Down looked up!
and saw UP
looking down at him
Up sat down
beside down
then looked up at him.

Do you know what I mean?
You asked.
I told you I did.
Although, I did not expand.
I left the explanations up to you,
that night.
I left a window open,
to clear out the smoke.
As you cleared the air,
and through animated gestures,
you let your mind spill out
onto the proverbial canvas.
You called it negative space,
but that was your discomfort.
You rested your hands.
Do you know what I mean?
I wanted to rest my hands,
on top of yours,
I needed to know you were real.
Do you know what I mean?
My eyes never faltered.
If I blinked, you'd be gone,
and that I did not want.
All I wanted was you,
at that moment,
all I needed,
was you.
Do you know what I mean?
You started to pace.
My hands hit the table;
yours hit the air,
because idle hands
are devilish when kept by your side.
Disconcerting, felt mine,
hidden in the depths of my pockets.
Anxiety ridden,
I searched for change.
A penny to free my thoughts.
Only a paperclip, a button,
lint and other nothingness.
I surveyed the room,
looking for a moth
to hit the light.
Do you know what I mean?
I knew what you meant.
I know what you mean.
I told you I followed.
In a figurative sense,
I followed.
In a literal sense,
it was implied.
However, I kept that notion to myself.
Considering the following you have built.
I knew I would distance myself,
from that familiarity.
Do you know what I mean?
We are perceptive.
Acquaintances see this,
and thoughtfully they are left
to their own devices.
Because God-forbid someone becomes close.
No. No, that vulnerability is tangible.
It's nauseating.
Food for thought,
I'm sick,
you know.
I expel my insides.
Still surveying the room for a moth,
and I spot a butterfly.
Do you know what I mean?

The Devil is my Chihuahua; I always need.
She asks me to stand up in tan deserts.
She drags me underneath the rushing waters.
She soils my soul:
She leaves me in the pits of wickedness for my own sake.

Nay, though I crawl over the peak of the light of life,
I will accept no good: For I am not with you;
My sphere and my whip, they torment you.
I disrepair the chair behind you in the absence of your friends;
I wipe the water from your body; My bowl is empty.

Surely evil and cruelty shall not follow me after death,
and I will dwell outside the Hovel of the Devil forever.

Unpart the blue sea
I will not boast in my strengths
so that the weakness of the antichrist
will not rest on me.

Miracles always happen,
Our favor is abounding.

Five billion year formation
of clouds of strewn composite elements
life itself is an impossibility
without the golden information.

Curses never stop happening
Our debt is bound.

We called him Kansas because he reminded us of open spaces,
but we should have called him nothing at all.
He had a last name but we didn’t bother to learn it,
something all-American, midwestern and bland.
He had no hometown but a drifter’s restlessness in his limbs.


Kansas had a girl called Daisy-May, which wasn’t her given name.
It was said that she could charm the rattle out of the snake,
and we never knew if that was a a good or a bad thing.
Daisy-May reminded us of the Forth of July, all sparklers and rocket pops,
Cut-off shorts and bottles of whiskey.  She crackled like a firework display.


Our town overflowed with them, we were too small, too pure,
and they were too combustable. Daisy-May was as mean as they come,
and Kansas was ugly in the same way that Saturday nights are.
Knowing him was like being drunk past midnight, alone and walking
home past ***** neon and watching the stars pass you by.  


Every teenager in the county awoke at the moment of impact,
the night Kansas drove his car through that barn on route 20.  
We flocked like pilgrims to touch the twisted metal of the guardrail.
We followed the dead grass tire marks like the yellow brick road.
Daisy-May was lovely as ever laid out in white like the ****** herself.

On nights when it’s so dry that our skin turns to dust and blows
away, we think of Kansas and Daisy-May and how they caught fire.
Patron saints of our frustration, desperation, too ugly to be real.
Bottle rockets on the Forth of July. Shot from some lonely road
to explode lights in the sky, to blot out the stars for a moment, then die.

Small specs of white scatter the night sky.
Each illumination is unfamiliar, and so distant.
The worst part: Looking up is looking at the past.
The scattered sky is littered with ancient visions; death has never been so apparent.

I stare above, watching the lights with an admiration.
My sub-conscious is as scattered as the surly sky.
My past is also the only light I see.

Everything I think is comparison in theory.
If I can't be certain I can't misconstrue an empty perception.
I stare above, deep in thought, my universe is speaking.
My intuition glows, as the North Star guides me.