made sculpture
Can be found
In the curve of her hips

If you are willing and obedient,
    you will eat the good things of the land;*
-Isaiah 1:19

You left your hair long in the hopes some
Jersey-eyed boy would braid flowers into it
Mark you with sequins and well written post
And treat you like a
Better than most.

But there was no way of predicting the air, up here
The dry dusk crackles with static and you know your head's a mess
but there is always the summer always monsoon season always
The way your little hands would break what they could not bend.

and all the eyes are on you now but they are desert eyes
And only in dark rooms. And only at night.
And they hold your hair back as you

And leave you reaching for the light.

And when the summer comes you are brittle brittle
Cakes baked in hot sun
and your hands have fought so many battles and
So many battles and
little hands they come undone.

and to you you are the only one.

The littlest things are all your skin
tape wrapped around my glasses
when I pull it off it bleeds
the seven stitches you fixed my shirt pocket
it ripped again and screamed
all we've got are ironically high speeds.

I swore you belonged to the Pleiades
uncertain which sister—
so you ask why you never earned a home
in the seven portraits beside my bed:

if even scraps of skin around here whisper
I'm sick with fear
for what it might have said.


A twelve-step program for growing up and growing over
I will till the dust you kicked up and drove away
plant poppies to fill the space
the progress where I scream at the sky
stand obscene before the sun
I will grow over you this place
there will be flowers when I'm done.

they called it a lake home because there were
no knobs only latches
with padlocks for winter.

it was spring when I left.

the water was in the arroyo
when colorado raised her snowy head
above the hills and brush of northern new mexico.

and you wept
with tears strange to me as yellow flowers
in the canyons and flatlands, laughing for water.


the truck broke down just south of Los Lunas
the smoke and steam drawn off by a fierce wind
that drove the tumbleweeds to

new lowlands. eager with seeds.

evening

Maria and Mr. Riner are sitting on my bed
******* like garlands, against the wall
the words stew inside and I can't seem to
pour them out
but we three fools, sit and scribble regardless
staring blankly at the drooling clock
(persistent, in our memories).
the whitewashed cinderblocks are testament
to the number of walls
the quantity of clocks
this series of chairs
and if we close out eyes we expect to
wake up in heaven
but it's just the same old hell.

she says, keep writing
(if you feel inclined)
and slides her back into mine
but I've got no more letters in these fists
(so I'll lie and think for a bit).

she says,
I've never been a 'she' before...


morning

my coat sits in a bundle near the door
I've been trying to find a way to hang it
but I'm having mixed results, in fact
all this month I've been trying to make attachments
to these white,
white,
cinder block walls
with all manner of adhesives.
but these nightly sessions
have been ******* with the humidity

and every morning something new is on the floor.


all I can do is put them back up again.
try and
be a little more constant
with these climate fluctuations.
try and

sleep a little more, sweat a little less.

I used to dream we were all like little faucets
god had supplied with finite volumes of breaths
times “I love you” could be meant,
words we’d let our others read,
and always stirred up inside
just one too many deaths.

but god out grew I am still trying
his laughs he laughs and how the stones they shake.
and god is the laugh that got out
kept on laughing
is keeping me awake.

so I stopped sleep.
thursday afternoon turned it down it went off
drips drips into words I won't say
and darkness full into the smiling face of the deep.

and how and how and how the stones they shake
my rolling in His laughter and how and how
and how.

I have never seen darkness.
and where will death find me now?

autumn found us in bed, hungry
and left us staring wide eyed at the ceiling
wondering for rain.

the sun tries too hard in this town, it is
so dry.
and every shower shorter, every
raincloud thinner.

sometimes I don't know what to do.

we spent six weeks
trying to bring back the flame
but oh, it would sputter
and you treated it like a child.
which one should never do.


I sent a bus for us, sent us
packing
sent a letter by regular post
spent two weeks trying to recreate
in ink
the portrait of the rain of you of the bus stop.

I set the table for dinner
and I sit, and I stand
and I am drawn out for the winter
if it won't rain then it must burn
if it won't burn then it must rain.

PROLOGUE
and
each time we sleep, confess
a little desire for death.
there's just twenty names that live in your head
bukowski, ginsberg, &c.;
where each of us on this street would give away
our very lives to make
number nineteen on that list.


I
i received a letter from the alpine
in which she explained that
due to our lack of allergies, our physical beauty
and our pines
our story would likely never end
"because we've got no morals, ideals, there is
really no end game we've got
nothing we'd die for, or couldn't live without."


II
i lie awake reading what was never wrote thinking that
we'll wind up together like vines without posts


EPILOGUE
or lines, in poems.