i don't watch home movies
hate them
reason being because
when i was young
i was looking for a movie
my mother
had recorded for me
and accidentally
put one in the vcr
that i'm not sure
i was supposed to see
i know the obvious response
"uh oh, ****"
sorry to disappoint
they were only marked with dates
  1991
on live television
montel williams asks my father
"how can you just throw
your child away like a piece of trash?"
   1994
i spend so much time
in the emergency room
that my parents stop
penciling in growth marks
on the frame
of my bedroom door
i always thought
it was because they believed
i would never grow out
of this sickness
sometimes i believe
the reason that they
never bought me a dream catcher
was because they never thought
i'd live long enough
to see them come true
   1996
i am eliminated
from a spelling bee
because i didn't know
the 'dad' is silent in 'family'
   2013
before i got into poetry
i used to do standup
none of my jokes were funny
one of the other comics
tells me my skits are dry
sometimes sad
he says "why don't you joke
about something like your family?"
so i say
"i never wore any sunblock
because i didn't want anything
to keep me from my father"
i say "what do you call christmas
without lights or heat?"
before he has a chance
to answer
i say "1997. better yet
why don't you
make like a dad and
leave"
   2014
every time we drive
past the hospital
my mother reminds me
how much it cost to save my life
like she'd rather
have her money back
she doesn't have to say
that sometimes she wishes
it was me who had died
instead of my brother
i can hear it in the way
she says "love you"
sometimes i imagine
that if i were to die
that she
would pick out a casket for a child
because she never loved
the person i became
yesterday i told my father
how close i'd been
to suicide lately
and he said
"that's my boy,
livin on the edge.."
and i can't remember
if i laughed
or cried

It's not you when
You intentionally hurt me
With a voice laced with venom
And words like  knives  
                                      
It's not you when
You crush me
After you've built me up
It's not you!

I know you
It doesn't feel like you
Shivers go down my spine
Your energy feels like a malevolent stranger
I wait for it with feared anticipation


Where did you go?

Once I felt safe
You were home

Comfortable
I was happy

Now I'm just
Afraid      
                      of you
Paranoid                  just like you

For you're own actions
That you blame on me
I accept it
Because I believe you


Where did you go?

You aren't my friend I once knew
You aren't who I fell love with.

Who are you?

Here we are
on the same date
the same celebration
the same wish for you
in front of the candle
the same promise I made
to have this day spent
and for the rest of
the same date
that there are

only each time
we will spend it
with deeper love
than it's ever before

I can hear the voices calling me to the gallows, and so speaks my soul.
Softly whispering my darkest secrets
for anyone listening close enough to hear.
Everything I've wanted to keep hidden from everyone, out in the open, hot summers air.
I hear the executioner walking as I wait to take my last breath and fall through the floor.
He reaches the platform, asks me to speak my final words.
Again I find words coming out of my mouth I'm not consciously speaking, everyone falls silent,
he pulls the lever, the floor drops, and my neck snaps.
I wake up from my disillusion only to find myself back where I started.
Searching.
Trapped in my head searching for an escape that is seemingly impossible to find.
No one can save me from this, surrounded by the demons that haunt my thoughts.
I have to overcome them, I have to overcome this.
I won't let them consume me.
I can only save myself.
It's time to remove this hollow mask, shed the shell of who I was and become who I know I need to be.
I've been searching for a savior for far too long,
I am what I've been searching for all this time.
I've been a slave to my demons, letting my conscious existence blur.
I'm taking back control,
until history repeats itself once more.

This is the point I get to time and time again
My fingers pulsate
                   My breathing quickens
                                    My heart tightens
because we just can't let our cynicism go
You see, everyone leaves
It's a fact
And just like the leaves on the deciduous trees
I was never meant to stay

And the more fond I grow of your company
The closer we get to that breaking conclusion
And instinctually
And hopelessly
I hold on for dear life
Because why must things be this way
Why can't our days consist of shy smiles
And matching coffee drinks
And hands held lightly
With your gaze being my favorite morning memory
I crave you

But timing is everything
And no one really gets what they want
It's not like we'll make it out alive, anyway

have you ever believed
in something so blindly
so genuinely
that the moment you realize
it isn't true, something inside you
changes forever?
i wanna tell you a story, see
seldom do i ever
go swimming in drinks
deep enough to drown in
but when i do
i speak in tongues
about things that none
of my memories
are allowed to talk about
like that christmas
at the isthmus
where my girlfriend
plucked a conch shell
whiter than gods teeth
out of the sand
held it to her ear
and stopped time
that day she was a shade of blue
the could've made the ocean sick
see, she loved to play jokes
when she held
the sea shell to her ear
she gasped, called my name
and said "i want you to hear this"
i said "yeah, right, everybody knows it's just the same old sea"
she replied "no. not this one. this one is special. listen. theres music in this one"
she handed me the shell
like a promise she couldn't keep
and i held it to my ear
with all the potential
of seeing shore
after being stranded
at sea for years
only to hear
a tired dirge of silence
spill from its emptiness
i guess she didn't know
how desperately
i wanted to hear it too
because ever since
something inside me snapped
now sand pours out
of every post card i open
i hear seagulls
in telephone static
sometimes i have dreams
where i bury my hands
in every beach
i've ever been on
and exhume this graveyard of noise
every time i try to sleep
i spit up fishhooks
and i guess i'm obsessed
but maybe
if i hold my ear
to enough vacant things
then i could have back
the time stolen from me
since it happened
maybe they would get it
if they knew what i wanted
when i blow out birthday candles
maybe they'll find me
face down in a wishing well
i watch eternal sunshine
of the spotless mind every day
pretending i can forget too
because this sea sickness
has followed me for years
because yesterday
i walked into a music shop
and all the pianos broke
but the only thing
i can think to say is
*do you know how bad
a memory has to be
that you fantasize
about forgetting it?

ground zero
i become aware of boundaries
i am a dog chasing cars
i sing your voicemail to sleep
there are no surgeon general warnings
to tell me that
the objects in the mirror
are more depressed than they appear
so how do i tell you
that there are parts of my life
that move slower
without you in them?
or that i look for you every day
in emails & unanswered calls
in the sunrises
i didn't choose to be awake to watch
that i sometimes still stare at doorways hoping you would walk through them
   *stage 1 you tell your new lover you've got a splinter and they pull the sound of your body falling asleep on mine out of your fingertip
   stage 2 your new lover says something at dinner that makes you choke so they call 911 & the paramedics do the hymleich not knowing you would ***** our promises all over the the restaurant
   stage 3 your new lover surprises you by cleaning the house & washes the shirt you kept next to the bed, not knowing it was the last thing you had that smelled like me
after
people always ask
what was loving her like?
after a really long silence
i just say
"it must be nice"
but i never say
it's watching paint dry
i never say
it's a window seat in hell
i don't tell anyone
about the dreams
where i am reading you
bedtime stories
each one is a different way you die
& every time i can never save you
dreams where what i think
are angels in my bedroom
are just homeless versions
of myself you never loved
i have dreams
where i pay someone to shoot me
just to see if you would cry
just to see
if you would cradle my body
i don't tell people
that loving you is like
playing piano
for someone who can't hear
that it's hitting repeat
on my favorite song
& forgetting the words
every time it starts over
that it's finding out
there's no milk after you already
poured yourself a bowl of cereal
it's getting locked in the dark
& being told to
look on the bright side
that loving you is like
being reminded of what it felt like
the first time
you accidentally let go
of a balloon as a child
it's drowning without the water
it's the feeling you get
when you start to dance
& the song ends