We are students in a beginner's art class you and I
We are both staring at the same bowl of fruit
Aren't we using different brushes
Love, we are using different paints
Yes, we will fall in love
In the possible futures we see in each other
We will leave this class holding hands
Carrying different paintings of the same fruit
We will wake from naps on the same couch
Remembering different dreams
Make dinner arrangements
Whisper different forevers to our friends behind
I-think-she's-the-ones
I-think-he's-the-ones
We will say it loudly
We will be proud of our luck to have found each other
We will be so certain in the inevitability of us that we will tie blindfolds around each other's eyes
Take ten paces
Say, I love you
And with complete confidence in the future our love is bringing
We will walk towards each other
Ten steps
Twenty steps
Thirty steps
Reach out
Take each other's hands
Remove our blindfolds
Color us confused
To find ourselves in the arms of others
Color ourselves surprised
To be smiling

From atop Chehalem Mountain I heard it for the first time
Like a violin on a death bed
Firetrucks at midnight
Sirens to a sailor

The sunset, it rose that day
Purple fire across the tree tops
Music notes bouncing off of falling leaves
Crickets playing violas
The bats came out - a choir of sonar in the sunlight -
A song meant to welcome the dark
Played in the parting fog of dawn
Morning dew just the right squeak under my shoes
A wailing woman whispering hello to...
...something it feels I should recall
I danced
To the coming of whatever it was she was praying for
I danced
The notes rang from under the trees
And I watched it
Climb from out of the valley
Past my childhood
Swimming through remnants of first dates
First stick shifts
Second tears
Thinking swings
I watched it crawl through the memories of everything I have ever known
This beast
This past
This regret a mosquito to the flame of this song
This
This song
This
This music
This royal procession
This woman
Compelling me to dance to a lullaby I know all the words to
I...I just can't remember how it goes

From atop this mountain I look down upon everything I have been
Every path I have taken
And none of it makes sense
I am lost in the maze of the directions I have chosen
Changed by every mistake I have made
The woman singing a song of past in the air
The notes of this song so random
Every memory changing the song
Each song meant to move me shot arrow straight
Every missed note sending me typewriter reset sideways
The melody a scared cat on a keyboard
Equal parts haunting and nostalgic
The tune a childhood toy running low on batteries
And after all the moves had been sung
And all the lyrics danced
I stumbled down the hill
Blackberry bushes tearing at my shins
I opened my arms to receive the beast of past the woman called up from the valley
It swallowed me whole
And I wept silent tears onto two week old deer tracks in her throat
Falling leaves just falling leaves after the monster had her fill of me
The purple flames of sunset now an overcast autumn day
We have no crickets here just sounds we heard once in a book
The squeak still under my shoe
Just a squeak
Only a squeak and the occasional snap of a stick
As I climbed back to my car
The music had stopped
I was right where I started
Nothing around me looked familiar
Everything around me was exactly where I left it

Put it on my tab
I’m good for it
I always have been
I’ve never not been
They never ask
Always leave it open
No ID needed
Never a regular
But always there
They only ever ask what it will be today
I always pick the red head
I tell them IPA tonight
They pour a drink that looks so much like a dream I’ve had before
She sings Robin Thicke
Her dress stays on
Our wrists are bare
Her skin a good whiskey
Her lips a granny smith
My eyes transfixed on her neck

These dreams never last
The drink fades too quickly
I don’t have the liver to keep her around
I don’t have the heart to let her go

I've become acutely aware of the gravity in the fact that all I said to her was that I don't want to be the one who starts all of our conversations anymore
And that since then we have had no conversations.  
I don't think I will be rid of the haunting that this is my fault until I am haunted with the fact that it may be hers
In so making her not the woman I wanted for
Nor the woman I was all too eager to give myself for
Thirdly making me that man who opened his rib cage exposing his heart for her taking
Only to collect dust, rain drops, and those twisty helicopter things that fall from trees in the autumn
All from being left open so long on a very windy day when she saw what my heart was stretching to offer her and chose to leave it there
Couldn't I once be the one worth taking
Or at least notice when she's not the one worth opening up for.

There are days I wish God hadn’t built me with a zipper for a sternum
You know I don’t always mean to show them everything
It’s just sometimes I forget to zip it back up after I take it on walks to the liquor cabinet
My heart is a bow-tie drinking Manhattans at the center table with a chair full of friends and a twinkle in his eye
My tongue is a rolled up cuff drinking whatever’s on special at the end of the bar confusing, “I’ll have another” with proper conversation
My mind has an unplugged mini fridge in the corner with two luke-warm ciders waiting for a chance to celebrate...remembering to brush my teeth
Depression is a funny sort that way, it’s all her fault, right up until you remember how hard it is to brush your teeth everyday
At which point it’s either your own fault, or we’ll try again tomorrow.

Knowing is not half the battle when the battle is not being waged in your head
Knowing it is all going wrong is just another reason to never put on the helmet and see what the battle may bring
Seeing what right looks like on Pintrest is not motivation to check my zippers
It is the battle cry my stomach gives my lungs after lunch
It is the battle cry the fists of my mind give my heart when we are alone
It is a crop duster driven by the Morton’s Salt Girl, who never misses the open wounds of my torn innards strewn about an open field after losing the battle for the day.
I am a slug on your porch and I shrink with every grain
And you will never hear me scream
It’s just so tiring to tell someone you hurt and have no blood to prove it.

I do not much dream for stars or skinny girls anymore
I am afraid of what their sharp edges will do to my fingertips
I’m just looking for something I can hold on to
Someone who will remind me that I have a place here
If that place is only to take up oxygen
Sometimes I let my dreams get away from themselves and I dream of great magical things:
Like being loved back
Feeling important
Sleeping peacefully

On occasions I even see myself at work opening a love note in my lunchbox from someone who felt compelled to take the time to tell me they love me
It always swells my heart
Makes me want to be a better person
To get out of bed
Run a marathon
Sing an opera
Lift a weight
Sky dive
Read a book
High five a stranger
Take a dancing class
But then I wake up and look across my room at just how far away the light switch is and decide I must be afraid of the dark
Since I never remember to turn off the light before lying down and I never have the strength to get back up

I dream most of all of having someone to tell me the things I need to hear
To give me a purpose
A vision
A reason to live
To stop letting me find better excuses
To yell in my ear or write me a note that says,
“You are worth it, every minute, every cent, every effort.  You are worth it, because you will become a great man and because I love you, and because you are destined to change my world, and because your son needs you, and because you are brilliant, and because the world needs your words, because I need your words”

But the only notes I get are the ones I put into my own lunchbox as a reminder come noon-time
That even if for no other reason than because I said so,
I am worth it

Broken hearts
Reaching for something to catch their fall
Grasping dead Autumn leaves
Weaving them into combustible parachutes
Begging for a breeze
Longing to take flight
To land somewhere that no one knows their mother
Walk into a produce aisle
Grab a cucumber
Find a wife
Start mending the broken pieces of heart valve littering their lungs
To tell the story, catch their breath
And while no one who pushed them off of that tree would recognize the facts
For once to be completely honest
For once to have nothing to hide

Blistered toes
Bleeding for a river to float them along
Eyelids orange from a mid-day sun
A back of leeches for a raft
Dreaming for a waterfall
Longing to take flight
Scars from smiles passed whispering in their ears, "Momma always said that pain is a long way from your heart son, you'll be alright"
Evaporate with the rest of this fish house in June
Catch a Kansas lightning storm
Meet a genie
Make a wish
Burn that ******* house down
Envy is only green if the cuts get infected
For once to sing a song of a home land lived
For once to be home

Fingerprintless fingertips
Stretching for new strings
Tied the horse to the stake
Plucked the worn neck of what's left of the steel guitar
Laced those boots with sad eyes closed
Spun yarn
Knotted a noose
Longing to take flight
Somewhere no one will find him
Without a friend to kick the chair
Get down
Find cardboard
Stand the corner like grown men
Suffer through dreams
To once loose a string without a sound
To once: silence.

You tore out the clock I'd hung up inside of my wrist

Suddenly forever seems like somewhere I might go

I have blisters on my heels from walking so much further than I had prepared for

I need better shoes

I didn't plan on liking it here

There are days when tired eyes are not enough to wake the moon
There are nights that have chosen to stay
This Morning, This morning, is a good reason to believe in angels
Angels are, of course, a good reason to sleep
Love is an animal
Home is a distant shore your toes are buried in
Home is an accent that no one can hear
Sea shells around ear lobes bring dreams to ear drums
Fall

Fall

Slide

Scraped knees

Scars are chapter headers in a novel no one bought but everyone owns
Bodies are either the slowest way to heaven
Or the fastest way to hell
And regardless of the answer, elbows, are funny little things
Like toe knuckles
Like breakable hearts  
Life is a Red Flyer wagon full of little pieces broken heart
Duct Tape
Super glue
A broken high heel
The hilt of a wooden sword
The rind of six oranges
And the fingerprints of a very angry lady with too much weight on her toes
It bounces over the cracks in the sidewalks and across the train tracks
Life is waiting for everything to bounce just right
As it should
As it will
As it was going to anyway