Because I am the extreme,
I have one toe dipped in the pool of insanity while the rest of my body is soaked in numbness.
Because I am the extreme,
I have a high like Halloween sprinkles on a ice cream cone or like classic rock on a lazy Sunday drive.
Because I am the extreme,
I have a low like a tear drenched pillow on your all too familiar bed or like the sound of your voice explaining why you left me.
Because I am the extreme,
I'm going to love you until I hate you and hate you until
I love you
I love you
I love you
Because I am the extreme.

but the wind is so strong
and the trees are so bent
that they make me think that I'm sideways.
sometimes you do that to me too
because your love is so strong
and your words are so bent.
i've never liked being sideways.

i love you this morning
it's a come home safe morning
fog on the road
& no seatbelt kind of morning
the sun is over easy
& nothing's on fire
there's punctuation
where i don't want it
and extra love
in the glovebox of my car
been thinking about being honest
how these poems are all me
but they tell the story
how someone else
might believe it happened
within reasonable doubt
no copy & pasted love letters
no 'who ever says hello first gets my attention for the day'
try a little tenderness
in my ears and today
there are instruments
in the back of my head
i think you love me
because i'm sunburned
felt it in a 'come hell or high water' kinda way, that 'touched from far away' kinda way that 'if i touch this piano one more time one of us is going to break' kinda way
and i drove over 17 bridges yesterday and today i'll do it again
and i think nobody gets
what that means except maybe you
i just tell them i love the scenery
that somebody must've made
these trees blush just for me
you know how i love
to change the subject
i bet they'd love the view
i bet you would too
and all these metaphors
for other things are beside the point
this is a metaphor
for why i don't wear my seatbelt
a metaphor for why whiskey
knows me better than you
could ever try to
all the buildings seemed to sag yesterday and all the stars
are doing that cliche thing
where they talk
quiet jet noise
& some lumbering giant
made everything shake
not those hand metaphors
not another one of those
& keep the sea to yourself
i think it was a train
it's sound hugged the embankment
for a moment
and then trailed off into nowhere
and that's kind of like me
how there's a town called 'rescue'
close to my home &
it's no coincidence
that i've never been there

You don't like to drive far,
It makes you car sick.
So today I drove from border to border,
Because you'd never follow me all that distance.
But in spirit you came,
In your old stick shift.
Driving circles inside my dizzy head.
And instead it was me who was car sick.