Red rover, red rover
heart of gold
and bed of clover.
chip in the pocket
and twenty months sober.
times moving fast
and I wish it were slower.
an old open wound
that longs for some closure.
a day in the sun
and a night in exposure.
twenty-five years
yet it's already over.

How dare you sing songs
When you don’t understand them?
And how dare you have dreams
That you never think of
And thoughts that you never plan for
And plans that you never dream about?
Where the mask ends and the skin begins
I’m not quite sure.
But have you ever felt as passionate
About anything
Or anyone,
As you do about your ******?
Have you ever put forth as much effort
Into your aspirations
As your ******?
Or is that all
There is
To you?

somebody told me this kind of love
was alright.
it's just not the kind you make.
why burn cities down
when you can warm your hearth?
the winds of adventure gust
in the sails of a sinking ship
and do i pray for god to stop
or for a life raft
or do i drown either way?

Every crumb, a cake
Each flower, a bouquet
I hoarded tiny treasures
And tucked them safe away
And though I knew you’d go
I’d always hoped you’d stay
I had interpreted your vice
As a tender, warm embrace.

The words have been at the tip of my tongue
For as long as I can remember.
I saw the first sound in autumnal eyes
In the first crisp days of December.
I was a fool to search for forever
Without first stopping to consider
maybe love is meant to last a moment,
Not a day, or week, or a winter.
Nor must it be plagued by incessant need
Nor be sealed by a kiss or a ring
Nor be the sweetness the poets promised
Nor give reason for the birds to sing.

Is this gossip or sweet nothings?
Our we sharing love or pleasantries?
A nickel for my aching soul,
a dime for who I pretend to be.

In armor so long stands the knight
there is no person underneath.
The looking glass and photographs
are who I pretend to be.

The bar light shines
on a woman trying to be beautiful
with the rehearsed demure
of silent film.

It creates a wreath
the color of movie popcorn
and grandma's kitchen paint.

Only one thing burns
as much as the bourbon
As an indifferent patron
spins a ring
on their finger.

A raucous group of old friends
play their favorite song
for the whole bar to hear
of their happiness.
It moves me for but a second.

But I slink against the wall
for safety and comfort.
I am out of place
with no passport
in this foreign land.

My face doesn't match
the way I painted it
and I am a cheap joke.

I grasp at whatever straws
the universe drops before me
and they always come up
the short one.

I think I would rather
you try to hurt me
then to forget me.

I'd rather you stab me in the back
than turn yours.
Perhaps masochism
is the greatest love of all.

When they ask me why I loved you,
I tell them I do not know.
How could I possibly tell them
Through word or thought or prose
The way your thumb grazed
The stitches of a leather steering wheel
The way it would graze over my breast
When we woke on foggy Saturday mornings.

What words would give merit
To the way I felt
When our eyes locked across a room.
Full of people we know very well
And people I don’t know at all.

It was in the moments
Your eyes opened for the first time each day
To a new beginning
And old problems.

It was the way you ran
Your hand through your hair
When you were angry
That I was angry
That you were angry.

It was the way you’d come
Strutting up the walk way
In the evening
Where I could barely see the silhouette
Of the man who would break my heart
A thousand times.

It was the way you put your shoes on
When you left me.
It was the way you buttoned your shirt
Before she would button it down.

I can’t tell them why I loved you.
They would never understand.

I fight with god and whoever
Keeps spitting truths at me like peanut shells
**** the doctors
And **** the first time my dad decided to drink
And especially **** the last time I decided to drink.

He did this to himself and I love him
And I’ll pay for his mistakes
But my pockets are empty

I eat **** sandwiches with stoicism
I praise the autocracy of the medical field
That told me dad is dying
And I should too.

Miracles don’t happen to people like me
And families like ours
In towns like this.

I’m dying with you
Stage 4
I’m dying with you.

I’ve got nothing to lose
Until I found I had more.

**** your age and **** my youth
**** Medicaid
And **** the truth.

Eyes of blue
And skin of laurel
Serene indifference
Meaningless quarrel

Body still
But panic sober
A lifetime of stuck
And a lonesome October

A 911 call
And a lack of composure
An empty syringe
And a long for some closure

An absent friend
Giving a cold shoulder
An absent friend.
Wake up now, Laura

you are the ripple of a stream
you are a passing-by dream
you are the hum in my throat,
you are an after-**** smoke
you are the sweat in my bed
you are the noise in my head
you are the letters i write
you are the receding night
you are the smell of cologne
you are a king been dethroned.

he bets 7 to 1 odds
you'll lose your roll
forfeit your money
or forfeit your soul

a crooked smile
you haven't seen in a while
you want to trust
but you know will beguile

a crossed promise and a bit lip
a shrouded truth and honest fib
he means nothing he says
- but everything he did.

Your sleeping breath sounded
Like the whistling
Of a crisp and frigid wind
And it’s howls between
The narrow and somber buildings
In a slumbering winter city
Whose chatter is smothered
Beneath a gentle and bitter
January snow.

You are nothing
but cheap thrills
and a midnight laugh.
A half cigarette
and nothing new.

You make no promises
but a thousand excuses.

You can name all 50 states
and their capitols,
but you never learned how to love.

The water of your knowledge
is above a sieve of apathy
and I don't know if any
of the bits left are
worth anything at all.  

You are not who you say you are
but you are who I know you are,
and I am what I am
and that is an afterthought
after thoughts
not worth having.

"If only, if only!"
The tired writer cries
"I was paid not in dollars,
but only in pride!
After all these years
I have come to find
That truly nothing is
as rare and finite
As the fickle currency
Of true, honest pride.
Some spend it quickly,
Some let it hide
Some people take it
From other folks' lives
You've watched it go
After believing a lie
You've seen it stolen
In the defeated man's sigh
Some people waste it,
And I don't know why.
I may not remember it,
But I'd rather die!
Than to do something as foolish
as to swallow my pride!"

i saw a homeless man
fidget with a twist tie
the way i fidget with my rings
crossing bourbon street
alive with the fare-thee-well
of sober times.
with weak conviction,
i admit the stars crossed one of us
and cut the other a break.
we are both drunk,
we are both merry.
we are embroiled in the microcosm
New Orleans has to offer
one day a year, guilt-free.
he jingles his cup for coins
and i show my **** for beads
and i will be bedecked in glitter
and jewels,
and he will sleep on the stoop.
but we both find our shoes drenched
in the mysterious gray waters
that plague that street tonight.
with the guise of my beads
i feel like a queen
but it would make no difference
if i were a homeless man
fidgeting with a twist tie
on bourbon street,
jingling my cup for coins
and sleeping on the stoop.

Pressing the weeds that you pulled
In an ancient book like it were a bouquet
Presented with gusto and pride
As bright as the pest itself.
A cool bed and a cool temperament
Leaves me listless.
For once I’d like to eat and feel full.
I eat with my eyes the appetizer of your figure
And the breadth of your chest
But I never reach yours.
I am hungry and wanting
Beyond *** and repair
Beyond curt courtship
And cold companions.
And at some point I’m tempted to pull the rope,
Unsure if it will drop the curtain or the floor
And not knowing if you will want an encore
And filled with trepidation.
Why do we whisper?
It makes me want to cry.
A little louder now, love
Tell me what you want
If you want anything at all.

Calloused hands that give and take
Both to your detriment
That write and hold
Empty promises
I can’t tell whether
You’re grazing my cheek
Or wringing my neck.

Apollo always forces Diana to rest,
and she only shines with his permission.
Mistakes look brighter in the daylight
and in the rearview mirror.
The grass is wet as I dissipate into the night.
Guarded by the goddess
and discretion.
I sleepily drive back home,
because I'm no longer welcome
in yours.
Being a stranger
is all I wanted, after all.

A soul on fire
A-light,
A-glow.
Where fate tempts me
I dare not go.

A hand so warm,
Gentle,
Alive.
Tender embraces
welcome brisk goodbyes.

A skip in step,
flutter
in chest
I dare not hope
When I know best.

We tried to meet
on a cosmic plane
and that is why I loved you.
Because we believed in
magic and conspiracies
yet you had the audacity
to believe soulmates,
were disingenuous
and phantoms were real.

The glass fogs cold from a muddy brew
Matching the sweat on your brow like morning dew

Falling into love and falling into routine
A waterlogged man seeking a mountain’s dream

Termites gnaw at the wood in my head
The chores, the anger, the existential dread.

A penny for your thoughts, a dime if you know me
A quarter for investment, a dollar for apathy.

My Notre Dame is burning
Let the bells ring
Of ancient fools.

My dad looks me in the eyes
And asks me how long he has to live
Is it terminal?

The Jim Beam speaks back to me
Of fathers come and go
And I lie.

I lie with my lips glued to my teeth
And nostrils flared
And with mimicked repose.

My spire collapses
And I book flights to Paris
So I don’t have to answer questions.

How can I take care of you
When Notre Dame is burning?

Daddy, someone has to put it out and I’m sorry.

Do not call me a martyr
Jesus never had to learn how to spell risperidone
Carbidopa levodopa, sertraline, donepezil
Glycopyrrolate, atorvastatin, allopurinol,
Mirabegron, and metoprolol.
Do not call me a martyr
I have never turned water to wine,
I have turned hallucinations into day dreams
And nightmares into fantasies
Do not call me a martyr
Do not confuse washing the feet of the disciples
To laundering ****-soaked sheets
And drool-dampened clothes
Do not call me a martyr
Jesus was never in hell
And I have sinned.

Do not sanitize this as a calling
Do not raise me up with unclean hands
When those hands have never knocked on my door.
I feel each of his breaths slip through my hands
Becoming a living hourglass
I am angry
And I do not want you to conflate it
With a stage of grief
That would depict this as a natural course.
How dare you look at me in grief
I have grieved every day
Watching sand castles sink into the earth
While the tide climbs my neck
I check for monsters under the bed
As no one did for me
And I only find you.
I find your pats on the back
And your apologies
As great a void as your absence.
This is not a calling
This is not a gift for a dying dad
And this is not a kindness
To anybody, anybody but you.