I'm tired of the same licence plates
over and over,
all the padlocks, all the nods
from my neighbor over here.
Why must you ask me questions when I say some
people are more beautiful than others?
You are full enough
You will go home and eat at least

two more meals,
you will pet your cat and yourself and have a bowl of cereal before bed.
dreams like chocolate
silk. fingers like bear claws on trout
or salmon
from upstream with last names
coffee shops. They try to

warn you and you let them lose their cries
to the wind. They think
of their grandmothers.

When you ask me to hold your
hand I wonder if you will wash it before we eat
kiss make love
(you don't always warn me if you're

not clean)
In your chewing I hear the words
I should have said before dinner with hands
clasped, heads bent, feet flat
on the restaurant floor. The waitress
is younger than she looks, I
try not to laugh because I'm sure she's worked here for ten years
no
benefits
no
raise
no
tip over seven fifty.
Her eyes are strong from all the tears

but her words sound like
swing sets
half eaten dinners:
merciless.

Her teeth are the San Andreas Fault:
tired of opening and closing.
Tired of fake smiles, nicotine gum, chattering in the cold of other's
glares, all the nods from her next door neighbors, the same streets
with the same cars with the same licence plates. So she'll press them
down over her tongue, and curl her lips back slowly
until the day someone touches her the way she was touched
before claws
salmon
chocolate silk

before she was fat.

is deaf.
talk here: whisper into the part of me what still works

sometimes I feel like a clock left ticking,
there must be someone out there who knows that one day I will stop.
I'll be an hour behind, then days,
then nothing matters; I am only in your parlor for looks.

when you move you're hesitant
but you cannot break something that is already (            )
no measurable time has passed, though I have waited like a bird in a nest
for its mother.

it's too hard to admit how much I miss you
and it's too far to walk to your arms(whatever shall i do?).
but if I close my eyes for long enough, maybe I will hear

some secrets you say to me are better whispered into blind spots
and I cannot help but hope,
                                          even a sliver or a smidgen,
                                                        ­       that you will save me all of yours,
                                                          ­     like a child collecting stamps for  
                                                               a letter he will never send.

I'll promise my immobile body warmth (if you will someday do the same.)

I feel you trying
so much harder than I do
and it makes me smile

we both need something
in between these parts of us
so that we can fit

power in numbers
our eyes reach a conclusion:
one plus one is one

religion is dead
but the taste of butterscotch still lingers in my mouth.

I know it's freezing outside.
that's why I want you to hold me so bad,
it doesn't matter if it's you, it could be anyone,
but I know you need it just as much as I do.

I want to read you something
a little more meaningful than
a grocery list, and I want you to
smile more, but I want nothing to do with it.

I'm more situational than you seem to notice,
and I like how we can sit quiet and listen to nothing,
but I'd much rather hear your voice through the
haze of tension that seems to follow us, rather than
watch you sit alone on a welcome mat for depression.

I love you is a funny way of saying I love you,
but none of us really know what it means until
we know what it means, and I know how bad it
hurts when we lose what it means, but I'm sure
we'll find it again. Even if we have to be patient,
and scream a little, and **** someone worthless.

For what it's worth or how much you care,
I want you to know that I care, even if it's
only enough to dodge questions and push
boundaries and cross some t's or some lines.

You give me cold feet and hot cheeks,
but in the friendliest of ways.

the sounds you made,
matched with the eyes you made
are nothing compared to
her red nails, and  the single you saw.

she thinks of riddles before she falls asleep
and every time she rolls over in the night
she hears the same lyrics that she'd like to hear you sing.

promises of bra straps peeking through shirts
and leaves tacked to the walls you'll bounce off.

he talks of color
and losing himself in upside down words.

Not sure which way he'd fall, even now,
with his hand sleeping between my thighs.

I'm floating through clouds of color
Skies of creamy tan skin.
I have...
A backbone to direct,
Gaps between ribs in which to lay my fingers,
A stomach to caress,
To lay on a chest,
A beautiful mind in which to rest.

Your eyes are so wide open, it's almost frightening.
The contorted, twisted confusion in your cheeks,
I want to wipe this all away.

Come here. Hold me.
I am your anchor. You don't need me
But I am here for you.

This is a very simple poem,
But the point is,
I love you.