The car in the handicapped space
of the parking lot with the
Iraq Veteran bumper stickers breaks
my heart. I wonder if the sand in his boots
can hold the pedals down. I wonder if the
visions in his head can grip
the steering wheel. I bet some nights
he remembers that a hospital bed can be
a prison cell.

That hospital bed was not
my prison cell. It was a welcoming back
to the life I thought I had before, it was my anthem
careening through the dark. I heard it in the spaces
between their words. Their words were holes
drilling themselves into my muscles, I felt them
spinning toward the grenade that was my heart.

Once, my muscles were strong enough
to cover me like a blanket. I remember how
they sheltered me. I remember feeling proud
to wear the covering of my skin. I was a tiger
when he touched me. I prowled in darkness,
I slept during the day, some nights I remember
that a bedroom door can lock me up, my parents
locked me in a tower, they told me I'd be safe there.

Maybe I should have stayed inside. Maybe
it would have kept me from the car, the hospital,
it would have kept him from the war, maybe I'd be there
still. Maybe he knows how it feels to hold
an animal inside your chest, maybe he knows
what it's like to feel it shaking in your bones.

Maybe this man in the parking lot
can tell me what a gunshot sounds like
between the windows of your ears. I think
it would sound better than my own voice
singing me to sleep. Some nights, the lights
outside my window are too bright. I bet
he could tell me what that means.

you can't remove a piece of clothing -
        not a sweater,
  not a shirt,
    not a pair of ******* socks -
without thinking of them,
picturing them, you know?
like,
  not even in your bed or on your bed or anywhere near your bed.
      just thinking of them,
because you get to this point where it's like,
the whole reason you take off your clothes,
is so that this one person, who you love, more than anything
can touch you better
or see you better
or so that you can feel them with things that aren't your hands.
  it's ******, i guess. for some people. for me. that whole skin-to-skin thing.
but anyway
it isn't about *** - wanting people, i mean.
   it's just that you're doing something
   in their absence
    that you normally do,
      or sometimes do,
      or have done,
     in their presence
and it feels weird
and it makes you feel weird,
and then you miss them,
and you write poems like this one.
or whatever this is.

it's pretty embarrassing, as a cycle.

I can write a thousand words
And can't get the point across-
It's almost impossible
to keep up with my thoughts
of you.

I do not miss you in moments,
But rather the lingering space that lies in between them:
The soft "nn" sound preceding "one mississippi"
Falls stagnant as I attempt to count out measurements of my grief.
Your presence is too large to be condensed into the language of time,
Hours and minutes limply droop over each other,
Until nothing is certain besides your existence.
Two mississippi, three mississippi,
I slowly drag out the syllables in a subtle defiance to your untimely exit.
Your time isn't yet over, I've kept you alive,
Pushing air into your crumpled lungs by counting sheep.
The moments in which you fell are recycled here,
Like stale air in a small cement cell,
They propel my time forward the same way they stopped yours.
I do not miss you during desperate sentences full of almost there prose,
But instead during the white space that runs between each line.

Four mississippi, five mississippi.

I crave
            simplicity.

kiss my spine
so intimate
your flaming breath
seeps through me
as if the years have made me porous

trace the silhouette
of my calloused fingers
and linger
on the ridges of my wrist
you shiver
I resist
the temptation of escape

rest your head against my own
so heavy with memories
the sinking weight
of stories never told

I taste your breath
I taste your empathy
I taste the words
you never said

how does a dreamcatcher know which
    dreams to catch?
what if it
swallows the good ones
and sneaks them off to another
    reality?
what if it
holds the bad hostage
to share at the most dreadful
     time?
           what is time to a dream?
but just look at how it twists
and ties itself in knots so
    beautifully
a community of individuality
cinching simplicity together to form
   brilliance
a spiderweb of spirit trapped between threads
strung tight like the ties of
   fate
showing me reality
far beyond
what we blindly
    see
    inspiration
    appreciation
absorbing the vibes reflecting off
questions of whether a second
                         is time to a dream?
unrecognized reality
mind outside of body
    sensory
    overload
a breath of fresh
light
a taste of foreign
thoughts
the touch of a
music note
and a vision of
    love
trickling quiet
tears down the
face of
                   time...to a dream
truth
can dance on the
    edge of reality
so when i wake up screaming open my eyes and
see
my mind momentarily remains
tangled in a realm of
    reality once removed
feathers floating softly
through worlds yet to be
unfurled
but shadows through breezy windows left ajar
blow my thoughts back to
    now
and the sounds
and sliences
and the colors
and expressions
of my mind
are altered
by a bombardment
of influences
out of control
reality
can be difficult to
embrace
now and
again
we must
    escape
                 to a dream
to contemplate the
    impossibly
intertwined strings of
eternity
    that
  spiral
through
and through
tossing and
turning new leaves
as the seasons cycle
time remains immeasurable
lest by our mere
      thoughts and ideas
so we
create
a geometrically
stunning display
of unspoken hope
to catch
                      a dream
and it hangs by the window
and if  the
truth
teetering on a tightrope
between worlds
could speak it
would tell of
endless
possible
imagination
where
dreams
are
reality
and there is
no such thing as
                               time

Entwine your hand with mine.
We'll take this world on.