I say, whoa now
You say, let’s go
We are ones for running
Our knees have the scars to prove it
Sometimes my fingers grasp for the rail but silly me
That’s not how falling works
We are humans
And humans do not carefully climb down scaffolding held-to with harnesses into love
That would take forever
And it’s boring to say
We fall into love
Crash to the ground together
Get up and laugh heartily
Spitting our broken teeth out as we do
Love is a collision we don’t all survive
But you and I are the Bear Grylls of the heart
And I would gladly drink my own **** to stay loved by you

I say, hey girl hey
You say, boy please
It’s sickening to watch I’m sure
But **** if you aren’t my Pepto-Bismol
And I ain’t your TUMS with Vitamin C
And I ain’t a fourth
And you ain’t a fifth
And we aren’t some sort of major lift
And
Ugh
I’m sorry that was dumb
I’m sorry
It’s just that song sometimes
It reminds me of that time I felt the corners of my lips curl up involuntarily watching you watch my favorite cover of it
And I get all worke

I say, I’m sorry
You say, I love you too
Falling isn’t always graceful
But having fell is always worth it
Grass stains and all
I don’t see futures
And you don’t make promises
But next to you is a place I’d like to wake up tomorrow
And the day after
And if you’re tenable to the idea the day after that as well
I am knee deep in love with you
This quick sand has hold of me
I’m struggling harder so I can sink faster
You say, closers dive in head first you *****
I say, I love you too

I am as a willow in her old age
Whispering curious questions in my rustle
When the Santa Anna's blow
Holding answers in my weeping

I am as a skateboard riding pug pup
Marvelous to those who can still find novelty in a one trick pony
And those who will never meet me
Because I **** everywhere else but on camera

I am as a the coming tide
Coming in eventually
I swear
So long as the moon will let me

I am as left up Christmas lights in August
All things equal I will be worthwhile again
So long as the owners don't move
And they still like blue icicles next year

I am often caught off guard by my sadness
It just happens sometimes
When I feel like everyone else is smiling, sometimes, I am crying
If anyone were ever to make a Vine that encapsulated everything it meant to be me
It would be a six second loop of me pushing the hair up out of my eyes to reveal tears
While someone laughed off camera
It’s not that happiness makes me sad
It’s that sadness he just stops by unannounced sometimes
Sad is not something that happens to me
It’s not something I get
It’s not a mood I am in
It is another person entirely and when he knocks I answer
And when he invites himself in I pour the coffee
And when it gets late I offer my bed for him to sleep
Him and I are very different
I believe everyone has a right to see the joy in the little things and smile at them
He believes that every little thing has some bitter jade to pull from it
We both agree that feelings are not boogeymen to run from
But pools we should dive into so that we can fully experience ourselves
We just look at different waters as warm that’s all
I see my son as a growing, living, embodiment of the human spirit
Sadness looks at my son and sees all the evil in this world I can’t protect him from
And we both love him
I look for romantic connection with no knee pads on and pray to fall hard
Sad loves love, there is nothing that hurts more
We both agree love is a wonderfully broken construct
Sad is a wonderful man
He cares deeply
Looks closely
Pays attention to all the grimy details
Laments for what he knows has been lost
And frowns at the turning of Earth
I am a wonderful man
I care deeply
Look closely
Pay attention to all the passing could-be’s
Long to take my turn in sun
And smile at the ticking clock
We are almost the same person
But we most certainly are not different
When sadness arrives I am sorry to see him come
When he goes I am sorry to lose his insight
I know I should hate him
Should fear him or despise him
But feelings are not boogeymen to run from
They are men with whom handshakes are required
And for whom room should be allotted
I gave sad a skeleton key to my heart and he uses it liberally
I suggest you keep a few rooms hidden from him
I certainly wish I had

Her kite strings are caught on a gill
She’s refusing to let go
Grains of sand have formed to hands
And are trying to hold her toe

                                No dad it’s not that
                                It’s an airship bound for Mars
                               With hands out the window
                               Waving king-sized candy bars

No son surely that’s not right
It must be a school bus full of children
With coloring pages
Half-way to all the way filled in
      
                                Dad don’t be silly
                                It’s Harold and his Purple Crayon
                                But he fell out of his balloon
                                And is trying to draw the ground

Oh no, will he make it
                                 I don’t know
I do hope he will
                                 I do think so

That’s good son
I’d hate to see him fall
                                I know dad
                                Wouldn’t we all

But you’re sure those aren’t whales
Floating through the skies
Because it sure does look like it
                                Dad!  Whales aren’t that size

                                Besides even if they were
                                What would whales be doing up there
Well, I mean they are just clouds
                                Not if you try real hard, I swear

                                                     Silly little humans there on the sand
                                                      Humphr­y, surely they’re little bugs

I can sing The Animals poorly to my son a million times and he will never understand what that song does to my heart

I wrote a song once he calls it The Ocean Takes Her and loves it
Asks me to sing it **** near every night
Nothing like making your son smile with the memory of your great heart break

It’s strange to make up meanings to my tattoos when customers ask why I have them
The boss says I can’t tell people about my depression and familial disappointment
So I make up stories about this one time I met Charles Schultz’s wife
People seem satisfied with my made up answer to their polite conversation question

I have lost lovers
To this day I still can’t figure out where I put them
I mean I’ve checked under all the couch cushions

My door is never locked
I know she knows where I live
It’s just that she left her key on the counter
And I don’t want a locked door to be the reason
I mean aside from the whole other life she’s living now

I spend hours watching compilation YouTube videos of the best The Voice Blind Auditions for other countries
You know, The Voice UK, The Voice Thailand, The Voice Sweden
I do this exclusively when I should sleeping
like the 2-4 o’clock hours of the still last nights
I can’t tell if I really like them
Or if they are just entertaining enough to keep my mind occupied
I guess if I make it through the night it doesn’t matter which

The older I get the more I relate to Charles Bukowski
Not the poet, of course, the man
The broken
The bitter
The lost
The never found

I could never write a poem gritty enough for the punk rock crowd
My sadness isn’t gritty
It’s sad

My stomach is 73% beer at this point
But I don’t often get drunk any more
I just forget to *** in the mornings

I really should clean this house
There’s no telling when she might get here

But before I let you go
I can never really tell if the her in my poems
Is one of the ones that have already broken my heart
Or the one I’m still searching for
Sometimes I give you too much credit
But I always know when it’s you,
You’re the only one I call you
The rest are just her

Bye now

Here at Kinkos
We have a saying, “copies of copies”
You are trained to always ask for a source file
The digital file of the picture the camera took
The negatives of digital cameras
You see because when you print a picture from that file it’s the best it will ever be
Every detail captured in that moment stored in bits and bytes ready
If you make a copy of that picture it will never be as good
And if you make a copy of that copy it’ll be even worse
And if you were to make a copy of the hundredth copy of the ninety ninth copy you might not even recognize the image
Whether it’s a speck of dust on the scanner
Or a crease in the print out
Sun stains from prolonged exposure to the elements
Or simply from time
Copies never look as good as the original
Even if you try and protect them
And even if you were to magically protect that photo from any external forces
The next copy still won’t be the same quality
A scanner can never pick up every detail from the print on the glass
Copies of copies are never the same
Sometimes the printer is calibrated different
Sometimes it’s a heavy magenta day
Sometimes it’s a saturated cyan day
Maybe you touched her face when you handed it over
And now every copy has a feint of your thumb print above her eyebrow
You had him taped to your rearview mirror for a whole year
And now every copy you make has a glare where the tape used to be
It blocks out his heart shaped hands he was making you from the bus window
Folded in your wallet and now all the copies have white spaces where her face was
I mean where the creases were
I’ve heard that when you remember something you are simply remembering the last time you remembered it
Memories of memories
So that after you’ve remembered her a thousand times you’ve forgotten all the details you forgot to remember the time before
So that the more you remember something, the faster you’ll forget
Maybe that’s why we forget exes faster than family
Maybe that’s why we forget the great parts of high school before the painful ones
I remember that you had red hair, that your eyes were kind, that your hands fit my cheek
I remember that you were bad at pool and that it felt like love, and if it wasn’t you’re the only one that knew it
And now I’m wondering after all these years what I’m forgetting to remember
What I forgot to remember last time
What did I forget this time
What won’t I remember next time
Memories of memories
Like copies of copies
Fading over time
If I never wanted to forget the best moments of my life
Should I never remember them
Is the fastest way to forget the bad ones
To remember them often

What if smells a lot like vanilla
But not like scented candle vanilla
And not like perfume vanilla
But like liquid air freshener vanilla that you’ve had in your drawer for two years and didn’t have enough left in the bottle to use the spray top so you unscrewed the lid and splashed it all over your sheets
Let it dry
Waited two days
Then invited a pretty girl over
Let her sleep in your bed
Had ***
Dreamt of forever
Took a shower
Laid back in your bed
Let her go
And then slept face down on the pillow you let her use while reading text messages about how she won’t be able to keep seeing you any more
You know, that kind of vanilla