Ask me,
Ask me now daddy.
What I want to do when I grow up.
I want to be happy.
No, not happy
I want to be happiness.
I want to be joy and cheer and admiration
Confidence and peace and optimism

I don’t want to be like others, no, I want to be love.
The smile that comes across your face when they say your name,
The look that makes your heart skip a beat,
The song that makes you rethink every second you spent together.
I don’t wanna be the poem, I wanna be the emotion behind it,
Not the first kiss, let me be the nerves,
Not the dance, let me be the excitement,
Not the Officiant, let me be the vows.

When I grow up, I don’t wanna be a doctor mommy.
I want to be the feeling when someone’s told there’s a cure,
Or when a parent finds out their child will live to be a teenager,
Or maybe I want to be 3 in the morning when a mother holds her child for the first time.

I want to be affection and adoration and passion
Oh, I want to be passion.
Let me be passion.
So that you cannot do without me, because nothing without me has meaning.
So that when you are playing the final strain or scoring the winning goal,
Or writing the last chapter or finishing the last paint stroke,
You will think of me.

Maybe I’ll be allegiance or devotion or respect.
I won’t be the soldier, I’ll be the loyalty.
Or the surprise in a child's heart when their dad comes home early,
Maybe I’ll be the feeling when a father meets his baby for the first time,
And the child already knows his name.

I want to be piety and faith and worship.
I don’t want to be the pastor, I’ll be the lesson.
Maybe I’ll be the obligation behind the first baptism or first communion.
Maybe I’ll be the words when someone so low is told someone loves them.
I’ll be the salvation of the gospel,
The redemption to the guilty,
The forgiveness to the sinners.

When I grow up,

I want to be the opposite of sorrow,
The antonym of misery,
The reverse of fear,
The contradiction of rejection,
The antithesis of disappointment,
The inverse of insecurity,
I want to be the alleviation of anxiety,
The ease of pain,

When I grow up,
I want to be happy.

Greatest story told—
Universe in water bead,
Moist earth surrenders.

I read somewhere,
that as adults,
we try growing into
the traits that would've
rescued our parents.
And when my father moved out
I started moving.
The day my his signature
danced across a set
of divorce papers,
my body became boat.
These ankles retracted anchor.
I have been sailor ever since.

2. Mental illness runs
in my mother's family
so leaving was more like
a race for sanity.
There are days when
I wonder if schizophrenia
is what happened
when Liz stopped writing.
When a poet stops being a poet
I guess all of that empty
silence leaves room for
the walls to start speaking.
There are days when I wander
just to see if my feet
are as fast as they
used to be.
I used to leave what I love.

3. I love a lot
so I jog often.
Not for hobby,
but for healing.

4. Survival is a scary thing,
especially when it means
running from what's
already been sewn into
your family genes.

5. If your body ever
feels foreign,
remember home is
where the heart is
so it is no worthless carcass.
Call it Cathedral.
You. Holy congregation
of bones filled to the brim
with sin but blessed
from birth.
Your skin is nothing short
of sacred. Sanctuary.
Your muscles only grow
from being torn and rebuilt
so it makes sense
for your walls
to crumble sometimes.
Destruction is a form
of creation.
And of course,
you will want to dance
amongst that rubble.
Movement is a sign of life.
Let them see
you're still alive.

6. This life is magic
and you come from
a long line of magicians.
We people of Black suits
and bow ties threaded
from braided chains.
We, wands for wrists,
perfect for reaching
for potions and people
and dreams.
We, top hats for teeth,
perfect for abracadabra speaking
things into existence.
We, artists.
We, storytellers.
We, preachers and poets.
We who spit spells
disguised as poems.
Poems that work like
prayers born between pews.
We, walking sanctuaries
with pews for knees.
We who birth life. Love,
you are nothing short
of magic.

7. The day the spine
of my father's signature
tangoed along the rubble
of a broken marriage,
my mother's hips
kissed a beat like
Stevie Wonder
was just invented.
And my God,
is it lovely.
How she wears her lonely
in the sway of her shoulders.
See you come from
a long line of magicians
who don't need to be rescued.
You are not our final flare.
You are not our savior.
Love, you are my plagiarized draft
of a poem called God.

Finger across that new love
force her breath in deep
Watch the dilation of
her ink across her eyes seep

Arm folding over and again
the smell of hot rain
Pulling within the fixation
an ache without the pain

Your leg, her waist
Her face, your pace.
She arches, you squeeze
Your palms, her knees.

An anger that bursts a flower
Raging sea of sheets and nails
All the hairs that salute the power
Unfurling to her exhale.

We used to say " I love you";
Now we just think it.
The people we became
are an odd fit.
I will admit
I am no longer pleasant
to be around.
Constant scowls and frowns
amidst the silence.
The clicks of keyboards
divide us.
Define us.
Align us.
We used be to analogous
like Bubble gum Princess
and Finn.
Just like them we've become unakin.
Padme & Anakin.
My fear of loosing you has caused me to loose you.
Like an episode of That's So Raven;
attempts at the prevention
of the future
ripped open the sutures
in my heart once again.

I kind of love you
    when you’re drunk
    and you
    piece together words
    like a child would
    a broken vase;
quickly and clumsily,

like you are afraid of
being caught
by your own thoughts.

I know what I mean when I say it
Though you think I'm talking in code
A fancier truth I will forfeit
When I'm in your humble abode

I only delay in your absence
If you are away in your head
But time is the killer of nonsense
So words that are weak can lie dead

I've seen what I needed to witness
A carefully crafted display
And I am no longer a harness
My fibers have started to fray

The process began on the fringes
The very outside of ourselves
And somehow undid all the hinges
To doors binding both of our hells

some balding angels weave together the soldiers
of god the work of a spider the star of despair
local insects, tennis players in
spite of the nets in spite of
the insolent blue which limits us
which nonetheless continues to charm the readers
of english magazines