nobody
listen
to me
for a s
econd
You  a
re her
e with
me. T
akeon
e
breath
justone/
justtwo/
justthree
getting stingy
stay forever here with me
In thelights
The
crashing car
I swear I see
A shootingstar
It leads me now
to believe
Pavement is the enemy
Lukewarm god
Spat me out
So I lay still
There's stars to count
I love you gasoline
I want to soak
The flame in me
Spark enough
Just one blue spark
Then I could see you
In this dark

eyes flicker in and out of conciousness
I stare daggers into walls
dance around chanting some heroic theme song
insert ****** babble
for those of us
who feel too heavy
like invisible chains drag across our ankles
and we hold boulders on our shoulders
that no one else can see
a curse taken from the japanese
or chinese
memory isnt one of our strong points
With razor sharp tongues we see people
sliced up
infront of us
shattering every pathetic little meaning of their existence
no remorse
turn away when there is blood
slice it up, we all have cuts
and bruises and certain scars
Ill paint my filth across these halls
and tell you about what a ***** little ***** I've been
Ill get real messy
and laugh when you call me a *****
for those of us who forget to eat
or want to forget to eat
know that , that weight will never go away
it stays at the pit of your stomach
you will never implode
always be at the peak of something like
a ****** that never happens
For those of us who drink too much
and laugh at how that sounds
because it really  never is enough
we have a certain kind of grit
that never leaves our colon
stays stuck in our intestines
we have a certain kind of fire that burns
its way up our throats and into our eyes
we speak like broken glass

I clawed my demons in the face
gauged out their eyes with my bare hands
I painted victory blood on that ivory staircase
Did my little dance
And then we tasted the laughter of children
knowing we will never again know how that feels
but spend the rest of our lives wanting to
get that feeling back
stare at the helplessness
in your empty hands
these hands could hold
and hit
and cut and stab and mash and grab
they  can caress, though
we break
so
easily

Moon in eastern sky
And mist melds mountains with trees,
Lantern is sailing west.

When you live with someone who has Alzheimer’s
your house feels haunted

Mostly at night

Only ghosts wander like that

            So aimlessly

It is metal pounding in the garage
a knife in my hand
and the deep breathed fear of

         What’s behind door number 2

It is him halfway inside a dryer

             Trying to get out

I sleep with my door open
listen carefully like a ghost hunter
for the way he haunts the halls
for the soft pat of skin on tile collapse
fnd the moaning

I carry him to the bathroom

He is the heaviest ghost ever

              A different kind of dead weight

I light him a cigarette
The cherry glows red in the dark
The tobacco crackles with each puff

He calls me nurse
calls me some other name
one I’ve never heard before

He is just practicing

                  It is hard to be good at being so lost

Even now that I am a man
he still scares me
scares me differently

Startles me in the dark
comes around corners
crawls on the floor towards me

              I am not always ready for that

Before

He scared me
the way a feral dog scares living food
A certain kind of animal inside of him

Now he isn’t so wild

           Taming takes so much away

He is dark spots on tan paper
crusted blood on nose and head
yellow ET cigarette stained fingertips

                He is me in thirty years

He is barbiturate slack jaw
Forward lean balance struggle

And at night he is so much a ghost
I forget about his good days and wonder

               What’s the point?

My house is haunted
by a man who has never not gone
Bump in the night

Still
by
the trees

The shadow
skipping in the sun

what can I do
at the sight of you

breathe in your curse words
exhale smoke
your worlds rhyme with jokes
you talk me back down with thoughts of home
That feeling of "I never wanna be alone" go to sleep wake up die of old age
You dream less in sleep
More when awake

Dark streets where bad memories once followed me
Lanes covered by arms of old oak trees
Long walks cracked and gray
Where the shadows of our drunken feet
Walk away

Here is a moment of my life
In which I wish to stay the same
To keep bottled up for when you forget my name

-you stop and say
were just two humans
made to break away-

Off to the next ****
You broke my heart
Beneath the dark oaks

maybe
there are earthquakes
in my skin. maybe
they hollow themselves
into the arches of my feet
and maybe i walk on rocks,
crumbling and cracking
under my toes.

maybe
i taste in color,
maybe i hear in
visions, maybe god
built a temple in my mouth
so its roof would fill my tongue
with the perfect words
to say to you.

maybe
heaven is not
shining white, maybe
it is green, i want to see
a forest when i get there,
i could never go an eternity
without a good climbing tree
and the breeze that blows
through my heartache.

maybe
when i tell you
that skeletons are
gorgeous, that
these empty bones
tell stories i can feel,
maybe you'll tell me
that even the corpse
has its own beauty.

maybe
you'll teach me
how to fish for crimson,
how to cast off my years
and be glad to the brink
of fear. maybe you'll teach me
what the Earth felt like
in 1836, maybe it was
a mystery, one not even
you could ever feel
working through your chest.

maybe
this familiar ache
inside my eardrums
is only my spirit
learning how to
listen
to the dawn.