She’s using the word smooth like it’s a venereal disease
Says I have too much of it
Doesn’t want to catch it
Says I’m too rehearsed
Too programmed
Too automatic response
Wants to hear a genuine thought from me
Like every 90s rom com from my childhood wasn’t a lecture in a class I was taking on this very moment in this very bar
I mean what else was I supposed to do when you fell into my lap after tripping over a bar stool
I was just supposed to let you walk away without comment
I was just supposed to say bye
I some how wasn’t supposed to ask you if that fall from heaven hurt?
I mean don’t be ridiculous

Sometimes when I’m playing Tetris I leave small gaps when I could complete lines
I do this to keep from winning

Sometimes when I am cooking dinner I leave out one ingredient
I do this to see if I notice

Sometimes when I clean my house I leave one room messy
I do this to see if I really need anything in that pile

Sometimes I try to do something all the way correct
I do this to remember I couldn’t even if I tried

There is a little boy
Who walked a dirt road
It was lined with birch trees
He carried a cello twice his size
Dragged his feet
Kicked up a cloud of dust
Took breaks on big roots
Played out of tune melodies to passers by
Newsboy cap turned up
His only quarter a hint

There is a small girl
She has a bow on her dress
A bow on each pig tail
And her best go of one on her shoes
She eats cucumber sandwiches
While her grandmother
All eighty years of her
Drinks hurricanes and talks up a storm with the woman down the block
She learns words like “give a ****” and “lord knows”

There is a gentleman
Hat hung beside him on a nail
Sitting in a tire up porch top rocker
His snores hum Amazing Grace
The chair squeaks harmony
His leather shine tin is crusted from disuse
Never quite remembers much
Still knows mama’s cooking by smell alone
He leaves voicemails to busy grandkids

A cloud of dust passes by the old man
Tickles his nose
Causes him to sneeze so hard he wakes up
Mama and the little bow haired girl
Who giggles so loudly the little boy picks up his hat and runs

There’s not a whole lot of my body I’m proud of
I’ve got an extra ten pounds on each my toes I gotta lose
My mirror is the biggest ******* I know what with always showing me, me, and ****
But when I lie next to a woman
With my arms around her
I can make my hands so big across her belly
That I know there is nothing out there that can reach her in here
And that
I’m proud of that

The jagged edges of my fingernails are mountain ridges of anxiety I’ve chewed into their earth
I climb them daily
But the storms are so severe and I often turn back

She sat on a park bench crying at the moon
Because that's what wolves do
And wolves were a lot closer to her than family
He lied under a park bench
And spoke to the ants
Because ants were more like friends than any friends he'd ever had
And once upon a time
These two were children full of innocence
Full of vigor and life ready for anything
Like anything was the everything they did everyday
And this is an ode to lost innocence
But I'm not sure he's lost
We may have just forgotten where to find him
Or maybe he forgot where he lives
And right now he's wandering the streets
Finding refuge in anyone willing to dream when the sun is out
Our children are seeing things like they live in the third world
They're spending their days providing
For families their fathers left them
Watching gun shots count for the census
Seeing thriving turn in to surviving
And surviving turning in to not even worth it anymore
Our mothers can't afford gifts for Christmas
And sometimes they can't even buy their kids imagination for breakfast
We have kids knowing their **** hands
Before their clock hands
Surprising their math teachers
With their extraordinary knowledge of ounces and grams
Innocence has been gone for a while
So I put up missing posters on the same telephone poles
Those once innocent children sell themselves on
I place fliers in the newspapers
The teenagers are rolling their **** in
I'm searching for him everywhere
And I'm starting to believe he's nowhere
Then I see an old man
Who's been through his share of this war
Looking at a painting with eyes I once had
Admiring the image, not the brush strokes
Loving the feeling it provokes
Not the conflict it's trying to resolve
And I see in him the innocence that's lost
But it doesn't stay long
His cell phone rings and he hunches over
As if no matter who it is, it's the real world
And the weight of that is crushing him
So I crawl under the same park bench
And pray to the same moon
The young woman cried to
And I ask the man in the moon to save us
To use his huge eyes to find the innocence
And put it back in talking to ants
And howling at the moon
Convince them to leave the straight jackets
In empty padded rooms
And let the children we were
We are
We never got the chance to be
Run free
This is an ode to lost innocence
To lighters and cigarettes in the lost and found
To Anti Depressants in the nurses office
And Ex-Lax in the girls bathroom
They used to have four square and hopscotch courts
Now the only chalk on sidewalks is outlining a corpse
Explaining to our kids about pregnancy and STD's
Before we teach them the infield fly rule
This is an ode to the innocence that ran away
Because maybe he's not lost at all
Maybe he's just sick and tired of being ripped out of people
Of being ***** out of young girls
Beaten out of young children
Shot out of young boys
Maybe innocence just got tired of being taken for granted
About not being loved like poets used to love him
You don't see his name in too many hip hop songs
And I haven't heard a poem in a while to call his praise
Maybe he left to go try and find somewhere
He can be loved like he used to be
He could be courting aliens
Or wooing dolphins
Because it's clear we don't care about him anymore
That innocence got lost without us noticing
So why would we notice if he came back
So why should he come back
This is an ode innocence's last name
Children
This is an ode to lost innocence
The cops came and took her away
And before her head was tucked into the car
She howled one last time at the moon
And from my balcony as loud as my lungs could let me
I howled back
And the next day I crawled under a park bench and talked to ants
A week later I found myself howling at the moon
Because it seemed the whole block
Caught a case of insomnia the day they arrested the wolf lady
This is an ode to lost innocence
Please come home, our children need you

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

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

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

I have proverbial boot straps
And I pull them everyday
They bundle tight the kitchen knives
And keep the guns at bay

But there will be a time
I mean there's gonna be a day
Where I let loose these imaginary shoestrings
And take my life away

And you may think don't go
You might even yell please stay
This is not a game of wills
I have no cards left to play

Do not conflate my mental illness
With my willingness to stay
This world and you were beautiful
Come what may

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

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

A broken hero walks through the streets of his home town
Home from a war he didn't understand
But was pretty **** good at fighting
He's got a slight limp and it's making
All the cracks in the sidewalks a little different
And every time he trips
He wishes he were back in the desert
His camouflage can't hide him here
His bullet proof vest can't protect him from piercing glances
And his gun won't stop the advance of the fear crawling through him
It won't stop the uncertainty closing in on him
For all the times he was in a fire fight
Shooting his gun into nothing  but the night
He never felt uncertain
You get shot at and you shoot back
It was never complicated
Your best friend dies
But you've taken enough best friends' lives that
It just seems logical
But here at home he can't take his safety off
He takes his gun apart
Hangs the different pieces on his wall
A modern art tribute to the dog tags he's yet to deliver to weeping widows
He's come home to a world he can't associate with
A family he can't share stories to
A job force that doesn't know what to do with him
Because they're not quite sure how you get a bachelor's degree in blowing **** up
Or how dodging bullets relates to crunching numbers
He's come home to a girlfriend who feels just guilty enough
To have *** with him for a few months before leaving him
For his best friend she's been with for years
And a G.I. Bill just big enough to drink his way through his thirties
Which will be just long enough to learn he can't drown the sounds of battle
Out with Busch pounders
That beer goggles don't work on memories
And that MRE's don't quite cut it for Thanksgiving dinners
He can't form any saliva in his perma-cotton mouth
So he seals envelopes with his tears
As he sends out the letters that were supposed to be just in case
But just in case turned out to be the case a little too often
He finds it unsettling that every time he goes out
He know he's coming home
He forgot to stop at red lights for weeks
And when he remembered he was supposed to
He still didn't stop
It's not that he wants to die
He just wants to know he still can
He wakes up too early for everybody else
Makes his bed, folds his socks, shines his boot
Eats breakfast, and watches the news talk about withdrawal
As he wipes the sleep from his eyes to prepare for the symptoms of his own
He sleeps on the floor till the Army Surplus Store
Delivers his cot
It's not that he doesn't want to be normal
It's that he forgot how
He's bought the plane tickets
But still doesn't know what to say
He knows they already know
But he has promises to keep
What can he say to the wives of men
That were stronger than him
How's he supposed to stay strong for them
When he wasn't strong enough to die with them
And once a year his home town holds a parade
In honor of the fallen veterans from the community
He keeps wondering why he has yet to be invited
Because the only thing keeping him alive is his heart beat
He's not offended
But he feels more at home at the cemetery
With the dead and buried
Than in the church next door
They morn them in
He wakes up at night in flop sweats
From nightmares of bullets lodged in his chest
That he's come to call
Dreams

I am a teddy bear made from loosely sewn together patches of cardigans passed
You are a warrior trapped inside a glass jar full of butterflies they sewed inside of my stomach.
You, warrior, hunt monarch dragons from the backs of black bears draped in the patchworked wings of fallen enemies
You are iridescent in the sun that pierced through the holes in my slipped stitch skin
You have woven a basket from antennae and leaf stems you found on the ground
Lassoed the last of the mourning cloaks and tied them to your basket
And like a butterfly air balloon you rose
Rose
Saw the battle ground below you
Flew towards the light above you
From within your winged chariot you directed your flock out of the mason jar home they sewed you inside of me
Saw all the butterflies you once drove away fluttering aimlessly
And drove them once again towards the space between my seams
They pushed against my fabric
They pushed against my thread
And they burst forth, scattered, iridescent in the sun a kaleidoscope of butterflies in the sun
My skin fell to pieces covered in stuffing on the floor
The jar shatter echoed off the walls
And I was a boy
And you were Malala Yousafzai
And I was in love
And you were warrior
And I dreamed of a life with you
And you dreamed of freedom
And I reached for you
And you kept flying
And I waved goodbye
And you, warrior, did not look back

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

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

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

The last time we were in court she said I could have Ava’s Roasters
But here I am and here she is
What the hell
The judge said specifically since I’m the one with insomnia I could have the 24-hour coffee shops
It’s two in the morning
She’s never awake at this hour anyway
It’s like she’s a whole different person now that we aren’t together
She’s not even here with anyone
It’s not like it wasn’t a fair trade
She got everything else
She got the grocery stores in town
The two main parks the freeway commute the bar I showed her in the first place
I mean she even got the burger joint, she doesn’t even order burgers there she gets the ******* salads
My lawyer said I should’ve kept some of the things in town
I know I should’ve it would’ve saved on the gas but
There was going to be fights and I just wanted this **** to be over
Besides I don’t hate the drive and I mean I haven’t missed running into people from high school
I just wish I could call the judge about this
It’s my time
I have poems to write about her and how could I possibly do that while she’s in the room
I mean since when does she need mocha’s this late
This is my thing
She already stole my heart

On the day we met
You asked me where I lived
I told you two blocks that way
You laughed and said I live to blocks this way

Today is our wedding
We are dancing to the smash hit country song, "Meet in the Middle" by Diamond Rio
It's super cute
Your right hand in my left
My right on the small of your back
Room for Jesus between us
There is a prescription of steps we are fumbling through
I can see your eyes dancing through the room
Picking out Instagram filters for the memories you've shared with each of the people who are looking at you and whispering at each other, "how cute"
The life you have walked to arrive at this middle that we have found will make you smile
A brand new bride glow in your cheeks

We have run through our choreography too quickly
Neither of us are particularly talented at dancing so we slink into each other
Your arms wrapped under mine and around my shoulder blades
We are dancing like eighth graders
The dance floor fills with your family and my friends
The song is faster than a slow song
We dance slowly anyway
So does everyone else
It is cute

You glance over my shoulder to pick out Instagram filters for the road I walked to find this middle with you
And when you do
This song, "Meet in the Middle" will feel like the biggest lie you have ever told
On the day we met
You were walking towards the possibilities of life, humming to yourself, "High-**-High-** it's off to work we go" a skip in your step a smile on your face
I was shuffling with my head down, whispering, "just one more step, take just one more step"
You are about to feel very guilty for never having realized how hard trusting this 'happy' has been for me
You will be crushed under the weight of my past
I will spend every moment of this marriage, for however long that may be, trying to make you believe this was not a mistake

I lean into your ear as the song dies down
I whisper, "It gets better"
You smile a smile that will define our marriage
While your mother will cackle at my mother,
"Oh aren't they're just so cute."

It's a bad day when you can't get Celene Dion out of your head
Titanic was good
It was not that good

I found a dried flower
Buried in Leviticus of my sort of grandma's bible
She must have liked that part
The only quote about Leviticus I've read on the internet is about stoning gay people
I hope she didn't like it that much

I saw a bagel get made
No one has the job of eating the middles out
I'm 23, this was a let down
I still like bagels a lot

I tacked the dry flower on my wall
Above the reminder that it's $3 a day to swim at the public pool in the mornings
I hope it's not a homophobic flower
I hid the bible behind Lauren Conrad's book
Lauren Conrad's book embarrasses me less

My sort of grandma
Is only sort of alive
I often feel that way

I feel most alive while dreaming of the impossible
Realistic dreams lead to disappointment
Outlandish dreams leave little 'remember when’s’'
No one hates themselves for not becoming an astronaut
A lot of people hate themselves for not losing 20lbs

Friendships are often measured in favors
That is all
That was not all
Favors are measured in sacrifices
Favors are not measured in reward

Today is a reflection of not dying yesterday
There is a one in seven chance that today is Friday
And it is imperative that we get down on Friday
Because the anticipation for this weekend is very high
If today is Monday all of that is no longer relevant to our conversation

I am losing weight
As I lose weight more and more fat girls hit on me
I do not like this as much as what I was imagining would happen

I have learned that being funny **** cool
Like I am becoming
Does not mean hot girls will hit on me
It means they will actually think about it before saying no

To supplement my soon to be chiseled physic
I am learning a Jack Johnson song on guitar
This worked for an acquaintance in 2006
Maybe I should learn Colbie Callait instead

The world would be better if schools had better teachers
The world would also be better if high school seniors paid attention to the teachers they already have
I don't know which one is easier to fix

My past seems rosier than my future
Except in the case of February 16th 2007
And now February 16th 2012

Corner buildings and modern light fixtures are my favorite aesthetics
My favorite building has neither of those features
Those features are not that awesome

Dead flowers smell like dead things
To combat this I spray cologne on my grandma's flower
I have never been to a funeral
I wonder if they febreeze the dead people
Or maybe they use Chanel No. 5
This is something I would like to learn more about

I need one more
I need to forget a little more
I need to remember a little less
I need to remember a lot more
I just need to remember it differently
Better
The way I wrote it
The way it ends when I'm sleeping

Dear bartender
Make it a White Russian
As white as her dress would've been
One Pina Colada
Tan as the sand would've been
One more Gin and Tonic
Sparkling as her eyes
***** Cranberry
Red as her lips
A triple shot of silver tequila
As clear as my intentions

Marry me

Bartender I want to drink until I forget she said no
Bartender I want to drink until I forget I ever asked

Dear Bartender I want to drink until I remember she said yes
***** til my head rings wedding bells
Gin til my body ticks raw rice
*** til my cheeks flush honeymoon
Tequila til my ring finger itches
Whiskey until she loves me too
Whiskey until she come back
Whiskey

Dear Shyla
I keep the suicide note that you've forgotten you wrote our mother folded up in a small wooden box in the corner of my bedroom
It's there so that on my worst days
When I've run out of friends who will listen
I can remind myself that other people feel this too
And after all we've been through apart sometimes our depressions and our mistakes are the only way I can remember we're related

Dear mom
I've hidden a diary you kept while struggling through your ill-fated relationship with my father
In it there are weight loss goals
Vows of marital celibacy
Existential questions
But mostly just a whole lot of why's leading you to answers you wanted to hear
While all of the things you needed to say you left in the blank spaces between the lines on the pages you never made it to
Your favorite thing to say after the divorce was that you were grateful to no longer have to walk on eggshells to protect his feelings
It has been twelve years and you still can't admit the feelings you were trying to protect were your own
And your feet still hurt

Dad
I have an envelope of pictures of you and I
From when both of us were oh so much younger
In each of them you are smiling at me
And in every one of them I am smiling back at you
I don't remember most of them I was quite very young
And for quite very different reasons I can imagine you would have a hard time remembering them as well
When I flip through the envelope I'm left sitting criss cross applesauce on a tore up linoleum floor
Staring at the scales of justice
Weighing the honest love of a drunk
Against the stoic rejection of the sober man you've become
And I am ashamed with how often I choose love

I am the keeper of this family's pain
Somebody has to
Someone has to admit it's real
One of us has to stare at the elephants in the room and see them
To know how each of us actually feels

Dear family
We are nothing more than four misfitted human beings
Tied together with tin can and twine telephones
By an astronomer, who in an effort to console himself,
Confused a congregation of lonely stars for a constellation
And eventually that is going to have to be enough
For each of us to love ourselves
To carry our own pain
I can not keep carrying all of this for each of you
I have my own pain
Which on most days is more than enough
I assure you
On most days
It is more than one man should

These are my knees
Lord
Cracked in a daily attempt to win your affection
These are my hands
Dear Jesus
Callused by one another in an oft futile longing for an answer
This is my throat
All Mighty God
Made rasp and torn from a constant calling of your praises
This is my neck
Oh Holiest of Holies
Strained in a forever upward gaze searching nightly for a sign
And these are my eyes
Son of God
Charged with searching for you in the stars
With directing my feet towards the purpose you have given me
Oh Lord
These are my eyes thought blinded after years of failing to find my path in the constellations
But blind these eyes are not
Oh Sacred Lamb
For these eyes
Creator of all that is good
See the bunions on these feet from a lifetime of walking atop your great magnificent earth
In an effort to survive
And these knuckles Carpenter of Nazareth
Are bloodied by the labors of man, for men, for the service of man's world
And this tongue, not of Satan, but of your creation
Oh Lord
Is twisted in a defense of my undying devotion to your love and to your empathy
And this back
Oh Heavenly Father
Has been made *******
Not from the weight of your cross in an attempt to share the burden of your sacrifice
No Lord
This back is broken from the weight of being a father to man
From the burden of society
And from the weight of the home I keep
Though I would never
Lord
Son of God
Question your ways
As mysterious as they seem
As they are your ways
Creator
Guiding Light of Man
Nor would I have the gal to belittle the accomplishments of our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ
I must ask with my knees planted firmly in the earth
My hands clasped
And my gaze towards you
Oh Lord
Son of God
Holy Shepherd
What good are the golden streets of heaven if my feet can not walk them
And what of the beauty in the pearly gates if my back can not afford the strength to open them
And lord how could I ever face you if my knees
The knees from which I pray
Oh Holiest of Holies
Creator of the moon and the stars the heavens and the earth
How could I ever face you if my knees can no longer kneel before the feet of my King
I could never
I would rather stand in the face of Lucifer himself
Than fail to kneel before the will of my God
For that I could never do
And what then
Lord
What would you have of me then

I am a good man Charlie
You may not have noticed because of how humble I am
I mean surely you've heard me say contrary things when complimented
But that's only because I want people to love me for me first
I'm sick of all these nice guy chasers out there
Who only love me for my decency
I'm looking for something real here you know
I just want it to be like the movies
I mope around til the perfect girl loves me
Then after we're together for a year
Bam!
I surprise her with a lifetime of love from a kindhearted compassionate soul
Is it really too much to ask that she love the worst of me before she ever sees the best of me

I imagine there is something I could've done
Something I could have said
Something I could've broken
To make you stay a little bit longer
Even if it were just to yell at me
Maybe then it would've taken an extra ten minutes
To forget your cologne
Maybe it would've taken ten extra minutes
To forget your cheek bones
Maybe if what I had done had been so bad
Maybe that would've giving me an extra hour
To remember you
But my mom tells me there is nothing I could've have done
That would've made you stay for good
I got myself suspended hoping
The school would call you instead of mom
But they only had our house number
And your postcards didn't have return addresses
So there was nothing they could've done to find you
My mom misses your income I miss your arms
I miss your baseball glove under my pillow
I miss your left hand on my cheek
I miss my black eyes
The school was so concerned about my home life
Back when I had a home
Now I just have hallways with doors that lead to rooms
We don't go in anymore
My mattress is on the living room floor
And I don't do my chores
Because you aren't there to make me
And for all the things I can't remember about you
I still can't make myself forget
The color of your taillights
And no matter what I snort I can't seem to burn the smell of exhaust fumes
Out of my nasal cavity
I will forever be eight years old
Forever have a tear stain on my right cheek
Forever know where to put my mom's head when she cries
I've had too much practice at being a man
To ever call you one
There is not a faucet or pipe
That hasn't leaked since you've left
Which is either how long you've been gone
Or how little you did while you were here
She says it's been for the best
Your post cards stopped coming
My cheeks stopped swelling
Your anger stopped echoing in my ears
And now I can't even remember the tone of your voice
But my mom says it's a lot like mine
So I try to change it when I'm at home
I didn't write about you in my college admissions essay
Under the challenges I've faced section
Not under the regrets section
Not in the areas to improve section
I put your story under my proudest achievements
Because if there is something that I never intend to do
It's grow up just like you
No matter how many girls I've ******
There isn't a single one that could pack a punch like you
Your postcards never had return addresses
But that doesn't mean I won't find you
And when I do you better hit me back
It's the least you could do

The thing about fingerprints is not that, right now, there are seven billion different unique fingerprints on seven billion different people.
It is not that in all of human history no one finger print has been repeated, making, if my math is right, which it's not, twenty trillion individual fingerprints.
Nor is it even that none of the quadrillions of people that will come after me will have my exact finger print.
No, the thing about fingerprints is that they are utterly useless
Which is to say they serve no practical purpose in the survival of the **** Sapien.
That's a lot of effort to put into something that is pointless

2.
If we were created in God's image, then God was a man and
I imagine he took Sunday off and came back to work on Monday like the rest of us.
So maybe fingerprints haven't been forever.
Like with snowflakes maybe God's just doing some interior decorating lately.

Or maybe Saint Peter was kicking it with God in the break room at heaven and was like, "Dude...we need a new system, too many people are dying and I can't keep looking up everyone's deeds by hand; it's taking too long."
And in a moment of genius He was all, "I got this bro" and invented the fingerprint
Then went down to Best Buy and got one of those scanner things for the pearly gates and now when you die you just scan your finger and it auto-populates your deeds and if you get in it's all awmmmm and the gates open,
And if you don't get in it's all whup whum and you fall through a hole in a cloud in the sky and land in a fiery pit of hell.

(My parents stopped making me go to church in 2nd grade so my visions of heaven and hell are colored in crayon.)

3.
I wonder if the image of God sitting at a desk with a protractor, compass, drafting pencils, and tracing paper designing each individual finger print all day long comforts you?

4.
Maybe we're some Alien sociology major's thesis and our fingerprints are our unique identifiers for tracking and data collection purposes

5.
When I started this poem I thought maybe fingerprints are keys.
As in someone out there has the fingerprint that unlocks me.
But I've loved more than once
Hurt more than twice
And had a lot more *** than that
So unless this key unlocks something I've never heard of my lock's broken and I need to know who to call about that.
But I don't like to think of myself as broken anymore.

6.
Maybe when God's little helpers are making us they slice off a sheet of skin from the butcher roll, spread it out flat sticky side up on the stainless steel slab.
Grab a set of bones off the shelf lay them down and like canvas around a frame stretch the skin tight around our skeleton.
Starting from toes, to the knee, over the shoulder, around those pesky elbows
Until they tie us off at the finger tips with twine, cut the excess with sheep sheers, let it heal.
Fingerprints.
Our our little "Heche en el cielo"

7.
When I fall in love for the last time, I will dip my finger in red paint.
I will roll my finger across the bare chest of my love and she will wear it there
Like a tattoo no one else could give her.

8.
Maybe there is no point to fingerprints
Like arpeggios before a concerto
Maybe God was just warming up

9.
Maybe fingerprints are the point to everything

10.
Maybe an omnipresent God is at every birth
In every bedroom, hospital, and taxi cab
In every town, in every city, in every country in the world.

Maybe every time a baby is born
God, takes the time to name it
Then writes it down
In a language only He understands

I’ve scraped the bottom of a fish tank
I never owned one of those sucker fish
Saturdays that’s when I would clean the tank
I never liked it
When you scrape the tank all that green stuff floats around a gets stuck on your hand
I didn’t like that
I don’t like having ***** hands
It tells people where I’ve been
I don’t want people knowing where I’ve been
I don’t like to have been where I’ve been
I’d prefer I never was
I tend to tell people I never was
You can’t do that when you have dirt on your hands
I wash my hands
The sink knows where I’ve been
I forget a lot of things my sink knows
My sink knows a lot of things
When I was my hands
I use soap just to make sure
I don’t online date
I don’t need to
I have a girlfriend
She doesn’t wash her hands
I know where she’s been
I can see how many times she scraped the tank
She hasn’t scraped the tank too much
Not as much as I have
More than she knows I have
But less than my sink knows
If she ever knew she wouldn’t stay
I buy new shoes a lot
No dirt
I don’t like the dirt
The dirt gives me away
I hide from my dirt
Dirt is hard to hide from
It floats
It floats in the air I stir up when I run away from it
My girlfriend doesn’t look behind me
She will one day
I can’t stop it
She’ll leave me
I’ll wash my hands
I’ll forget
My sink won’t forget
She will not wash her hands
She won’t forget
I got rid of my fish tank
I won’t scrape it anymore
I never like doing that
Too much dirt
I’ll just **** the garden
My sink will know
She will not
Tomorrow will come before I am ready
It always does
Why wouldn’t it
It doesn’t know me
Doesn’t sympathize for my problems
Today’s dirt will still be there tomorrow
Tomorrow’s dirt is not here yet
I can’t wash the dirt before my hands touch it
My sink won’t let me
She asked my sink
It told her
She’s gone now
She has clean hands
She has clean shoes
She has clean knees
I have soapy hands
I have new shoes
The stains on my knees won’t come out
So I wear pants
I stopped weeding my garden
It’s too *****
I had potatoes
They were too *****
I asked tomorrow what its dirt will be
It won’t tell me
I can’t wash out dirt I don’t have on my hands yet
My sink won’t forget
I learn my lessons from my mistakes
I have not learned all of my lessons
I have not made all my mistakes.

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

This morning I woke up intent on living morally
I had pizza for breakfast
I then took ten minutes to decide if my diet was part of my morality
I am clearly not ready for this conversation

In the family I come from God has only ever been the fastest way to count to twelve
In the family you come from God has been a source of peace, joy, love, purpose
My sense of purpose comes from Regina Spector’s voice
And my peace is in Amos Lee
My way is not better than your way

Let go and let God
Or as we call it Step Two
Is scrawled on so many scraps of paper
Half started journals
And carved so deeply under my fingernails
I’ve made letting go an art
I just haven’t got to letting God
When I was in pre-school my teachers told me how impressed they were with how quickly I learned to count to twelve
I told them I went to church a lot
They were confused

My dad likes to skip steps when he counts to twelve
My mom is really good at two through twelve but can’t really remember how it starts
My sister has counted to twelve so many times she forgets how important it is to go slow
The only reason I’d ever have to count to twelve is to feel apart of this family

It has been seventeen years since I have last said the name Jesus with ants in my pants sitting on uncomfortable church pews with my mom’s hand on my shoulder
And since then I have only ever thought to go to church three times
Twice in Memphis when I was trying to find Al Green
And the third was the first real conversation you and I ever had outside of Mrs. Kidwell’s class when I briefly thought if I found a way to go to church you might go out with me
However, I quickly came to the conclusion that if that worked I’d have to continue attending church to keep going on dates with you

When I was twenty two I tried to read the bible
I never made it past the begetting
That’s not a joke
So I tried to have someone explain it to me
That plan failed

Most days I can get by
I can be happy
I can turn the radio up and dance myself into peace
But on the days when I lock myself in my bedroom
Grey sweatshirt and basketball shorts
Tubs of Ben and Jerry’s all over the place
And The Spill Canvas at eleven over my stereo
I sometimes consider turning down the music
Getting on my knees
Putting my hands together and giving it a try
But I always get tongue tied just thinking about it
So I make a playlist full of songs that have the word God in them and hope that counts
Because some days you just need help and no one is answering their phones
But I don't think that's how God works
So I text you about your day
And you say something about a movie,
Book
Song
Something some little kid did to you
And I swear I might as well be in the front row of the First Baptist Church of Macon Georgia
Because I am filled with the Spirit.

Not every text message to you is a trip to church
And you’ll never know which ones are
So please don’t worry about it
I’m grateful to know that when I can’t figure out how to talk to God
I can find a way to talk to you
Because in the seventeen years I’ve been forgetting hymnals
I’ve come to one conclusion
Salvation, Heaven, Faith
They are where you look for them
They are what you want them to be
They are yours when you call

Sometimes I make myself imagine a world in which I was the kind of man, who could imagine, being a man, who could dream, of having the guts, to possibly, one day, be the kind of fella who would make the kinds of choices that would eventually catch your fancy
It is hard to do
I am not that kind of man
And that is okay
I will never be that kind of man
That is also okay
This is more than okay
I'm not here for that
I'm here for me

Tomorrow I will attempt to live morally
I bought Honey Bunches of Oats so hopefully I’ll make it out the front door
It seems I may never be ready for this conversation

In geometry we learn how to measure the distance between things
The space between things
The empty space between lines

How long is the shadow cast by a branch on a tree if it is two o’clock and the branch is east facing and 7 feet above the ground

A train departed Madrid in rush hour at 5:40pm and arrived in Barcelona at 8:15pm it went 63mph for 50 minutes how fast did it go the rest of the way if it is 386 miles between the cities

A trove of treasure held 300 cubic inches of gold and had a six inch square face, how long was the box

If it takes 3 seconds for my phone to chime after you send a text message and it takes 2 seconds for my brain to recognize your name on my phone how long will my stomach flutter if I’ve loved you for a month

Assuming my stomach flutters for that long and you ended our burgeoning relationship yesterday to stay comfortable in your current surroundings and we both don’t want to give up how real it all feels, how much silly putty does it take to fill the empty space in my chest

If Wal-Mart sells silly putty for $1.36 per package and each package contains 4 oz. of silly putty and I work for $13.51 per hour and $13.30 of each hour’s wage goes towards bills and other essentials how long will I have to work in order to save enough money to buy all the silly putty required to fill my chest with it, assuming I live in Oregon where there is no sales tax and that I only drink one six pack at $8.99 a week

More importantly though
If I fill my chest with silly putty, will my heart bounce back after it’s dropped next time

It's a weird feeling, being in love and lonely all at the same time
To put your whole heart into something you can't see
You know long distance relationships are tough
But what's hard is looking across the room at the eyes you love
And feeling every inch like they were miles
Seeing your cheeks turn to stone when I try to make you laugh
Feeling every could-be-kiss like a character from a book
Reading their stories
Making my heart race
Leaving my lips as dry, chapped, cracked as they always are
I sweat in my sleep from your body heat
While my veins freeze over from the warmth of your affection
I keep looking at the thermostat because I don't want to be cold anymore
But we're already sitting in our own *** sweat at eighty two degrees
And I can't make you care enough to smile anymore
But apparently I'm trying hard enough to get you to stay
Or more accurately hard enough for you not to leave
Leaving is hard work anyway
And feeling loved is nice
I imagine
At least that's what I've heard.

I wake up from dreams
With goose bumps where your hands used to go
My dreams remind me what you looked like
My body reminds me what you felt like
My empty bed reminds me what you feel like
Your phone number reminds me you're not just a phone call away anymore
And my friends try their damnedest to remind me 'This too shall pass'
This too shall pass
But my heart is just starting to break
The dog days are not done
The pain is just beginning
And my heart will have to break up all the way
Before I can start to fix it again
I don't have much super glue
This will be quite the patchwork job
I get goose bumps on my finger tips
I get goose bumps on my chest
I get goose bumps on my thighs
I get goose bumps on my arms
And all I can hope is that every now and then you wake up with goose bumps too
This too shall pass
I don't want this to pass
I just want to be in the past I'm living in, in my dreams
Where you still sing to me the lullabies I sing to my son to help me sleep
And you wake me with gentle kisses to the forhead
And rubbing my hands with your fingers
My bed used to be such a perfect fit for me and you lying in this huddled cold mess of sheets
I can hardly find it in myself to take up more space then my pillows
You always took up more space then I did
And since you replaced yourself with the pillows
Nostalgia won't let me stretch my legs
I want to stretch my legs
I want to run away from this
But I can't run from pain
Can't run from goose bumps
I can't run from dreams
I will eventually have to close my eyes
And when I do
I will see yours open
Looking into mine
Saying I love you
Like you mean it
Like you always did
But didn't always mean it
Or at least you don't still mean it
I'm too young to be burdened forever by something I didn't choose
Like not having you in my life
You owe me too much still
Like a song on the piano
Like salsa lessons
Like a night out
Lilke teaching me how to fish and ride 4 wheelers
Like midnight phone calls
Like more good mornings
And less goodbyes
Like tomorrow
Like forever

I no longer know where the meat market is
They took me off the mailing list
Not that I'd know what kind of currency they are using these days anyway.
Probably something I've never heard of
Something you can't exchange at a bank.
It's okay though, I don't miss it
I'm not a vegetarian or anything
I just prefer a more balanced diet these days
Besides look at me
I don't need that Grade A cut
We both know that supermarket meat tastes just the same
Lasts longer too
Plus I'm just gonna eat some now and freeze the rest for the weekend
Scrape the frost burn off, marinade it in the fridge for a bit, cook it over a slow fire for hours.
Because it doesn't matter where your meat comes from it's how you spice it up that'll make you want to lick your plate clean

We are grown ups
Full grown *** adults
Making out in the front seat of your car at the edge of a crowded parking lot in front of a high school where mothers are picking up their daughters from their first homecoming dance
You know, like grownups do
But that’s not really what we are
Not here, not all day
Today we’ve been movie characters
We’ve been comic strip accidents
We’ve been fairy tale destinies  
The clock is striking midnight soon
This fidgeter’s bracelet still doesn’t fit over these fat fingers
Come morning you’ll be back in the castle
Where princesses belong
Stupid fairy god mothers always ******* up a perfectly good nursery rhyme

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

I want to live on a beautiful island
Where it's warm all the time
And on this island I want it to snow
Three months a year
And I want those three months to be
November, December, and March
And when it snows I need it to be seventy seven degrees
And I want the snow to stick
Here I imagine Jack Johnson, Jason Mraz, and Zach Gil will sit around playing music
They'll play from noon to around ten
That's when Kwali the local pool boy ends his shift keeping the oil out of the ocean
Kwali he plays the Ukulele and sings about beaches no one's ever been to until around midnight
When the perpetually burning bon fire dies down and the island falls asleep
As for the rest of the music here on the island
Every morning there's this old steel guitarist
He's from just south of New Orleans
A place called Under Pressure
Really it's just the hull of the broken fishing boat he was born on
But he calls it home all the same
And a kid who used to play trombone for the high school jazz band
But he picked up the harmonica after he found out chicks don't dig trombones
And the two of them sort of play old dixie
With a steel drummer who never seems to find his shirt in the morning
But you never really mind that
And on Sunday mornings this really old woman
Ssays her mom was Harriet Tubman
Which we all know is a lie
But she's got scars from head to toe so you might as well believe something
Man she wails
For two straight hours
She wails
Wails to God, to the heavens, to Jesus, Georgia and the first row of church
And when she wails her tears are a lost language from the tower of babble and we all understand it
And on Wednesday
Wednesdays
We waltz
We waltz to really old records
That we play on the only turntable on the island
That Mr. Lee drags all the way from his house to the community center with no walls
And the whole island shows up in summer dresses and Matthew Mcconaughey shirts
Even the one we call grandma
And her husband who everyone calls Uncle for some reason
Come dressed to dance
And we all leave our slippers at the door this place doesn't have
And the sand warms our feet while we waltz
Sometimes it's the Tennessee Waltz
And sometimes it's the Viennese Waltz
But most of the time it's just the waltz we all learned in eighth grade
Either way
Every Wednesday there is a beautiful girl
She's five five, maybe, five eight I don't know
I've been lying on my drivers' license since I was sixteen so I don't know how tall people really are
She's got south pacific features
But with my track record by the time I actually make it to my island she'll probably be a red head
We waltz
We waltz until the records skip
And our legs turn to Jello and all we can do is collapse in each other's arms
While the ocean tickles our toes
Our finger tips tickle each other's palms
And we let that guy in the moon do the rest
So when you see me set sail
If you can catch me you can climb on board
And if you can't
Then
Wave goodbye

I would build you a bridge into the waves if I knew you were afraid of getting your boots wet
It’s never that simple
I know
It would take a lot of lumber and it’s not your boots you’re worried about
But I understand, the cliff is always there the ocean never takes it
I hope you enjoyed your stay on the beach
The sand sure loved having you sink into it
But high tide is here and you can’t swim out with the grains you’ve come to love
Not without letting go of the cliff
Stay safe please
You never know where the under-toe will take you
Atlantis
Some other beach, with some other cliff

I fell for you
Under the stars of a cloudless night
A night the big dipper shone so bright
You could see the water spilling out of it
Falling into the little dipper
Then over flowing into our hearts
I fell for you

I fell for you
Under the soft glow of a distant street light
As we swayed on swings
And I watched the rays of light
Play hide-and-seek with your skin
Trying to catch you still enough
So it could glow you like an angel
I fell for you

I learned of you
Through back channel grape vines
And locker door vents
Four AM phone calls that left crickets jealous
Listening to our heavy breaths of in love dreams
Pass through the receivers
I learned of you

I learned of you
Through tears that might as well have been daggers
Stabbing my heart
As I wrestled your secrets from the back of your mind
Through your tear ducts
And kidnapped your true feelings
In body bags from the bottom of your heart
I learned of you

I stayed with you
When learning wasn’t fun anymore
But our hearts weren’t settled in
And the comfort of silence
Fell to the wayside of sin
And your brain made your heart feel used
And your heart made your body feel abused
And your body made my heart feel abused
I stayed with you

I stayed with you
When stars were no longer visible
Drowned out by city lights
And crickets were silenced in fear
By the sounds we made at night
And surprises and picnics
Were just apologies
And our song was just a reminder
Of what I forgot about you
I stayed with you

I fell for you
Down a flight of stairs on a rainy night
When our lips didn’t mind the company
Of staring eyes
And your ferruled eye brows
Reminded the big dipper how to shine
I fell for you

I fell for you
Barefoot in sand the sun shining down
On a comfortable day in June
Which came so soon the sun hadn’t left his mark
On our left ring fingers yet
The waves from the ocean weren’t crashing the rocks
Letting the priest preach his sermon in peace
Whose words we couldn’t hear
Staring straight into your eyes
I fell for you

I fell for you

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

It's like a blind man leading a poor man
He sees the cliff coming but he doesn't mind
Grateful to have company on the way down
Thinks the cloud they'll fall through will be silver lined

It's like the teenager who just gave birth to a still born accident
It hurts real bad inside
But she's grateful that if she returns all the diapers everybody bought her
She might have enough money to buy a prom dress
Thinks the pain she feels will be silver lined

It's like the boyfriend of the young girl who just gave birth to the still born child
Grabs his cleats out the closet
Grateful he still has time to get a college scholarship
Dumped her over the phone
Said he didn't like the way her ***** *** whined
Thinks adding another drop to the bucket of pain he will never feel is silver lined

It's like a young man who works at a gas station
With dreams so big he'd have to run the world to accomplish them
Grows up, gets marrieds, gets settled, and settles
Knows the only way he'll make the TV is by beating his wife
Grateful that strangers know who he is
Thinks the jail time he's serving is silver lined

It's like the grown man who has everything the boy at the gas station ever wanted
Doesn't want it, wishes he could give it back, but can't
So he buys houses, clothes, and Cadillacs
Grateful to have enough
Thinks the silver lining on his silver Cadi is silver lined

It's like the overwhelmed twenty something year old who puts a lock on her own knife drawer
Too proud to get help
Grateful that she has a boyfriend willing to take the brunt
Of all the problems she can't see past
Thinks the inconvenience of the knife drawer is silver lined

It's like the boyfriend of the overwhelmed twenty something year old
Who takes the brunt of all the problems she can't see past
Grateful he has a key to the knife drawer
Thinks the blood on the floor will be enough
To show her there's more to the world than the problems she can't see past
Thinks his mama's heartache will be silver lined

It's like the staunch republican who got laid off last year
Now he's so broke he's on unemployment, food stamps, and TANF
Grateful the democrats were in control during the great depression
Still voted for John McCain
Thinks the bumper sticker on the back of his car is silver lined

It's like the young family started by a couple kids
Who insisted on having a couple of their own
Now they're too poor to afford but too rich for assistance
Begging their government to bail them out of something that nursery rhymes got them into
Grateful their truck didn't break down again this month
Thinking raising hungry babies is silver lined

It's like a poor man leading a blind man
Who knows the cliff is coming
Knows they're going over and doesn't really mind
Grateful to finally be in the company of someone just as blind as he is
Thinking the cloud they'll fall through is silver lined.

The weight of the world can be found
In the circles under my eyes
I spend my nights awake
Worried about the wrongs everyone else is suffering
I imagine what it would be like to be someone else
For so long I start writing rap songs harder than DMX
And I'm from the suburbs where no one comes out of adversity
Because there is no adversity
There is success
Or there is suicide
I worry for the future of ex lovers
Not just mine everybody's
Will they ever wake up from their depression
Will they love again
Will they smile tomorrow
I stay up worrying so late
My mundane work day is my only place to write
Or sleep, but I choose writing
Because I'm like the rest of my in-between-generations generation
We don't expect to live past thirty-five
So when I die the only thing my mom will have of me
Are these words I write
And I'd rather them be a bit more
Then love poems to girls who wouldn't remember meeting me
I want to write about important things
I want the things that make midnight
The start of my day
To be the things that make my pen run dry during it
I worry about hobo cities
Full of veterans, drug addicts, and bachelor degrees
And sometimes all three at the same time
I want to learn how to crochet
So I can make a blanket for every baby
Going home with a loving mom
Too poor to turn on the heater
This isn't a poem full of metaphors or similes
This is just true stories
From people who can't sugar coat their truths
Because sometimes you just can't get the blood out of the carpets
And your kids grow up playing hot wheels
On the stain their mom left when she left
Sometimes thirty-five to life is a *** deal
And it ends your life
Sometimes thirty-five to life is an excuse to get one
And sometimes thirty-five to life is the only thing keeping you alive
Because three square meals a day
Is a luxury you've never been afforded
I built a wailing wall in my house
And I have yet to put a prayer in it for myself
Not because I'm self righteous
Or perfect
But because I haven't gotten around to it
I just know there are so many others
Who could use the extra prayer more than I could
The way I figure it if no one prays for me
And I don't pray for myself
That should lighten the load a bit
And I've put in so many prayers for other people
The wall might just fall through the floor
And land in the living room of the lady who wears sunglasses
She wears them day and night, outdoors and in
I worry about her the most
More than AIDS ridden starving kids in Africa
More than Tsunami Victims
More than broken limbs and missing babies in Haiti
I worry about the lady who wears sunglasses
Because she knows no other form of love
Than the kind he gives her
And the closest she's ever felt to real love
Was the day he bought her those new sunglasses
To cover the bruises he gave her
The circles under my eyes get darker and darker
With every passing hour
And that's not a metaphor
You can see it if you turn on the lights
And the world is getting darker and darker
With every wrong that is suffered
And that is a metaphor
But that doesn't make it a lie

Her halo is brightest in the dark
Something about the way the gold
Just reflects the lingering rays
Of a turned off light bulb

She can see into your soul
And know if your worth saving
Before you see it in yourself
To find a better way

She doesn't help people who already have help
She doesn't contribute to lost causes
She goes where the support groups wont
Finds the people who don't know they need help

In a room full of bullet holes
This angel keeps out the rain
In an arm full of track marks
This saint lets out the pain

She doesn't ask for permission
Doesn't look for those looking for help
Says if they're looking
They'll find it within themselves

Somewhere deep inside of her
God saw fit to come back to Earth
Shes a messiah without a gospel
A prophet without an agenda

She's not running for office
She's running from cops
She's not asking for donations
She's begging for change

This angel of mercy
Only survives because of it
This harbinger of love
Lives without it

The invisible hand slapped her in the face
And she kissed the blisters it gave him
God asked her to build an ark
She said,  “No, I can't afford it, but I'll fill it if it's there”

Under the star light her halo glows bright under the Burnside bridge
Her voice is the silence between discharging of shells
Her lullaby's to the villagers sounds like opening empty wallets
Her tears fall like shooting stars letting you make a wish every time she feels your pain

This golden fiddle sure does draw a lot of attention round here
I haven't had an empty beer glass since the day the Devil slunk outta Macon with his tail between his legs
Johnny the Devil Slayer they call me
You should hear them chant
It echos off the rafters of these hollow afternoon bars
They know my name because they know my fiddle
They don't know my face and they ain't never gonna remember it
I am the man who took their beloved golden fiddle from the hands of the Devil himself
They ask me to play the song that out played the Devil
Like God would come down from heaven and course that song back through my veins to impress four drunks on a Tuesday in Macon
They ask what the best that has ever been is doing at a bar on Tuesday morning
Like it wasn't my soul if it hadn't been this fiddle
Like it wouldn't've been their souls if it hadn't been this fiddle
They ask for Fire on the Mountain Run Boys Run like it wasn't a warning
Like I don't still have scars on my chest from the spark that jumped off the strings when he pulled his first note

I leave my winnings at home sometimes
Pay for my own beer
Listen to people tell stories about my fiddle
Say, "I'd love to see that fiddle"
Say, "If I could only touch it once"
Say, "I just want to hear it play"
Say, "I saw it once it was amazing"
I sit silently thinking to myself
How easy it is to worship the Devil's golden things
Often have I had the prideful impulse to stand and shout,
"I am Johnny you sons-of-*******
I am the best that has ever been
Memorize my face
Tell them my name
My name is Johnny
I am the man with the golden fingers who played my warped, cracked, widdled-down wooden fiddle 'til my bow was threads
My strings snapped and my fingers bled down the neck
Dyed my fiddle crimson that day
My fiddle, my fiddle brought down the Devil
This golden idol will remind you what his face looked like"
But that line of thought does not befit God's chosen instrument
They call me Johnny the Golden Fiddle
They call me Johnny the Devil Slayer
But that Devil ain't dead
He's in this here golden violin
And he smiles every time they stare
It's my crimson fiddle that shines the brightest when the days are dark

I imagine that if I lived on a planet with two moons
On a night when they were both full I would've been able to see how sad you were that night
As it was, it was a crescent moon here on Earth
And it was just as gorgeous as your smile always is
I'm so sorry
I'm normally so much better at noticing those things
I was so lost in the beauty of your eyes
I thought I was swimming in the blue of them
But as it turns out your eyes aren't blue
Those were just gathering tears
Waiting for me to save your mascara with my thumb
Settling instead for cascading down your cheek bones after I had finished bathing in them
Sometimes I am just a stupid, stupid, boy
We've been friends for so long I shouldn't still have a crush on you
But you're just so pretty
So kind
And you talk to me
Which is a combination of things I'm still not used to
It's been hard to not notice
And that really gets in the way sometimes
I am so, so very sorry

The song on the radio when you took
Your last suitcase out of my life
Was not poetically fitting
But still hurts all the same
You didn't give one last look back
But that doesn't mean I forgot your eyes
The last conversation didn't end well
But I remember your smile
You didn't leave on Valentine's Day
Your birthday, my birthday,
Or our anniversary
But that doesn't mean I won't cry next year
We never said forever
But I didn't mean so soon
I didn't change the locks
When I gave you space
I still draw your scars in my sleep
And wipe your tears from your cheeks during day dreams
But don't come back
I couldn't handle that
Don't text me at three in the morning
With whatever he won't do for you
I don't care how much tequila you've had
My heart is off limits
Your self esteem
Is no longer my responsibility
Civility not obligatory
I don't have quarters for your meter
And I am not happy for you
So don't come back
I couldn't handle disappointing you twice
We never had a song to dance to
Never lit a candle during ***
You weren't a long walks kind of girl
I'm not a mosh pit kind of guy
Poetry did not float your boat
And sailing is most definitely not the motion in my ocean
But none of that made sense until just now
We were a twister through a trailer park
A fire in the City of Bridges
Bullets in a slaughter house
Made lovers jealous
And parents regret
Built our foundation on sand
And said ******* to the ocean
Surfed tsunamis
And skied avalanches
And none of that seemed dangerous
Until just now
We complimented each other with insults
Threw stones in glass houses
Sang praises off key
Called it love
Smiled through an earthquake
Called it an ******
Talked through the silence
And called it fate
Which made sense until just now
When I said 'us' out loud
Held 'we' in my hands
And made what we were out of clay
Fired it in the kiln and had nothing come out
Which all makes sense, now

She told me
"I'd disappear for a while if I could trust my self to come back to all of this"
She won't come back to this
She's too big for this
She's too big for this
Or I'm too small for her
Or the horse she rode in on died
And now she's riding off on an elephant
I don't know

Not all surprises are surprises
Sometimes we just act surprised
So that the other person doesn't feel bad about us knowing ahead of time
I've never really been in a fight
So I don't know what hurts worse a sucker punch
Or a punch you see coming
Either way this hurts
A lot less like a punch
And a lot more like getting branded at a bonfire in a cornfield by your best friend with a paper clip
It burns
Then bleeds
Then welts
Then itches
For along *** time it itches
Then when it's done itching
It's there
Forever
And every time someone sees it for the first time you have to tell that story
Of how you you got your *** burnt with a paper clip by your best friend in a cornfield at a bonfire
Or about getting sucker punched
Or surprised
Or about being too small for her

Sometimes you grieve before their gone
You write your love letters and goodbye notes at the same time
And you've seen her go so many times in your mind
That by the times she actually does ride off on an elephant
It's like you're watching reruns
And just crying out of habit

But sometimes you want to feel like size doesn't matter
That whether she's too big for this
Or I'm too small for that
That somehow it just fits

That's when you grieve
Before they're gone
When they're going
And after they've left
And you spend your nights wondering who the good guy was
But no one wears black cowboy hats or white cowboy hats in relationships
So you never get to know who the good guy was
I want to think it was her
I'm starting to believe it was me
And that hurts
To think I was so wrong for so long

You see size tends to matter
When you're reaching for the stars
One of you is going to reach them
Swing of Orion's Belt and grab the moon
And while they're staring back at earth
You'll still be here
Pumping your Reebok's
Trying to get just enough air in your shoes
To be just big enough
To jump just high enough
That they're just won't forget you
While they're off doing things
That you are just too small to do

...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

Let me breathe you in
Take a deep inhale rolling back my shoulders
And get your hair in my nose
Get every inch of you inside of me
Because I never want to forget you
And seeing you tomorrow will not be the same as loving you today
So let me breathe you in
Let me swallow you
Take a big gulp of your lips
Send your fingers down the wrong tube on purpose
Taste all of your juices
Because I need to know that you haven't changed
That the you you were last time we were here is the you you are this time
So let me swallow you
Let me paint you
With a brush the size of a fountain pin
So I can get every detail right
While I'm painting your thoughts
Because I can't imagine you any different
With hopes and dreams that still get painted green on canvas, red on paper, orange on bibles
So let me paint you
Let me remember you
Never forget your shoe collection
Your backpacks or your hair ties
Finding you in every lobe my brain has
Because I can't imagine a thought without you
Without the glow of kids in castles in your smile and the warmth of Kansas City in your arms
So let me remember you

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.

I watched a plane fly through the little dipper.

The trees rustled

My back ached

My mind was jumbled

Your words spun in my head

We danced

Intertwined

Our bodies calling, "love!" to one another's collar bones

We embraced

I watched a plane fly through the little dipper.