mama didn’t raise no quitter
but she sure as hell
raised a fool

i am a fool
for hope
for love
for you

and for this
bottle of *****
like drinking the whole
thing will actually help
and not just make me
puke my brains out
later

and i have so much
love to give
but mostly to those
that don’t know what
real and true
love is

and the chokehold
hope has on me
only tightens

but i have learned
to let it, lover
eating matches to
burn off the darkness
inside and leave only
love and light and hope
and you you you

1.0 i don’t remember what
i was wearing the day
i was sexually assaulted
and if small mercies exist,
sure that’s one of them?

i wish i didn’t remember
anything at all
like the smell of beer on
the two women’s breaths
or how it felt to
be forcefully trapped between
their bodies as they ground
down onto my 17 year old skin

not one other person
in that veritable sea of
drunk adults heard my
cries begging them to
stop, please stop
stop, i’m a minor
stop, you’re hurting me

and then to be called
a liar by the first person
i ever told
broke me even more
and i’ve got the scars
to prove it

like maybe if i
cut deep enough i
could scrape out what
left me feeling *****
and unclean and used up

2.
and the second person
i so foolishly told
sure that she of all people
would help me
called me a liar, too
though in a more drawn out way

“you’re being dramatic,
making this into something it’s not,
and you need to forgive them”

i sometimes wonder that
if i were still pretending to
be a girl
would people have believed me,
or would it have been worse?

would the ****** assault
have become less letters,
even though that “can’t
happen to men”?

3.
i don’t have answers
to those questions
but what i do know is how
murky the meaning of an
employer groping me while
neither of us is on the clock
truly is

to me, an action like that
like this grown man
old enough to be my father
groping my chest
falls into a gray area between
****** assault and ****** harassment

how dare he
violate me like that
with zero disregard for
my consent and ****** autonomy

and the irony of being called
a liar for being sexually assaulted
by the wife of the man
who sexually harassed me
years later is not lost on me
nor is it appreciated

adding yet more weight
to this trauma until me
knees buckle and my
fingers once again itch
for the blade

4.
i envy those of you that
have forgotten this trauma
of mine
and how easily you absolved
yourselves of any guilt for
looking into my flushed and
tear-stained face and
calling me a liar

i want to know how you
sleep at night
because i sure
as hell don’t

i want you as a lover
and isn’t that selfish of me?
here with all my unrequited love
i am still trying to choke down
like the ache of you
not being able to
love me back

and i don’t want nakedness
no skin on skin
aside from cupping the side of
your face in the palm
of my shaking hand

i want to feel your breath
remnants of coffee and cigarettes
a candle burned at both ends
watching the sun rise twice
in the same day

and i won’t try to hold your hand
run my fingers through your hair
kiss you with all the tenderness i have
or try to make you stay
but ******* i want to

there’s a certain poetry to
persistent heartache
don’t you agree, captain?

finding myself more afraid
of the dark than
flames creeping ever closer to
my skin from the torch
i still carry for you

maybe it makes me a fool
but i’d rather be had in
any capacity you can offer
than to abandon ship now

and i know the captain goes
down with the ship

but what is a captain
without his crew,
and what rank would i have
on my own?

still so many question
and no good answers
beyond mumbled apologies

finding myself pulled
between the ocean and the moon
but always ending up
back by your side

and what would
you call that, captain?
loyalty,
foolishness,
love?

maybe love is too tender
leaves no room for
empty bottles of *** and whiskey
lashing rain against blackened sails

there are bite marks in my
knuckles i know you won’t notice
and that’s okay, too
no need to complicate things

maybe we’ll just simplify it
down to saying that what
i crave is adventure
when what i really mean is
you

oh, captain of mine
what i really mean is
you

i can be gone when you wake
if you want me to be

it helps that you sleep in
choosing not to greet
the dawn twice

and i don’t know how
to ask if you still
want to see me
once the alcohol is gone

some things are easier to say
to do
when liquid courage sloshes
around in my belly

like forcing my tongue
to cooperate into the words
needed to lay
my heart on the table

trusting you to do with it
with my confession
with my affection
with me
what you will

and i want to bring you flowers
and other silly little things
that i hope you’ll keep
but i opt for other things
that can be shared
though made with you
in mind

and i wonder if this
will go anywhere
beyond sharing drinks
and so many words

and i wonder
if whatever we have
did go further
would either of us
be able to stand it?

i wonder if this is
what love feels like
your hand ****** in the collar
of my shirt

our faces so close
i could lean forward
and kiss you gently

or bite your lip
make you bleed
like i have bled

instead, i bite my tongue
tasting copper
but nothing i will regret
having said

like all these apologies
stagnating in my throat
maybe a broken plea
but i don’t know what for

i’d ask you
if i could find my voice
putting the pressure on you
to fix this

and that’s selfish, isn’t it?
wanting you to hold me
like one would a lover
without the other iterations
of that silly little word

but that’s all i have
ran out of ways to make my sorrow
sound poetic and palatable
long before this infatuation
blind-sided me so cruelly

and maybe right now
this is okay
your hands rough on my skin
but your voice so soft
when you look at me

i have ugly hands
chewed cuticles, bitten
down nails and blunted fingertips

still, she says that i do not
tells me that my hands are beautiful
the hands of an
artist/writer/painter

the hands of a lover

but until these broken and
scarred hands of mine
have explored every dip
and contour of her body

how can i be sure?

recklessness is something i
found myself excelling in
from a young age

maybe too young?
when did this stop being fun?
when did this body grow so old?

but self destruction loses its appeal
rather quickly
and the soul breaks sooner than the body

i believed in this destruction
treated it like a gospel
too many death wishes to count

and when i did try
faint white scars like tally marks
the sheer number made my head spin

i needed something else to
believe in
another thing to be reckless with

the metaphor of my heart was a start
so full of love and remembered light
practically bursting at the seams

this constant beating
pumping of warm blood to cold limbs
maybe you’ll hold me for a while, my love?

i believe in love
like a poet and a hopeless romantic
maybe the same, but who am i to argue semantics?

being reckless with my love and my heart
all this love to give
bidding farewell to destruction and disaster

every human needs something to believe in
a reason to keep going
and love
reckless and sweet and freely given love
seems like a good place to start

it’s your birthday,
and you’re dead

i still don’t know what
to do with that,
so i get up when my alarm
goes off and make coffee

there’s a hole in the heel
of one sock, in the toe of
another, and it’s a shock
when the cold wooden floor
hits my skin, still sleep-warm

and i could **** the socks,
though i’m only pretending to
know how, or simply throw them away,
but it feels like i wore those socks
the last time we breathed the
same air, yanno

i’m not looking for metaphors
or signs this time, injecting meaning
where there isn’t any

you’re not the bird at my
window, because i left some cashews
and walnuts on the sill

and that’s not really you,
standing on the corner as the
bus passed, but i thought that it
was for a split second and had to
stop myself from pulling the cord,
jumping off and calling a stranger
by your name

but i wore the same corduroy pants
and black vest with the gold swirls
as the same day we met, when i
no-showed that one time, and still
haven’t fully forgiven myself for it,
though i’d like to think that you would,
that you could

and it’s your birthday,
and you’re dead

and i keep meaning to bake you
a cake, and i’m sorry
that i haven’t yet

we know
how you sleep
curved spine and
empty arms

your feet and legs
so cold with nobody
there to rub them
up against

you sleep like a person
that has been very lonely
for a very long time

watching you brings tears
to the eyes
for you are not a person
that is used to
nor that likes
to sleep alone

but there are miles between
both of your beds that
neither of you are quite sure
how to fill

because phone calls and texts
do not fill the empty nights

they do not block out
the chill of sleeping alone
when the one that you so
desperately want to curl
your hollow bones

that cracked and twisted skeleton
of yours around
is as lonely and cold
as you are

my heart just so
happens to be a
muscle the size
of my fist

but my heart is
so much softer
than all this cartilage
and bone that i can
break against
so many different things

and i want to be soft
to be full of love and
light and the reason
that you smile

is that selfish of me?
i am still trying to answer
that question
but none of my answers
are agreeing with me

at least there is no
more guilt
curdling in my guts
along with the wanting
to kiss you

and i want you to
taste your name
on my tongue
make me bleed

with the force of
your mouth against mine
and i will thank you
with our blood
mingling on my chin

with my heart
fluttering against the
cage of my ribs
beating a soft rhythm
to the sound of your name

the blood in me loves you
and other sweet nothings
i can make real
simply by speaking them, lover

with your head in my lap
my hands in your long hair
and the night fraying at the
edges around us

giving way to dawn
for the second time
what a treat to watch it
become light once again
with you

and other sappy ****, too
because that’s what i’m good at
putting more poetry
and romance into whatever
it is we have

whatever it is
we had
than there ever could have been

and sometime it feels like
all that’s left between us is
an empty bottle of ***
two ***** shot glasses
and the shaking of my hands
the aching of my teeth

and what an ending that is,
lover

what an ending this is
giving back the time
i had tried to borrow
for us

i will sing of many things
as any good bard must do
bringing so much to life
with only the sound
of my voice

i could sing for you, too
softly, of a man with
daisies braided into
long hair and tucked behind ears

would you take these flowers
that i have picked
even if my hands shake
and their true meaning escapes me?

poor little bard,
i say to myself,
scrubbing tear tracks from pale cheeks
always singing of love
until his voice cracks and breaks
but never truly experiencing it

of course, there’s a certain
poetry in the persistence
of a wound such as this

though, metaphor be ******
it ******* hurts
but there’s no blood to sop up
nothing to bandage or splint

and at the end of the night
i am still left alone
something that feels like
your name on my tongue

and i want to tell you
so many things
like how beautiful you are
like how i’m sorry i let
this infatuation get so far
and grow so large

and i want you to know
that a bard with a broken heart
will yield no coin
but i’ll keep singing for you
anyway

because, my love
the least i can do
is immortalize you

if not in my arms
then through words that will
survive long after i have
returned to the ground
and isn’t that worth something?

the captain asks if you
think the moon misses him
as much as he misses the moon
and your stomach lurches
but not because of the crashing waves

must you be in competition with
something as great as la luna?
millions of miles away
when you are right here
the captain’s right hand man

is that really fair?
who would you ask
if not the captain
and the moon refuses to answer
while the sea only cries
out your name

there is something besides
the captain that is
begging you to return home

and you wonder if a
wolf loves the moon the
same way you could
love a man

torn between wanting that
coldness of the open ocean
on your skin
and craving the captain’s
mouth on your own

is that a selfish thing,
you want to ask,
willing and wanting to follow
the captain
your captain
across the oceans and the constellations?

so be it, then
you tell yourself
because you will remain
after the *** is gone
and the moon has fled
the night sky

you will remain
tethered to the captain
to your captain
and the promise he carries
of the open ocean
with the open sky above

i grew tired of haunting
the girl?
that i used to be

banging pots and pans
in the middle of the night
so many sleepless hours trying to
find a name for what
for how
i felt

this was one waiting game
i was not willing to wait out
perched at the end of
my little twin bed
watching a younger version
of myself toss and turn
sweating out the nightmares

that constant question of why
and how long would this last
keeping my dentist in business
with all those hairline stress fractures
in my clenched jaw
teeth splintered into something sharper

but never sharp enough
to gnaw through the
trapped and infected limb
that was feeling stuck
in a body that was not mine
and maybe never had been?

i waited for that little girl
to wake up in the body of
a young man

i waited for her to
open his eyes in the
dawn of a new day
and be coming home
into this body
into himself

and i am so glad i did

perhaps funnily enough
it is not the sea captain
that the bard has built a
home for his heart
inside of

of course
the captain holds so many
pieces of this heart already
tucked into pockets of
his tattered long-coat
and tangled in his hair

but the bard has so much
more to give
love manifested as a bouquet
of daisies held together by
a simple leather cord

****** shyly into the waiting
hands of a siren
bobbing up and down in the waves
hair red like the sunset
streaming out behind her

and this siren
her scent like something akin to home
all cinnamon and clove and sea water
cups the bards face in
her two hands

running gentle and webbed
fingers over week-old stubble
she murmurs,
“hello there, my sweet bard”

and the tug the bard feels
to dive into the swelling
waves of the ocean
has nothing to do with the
sirens beautiful, deadly song

nay, this tug has everything
to do with the love
and adoration in the sirens eyes

and how that makes
the bards tender and poetic
heart fill almost to bursting
with how much
he also loves her,
his lady of the ocean
and the waves

1..
we make plans to meet
for coffee, and i show up early,
not quite knowing who it is
that i’m looking for

i don’t recognize her,
when she walks in the door,
twelve years younger than my 27,
but she knows me right away

i don’t mention the leather jacket
over the large sweater, surely impractical
for the summer heat, but we both
know what she’s still hiding,
and will continue to do so
for the next three years

we both order something iced and
a little too sweet, and it worries me
when she refuses the blueberry scone i
get for us to share

this won’t end for another four years, and i
almost tell her about the therapist we go to,
that actually sees, listens, and helps, that would
have walked me to the restaurant if i had asked

but that’s not my place, and she isn’t ready
to hear that yet, so i smile and thank her
when she compliments the tattoos
on both of my arms

she knows i’m working to hide something, too,
doesn’t ask if i ever miss it, can tell i do,
when it’s darker than i know how to
handle on my own

i tell her i like the purple hair, and she
says the gray starting to pepper my sideburns
is something she thought she’d never see
when looking in the mirror

we hug when she has to leave,
i say i never hated her,
and she says she knows

2..
we make plans to meet
for coffee, and both show
up early this time

he is eleven years younger than
my 27, barely a month shy of
relearning how to live, and not
just as a boy

he wants to know how long
we’ve been on testosterone, when
we got top surgery, and excitedly points
out the adam’s apple that thickened vocal
cords produced when our voice dropped

i order us the same drinks again,
and feel no small amount of relief
when he accepts the blueberry scone,
even if he only eats half

there are things i want to ask,
that i know he won’t answer,
and reassurances i want to give that
will only sound like platitudes to the
me that is still a teenager

i walk him out,
this time around, and almost
ask if he’s taking the same bus
that i am

we hug again, and i hold
him a little bit longer,
knowing it’s needed at that
point in our life

he steps back to get a better look
at me, in my short-sleeved work shirt
and shorts to show off the tattoos on
both of my knees, asks,
“are you, are we, happy?”

grinning, crooked, chipped teeth and all,
i tell him, “we are. we’re happy”

he grins back, says, “good,”
and waves before turning to
walk away

watching him, i notice that we’re
wearing the same boots, and
realize that she was, too

i put on my cooking bandana,
the black and white one this time,
blue fabric gone soft and threadbare
from the cycle of wash/rinse/repeat,
and i make pasta

my hands do not shake,
using serrated knife to carve
chicken breast, maybe thigh,
into small chunks

tofu, broccoli, salt go into
a small *** together,
chicken in the oven,
water for spiral pasta boiling

i briefly wish for good crusty bread,
salad greens, maybe a bottle of
cheap, sweet wine, split by two

this love language with nowhere
else to go, no one readily available
to nourish, and i resent, fleetingly,
the day or two of leftovers

belly full of good pasta,
lump in my throat,
loneliness like a promise,
like an old friend

and i do not cry into the sink
full of ***** dishes, hot soapy water
and the music turned up real loud

i don’t cry into the sink
full of ***** dishes,
i don’t
i don’t
i don’t

bardling, a noun

I. to describe an inexperienced
and thus usually
inferior poet

II. more lover than fighter
preferring a broken heart
over ****** knuckles
but, don’t both burn
just the same?

III. and i can’t carry a tune
hands too unsteady to hold
an instrument with any
kind of confidence
but i could hold you
if only you’d let me

IV. though, what kind of
bard can i really be
if i don’t believe in
the concept of being in love
and the novelty of soulmates
continues to escape me?

V. not your bard
or bardling, rather
though, i could be
if only you’d ask
but it’s selfish of me
to want that, i know

VI. so, my love
and my captain
and my dear, dear friend
i’ll don bright clothes
and remake myself in
to a fool instead

VII. lay down some of this
melancholy at your feet
trying out glass half-empty
in all manners of love

VIII. and maybe i’ll learn how to
carry a tune without
my voice cracking

IX. a way to trick my hands into
no longer shaking
when i hold that instrument close
and coax such pretty sounds from
the strings

X. and, if i’d rather hold you
in place of all those strings
and stained wood
well, no one needs to know

there is no drowned sailor
here, captain
just a bard steeping his sorrows
in wine
***,
and beer

and the poetics of heartbreak
can only seem appealing for so long

like a sea captain who does not
know how to be loved
and a foolish bard who does not
know how to stop loving

the bard drinks,
wondering if he is an anchor
and if he is
of what nature

are his hands on the broad
shoulders of the sea captain
a welcomed sort of grounding,
or like being held back?

the ocean always returns
to the sandy shore
in one way or another

and in this way
the bard is like the sea
a constant current

love as stream of consciousness
and whispered into the
hollow of the captains neck
something like a litany, maybe
always too much something or other
to really be a prayer

besides, the bard is not a devout man
only believes in what he can touch
like a battered flask,
the captains long and wind-swept hair,

or the frayed cuff of a long-coat
draped over the bards shoulders
on the coldest of nights

(and, well, if that long-coat
belongs to the captain
then it’s nobody’s business
but theirs)

what poet
and furthermore what bard
worth his salt
isn’t at least
a little bit in love
with his muse?

seems a common affliction
for an artist
a love compounded by inks
and thread and a voice thickened
by tears left un-shed

there is nothing to cry about
though, beyond all the silly ways
i’ve found to break my own heart

wishing i could put the blame
on you but knowing this
metaphorical blood is solely
on my own two shaking hands

and maybe that’s my lot
in this life, at least
sleepless nights on my own
yearning to rest my head on
your shoulder and knowing
that you’ll let me every time

and maybe i wrote you
with softer edges
and a smile just for me
and i broke my own
silly little bardling heart
wide open with no help
from anyone at all

because, my love, while
the truth of the matter is
that i love you
have loved you
as a poet and a bard
to his muse

there has always been
so much more than
these words i put down on
paper, knowing you
will never read them
and i will never offer
to speak them aloud
again

for you never were my love
though, it is bold of
me to call you so
and not just from an artistic
standpoint either
but out of a misguided hope

or something just as silly
like a poet and a bard
falling in love with his muse
and mistaking it for
the real thing

i remember what it
felt like to be
called a liar
that first, and then
second, time

i remember what it
felt like to be 17
and trapped between the
drunken, sweaty bodies
of two older women while
i begged them to stop

i remember what it
felt like to call for help
plead with them that i
was a minor and to
stop touching me
please, stop touching me

i remember what it
felt like to be told
i was making what wasn’t
even my first ****** assault
into something it was not

that i was being dramatic
that i needed to forgive these
two adult women that had
touched me without my permission
without my consent

and i know what it feels like
to ask for help
beg and plead to be heard
and to be so staunchly ignored

having those i thought
i was safe with and around
deny my traumas again
and again

and i couldn’t even let
my ex partner touch me
in so many places
because even thinking
about their gentle hands
being there made my skin
crawl and my eyes water
out of fear

and i know what it feels like
to have my fingers itch
for the blade
exchanging one hurt for another
because, at least,
that’s a bloodshed i can control

and i am so ******* tired
of feeling used up
like part of me is tainted
like something was taken
ragged edges that can’t
be forced back together

and i am begging you
take a tooth
take an eye
just give it back

my ****** autonomy
my safety
my consent

my right to say no and
be listened to, *******

(and i wonder
if i had still been pretending to
be a woman at 17
would i have been listened to?

would that ****** assault
have been less words
and involved so much more
would i be believed?

but, a man can’t be
sexually assaulted, right?
i must have enjoyed it, right?
having two women i thought
i was safe with and around
grinding themselves onto
either side of my body
that was still that of a minor?

i must have wanted it, right?
right?

and the blade in my hand
can only tell me one thing,
that i am still screaming

no, please no
please, you’re hurting me

please stop
please stop
please stop)

heartbreak is one hell
of a muse
and the bard wonders
if the captain
if his captain
is aware of this

that the bard could have
a muse before the captain
is nothing to scoff at

because, really, what kind
of poet would he be
if heartbreak weren’t his
first love?

and there really is a certain
poetry in taking the thing that
plagues you into shaking hands
and forcing it into a shape
that suits you better

maybe the shape of that
heartbreak is you, captain

maybe the shape of that
heartbreak
is you

came by it honestly, all right
drinking through long nights,
dinner at 2am in my boxers,
a beer and a shot and a beer and

and i started drinking when
i was 18, okay

used to be able to put it away,
accidentally became a regular at the
bar across from campus,
followed by going to walgreens and
not looking the cashier in the eye
as i bought $30 of barefoot bubbly
wine with what i got back from fafsa

never drank what my old man did,
though, if that counts for anything,
just the thought of old crow
grog with a splash of lukewarm tap
water, no ice, makes my stomach turn

couldn’t tell you the color of
my father’s eyes, but i sure as
hell remember what he drank

remember the palm of his hand,
hitting the table, making me jump,
squeezing my upper arms as an
anchor point to lean over me and
yell, always where the bruises
wouldn’t show

and i don’t think of my father
when i drink anymore, though i
still remember the last father’s day
i got really drunk and really angry,
but still not enough to call

and i don’t drink much now,
found i don’t like being drunk,
and like being hungover even less,
but i sure came by it honestly,
nevertheless

and i wonder if he would recognize me
now, close to a decade on,
or would i just be a stranger with
his face, like he’s a stranger
with mine?

am i a young boy
or a young man?
the only answer that
i have is i am alone
and i am afraid

night is closing in
i want my mother
i want my father
but does my father want me?

another answer i don’t have
cold seeping into my bones
feeling both too small and
too big for my skin

my wrists and hands look like his
the lights are on
but the house burnt
down long ago

and i sit at a table
made from charred and twisted wood
waiting for my father
to eat with me
to even look at me

but he never shows
because of course he doesn’t
and i sit at that table
until i am a young boy again
waiting for my father to
carry me to bed and tuck me in

and still he is not there
just me and empty plates
full of rotting food
and all these broken promises

the broken heart of a young boy
still beats within my chest
wondering what i did wrong
when it never was me at all
just a selfish man
that never should have been a parent

and i stop waiting then
packing that particular wound
with cotton and whispered apologies
promising to never let it happen again

and my knees creak
when i stand
fitting my skin like i should
an old heart in a young body

and the lights are on
but the house burnt
down long ago

and and and
i tell the remains of this house
that never was my home
that i’m just stepping out
for a smoke

with no intention
of ever going back

i could chew through the
paw that is caught in
the steel jaws of a
hunter’s trap

but the barbed wire fence
i tried to slink through
has already gored me

and if you’ll just give me
a few more minutes,
wait out on the porch with
your bouquet of daisies,
wilting in the summer heat,
i can get the blood off
these nice wooden floors

the scream that rips from my
throat is choked off by the
biting wire wrapped around
my bloodied muzzle

i’ll crawl on my belly to
your doorstep, knowing that
you’ve left the porch light on
just for me, spilling soft yellow
onto the mangled wreck
of my small body

and we can drive down to
the coast this summer, for real
this time, i’ll even take off work,
and you can put your hand on
my knee like you used to

i don’t quite know when i
gave into that soft animal
beating of my heart, but
i’m trying to make my way
back to you

my claws scrabble against the
hard-packed dirt, and the barbed
wire only squeezes tighter,
unspools intestines that steam
in the cool night air
tongue lolling as much as it can,
breaths coming fast and painful,
i think of your hands on my face,
carding through my soft fur

and do you think they’ll pick the
daisies and forget me nots that
grow under where my thrashing body
stilled, watered by my red, red blood?

or will i still be poison to some,
like i was when there was still
breath in my lungs?

it’s always funny
the things that you
end up remembering
about someone

like that he used
irish spring soap
except, no he didn’t
i used irish spring

and so does my grandfather
which i know because
he’s the one that gave
me the soap when mine
ran out

i know where that soap is
upstairs in a cabinet
lined up at least three across
and four deep

went looking for the hair-dryer
so i could more quickly finish
coating a used canvas in alternating
layers of black and white paint
and got lost in the smell
of irish spring soap

and that made me think of
my father for some inexplicable reason
he never used irish spring soap
but he did use flower scented perfume
and those scents are arguably close

and i wondered if i was looking
for something in that cupboard
that it couldn’t offer me

and i wore these two
beat-to-**** leather jackets
that my father gave me
from middle school to high school
along with a sweater that
clung to how he smelled
even after i’d washed it

i got rid of those two jackets
and the sweater
earlier this year
realized that looking at them
only made me sad
and maybe also a little angry

i kept that pocketknife
he gave me, though
and a stuffed bunny rabbit
and i wonder why

there is a practicality
in keeping the pocketknife
and maybe a certain kind of
sentimentality in the bunny

but who am i to say, really
why i kept these two things
and not the leather jackets
and sweater

maybe i am looking for something
that none of these objects can
offer me

maybe they remind me
of my father
in that he has nothing to offer me

and even if he did
i wouldn’t pick up the phone

i’d like to see you
each and every morning
sitting across from me at
our little table in
an even smaller breakfast nook

nevermind the holes in the knees
of my well-worn pajama pants
or the sleep still on your breath
i’d kiss you just the same

and i want you to be
what i see after
downing half my coffee in one go
and my glasses un-fog after
setting the mug back down
on the tablecloth we picked together

it’s small and simple
maybe even silly
domestic happenings like this
that i want with you

like sharing a bed for
the first time
and letting my foot wander
hoping to find you across
the ocean of mattress
and mountain of blankets

like how your hand
fits so well in mine
and i am not afraid
to hold you this close
this publically

you make me brave
letting this anger out of necessity
become less potent
and easier to leave behind me

you make me feel so many things
and all these things feel so new
with nothing behind them
save for your love and affection
and i want to give you
these things, too
hoping you know just how much
my heart swells
when only thinking about you

i want this
i want us
i want you
you you you

stinging and salty spray
off the bow of a weather beaten ship
let alone the freezing shock
of ocean waves
has not touched my skin
in six long years

and i am ready, my love
thick ropes of scars
begging to be touched by
the cold of the open ocean

i wonder if all that
clear blue water
hiding so much below the tide
has missed me, too

i am a parched man
laying in the middle of the desert
thinking of her lips on mine
my face in her neck
her sharp sharks teeth leaving
pin-****** in my shoulder blades

and i know i have not loved
a man, nor a woman
like i have loved the sea
knowing that great uncaged
beast runs through my veins
always welcome and wanting

my love, never meant to be tamed
fills a void in me
right below my rib cage
packed with salty kelp and sand
if the infection doesn’t **** me
then the longing surely will

for the sea
she knows what i desire
and it sounds something
like please

something like home
something like you
something like you you you

on a cliff by the sea
there is a cottage
with a lighthouse rising up
behind the slightly slanted roof

though isolated, there is
no loneliness here
only the howling wind
and rolling grassy hills
dotted with daisies,
dandelions, and clovers

a bard resides there
that loved a sea captain
to the point of becoming
a beacon,
always more welcome than warning

and isn’t that a beautiful thing,
loving someone to the point
of creation?

after all, every living thing
needs some kind of constant

like a weather-beaten ship,
coffee always warm on the stove,

or a bard, tirelessly keeping
a light burning
in order to guide his
sea captain home

man cast in the role of
former neglected shelter dog
that just wants to exist
in the same space that you do,
lean into the soft palm
of your hand when you
cup his cheek

man cast in the role of
darling bardling, dressed
in bright colors, lute in hand,
plays until his fingers bleed
and bows with the strings
stained red, again and again

man cast in the role of
cowboy, once an outlaw,
now just wants a rocking chair
on a front porch next to yours,
twists forget me nots into
your flowing hair, and his ***
knee hurts when it rains, but
that’s okay

man cast in the roll of
pirate, married to the swell
of ocean waves against the
sides of a weather-beaten ship,
*** in his flask and sea salt
wound into long beard and longer hair,
jolly roger flapping proudly in the wind

man cast in the role of
court jester, lover, clown,
once a fool always a fool,
for the *** and the ***** and that
cheap beer that makes him think
of you

won’t ask what you two are
when your hands brush just so,
but will smile to himself and take
a pull from the bottle in the
same place your lips once touched