i was a poet before
i was a painter
and there's
something about
the way your
gaze is given
that makes
me unsure

if i could grow a forest
kessler, would you meet me there?

it smelled like fruit at
the train station this morning
maybe it was the mother -
infant draped, arms
over her shoulder
soft and smiling

it could've been the man
holding flowers
white knuckled
hungrily consuming the tile
with black patented
like the ants I see
carrying off
other ants

or maybe it’s that three years later
summer still feels
like orange peels
baking in a hot
train station
and I’m still there
weighing out how
it feels to be human

if love is a debt
i don't ever want to owe again

"you don't have shoes on"
poetic lush and the
fires i've always wanted to start
heels dug into asphalt
that's been cracked
by the trees in my
trash filled front
page
front yard
where I yelled
at you in
drunken rage
i wasn't all that
wasted but
my frontal lobe
gave out of me before
it could really let go
of all the
toxic treated
brain stuff
keeping you
at arms length
from me
throat painted
with a dagger and
i'm starting to see
that it's for a reason

"you don't have shoes on"
and i'm trying to be better
and i love you


please don't go

bipolar is
collecting
ten baskets of
fruit
and the next day
realizing that it
was never
quite ripe

grey tiled
waffle house in
Atlanta, Georgia
I'm about
ten coffee stirrers
apart from you and
my face burns
for the third hour awake
and the mundane
act of loving you.