your sheets are layers of clouds  
floating between our arms and legs
like a budding storm between crooked cranes
along the river just over the bridge

discover me in the morning, early and dark
before the cool rain spills onto hot pavement
your hand finding it's way up my thigh
like a blowfish ascending towards the sky
swimming through the breeze of cracked windows
catching raindrops with outstretched fingertips

i can feel summer between my toes
soggy soil and fresh grass inviting my nose
and for a moment the sky becomes clear
blue and bright, not a cloud in sight
then I feel the sun graze my cheek
it's warmth, the sweet bite of summer heat

and so I wake, morning sun peeking through
the shades covering your bedroom
I arc my neck to you, still half asleep
you pull me close to drift back into dreams

I always thought that I'd see you again
corn teeth and bloodshot eyes

We were young, in college
and always high

The gun under you pillow
didn't seem so strange

We hiked, drank, sang
watched old movies all day

It was months before I knew
you were sharing a bed with another

I hated you for making me feel foolish
and ****** you after you cried

You weren't found for weeks
and neither was she

I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
For her, for you, for me

Sometimes I just want to close my eyes
feel the sun, bathe in the moonlight

I thought I saw you on the freeway
Looked back to see a stranger's eyes
staring back at mine

I feel your heat in the morning
I press my palm to your back again
If only you were breathing
I wish I could stop this sneezing

Cover your body with the comforter
wash the linens, empty the dishwasher
It's easier cooking for two
Ceramic bowls for me and you

It's so cold when the wind blows
over the clumps of ice and soft, heavy snow
packed hard around the doorframe now
not much reason for me to get out

I still see you looking back at me
when the screen goes black on TV
I don't recognize myself

I pulled the carpet up out of the floor today
exposed the stained, cracked wooden boards
and I thought about how we'd roll around
to the sounds of old records on the ground

The walls are bare and my hands are numb
I tiptoe around thoughts of my old gun
to these charred, heavy logs I'll succumb

Leave me to the ashes, bring me back to you
Let the fire exhale and breathe me life anew.

You came in the room, freshened up my coffee
dipped your head to my shoulder, said you felt so happy
turned on the tv, laying on your couch
under cream colored blankets and drinking whiskey
the rain had finally started falling
I kissed your neck and said you're everything
I kissed your cheek and said don't ever leave me
how can this all feel so easy
my tortured past felt so hazy
you looked down at me with amorous eyes
lazy, wide, searching for me inside
I touched the sunburn on your chest
warm and bare, then exposed the rest
I'd like to remember the way you looked that night
dancing around in the bright kitchen light
singing wildly as you cooked
you grabbed me round the waist and pulled me
close to your body and said you missed me
I won't ever forget the way you touched me
I threw my head back and felt the ecstasy
you pushed my hand back and fell silently
into my body like the rainfall, softly
cascading down the window next to me
I never want the rain to stop
please don't ever let this rain stop

I can smell the honeysuckle
feel the warmth and
salty sweetness
of a season not yet blossomed
You tucked the bloom
behind your ear
and smiled
You brushed your hand
across my leg
and looked away
I kissed you
and knew
summer had finally arrived

where are we going?

i turn up the music

close your eyes*

i roll down the windows
i turn onto the runway
i switch off the lights
i press into the pedal

she pushes out her hand
she ***** her head to the side
she lets her hair blow back
she smiles

we scream, yell out
into the black
biting wind of night
howl, moan
until our lungs crack
like poppers on summer pavement

we hate being so young
we hate growing so old

my hand is out the window
cutting through the air
crisp, autumnal, and light
I think of slipping into the sea
floating on my back, with my
head to the sky and my eyes
closed tight, arms spread wide
the water is lapping up
around the edges of my skin
trying to pull me in, down, under
so deep I can't breathe, see, feel
you
your touch
your tender love
so I gasp and tread to stay above
and feel the wisps of winter
lick my cheeks and kiss my nose
just as I open my eyes
to see you
sleeping
soft, still

Speak sweet and slow
like November snow
Cover me, delicately
as flakes frost autumn leaves
burnt orange and heavy, whirling
down a hill of white,
inches deep and thinly tiered
like the feathers of your duvet
waiting to catch
the first fallen branch
Speak firmly, love
and I will do the same
or else we both may sink
to the frozen soil beneath
and never find our way out

sail my ship
across your pale blue
horizon, gliding
over the swells of your chest
rising, falling
tracing my racing thoughts
with fingertips that
drag across these keys
trying to land on an
embankment of affection

tell me, loudly
with crimson-soaked sleeves
how you want me
stretched out on the couch
still
sober
supple
scared to move
too much
in case we disappear (back) into
daytime dreams and
nighttime fantasies

Once I saw
a cat laying in a cardboard box.
She was young and motionless,
a pool of red beneath her fur.
Soggy box, red Jordans,
a hardened body trying to cry.
She was cold and soft.
So soft.

No one looked
at the cat laying in a cardboard box
as we moved down the sidewalk
on that hot summer morning.
I kept my hand on her body,
on her youthful fur.
we're almost there
I'd whisper
I'd whisper

I cried that day
for the cat laying in a cardboard box
who I never knew or named,
but I loved her
on that summer morning.

Curled under blankets
with the shades pulled tight,
I'm hoping for rain
so I can't witness the beauty
of the summer day.

I think I hate it here but I don't know.
I find myself wondering why I had to leave.

I wish I was on the wind-shorn coast of Kilcar,
tasting garlic flavored seaweed and drinking tea
on the bluff after a long day of harvesting.

love me
as much as you love the glass
half clutched in your hand
or all the girls
showing more skin
than clothes.

Lie to me
as much as you lie on me
breathing softly in my ear
about your dreams
how much you hate yourself
and all the rest.

Leave me
as quickly as the pasta
left your plate after you smoked
another bowl of ******
**** you stole from
your friend.

Let me go
as swift as the leaves
on an autumn afternoon
in November when it should be
colder than it feels
in sandals.

Love again
as romantically as before
as if there was no one else before
me, kissing in the morning
before we brushed
our teeth.

consuming cigarettes like candy at a theme park
shoveling, inhaling
before mom takes it away
incubating cool concrete
to hatch eggs of non-conformist
thoughts, theories, therapy
Costello glasses fog
with skinny-jeaned laughter and flannel
bellows only audible within the confines
of claustrophobic, humid basements
spilled with beer out of sun-lit
fear.
stay ******, ****** up and disconnected
feigning parental disregard and lacked motivation, except
to pet cats to the tune of vinyl
manicured with dust
seeping with lust
for the past
when rainbow-striped sweaters were cool.
pound the drums too loud for ears
sweating out anger and distrust
stuck to reconstruct or fit in
become the grey, the void, the in-between
the one thing you don't want.

Ink blots on wooden cloth,
symbols of our time
Beliefs, memories, dreams
woven in, out
then back again

What's this you're trying to hide?
A stain in time
A crime to rhyme
Detach and drift
Up from sticky parchment
and greasy palms

Stacking words like a game
Rearrange, complain
sing about the rain and
how hard it came,
filling up your drain

Or simple placement, even
Dash here, there, into
steaming cups of coffee
with swords for pens
Just a lens, just a lens

Let the smoke linger
through sweating fingers
and silenced breath
to be shown, known
Pretend you're not alone.

I will take off my red shoes
dance through the streets
and unpaved avenues
of seduction and retreat

I will shake loose the wool
my skin bare to the frost
feel the rising swells
with the time that I've lost

I will feed my clothes to the fire
singe every fiber and strand
reduce the pictures and discs
to grains of polluted sand

I will unhinge the jewels
hanging dead on my skin
instead reaching deeper
to the one curled within

          I spill the bottle next to the bed
          pour capsulated white fortunes
          into the cup of my hand

          I open the bottle from last year in March
          fill a glass to the top and toast
          to the time that I've lost

I've flown through infinity
like wildfire through Hell
watched pieces of the past
sink as shattered shells

I've found peace and place
and forgot all the rest
held the soft hand of death
my final mortal test

with disappointment
comes sadness
where loneliness appears
and eyes can do nothing
but form empty tears

On the steep incline
we sip moonshine,
forget our woes of the day
where in the muddy field
sheep did yield
to rest our aching feet.

Sun rays cut the wind
in a cloud soaked sky
that the past three days
did nothing but cry.

We rejoice with baguettes
on the great precipice
where the sea becomes the sky.

do you see what I see in the open sea?
touch the pebbles with your toes
breathe the salt in through your nose
close your eyes, relax your face
get lost in the open space
between your eyelids and your mind
explore.
don't be scared of what you find
let the breeze fall down your cheek
imagine life less bleak
open your eyes and you will find
just before this, you were blind
now tell me, do you see what I see in the open sea?

Let me see the coastline
a hazy blue infinite.

I want to stare into nothing, believing
I see the end of the sea.

salty air on the tip
Of my tongue
gulls sing and swoop along

I want to fly too.

Let me sit on the cliff, dangling
my legs off the edge
and hear nothing
but my thoughts.

O, how badly I want to find the way
to your coastline.

Will I see the end?
Does it even exist?

Grandmothers buy flowers while their husbands
lick a cone
chocolate-vanilla swirl.
Homeless rockers keep their front
drinking beers around the statue
when all they really want
is an ice cold
strawberry treat.
Replace cafes with parlors
perfecting soft serve service, pouring
fountains of custard
to children of all ages and size.

I want to write a poem about the calmness of sand
cooling on a coast in early morning's soft light.
Or lapping waves creeping to my toes
on a lazy summer lake with the sun at its peak.

I want to write a song about the freedom of birds
and clicking crickets humming in the rain.
Or cracking sticks buckling beneath armored feet
as the sun sinks down below tall mountain peaks.

But all I can write are poems about sandy toes
dancing in the dawn and dirtying the sheets.

And all I can sing are songs that you hum
in the middle of the night when you're fighting off sleep.

I've watched the world from coast to coast
wake up and fall asleep.
I've touched my toes on paths I know
and those on foreign streets.
I've sat and stared at freckled skies,
heard thunder from the heat.
I've walked the earth and smelled the dirt
of isolation and peace.

I think somehow they don't compare
to your arms around my waist
where I wondered what comes next
and you kissed me on the neck.

Singing Bowie in the backseat of the car,
Angry at the speakers' dull drum from wear and
Tear through the city, with the lights
Illuminating the crude black
Streets cluttered with the smell,
Feeling of rot and decay, hopeless,
Acting like I don't see it, I don't
Care to feel that single
Tingle, stretching from chest to eyes,
Into flushed red ears.
Obvious dishonesty killing time with
No one, faking feeling inside a car.

she ***** her black eye
peering through the gate

"i see you," she tweets,
greets with a sideways blink

one, two, three hop
up, down, then to me

companions peck and feast,
pitter-patter on the wire

holding up her wooden seat
where gossiping talons reside

my brown eyes connect
to the beady left of her skull

imagining the lush landscapes
her ancestors once flew through

who felt the wind and warmth
and knew of seasonal change

intruding hands take her away
for a new gate to look through

I am from a golden coast,
an opera house of mammoth white sails
and salt for air.

I am from a lush green land
of soiled famine, exiled religions and northern Troubles
boiling in burning peat.

I am from bustling streets,
men in suits pass men in cardboard between
***** soaked, graffitied concrete.

I am from narrow canals,
hustling gondolas and homeless pigeons
squawking for a bite to eat.

I am from the center,
from the crumbling youth of everywhere:
a desolate town of dust and cattle,
a five-shop city of broken words.

I am from the world.