i still leave you love poems on crumbling walls
     like rust-stains on canvas yet to be stretched

there isn't a message yet

but in my dreams
you somehow see it all for what it means
following the commas and line-breaks
right back to where you left me
     and we finally allow ourselves
     to share the light necessary for life to grow



i awake in the morning with whiskey breath
and aerosol stained fingertips

     *can't you hear me slinging siren songs
     across the distances we keep
          while fast asleep?

i wanna feel like the ink in a pen does
as it crimps and curls and dances its way across a naked page

i wanna feel like the page being filled

give me a pulse like a double-time war drum
     thudTHUDDing towards crescendo
     with a cymbol-crash ache
and flesh that winds my spine and river bed curves
     like a stretch of highway on a midnight drive
     that fades into the face of the moon

gimme some of that star-stuff sparkle in my pete moss eyes
a few of saturn's rings 'round my hula-hips
and a solid kiss
     right on the lips

               yeah

when i grow up
          i think i'd like to be in love

she sat in the kitchen
   frivolously underlining passages in her brand new bible
      nodding her head
      occasionally pressing her hands into her chest
"yes" she'd whisper
   with her blind eyes shut

         every ******* needs a crutch

every hour or so
she'd leave her hiding place
   to shove her misunderstanding in my face

"god only loves us if we ask him to"
"you're a sinner. your sins can only be cleansed with the blood of christ"
"our lives gain their only meaning when we ask christ into our hearts"

oh yeah?
   is that right?
      how'd he find any room in yours
      when you keep it bound up like a hostage?

i tried with all my might
   to remind myself that i am a spiritual being
   that i want no one to hurt
      even those who waste their precious seconds plotting ways to hurt others
   to craft everyone their own kind of pain that they can name
      and later
         help you look up a cure in a little black troubleshooting guide

but i cracked
and i snapped
and i didn't feel bad

don't you get it?
are you paying attention to what you read?!

the whole ******* story is about LOVE...
   about loving everyone
not only under certain circumstances
   but every second of every day
the same way we're told that he loved

calling yourself a christain is the farthest thing that you can do from actually being christ-like
  
he was a good guy
      like robin hood
         not oprah
   you won't get a free car
   or fleeting fame
      all you'll gain is peace
      and clearly that's what you really need

but you also need to remember
   that if he's watching everyone's every move
      like you say
   then he too sees you going out of your way to ruin someone elses day
he sees you ignore the hungry man asking for change
he sees you preaching things you've never practiced
he sees you looking for ways to bend the rules without breaking them

if christ came back
   he wouldn't be the sharp-dressed man seated up front
      whom you try to charm the pants off of with your faith every week
he'd be the homeless man outside sitting by the steps in silence
whom you marched right passed
   without so much as a glance
      or a simple hello

         he'd know you misunderstood the entire message
         flash a toothy grin
         and go right back to spitting prophesies into his brown paper bag
             
            but most importantly
                  he'd never rub it in your face that he thinks you've got it **wrong

i still stretch in the morning
in hopes i can someday make myself
into the shape of the hole
at the center of the universe
     and become the glue
     that keeps magic in its place

he whispered secrets in my ear
as i'd weave tall tales in his chin hair
     and still to this day
          we each swear
there was nothing there

other than the static charge in the sexed up air
and the moon beams
     tangled in our thunderstorm breathing

if i could
i'd lasso the wyoming wind
and ride it like a wild mare to wherever it is that you now call home

you'd find me pounding on the door
     with a bottle of whiskey in my white-knuckled fist
     and a bubble machine eating the paint off your late model car
     and how far i'd come to find you would instantly become irrelevant when you'd smile
          it's been a while

i still catch myself wondering if you catch yourself wondering about me
and the places i've seen since i last saw you
     lacing up your boots and diving head first into the blue of early evening
you didn't even tell me that you'd be leaving

but you did tell me a thing or two
  about the birds
    and the trees
      and the sea
        and your heart
the way it missed beats like i miss stop signs
and you'd once said that it was scared
     always waking you up in the middle of the night
     and telling you that it's alright to want to run
you sure did seem to be good at running

so i swish scotch between my teeth
and atop my gums
to make my tounge believe in singing
and i climb to the tops of the palisades to slingshot siren songs your way

          "oh won't you stay,
               just a little bit l o  n   g    e     r..."

then the record skips
and i slip from my dreaming
back to a shoreline where the washing machine squeeks
and i can be found grinding my teeth
like a lost little god in the grotto

oh
     where did we go to
     when we left to get old
and brittle
     like a tree no good for climbing

we dissolved our youth within the golden glow of nostalgia
marked on a calander long since dead and torched
     that fall when we learned to feel
     and burried each other beneath the heaps of rotting aspen leaves

"until next time, my darling."