To awake rested, yawn and
get up on the
completely right side
of the bed.

a full, healthy breakfast,
quality coffee.
good news headlining
the paper.

the smell of a bathroom after
a woman has spent time
getting ready for a
night out.

words of kindness from a friend.
such things I adore.
...but I love
poetry more.

a fully comprehensible manual.
a love letter post-it note,
or a book on something
hysterically interesting,

like psychology or history.
music of the kind that you welcome
sticking to your mind for a
whole day.

these things make my day for sure.
...but I love
poetry more.

her hands on me, warm with
sleep as she reaches over and
sighs between dreams.
yes. he's still here...

waking up with her hair in
my face, falling asleep on the
sofa with my head on her legs
the way a dog warms its owner's

feet with itself while resting.
not feeling like myself when
she's further away than the
next room.

hard to not shake
when she cries.
impossible not to laugh when
she laughs,

and to not want her
when she
wants me
to.

****. it's plain to see.
...I love her
more than poetry...

Torn was the fabric of our
painful pasts.

torn by shots fired from heart
to heart, ricocheting between

bruises and disappointments,
then wedging themselves between

ribs, to rest and incapsulate.
I run my asking fingers across

your entry wound.
we did this to ourselves.

torn to pieces, the drapes between
us and The Holiest of Heavens.

let us never cease fire.
empty your every clip;

beautiful, beautiful
bullets.

I miss the days
where my biggest concern was how to
carry a sixty-four ounce grape slushie
from the gas station
while riding my Huffy.

Still, not much has changed.
I'm still awful at planning ahead,
and I still act on impulse,
and I still can't ride a bike
with no hands. It feels like the scrapes
on my elbow are open.

Summer was never really my season.