Some boys you look at-
you begin to see
fatherhood etching it's age
against their shoulder blades-
creating lines between their brows
some boys you look at
will die young
of mere stupidity.

I stood tall on the shoulders of a ladder
lost in the fibers of dust that sprinkled across my face as I shook a thick feathered brush against walls when a young man whom I had seen a few times before looked me up and down and hollered, "movin' on up in the world, are yah?"

chucking my head upwards and back, I had laughed at his joke, saying to him through short breaths, "you with the corny lines."

still shaking with laughter, I felt my legs give beneath me and the thus the shoulder of the ladder beneath it, began to quake, before I knew any better, I had fallen  down to him, my body splintered beneath my wooden pedestal.

get me happy
and I'll start saying
a lotta-bit-uh-things


get me happy
like drunk,
and I'll tell you
everything
I
typically
wouldn't
say

what are you waiting for.
      he used to say to me,
a silly song that used to numb the very *tip of my ears-
           a silly song that used to make the very tip of my tongue dance-
the stretch up his neck, the range of his chest, the span of his lips-
           and he'd swear that he'd love me never  using the word forever
because he said that there was no need,
                      his love was indefinite
and now I'm asking him what he's waiting for and he's telling me
       something better
and I'm wishing that I could travel back a few months younger
                    so that I could tell him:
*everything