so baby, can you teach me how
to paint over the crests of
these scars;

how to sketch the webs of our veins
over all this silence
that has taken hold of what used to be,
shaping into what we can’t see -
remapping the worlds that
we made poems and prose and clichés out of
together -- together.

or maybe you could teach me how
to chisel back the hope in our bones,
mold the spaces left between
the borders of my thumb to my ring,
into space that might hold something more
than just a few shades of white
and a paper heart that never learnt that stars
all die before they reach our field of vision anyway.

better yet, come teach me how
a goldfish learns that nothing more
than seven seconds is worth learning,
yet here i am still standing still
and wishing you could somehow come back.

i need to learn
the sharpest D
will always be E flat,
no sweeter;

so maybe, you could teach me how
to paint over these nightmares.

It’s been a while

Your hair has creeped back and exposed the top of your head and your eyes change color a lot but maybe they always did that its been a while.

The conversation lapsed in on itself again 
and David had fallen asleep,
To dream about smoke stacks reportedly,
And had left us alone with
all the conversations and laughter and arguments of the last eight years that we never had
Reverberating off the windows and leather seats and dissipating into radio static
I asked how to switch to AM and
You were surprised although
I was just being nostalgic for days when we'd wait in your car on cold mornings and I was too young to understand anything
I awkwardly admitted that i just felt like
hearing some one talk
And you fiddled with the **** thing for too long before you picked one
and after a minute
it became horribly apparent to us both that the topic of the morning was "dead beat dads"

How many times can this moment exist?
Drifting from minutes to actions within it
Crying, love songs, break up lyrics
It’s not physics, it’s his tricks
Meaningless nights, getting his kicks… off
How many times am I going to play the victim?
Girl just leave him alone, get rid of ‘em
Easier said than done.
Instead of looking at all the wrong, you dwelled on the fun
Not once did he say ‘a little romance, intimacy’
Desiring a piece of me
Am I delusional?
You have no idea how many times I’ve set here and cried
Looked out of my window
Admired the couples that pass
Trying not to feel low
But my sad emotions can not be surpass…ed
You’re not the first perhaps not even my last
The last thing that I’d want is for you to be my past
Each of you get me to write again
Describing my passionate sins
My desire
Into a slow burning fire
I want this to be my last. Time. Feeling like this.
Wish
I was a ****** to pain
Oblivious to her strain
Her persuasive power and gain
Like her, I can’t be tamed.
I thrive off of a challenge.
Each of you very different, but you all left the same imprint
My energy should have depleted by now
But some how…
Because I allow
My spirit to take over
I feel myself rise above the vindication of omission
The oblivion becomes reason
And I’m leaving…you.

Everything Changes lessons here are steep
When life rearranges the destiny we seek
Everything changes hold it close in your heart
Don't let the sadness hold on to you in the dark
Everything changes with every beat of the drum
Go with the rhythm look how far we've come
Everything changes like the sun and the moon
We'll be there shinning it's coming around soon
Hold on to your hope, go forth with dignity
Let love shine through you for all the world to see
Even through changes hold on, hold on, hold on

"Could we find somewhere to sit? Do you know someplace with like, benches, and a fountain or something?"
He sips at an Icee, less of an Icee and more of a blend of colored sugar and foam because the machine is on the fritz.

Keeps asking he if I want some.
I give in, the idea of our tongues hooking onto the same straw
Slurping up the same brownish slush
Makes me warm.

I know it shouldn't,
that it's wrong to feel this way.

Back to the question,
"You mean like James Street?"
I answer, laugh
Then regret it.
He gets embarrassed
When I point out silly things he says.

He thinks I'm smarter than him.
He's too brilliant for that to be true.
He smiles and turns away his face,
Shyness, feigned or maybe not,
"I should have known that."

We go there now, that place it feels like I've been to hundreds of times with him
But realistically it's probably a few dozen at most.

I tell him it's alright, stop blushing.
So here we are, where we used to sit in a summer long past
I thought I could be with him forever,
Deep and premature infatuation
Though still lingering and creeping back into my fore-mind at the worst times

I feel that something's crept back into his as well.
He's acting nervous,
Keeps saying things and getting embarrassed for no reason.

My chest empties,
I think two years ago
I'd be happier with this.
But it's now.

When I'm home I drift to sleep with one question swimming in my head--
How many people can you love at once?

You love us when we're heroes, home on leave,
Or wounded in a mentionable place.
You worship decorations; you believe
That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace.
You make us shells. You listen with delight,
By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled.
You crown our distant ardours while we fight,
And mourn our laurelled memories when we're killed.
You can't believe that British troops 'retire'
When hell's last horror breaks them, and they run,
Trampling the terrible corpses--blind with blood.
O German mother dreaming by the fire,
While you are knitting socks to send your son
His face is trodden deeper in the mud.

SURELY

Surely, bullets rend and wreck.
Ripping through reality,
Rendering innocence lost.
They silence playful voices,
Still small, active hands,
Before their young words or work
Can finish growing.
Words and work that might have had healing in them
For this old world.

Bullets tear through a family,
Leave them struggling to breathe.
Grief knocks the wind clean out.
Familiar words like “we” and “us”
Are fractured beyond recognition.
Little things like pajamas and backpacks,
Once common and constant,
Lie about tragically unused,
Becoming heartrending monuments to the innocent.


Surely, we can put a stop to this.
Can we find no way to shelter
These, our little ones, our future?
Those who invest such trust in us,
Who simply are where they are
Because we told them so.
Surely, we can find a way.

And whether or not we can determine or agree upon
Much about the nature
Of the flawed and lost who rain down this terror,
Can we not gather in and heal these hard broken
Before they wander to such realms of disconnect, delusion
That they cease to discern the sacredness of existence?
Surely, we can.

In such a wounded world as this,
So in need of shelter and security,
God protect the playful voices
And the small, active hands.
Watch over the innocent.
Help us.
Surely, we can do better.
Surely, we must.