compare me to the sun
compare me to the sea
tell me how i should act
tell me how i should be

the sun will still shine
the waves will still move
I will still be living
whether i win or lose

but your world is darkened
by the lack of sun
and forever it will stay that way
whether you've lost or won

so compare me to her heart
compare me to gold in her core
tell me how to love you
but I won't play that role anymore

It never ends

and we could never be friends

we know that ship has sailed

but our connection never prevailed

and i can’t use these eyes

to give anyone else a glance

cause you have me in this trance

all i see are fireworks and i just want to dance

—dance on all the rooftops, dance on all the streets

take me to a mountain, i wanna see the tops of the trees

you’ve got me higher in the sky than i have ever been before

and you can hide away but my hope is a light to bright i can’t hide anymore.

—let this begin.

let s take it in,

don’t mess with fate, don’t derail destiny you can’t rewrite what’s already been put down in ink

this wasn’t just a sketch, i know god put us to the test, but we know just what he intends on happening.

—I would step back from everything i’ve been chasing all my life,

i would make a different turn i don’t care if it’s wrong or right

if i had just some sparkle of hope that you’d be with me by my side,

cause nothing seems scary, nothing intimidates me when you’re here, but you are the king of disappearing.

-i can’t give up, you’re in my blood, you’re in my heart and soul.

I can’t give up, you’re in my blood, i have no self control.

i love you this morning
it's a come home safe morning
fog on the road
& no seatbelt kind of morning
the sun is over easy
& nothing's on fire
there's punctuation
where i don't want it
and extra love
in the glovebox of my car
been thinking about being honest
how these poems are all me
but they tell the story
how someone else
might believe it happened
within reasonable doubt
no copy & pasted love letters
no 'who ever says hello first gets my attention for the day'
try a little tenderness
in my ears and today
there are instruments
in the back of my head
i think you love me
because i'm sunburned
felt it in a 'come hell or high water' kinda way, that 'touched from far away' kinda way that 'if i touch this piano one more time one of us is going to break' kinda way
and i drove over 17 bridges yesterday and today i'll do it again
and i think nobody gets
what that means except maybe you
i just tell them i love the scenery
that somebody must've made
these trees blush just for me
you know how i love
to change the subject
i bet they'd love the view
i bet you would too
and all these metaphors
for other things are beside the point
this is a metaphor
for why i don't wear my seatbelt
a metaphor for why whiskey
knows me better than you
could ever try to
all the buildings seemed to sag yesterday and all the stars
are doing that cliche thing
where they talk
quiet jet noise
& some lumbering giant
made everything shake
not those hand metaphors
not another one of those
& keep the sea to yourself
i think it was a train
it's sound hugged the embankment
for a moment
and then trailed off into nowhere
and that's kind of like me
how there's a town called 'rescue'
close to my home &
it's no coincidence
that i've never been there

and i am eleven again
feeling like tomorrow
is a couple yesterday's ago
smothered in cayenne pepper
hot enough to take off taste buds
and tonight i am eating a meal
only worth burning
it tastes like my parents anniversary
it tastes like a zinfandel
left on the counter too long
it's a bad story, see
there's no silverware
'cause my mom sold it
to keep the lights on
and somewhere in heaven
somebody in a suit
doing commentary
on this fiasco
is telling someone else
in a suit that
"you have to eat love with your hands"
so we sit, four plates on the table
for the two of us
my brother's long gone
dad's even further away
& he's not the one who's buried
i carry both their names like anchors
that i cannot unmoor from
while she looks at the empty table
and says something about the news
she says something else
but she's not talking
we aren't proud of this, see
my dad likes to wax his car
he's proud of it
and my mom says
she sees a lot of him in my hands
says, i touch the things i find
like they didn't belong
to people sleeping in the ground
she says i touch photo albums
the same way-
you know,
i never used to believe
that history could repeat itself
not until i could
fast forward seventeen years
and still wake up to smoke alarms
how i would go into our kitchen
to find it empty
and the dinner smoldering
& my mother in her bedroom
looking through family photos
like it's a just another summer day
and the sirens are just the birds
i don't ask, i never say a word
in this moment
i am an archeologist
afraid to dig up the past
cause history repeats itself-
you see
my brother is dead
and my father is gone
they have been for some years now
and my mother
sometimes forgets
and sets their place at the table
like they're still here
and in the confusion
ends up ankle deep
in pictures of how it used to be
she let's dinner burn
and douses it in red pepper
hoping i won't know the difference

The spirals swirl
not one the same
for every finger
and every name.

Identity
in skin and lines
on appendages
that reach and pine
to belong
in a crowded world
where hands break
and fingers curl.

Deliver me
from this rusted space.
Take my soul,
leave not a trace.

Purgatory?
Heaven? Hell?
They're all the same.
Can't you tell?

The world will turn
even when we're gone.
The moon will rise
just as the sun.

Our fingerprints
will disappear.
Flesh and blood
crimson to clear,
just as this
the world will fade
from dust to dust,
the one fair trade.

Take not then
this life for death
take instead
my gentle breath.

Teach me then
to breath deep and long
to fill my lungs
and make them strong,
to brush my fingers
on another's tips
and learn to love
by touching lips;

for when I die
and lifeless lay
upon the ground,
no words to say,
at least then
I'll have lived a life.
I'd have learned to love
through pain and strife.