I see my city from a distance,
small points of light inscribe
the shapes of it's skyline against
a dark blue and purple night
and I know I am near home.
I lead a tired life
in ratty sneakers
and find myself on Pratt Street
well after the bars have closed
but before the sun.
I walk these streets and think
about the years of pavement
under my feet and the
people who populate my memories
and my city.
There are lives, being lead
in the quiet and ignored way
that city lives are,
behind every lit window.
My city isn't defined by
the height of it's buildings
and there is little neon,
but if you are very silent,
and more than a little patient,
you can hear her breathe.
My city is a portrait,
from Monument to Key Highway
and all points around and between.
I stand, in the stillness of the
streets well after the bars close,
and know that my story
has been played at different
points throughout her heaving mass.
And it is played now, by me and
the many millions like me.
We are a city united in our mutual
distaste and love for the buildings
and lights and cross streets
that house us and are our
home.

Thirty years ago was yesterday,
it's amazing how fast it all goes
considering how long everything
has always seemed to take.
Hours ago, I was a boy
learning life lessons from
twenty-five year olds
without a clue about
what they were doing
and struggling in the
everyday poverty we all
pretend isn't as ordinary
as it is. As it always has been.
My parents, not yet
forty years old when
I graduated high school,
didn't keep their vows
but many parents didn't.
The whole homes I saw
were odd to me, alien
in their completeness
and intimidating in their
warmly expressed affection.
I always knew, in my bones
and in my blood, that
I would be better, even
incomplete I would look
whole from a distance
if I could just guide the
narrative and live the
white lies about hope
and promise I would
someday see a tomorrow
that made yesterday look
small in it's distance
from today.
It was seven lifetimes
living this lifetime
and it still happened in
the blink of an eye
and everyone tells you that
it will happen that way
and you believe you understand
but I didn't.
I sure thought I did,
a million years back
when it was still
five seconds ago.

Years Ago:
We ran around in the snow for hours.
Shed our coats
and watched as the steam
rose from our skin
into the night sky.
We marveled at body heat
and cold air.

Yesterday:
I crushed what was left of the snow
into a rain puddle
and stepped on it.
It felt violent and wonderful.
I watched as the water
moved the tread prints
further and further apart.

Now:
You’re miles away,
watching the snow melt.
You’re looking at your phone,
wondering if you should call.
If I’m free. If I miss you.

All the time:
There is no window to
the past, no way to reclaim
what we built, there is
only now.
There is only the horror
and the glory of now.
I miss you, more than you know.
But I am not free.
I may never be.

I can't seem to stop
thinking about the end,
about the final moments
the life I've worked so
hard to finally sorta
start to figure out
is over, finished
I've spent most of my life
selling my time to other
people and being largely
cheated on the deal
and I'm at the point
where the sand is
no longer in greater
amounts on the top
of the hour glass than below
and in the distance I can
just make out the rounded
edges that will mark
the empty place where dry
bones will soon lay at rest
and I worry what you'll get.
Will my legacy be something
you can hold high?
Will you reach into your memories
of me in times of difficulty
to use words spoken to you
in my atonal version of
warmth to help you get through?
Or will you just feel left behind?
Everyone leaves, given enough
tide or enough time.
Everybody goes foward toward
a reward of some kind
and they fade in the middle
distance as you sit behind.
It happened to me, too.
So, should you feel abandoned
when I'm no longer around
I'm sorry, buddy. I really
didn't want to go,
so long, goodbye.
I really hope you can
forgive me, but it's up
to you to do or say.
Tomorrow belongs to you
I still belong to yesterday.

Restless/awake they live
in separation.


On his night stand there is a ring.
Thick and black and full of a promise.
Next to him, as he moves in his fitful sleep
there is only an empty half of the bed.
In dreams she's there
(all freckled kisses and soft hair.)
next to him.

Miles away she turns the ring on her finger.
Small and gold and half of a whole.
She smiles at the dark night sky,
knowing that somewhen he went to sleep
without her.
She knows he'll toss and turn
(his smoker's mouth like an urn)
and reach for her.

Love/longing they know
in isolation.

My song is a lifetime,
wasted in triviality.
Crescendo close to daylight,
although the sky is ripped and torn.
The meaning of it,
if any can be found,
is vague and small,
the sound is all too loud.
My song is made for screaming,
from a higher vantage point.
Building tops and cigarette shops,
feature in the refrain.
And always, beating against the backdrop,
the steady sound of rain.
My song is a broken chain of failure,
and small independent success.
It is lifting to the ones who need it,
it takes little time to rest.

I run my fingers across the surface
of the water.
Above ground pool.
I'm eleven.
You stare out your window,
you know I'm there.
So very Romeo.

I call to you.
I throw stones at your window.
My god, the innocence in an age
before cell phones, and Instant messages.
The freedom of love before email.

You press your lips against the glass.
Puckered. A kiss.
You didn't wear lipstick.
You were young still.
Little girls weren't yet taught
to think they were adults.
The grease from your lips left an imprint.
It wasn't shaped like a kiss.
It mostly looked like your cheek.

Above ground pool.
My fingers damp across the
always blue ripples of water.
So very Romeo.

There were notes, folded into tight and
puzzling shapes, and passed in class.
The checkmark appreciation game.
I kept them.
Unchecked boxes.
They were in my pocket.
They're gone now, but so are you.
So am I.

When I kissed you I had my eyes open.
I didn't know any better.
It was nothing.
A peck.
Everyone thought
we would be married one day.
I like to think that you knew better.
So very Romeo.

I remember your vigor.
You used to pick me up
and spin me around your head.
The sheer masculinity of it
was nothing short of
inspiring.

“Tomorrow, I'll wear it tomorrow.”

Now I watch as you sit,
reclined and growing.
Your hairline seems to move
more every day.

Were your ankles always so thin?

We eat in silence these days,
in halls once filled
with laughter.
The spoons are too short,
or perhaps the bowl is simply
too far away.
It's so hard to tell.

“I'll put it on one of these days.”

That tie you used to wear
lays on the bedside table.
I asked you to wear it
not too long ago, thinking
it would force you to remembered
the man you once were.
It lays there still

I stand in front of the mirror
for far too long everyday
and wonder if you see in me
the decline I've seen in you.
My arms used to be so strong.
We used to be so strong.

I hate that ******* tie.

I've seen churches on fire and wondered what that meant.
Is God's judgement final? Is his wisdom all spent?
I saw the parishioners teary eyed, jaws muscles tightly knit.
But, like, how does this help me understand the world or where in it I fit?
I don't know if it's courage that you battle the darkness every day
Just because you know how much I want you to stay.

I gotta be honest, man.
I don't know how to be happy.
I don't know how other people do this ****.
I don't know much about life or happiness or love.
But I do know: it's gonna have to come from us.

Life can be dystopian. It's a long relationship with violence.
I've known it to be twisting pain and having to suffer in silence.
We are clenched little fingers, nails dug deep into the palms of our hands.
We are all odd, emotional nationals of strange and distant lands.
Sure, I mean, we were born and raised in the same places.
But we stare out from foreign countries behind the eyes in our faces.
What works for you, my old friend, will not work for me.
You bask in shining, brilliant light but I gotta squint just to see.

We'll lie and say we're happy.
Say we're just fine.
We try to believe it, too.
But we just feel like we were left behind.
Like, somehow we missed the day they taught this ****.
How is everyone smiling in timeline photos?

Everyone's got perfect teeth and an audience to keep.
A life of happiness, assuming we don't look too deep.
I wonder if the pervasive sadness is in the water or if it's just in me.
I hope for end of tunnel lights and locks to fit this ******* key.

Keep up the fight, my friend. Don't quit. Stay.
I know it's ******* hard. I know. Find a way.
I love you. I need you. Don't you dare leave me.
I'll fit the mold. I'll be what you need me to be.

My limbs ache in captivity.
I stretch in these shallow confines
and feel hard wall and harder resolve.
Freedom will be mine.
If only for these minutes
or that hour,
My god, if only for today!

I have watched you spend
time.
I have seen you preform these
great labors.
I have noticed the effort,
the struggle
the care
with which you constructed
the perfect cage to keep me.
I think you proud of these
walls and this narrow slat
that light can trickle through.

But there are so many things,
so many things, friend,
which you have left unconsidered.
Yes, you have left me no key
and yes, one would be useless
were I to have it.
Yes, you have forced me to
stay. Yes, you have created in
your trap a mechanism which I need.

You must sleep. In those dark hours
I may yet steal away.
You never thought I could learn to
need less and want only one thing.
You built this cage to keep who I was.
You didn’t consider who I am.

I will be free.
I will be whole.
I will feel the wind against my back.
I will not look back,
I will never try to find you again.

You keep me for now,
because I don’t know how to
be anything but kept.
I’m learning.
I’ve had a good teacher.

Between you sits a shared order of fries,
silence, anger, regret and of course, lies.
She licks your wet blood from her claws,
and glibly recites a litany of your flaws.

I'm right here.
******* it!
I'm still right here!

And you holler at the open night sky
clutching at your wounded inner eye
and the question shoots from your core:
"How much is enough?"
The answer, as always: More and more and more.

I mean, what the **** is personal privacy anymore?
We're splattered across digital realms like slasher movie gore.
Trying to communicate complex thoughts as sharp as swords,
using no more than one hundred and forty ******* words.

You don't have the means, your heart now a ******* wound,
to put a dent in the argument against you she's crooned.
It's like sitting before the cosmic mind for a game of chess.
It's like defending yourself when you've only ever been a ******* mess.

I am mountains of doubt and rivers of fear.
I haven't gone anywhere. I'm still right here
I just need you to see me, my love. My dear.
I'm still right ******* here.

The dreams of dead men
are absent of purpose
Dreams lose meaning when
living stops.
Dreams may not
die, but the same
is not true for
you and I.
The dreams left behind
by centuries of the dead
suddenly become empty.
They are hollowed out
and meaningless as soon
as the living turn cold.
Dead men are stones
and the mountain ranges
that define our world
see nothing and think nothing.
Land does not dream
but we hang purpose on
things.
There is no meaning
in the words of the dead.
There is power, perhaps,
but the dream behind the words
is for the living to define.
Stones and bones
and empty words.
We build on the dead,
raising shared visions
into being.
We build on the dead.
We should be in no hurry
to follow them.

I think maybe
you been on my mind, baby.
Stop.
Letters in the post
missing you the most
texts left on ghost
and every word outta your mouth is fire
and every step is climbing higher
and you and me, which one's a liar?
'Cause we're scant yards from the pyre
and it's overwrought and in under the wire
but my eyes droop and I tire.
Stop.
The last shelter you take in the storm
is the the only spot I'm safe and warm.
I kept buzzing but got lost in the swarm
blended in style, substance and form.
No.
Real now.
I miss you.
When I'm out here on the road tired and alone, I miss you.
You're on my mind.
Not always, but often.
And sure, we've been together a long time
but I don't want anyone else.
I'm miles away and covered in sweat and dust
and my knuckles bleed
and
my skin cracks
and my dream fades American
and I miss you.
I always do.
This much, only, is true.
Stop.

Storybook ******* finds
a hero riding in on horseback
with grave purpose and noble intent.
Saving the day, or the damsel.
Kissing the problems awake,
rending the wolf's innards to find her.
Building the machine or spell that somehow fixes things.
Hard and dark, like burned wood,
are his eyes.
Broad and strong are his shoulders.
Trite and compromised are his deeds.
And so, in fiction we are saved.
In fiction we somehow still need saving.
Karma is a lie, kismit doubly so.
If there exists a path through the dark it is only because other damaged and broken people trod it there.
We don't have noble intent, we don't have hard eyes, but we occasionally accidentally build the mechanism that fixes things.
Not in whole.
Not completely.
And not even well.
Almost never is it perfect, occasionally it is better. But it is change, nonetheless.
It is change!
It is a start.
It is grave purpose.
Storybook ******* be ******.

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 stand on the forecourt
another job bound to drag
late into the night
in some other state
very far from home.
I'm staring across the street
waiting for other people
so I can get back to work
and I see the houses.
Like rows of uneven teeth,
different colors. Satellite dish
on that one.
Little differences.
I am suddenly consumed by
the enormity of all the
unfolding lives.
How I stand among them
but don't belong.
How my own life is miles
away and missed.
How we are all vital
but we are all strangers.
You read my words now
see these thoughts.
In this moment of wonder
which I here record
you have known me.
I wish I could know you
but I stand here
a stranger.
I intrude on your lives
and we'll never meet
and that's odd to me.
We're all out here, alone,
leading Stranger's lives.

Everything has strings attached.
We're all waiting for it to start,
for our lives to finally,
******* FINALLY,
kick into gear.
But we can hear it calling.
Oblivion.
From a house, or a street
just a little further down.
And it chills to the quick,
to the bone,
one and all.
It calls us, friend, by name.
By our name.
How can we argue that?

I say we bleed out on filthy
tile floors in truck stop bathrooms.
The wound we walk through life with,
the one inside our hearts.
Let it bleed away.
Because, we are so ******* tired
of twin self destructive
thoughts chasing each other
through our minds.
Endless searching and finding,
for our trouble,
more trouble.

I will burn my heart out in the looking.
I will.
I will **** myself.
Shame myself.
I will lie to, twist up and hate myself
if it gets me where I need it to.
I am without hope or principle,
but I have a dog in this fight, friend.
You'd better believe it.

So shout it out.
Echo it down like mountain top hollering.
Make sure we all know.
We all hear it.
Make sure the whole world knows.
Remembers us.
We were here, future.
You don't scare us.
We were ******* here.

Be brave in the small hours.
We have it in us.
And time is tall, right now,
but as we move it grows so short.
We would **** and dishonor for tall time,
in only the space of a piece of lifetime.
We know it, and we know it well.

We get *******, though.
We move from place to place,
and from person to person.
We move, as best we can.
But the strings,
they bind us to earth and we sink.
Unable to drown, we breath in water.
And in the distance,
calling us by name:
Oblivion.

Through this window there is light.
I cupped it in my hands,
careful to keep my fingers
from opening.
I dropped it into that old
soda bottle I kept around,
for reasons you never understood.
I hide it under my bed,
wrapped in a scarf I had left
over from that cold winter.
It’ll be my sunshine.
Mine and mine alone.
Of course, if you whisper
the right ***** jokes,
throw the right smile,
kiss me under the stars
until I feel like that boy with his
soda bottle of sun rays again,
if you will do these things for me:
I will fish under my bed,
unravel the scarf,
unscrew that lid
and finally, after all these
years, I will watch the
sunlight dance around
this room with you.

I remember having to break
the binding so I could see
the full image.
I remember the pools of dark
shadow defining the world.
I remember the pithy banter,
long before I knew the word
was pithy.
I remember the smell of it.
The wonder.
I remember how fragile
the two staples that
held it together were.
I remember putting it
down and looking up
at my Uncle and telling him
that one day I was going to
be Spider-man.
Perhaps I remember best
him looking down at me,
smiling his knowing smile
and saying,
“Yes. Yes you will.”

My whole life I've been
waiting for the music to swell.
I've been wincing at raised hands
and obidient of Pavlov's bell.
I've been thinking about the end
and what that might mean.
I've run with sudden violent shudders
I've never run clean.
I want peace and solitude
like a snowy mountain cap.
I've been lost. It's been
a nightmare without a map.
I'd secret away lits bits and bobs.
Some string, a subway token.
We used poverty as excuse, but we
weren't just broke we were broken.

I like the stinging numbness
of eating radish slices.
I like the quiet oblivion
of heavy rain.
I like to imagine that
this will all lead to crisis.
I'd rather leave behind the past.
I'd rather not focus on pain.

I often dream about dying.
Walking the room at
my own funeral and
wondering why no one is crying.

I locked away my heart
at a tender age
because it hurt to feel
and for reasons left off the page.
I put it in a cold, high place
locked it and told it to run.
Told to always hide.
But you journeyed there,
chased it down and picked the lock
releasing all the horrible
truthsome **** inside.

You could be better.
You should be more.
Instead you're this.
This miserable ******* chore.
I woke up this morning
and wrote the note.
I finally knew the ending.
It's tucked in my coat.
Why you ask did I not just
put it in the mail?
How could I have discarded
it, should I fail?
This is how it is
how it should be.
A little secret, reader,
between you and me.
You're free, of course.
Free as birds.
Not that it matters,
they are only words.

My best friend said
I like my endings to be sad.
Maybe he's right. I don't know.
But those are
the only endings I've ever had.

Your hand on the side
of my face, gentle but firm,
as long as you need
no need to squirm.
Your eyes steady and alive
burning from your core.
your voice whispering
that I deserved more.

Whether it'll be heaven
or it'll be hell
I'm not sure or at least
I cannot tell.
I'm feeling amazing
I'm going out on top.
In the distance the music
begins to swell.
To celebrate my short drop
and very sudden stop.
Swing life away.
Free as bees. Free as birds.
Of course, we both know,
these have been only words.

I will give you sweetest comfort and sweeter lies.
I'll tell you that everything will be alright. That everything is fine.
You're the best. You're so ******* great.
You'll be remembered. Laid in state.
People are trying to improve. I've seen it.
This is real. Big. Stand! We've no time to sit.

Sympathy for the devil is the order of the day.
Sit back and relax. I assure you it's well underway.
And listen, some people are wealthy and lucky and full of despair.
Some are in love but married into the wrong pair.
You wanna be happy? Grow up, kid.
Happy is cheap. Remembered is big.

And if it gets bad, dark and cold, no worries. I've got your back.
Sure you're running in a hamster wheel but on the wrong track.
And there is comfort to be found in living just to die.
But I'll always be there and love you. And why would I lie?

Locked away
in tiny clenching fists
are the stories.
The ones we always meant to tell.
Without these parts,
you know the pieces,
we cannot seem to build
the plot and your story...
I mean, look how it falls apart.

Could there be a moment
(take your time, think)
when all of this *******
falls away and only
you and I and the truth
of you and now
and me and then
remains.
Like coffee grounds.

How many cigarettes
does a day take?
I mean, what really gets you?
What sets you on fire?
My god,
how we need to be
on fire!
We need the light,
y'see,
because it is so ******* hard
to see in the dark
without it.

Color your language,
pepper it with purple prose
and profanity,
to tell the story that
sits like a stone
in your heart or your throat.
Because no one
(Seriously, believe me on this.)
can tell your story for you.
You have to take the pen,
look on your works,
and write it large
against the world.

Your story
(Beautiful as you are. Has to be.)
needs to be seen from the sky.
Open your mouth, love.
Tell.

distant burning signal fires,
complicated knots in lines
of tightly wound rope.
star sounds resonating
on frequencies our own ears
are not properly aligned
to receive or transmit.
blood stains on
fresh white linen that
won't come out and are
too difficult to hide.
that one lopsided too
toothy smile, all coy
and unassuming under
slightly uneven bangs,
that cast us away from
the shallow water like
a siren song.
the rusted out bottom
of a wheelbarrow that
you'd hoped to have
one more winter with,
and that odd earthy smell
blood gets when it's
settled beneath your
fingernails overnight.
language is a failure but
math hasn't the terminology
for vivid human memory
Life's like that, I think.

If you were a place
you’d be a temple in Tibet.
You’d be cold as ice,
and hard to reach.
You’d be fraught with
danger and legend.
I could get lost for days
with no attention or
assistance.
Yes.
You would be a secret
temple in the mountains
of Tibet.
I would find you looking
for an answer, a cure
a purpose. Looking
for completion and peace.
I would leave
whole and calm
and perfect.

I was born many years
and hundreds of miles
from here.
On any given day all
I really want is just
to disappear.
I don't know the truth
but have told thousands
of clever lies.
I'm one half a practicing
prisoner and one half a
series of goodbyes.
All my little life it's been
what've you done
for me lately?
I'm soured on bitterness
and hoping to appear
at least stately.
I don't know where things
are going. I don't know
how it'll end.
I'm trying very hard
not to lose it. Not to snap
but to bend.
I don't know how to
talk to you in scrawling
lines of text.
I'm worried about
the future and everything
that comes next.

Mutter your words
across these invisible channels.
Tell me, spare no detail,
the ways in which you have missed me.

Tonight I am selfish,
because you are here with me.
Tonight I am complete.

Reign it in, lest you scare them all away.

Kept in chambers, buried so deep within
that they can be seen from the sky,
I spy you treading the ground of my
empty grave.

Steal my youth, if you believe yourself
my better.
But be warned that even freedom cannot keep me.

Get it together, or it will all fall apart.

Keypads and sorcery, and all points between.
Feel free to use me, as you might a tissue.
I am one among many, and always have been.
I am far from unique, factory issue.

But who can say, at four a.m.,
that they are fine and well?
Life is various bedlam faithless wonder and mayhem.
Patiently waiting to ring the bell.

Step back and breath. Don't let it fall.

Because you wake beside me in our shared bed.
Because you love me with blue eyes.
Because you promise me with sweet lies.
Because you are my living heart and head.

And in a moment, when all of this is done,
when you lay your head against my chest,
when our souls plead for sweetest rest,
will it matter which of us has won?

The boy king shuddered
under another massive
weight, a crown made heavy
by the varied day to day
concerns of a kingdom
that was his to command
to preserve and to save.
If he seems curt, or haughty
or even rude,
please keep in mind
the pressure at his magnitude.

Looking back at the
boy king turns a man's
stomach in Gordian knots
loving him for what he is
knowing what he'll yet be
and hating all that he is still not.

No one's flying to the moon
or day tripping to Mars.
No one is wishing for a brighter
tomorrow from a field of stars.
We are still captives, tied to earth
for all the good it'll do us
waiting for a chance to blow this scene
before the world starts to rue us.

The boy king yawns and curls up
ready to hibernate away again.
Sleep in, best you can.
You will always be a boy
but the blood and fire
are callimg for a Man.

I'm so full of nervous energy
but I haven't got air to shout.
I'm scratching at understanding
with no clue what it's all about.
I'm six hours of sleep away from
another triple shift and I've slid
from past to present on the
slideshow of stupid **** I did.
The one that plays in my head
when all I want is anything else instead
the voice that tells me
better off dead
than loosed and unhappy
mean and angry and underfed
I'm so tired of talking to myself
about myself, I know you didn't ask
apologies sent but unrecieved
Still, I'm not undertaking the task
I complain out loud
to an audiance of me about how
I still don't got **** figured out.
I've heard so many answers
but none of 'em make any sense.
If I learn to love myself how
does that repair the fence
That I put up to keep all of them away
so I don't have to deal with
what all of 'em have got to say
I think we've learned talking doesn't work
and if I can't get a few hours sleep
I'll be another day running empty
How do I make me feel better?
What's the cheat code or the trick
to getting over all this *******
I've reached the breakdown
where it all falls apart
and I'm lost again
still not knowing where to start.

I sit and wait on the call.
Problem solving as a summons
lit high and bright in
dark nighttime skies.
I wait for the call.
For the pull in my blood
screaming toward labor
toward love or toward war.
I am consumed in patient hold.
Call me to action!
Drive me, like a weary stead
slathered in foam from effort,
into your biggest ******* mess!
Unleash me, like a hungry Karmen
starving and deep, on your worst foes.
I long for purpose.
I beg for need.
I don't know how to apologise.
I only know how to plead.
I don't know how to compromise.
I only know how to take wing.
I await your call.
But the phone sits still.
It just doesn't ring.

You went upstairs to go to bed,
but you never came back.
Or rather you didn't come back
under you own power.

It was MEs, stretchers,
and tear stained sunrises we never
saw from the kitchen floor
where we wept.

The arrangements were made,
open casket confessions and so little else.
You were ashes by the days end.
No mantel piece resting place.

Because it's not fair.
Because nothing ever is.
Because you were so young,
because we weren't ready.

Because your love was so vast
that it would light up the room.
Because you taught us to close our hands
and catch starlight in between our fingers.

There is a hole in my soul.
An error in my morning light.
I can still smell the tea.
How you loved strong tea...

"Black as the night and
sweet as a stolen kiss."

Memories of your made up language,
the one so few of us knew fluently,
will always dance in my brain.
To think, I failed Spanish.

When, days later, we opened the microwave
to find your cup of tea,
the one you left out every night,
you were such a fan of strong tea...

How are we supposed to go on?
Where will the hand be that is meant to guide?
I had never cried over tea.
I had never cried over much of anything.

Imagine my surprise,
my sweetest mentor,
my treasured care giver,
when my shoulders began to shake.

Fire burns across the universe.
Lighting it up, showing all of it's
darkest flaws, and brightest gifts.
It is this fire, burning it's way
across the cosmos, building one
on another, crafting this place as
infinite, as eternal, as unending,
it is this fire which brings us to
the place where we will all see
the beginnings and the ends of
our tired songs.

The fire rages still, waiting it's
long wait, it's silent smoldering,
waiting for us. And we will join
it, that is not something that can be
stopped or denied, only delayed.
Energy is forever, it will never fade
it will never leave, it will only become
something more profound, only more
amazing.

We are that energy, and it is our
life's sole purpose to end. To wither
and fade into some lost and tangent
flow of energy, one more wisp on the
cosmic winds. But it is with this purpose
that we become great, it is in the joining
of matter and time that we will be complete.

Fire burns across the universe.
I will one day burn with it,
until then this energy, this body,
this me.
I will become eternal.

You were brought low
by ******* pomp and circumstance,
fed a line of nonsense and
made to shutup and dance.
But I remember when.
When you held strong
as the levees.
Stood firm as trees
and thick as blood.
I remember you, love
and I remember you
at your best
before the flood.
I don't think I ever
told you
because I'd never tell
anyone,
but I used to
wanna be you
in spite
of what you done.
That was before
everything broke
and the rivers swelled
to run over and they
ran over bad.
That was before
we threw away
all that amazing
stuff we didn't know
that we had.
Now there's just
this place
all dim light
and broken trust.
After the flood
everyone else dwindled.
Disappeared and forgotten
until it was
just us.

Try brevity, they tell me.
Short and concise.
The distance between points,
not stars.
Essential employee,
stressed out,
hurting financially,
most of the time I'm scared.
I'm also...
I dunno...blond?
I still don't really know
my father.
I guess that's now.

I'm a father. A millennial.
I've seen several epidemics,
I remember AIDS after school specials.
I remember the towers and the rash
of tragedy that followed.
I've survived two recessions,
a war and Y2K.
Hell, I remember where I was
when they killed Superman.
Is that enough, y'know?
Probably not.
Fill in the blanks for me.
History is in the books
But a man's life is in his hands.

I'm worried about now.
I'm terrified of what's next.
I held your tiny hand,
soft and new in my hard
calloused mitt, and watched
as you learned how to smile.
I quit smoking years ago.
Hardest thing I'd ever done.
This?
This'll rip out the heart of me.

If the heavens were to part,
if the earth were to crack,
if everything we knew before
and everything we now know
turned out to be a wonderful
fiction, would you find me?

                                                There is a path. It is not long
                                                it is not dark. It does not wind.
                                                It is simply there. I have looked
                                                for purpose there.
                                                          ­             It is gone now. So much is gone now.

Between stale smoke, making circles
as it leaves our table, and conversation,
which does much the same, we found
ourselves in undiscovered territory.
You had not known that there was a
place inside me that you had not lovingly
explored. You did not know that when
you found it, you would not want to.
And in you, my god in you, I found a
place that was all at once not as inviting
as you had always been.
I need to know more. I need to find this place.
I need to map it out, and leave an imprint there.

                                                They should know who we are, that we were there.

Raindrops are battering the window. A storm
rages outside, the kind that knocks over trees
and lights up the sky a million times. The
kind that reminds us that the war on nature
has not gone unnoticed. My favorite kind.
Your warm body is wrapped in mine.
My arm feels dead. Just below the elbow.
Your pressure is slight, but constant.
I can't decide if that is irony.

                                           I gave you a potato. I told you that it
                                           was more permanent than a flower,
                                           more useful.
                                           I told you that I loved you like I loved the potato,
                                           like I could never love a flower.
                                                                ­                               Forever.

I'm waiting for you now.
Waiting for the heavens to open,
the earth to crack, and the wonderful
fiction that is my life to collapse. I'm hoping too.
Come find me.

In the absence of hope they found this
dark, damp, ******, dreary place.
Where the music of the spheres
and the dream of what "might"
mingle, both together, in the dirt.
The cynic and his assertion of  the lives we lead,
his theories on those that seek it out.

Somewhere in the soil the tale is told.
The men who fought the snake, on both ends,
come out on top, only on top, but never
the victor.
In this place where light meets dark,
and grey prevails.

The Aching Question burns ever on.
Answered only by the cryptic riddles,
the matters of opinion.
They fight their very Nature.
Battle against the soul of the ****** thing.
Dreaming of a sunrise in these lands
where it only ever sets.

The message, writ on stone wall in cold blood,
rings of failure with a clarity and echoing presence.
Haunting the waking hours,
reverberating defeat in every small triumph.

A vigil was stood over the keep,
which in turn,
kept them all.

Did you know your gums recede?
Or how you're never free?
The Endless march of yesterdays?
The difference a paycheck makes?
  It's so easy, it is, to lose a friend?
  How, in moments, you feel young again?
   Bruises form like rock under your skin?
   Having to buy your own recycle bin?
    When your spine cracks when you stand?
    How hard it becomes to walk on sand?
     Your muscle turns to dough?
     And no year ever goes by slow?


Did no one tell?
You're not walking hell.
Did you not know?
It's a Road we all must go.

When she was young
a lightening storm
brought her to life.
The transformer exploded
and six city blocks went dark.
She grasped along in
pitch black for the taper
of a candle she kept.
From above the doorway
Jesus looked on from his
usual perch, arms akimbo.
She wondered if he could
see her in the dark
then hated herself for the
clearly blasphemous thought.
Thunder rumbled dangerously
in the distance but the rain
had not yet begun.
Unable to find the candle
see felt her way around to
the door and then down
the stairs, knowing people
would gather in the darkened
streets outside and hoping
for the safety always promised
to be found in numbers.
On the stoop she found neighbors
and oppressive Eastern shore
humidity and summer heat.
At first she heard talk,
people wondering about dark
clouds and the specific
response expected from ConEd
and then, arriving all of a sudden
and with no announcement or
warning, the pounding sheets
of rain came and brought the very
unique quiet that loud, heavy rain
carries inside it.
She dashed into the empty
street, raised her hands and
kicking up water like she was
at a theme park, she played-
She danced like a wild thing-
In the pounding rain and
the deafening silence and the
temporary darkness
and with great peels of
laughter and a young
women's smile she danced
herself to life in the
storm under the powerless
Electrical lines.

I have tried to ****** Time.
To bring an end
to the movement of the spheres.
I spun counter to it's pull
but fell to the Earth
before the grave deed was done.
I have tried to slaughter God.
To wash the stain from my memory
Cossacks, draped around me,
habits dutifully worn.
Keep the others away from
that one.
He's not the same.
I have tried to fell a Giant.
Pushing back with every
ounce within.
Muscles tearing from the work,
and all the while coming to find
I needed this more
than I would like.
I have tried to drown a memory.
To dig a well so deep inside myself
that the bubbles will one day
simply stop.
As though somehow this one act
would forever redeem me.
I have tried to rewrite history.
Each swift movement of my pen
erasing the things I've done
the places I've been.
This clean slate will be all that
is left of me.
I have tried to overcome.
To find that place
where all is well and
my work,
such labors I have preformed,
can finally be
done.

There was time still!
My god there was time.
Time to do the millions of stupid
things we always talked about doing.
Time to run and dance and play,
like dogs or like children.
Time for so much more.
So much more.

You stole it away.

Thousands of fireflies, trapped
in mason jars, with air holes
poked in the top.
How were we to know that they
would escape?
We were so young.
My god we were young once.

You had those Velcro shoes,
you had such a time trying to
remember what Bunny Foo Foo
was supposed to do.
I'm not sure I ever let you live it
down.
I remember those Velcros pounding
the rain puddles next to my cheap
fish heads, a long time ago.

I loved you then. In those days
when tomorrow was an eternity away.
When eternity itself had no meaning
to us.
It does now. It has so much meaning
to us now. You saw to that.

Lesson learned. Damage done.

I hated you for a long time.
I hated you so much that it stirred me
from my sleep, shaking with quiet rage.
There was not a horrible word invented
that I did not call you.
Sitting in that church, that ******* church.
Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch.
Who were these people?
Did they mean anything to you?
You *******, just answer me.
Just sit up, you *******.

I don't hate you anymore.
It's not that I came to understand,
like you said I would. It's not that
I grew up enough to lament.
It's just been a long time.
It's been such a long time.
You would have loved what we've
made of the place. You really would have.

When I see a picture of you, rare though
they are, I do not wince. I do not cringe.
I do not scream.
But I also don't cry, I don't long, I don't
wish.
I do pity, I do sigh, I do care.
There was so much time, Corey.
There was so much time.
My god was there time.

Freed from these old bonds
I stretch my fingers
(in order that I scrape the sky)
And plunge, headfirst into
the still heaving earth.
My time is fleeting, here and gone,
But this mark will keep.

If not a monument then
I will become a stain.
An oil spot perhaps.
They will point at it
sitting there on the unmarked ground,
and marvel at the odd shape
it, I, had pooled into.

I will shake a nation,
If that is what it will take.
I will grow out my nails
and carve my initials
into the face of this living rock.
Pushing back the guise
that forever labels me;
"Temporary."

In my hour, waiting to see
if the gates will come, I will long
to feel your gentle knuckles
stroke my weakened cheek.
"You mattered, old friend.
They will not forget."

I have misread “meek”.
I thought it was the wise, but weak of
skill, of body. Rich in mind.
Brilliant, crafty and clever.
It was us, we were promised to
inherit the Earth.

I have come to realize that I was
naïve, young, and a little too hopeful.
Now, with jaded eyes, and a cynical
heart I realize, only now, that it was
never meant to be us. The clever
are not meant to rise to the occasion.
It was always going to be the meek of mind.
Like it has always been.

We are outnumbered in a war I never realized
we were fighting.
How did this happen? How did I not see before?
The phrase that inspired hope during all
those years of catholic school, of
nuns hating my left handed writing, of
priests telling me that atheists like me
were horrible people.
All that time being told to look, but not see.
To listen but not think.
To move but not dream.

How did I not see?
“The meek shall inherit the Earth”
It's a warning. It was always a warning.

Tonight, my god, tonight!
I will meet you,
the first and last time.
Your cloak and dagger
existence, your
pallor of decay,
your dark dreams.

I will walk from this
comfort to the hill
by the moon.
Water rushing somewhere
below us.
I will find you there.
Patiently waiting.
Chess board before you,
sickle in hand.

I will meet Death tonight.
I will laugh at him,
turn my nose at him.
I will take the challenge.
I will rise to the occasion.

Tonight, my god Tonight!
I will be immortal.

I dream of walls of fire and ice.
I watch them clash and arrive awake drowning on acid in my throat.
I long for apotheosis
but just get ready for the fight.
We line up in neat rows
to take hit after hit
and smile gap-toothed grins
as we spit the blood on
the pavement at their feet.
Rubbing our gumlines
to feel for new absence we
move with practiced discipline
to the back of the line.
Maybe, just maybe,
if we sell more time we can
get struck once more today.
We cower and we wail
and every ******* morning
we're back in line for more.
We talk the talk about
using our sick and vacation days
and we aknowlede that he'll only
be this little once
and we sob and we break
and we queue so that we
can bleed.
During our freetime,
the great modern myth,
there are yards to mow
things to fix.
Here a new socket, spackle there
and so much shopping to do.
Errands before we can
finally get back in line
to fight.

On the horizon on some distant day
there will be death.
There will be sleep.
If we can find the time
to lay down.
If we can just survive long enough
to hear the bell.
To get to heaven, we're told
you gotta go through hell.

I'm gonna tell you a secret
but I'll dress it up as a lie
I don't speak the language
and I don't know why.
I often dream of a distant wood
ceiling of green, shafts of light beaming
and the calm interrupted by
a horrible steady screaming.
When we were young I wished
to trap moments in frozen jars
left overnight in the fridge
to keep them as the the sky keeps stars.
Now looking at the rugged lines
on my worn and aging hands
I hope for rebirth but watch our
heroes travel to distant lands.
What becomes of us when
the clock winds down and tonight ends?
Do we push at an obstinent earth
and continue to hope it bends?

The truth is
you aren't the
one who got away,
my long lost love,
you're just the
one who didn't stay.

There was no life
we could've comfortably
lived together
We had that one
******* summer, kid,
we never had a chance
at forever.

You wanted more
when I needed less
you needed better
but that was my best.
I know the love was real
we tried so hard
but temporary was
always part of our deal.

I know it isn't easy
swallowing a bitter pill
can be tough
And although I love you, madly
sometimes even love
ain't enough

I know it's still an ugly uphill
at thirty-five
from the **** soaked
floorboards of a punk rock dive.
I know you quit
but two packs a day
still leaves a scratch
in your voice that don't go away.
And look, hands up,
I know what you're thinking
but the gut don't vanish
when you stop drinking.
Turns out the weight
was Marley's chains
and we'd carry it every day.
Bruised bones and daily pains.
Our long told and retold
haunting, if threadbare, refrains.
Soak in the empty memories of
hard nights and bar fights
burned out stars and candle light.
Weathered skin and the
hungry, open and waiting pit.
There is a high cost to livin'
even the way we did it.
Times up, sales final.
Pipper's callin' and
the wind howls through.
Make your wishes, friends.
The price is comin' due.

How does one begin to end?
Start from here and back again.
It seems we spend our lives trying to die,
yet each person's success makes another cry.

It's when all the hours and minutes are spent,
that they begin to seek atonement.
But if there was no purpose, would that be so bad?
Couldn't we find value in all we had?

From Rattle to Rattle, a human life.
Though it is not meant to live in strife.
While we can move from form to stance,
we should endeavor to make ourselves dance.

Why must we mourn the flame,
Do we believe death is a thing to tame?
If the goal is not to live well and die...
...Then, if not...why?

The pain is all at once sharp and subtle.
Something you can work with,
but not use.
There is no advantage to this.
The hour hand seems frozen
in place.
Time has given up.
It has finally surrendered.

This moment stands triumphant.
You are witness to the
Second Victorious.

There are thousands of other
moments that would have been
better.
Moments of small bliss.
The warmth of a lover,
her weight beside you in bed.
The accomplishment of a job,
finished and well done.

The arm hangs flaccid.
The elbow at an odd angle.
There is no break, just the
dull fire sensation of a shoulder
ripped out of joint, yet again.
The pain that you've learned to ignore.

It is just this one moment,
this five block walk to where
you know in your stomach that
you need to be.

There is no way to make it.
There is only the quiet comfort
of defeat, and the joy of
the coming darkness.

The knot in your stomach turns.
The tears work their way, protested
against, from your eyes.

Ignore it.

Don't give him the pleasure
of defeating you.

There are these things...

Things I don't know how to say.
There are things I can't articulate.
Things I never learned to speak.
Perhaps, lost along the way.
I've hated myself for so long
it's difficult to know if I can change.
I feel different some days but
don't know if it means I've
stopped or if I'm happier
but still hate myself the same.
That hate grew inward and festered.
It attached itself to my identity
and became who I am. Innate.
I want to get better. I do want to change.
I need to see improvement.
To somehow rise above my fate.
It's just that...
When certain feelings are too big
or are too much like pain
I bury them somewhere inside
and pretend they never came.
You watch me with those big eyes
and repeat the things I say
and I know I gotta fix it.
I know it's not a ******* game.
(Language!)
For you I make the effort
I try to find the crooked path
back to good, and healthy and sane.
I love you, little bean
more than I hate myself.
I love you more than it's
possible for me to say.
Kiddo, I hope you know.

It's just that...

There are these things...