On a dewy moonlit front stoop in
September the hiss of extinguishing
embers in an ashtray drowns out
crickets (in the city? Why?) and
truck horns from the highway
while the neighbors drink cheap
domestic beer and sing out loud
to radio hits, sounds penetrating,
muffled, through heavy doors.

Stretch arms up with back cracks
side to side, bending forward and
considering the pile of paperwork
shoved to the side of the desk, next
to a *** full of water that only
occasionally spills, only when the
chair pushes against the side of the
smooth black surface, only when
there's been one too many and the
Saturdays are full of drizzly skies
and shouting at televisions as men
jump and yell and throw themselves
into each other such that organizing
space is much less than a priority.

There is a spot on the front lawn
where grass is reluctant to grow
that on the Fourth of July held a
folding table with red plastic cups
and awkward side glances to try
to obscure the uncomfortable meets
and greets and questions asked
with eyes and loud patriotism
bouncing off the street still warm
from the afternoon sunshine.

The dust of front window and
squeaky red door pulls additions
when stomping feet on soggy
doormat and turns quickly to
mud on the concrete step that
is home to insecurities and
broken promises that fall from
mouths well trained and bike
accidents of a karmic nature.

Squint and smile into the dark
with toothy grin that mocks
and muses and beats down on
insecure eyes spread wide with
admiration seeking your
go-ahead, the few moments of
your life when you drop your
shoulders and admit that
someone else has a point.

Touching hand to doorknob, a
waver. Hand reaches into pocket
and pulls out another. Lighter
flicks into shadows lit by a
moon too bright. You sit back
down and listen to the night.

Reaching out
with all those side lights you love
and flickering shadows
and hopes of change skewed
by black hole pull
of inevitability

It's all different lights
warm glows and small orbs
and harsh white flashing fluorescent
and explosions

Clicks and snaps distract
absent sounds yield sharp neck jerks
and you react

Something about glass
and a pinprick strain
and a rumbling whirr
and a sharp stab that's mute
when wheels are lying (untrue)
and the closest thing to blue
lives in the white sea

Oh shed your sticky pie
mouth corners, the bearded hints
of yesterdaydreams
of pancakes in the oven
starting a new life

Still love for all the loves
sing all the sings and
sleep all the sleeps
shake off the ice water
slow eyes with puppy yawns
and subtle squeaks

Unintentionally smeared
like oil pastel sunsets
and frozen elephant ears

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.

"God is a place you will wait for the rest of your life."

In all my dreams you're drinking Nick Drake's pink moon out of a red and white straw
Standing all alone in a black coat
Sinking into secret places where no one else dared go
And laughing; I love you when you're laughing

You're always singing my favorite songs
Where we were young, and laid awake through howls
In these spaces, I've returned
Trying to feel how it felt, is supposed to feel

In all my dreams there are greasy hands and frozen feet
Tiny tanks pushing through snow and ice
Painting all the walls blue and gray and black
******* and hands and eyes shut tight

I drive through Nebraska and Wyoming and West Texas
I drive through meadows of dead grass and think
Twenty-one on midnight and hiding in a tall booth in a dark bar in a cold place
Home, because I was with you

In all my dreams I am reaching out and up
Seeking earth takeaway memories
Lifting skinny fists, bare, raising my arms in surrender
Through the mystic on all the lighthouse adventures in the world

Tonight your ghost asks my ghost in earnest:
"How strange *is it to be anything at all?"

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.

I wasn't sure if I should ask
(when you tempted and taunted)
I wasn't sure if I should say
I wasn't sure

You alone hold keys and locks
and encryption codes
it's just you holding on so tight
little inverted pyramids in palms
and fronds in shadows on milky knees

It seems absent and unsure
who you might have been and when
and why you might have been there
it seems like errant leaves on the wind
late to pick up stepdaughters
with wild hurricane hairdos
or kneaded loaves of bread dough
braided, coarse, and bright

We're dancing on live electric
wire sparks shine in cold night
with high heels tapping on the porch
on eaves mosquitos hug the light
and here you're clapping to vibrato
vocal cords strained, you invite
a twirling dancer to your circle
with swirling, howling, coursing might.

With swirling, howling, coursing might.

these old books and all those boys
tripping on squeaking baby toys
your mother's last apartment floor creaking
under seven or eight count teenage weight
spilling boxes of recorders and claves
from the highest shelf and a xylophone
crashing onto solid oak table
spilling the last standing mug of tea
steaming, staining, spitting varnish
resolving to small puddles
in the divets on the table

There are three or four
seconds between the
clicks of broken crankset
on the latest nights laced
with adjacent luminosities
and surreptitious glances
and back of hand touch.

Late lake lit low on warm
weekend afternoons with
goosebump breeze and
words on platforms and
palms that touch hips
and waists and fingers
traversing the length
of narrowing distance.

Notice the breathing and
furrowed brows, a focus
on sandcastles and houses
made of cards, the biggest
problems are no more easily
solved by forgetting arched
backs, sharp breaths, toes
tingling, contented collapse.

Some sunshine mornings
yield just the right few
moments when arms and
legs entangle and you
bring your lips to mine.

I've never thought less of you
than in begging moment, flipped
on smooth river rocks, arms wide
on expanded hips, smile
fake and expectant.

You paddle kayaks in
awkward plaids and throwaway
sweaters, grinning sweetly
at dimples and polished toenails
and forgetting my name
while I repeat yours in echo.

On tall bicycle, you look down
at tear-strewn carpet, at
lingering rain, and you lean
to one side, precarious balance
while the sun peeks through the blinds.

Knife brandished and dusted
on dirt rubber grout grown
stuck between concrete
slabs in parking lot, stabs
the oak bark and climbing
with hand hold knots and
claw bent cramp
of forearm strain

What if the lake came to life
revealed secrets from the last
era, before manmade channels
and bridges truss and bending

On approach grip loosens
uncovered, looks echo in time
loud, unsure when muffled voices
make it past headphones
while walking through clouds
of regrettable memory

Unfit to wait forever I am
impatient I am noticing fluorescent
light flicker while you waffle and
waver I am sitting on the front steps
pushing the doorbell on threes and fours
if we don't leave now we'll miss the bus
come on hurry up now it's time

Yell through sore throat I hurt heard you
I have done and undone the buckle
on this bag I am waiting are you going
to strangle me are you going to straggle
will we miss this flight while you focus
neatly on the folds of your skin
come on hurry up now it's time

Restless you are restless I can hear
your foot tapping on the hard wood
and fingers on the tile I can see
where you are wanting to go why won't you
talk to me while I lay silent on the carpet
come on hurry up now it's time

I should go I should just get up and
go and let you linger and concerning
the electrical bill well once you fix
that bulb we can talk but right now
I need out of here I need to know
if you're going to follow me down

come on hurry up now it's time

Radiator
like hot breath
reminding you of something
wrong, stinging teeth, sweat
and sore muscles
built up with lactic acid, a changing
and slightly more favorable wind

Central air, central heat
some unsung heroes and sparks
of something new, are you sure
there aren't spikes in my
drink, there's sharp pains
in my throat

How was it supposed
to feel, can't find the right
sounds and the room stinks
of hot leather stretched
over decaying bones

Just blank, and lines
that stretch beyond thousandths
of a decimal degree, traverses
Norway to Lithuania in a day
maybe two, with favorable winds
it's hard to be sure

6/8 masked with the bass drum
on the twos and fours, it just feels like
something extraneous and unnecessary
and other couplets of two words
that mean the same thing

Anger like snakes, like tentacles
the chaos of a cephalopod
the cunning of the reptile
cold-blooded, living in the deeps
the depths of storm clouds
and waving from an airplane

Forever goodbye, river
and all the secrets you've swept upstream
just to be churned at the confluence

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

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.

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.

He was long-winded
and going on about
physics, about gravity
and the processes with
which it associates,
about how you can
blow lightly on a
precariously assembled
house of cards to see
it fall over but if you
remove one of the great
mortared stones from
the base of one of the
great mortared pyramids
the structure stands tall
and sturdy, a forever
remnant of one great
injustice and remarkable
innovation.

In the dusty garage that
day his glasses covered
in gray soot and greased
fingerprints on side of
face and shoes with caked
mud from the recent rain
that quickly turned to
cerulean sky as the clouds
were whisked by so quickly
it looked like they were
being pulled by some great
and holy wind, beckoned
to festoon someone's poorly
timed outdoor wedding and
force crepe paper flowers
to stick to stucco walls like
wheat paste.

You think you need to
talk to a person when
you have a problem,
but those automated
systems were created
in the images of people
who were created in
the images of other
people who were
created in the image
of God or some other
restless celestial being,
perhaps a dying star
or an asteroid hurtling
and on a trajectory to
startle a species primitive
and struggling to survive.

The vast mathematical
implications that determine
the universe are sometimes
a bit too much for dinner
conversation, so our chats
turn quickly to local sports
teams and the evening news.

Under the auspices of healing
we whisper incantations in the dark
warm breath in cold air lit by moonlight
employing physics and drawing circles
doing everything we can to hang on

Caught in the pressure, twig snaps
tambourine shakes on twos and fours
I am bouncing on the ***** of my feet
muscles tense, coiled, and ready

I refuse to fight your ghost
or engage in debate with any demons
I will let the wave reach over my head
and crash down behind me
I will float in your salty embrace
under skies gray and foreboding

Hanging in the orchid room
some smoke from someone's
clover leaf traffic jam
and disappearing words in
highlighter yellow scream
out from behind your eyelids
thinking, a memory, past fear

I don't know what to tell you
except that she's gone
and you've been sitting in
the same spot for three or four
hours and the ceiling is
falling around you

She only sleeps in specific
increments and watches
her feet, dangling off the side
of the tallest building she
can find, sweat dripping
through the marine layer below.

Face down on the turf
and dizzy from impact
with hands on backs and
words of encouragement
and reassurance that you
probably just got the wind
knocked out of you, that
you'll probably be just fine.

Step up slowly and clutch
stomach and wave off
trainers and push through
dull roars of boos and
applause to find a metal
bench and a warm towel
in appropriate colors for
wiping sweat from above
eyebrows, in order to avoid
obscuring precious vision.

It is hard to see sometimes
where lines live on the field,
which can make it near
impossible to display
adequate decision-making.
Constantly presented with new
situations. Time is of the essence.

It is hard to know when
to let go of the ball and
when to hang on and
shove your way through
the line like it's your job,
like someone is depending
on you. It is easy for some
to move onto the next play
like the last never happened,
and to stay focused on the
goal without dwelling on
the day's past events.

But when you're catching
your breath and laying
on the artificial surface,
pushed over by a force that
seemed much greater
than yourself, you run the
events of the day over and
over again in your head
and wonder how you got
here, and why you are
grinning so wide.

You learn so much about
yourself in the moments
when you're helpless and
mangled on the ground.

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.

I don't believe in adding
round shapes of varying
diameter I don't believe
in groupings of similar
objects for aesthetic
pleasure I don't believe
in collection for sake of
comfort or to appease
some wealthy donor
I don't believe in some
mass of tangled string
that defines the universe
I don't believe in museum
display signs that ask
you to not touch I don't
believe in the science of
star symbols I don't believe
in your grasp as bait or
as appeasement or as a
subtle reminder that I am
alive I don't believe in
my eyes in the mirror as
you exit the room, quietly

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.

1:22.

She puts her phone back on her bedside table next to a small blue vase overflowing with fresh white tulips. Her feet are tucked behind knees still jeaned and under thick blankets. She lays down. She sits up. She turns on her side to the left and pulls her shoulders down. She turns over.

1:30.

She wants him to call. She wants some water. She has a song stuck in her head. Don't **** with me, don't **** with me now. Something doesn't feel right. It's just a little too cold. It's been just a little too long.

1:43.

She still hasn't gotten water. Someone is dead or dying in a swimming pool, somewhere. That person got a lot of water, she thinks. She thinks about holding his hand. She thinks about being next to him. She wonders if he wants to be next to her, too.

1:47.

She closes her eyes and can feel him kissing her, his hands on her hips, his lips on her forehead and temple and cheek and neck. She is reaching out to him. But maybe he went too far away and she can't reach him anymore. Maybe she pushed him too far.

1:54.

She stops that train of thought, brings it to a screeching halt. She stretches out. She sits up and finally fills the water glass. She looks outside to dark gray and yellow skies and wonders what he's dreaming about, drug-induced, nauseated. She thinks perhaps if she can sleep, she can meet him there.

2:07.

She puts the phone back down next to the vase. A tulip petal falls on her hand. She places it gently on the pillow next to hers, closes her eyes, and heads in his direction.

Desperate avoidance of pronouns, articles
and questioning favorability of parts of speech
in desperate attempts to compartmentalize neurosis
like you're embarrassed and I'm foolish
swimming in this sweater
that was never mine anyway
although in dreams it was bequeathed
and I hold tight to that reality

How can a forest be on fire
while it's raining?
How can you put aside your
shiny weapons and arch voice to smooth sounds
lyrics that speak nascent truths
excuse me, sir, if I ask quietly
will you provide some affirmation

Getting to me, getting me
it moves slow, it shouts
I never forget my luck, my two-step
I stay patient, hungry
I built a bunk bed in this speaker
are you planning to stay a while?

I'll touch your caveat if you touch mine
I'll sing your songs if you lie still

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.

It's so hard to sleep
without the knocking of your
knuckles on the wall or on
my bony shoulder at 3:22am
or the tiny moans of dreams
in which you're touching my
hips or climbing fences in July.

The city lights bright in the
window mirror window distract
and while nearby sirens and
train horns sing through the
night in your presence tonight
I am noticing even distant song
and scraping of wheels on
track and locomotive groan.

I can see you curled in blue
and other devices for insulation
when I close my eyes tight in
the space where you were and
the space to which you'll return
in forever that's not far away,
in due time that feels eternal.

It's so hard to sleep
without your fingers on my
arm making circles and you
forgetting how it makes me
giggle or you remembering in
secret and smiling to yourself
as I squeal and squeeze you back.

I wish to be wealthy in time
to hoard it in boxes and jars
that are blue and caked in
fine powder, to keep seconds
in a piggy bank that is cracked
open every year on my birthday,
when I am excited to learn that
a year of saving yielded more
than just one or two minutes.

I wish to surf my history
to return to the moments when
it was possible to ride my
bicycle across town in 15 minutes,
when I would laugh at serious
notions and pass off my days
shielded from the rain in a
twisted building with wooden
chairs and faded couches.

I wish to lay down across days
stretching my arms up across
the calendar, reclaiming the
moments I spent staring at the
wall, falling into songs sung
just for me, wondering if I would
ever make it out alive, wondering
if the purple would stain the sheets.

I wish to return to a particular
hour that yielded the sharpest
spike in self-discovery, when I
laid with you and listened to
those songs I had heard over and
over so many times and watched
before my eyes them take on
new meaning, watched them
change the way it looked outside
my window and where my
reflection used to seem dull and
glassy I saw a glow reminiscent
of candle wax and silver beads
and box stools.

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.

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.

The most sinister sounds exist in your head
or they are in the walls too, scratching and
clawing and gnashing gnarled teeth to
intimidate, initiate conversation. I, like the
elephant man, can't get people to look at me.

Crawling in the walls, crawling in the walls.

Body noises, bodies making noise all on their
own, no contact necessary, no touches, none
small swift sweet brush of fingertips on freshly
shaved legs, these noises follow marbles down
tubes of recent cell growth and death and the
burnt cilia from one or two nights up too late.

Who wouldn't want the danger? Who wouldn't
be seduced by the threat of extinction, the on
and on challenges of basic survival? I don't know
that I want to know the people who would lie
down during the apocalypse to be taken up to
heaven or who hang on to thoughts of angels
in clouds out of fear. Stop apologizing. Just stop.

Move slow through tall grass on hands and knees.

With one light slow breath I can pass pathogens
to unsuspecting commuters on the 7:05 train
who will pass by hundreds of people in their day,
breathing heavy from flights of stairs and some
pollution in the air and some emotional turmoil
that will likely resolve itself right before collapse.

Understanding imminent destruction has a
strange power reminiscent of floodlights
coating a thousand heavy construction sites
covered in some damp **** ***** snow.

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.

My girl is the softest planet
and I am unsure, but she says
the gaseous rings are clinging
tight to her knuckles and it is
after midnight when she finally
exhales and the room turns pink
and bright with starlight

On absent Tuesdays, and only those
of even number, we sit on docks
and watch the city float by
on cumulonimbus and pouring
and hail tie-dying the whites on our shirts
and blue eyes gray in stony reflection

Purple tangle watches, thorny stems
on a chase through the downtown streets
after falling for and off of you
under creaks of a lifting bridge

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.

In the morning, rays and grays
peek through dark curtains and
I can hear the rain dance on
double pane I can hear some breath
measured and wanting I can hear
a foreign tongue and blue-eyed laugh
and fingers tracing cartography on
fading maps of Western Europe.

I like to hold the secrets of your past
close against my chest like bouquets
of dried flowers, crumbling in time
and dotted with sweat from
fever dreams, I watch you
sick and typing and moving
away from where I stand fast
and with increasing frequency.

It's only in magic that we
ride bikes, wet leaves caught
under fenders along a river
side by side in shadows
of a lifting bridge.

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.

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.

Long winds are coming through
the building, they blow via taps
left on, they spew hot air.

Circle games, let's just move in
and stack the cardboard tubes
in an intelligent fashion,
let's pull it together for
breaking ice and watering down.

Power up and out of the office
and into the wires of emergency
rock, the tables, the walls, the
bookcases taut and tensionless
and keeping secrets of the room,
imprisoned by gravity and friction.

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.

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.

Instant chapped lip moving from
icicle breath to sweaty sigh in this
storm of memory this blizzard
of foreign hope, not sure of the
goal but **** sure of the end.

Old wood frames where you
make sure to stand when the
ground starts shaking, on the
other side of the room, knees
knocking on hard floor and
trembling fingers gripping
wet splinters, deep cuts.

There's a collective noise,
a chorus of claws and some
babbling basil-soaked bird
is hobbling across the house,
caked in ****** muddy sap.

I'm just organizing myself,
don't you pay any mind.

Ghosts in shadows
shadow ghosts
and I whisper stories through a straw
tangled nonsense
and you keep on turning
in multiples of nine
and I count your steps,
the number of rotations

What and how do hands
move so fast and are
you sure you didn't mean
to use a pattern because
the seams seem uneven
moving up these curvy roads

Why can nothing touch
the reflex under your right arm
that pushes you to numb
and tingling, but one man
can make one phone call
and millions are at war

Sky spits ***** flecks of
conversation onto swift
lips and the tooth knife
draws blood from grin
in the evening that is
probably too cold or
maybe just right.

I climbed the warehouse
wall in my head while
you watched my eyes
move up and over and
around and down back
to your denim jacket for
the sixth or seventh time
that evening and then up
to meet eyes with spots
from fluorescent lights.

I told you a story and then
we rewrote it for just a few
minutes in several different
locales with varying degrees
of passion and curiosity while
lessening the distance of feet
and hips and gaze to try to
feel something new and same.

Soft glow and saturation
make the dullest blues into
a steady walk, predictable,
cloudy like skies in February
and November, broken strings
on the head and into the coda.

Tracing trail maps with
fingers and bootsteps that
mud imprint the floormats
of your grandfather's gray
four-door with the cracked
windshield and long
scrapes down the sides.

Keep pace with the clicks
of fingernails on wound
nylon, don't fall to expected
declarations, don't let them
beat you to the top.

She wasn't sure what she
really loved until first
flight, when it became
clear that every experience
was available, that every
agent was awake and asking.

There's a white eagle waiting
on the creased parchment of personal
history, sitting patient yet clearly
discontent, singing someone's praises
but you're never quite sure exactly who
holding heads higher than you could ever
and cocking two, by two, by two

I almost dropped this string into the sea
the one that connects your fears to me
the pull to fall kept me so tight
but I leaned all the way back
bringing eyes to summer light

So where were these rocks that had you
so compelled, that you called me crying
out in shrieks, giving them names, a
car crash of consonants like a fence
to keep something in or out, we
weren't ever sure

How could there be so many questions
when there's only one way to enter
and only one way to leave

Who even are you anymore?
Hiding under small orange
bottles are letters from a former
life, a former name and address
in former envelopes and former
handwriting, former pen
smudges and former doodles
on the folds. Save yourself.
Save yourself first.

Swipe, snap, flint on stone
to make sparks that make
flame that make fires that
make light and heat and
allow drawing of deeper
features than really exist
with shadows moving in
erratic fashions, swinging
back and forth between
the you that was farther
from death and the you
that is much, much closer.

Giving is hard. Taking
is the easiest thing you
can do so long as you
can run fast enough to
escape the guilt that is
falling on you like trees
in a northwestern forest
with gravel crunching
sound of logging trucks
not too distant grinding
their way up small roads
and wind blowing through
trees that are deceptively
deciduous and shaking.

I'm judging you for
just about everything.
I am hard like feverish
breaths in a sweaty
freezing bedroom that
belonged to someone
else who bled in all the
corners and licked all
the walls and is reaching
out from the breathless
past to steal yours too.

It's just you and me
here, you can tell me
anything, I promise I
will hold all your secrets
like they're crystal glasses
that belonged to your
grandmother's grandmother
and made their way here
smuggled in a suitcase
with pulled out gold
teeth and brown plaid
blankets folded neatly
such that none of the
corners stuck out the side.

Sneakers sinking
into mossy muddy
backyard ground,
you extend arms
up and grab the
lowest branch of
the tallest tree and
pull yourself up
to sit atop and look
down at all the people,
holding your fingers to
your eye and squishing
their heads between.

What one wooden branch
wouldn't swing back to serve you?
Hoist you up and save your knees
from the explosion on contact and dirt
particles nestled in your skin
and twigs tangled in hair

Our wrists don't hold up
like they used to

On tightest dull contact
I waited to note
the small dots and moss in the bark
as it slid over your bones
and your yelp of fear
and the air moving under
your feeble hands grasping

Don't tell me to hold on
when you release with such ease

The puddles from last night's rain
reach up towards the clouds
like they were never there at all

I saw the drought in time lapse
like a blooming flower in reverse
the expansive lakes contracting
and the rivers slowing to a crawl
in their vast meanders

I saw mass movements
glacial scale sped up to meet me
I saw new species emerge and go extinct
in the time it took for our plane to go down

I always wondered about your intentions
the way your left pinky twitched in the rain
how your beard would grow and shrink and grow with months
under high clouds how your boots would crack
toes shaking off caked mud and elements
like snow on your eyelashes
like fairytale clouds

I'm almost there, can't you see
weren't you waiting
I've been waiting an epoch
while you flew fifteen miles
I've been climbing Jacob's ladder
while you've been ascending to the top bunk
we've come a long long way
I've come a long way alone