i'm sorry for my cold staring
in response to
your fondness of me

my mother could only ever
love me in code
when she could at all

i spent my life decrypting it
and i'm afraid
i'll spend the rest of my life
trying to decode
all the love i will ever know

19.01.24

you know, it's funny; tonight i was driving back to an empty apartment and one of your songs for me came through the speakers a bit too loud, just the way you liked it. the one about the girl who fled virginia for the west coast and the desperation to keep her close, mentioning the kempsville back roads and the boardwalk that we used to drive around ourselves. you said it was going to happen, i was going to leave virginia and you with it and flee to the pacific. and it's funny; you were right. i did exactly that, no matter how many times i tried to laugh at your vision of my future. you were always right.

and what's even more funny: you live further west than i ever have, surrounded by the mountains i am desperate to see, and i'll be returning to that commonwealth i was desperate to get away from. and it's almost a poetic justice. that i'm going back and you're the one half a world away. but this time, i won't be climbing through the windows of houses on indian river road anymore, or packing bongs in the snow in a greenbrier backyard, or watching the curls that would spill over that gentle curve of your lip in that house off of lynnhaven where we first met. no, i'll get to see the gentle curves of the east coast mountains, perhaps softer than yours ever were. i'll watch cherry blossoms fall soft and sweet, better than the way i fell for you. and you'll be in some spotlight in anchorage, making her laugh harder than i ever did. and that's okay with me.

I am just me,
not like others
If you don't think
about love
Then we can be
just friends.

When you'll know
me as well
Like the dove knows
the grove
Then that, will you
ring a bell?

Don't smile and gaze
at me, please
Then I will fall in love
with you
Just stop playing
with me like this!

Your moony face
keep sipping me
It feels like my dream
will come true
When you will feel
you need a honey bee.

Then I want to be
your honey bee,
Just think of me
and see
I can be and I will be
your honey bee!

friends or frenemies (feminist safety instruction card)

a coastal flight, boredom has me riffle through the various
offerings in the seat pocket, and on the safety instruction card
come across this...
<•>

she’s blunt, direct, proffers me an either/or choice,
game on either way, pick door A or B, up to me,
she’s no lady, but a hipster shooter using semi-automatics,
three lines of verse, rat-a-tat-tat, your guts spilling,
hoho you’re dead or kicked in the *****, at the minimum

if only she knew what she was up against

I got words for which there ain't no antidote,
can whip her into a lovers frenzy with cooing metaphors,
slap her with stingers so that she’ll retreat hasty to another site

friends or frenemies, how juvenile, how sweet, how absolutely
childish girl, no interest, play in my arena, I have studied with
the masters and lionesses and offer you no terms but this:

be my lover

extend your reach, speak slow and soft, open and willing,
my sonnets demand close attention, slowing and holding,
building links into chains that make boundaries into a single
tie that binds, not for now and not for later but for the only measure that poets alone command: forever

concede and give up that conceit that tough is a defense,
lose everything for rewards you have yet to witness, conceive,
in my circle is in my circle where the intuitive rules and gasps of shocking come so frequent, they are normal breathing

be my lover

knowing that we will never meet never see the inside of
the furnace that can be dreamed-created with tonguing verbs,
adjectives that dance intertwining pas de deux,
oh my femme fatale, my agent provocateur,
let us learn together how,  to teach each other
come,
will be the only action word ever required

come
come write me
come together
come close my eyes
come open them wider
come free me to be a one two

anger is false brevity - loving is the languid forever languishing flames of golden burning orange caramel, word chips of
liquidity that verses, penned passioned calculations,
see how takes many stalks needy to  birth bound into a
single sheaf, count the wips of smoky wispy slivers,
combine and separate, the calculus of recombinant,
offering a unique poem with a momentary invitation,
an equation of equality and there is no diverse different


<•>

the first class steward sh/wakes the dozing body
with an apology;
“landing soon, would you like some breakfast before we land?”

the sleepy soul replies,
come to me with water,
just water...for my dream

I've become pale
confronting
the idea that these
deafening thoughts  
might actually
be my own,
a troubled view
that I've gone through
the world is dark
when i'm alone
so I stay quiet,
as still as one can be
if I play
hide & seek
with silence
maybe
the silence
wont find me.

there’s an open
wound on main street
and i wish people would
stop asking about it
because every question pulls
the hole a little wider

something was always
just a little bit
wrong

a constant drip
in the fridge

a fruit fly trapped
in the bake case

missing corners
of floor tiles

pictures hanging
slightly crooked

one foot of a table
unscrewed to a wobble

the rattle
of the heater

smiles from those
i couldn’t trust

a tiny pinprick of
stress behind my eyes

every year was
the year that would
make it or break it

so nobody was
surprised
except those who
couldn’t see the scuffs

last year
things were supposed
to be so good
everyone talking
mad **** about their
incredible ideas

i had a few
ideas of my own
nobody ever had to
teach me how to
dream big
overachieve
overexert myself
and fall hard

the quiche crusts stuck
to the bottoms of pans

and there was no way to
get the slice out
without the whole entire
thing falling apart

i might have been
the first slice to go

but at least i got
out of there

before the hand that
pulled me out
was the hand that
dropped the pan

a glass pie plate
shattered and
the way things were
supposed to be suddenly

over
just
like
that

and i’m still
reeling
on the sidewalk
staring at the
empty shell of
something i once loved

big hopes
big dreams
big plans
small town
too small to
hold them all

every piece of my
future points
backwards
arms of a clock
working their way
into the past

it’s not in how
the damage was done
but in how you
heal from it

there’s an
open wound on
main street
maybe if we gave
south street stitches
we could pull it closed

but still i question
my existence as if
scones and coffee
and thursday mornings
before sunup were
the only things that
gave me
stability

maybe
they were

maybe people
pull themselves into
an orbit around that
which keeps them grounded

an orbit of
routine and the
dissonance needed
to stir ice cubes
in a plastic cup
to create peace
in the moment
of chaos

or maybe
the one place
that always felt
like home to me
was just a cafe
on the four corners
and now there’s
an open wound
not so much
on main street
but the pocket of my
heart where hope lives