My goal every day is to wake up with a smile,
Help others for the sake of helping,
Greet everyone with a smile,
Be sad or happy when it is appropriate,
try to have fun and bring joy to each day.
After I finish doing all of that,
I'll go to sleep thinking what I should do tomorrow.

I want to stargaze
With someone
Who wants to have a conversation
About the universe
And their life

I want to explore
With someone
Who will climb over
Roots and rivers
And uncover secrets

I want to drive
With someone
Who will just talk to me
Over winding roads
And long lost paths

I am not looking for a lover
I do not want to be replaceable
I'm not concerned with getting
Swept off my feet
I can stand on my own

I am looking for a friend
Someone who will call me at 3 AM
Drunk and crying and seeking advice
That only I can give
I want a best friend
Not a lover

i can taste you,
on my tongue, in between the cracks
of my canines, saturated on my
peeling lips.
and i haven’t been able to keep food down.
you are in the pockets of cheeks,
and you taste like guilt, shame,
and so much greed. greed.
i have brushed my teeth over five times today,
used mouthwash until my eyes watered.
but you are thick,
and i’m swallowing, hoping it will dissolve.

a brown-eyed susan deflowered in the unmade bed of a bleary eyed boy
she ***** her fists into ocean blue sheets,
she feels as if her roots are about to give
with clumsy hands, he caresses her spine

he calls her beautiful

she is awoken by a gentle beam of sunlight that sneaks through his curtains
and kisses her eyelids
her delicate petals litter the floor

she tip-toes around them

and sees herself out.

Put your ear to the concrete, now.
It has the same rhythm as watercolor,
            our souls have the same consistency as dirt.

La la la. Everything is plowed in the ground eventually –
      every ticktock shows Atlantis a friend.

This balcony smells like violins, like a comet, like waifs
                          & has the sound of crowded prose.

    A man will spit, spit, spit on you:
  a girl will crawl from a bottle of effervescence –
      both carry their flask
one is so red, do worry about communism.

                                We will all have our canteen
microwave like a thermos & aerate into
                    our crowded spit bubble, big finale la la la.

he took my last quarter and dime,
pocket lint, the missing *****
of something I’d meant to reassemble
if I’d remembered or had time

then wandered off
rubbing shoulders with the sidewalk preacher
searching for signs of end times in rainstorms
or faint rumbles of passing traffic,
holding high his Good News
in a half-folded forecast for tomorrow;

this exodus -
across a patch of crabgrass
following a diagonal path of earth foot-worn
into a thin gray line defining the shortest distance
from his concrete corner to the door of the liquor store
justified a sacrifice of hours, the cold lies told:

lost wallet,
old mother,
car just out of gas

practiced to passersby or filling station patrons,
their rumpled tithes
reborn into an afternoon sermon
wrapped tight in brown paper
still warm with silent echoes of amen

You looked at me as if I were a
primrose
A delicate flower
with tiny petals
opening up to you
with little thorns to ***** you with
when you make me angry
You plucked me up
away from the sun
and the moon
and the sky
and my little primrose friends
You put me in an expensive vase,
caring for me the best you could.
But sometimes you go away,
and alone
I am wilting

They say when you lose a limb,
sometimes you can still feel it
even after it's gone
Maybe that's why I still feel your arm
wrapped around my waist

****** with meaning, under the sun
Dust and bones from an old loved one
It’s all around, and you breathe it in.
Do you feel me now, under your skin?
Human: Complete.