On the backs of receipts
and physics formula sheets
I've been drawing compasses.
Needles pointing randomless,
concentric circles, shaky lines
creeping outside their contours
and I don't need you to tell me
I'm an amateur.
I already can't
find my way.

the daughter of Apollo
whistles back at birds
reminding them to stay close,
she knows that Icarus
was a dense
bloke so it goes, they circle
in the overexposed
sky and come back just
shy of the shine, and the cicadas
always know when it's time.
then she says, "come along,"
and they all know to go,
following the whistle
of the daughter of Apollo.

i had a houseful
of old friends
milling around
a lakeside town

their summer was
my half of a winter
and they spoke things
that i believed in
but had absolutely
no reason to say.

they were
alive to me
more alive
than anything else.

i don't know where
they went
trapped somewhere
inside a screen
buried alive under
my own problems

are they still
sleeping
in a graveyard?

or is she in jail
and is he seeing
someone else?

they were my
friends
just pieces of
fiction

and i'm hoping
that somewhere
inside me he's still
strumming a
ukulele and she's
standing on the side
of a waterfall and
looking down
i hope they're
alive and well

(knowing them
he's probably
sad but fine and
she's probably
just as crazy as
when i left her.)

but i don't know
i can't promise anything

i lost them
and i lost who
i was when i was
with them.

take me back
a year
take me
ridgeside

i can only promise
one thing

that i haven't
forgotten you.

I promised you a wink
We got drunk so we could kiss
Fireworks, smoked out sheds
Tee-*** man fell in love at the Taco Bell
We lived beneath the tree
Twenty years old
It's been three since that night in the basement
Citrus something and secret kissing in the office
My hands rested on your legs, and your sister sat outside
Summer is always showing up again
Oh, I remember the Indie Rokkers (who could forget?)
You've been on my mind since 2013
One day, someday, it's been too long
It all started with that Free Festival Concert

Eulogy singer
Blood bullets explode in my throat
Blood, ink, rusted piano keys
Church pews and surgical scars
Christmas feels like crying
I hope I don't die in Italy
Drinking ink on the bathroom floor
Everything was, but wasn't
It was white shoes, but off white, really
In love, but not
Warm water in the garage
A champagne bottle and a butcher knife
We drank in the streets, and no one got caught
Blood bullets on Main Street, everyone was drops of old beer
That time of year
Bullet holes in the headboard
Used, abused, we don't get to choose
Christmas felt like joy or melancholy or pine or something

Neither of us is God
but I finally found
someone who
answers my prayers