Sometimes I cry
when I think of him
unbuttoning those
orange shorts
that make your
*** look so good.

Sometimes I sext
you and your girlfriends,
but let's blame that
one on the drink.

Sometimes I smoke
to celebrate one of
your many deaths
in my ****** collection
of unpublished
short stories.

Sometimes I hope
you'll apologize
to me for ruining
my name.

Sometimes I want
you to hold me against
the wall and push--
until your bony body
passes through me,
and I turn you to waste.

Sometimes I call
to ask what's off limits,
so I know where to
set my goals.

Sometimes I buy
that cheap red wine
you loved so much,
and drink it all
in a night -- just
to watch it go empty.

Sometimes I curl up to
that lumpy, stained,
blue pillow, and
pretend it's you.

Sometimes I dream
of raising a family
in a small house
near Pacific Beach.

Sometimes I nearly
smother myself
with that blue pillow.

There is a state of existence,
                                                 where a person is neither A nor B
he's inbetween--
he's the addition, the subtraction, the shove and retraction,
                                                 I've spent my life "+"ing and "-"ing
building empires of handshakes,
floating from bar to bar with drinking pals,
crowbarring ice off queens of black venom,
                                                 I'm the distortion in the middle, but I can't see the end--
I never promised answers,
but the soft hands, the wet eye'd, and the widows
cry out for closure,
                                                 I get edgy and the "+"ing turns to "x"ing
Instead of answers--
I take the As and Bs,
I inhale their the white-knuckle moments,
I simmer in their fading passion,
I glide through their dying beds,
Instead of clear answers--
                                                A x B x A x B x A x B x A x B
=

(unfamiliarperfume, missingherwedding, socialnetworkwindowshopping, backroom, thestoplight, theschoolzone, dirtylaundry, rejectedphonecalls, hisgirlfriend, herboyfriend, hisboyfriend, hergirlfriend, otherwives, otherhusbands, blackout, clenchedfist, animmatureandirresponsibleflirtationwithaddiction, howlingatthemoon, gettingoffonthepast, leaveherinthenursinghome, makingthewake, mowingthegrass, droppingthebouquet, tooold, tooyoung, toolate, toosoon, toosweet, toocruel, toofat, toothin, toonosy, toodistant, toobad)
---------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­----------------------
                                          ­                            Best Laid Plans              

And in the grey of early morning,
they look at the equation,
they look at the proposed solution,
and inevitably the As and the Bs
say to me,
"Now, simplify it."


I get edgy
I get edgy
I get edgy.

i rope in your lungs
with my fingers,
there is a space
between your bones
and i want to fill it,
pouring in the lines
they told me
before they left me,
one by one,
leaving you
to carry me home

your fingertips,
they are riverbeds --
they are waiting
for the moment
when i can grow gills
and swim with the words
that crowd inside your chest
when you can't find
the right ones
to say

there are stars
tattooed onto the underside
of your stomach, there are
tiny planets swimming
in your blood stream
that i wish i could
dance my fingers through
just to remind you
that there are heavens
stirring in your heart,

this heart,
it chokes with shadow
some nights, but there is
a beacon shining in your bed
that i can't wait to discover,
submerged in the wreckage
our bodies left behind

and someday,
let me stir clouds
into your eardrums
let me breathe life
into the caverns
you've forgotten existed
let me fill your skull
with salmon finding
their way upstream,

you found your way
through the stream
that flows in my wrists,
you kissed the reeds
growing in my blood cells,
and one night, you held
my jaw together
as the sickness threatened
to break through it --
you always knew

how to unlock
the fastenings
in my vertebrae,
the ones who beg
to pull me down.

if somehow
the darkness
in my throat
began to spread,
i know
you would be the first one
pleading
to be dragged
along
with it.

music through my veins
polyrhythmic synapses
firing in 3/2 timing
stuttering triplet rolls
around my thoughts
octave to octave change
quicknowdoubletime
overdrive of emotion
s l o w s  t o  h a l f  t i m e
q  u  a  r  t  e  r   t  i  m  e
e   i   g   h   t   h    t   i   m   e
stop these shaking hands
this staccato heart
a note from the end
a measure too soon
a crescendo to nothing

discordant - anti-climatic.

was the song to my life ever on beat?