i see
your hard-to-hide bark-ribbed arms
wrapped in dark sleeves,
they've slipped away from here.
push your face farther into his chest
pretend in her trust is a safe place to rest
lay in his bed, recovering.

and outside meetings people click on,
quickly, with motors cranked, ticking:
"cleanness slapped with black so fast
and wrapped in a blanket called disaster."
torn up wrists and IV veins,
you say
"clear off from me,"
feeling halfway between
a photo folded too many times
and
stale painted-dead air curling off the world.
Barely holding on,
We're sometimes not there at all.

The moon is a cold place to stay
But I go there any way.
When the sun sets
It's where I spend my nights
It's where I drift out of day
And out of sight
Clear into the fictionless dark.

On the white
I steer into scripts of stars
Where I don't have to sleep at night.
I'd rather have this than any answers.

My love,
I'd been looking for answers
But I haven't found any, just waiting
For weightlessness
But the moon is heavier than I thought.
My blood is coating what I want to forget, but
I think my mind is heavy set on
Keeping my memory pale.

I don't know where to build my future here,
I've knocked on every door
Homeless and stuck with fear of
Finding country sores haunted with
First date ghosts and empty parks fighting against
Thoughts of you.

White whales in a man's empty sea
Full of sinking cabins in ships
That sailed out to the sky to say goodbye.

The star-skies are my empty ocean,
Ready for wreckage and I didn't guard my heart for waves, I...
I didn't scare my heart with tales of
Dying far from home.
I have nowhere else to go
I have nobody else to show
How blue the whole world looks
When it's just you, your ocean and the sky.

Have you ever watched the sunset come around,
Forgetting to include you?
It makes the horizon a blank enough place after,
To forget land for a day or two.
I want to forget it all with you.

Put your trust in me?
I don't think so.
I'll leave you and you'll die alone.

Let's put this to bed
And put me to sleep
Before I get out of hand.
Let's put this to bed
Before you start to believe in
My fabricated sincerity.
I'll kick myself all the way home.

Please let me run away
Before I have to wipe the blood
From that exit wound.
Let me run far away
From the thud of your heart
Echoing through my chest.

This wasn't always me
It's not the way I was supposed to be.
I should have been more scared of the cold.

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.

There's something so empty in your voice.
Not a sadness, or a longing.
But rather your "something human"
Long since gone.

Something is missing,
Something is not quite right.
Is it a draft slipping in through your ribcage, whistling out through your teeth?
I can hear it snake by so easily, with all the hollow underneath.

You sit on long metal tables,
Each one colder than the last.
Doctors always asking where it hurts.
Do you ever feel tired of not having an answer?
Have you ever lifted up your shirt
And showed them what you can't say?
Or are you afraid they'd step back and gasp?
Because there's a disgusting gaping hole in you,
That no decent person could fill.

i wish i didn't feel like I rhymed with you.
like two words supposed to be together
side by side,
in the same sentence,
or else in adjacent lines.
maybe even one apart,
for an alternate rhyme.

we at least belong in the same stanza
or even two consecutive ones,
separated by an empty line.
surely there's space enough for you and I
in the same poem, i'd imagine,
with only a few letters in between
serving as a distraction.
i'm sure the poet would see fit
to put us right by one another,
seeing how well you and I rhyme together.

It's a shame I wasn't the one to break your heart;
You would have made a better poet.

The days where your smiles keep coming
never-ending,
Up-end me.
I earn those split lips and some teeth
Like currency.

Don't fall in love with a poet.
You'll live forever in their words
And haunt them forever with yours.

i've been watching a lot of movies lately
not that that's anything new, just
wanted to let you know. Maybe,
you've seen a couple of the same ones.

i've been tearing up a lot around this time
though not for anything worth worrying
about, just sneaking in stories before bedtime
about love and laughs and hurrying toward
getting old.

it feels like we're all focused on getting old.

it feels like we're running toward distractions
to forget about the future, but isn't that
what mindfulness is all about? but
still it doesn't feel mindful it feels a lot more like
misdirection. maybe
maybe im doing it wrong.

these past couple nights have felt a bit too much
like misdirected repetition
playing the same notes twice
writing double, but not really going anywhere.

why'd it take you breaking my heart
In two, to
Make you a better person?

You are why I stutter through stories

What's it feel like to be a monster?
How hard is it,
Trying to apologize when your own twisted teeth
choke you?
I wonder what you think about when you look
in the mirror.
I wonder.
How you even live in that skin,
it's a mystery.
You spend nights self-medicating
to deal with the fact,

But isn't that where it all started?

There's ****** up,
Then there's
Ruining yourself enough
To forget you and your circumstances
Just for a few hours of sleep.

used to be time, well-spent
see your smile, all day.
i thought we'd meet up soon but
the time's just walking away.

used to be room to breathe
but now the minutes leave like days
i ask our 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 smiling at me, it hurts.
i wanna go
where you go
when you turn the other way
i wanna see the things i know i cannot see.
sharp objects in your eyes aiming for mine
i fall apart in there, under the gravity.

it could've been time, or space,
could've been time for space
but i can't tell you that when you
keep tossing and turning away.

the clock's stopped counting past today
all i get is your look away.
the world's falling after me.
there used to be intimacy, but now
it's all coming down on me

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.

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?

skin broke
bone cracked at an angle
you watch thoughtfully as my arm bends
and i'm still feeling thankful.
your eyes hold tight, and steady
my ears are thumping with a tremor
this isn't a one time error
this is merely an example.

i'll just push on through
cause what else can i do
pretend i saw the lightning-strike
turn hard around a sycamore
i'll meet you soon at
lover's lane, for a quarrel.

i'm holding down but there's no
ground game left
the sky is tossing and turning and
i saw the lightning bend
around a sycamore, i think
i can't feel my teeth
am i doing this right?

adrenaline
burnt by bylines
takes my mind to the moon and back
fears giving way to days
dripping like years
shove a fist in my death-crammed jaw
pray to wake up safely
ignore the crack in the sky
pray to wake up safely

something nice about a day job
to get away from it all
something about long sleeves that are
nice enough to cover yesterday
but i can still hear the thunder slapping
with my busted ears.

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.

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.

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.

i am not in love with crisis
i just argue to maintain
a sense of leaning, loving,
learning
moving on never felt the same.

what if every leaving wasn’t
of the mind
this ending doesn’t doubt
the autumn-summer line
I am just a mirror, rediscovered and contained.

brittle, bagged, and mixed up bones
the rooms of the house
only make the hide of homes.
gutted kitchens don’t need trash stains,
dishes, fridge reminders to explain.

palm in concrete, initialized
unknowing tenants stumble past
the drying ground
this house is not a holy respite
it’s for learning soft goodbyes.

every night is on my mind
keep on moving every year until
we just might grow
from all the places that we’ll be
To all that places that we’ve known.