She is drunk.
I am drunk.
This is not a poem.
She is beautiful.
I am not.
This
Is not a poem.
Tomorrow i will be sober
And she will want to be drunk
And this is
Not a poem.
She is leaving me
And i am not
And this is not
A poem.
She is crying
I am (trying) not to
And this is not a
Poem.
She is beautiful
And i am drunk
And this is not a poem

A leaking clock keeps you
nose up with eyes peering
through night-flooded sky
towards glow-in-the-dark
stars, childhood mementos,
to keep those other shapes

from seeping in, like snakes
slinking over drawers when
they were socks left hanging,
or a hand haunched achingly
through the wardrobe door
was only a shirt sleeve, but

now light escapes the curtains,
becomes a silhouette of a man
out of the second-floor window.
It's ok, you remind yourself.
You roll your head over to
drink, drink, drink in the ticks.

I don't quite remember that
Pretty projection or dubious construction.
The dream that kissed with tangible lips

I cannot elicit
A lazy shape of limbs
Sprawled across threadbare blankets.
Warm hearts and cold feet.

Bookshops piled to the rafters;
Places of whispered exchanges
And smiling, arm through arm.

I can't conjure up
The taste and stain of cheap red wine,
A tongue that laughed and sung  
To Louis Armstrong, on the radio.

In cold Septembers
And aching Decembers,
Left to my reckless imagination...
I wish that I couldn’t remember.

Threads of cotton
corkscrewing
through blankets,
blending flesh
with fabric.
Flicking rain
drops off the
surface
of window
panes,
penciling my
name over
your skin with
my teeth.
Tremoring fingers
tracing your
silhouette,
sensing your
rapture wrapped
in
apprehensive
heart beats,
hanging on the
fibers folding
over our
unstitched
bodies

do me this solid
and keep up with the

tired and over exhilarated
won't you ask me how im

learning to dig
inside my heart for my most recent

emotions are so awful they keep me
running for more and i can't

really see exactly where I'm
going to where im supposed to be trying to

understand how i feel is like
learning Chinese upside down, underwater, while having a tea party with an octopus

i guess ill just take the stairs and maybe i
could actually finish a

great deal of me feels
like i need to buy a nice looking

man and make him cook me spicy
omelets and he'll look quite **** under

my umbrella on the purple rooftops that i
decided to jump on my way to

work has been lowsy too many
people wishing for something and here i

am trying to finish a sentence i think
i might need to go back to grade school and take

an english course.

I want to be painted onto the canvas of your future
and carved into the floorboards of your past
my love for you is deeper than the Atlantic
and I am the tide
constantly returning to your shore line
no matter how many times I'm turned away.
I once asked my mother
what the most tragic love story was
and she said it was the story of the moon and the sun
Cursed to live apart for eternity
only meeting briefly
at dusk
but with that
comes the beauty of the sunset
and these bruises
they are proof that the color spectrum
Does not hold enough reds and blues
to paint my endless sea of love
On to the canvas of your future

we can sit up all night in some hotel room,
curled beneath each other, listening to the sound
of heartbeats and old cassette tapes.
you are the kind of girl i want to make mixtapes for.
when i see your smile, i collapse.
you give me the faintest idea of what a heart attack might feel like
and, god ******, i enjoy it.
i remember you telling me that you haven’t felt purposeful
or useful or strong enough to be either
and i looked in your eyes and saw
the only person who’d ever been strong enough
to admit that their only purpose was to be purposeless.
and if life is only lived to find promise,
then what the **** is death for?

i’ve seen god on lonely street corners
where homeless men stare at buses
wishing they had enough change in their cups
to change things.
i’ve seen happiness in the eyes of single motherscarrying three jobs and a failed marriage
in the shopping bags they drag up the stairs.
i’ve seen one bedroom apartments with more space to call home
than you could ever find in that mansion on the hillside.

and i’ve seen you look so helpless
that the only help i could offer
was to let you climb out of it yourself.
i have trouble letting you be.
i have trouble finding myself.
i have trouble being anywhere but in your arms.
there are disciples in your chest
preaching off-balanced wisdom and there are
people written across your skin
all of them whispering,
"you made me feel welcomed.
you made me feel something.”
and if you only understood how lonely the bus rides get
or how hard it is to walk home in the dark
carrying nothing but your heartbreak,
then you would know what it meant
when i told you that you are the only thing
to ever make any of it worth it.
i will write your name in my poetry until it no longer has a meaning.
i will kiss you until my lips no longer make your knees weak.

i was homeless until i met you.
you handed me enough change to change things.
i hope you don’t find better things to do with your day
than to pass by my corner
and smile.

your are purposeful and you are useful
and you never had to be either.