I'll be on the front lines
Fighting fireflies on a Golf Course
With a butterfly net

Collecting ghosts in mason jar
to plant back on the cemetery
The crows are making nests
in the skull of your family

They accidentally put
the wrong name on yours
And in Latin!
It's ok though, because you're
(were) Are?  a nihilist

The river Nile is the
best stream of consciousness
Known to man and of
Course that's where you drowned
your metaphorical thoughts
While you hung yourself above
a treadmill trying to pretend
you wanted to be a better
man

But you only ran away

The Stonehenge is the front gate
to your home
          It's made from
      billboards and
Pictures of static
When you're dead you
                        Live in White Noise

You're turning my lights
on and off
               as I'm trying to sleep
haunting me in
my over easy eggs
making the yolk run
in words "Miss me?"

And of course I do
But you are as good a my imaginary friend

When I'm walking in the
park with all the scarecrows
you make the dandelions
float, no amount of
wishes is bringing you back

I know boards of wood are
easier to you than the termites
eating the tumor in my brain
          from the insanity you're causing me

So instead I paper mache my
room with love letters from you
that got lost in the mail
because you stole them for me
A banksy bankrupt in original thought

I'm building a tiny forest
             of matches
If I can't sleep I'm joining you

So you pack your bags, hobo
style but with
Picnic baskets and dead leaves
Seancing yourself
With the crystal ***** of my eyes

I lost you in some newspaper ad
about a Home for sale
Does it come with a family?
How is that legal?
But I lost you because I bought the wrong copy and couldn't find that one blurry word that was you saying
Good morning

I lost you at sea
  And in my dreams
      And to your own hands
   And to my own memory

I'm dancing with wolves
Called Alzheimer's
because I'll die
with a disease of age
Instead of house burning, building leaping
Front Page

Then we'll go live in abandoned
amusement parks with creaky
Ferris wheels turning
Like you in your grave
And me with the Cycle of Life

i am seven and in your living room
with antiques & photographs
of family that are more like strangers
and handshakes at christmas
there is a jar of circus peanuts by the armchair
and i remember being told that these are here because they are never out of stock
and that they are the only things
children will not want to take from me
i still do not like the color orange.
i am eight and round the bannister
to an upstairs that reminds me
of heaven in that
place i can't go sort of way & i am
knuckle deep in your pumpkin pie
wiping it on my uncles suede jacket
our hands still shake but the jury is still out
on if he looks at me and napkins the same
i hope you do not sleep
with my apologies under your fingernails
i will not say them out loud
i know i should have mowed your lawn
i should have been a home
for second hand smoke
if i could go back i would be your ashtray
i remember the day you forgot who i was
i bound into the room and throw my arms
around you like an armistice
and you ask who i am
we are not in church
but everyone stops singing
i am passed from child to child
while we all laugh
but my lungs feel like
they've been mugged in an ally
who's son does he look like, mom?
my father says like gospel
you pull on your cigarette
sip from your watered down wine and shrug
and i am neck deep in forgetfulness
i imagine alzheimer's
as being born again every day
so, we will spend ages
looking at captions to photographs
telling your stories to strangers
as my father begins to forget
and when i imagine probate
an unfamiliar hand unfolding a will
to be read to wayward angels
i want to burn down the house
and sleep in the ashes

Do you think your pain would fit in this bottle?
If so, baby, fill it up
'Cause look, I know you've been hurting
-- Sorry I'm not good at this stuff

I know all the words that make you smile
But I forget them when you look at me

Could you fill it up and send it back to me?
I wanna take your pain away
Don't laugh at me
Float your worries on the surface of the sea
I'll hold them for a while because I like when you're happy
Oh, I wish it was that easy
I wish you were that easy