he whispers words to me that i don't
understand anymore
and i can't tell but
even to someone like me,
they don't sound like words
they don't even
sound.
they feel
like he's testing out the rush,
the scrape
of carbon dioxide across skin
stale and a little bitter.
stinging.
i can't hear him, anymore, and
he doesn't want me to.

for most of us our first love song
was written in the middle of a first grade day,
between reading and math class
where instead of
1+1=2
it was
you+i=forever

even though forever was an apple sauce after dinner
and a kiss on the forehead of your loving mother

heartbreak was the next day when you realized that
each day at lunch time would be an opportunity the
universe would offer up a chance at a tear or two in front
of an unforgiving school, in front of the first girl you'd
hate forever

even though forever was a game of catch and a
nice long talk about girls with your loving father

forgiveness was so much easier in the days before body
hair and friday night despair, when you could sit on your
wooden chair and carve next to Jody's name her replacement

for most of us our first love song
was written in the middle of a first grade day,
between recess and time to go home,
where instead of
1+1=2
it was
you+i= forever

wake me up, she says
i don't want to ever sleep again
don't want to be that girl
tiny jagged holes from
a thousand needle ******
a forest so deep,
lost where the
light doesn't reach, even in summertime,
and the wolves can't get you.

and no amount of breadcrumbs
or kisses
could possibly make me
want to leave.

speak loudly silence lips less
about a word more dumb
and shiftless

forever

in the habit

of perfection

i love you
i hate you

i hate you
i love you

i love you




i love you

here in my little box(room)
my head is a boy
on a girl's hips
kissing(down
a bit

down a bit)by bit
down into fast
with only
a bit
of

d
o
w
n

i need to sleep.

or maybe i need to stay awake strictly because my souls screams to sleep.

i need to be complete....in the moment.
allow it. feel the things that come over me.

it is okay, it is acceptable...
to feel these things.

I feel the immediacy of things. The imminence of objects. I feel the keenness of a glass in my hands. The instantaneous dribble of condensation over a knuckle. The spontaneous aroma of a summer night. I am enthralled and enraptured by the crisp mint of toothpaste, after a barely slept night. I feel the rough twill of a garment and I am in love with it. I extend my hands into the rapid amber slats of the streetlamps on my dash, as I speed beneath them. I watch them wash over my hands and I feel somehow indescribable.

I am in love with beautiful women who pass me on the street. Every one them pretty. Every one of them a neat mystery. Every one of them in skin as lovely and soft as breath off the ocean. I know myself least when I kiss. I know myself best when I am kissed.

I feel myself in the world and I feel IT in me. I love my friends and my family. I love the rough smell of fire. I love the wisp of spring, grown into the verdant pulse of summer's heat. I love to sweat and feel the movement of my body through open space. I love the sharp itch of a tattooer's vibrant needle. The splay of colors. The tang of my blood.

I look at men and I see boys playing at what they think a man is supposed to be. I see excess, increase, and birth. I see leanness, erosion, and death. I somehow know that neither is life a beginning or death an ending. I know it as I know the tip of my finger. I know it as I know the taste of sweat and hairspray and sunscreen, distilled in the instant of a drunk kiss, in a tent just inside of Idaho.

I am for life. I am for pain as I am for pleasure. For I know that one is nothing without the either. I wish to be known and to say myself. I wish to know you and to hear yourself, said by, yourself. I am simply. I am a man. I am just what I am.

I may die tomorrow. I urge you to love those dear to you and to say it everyday. I only try to do that. I only try.