Snow white cat on streetcorner sits
reflecting blinking bike light
into the road with no streetlamps
on a night full of stars.

Every song that feels
like it's written just for you is another
reminder that your feelings are
more commonly experienced
than you might think.

Breezy autumn evening rides
for time travel and other such activities
make music from wind in leaves
and weave from side to side.

I am off to build a house
and lay down bricks one
at a time, one at a time,
to live in for a short while
and then to leave sitting, alone,
until long abandoned, we
return for exploration.

I am the tiny wine glass
underneath a crisp white cloth
crushed under the wide, leathered
foot of groom under chuppah in a tall
synagogue in colored leaf autumn
in a wedding I'll never have
on a street I'll never see.

I am the dinner plate
being thrown from the edge
of a blue, chipped paint dumpster
on the side of a sparkling parking lot
slick after persistent winter drizzle
that spits angrily from the sky
in a stack of other kitchen
items to be smashed
against pavement.

I am wrist bones of
the minuscule, important variety
in the moment a twig is caught in spokes
and thrown from the bicycle, you make impact
with the brick wall adjacent to the alley
and hear some small cracks
and are unable to lift your
fingers or right hand,
or twist to pull
yourself up.

I am the double-paned
window of a basement apartment
in the summer when hoodlums and homeless
kick glass for fun and seek to scare
innocent movie-watchers as
fireworks pierce and light
the third of July sky.

I am a sad little girl
with sad little eyes that look
out to the future and see something
moving in the distance, a pair of two young
people holding hands, walking on an
Oregon beach in foggy mist,
that blink and realize that
mirages are cruel, and
have no remorse.

I don't remember the strength I earned
though I hear in time, it's relearned.

I want all the songs that give you goosebumps
to live on one single piece of wax, a low rumble
that spans acres, that stretches for miles in each
direction, that raises the skin of all who can see
and feel its grooves and pushes each of us to swim
in sound.

I want you to find all of the noises that pull you
and hold them in your heart as tightly as you gripped
the note I passed you in class complaining about
our professor's tenuous grasp of English grammar, the
ink sweating through the notebook paper and staining
your fingertips. Hold these noises in your heart and allow
the tones to imprint themselves inside your chest, next to
all your other organs.

I want you to sprawl yourself inside of all of this
calamitous cacophony such that you don't know
where your breath begins or if it's part of the melody
or the harmony or another part entirely that you've
never experienced or thought possible, like alto clef or
diminuendo or a vibration in your stomach that
snaps you back to exactly where you are, exactly
where you are.

I want you inside of all of the waves, inside all
of the resonating structures, like unreinforced
masonry and rebar after a larger earthquake
than any of us anticipated, like a tuning fork
standing tall in the middle of the city, like a
memory you can't get out of your head, like a
cold beachfront property sitting high atop
eroding ground.

I want you to reach over to the stereo and
pause before lowering the volume, thinking of
my face listening and falling in love with the
crashing of instruments and electronic tones
and I want you to know that when I was with
you I was inside of all of it, feeling the rough
edges and all the parts of it and dulling the pain
from your sharp angles jutting out in my direction
and I want you to put yourself in my head and think
what it would be like to have to avoid eye daggers and
unspoken thoughts.

I want you to fall inside of the music and allow
yourself to be pierced by its high treble and
shoved by its low bass and I want you to think of me
and how all the sounds are mine and how you will
never catch me sharing my records with you again
and how the needle pokes your fingertips when you
try to drop it and how that feels, bleeding on the
vinyl, alone.

You watch the little one teeter,
precarious, fifteen feet above
the mat on the chalked beam
with white tape wrapped around
her wrist and the cracked webbing
between her thumb and forefinger.
You watch.

Her fingers tight against themselves
she reaches left arm out and bends
to grab the structure wrapped in taut
leather and sanded down into a smooth,
uniform surface, the likes of which are
stacked in warehouses in central Pennsylvania
or southern Iowa or west Texas and shipped
to community centers and middle school
gymnasiums for use in competitions with face paint
and streamers and yelling parents donning
appropriate colors and shouting cheers in unison.

You watch her shift her weight from left
leg to left arm and kick up to handstand.
You see her look of concentration and you
see when her eyes open wide with surprise
and you see her balance shift backwards
and you see her overcompensate
and you see her back bend to the side
in a way it's not supposed to go.
You watch her fold in half and fall hard
onto the bright blue mat
in a cloud of chalk dust and you watch
her face full of disgust and disappointment
and white tears and sour looks.

You run to her, laying on the ground in a
small pile. You push competition officials
to the side and hurdle trainers and instructors
to get to her, to hold her in your arms and to
hear her crying and whispering softly,
"I'm so sorry."
"I'm so sorry."
"I'm so sorry."

You put your lips on her forehead
and you put your lips on her temple
and you hold her against your chest
and your eyes start to quiver
and you grip her tighter
and you tell her that she's perfect
and you tell her that she's doing
all she can do, and that everyone
makes mistakes and everyone falls
down once in a while, but the part of
life that's most important is to get up,
get up, get up, get up.

She repeats,
"I'm so sorry."
"I'm so sorry."
"I'm so sorry."

You hold her and the two of you
rock together and the room falls
silent and you are the only two
there, you are the only two who
matter in that moment, and if
she could just listen, if she could just
hear you, she would know and she
would believe and she would realize
that all she can do is be who she is
and get up and try again and that
every day is a new day and that
every moment is a new moment.

But she can only sit in your arms and cry
and whisper apologies to nobody and
everybody, apologies that seem out of place
in the first round of the junior varsity
gymnastics tournament in the fourth
of five divisions in a nothing town on a cold
Saturday afternoon in March when she's
got a scholarship to Berkeley in the fall
and an award for increasing student
engagement and a clarinet concert the next
day and a family who loves her.

You lift her up onto your arm like
you did when she was small and you
carry her to the car to raucous applause
and admiration for the little girl who did
it all and will continue to do it all.

She wipes the tears from her face and
looks up at you through hurt and furrowed
brow.

"Ice cream?" You ask and she smiles.
"Yes please." She looks down.
"Chin up." You lift her face towards the sun.
"Okay." She opens her eyes with wonder.

On a wrist ticks seconds
like three quarter stops between
heartbeats and chests rising and falling
in cut time and 11/8
meeting every 22 measures as
the record ends and the arm
raises and moves from right
side graze to left shoulder
while backs of hands meet
split ends and the end of dust crackles
over tall speakers.

Feeling bones and sad
smiles and long sighs and eyes
wide and falling and glances of
concern and fear and hyper-vigilant self-
awareness that can feel too structured
and square until fingertips meet
curves and you remember that
the night can contain certain elements
of a smooth and shapely nature.

You touch toes and hold on tighter.

Watching milk pour into little
ziploc bags with bananas and
Cheerios and fights over which
fruit better invokes the feeling
of sunrise, of home and
morning eye crust and blown
curtains in summer breeze.

Strawberries don't stain dresses
as much as blackberries from
a friend's farm in upstate
New York or Eastern Washington
or some ranch in coastal Venezuela
with coffee and sugar smells
stuck on sticky skin and licking
juice from sweet fingertips
right before it starts to rain.

When February sun peeks
through cumulus clouds after
a five-day downpour, you turn
your face to mine and proclaim
that the world may be beautiful and youthful, after all.

In the windowpane of a well-lit city bus at night, this is where I want to be. New York City yelling yelling two days awake at 5am. Chaos.

People die and people die and things happen but we just want to dance dance dance. I dance on the graves of my forefathers, I dance on the graves of the lace-laden aunts. I dance dance dance.

He smells like the wrong thing, like 2002. Like a coffee shop conversation gone wrong, a first kiss never had. I smell my knees as I sit at my computer, I take half-**** photos of myself and send them to people I barely know. I flirt and I lie (awake on a Saturday morning). All of my sentences start in the possessive.

When she found out that her toes were different sizes she just near threw herself off the building. When the phone never picks up, the people up the list from her. She gets a wrong feeling about the place she's in. But she still asks for the space on the floor, still wants to be there. 5am and the traffic continues, cop cars disguised as taxis. We had to convince her to hold back-- no one wanted blood on their shoes.

When you get frowns and one word answers from your heroes, when you read too much into everything. When 5am rolls around. Maybe sometime, sooner or later . . . but I don't think I'm ready yet. I just don't want to, I'm not feeling up to it. The sun is rising too fast. The earth is spinning and I feel like I'm ten years old again. Holding hands in the grass and denying kisses, what has happened to me? I am not connected.

That summer that we wore no shoes? And we danced on the fourth of July? And we listened to your sister's records?

It's just one of those things.

It's good until it's bad and when it's bad it gets worse. I noticed the car, butterfly, car, butterfly, caught in the engine. Curling fumes and smoke and drip drip clip clop clipping of the pipe outside the window. It's all just sounds.

I transfer the days and the seasons, Winter as Summer and Summer as Fall. The seasons all come late, after all. And the days get shorter and the nights get longer and the air grows colder but our teeth get stronger. These are the months, this is the decade. This will be my year.

But as the seconds tick and the nines get closer, I wonder about the holes in the floor. Where will we go if it collapses? What does the center of the Earth hold for us? I don't buy all that heat. It's just friction, all the tension. The hand-wringing and the nerves. The butterflies. The awkward sidestep. The silence.

In my head, it all made sense. I would do what I wanted to do now, let the reflections continue digitally until the next time I had the opportunity. But my ego is large and I trip over it on the daily. And I confuse with my circles and expect and inspect and continue, move forward into a tangled mess of dubstep and electro and Tom Waits. Breath sweet like ecstasy and Ritalin framed by clouds and clouds of *** smoke. So uh, we need to get going now, right?

Carve me a square in that floor, carpet and curtain me up. Send me to the dance floor deep in the fog. Maybe that will quiet the butterflies.

Even in the patchy fog of six am this town smells like the inside of a paper bag. Western Oregon holds itself, quiet at night, focused in on the valley or out towards the dune-laden coast. The hills are small and yet somehow daunting in the dark, driving through the curves past all the tiny towns. But six am, Eugene, the bellowing homeless men and the city workers, the overly commercialized strips and the people that don't belong here, don't belong there, don't really belong at all. We push them all together here.

And inside it all feels the same. The cold fog lays in my head, pulling down my eyes. New York City, Chicago, Atlanta. Chilled and tired and begging for something to call home. Something clean, not like the subway cars or the street corners. They're calling me: So, how're things on the west coast? A long long strip of lonely. It feels cheap and old in retrospect, creepy like abandoned warehouses on the side of the . . . freeway. I don't know what they're expecting, but the dust blowing through sure looks hungry.

All the hard to reach places are painful and sour. All the corners are dark and starving.

The clouds were laying flat on the rooftops and the mountains, smelling toxic and too clean, roses and lemons. The tears streaming down my face dripped in time with the math metal kick drum and fast crashes. It wasn't snowing, it was just nuclear fallout laying, staining the mountain tops. We opened the drawers and water rushed out, flooding the office, the whole **** apartment. I waded through the waist deep, ink stained memories now rushing over my legs. Disappearing.

The next day was sunny, and we snuck on the roof to read the numbers on the tops of city buses. Together, wearing each other's clothes, oddly discontent with our divestments. We saw the rain steam off the sidewalks from our designated spaces, perched above the crowds of swagger, staggering college students below. The blue and gold was overwhelming - we hid under blankets, curled against each other, kickball and four square on our minds.

I've been screaming for hours, pulling the acrylic off of my shortened fingernails, coming up with plots, ways to shut you up. The graphs are old and borrowed and coffee-stained, like the textbooks pulled so lovingly from the bottoms of boxes in attics and basements. I will continue to wait until the times you decided on, I will continue to wait.

My yawns were wasted on you, the subtleties of conversation breaking your kneecaps and knocking you over. Yellows and greens, parodies and satire, video games, hours spent in ***** beds. The chaos of a youth untamed. The chaos of a youth forgotten.

My nostrils stay cold in the warm weather, cold in the rain, a forever remnant of the days of ******* and truck beds. I inhale and exhale the poison of cigarettes, but the shotgun electricity of the little white lines pierces the folds of memory. As much as I ache to forget, I can still feel the powder laying latent underneath my fingernails.

The days of wanting stress are replaced by wanting to alleviate it. I'd rather not sit and listen to your scratching your tense fingertip-tapping jitters. Silent leg shaking bouncing making my records skip. The dust-covered dumpster-dived needle has stress enough without your additions, subtractions, multiplications. You sneeze white and red, the signs of frustrated futures and presents. The record skips back to one, water stained, nothing changes.

I once played without direction and felt it cheap and unnecessary, like angels that breathe deeply underwater. Grasping for sympathy and votes of confidence. Forging intimate connections without it, needing wanting grabbing feebly into the air. Desperation never even gets a chance. We are strong as equals, love dissipating into the aether, waiting watching wandering wishing waking.

I tried to bend and not break, divide and not conquer. I tripped on the wire, skinned knees, forgetting. The clouds of gray hang low low in the air. I will hold strong to my promises, even in this time of turmoil and smashed faces. My foot will stay planted. I will move forward. I will keep on keep on keep on.

Even when they doubt me, I will keep on.

My secrets are all hidden underneath poached eggs and hollandaise sauce as the sun creeps up over the horizon after another sleepless night. The requisite, routine, clearly, clearly, that's reasonable. I was surprised by your cunning, clever nature. You are so much more than you seem.

I fell in love with the process, like the little black notes that make up a slow jam or the pores on your body all clogged and gasping for air. The little spaces in between the letters seem so functional, so right. I am grabbed at grabbed at too too much. Radios and drama, culminating in a slow and painful downward spiral that never seems to end.

The green bar at the top of the marquee distracted me and I walked into pole after pole. I have saved this afternoon for you, don't you know! I paused and rewound and found the perfect spot to stop and rescue you. The sea birds are a little faster than me. The mermaids will not sing for me. They see through my game.

And I can't recreate the sound of home, like I want to. And the bed is so empty without you next to me. And the drive is long and lonely and without destination.

in the early morning bends
i begin to wonder, about my friends.
the tall order serves as disconnect
the scrutiny overwhelms.
i tap my heels along the sidewalk
pondering the ups and downs of our sideways dance
in the freezing cold that bleeds nostrils dry.
as our days turn into nights
in a cycle true and clear as glass
will we hang on, hang on, hang on
and let the nasty weather pass?
the clouds are brewing inside me
a voice repeating "let it be."
the fight, as all my friends could see
would be the force that set me free.

Everyday believers,
habit creatures.
Swimming in silk and
holding down the receiver
all shaking from the speakers.
Toes gripping harder in
tune with the bass,
nose to nose, eye to eye
tongue to ear to face.
Dark lines, white lines,
dripping and drying and
laying in ink, yours and mine.
Everyday believers,
habit creatures.
A song behind the papers.
Ground littered.
***** snow and window fog,
the four walls all painted
over and over and over.
Old town.
Loud street.
Everyday believers,
habit creatures.

Northwest autumn turns to winter
Damp leaves, slipping on uneven ground.

That is, of course, the rain.

Under this criticism
the red orange yellows
behind the backdrop of electric
blue,
wet eyes, wet face, wet hair
and a suspicious swagger
over boots and coats and windbreakers.

The winter comes,
defeat of the sun
for a charcoal blanket
and a slip fall break
of twigs caught in the spokes.

this creative sea
you, me, us
a cavalcade of pronouns
dead tigers
swimming and spinning
through cascades of metaphor
and simile maldefined.

so sick of seeking truth
a battle poorly placed
awkward timing
skinny lines
of belief, disbelief and nonparticipation
waiting for clarity
in the waves of obscurity.

“as you know, we’ll never know
and blindly ford the river of paint
horse hair in hand
to an actualized bank.”
scoffs, she does, and moves face and nose to her art
up for air, and down again
actualizing the truth
that was never there, always.

There is no creativity in sunshine.
Absolute light in stripes and dots,
seeking meaning in descriptive plots.
Statistics and vibrations
have no place in conversations
about the weather.
If you keep looking at me like that,
gray eyes so warm and quizzical,
I’ll try to grasp some kind of meaning,
some sort of fleeting feeling
in your confusion.
the sharp back twinges and hits,
hips and elbows and fingertips,
grasping, reaching,
forever teaching
to be calm and content
in melancholy and nonchalance.
There is no creativity in sunshine.
Gray clouds add depth
to the skies, and your eyes,
add a level of complexity to our path,
avoiding rain using complex math,
spatial patterns, infinite maps,
lines and layers, moving fast,
seeking sunshine to escape the past.

With the blank slate before me
I recognize that memories, like secrets
are hard to keep.
Watching the white on the empty canvas
I remember the white on her dress
which deteriorates to purple and blue, with time.
Even her eyes, so many hours spent staring
are fading away.

But even in this mess of
failed relationships and
melting pools, even in this,
I believe it is
still alive, I believe that the sparks and spikes
and blocks of ice are just as cold as you
remember. I want to dance in the snowfall of our youth,
the fountains freezing as soon as the
liquid hits the air. The chill that permeates the
skin, the wind blowing through
veins. I find myself wanting, wanting.

But we keep keep on keep on
moving forward as
new obstacles emerge, protruding from the ground
four feet, five feet, six feet in front of where we are
walking. The smooth path is neither hope nor
memory, just an echo falling off the
cliffs in my subconscious.

But this is this is all we are.
And we go go hush hush
crouched in gardens hidden by roses and daisies.
And the daisies remind me of her and
her pink green orange dresses that all fade
to gray looking back in the fog.
That trip over the bridge took
so long on a broken tandem bicycle.
I could barely see the fringe of her skirt
get caught in the chain.

When I rediscover the artifacts of our
lost romance, the tube of rose-colored
lipstick leaning nonchalantly
against a corner in my bedroom
I switch, sweep it all up
into a pile that holds a decade of color
threatening to burn a hole in the carpet.

But my dreams are losing it,
the faces all ****** and solid
the movements rhythmic and calculated
the reds and greens and yellows turning to gray
the outlines coming in, minimizing the frame
until I’m left with a blank canvas
a scorched carpet
and a palate with colors ranging from white
to white
and back again.

While you watched me watch you watch me,
your eyes darted back and forth,
inspecting my left eyelid, my right eyebrow,
my left pupil, my right iris.
Your brow furrowed, an involuntary smile
creeping across your face
gave away your intentions.

Our noses touching
you leaned forward, turned your head
slightly, narrowly missing collision
and pressed your lips to mine, slow,
with passion, conviction.
The corners of your mouth turned up,
our eyelashes engaged in whispered conversation,
our fingers twisted together,
sharing secrets through squeezes and taps.

You moved closer, our hips
touching, your arms
wrapped all the way around
my tiny frame, your breath
slow and even and sharp with desire
and anticipation, saying without saying,
"I want to be closer, can we be closer,
can you hear me, do you feel it."

I rolled my ankles and stretched my
toes, lengthening my body and leaning
on your bones, kissing you softly
in the spaces made for quiet brushes and
accidental contact, my hair on your neck
tickling and shaking and making silent
promises. I buried my face in your
chest, wanting to be inside this feeling,
wanting to put it in a jar and to display it
prominently for all to see.

That night we lay together caught,
swaddled and sheets and lost in
each other, starry eyed, content.
Lost, but not alone.
Explorers.
Wanderers.
Adventurers.

Separate in satisfaction until we awoke,
grasping for hands and moving closer still,
ecstatic in clutched embrace,
emphatic in anticipation for contact to come,
euphoric in a sea of effortless ease,
and content in the lazy morning,
tracing shapes,
feeling the world in tiny twitches,
subtle movements.

While I watched you watch me watch you,
my eyes darting back and forth,
a sly grin slowly appeared
and I pulled you closer.

I don't remember if it was
two or three, the hour of the
night (morning) or the times you
said that you'd like to be nowhere
anywhere, tall places, submerged
locales, you said you wanted to share
these spaces with me, you wanted to share
those places.

I tried to breathe on cue
with the rise and fall of your
chest, but your breath fell irregular
with gasps and sighs like a rollercoaster.
Your arms fell at your sides on top of my arms
at my sides.

What is that noise?
There's a crying baby and a
scratching sound -- the record
needle catching dust in the groove --
and footsteps and water from the hallway
skipping into solace
in this glowing, blanketed fortress
where we hide, grinning.

I promise, I swear I didn't,
I mean,
****.

What was I supposed to do?

I'm in the flood waters now.
There's no hazard that could dissuade me.
I remain convinced.
I remain self-possessed.
I remain stolen and broken.
I remain.

And where did you go?
Where have you been?
What happened?
How was that enough?
How does that make sense?
Where am I supposed to go now?

What was I supposed to do?

I didn't feel old or bent or faded.
I didn't feel a surge or a skip.
I felt content, immeasurably at peace
with one foot, two foot, three foot, turn,
turn, laugh, look, smile, turn.
I avoided the touch of gaze
and the strange, knowing smile
because we both saw how years and months
could compress into a few hours
as if they never happened at all
and neither of us wants to know
what that means.

I'm supposed to ignore it.
I'm supposed to not let it touch me.
If you don't irritate them, they leave you alone.
And you can't even touch it.
You're afraid it'll fall apart.
You weren't sure it was anything at all
and you weren't sure it mattered
and you weren't sure it counted
and you start to doubt yourself
and you start to see things
and wonder if they're real
if they're anything at all.

I remember that night,
slipping on Chicago ice and laughing out loud.
In a broken snow globe the glitter still shines,
though it's slowly slipping away.
I caught the drops in a tiny bowl
with lilac blooms and melodic metal double kicks.
I'm packaging it up, wrapping it in cellophane and tape
cellophane and tape
to deliver to your future home.
I'll pass it over our shared picket fence,
hold my fingers on your wrist for too long,
and you'll look blankly or you'll smile wide.
I'll close my eyes and turn around,
walking back to hand chimes and north arrows,
my invitation hanging in the damp air.

You do not know, my friend, you do not know
what life is, you who hold it in your hands.
You let it flow from you, you let it flow,
And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
And smiles at situations which it cannot see.

I will dance a borrowed dance
and walk a borrowed line
and sing a borrowed song
until the words return
and I can control my knees
and the squeaking butterflies shut up
and the ferns are cleared from the path
and I can move forward with grace and intention,
with an open hand
and tenuous direction
and a starry smile
and a space for you next to me.

Yellow plums with sweet
flesh and sour skin
bleed down chins and smell
of summer swims and sneezes.

Once upon a time, a girl.

The grass seed and tree pollen
and dust and pet dander
and prickly pinecones and banjo strings
and the transition between analog and synthetic,
between automatic and didactic.

Ears perk like dogs at impossible pitches
upon a hidden harmony, missed melodic movement
she stops mid-sentence to hear, listen not hear, listen
for the sounds buried under sounds
and other sounds
and tape distortion
and old speakers
and ambient noise
and the head voices
and the wind in the leaves.

Candle flames hiss on extinguishing breaths
sighing promises for future dividends
dancing in circles on hardwood floors
skirt breezes
hip shakes until it's too much
floor shakes until it's all fallen
borrowing thumbtacks and bringing it all
bringing it all down.

Far in the distance I can hear the bells tolling, ringing not tolling, ringing
in time with the sunrise blinking, winking
sharing a knowing promise for a better day tomorrow,
today not tomorrow, today.

It coasts on the dips and dives
along smooth muscle, contracting
pushing, friction absent
and lubrication self-perpetuating.

She called it a spiral, but
I don't see it that way.

It is funny how the little things --
orange and purple and white petals
strings of words together like beads
white-bordered photographs in sepia
-- are bigger than they should be
and shrinking into the smallest spaces
ubiquitous and permeating
reproducing
on and onward pulling.

How do you determine the area of a feeling
how you wipe it down like auto wax
all the crevices like jelly in the webbing
between your fingers
all the misplaced metaphor and you're assuming
I know what you're talking about
you're assuming I care.

I see them there in the bright lights.
I want to be with them.
I want to be a part of nothing.
I want something to be a part of me.

The circle is the mockingest of shapes
daring the others to find its edges
a noose for the mathematician
relying on impossible for truth discovery
the approximation to determine strength or mass or density.

A curve is inherently incorrect
and creates problems for the navigators
who trust cohesion and consistency
who trust each other in cohesion
and constant and consistent standard creation
who challenge the borders of the world
and braid together the loose ends
cruising on new planes.

I watched the wing fall into the water
into the lake, that's a lake, right?
It feels like it goes on forever.

Loud noise.
Open eyes.
Dart right and right.
Grab. Hold. Release.
Quiet.

In chalk on the floor, I drew one of those shapes.
I crawled inside of it, curled up into it.
I closed my eyes tight and held my knees together.

With heavy breath, I bring
pen to page and finger to string
and hold left hand over right, to steady
my shaking wrist as I tremble,
the echo of your voice resonating
permeating
bouncing off every sinewy fiber,
ankles and hips and lungs and heart
beating for you.

I try to write of other things—
of clouds and car crashes and
mysterious men in dark suits with trombone cases and silencers,
or big whaling ships off the coast of Japan,
cold lights singing through marine mist—
but the trains of thought all lead to your
"I love you,"
to your
"I want you,"
to your
"I'm all yours."

The lyrical cadence is tired,
reminiscent of the classics and
traversing paths well-traveled.
The major keys with clean sound—
no reverb, no filter, no distortion—
are boring and basic,
and the vocal sickly sweet
and the floor toms empty
and the ride cymbal whispering
shhhhhhhh
over a cavalcade of harmonics
in a complete circle of fifths.

You are the fairy tale,
the "once upon a time"
and the "happily ever after"
that feel fabricated passing through the lips of others,
but more lucid than taste and smell when
falling through yours
mine
ours
pressed
pushed
touch
close.

It all devolves
into tangled limbs
bright colors
and whispered, made up words.
The ones that exist simply won't do.

I write every song
every single ******* song
for you.

Think about it and you'll realize
that there is no better color than wine-stained teeth
on high school students' prom nights
and muffled giggles from the girls
bathroom in the banquet hall of some
community center or middle school
gymnasium or overgrown grange hall
tell the secrets of the universe
under rushing water and dripping mascara
and notes scrawled in the grout with hearts
and other embellishment

Damp palms on shoulders and waists
with batting lashes and shy smiles and
stomachs growling from a skipped dinner
toes turned outward, awkward
when the slow song moves to charging beat
and hands flex like an accidental graze on the hot stove
a hip shake to assuage and seem like they meant it all along
that moment guides the other movements
and other movements

Driving up the hills and back down into the canyon
up the fire trail and to the right, no, the second right
crap, you passed it, turn around
watch the glitter lights of neighborhoods and boats
know there really are no better photographs
than those from disposable cameras that are blurred and laughing
developed weeks later and comingled with images of her dog
and your mom
and the backyard with candles blown out

I wish to leave you with this—
the passionate preamble of a post-pubescent
rabble-rouser with red ringlet
curls, cascades of casual
looks looming through the locks
that hide her harrowed hands
gripping the sides of her face.

"You, young lover
you, angel in the dark stage
you, wanting woman
waiting while we wash
our hands of this mess
of living breathing beauty.
You are me
and I am falling asleep at the wheel."

She sheds, shines
careless crimson
over the outside door,
twisting the tight tendons
of her frustrated neck,
spine spinning, swindling,
trying to trick me into saying,
"I will, I do."
I don't. I wont.

Her hand holding hands
lays latent in loud laughs
dies in the demon drunk night.