2002:
today i kicked the door
to history off it's hinges
my jealous frame:
still too proud to say a word
it seems my folks forgot
to pencil in growth marks
cause they thought their boy
would never grow out of small breath
******* dead, years now buried
and i bare his name
too many syllables
for my father to go back
fish & play football
to stand in the yard and play catch

1994:
my mom, the bombshell in retrospect
broke her back in her sleep
a thousand times
since the stairwell in 87'
she still sits for spills
post nuclear about settling
now from the couch
she's a weather report
spouting nonsense
that makes my father
grow grey, crack remotes
& slam doors to dark rooms
abandoning ship
for "cheers" & "scienfeld"
while my mother
sometimes forgets
and sets his place at the table
and my appetite is abducted
by family photos
my mother says things like
"go see your brother today"
-- Johnny's long gone
don't you remember?
we buried him
the day your smile died

2014:
you are inches from me
******* a stray hair
caught in the fabric of your coat
the last remnants of a dog
we laid to rest last week
and here we are
in the hospital again
people don't shake like dogs
finality is found
in the eyes of humans
passing archways
into shallow rooms
where plague and prayer
are the only songs sung
round the stagnant clocks
it makes me wonder
if the clipboards cry
over being the last thing
someone ever writes on
take a number, have a seat
stay a while
i am back, 7 years old
& there are different doors now
they buried the ones
you kicked in that night in '92
when my lungs
were filled with holy water
you never stopped smoking
*i never grew out of asthma

i can feel you
distancing yourself from me
i can feel continental drift
i wonder, do the shoes
you wear to run from me
have holes in them?
or do you go barefoot
careful not to make a sound
in your retreat. "cover your tracks & don't look back" i imagine
your demons whisper daily
as you are growing fond of me
i wonder if your heart puts up a fight when you want to see me
or if it's a massacre
& the demons dance
on dreams you have
of us holding hands
do you wander to your car
only to find yourself back in bed?
do you put your makeup on
just to take if off again?  
is your imagination of me
a graveyard, or a pair of open arms
that are inches away
but just out of reach?
you see, what i've been so afraid
to tell you for so long,
why i feign sometimes
before speaking
careful not to tell you
all my unspoken promises,
it has to do with the night you had your head on my chest and confessed you never thought my heart
could beat like hummingbird wings:
i apologize for my silence
what i've been trying to say
is that my heart hasn't slowed down
since the day we drank coffee together
continents apart

I filled my gas tank to 33 dollars and 33 cents 
and told you it was for you
because it was your favorite number.
I organized our belongings 
(white t-shirts—books—toothbrushes—
baby, this is where we keep our sweaters)
 as if using the word “our” would embed myself
into what you call home.
I bought flowers from a homeless man
because you are a botany major. 
I wanted to bring them to you,
wilting and loveless, and show you how
 I can nurture something worth saving.
There is a five-finger scar above my breast.
 There is an orchestra on my neck shaped like your pulse
 from all the nights you held me the way
 you only hold something slipping.
There are 6 states
 pressed like stubborn flowers 
between the last time I kissed you and today,
 but you still feel like a sound caught in my throat.

I think
If people were fire
Your flames would rise a little higher
Than most
I think you would fill the cracks
Of the sidewalk
with wandering wisps of smoke
The dexterity of your flaming fingers
As they reached for strangers faces
Would burn through glacial gazes
Your aura would engulf these **** cold streets
In canopies of heat
You would stretch your ruby wings
To coast the earth
A body forged by nature
Emblazoned with raw truths
And I
I would bask in your glow
And fly a little too close

Give me your jewels you've hidden so well,
Contained and buried deeply in your heart.
Unearth and place 'em inside my pail
So I may take 'em and remove the shards.
I will polish 'em, before I tell
If your jewels, your love, is what I have sought.