One warm night in 2004:
I'd chased our old friend
around until finally
he collapsed onto that
bench in the quad.
We sat on the low wall
and looked at him.
"You're a good friend."
You told me, " You're always
making sure everyone is okay."
You asked what he'd taken
I told you it was on my list
of questions to get answered.


A year before:
I heard a knock
at the front door.
I opened it to find
you with our old friend.
"Heard you missed your bus."
You'd said, "Campus seems empty
without you."

Months later I bent over
to light a cigarette off the
glowing orange of
your cigarette.
Twin brief embers lighting
the cramped backseat
of your car.
You smiled,
and looked at me with
lightning in your eyes.
"We're kinda kissing."
You told me.
You moved closer...

That night:
You lit a cigarette and handed
it to me to light my own.
Our old friend slept it
off on the bench.
"Who takes care of you?"
You asked.
I told you it was on
the list.
"I could take care of you."
You'd said.

Before:
We were parked by my house
you had set off the
automatic locks on my door
so I couldn't get out.
I raised an eyebrow at you.
The ionic power between
your eyes and my heart
felt like it'd tear me apart.
"You can kiss me, you know."
You paused, "I want you to."
I moved closer...

We didn't last. We were
on an escalator at a mall
when it became official,
only I don't think we knew that.
A friend made it official
not us. Our friends had
the best of intentions.
But...
I moved further away from you.
I wasn't ready.
You weren't sure.
There is an outdoor table
on campus where it ended.

That night:
Maybe the moment
didn't matter to you
but it was the moment
I decided.
We'd already broken up
but everyone thought...
We thought it too,
that we might
not be finished.
That our flame might
be rekindled and burn
forever.
I put out my cigarette and
I turned back to
our old friend and I said,
"We've tried that. Didn't work."

We got in the car and
looked out at the road ahead.
"Pick a direction." I said.
I'd been desperately poor
and so hungry I couldn't
bare to eat.
I'd been on buildings
so tall I thought I might
touch the sky
and valleys so low
one worried the levy
wouldn't hold
but I was 17 just that once.

I recall throwing back
my head and screaming,
full throated, into an
empty night sky.
I once called the rain
in a mall parking lot
just outside of Baltimore.
I got so sick I thought
I'd die on an NYC subway.
I traveled with you
across this country
for just shy of 3 months.
I was 17 just that once.

I was three years in exile
in Dover, Delaware.
I felt cold Chicago rain
and New England sea breeze.
I've labored in Floridian humidy
and dressed against the
chill fog rolling in off
San Francisco bay.
I shoveled snow in Alaska
and got chased by fire ants
into an above ground pool
in Austin, Texas.
But I was only 17 that once.

We got into my beatup
old car, loaded with
the Spartan bag of clothes
we'd learned to have ready
to go over a lifetime of
sudden and drastic moves.
We'd stop for beef jerky
and drinks.
We'd stop to see the sights
we wanted to see.
We'd stop to get off the road
and stretch our legs.
"Pick a direction." I said.
I was only 17 that once.

I will try to measure my life
in codes for digital downloads
and in the many hundreds
of hours I've spent alone.
I don't know how else to do it.
I don't know how else to make it fit.
We never know it's finished
until it finally is.

One day we don't wake up
and we live in fear until it's over.
Because we don't know the
measure of us.
When my life is over and examined
what underlaying themes
will I find present?
And how do I prevent it?

And what of unfinished business
and loose story threads?
Do they get picked up and continued
in some later person's tale
or are they frayed too much for mending?
Am I too concerned with the ending?

Can I map a life to
Campbell's hero's journey?
Is the living as predictable
as a story circle?
It's certainly not as entertaining.
Do we reach apothosis
without a threshold being crossed?
Are we remembered fondly
or are we eventually lost?

I don't know the answers
but I sure wish I did.
We are thirty years from collapse
and riding a very fine line.
I need to learn not to fear
the fast approaching ending
because we're running long on story
but very short on time.

I remember the air
shimmering above hot roads
and sidewalks.
It rippled like water
and invited mirage.
We'd meet up in the
alleyway under my
fire escape and set off,
on bikes and skates and boards
and even on foot.
We'd be gone from the block
but usually still in the neighborhood.
Sometimes at lunch,
when everyone came back
to eat, I'd go up to the
corner store and one of
the uncles would buy me
a coke if I swept up or
moved some boxes.
I'd roll up comic books and
stuff them in my back pockets
because I had seen
Ric's older cousin do it
and I thought it was
the coolest thing.
At night we'd sneak into
the public pool to go for swims.
Some of the us would smoke
and talk about gossipy nothing
and some of us would try
to convince the girls to
give us secret kisses under
the water.
We were happy to be out
of the heat.
One weekend we biked,
my brother and I,
onto the island so we
could go to the good
theather, the air conditioner
worked and the movies
were played as double features.
We killed an entire
afternoon watching films
from the 80s play
back to back.
I sat, one evening, on the
lip of the roof of Ami's building.
She was staring at me
from across the roof
daring me to call her attention.
"Whatchu got, big guy?"
I leaned back and threw
out my arms, making slow
lazy circles and smiling
broadly at her and at everyone.
For a second, though it was
brief, the smile vanished.
I could feel the pull of
gravity in my belly and groin.
I felt suddenly weightless.
I was so sure...
but my feet kicked out and
the weight shifted
and I was fine.
She was making her way
over to me and I don't
remember what happened
next or what we said.
I remember the feeling.
I remember the fear.
I had nothing to compare
it to. It was huge and
intense and profound.
It was like...
It was like falling in love.
When it rained,
like sheets with wind whipping
between the buildings
as though through canyon walls,
we'd stay in and futz
with Great Grandma's
old black and white set.
One of us would hold the antenna,
the rest indicating how high
or far away.
We'd take turns,
switching out during commercials.
Waiting out the rain.
It's gone now, of course.
The city has a gestational period
like cicadas.
The city I know,
the city I moved away from
is gone.
Yesterday's New York.
I've learned since
to fall in love, elsewhere.

I went to church as a boy.
Learned my saints
and my psalms.
Memorized "and with you."s
and The Hail Mary
(Full of grace, you see.)
Drank the wine
ate the Eucharist.
Spectacles, testicles,
wallet and watch.
I sat at each station
and read my reading.
Said my prayer.
At some point I wondered
if god was even there.

I went to school in my youth.
Carved swearwords in desks
and learned an insane amount of math.
I sat through pep rallies
and detentions.
I read poems and novels
and text books and notes.
Passed to each other in class
(Check yes or no.)
I didn't know the diiference
between *** and love.
I often wondered at the
line of trees I could see
from the window.
What kept me there?
Who held the power?

In my childhood I fought a monster.
He looked like a man
and smelled of a bar.
He seemed a giant
as he loomed over me
(I'm six inches taller now.)
I remember his thick fingers
meaty from blue collar work
pressed against my eyelids.
I remember my head through
the hallway wall.
I still have that uneasy
feeling before bed.
I sometimes wonder
if one of those times
I never got up at all.

Years and miles
time and tide ago
my world was very
different and I wasn't
in control.
Tonight her gentle
breathing fills our room
and the sweet laughter
of our son fills our house
and I 've never been more happy
and I've never been more proud.
(He can count to 30 out loud!)
And I pray to an absent god
that an unknown power
taught me better.
I hope I got back up.
I do sometimes, when it's late
or I've allowed my thoughts
too much free reign, wonder
if maybe one day
my sweet little boy
will have to fight
a monster, too.

The longer a blade is held
to the grindstone
the less remains.
Sure it gets sharper
but quickly it also
gets thrown away.
We are not axes, my friends.
We are not tools.
Not meant to be used
and discarded
and played like fiddles
like fools.
Don't compliment me
on my grind
It's meaningless.
It isn't even mine.
The system in place
requires the hours,
extreme in their need,
in order that I may
look on a family
that I can then feed.
When you take a blade
to grindstone it is
because the edge is poor.
When you let it rest
from that friction you'll
find it can do more.
Sharpen when needed
allow time for rest.
Give the people a minute
let them catch their breath.
We are not broken
but the system we labor under is.
We don't need to be sharpened
we just need time to live.

I used to be so ******* brave.
Now filled to burst
with impotent rage.
Biting my tongue in traffic
shaking like a gun in a hand
curse words broken in my empty mouth.
In search of a lighthouse
we're crashing against the rocks.
Taking our difficult feelings
and cramming them into a buried box.
Desperately trying to be a better man
trying so ******* hard to be kind
asking for permissions and hearing,
"Go ahead. I don't mind."
We're still trying to find heaven
but only crashing to the ground.
A thousand elevators all lobby bound.
Waves, twisted metal, flames, wrecks and
impossibly deafening sound.
I was a he/him millennial
identifing primarily as mad
now to one little boy I'm just dad.
To all these brand new fears
I'm now a slave.
I'm ******* terrified, buddy. But I swear,
I used to be so ******* brave.