scaled your apartment in one of my favorite dresses
right before sundown
watched the wind billow the blue silk up my thighs,
parachute like
as i looked down,
several stories above your neighbors
(wonder if anyone looked up)
swallowed my human fear, counted the rungs
had opened our forties prematurely in your apartment
sure didn't make climbing any easier
that big map stretched out yawning across the bricks in your living room
spotted the city you were headed for
blame it on uninformed geography but didn't
realize you'd be completely across the country
(didn't tell you but
your cat kissed my nose from the bathroom counter
while i was peeing
and i thought it was one of the most endearing things
that probably ever happened to me)
got to your roof outta breath
all adrenaline and eyes
took off that big leather jacket lined with fleece,
wrapped it around our backs and sat
facing the city you'd be leaving and i'd be entertaining
watched the traffic crawl on the BQE
the sunset bored, you spilled your beer-
kept rolling in it innocently- ******
laughing, god i just
wanted to keep touching you
couldn't decide what to eat
both didn't wanna impose
neither of us could remember the name of that tree
littering pink slippery offspring in spring
for you and me to exclaim fondness over
you were the birth of a simplicity
it was so
terribly easy to be happy

you wedge your pointer finger between your canines-
in an attempt to appear sublime- or nervous- or seductive
either way it doesn't succeed.

your tooth, teeth
speck of blood, bleed
emerging as you pierce your calloused
yellow patch of skin
(layers & layers of the girls you've touched before)
but you crave one more-
for in every sleepless night
there's a quote to be fill- a new slit to drill-
you're a man.

i can sense it-
throbbing and shaking beneath your olive exterior
how you long to drag
your now bloodied, prior prettied
finger up an off white thigh-
to disregard the things obliged-
to forge the paradigm
from faulty tools,
splintered and battered in a worn down knapsack
duct taped to a hunching back,
you're a man.

thoughts of droning monotone
quiet your hungry bones
(i can hear them)
rattling as you ****
your head and lift that heavy glance up to me.

i can see you,
flopping and thrusting and sweating, which
after years of curiosity has handed me
nothing,
but sweaty sheets and burning ***.
i lay beneath you, silent
i'm a woman.

avert your eyes ( i am tempted to plead)
from the onset of premature varicose veins
(i am pale, glasslike, arched & stained)
allow me to suffocate the already immune-
girls born into the world with ******* brandings
stamped onto their lightly acne ridden foreheads.
(SMALL, MEDIUM, LARGE)
trim your ribs, shave off the cellulite-
turning a blind eye to accessible insight..
a salad for lunch, make it dinner too.
finger down your throat, orange acid hurling,
stick like dancers twirling,
they bring tears to your eyes,

if only {you} possessed the grace-
but there are pounds to erase.
i'm a woman.

thirteen years of advertisements stapled to your eyes
standing barefoot    in a bath tub   with chunks of blood
running down    shaking legs    
kicking off a now crimson pair of old underwear-
stuck  &  tangled on trembling feet

[ silence your voice and push up your *******
  til they're touching your neck.
  get a nose job
  get a *******
  you're a woman  ]

i never really knew nonchalance
until approximately twenty minutes into ever
having had the pleasure
of your existence
alongside mine.

"i'll have to teach you how to surf"
you mentioned casually, sounding perfectly genuine-
which alone was enough to startle me
knowing you were leaving the country
before the water would ever be warm enough

the far rockaways?
my mind's eye gave a grimace and half a laugh at the thought-
but my affections were melting through your fingers.

you stopped us abruptly on the sidewalk,
halted all conversation
and crept up
(as if you had a hundred times)
on to some random brooklyn woman's stoop
and ripped a few leaves off of one of her plants.

i stood idle, feeling warmer suddenly,
trying to disguise any semi-shocked expression i may  or may not have emoted..
and watched as you returned
with the most unmistakable grin
and two sleepy little leaves in your palm.

without hesitation you began chewing on one,
while handing me mine
and i listened as you detailed the experience with an ecstatic moan of pleasure.

"mint?"

i knew it was a mint leaf,
obviously, somehow
but still asked anyway

i don't remember if you confirmed,
feeling so bewildered by the strange glowing glory of you
but i ate it obediently,
as if it were naturally in my personality
to never question eating an unfamiliar plant
from the unfamiliar hand of a man
whom i was most unfamiliarly falling in love with.

ready?

do you wanna go together? come, lets hold hands.

no?

alright.

all that matters is that you do it, okay?

.. are you sure you don’t wanna do it together?

alright..  !

each of your feet slapped flat and hard against the white dusty cliff until your skinny frame shot itself into the sky. we were half naked and suspended above an unfamiliar lake somewhere in texas. well, now it was just me. night was rolling in slow as all hell. the habitual hit from the one hitter didn’t soothe my nervousness. to be straightforward, tossing my body into the abyss is not my thing. i like the ground. i like the stability. planes make me cry. roller-coasters make me cringe. i like to just sit and watch the sky roll over the lake, not risk being harmed by one of its unseen watery perils..

an oval of water burst upward from where you carved into the lake- the explosive hiss of unhappy water yanking me from my brain. sheepishly i gazed over the edge to see what became of you. it appeared you had survived- treading water with one eye locked in an accidental wink, peering up at me. you smiled big and echoed gentle encouragements into the cove below in a soft-spoken southern accent. the hair on your head matted itself to your forehead in strangely stylish curls. “1,2,3, **** it! ”. you kept spitting out deliveries of lake water between wide toothy grins.

minutes were passing and i had hardly moved. talking to myself anxiously, trying still to remain some degree of coolcalmandcomposed while facing these subconscious shadows publicly. i felt sickened by the symbolism of my inner demons confronting me with such an unoriginal yet classic scene. your smile was fading gradually due to your legs growing tired, even though you didn’t let on.

fear, my constant constriction. my choke up. my backout. my way out. but this time i knew the only way out was through. my feet betrayed my brain and ****** me forward and up and off.

i had toyed with some ideas about what form i’d take prior to jumping, but none of them panned out. i claimed an awkward and ungraceful pencil dive and held my nose prematurely. the fall was eternal. the seconds were looping. i could hear everything for a long time. your holler bounced off the walls of the cave. my body heaved into the oblivion of the luke warm lake.

when i emerged i was concerned with my makeup. a tell tale sign i need to work on my priorities.  you were there with me, once i smeared the uninvited water from my eyes, grinning and congratulating me. i felt silly getting praise for something so seemingly simple as letting go..

you held me near in the dark choppy water as we clung to the cove walls of the cliff. color flood my face. maybe adrenaline feels a lot like love.

i finally felt close to you.

i wanted to stay down there a little longer. where there were no distractions. no phones no cigarettes no coughing no traffic talk no sleep no *** no drugs no radio. we couldn’t hide from each other. i wanted to stay and swim and look into you, unabashedly wet and ****** and well-intentioned. graze pale loving bodies beneath the green hue of the lake. but you grinned, cleared your throat and talked to yourself about your footing as we sought a way to scale the rocks back up.

i’m sure i could have said something.
told you how i felt.

but that fear thing..

It was 2 a.m, as usual.
The doorbell rang and I knew right away
who would be slouched against the rusty gate
stuffed with cylindrical flyers full of food i'll never buy.
Hunched over in a hand me down coat
with that strange scarf I never liked tied around your throat.
You flashed a smile, a brief “hey” slipping through it's lack of authenticity.
and I mimicked you, as babies do, and stepped barefoot onto the
cigarette littered leaf scattered stoop, a bowl of knock off cereal cupped
in both my hands, my hair still wet, my mind still drunk.
I fumbled to the stairs and placed myself atop them
and you mimicked me, as babies do,
placing your fragile frame beside me, a few more inches away than usual.
Without hesitation you slid through your speech
and I nodded and smiled and continued to attempt to attract you
despite circumstance, despite that glowing ominous ornament
dangled high in sky, distracting my eyes and passing the time.
We agreed to demolish whatever was left standing from that wall we built,
of awkward breakfasts, yearning eyes across parties, anonymous hairs on jackets,
make out sessions on tattered couches, greetings with waves.
All the details deleted, left unfinished, perhaps one day to be returned to.
As unlikely as I figured it to be.

I rose to my feet, the wind whipping down 21st street,
my tar black makeup still loosely lining my eyes,
I gently rested my head on that shoulder I so briefly admired,
and admitted to my early infatuations; the poems I had written but would never share.
You protested, said you were curious of them.
I denied you, and you didn't ask again.

But if you would've- just once more.
I would've read you them.
Maybe even this one.

But you didn't,
and much like babies,
we mimicked each other
and crawled away.

half a dead pigeon
has indented itself in the gravel lot next door
and every day at dusk, when i run my sacred shower,
(with the lights off and windows open
and otis redding echoing through the empty house)
i have to watch the black static tide of flies
swim around one of it's upward bent wings.

the first time i saw it my jaw dropped and repulsion choked my throat closed-
disturbed by it's total disgrace,
i slammed the window shut
and preferred to gaze at tile grime to pass the time.
but from the days that followed,
i managed to muster up respect
and acknowledged that this
battered half of a bird
was now a variable in my scenery
(praise be to impermanence)

and now
the sunset drowns everything in it's hazy blood orange
and the wind floods the trees and fills the underside of the bridge with sound,
and i stand naked in the warmth,
singing boldly out of key, twisting hot water out of my hair,
as the summer breeze politely invades my privacy.

so i salute the pigeon, say i wish you the best.
and embrace the weight and fullness of my happiness,
and know well i am more than body and voice,
and watch it sink further into the arms of the earth each night.
grateful to know that death doesn't end life.

If you can't spot infatuation
like black crescent shaped moons of dirt
packed up tight beneath finger nails
which wave and sway and point me in
all the wrong directions-
then we have a problem.

Barely propped up on my bed,
slightly hunched, typical 4 am candor-
“You're full of good songs”
you begging for sleep, me begging for company
sitting naked, adjacent, tossing cigarettes carelessly
out a second story window, between a softly lit lamp glow.

HA,
speaking of second stories- here's one for the books.
I can make out that shady sauntering silhoutte from miles away
in the blackest of places, abyss like spaces.
And can hear your muted whispery voice-
coughing up a lung from a song you've left unsung.

and while its far from symbitotic
and edging closer towards psychotic
there's a problem.
If I can't be responsible for myself,
for my stumbling and mumbling
and tracing goosebumps up your neckline
falling in love with the slight hint of a spine-

how can I be a mother and a lover
an obsessor, undressor, pining to
touch my tongue-
to taste the cut from some rusted razorblade
that made its way across skin untouchable-
must've tripped over that notch on your neck-

another night, another bar-
another random blonde girl craning her neck through foggy windows
past me, hungrily
searching for your eye contact
all the while i'm pressing the pen to my own fatal contract-
no more, not worth the time, not worth the effort for the pursuit of his comfort-
She looks like shes salavating, pathetic and starving-
If you have this effect on every girl that resembles me-
then I wish you'd leave me be, let me sleep, disappear from dreams

but how can I be trusted to disregard a feeling
that is settled so deeply in the pit of my stomach
one which swirls and twirls like sand
disturbed by some prodding finger
at the sight of you -

illuminated, engaged, aware of every ambivalent motion.
at your entrance, a beckon, an accidental glance
you happened to toss in my direction-

Everything you do seems arbitrary-
pity kisses, responses days late
with this ever forced fake mysterious aura-
come & go as you please,
feelings absent – words incoherent.

i clench my fists and crack my wrists.
the human experience isn't one best done alone
(not that you'll ever know)
having some eccentric faith in autonomy
and an innate interest in my anatomy
all the while believing its a form of blasphemy
to take some remote interest in whatever I can claim to be.

i have always run
with my hands cupped
to the boys who have not fallen
but fled
from the nest

i'm always staining the knees of my jeans
threading my fingers around the shattered parts of them
collecting what i can

degenerates and low-lifes
bad smelling cars and big convictions
nervous voices and hyper fingers
dead parents, dark stories
their despair, their careless cigarettes out the cracked car window,
with their weird teeth ***** hair
i can understand my purpose
a void filled

i always take them out bowling or something-
out drink them in whiskey,
out wit them in pool halls,
dive bars, black beaches
the formula is spotless

as soon as they surrender
and the careless foot slips from the tightrope
the brink of love leaves their mouths in words unwanted
my syrup hunger to solve and serve
is sapped back into the
heart from whence it came

my fingers recoil and i
lay em down gentle in the night- wish em well
slink away with collarbones street lit
starved to find the next

rest easy, sauntering children that inhabit these streets, marching endlessly with youthful rouge upon your cheeks. the ambient orange glow encapsulates your city's sky, enrapturing your scattered minds each night.

you search with strained and bloodshot eyes for the silver lined heavens
that hibernate behind blankets piled high and heavy with pollution.

you stalk these streaky sidewalks,
hands in your pockets, cigarettes dangling between crooked teeth,
billowing from your gaping mouths,
forever treading onward, gazing upward
at the luminous orb who emerges each evening,
floating thoughtlessly in its spiraling yellow haze,
glancing down with an occasional giggle at your mindless meanderings.

you venture through man-made parks, but make not a single mark of any personalized passing.
invisible, soundless.
walking not in the sand or the honest salt of the earth,
but on glittering concrete,
disregarding your worth.

you wandering specters, dragging your aching cancer ridden bodies through tireless voids,
fending off your tattered emotions that clasp their bony hands around your fleeting ankles,
begging you to stop, to engage. your shoes remain bare and battered,
lacking more and more sympathy for your simplified selves with each step.

you push onward, noiselessly.
your brittle fingers wrap themselves
around the spines of wine glasses-
clinking, clashing.
you smile and kiss surrounding strangers,
your loneliness ever consuming those enlightened, empty minds.

I’m always afraid you’re gonna kiss me in the elevator
you ask me out to lunch and I always think you mean it
we just wind up at the nearest mock irish dive
every bartender in midtown knows your name
even when it’s swarmed by the christmas crowd
they always point to you, give a nod and laugh
we pull up stools in the mid day snow
my nose whines over the **** floors
we order warm whiskeys and work on the crossword puzzle
you say my company is charming but
you’ve never asked me a single question
and your eyes are always on the room
but when everythings still and no women are near
sometimes you’ll stop on mine
I take your picture in the snow
remember the morning I left and startled you with an exiting touch
your cheek painted with drool
I couldn’t sleep the night I stayed
so I scribbled neil young quotes on your chalkboard walls
listened to you snore, waited for the sun
walked through stuytown like I’ve lived there all my life
boarded a train back to the man who loves me
prayed both of you never care too much
and that I start soon

There is no easy way out.
Finding solace in cigarettes,
malice in each intent.
When we kiss and flash,
I taste snow and ash-
slippery, salty blood lust.
4 a.m galaxies and gold speckled chains.
The thud in your lungs and the flood in my veins.

Adjusting my pace simply to make space
for the passing of strangers I'll quickly erase.
From my celestial mind and my unaligned spine.
While these battered boots pitter patter
atop the gum splattered streets,
Where I silently succumb to an alarming defeat.

You,
jumbling and juggling my thoughts-
they cling like sweaty icicles in the their last dying breath.

You, me, we.
Naked on a patch of empty mattress
Everything too symbolic to possibly process
Standing solitary in unison
beneath the draining translucent sink above
a degree too warm, my skin blushing on accident-
insides tangled and squirming
when that warm wet hand wrapped itself so delicately
around an unremembered segment of skin .
a stray fingertip racing up my thigh,
my throat clasping at the shudder
as i glance into those boring brown eyes

"I don't **** people I respect."

But this was a truth that was too soon broken,
I was disguised, misguided and easily cloaked when
the eyes I knew from a childish fluke
swept me
into a bed of nails that i thought
would protect me

you, me, we-
behind a rubber duck shower curtain
in the spotlight of the stage
where the x's had been taped
i was made certain a foolish damsel in distress
to each falsified caress.

but in those last fleeting moments
where the memory's page
starts to curl and break
you reached your arms out to me
and like damp sheets in the breeze of my body
we take our final plunge for all to see
and we lower to our knees
to scrub the smudges in between.

snapping your wrist at an unsuspecting creature-
one merely curious of the minute details and intricacies of a human life.
perhaps drawn in by a whiff of cheap cologne
or the scent of a sweet summer drink.

it lives without common sense and floats through space,
weightless, only concerned by luxuries it can't comprehend.
and we smack at them,
flailing, angry, unaware.
we're overcome with a sense of annoyance and disgust,
simply because another living thing,
with a body much smaller, and ambitions absent.
decides to swim by off course
on whichever axis they assume.

i can only wish that one day a fly will swat at me,
remind me to keep my thoughts from wandering too far astray-
too keep my curiosity at bay.

i need something to bind me.

something about
the way you held me so loosely
like a hesitant father holds his abortion wished baby
arms dangling lifelessly around my inflating ribcage
{that little bright balloon i harbored so safely.}

yes,
i nestled it close to your unsheathed knife
waiting for the burst, an exclamation, a curse.

but that sound, it never rang out-
it bellyflop, backfired and hush hush hushed its way out of an entity.

something about you-
makes me want to-
litter i love you's like
lipstick stained cigarette butts
from the thrift store wardrobe to the over gesturing hands
you unraveled me like it was all a part of the plan.

i watch you through intermittent exhales and yearning eyes
nervously fumbling fingers through greasy hair.
placing my fingertip as gently as i can
on the single, strange spiral of ****** hair on your jaw
staring out at you across rippling sheets,
"this reminds me of starry night."
you nodded, said you knew-
but what could you possibly know about a masterpiece,
when you won't even bother to pick up your brush?

something about-
taking your contacts out,
our inability to communicate,
how you only come over after a few drinks
and never before sundown.
asking politely to kiss me, when your intentions blatantly
ask otherwise. and how thoughtlessly-
you walk through a room,
the vanishing unannounced cigarette act,
how quickly you use laughing to express, (or repress) yourself.

something about the anonymous demeanor of the stray hairs
you shed unintentionally in my bed.
feigning disgust, i flicked at them hard and carelessly when you were watching-
but when you're not. and it's late.
i pluck them slowly and sweetly and let them drift gracefully to the floor beneath.

forcing symbolism into everything
will very effortlessly destroy you.

" you’re a walking expression" he said confidently, his head tilted on it’s axis, gazing downward into the wine that he swirled so violently. i felt a little empty. he was handsome. i could see the winged tips of his ribcage protrude toward me whenever he stretched or adjusted his posture. "lately i feel like i’m always having miscarriages with my creativity." i said, my eyes transfixed on the miniture hurricane of burgundy. "like i’m there, everything is correct and pure and plentiful- and then it just kinda crumbles halfheartedly back into chemistry". i never say things like this. he nodded wistfully. i couldn’t tell if it was forced or not. he followed it by adding some statement more profound than my own and suggested that we head out into the night. it was getting late. i nodded lightly a few times and began to clumsily button my flannel up across my flat chest and noticed him staring strongly at me across the table. "you know" he smiled, zipping up his coat, "any woman can look **** getting undressed, but it takes a charming one to carry the same effect while putting on clothes.” i laughed, admired the wit, wondered if the line was borrowed, felt nauseous, carried on.

you tread the city so quietly.
tip toe delicate around me.
don’t send a word, don’t wave a flag.
and I wait to see you on trains
and I avoid brooklyn like the plague.
(if you wrote me I would drown.)
the boy who loves me would wilt,
knowing I hear your voice still.
although soft, although dreamt,
like notes that rise real slow
to the surface
from an underwater piano.

I'm still waiting for the song the end.

if you can promise me privacy,
then i can lend you all of me.
i could be the miscalculated rain,
intended for the sea-
but destined to be
splattered on a window,
exploded like the galaxy.

did i paint the pretty picture
in a way that you can only see?

pull me in, pull me close-
and strip me of my sensory.
if this is it, let's make the most-
and shred up old philosophies.

while i still have cancer-less *******,
let's look past the human fallacy.
while my heart throbs with unrest,
come divide me with your symmetry.

while i still produce a shadow,
while blood still floods the wound,
while we still have tomorrow,
paint the words to me in truth

am i bound to live my life with a craned neck?
stiff from that which i no longer possess?
scared of the sunrise, starving for the sunset?
i'll never know the presence of now
unless you teach me to forget.

i’ll be your girl for the night. i like throwing myself into the careless, wandering hands of degenerates every once in a while. you’re throwing up in your hat in the back of a gypsy cab. the driver keeps stopping every 30 feet. he’s sweet about it, passing you napkins. i’m trying hard not to laugh but it’s sneaking out through the gapped fingers over my mouth. it’s 4:30 and we’ve been both been drinking so much and know nothing of each other but we’re having fun and i can’t feel my feet or my brain or really anything. 30 something year old men leaning towards me behind pool tables while you’re in the bathroom. “can i kiss you?”  i don’t really know how to respond so i laugh out of nervousness and shrug and kinda pace around the table. “is that your man?” he says. the pool stick is so sticky, covered in beer and weird hand oils and god knows whatever else. i lean over the green felt, pretend to comprehend angles and geometry and try to elongate my body as best i can. girls and pool tables are all very ****** and what not.

i can’t stop laughing in the back of that cab and you can’t stop saying sorry

"oh, by the way- i didn't do it- but
the other day when i was doing dishes-"
(i heard his voice hollow out and bounce in an echo out of the kitchen sink)

my expression dropped immediately from the other room
"noooo" i cried "which one?"

he prefaced his answer by pacing a few pointless steps.
"i think it got crushed from all the other days worth on top of it or something- it was totally shattered at the bottom of the sink when i found it.."

"Which one?" i repeated..
( i already knew which had broke. )


"..the one you love."


"****. really?"
i laughed weakly out of disbelief.

"i'm sorry mack-poodle, swear it wasn't me.."
his voice trailed off.
my care quickly waned


"will it come back in 8 months?"
I said beneath my breath with a smile


he rounded his head around the door frame and smirked down at me
"afraid not."

“good morning” says no one as you smile your way out of sleep.
you’re the first to rise in your house.
you’ve always been the first to rise in any house.
with your routine glance outside you immediately resort to defeat.
the world has been primed in a hideous blend of grays and whites,
like the sun finally resolved to give up on revisiting new york for good.
you delicately trace the curvature of your neckline,
reminding yourself absently of ears and scalps
and how warm and strange you are to live.
you catch a glimpse of red cellophane on your floor.
but of course,
the drunken miracle purchase of the evening prior-
a cheap heart shaped box of chocolates.
it’s not february but you think you’re funny.
(somewhere in the back of your mind you relate nonchalant consumption
of russell stover chocolates to both a superiority of traditional love and
your general distaste for capitalist based holidays).
you eye all of the chocolates suspiciously as you lift the lid and pull the box onto your lap.
if only you could tell which one was caramel without having to eat all of the others.
you continually weigh your options until settling for a milk chocolatey looking one.
how much money did you spend last night?
rent’s in few days. you’re looking thin lately. you need to buy makeup remover.
what time is it?
you pull the wet half bitten chocolate from your mouth in disgust.
some strange pinkish orange cream is emerging from it,
which tastes like corn syrup and the inevitable death of our sugar freak youth.
god or the universe or some greater force suddenly tainted the grey clouds with a slight jaundiced haze.

yellow and gray.
it looked like someone rushed to finish a painting they already knew they hated.

a knife with a pearl handle rested warm against your thigh the whole night. an audible clink at 5 a.m ( from pocket to sheet to slippery tumble). after you left in the morning you reported it’s absence very nonchalantly- as if girls were always shaking their heads and searching for your violent misplaced possessions. it was there, under my bed, resting on top of the lukewarm radiator. i grabbed it calmly and turned it around in my fingers a few times. knives are something i don’t spend much time with. i grimaced and proceeded to change my sheets.

we out run the streetlights at dusk
clicking on overhead
raining urban-orange rays
with the dying day

hang a tight left down the alley
dodging car mirrors and hoses
orions belt preaches purity
hovering above the city
black winter skies
wind riled up
whipping cigarette butts
and plastic cups
leaves stain inky brown corpses
in the stairwell
quickly
please
my hands are gonna freeze
get your keys from your
used peacoat and
shoulder slam the front door
we burrow in the basement
kicking off shoes i collapse on the couch
warmth wine ****
in abundance
my slumping tired shoulders hear
your laughter from the kitchen
and long for you

come caress me gently.
you've waited so patiently
for me and my vials of venom
roaches are trickling in from the ceiling
and i might really love you

reading my palm in a gay bar, you come across a long convincing scratch i gave myself accidentally from an unsupervised kitchen knife- your finger glides over the ridges and you make the claim that it’s some deep scar- i say it’s a few days old and the disco lights are outlining all my friends in weird circular scattered patches and i sip my gin and hide my exhale under the bass.

warm wild wind, what are you trying to tell me?

you swim through the trees so recklessly

what is it you long to tell me?



sometimes a whisper sometimes a roar

your swell it serenely surrounds me

and nudges me home to a familiar front door

where i fumble in darkness for keys.



you haunt through my hair

rushing against my ears

and always reverse on a dime

destruction occasional

seasonally sensational

what is you keep on your mind?



and once in my room, you greet me soon

and dance life through two tired curtains

i sit down to talk

but you suddenly stop

your message left vague and uncertain



the stir you possess still silent as all,

i drown in a stagnant sea

of aimless air that sifts through the hall

with no ambition or reason to flee



warm wild wind
please visit again
for my heart begs a simple inquiry-
under what spell are we?
people pondering the breeze-

what is it that you're longing to tell me?

when the cafe closed
our hearts were broke
and we spilled out slow
crashing milk on a kitchen floor
desperate to expand in any direction
with no destination across black and white tile
our fingers fumbled anxiously
to patch all the leaks
but there were just too many
that the eye could not see
so naturally
the flood unleashed
and all of us
were swept to sea
all including  
you and me


we had begun to lose sight
of reasons for holding a lover close at night
my face feeling safe
in the nook of your neck
our bodies melting
as we slept
now both of us stand
with shrugging hands
when interrogation
comes bursting into our brains
and throws its
coat on the floor
yelling
for what did you do this?
for what was it all for?
and the days where we passed
on buses and bikes have been
all used up
i can't plan a time or a date now
to see you stroll up ditmars
chalk full of confidence
with your hands like fireworks
bite marks and blood at your nails
don't you remember how easy that was?

when you'd come over and roll blunts on a magazine
and i'd never let you sit too close to me
but was always willing to flash enough thigh
just to keep you guessing
i was your goal,
and you were my friend
and everyone here knows
how a goal really ends
it's right back to being disappointed again

now i watch the back
of your black winter coat as you
turn down the moonlit alley
caught dead center
between your place and the cafe
where i hear the voices of our
friends still echo day to day with
green bottles in happy fists
guitars on backs
snow on the ground
light in their eyes
eveytime i walk by
there's cheers for your name
the neighbors are  gonna call the cops again
the yellow booth in the back
where we get snapped at for laughing
too loud too drunk on wine too proud
of  ourselves
and its fine
in retrospect
we were allowed
now the windows are bare
and a green light dimly lit
still sits on the brick glowing reasonlessly
a beacon in the dark for those of us looking

and i saw them remove the sign the other day
now i hear there's gonna be a new cafe
i'll have to stomach the mediocrity every time i go by
i'll have to learn to keep my head straight
and not turn to look down that drive
and we'll have to keep laughing
and we'll have to keep trying
though the ashes have scattered
ill keep the memory alive

subtle thump
i beg  you don't betray me
inside mathematic ribs
who rise and fall in timeless tides
like a stone
somebody skips

lay low
i ask
with whispers
anchor yourself to what you can!
don't search the streets
so desperately
for the grip
of any man

they try pointing us toward stillness
bribed with closure and composure
the long gone things i care to miss
could never come home sober
i was built to bleed and blush
with this heart i gently mask
of which beneath a simple touch
can bloom or
crush
or
crack

my cells forgive me thoughtlessly,
rebuild without a thank you
my science is kind
but the pendulum is
swinging
always in my mind

nostalgia creeps up my shoulders
with these seductive
pair of hands

dragging fingers across the cliff of my bent neck
swiping strands of hair
over collapsed vertebrae
its mouth comes in close and
hot
to my neck
teeth grazing my arteries
and this pair of hands
cups my eyes
and i sink relaxed
relieved of responsibility
freed of
right now

oh memory
yes i do hear you
always
in guitars

either my dad singing
and strumming me
to sleep

or in the boys who frequent my room
trying to keep nervous hands
busy