March winters last longer than we thought they did. there's spring-stop angels a story higher, spitting icicles off your rooftop. But we're busy. we're never growing up. March is too long.

We sit in bed alone chanting **** this body **** this body I
Hate this ******* body. And then the light's up. We belong in darkness. You are the dark but I belong in darkness. God said Jesus please forgive me but I need this body more than you do. Did you say that too?

I watched the last time your eyes grew dim and shut down in front of me. Like an old machine rusty-churning for you only once more. It's just clockwork, just churning. On and off. Just the churning, barely. Nothing more. Lights down, on and off. But we were in your room and I was the one who had to go home.

I noticed you had a bruise then. And I've heard it's gotten worse. Every day it's taking over. The romantics say it's heart-shaped but I know it's just trapped blood. And it will get bigger if you fill it up with problems.

You didn't even have the heart to complete your own mistake. And now my mind is just you in a bubble of darkness, in the land of second chances. Stay there. I think it's easier to kick someone out when you have the home field advantage. I went home. I hear you're on  your way up top.

maybe we will never grow old. When you get up to the roof will you tell the angels my name?

Los Angeles, 2016.

My roommate Jaime thinks it's strange that Americans take months on months to say "I love you" in relationships. He asks why.

The Spanish say it in the first few weeks.

I haven't felt love and meant it since at least then, so maybe the Spanish are onto something. Maybe I've had the wrong definition. Maybe it's time to re-examine crushing.

So what if I said that I'm Spanish-in-love with you? A little less than puppy love but a little more exciting. And not quite the honeymoon phase but a little more worth writing.

A little bit of a crush but maybe unrequited. Maybe not.

Maybe I'm just trying to prove the country wrong. Maybe I'm trying to take the L-word off a pedestal. Or maybe I'm just Spanish in love with you.

It's something to do with being punch-drunk, feeling shake-heavy, and catching your right hook like it was made for my face.  And face it, probably. Maybe this is just business casual. You can say goodbye like it's an email.

Something like a fling, but a little less irreparable. This isn't like the L-word because it isn't something inevitable. Play it cool, you're just Spanish in love with him. Maybe you'll meet someone new soon. Or maybe you'll both move to Oregon.

I think you're afraid to debate this with me, but I guess you're safer in the center. Next question please, like a career politician dodging bullets, full of it. Or maybe you're more like Honest Abe in the middle of it, perfect hands with signs that say "Do Not Touch." Back against the wall with the world wide open.

I might have to burn this House down just to get something done. Otherwise I'm only good for sitting across from you.

Don't worry, it's all just wild west make believe. Falling in love is the best high, but that's the kind that ends up more wanted Dead than Alive. So stick 'em up partner, you're just Spanish in love with them. They only call it a crush when the results ain't pretty, a little gushy, American, and ******.

Maybe I'm just putting myself through unnecessary roughness. Probably best for us all to stay romantically cautionary. Everyone plays a beautiful game but yours is better than theirs. Crackin' taters past my outfield like Don Julio. That's just baseball, baby.

So maybe love in Europe is more our frequency. More nonchalant love with a tad bit of leniency. Less expectation in all these fledgling relationships. I think that's something we could all get behind, right?

Let's just say I understand the zeitgeist.

Because love isn't something you give out little by little. It's not a hurdle to complete and it's not a marathon to struggle. It's not a circle on a calendar or a deadline to pass under. I've been thinking lately about how we're all a little daunted by the thought of saying it out right. Maybe we're too afraid of getting it right to even say it at all.

So maybe I'll never have a definition to describe it. Maybe the feeling is too fleeting to ever tie the phrase down to it. Best to stick with the same old same old, and snub the face of wishful thinking.

How did we get here anyway? Oh, that's right. It all started with Jaime's question.

Nobody ever expects the Spanish inquisition.

if you don't believe in God, then who are you talking to?

what's there to believe in? god is real, but i don't believe in them anymore. what's there to be faithful to? god isn't faithful to you. when you see them make up new rules and change old ones. usually they don't tell you either.

more delicate than judgmental, but not in a sweet way. god is an unravelling, your feet falling apart on the concrete. god is making your car sick. and you too, you're sick. and you're losing weight, and not in the good way. you're not getting better yet. god is a guilt that god invented. god tells you how to feel. god knows how they want you to feel. don't stare at god for too long.

god is multiple people and they can't decide which one they want to be. god will pick the angriest one most days, because it works well and avoids your questions.

god is serving you up dessert shaped like a coffin, and saying they don't care about your allergies. god is telling you to keep the lights off and turn the music up so they don't have to remember it's you getting them off. but you're the only one who gave god goosebumps and held them while they wept. remember that you held god while they opened up like the sea, and you figured this would be a good place to hide your love. nestled in between two walls of water, even they didn't know it was put there. it's still there, i don't think you're getting it back.

what's there to be faithful to? i'm faithful to you, dear. I say it to the room. The pen. The empty plates and mugs. I say it to the stale air hanging around the side of the bed that still smells like god. it's growing fainter every day.

used to be time well-spent, finding
a kindness in you every day reaching
for me, sweetly. Saying "sweet" it
always sounded like a pinprick or a
puncture.
you were always louder, clapping like the
thunder slap cloud sound of lightning
pulling away from the ground.

there used to be room left to breathe, but
now the minutes march by days, slip by
neatly under the door, tidy, like they were
never here at all. you were hardly here at all
anyway, and
i ask the time to stay
but all i get from the clock is a look away.

you're worried you're feeling wanted,
or worse, tired of looking at me,
less out of habit
than rehearsed. sharp objects in your eyes aiming
for mine. i fall apart in there,
under the gravity. god knows
you don't have any feelings, i know
you feel everything at once.
i want to go where you go when you
turn the other way.

hurling month by month
just past my ears. your heart won't be
around for long.

make room too late,
you're a wild bronco train car crashing in and
i'm not building paths fast enough,
you're not slowing down.
so look away
i'm sinking your june and july into the ground, curtain
calls you to roll the nicer things away.
Time, drink up your wasted
Time, take it
to go.

there's an enemy sleeping in the skin
that i've been wasting in
there's a day or two a week i don't
get anything done but thinking
about
when you dialed into nothingness
you knew it all along;
you can't know anything at all.
some days feel like a revelation, but
you knew it all along;
you can't know anything at all.

you talked to pete and kate,
you talked to mom, to god,
and even alice in the backseat
but you left words pinned to the scene just for me
croaking about the summer the world sprang from my lungs
still yourself with love and
guilt and void
i am the holiest of unholy thoughts
gravitating toward your tongue.

banished from your front door
and there's no one standing guard
around your bed
while they're disorganizing drawers
like it was folly how it was before
i see your embrace unfurl in the lazy lawn
i'm stuck behind.

weeding retrospection out and shying away
leave no room for unpleasantries.
memories fog with care and
abbreviate
stow away the wilt and pain
and the grass that lies above you is
sleeping through the rain.

something scattered in you grows
and weaves and blooms through tattered clothes
i thought i saw or perhaps mistook
your shadow flying on the sidewalk
but maybe i'll just read you bend
gently through a blade of grass
and that's just fine too,
stay yourself and send me something green
here every summer, again and again.

i'm keeping faith in long drives
to change the seasons faster
belongings plastered to a car
with a penchant for disaster.
i'm gritting teeth to the taste of leaving,
seeing, breathing in things
i never ever really ever bothered needing.

wheels start to tumble just a couple states below
a preparation in the daylight for another night eloped
cans snag on the bumper, rattle and tattered
we forgot to cut them or else they
just weren't ready to untangle and
I don't think Virginia is for lovers anyway.

i gotta work my head less
keep my brain thin of thinking
but no one belongs here more than you
tucked behind my ears
isn't that silly

see the sun sipping up your face across the room
7am morning in yellow county
not quite where i would like to be.
i pray for blindness, minus
you, i am a slippery *****.
i am the king of dogs lying
on the floor. and i don't remember
you used to breathe so loud.

do me a favor and ask if you need some air
in yellow county, the romantic wilderness
where lovely things go to fail.
you said do me a favor and ask to ******* yourself
you'll be so much better but i was never
one to wreck things well.

six years ago, i saw the moon for the first time
and i'm sorry that i never really stopped looking
on the road to yellow county.
i gotta work my brain less
but you got what you get
and i think you made my head sick.
when that trip was over i was still moving furniture
out of yellow county and i guess i still am today.

tail lights burn the street red.

cold branches curl away from the scene
as the wheels barrel down
and replace you with heat.
twin columns narrow the highway
in to greet you.
eyes swallow the light and
it just takes you away.

tires spinning, engine-sputter
a body in the clutter of snow
where the rivers meet.
a night, a day, a night spent
on the ground.

white tail quivers red, shudders
coughing, mutters, crossing streets
toward rivers.

fender bent-in, shaped like a sweater
street cooking, burning bridges
you're never gonna stop, never.
eyelids flicker, pupils bigger
drinking in light little by little.