after I told you I loved you
and you never said anything back
the radios went quiet everywhere
legend has it that they played the track
of my heartbeat very quietly, almost silently
I turned up the dial to thirty-eight, though,
and i didn’t hear anything at all
I guess you took all of the music
into your mouth
and I’d only hear it again
if you said you loved me back
But until then
I like to turn the radio up
and pretend I can hear the faint sound
of a too-fast beating heart

i tasted you in a dream once,
and from the moment I woke up
until this day still,
everything has lost it’s flavor.

when I was sixteen
Grace and I smoked
some cigarettes on her drive way
on a summer afternoon
my first breath
a rush of nicotine
made me dizzy to childhood
we drove and listened
to Christian music
briefly sweating
while we swore and smoked

Allison and I loved
winter cigarettes
bland coffee and cold grass
beneath our bodies
warm sun lay sleepily across our backs
school left behind mid-way
with contented smiles

Aaron did not have a car
i drove the two of us
through foreign neighborhoods
after school with mix cd’s
short-lived and
always spraying sweet perfume
deep cologne
before sitting well-behaved
at the dinner table
enthusiastic about our studies

Next to the river
rushing water
sometimes littered and malodorous
on the highway bridge
in the center between two worlds
rushing past
Jacob and I
had nothing to do
everything to say

the one I lost
grew up without me
hunched on the curb
outside his parents house
with me next to him
older and less destroyed than he
we both inhaled exhaled
without knowing what it meant

i smoke still
those who have gone
stay with me
with each inhale
and swirl of smoke released
against the night canvas
must i let them go
for my poor lungs’ sake?

she was in her own brain
all of the time
it was the only world she knew
free from everyone
she was just she

she read icelandic sagas
for fun in the park
brought home every
dog that was alone
even if it had a collar
she tore leaves from their trees
ripped them to pieces
and threw them in the air
the people who saw
thought she was celebrating
i think she
was lashing out

but she kept her anger to herself
and showed her friends
songs she thought were cool
nobody liked them
but she never paid the people
any mind
she wore the same shoes
every single day
the old chucks
with paint rips and mud
for decoration

she had pictures of people
covering every inch of her wall
they were strangers
but she liked their far away smiles
somehow captured in time

they all wondered about her
i liked her

i feel adventure in my bones
trying to crush me from the inside out
turn me to dust,
for what an adventure that would be

i could bathe in spring water
somewhere hidden deep in Fiji
maybe i would skateboard
on cobblestone sidewalks
in Spain or Italy
i’d like to run away to New York City
or to San Francisco
and wander the streets at night
with a new pack of cigarettes
and nowhere to be
some day i might like to go
to the white house
and Lincoln Memorial
or just a failing silver diner
it doesn’t matter

i just want to go somewhere
there is no explanation
i just want to go anywhere

you said you weren’t a dream
but i could feel
some far away part of myself
falling asleep
and another part
just learning to wake up
i never knew
what people meant
when they said
they could forget
about the entire world
when they looked
in somebody’s eyes
but now i do
and reality seems
more coarse than before
somehow
after seeing how soft
your eyes could be
you said you weren’t a dream
but i’m not sure i believe you

i sometimes have
to hold my breath
to fight the fire
in my chest
though i’m not sure
I know why it burns
it could be that
i miss my grandparent’s
peach orchard
when I would
drink their ripe juice
play and laugh
in the morning sunlight
or maybe i regret
when she held onto my chest
and i pretended she
wasn’t there
maybe i miss your lips
on mine so naturally
after you smelled my neck
and said the cigarette smell
calmed you inside
maybe i’ve learned too much
about the world
and myself
and i want to see
stale coffee rings on napkins
instead of ghosts
in the corner
when i sleep
i want eyes to look at me
with love
and the night to not call
to me
like a sad friend
who has nobody
maybe i miss
a hand in mine
and nowhere to go
but the fire
is there nevertheless
so i hold my breath
until i am nowhere at all