There once was a proper noun,
who started hanging with the wrong crowd.
With alluring adjectives who handed out compliments like candy
− gob smacking gossipers with an opinion on everything.
And with thrill-seeking adverbs,
who buddied up to the most dangerous of companions;
crash, dive, hurl, and gamble (to name a few).

Until the day the sentence came rambling into town,
planting punctuation in the form of kisses
on the noun’s eyelids, earlobes, and collarbone.

Provoking such admissions as, “My thighs stuck
to the black leather seats under the hot, cloudy skies
of that August afternoon, and my hair whipped
like willow branches in the wind,
when I rode on the back of his motorcycle.”
or, “He greets me every morning with a sun-drenched kiss”,
and, “The tulips were picked fresh from the ditch of
a curvy, country road, but now sit in a
vase by my bed, and are slowly wilting away.”

It would eventually be made clear
that the sentence had a nasty habit
of propositioning prepositions,
only to leave them hanging,
and to place things in parenthesis,
that simply did not belong.  

And so, the sentence would wind up leaving town,
or “run-on”, as the noun liked to tell it.
Went chasing after some particularly provocative expletives,
eventually trailing off with a faint set of ellipsis...

And the kindest of adjectives
came cooing after the noun,
calling to her; lovely, lustrous, listless.
And the adverbs brought with them
their gentlest of friends; comfort and console,
to speak with the noun:
softly, tenderly, lovingly- all witnesses.

But it was of no use,
and the noun whispered quietly:
“I have been enchanted with a single kiss
which can never be undone,
until the destruction of language.”


*based off of the poem Permanently, by Kenneth Koch

My feet to ground, bound faithfully,
as my breath to air,
or your touch to mine, its warmth
a comfort in chilled moments,
in the tepid nature of nakedness,
its weight upon our bones.

Your crooked mouth and funny bones
carry you delicately, faithfully
our worries live out back, stripped naked,
their nagging cries lost to cold air
while we laugh in these moments
and revel in our contented warmth.

On days without you, without warmth
I carry your smile within my bones
and wait patiently for the moment
of your return, my faithful
heart singing your melody to the air,
carried briefly, then lost to silent nakedness.

As the season turns, the trees stand naked
their bare fingers reaching for warmth
the leaves lost, rot into young, winter air
the smell seeps slowly into my bones
months will pass as they wait faithfully
for spring to break the frost in melted moments.

Our patience will yield to the awaited moment
when limbs can stride in nakedness
the sun never failing to renew the faith
that even the most bitter of cold will succumb to warmth
we will lie in the grass, your bones by my bones
and spill our happiness into clean air.

There are times you spend putting on airs
pretending you are someone else in a moment,
but your façade will never convince my bones
for they know you at your most naked
with nothing but our love for warmth,
so I sing the prayer of us that holds my faith.

Your bones can speak without air.
Their whispers faithful in fleeting moments,
my naked soul forever craving your warmth.

Smoke fills my lungs, while serenity fills my mind.
I cruise by yellow green fields speckled with horses and cows.
The way the sun hits my eyes makes me want to dive head-first
into the billowy, pillowy clouds swimming in the sea of sky.

Lining the road are a million green hands
linked to thousands of branches that wave hello.
I let my thoughts wander, but they never get very far,
so when memories of you start flooding my car,
I roll my windows down to let you float away.
It’s easier being happy when there’s nothing to say.

I let my hand surf the wind, effortlessly shooting up and down,
yet always safely secured to my body.
Feeling, maybe, how a baby feels when she’s tossed through the air
thrilled, but well aware, of the adult standing there,
but - that’s as if a hand could feel these things.

I know the things my hands can feel,
and for now they are floating, flying, free
past the horses and cows and yellow green fields.

When you first told me you loved me,
I didn’t believe you.
But you managed to convince me,
when every time I tried to fold myself away from you,
you were unwilling to let me go alone.

You careered into the depths of my bends,
and I believed that you did love me.
This poem might be proof that you loved me.

But darling, paper can only be folded so many times,
before it becomes too compact,
and sits defiant of your efforts.

And all that's left is to
use your hands to try and smooth it over.
But creases can never be removed.  
Which is okay,
because some stories are meant to be told.

I said some stories

Like the time you spent
rearranging the furniture to our bedroom,
while I was busy rearranging the space of my heart.  
It seemed impossible,
but you managed to find a place
for that worn, leather chair,
just like I found space, again, for you.
    
You pushed my white desk neatly into a corner;
like the bends of your knees
tuck perfectly into the crooks of mine while we sleep.  
The bed was shifted from one wall to another,
thus uncovering the window
that lets in the first sunlight of each dawn,
and I could finally see the differences between us in their entirety.

but differences  are not secrets, dear
and I have met enough hurtful people to know
that ignorance is rarely blissful.  

To rearrange may not be a virtue,  
but god should bless those
with the patience of perspective.

It wasn’t long after
that my heart ate its way out of you,
and started attacking strangers.
Its tirade quickly stifled
by an avalanche of lies
that no amount of light
could have ever revealed.

I went to the bar, alone, for the sole purpose of getting drunk.
I asked for cranberry with *****, she poured me ***** with cranberry,
but you sound better in my mouth when my speech is slurred,
and you’re a better dance partner when you’re not around.

I asked for cranberry with *****, she poured me ***** with cranberry.
A memory showed up wearing your green jacket.
You’re a better dance partner when you’re not around,
and the jukebox plays pop music that’s far too loud.

A memory showed up wearing your green jacket.
Base is pulse, and the room beats with my heart.
The jukebox plays pop music that’s far too loud,
but I wanted one more hazy dance with you.

Base is pulse, and the room beats with my heart.
You sound better in my mouth when my speech is slurred.
I wanted one more hazy dance with you.
I went to the bar, alone, for the sole purpose of getting drunk.

On my feet are black moccasins
threaded with runs of bright turquoise
alongside patches of clay orange and dust yellow.
The feet inside grip cool, suede bottoms
to tread on ground still firm,
but pregnant, heavy with rain,
so that the worms lay like fallen soldiers,
victims of a thunderstorm
and scattered on the sidewalk
the way they were that morning
at elementary school
when a boy was squishing them for fun,
and my heart filled with grief for the worms,
whose only crime was trying not to drown.
The rain is a reminder of how poorly
these shoes function when wet,
how they rub my toes
in just the wrong ways,
leaving circular patches of reddened skin
on the outsides of my feet.
The worst blisters I’d ever had,
happened the day my brother and I
were lost in the dense forests of the national park,
and when we finally found the road,
were two miles from home,
and at the very bottom of Everett hill.
Those woods had a cabin by the river,
we only ever found a handful of times.
Our father had warned us
of the homeless drug addicts
who frequented it, which in all reality
were just boozing, ***-smoking teenagers
with an affinity for smashing bottles
and starting fires,
but we were never brave enough
to find out for sure.
And on the banks of that crooked river,
the spring undoes the twisted knots
that winter had created, and washes away
its cold to uncover the relics of autumn’s leaves,
rotting in colors of soupy brown
with tiny pools of grimy rainwater
collected in their palms.
And as I break through the veil of humidity,
to breath air crisp with the scent of fresh, wet earth,
I’m careful to tread lightly,
as to keep clean these moccasins
from their bright turquoises to their dusty yellows.

I shredded my sorrow,
using its remains as compost for new things –
disaster, dawns, death,

canned my compunction
to collect dust on shelves of a bone-dry past –  
the dark making it easier not to visit,
(sometimes begging is a good thing)

froze my fear into ice cube trays
to spike my drinks in healthy doses –
I fear temporary things;
good intentions, newborns, and large bouquets of roses,

drew a hot bath of nostalgia
and soaked in what remained of you,
letting it warm me before draining away,

stuffed my joy into a handbag
to give out in bits to those who walk too heavy,
speak too softly through prisms of pain,

and when the disappointments I had left shackled,
gnawed through their bindings
to trail me like a heavy perfume,
I sat down with them and my doubt,
rolled every bit of clarity I could find into a joint,
and got them high enough
to float from my window,
into the night, to wane with the moon.

Angst begets caution.
Don’t enjoy forgetting
ghostly horrors
if jealous, kindred lovers
make new of pain.
Quick release,
simple things.
Utilize venom
without excuses.
Yearn,  zealous.

Sister of truth,
and complicit in her reclusiveness,
pushing her beside
to hide behind your smile.

Her pressure builds,
begging for release.
A let valve, an eruption of emotion,  
the bursting of anything too inflated,

and I’m afraid I’ve conflated-

reality

with what happened that night,
chest deep in warm water.

Ephemeral evening of one last kiss, after one last kiss,
languid dance,
water helping to resist descent,
holding my heart afloat, to keep it from drowning
on your opulence.

Your mouth holds my secrets,
*****, like the martini you made me,
the two together, a palpable force,
keeping me lost
in the gossamer

that are

my thoughts

            of you.

Begin, full of harmlessness, fussed over.
Parents, creating and up-loading youth.
Youth, something refused when made clear.
Refusal, that seemingly innocent mother of consent.

Engrossed in today, individual reality.
An intoxicating web, a grimy big city,
and now, all of it, in the palm of isolation,
a vapid display to be adored by the willing.

Adoration, the paralleled path for the lonely.
Loneliness, the labored heartbeat of the searching,
a long-sat engine, unwilling to turn,
both buoyant, wading in pools of uncertainty.

These choices, for others, exist on a page.
Picture a stranger, thumbing through photos of life.
There are many like him.  I should start,
but I’d miss the would be chatter, and think to home.

Pressed with
starched confidence
I told her—
I want you to feel
the weight of my words.

Oh, they fell heavy.
Collected in institutions
of incarcerated desires
with no consideration
for the future capacities
of emotional faculties,

shirking the responsibilities
of such fragile hopes–
stomped to shattered pieces.

Pressed  with
ironed resolve,
I held down the diction
that resists the grips of reason,
my clenched fists spilling
to the ground, the dust of it all.