You see i would fight them for you
i would fight the stars
and the bookstores and the forests, all of them
for you.
and this is not a declaration of love
because you love him and he loves you and i have never loved either of you.
this is me telling you that he will never do these things for you.
which is why my window will always be open,
and i will try to punch them
even though the last time i got in a fight there were so many bruises and a black eye that was so hard to hide and i had mild concussion and i started to fail a class.
because when i look at you i see all the things that i have ever hidden in the dirt and the chain fences and i cry oh i cry.
and so do you.
if i had the courage to do it i would tell you it all and even though i never have, you need to know that i have never even thought of telling any one else. There is only you and there will always only be you.
i have seen you cry and you have seen me.
I have held your hand and you have held mine.
you bought me icecream and so have i.
i underlined your book once by accident because i thought it was mine and this as far i can ever get to explaining it.
that i love you. and not this love that they have told you where there is a ***** and ****** or two mouths, because you have never kissed him and you think girls are gross. this is more.
this is roots and broken teeth and screaming and phone calls
and i love you.

it's the same as before
or the other time
or the time before that.
here's a ****
and here's a ****
and here's trouble.

only each time
you think
well now I've learned:
I'll let her do that
and I'll do this,
I no longer want it all,
just some comfort
and some ***
and only a minor
love.

now I'm waiting again
and the years run thin.
I have my radio
and the kitchen walls
are yellow.
I keep dumping bottles
and listening
for footsteps.

I hope that death contains
less than this.

Telling.
On the news I see
in the cradle of mankind,
bloodlust  rampaging.
Killing machines laughing
as children cry and mothers
stare silently at nothing.

Telling.
On my porch I see
three birds sharing a perch,
eating seed.
One brown, one red,
one olive green.
One gently feeding the other.

Telling.

r ~ 4/9/14

It's never quite right, he said, the way people look,
the way the music sounds, the way the words are
written.
It's never quite right, he said, all the things we are
taught, all the loves we chase, all the deaths we
die, all the lives we live,
they are never quite right,
they are hardly close to right,
these lives we live
one after the other,
piled there as history,
the waste of the species,
the crushing of the light and the way,
it's not quite right,
it's hardly right at all
he said.

don't I know it? I
answered.

I walked away from the mirror.
it was morning, it was afternoon, it was
night

nothing changed
it was locked in place.
something flashed, something broke, something
remained.

I walked down the stairway and
into it.

i tried to write a poem that wasn't about you
but nothing came to mind
so i climbed up on top of my mom's roof
and puffed smoke signals towards the moon
in hopes that they'd take my thoughts with them

before i knew it
i was counting sattelites
the same way that i'd count your breaths at night
     apparently everything marches to the same measure as your sunken sternum

"sunrise, sunset."

somewhere in orion's belt
hides the same gleam as your moonlit grin
and i'm back at it again
     twisting up sweet leaf in the appologies you'd sling
     and hoping you'll think of me
when you wake from coughing in your sleep
as i scortch my fingertips

maybe you'll be reminded
of that first campfire kiss
we shared in the sticks
     was it five years ago
          or was it six?

****
     i just can't think of anything but our tangled hips

          the way they read just like a star chart's dots and trailing dashes
     and the astrological improbability of celestial bodies managing to gracefully merge