They say there's no thing as true love,
Humans are also fondly known to lie,
I just can't believe it,
Not after knowing you.

I can't say it enough times,
I need something more to really let you know,
I yearn for you,
You are a necessity.

Even when times get dark,
We light each other up,
Even when they plant seeds of doubt,
We sprout even brighter than before.

We grow, we love,
We tire, we sleep,
We rest, we're restless.
I think, I think of you.

“How Can I Find True Love” will always belong to the juke box in the upstairs dance hall above the general store at a little known hot springs resort called Sol Duc, in the Olympic Peninsula forests of the state of Washington.
I worked at the soda fountain there during the summer after I graduated High School in 1957. It was a very rustic place and there was no radio reception. All we had was the juke box. We teenage workers all lived in little cabins in the woods.  We cleaned the resort cabins, ran the little store, waitressed in the cafe, made Peanut Butter Milkshakes at the soda fountain and generally had a good time.  One day a man came to put the latest records in the juke box, including a new group, the Del Vikings.  We didn’t know which side of the record was the hit.  We chose “How Can I Find True Love” and played it endlessly.  Only after the summer ended and we all rejoined normal society did we learn that “Come Go With Me” was the big hit.
ljm

songs along the way
and singers abound

the woe of the world
is not for the child

the child is free
from forever to ever

no mortal grist
can wound love.

"Love is the worst religion,"
croons the dying television,

with no further explanation;
well, thanks for the news -

I see myself in emptied glass,
a bust carved rude and inchoate,

poet, captain, lost apostle
of the worst religion,

baptized in changeling pools
of day and week, scribbling

my night's peak breath
on the flypapers of insomnia.

Sun over sainted skin,
stars where evening eyes were,

swain's vespers, all of it
splitting like new ripe fruit

in sticky hands of the acolyte,
ardent hands of little silver.

The feeling
In your chest
Of something pulling it inside of itself
Twisting it
Twisting it
Twisting it
Until it bleeds
It throbs
And it won't stop
It won't stop
Why won't it just stop?

But do you know the feeling
Of just wanting someone to notice
To care
To heal the wounds or at least tell me that they are able to be healed
That a certain amount of care
A certain amount of gentle, loving handling will be able to fix it

There is so much broken
And it hurts
It hurts like hell and no one sees
I AM BLEEDING IN FRONT OF THEM
AND THEY STILL DON'T SEE

I sit in class
Stare at my empty paper
Write the same words
Over
And
Over
And
Over
And they hand me a test
Or they talk about drama
Or they pretend I don't exist (are they even wrong?)
When I just needed a hug

I needed to wrap my arms around someone
And no longer feel like I was on a different planet than everyone else while simultaneously being directly next to them
I want our bodies to touch,
Our souls to entangle,
And our heartbeats to slow eachother down

And now I hug my pillow

I know I have people who care
But they don't see
And if they don't see
They won't have a reason to hug me

And my chest is still twisted
I want it to stop
I want it to stop
I want it to stop

H
     e
         l
               p
      

        M
    e

you cut open
pomegranate
or is it—
man go?

you take your knife
and you scrape
and you scrape
and you scrape
until it's bared all its pride
until all you hit is flimsy thin rind

my emotions lurch
like a boat in a storm;
violent and unrelenting.
the time has come
to abandon ship
and sink to the inky depths
*calm at last