They are the kind of raindrops that hang around for awhile
The ones that laugh at your coat
Get your shirt wet anyway
The kind that if it weren't so **** cold outside
You'd really like to stand under them for a while
The kind they make those slow-motion-water-drop-hitting-water videos out of
Those
And all I'm doing with them is watching
Watching them fall on windows
Watching them tear apart the littered receipts on the sidewalk
I'm watching them tear leaves from cherry trees
And wondering if they listen to Beethoven or Slipknot on their way down
Portland is always so far away until it rains
Then even here in this farm town
Everyone finds their North Face
And these raindrops remind me of something
Not our first kiss though
Or the tears
Or the leaky faucet
Or the day we did nothing but watch the Discovery Channel
It just makes me think of you
And how I never knew if you were there to water me
Or tear me apart
How I never knew if it was a Rascal Flatts day
Or an Evanescence day
How I never knew if my hand on your cheek would be a turn on
Or a trigger
How bad days had ringtones
And good days were just waiting for the call
These raindrops remind me how close I am
To the only city I've ever loved in
How far I am from ever getting over you
And how incredibly jealous I am
That moving on seems to be easy for someone who does it so often
I can't let go of the damage you've done
Even though it's clear now watching the rain
That you were just falling
And I was just in your way

You never see the rabbit hole before you fall in
She just shows up
Blonde haired and in the way
And somehow that very urgent, very important...
...
...thing you had going on
Is all so suddenly not blonde and very very much in the way
But the certain mghmhm inside of you insists you whiskey up and go handle your business
While the mhmm inside of you makes you look back
Just in time to see her doing what all the good blonde girls do in all the great black and white movies
Kiss the crap out of some guy you can't stand
And while we all think we could pull off a fedora
Truth is we're all just one injection of testosterone away from ******* the whole thing up
Letting it slip through our fingertips
Then where does that leave you?
At the track placing bets on Four-for-the-winter's-socks like he's finally going to pay off
Or at the bar with the touchy hair dresser who smells like cat ****
Back in your office
Feet on the desk
Cuffs off
Four AM
Watching green lights turn red like it's the fourth of July
Then again
If that dame's worth her weight in the dead baby seals it took to make the paint that's got her lips so red
She'll be there
Knock knocking
With a pocket watch hung round her neck so low you'll forget it's tick ticking
And you're late silly rabbit
Tricks are for kids
Unless of course they're wearing red dresses
But this one's not like that
No
She's got a story to tell
A sucker to make out of you
And since neither they nor I could care less about what she's saying
And you're too busy practicing different ways to say yes to that dress
Let's skip to the part where you're taking a bullet in the *** in an alley behind a speak-easy on a cold damp Friday night
Where the fog from the steam vents conveniently cover the shooters face
The part where the guy twice your size is between you and what she wanted...I mean the truth
Where you wake up tied to a chair being interrogated by a man in a white suit and gold **** cane.
The part with you questioning your morality
Where she had it
Then she didn't
Claus did
But he really didn't that was a fake
Where it must have been the big guy two timing his boss
Or the guy she was kissing, but, no, he died
And come to find out it was the little person handing out papers on the street corner where you first saw her and they were in cahoots the whole time
And that's when you realize you're not Johnny Depp
And the Mad Hatter doesn't get the girl at the end of the movie anyways
So what the **** are you doing here
Eat the cake, get big, and go the **** home
Let that high heeled ***** walk her sweet *** down the yellow brick road alone in the rain

...And in the final throws of love we will find ourselves within each other...
...
Sounds like something someone will write in a poem about you some day
Not that I know what that means
I have no idea what that means
It's not like I can pry open your jaw and stare down your throat to see some part of me I didn't know existed
Though it says 'final throws of love' so I guess I'd find my ***** inside of you
But it's 'within each other' so your ****** would have to be inside of me which isn't exactly how that works
Except maybe technically your jui...
Not the the deal
The deal is this it sounds sweet
Important
Romantic even
And it is definitely something someone will write in a poem about you one day
I know this on account of I wrote it in a poem about you one day
Not that I would've expected you to read it
Not that you would've read it
You never read any of the...
Not the point
The point is this
Sometimes the words that we write
Are just words that we wrote
And they don't really mean anything until someone else reads them
Kind of like how your promises
Were just words that you spoke
And they didn't really mean anything until you broke them

We said **** it to the big wedding we had been sketching out
Got married in her living room
She wore her grandmother’s dress
Long sleeves, ruffles, the whole bit
Her family was there, that’s all that had mattered anyway really
My family didn't need a ceremony
My friends couldn't care less
And her friends, fickle as they were, wouldn't have come anyway
So before her family, their god, and his bible we were wed
Her smile, the same as it ever was, beamed
I guess I was disappointed that it wasn't a different smile
I assumed that somewhere between, “will you marry me?” and “I do”
She would've practiced her fake smile more
But that’s how it was with her
Enough effort to make you love her, never enough to feel loved
I know, I know, I know
But I’m still trying to figure out if she means well
Or if she’s just doing what she thinks she’s supposed to

Bring your sweet love home to me
Where it has never really left
It has just rotted away in the trash can where you left it
It must have not been Thursday in years
I don’t hear the trash truck come by anymore
The neighbors have begun to complain about the smell
But I don’t smell a thing
I walk by it every day and smile
Say hi to it, ask it when it’s coming back inside
It doesn't talk of course
It’s a rotten, moldy, pile of discarded love
The fruit flies can’t get enough of it, it is so sweet
But if you ever change your mind I know just where to find it

Mother I will never be a scientist
Scientists wear white coats
Those stain too easy to drag through the mud of my life
Mother I will never be a singer
Singers sing loudly for other people to hear
Mother I will never be a fireman
They run into burning buildings
I haven’t run in a decade
Mother I will never be a doctor
Doctors help fix wounds
My hands shake too much
They would do more harm than good
Mother I will never be a mother
I will just make one

This bouquet of flowers is so much like you
There are white pedals on white flowers
There are pink pedals on pink flowers
There is one really tall yellow flower
A bunch of green leafy bits sticking out every which way
A bundle of white dots on the top of green stems
They use those for filler
Like you used smiles to fill in the spaces between your lies
You kept waving your yellow flower around
Plucking pink pedals and making sure I saw them fall
Shaking the thorns from your white roses
Tell me now
For whom did the chrysanthemum in the middle shutter
Indeed for whom did your heart flutter

Fingernails, fingernails what have you done
Gone away on my carpet never to be found
I have chewed you, and pulled you, and cut you at the quick
Yet still you live in the thicket of my **** carpet’s thick
Now I must vacuum
If I am ever to impress a guest
And I am in the market to impress a guest
Ever since the guest most impressed stopped vacuuming
For all the other guests I could not have cared less
Whether they were here or away
Fingernails, fingernails, and toe nails too what have you done
This house was so clean before this had begun
I sat in my room and sat and sat and sat
And never once had to look at how the rest of the house sat

When people introduce me to strangers they make sure to point out that I sing a lot
Not just because I do sing a lot
Which I do
But because they want to warn people that I sing at the most inappropriate times
When I sing people look at me like I'm playing drums in a library.

2. There's a lot more space between us now
Like a whole pillow
Maybe even like a whole pillow turned sideways
Too far to touch
But just close enough in case either one of us ever really want to reach
I don't see that happening

3. I'm a song that is stuck in your head
Good luck with that

(A completely unrelated fourth point in two parts)
4a. It's really easy to transition from a relationship to a long distance relationship
4b. It is hard to stay in them once one of you realizes the "ship" in relationship probably doesn't refer to a an actual boat.
(Back to the poem)

5. Most of the songs I know from start to finish are sad songs
This is probably why people don't ask me to sing at their weddings
Maybe there are other reasons

6. My son's favorite song is "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone"
That's probably not good parenting
When I sing my son doesn't look at me like I'm playing drums in the library
He looks at me like I'm swinging chainsaws in heart valves
He's not wrong

7. Some people tell jokes
They say, "Do you know who sings that song"
I say, "Of course it's Billie Holiday.
They say, "Let's keep it that way!"
Which is funny...
Except
*******!

8. I know that sometimes you sit inside my larynx at night
Listening for your song
I know it's you, I can here the leaves crunch under your shoes
I don't come in to say hi
I don't stop either
I don't want you to know these songs are for you
I don't want you to know I'm reaching

9. You are a song I know from start to finish

10. If you didn't want me to play drums in here you shouldn't have built it with such great acoustics
I see you haven't filled this place with the new boy's furniture yet

11. When I introduce myself to strangers I use my name

12. I sing at work
In line at the super market
At the DMV
Waiting for someone to answer the door
Walking away from a breakup
Driving away from you

13. I am a song stuck in your head
Isn't it funny how his finger tips on your rib cage play piano tracks from songs I sang to you
I am a song stuck in your head
Isn't it funny
How his finger tips on your rib cage play piano tracks from songs I sang to you
I'm a song stuck in your head

14. La ti da la ti da ti da ti da da da la ti da

I will stand still for you
Arms spread
Naked before you
I will let you look at all of me
All at once
For everything I am
For everything I am not
I will let you come to me
From wherever you are
With whatever speed your inhibitions allow
Walk to me
Crawl towards me
Close your eyes if you must
Flail your arms blindly until your fists find my skin
And if you find me not to your liking keep on swinging
If you are not strong enough to effect change grab a sledge hammer
Grab a knife
Grab a memory
Keep swinging
Keep swinging until I am a broken husk of a man I can not recognize
If that makes me the man you can love
I am not attached to this form of me
I am not beholden to the treasured memory of a childhood I can't forget
I am not holding out hope that these muscles, these bones, this skin, or the 19 little hairs on my left ring finger are strong enough to commit to the weight of your heart
It's amazing how heavy "I love you" can feel
And how willing I am to shoulder that burden
Bring the mirrors
Bring the smoke
Turn me
Fold me
Twist me
Until I am as you want me
Until I am strong enough
I want to carry "I love you"
With a finger
Until it loses circulation, turns purple, and falls to the floor
The lightness of loneliness is becoming tiresome.