I didn't have breakfast that morning,
I was going to be late for class and I ran out of gas, so I figured I'd take the bus instead, I've never been a rich man, and what money I do get, I spend it on cigarettes and flowers for a love that doesn't even exist

Sweaty and tired, just like I spend every morning, I finally get to class only to find out it's been cancelled, typical,
I scrounge around my pockets and book bag to find some change to get a snack, I didn't eat last night either,
A woman next to me saw me staring and she offered to give me some change, but she walked away before I could get a name,
Hearing my stomach growl I quickly stick the money in the machine and wait for the energy bar to fall down, but it doesn't, it gets stuck, and I'm left there just staring at it, and thinking about it for a while, how upsetting it is to realize that this is what happens every time

See, it's funny because this **** happens all the time,
They always come along to save me and offer me some kind of change, and foolish, I fall for it, hoping maybe this time it'll be different, but it never is,
They always leave before I seem to even get their name, and they leave me with something that I just end up getting stuck on in the end, and it drives me crazy until I can't stand it anymore,
It's so fake, everything is so fake,
The glass is so transparent and it really makes me think that I won't fall for any of it anymore, but it never fails,
Like, this time will be different,
I know exactly who you are, and I know exactly what I'm getting myself into, but I'm always proven wrong,
Or you always stop halfway through it all and just seem to leave me hanging, literally, like a snack stuck in a vending machine

So I walk back to the bus stop that morning, tired, and hungry, and just wanting to be back home,
I know it's just an energy bar, and I know what happened isn't really that big of a deal, but like every other morning, I could've really used the energy

I mean maybe it's good I didn't get the energy, I'm too tired now of this happening over and over to give any of it any of my energy anymore, so I digress

Love will keep offering me change to get some energy out of a vending machine, and maybe one morning I'll finally get it

every night,
you walk me back across campus.
and every night,
we sit in the back corner of the lobby,
by the laundry room,
where the vending machine sits,
and talk for at least an hour.
and we talk about
everything.
the big things,
the little things,
the easy things,
the stressful things.
and we both listen and talk.
hearing one another,
loving one another,
simply being there for one another.
the minutes and hours slip by,
and suddenly it’s 2am-
reminiscent of the first night
that we actually hung out,
i sat next to you talking until 7am,
fully knowing i was to work
an 8 hour shift that day.
and ever since that moment,
i have fallen even deeper
in love with you,
every single moment
of every single day.
i am finally comfortable enough
with myself
and
in my own skin,
that i, for the first time,
love sharing my life with someone.
we can talk about the serious things,
and 20 minutes later, segue into
being very goofy together. and
it feels so natural
and normal
and right.

I hate the word suicide
probably because I can relate to that pain inside
so whenever I hear that word
I pretend it's something else I heard
like vending machines
or if those that vend can also dream
do machines really dream of electric sheep?
and instead of snoring do they actually beep?
is the food not dropping another form of rejection?
even though it's taken my money into it's collection
these are the sort of things I question
as I think of vending machines
instead of my suicidal tendencies.

I am not an object in a vending machine
I am not a price to be paid
I am not a button to be pressed
I am not what you'd think I am
I am way more!

I grew up in a village
Americans always seem to laugh
at the very idea of a village
how quaint?
but I did
it was five or ten years behind the times
and in the pub,
the huntsman,
the local
there is an old Marlboro
cigarette vending machine
with lights and menthols
and 27's and reds
and milds and ultra milds
and all the others
I'm too drunk to remember
I miss those machines
bells rung of a simpler time
I miss those machines

There is a place
So marvelous
That with a press of a few buttons
You can get what you desire

Many different people
With many different wants
Can all congregate
Here
In this special place

All you have to do
Is know what it wants

Just give it what it wants
As you leave you find yourself with a greeting
Have a Good day

At all hours of the day
Glimmering with hope

Calling out to lonely wanderers
Looking to
Impress
Excite
Relieve

The shiny silver candy bar
Snuggled amongst the chips

It's the little junkfood that counts

We come to a complete stop.
At a red light.
We wear our arms like seat-belts-
crossed for protecting our pilot lights.˚
I can't help but wonder how many airbags might deploy
if a meteor crashed headfirst and heavyset into the planet
and pancaked us eternally into this moment-
and how our fossils would look confused;
funeral flowers on a wedding cake.

None of this matters, we're both thinking it,
God is a foster child playing with his erector set.

You grin with as much conviction as a dented automobile,
breaking the months of silence to say,
"I miss you."

We can never fold these road maps back the way they came.

Somewhere existentially above this moment, there is an asterisk
that confirms
you- are here.

There was a younger version of me that you never got to meet,
he was here once,
stupid as a slinky.
Shaken like an Etch-A-Sketch.
Crooked as the question mark that punctuated his voice.
I looked good in hydroplane,
my eyes- bigger than my belly,
so I drank my weight in promises- I knew would be hard to keep within arms reach.
I also knew an encyclopedia's worth of how it felt to lie to myself.
I did it for twenty-three years
until I finally let go of stupid and held on to reason.

At some age I wrote letters to my favorite musicians,
using the sloppiest side of my penmanship, I'd ask for answers
and my mother, like a paperclip, used to tell me - she'd say,
"Kiddo, just because they don't respond
doesn't mean they didn't get the message."

She kept her chest of hope upstairs, away from the living room.
She only opened it on the hallow end of October;
that's where she kept the blankets.

Shy, I kept my hope chest covered in a T-shirt-
at the very least.
I never opened up.
I emptied my toy box of all its fiction, filled it with voices.
Deployed an army of rubber wrestlers, martial arts amphibians
and those inanimate toy soldiers with plastic parachutes attached
in search of the confidence I knew was supposed to belly-flop inside of me.

It hid, unfound for decades.
Until you entered.

Hawaiian domino effect, circus of chain reactions, avalanche of affirmation, chest-plate yielding gravity mouth speaking brightest anything forever night light, all apex and eyelash and cheekbone.
You -from big island- broke me.
I opened like the dry side of an umbrella, kept my back turned for shielding you.
I showed up for love on time, like a subway train in echelon city
wanting these arms to feel less like turnstiles.

All my sign languages were in waves.
All my ceilings turned to skies.
All my jitters packed into my hunger stomach.
Typing hyper with caffeinated hands
a swarm of nervous words bee-hiving in my butterfly chest.
Something like a hummingbird
when I finally drop your name like an alarm clock whisper
my lungs empty like cathedrals on the day after Christmas.

I brought the sermon to your Sundays,
you brought the choir to my masses.
We built a church around these esophagus bell towers.
Held ourselves up to the stained glass and showed off our light;

I swear I don't believe in a lot of things, God knows,
but there's always a but,
so much as I believe in the eternal depth of everything,
so much as I believe that we'd have plenty of water if it weren't for salt,
so much as I believe in eight marbles rolling around a gas lamp,
I believed we'd find a way.

'Cause in all the ways my sky could never hold you- and I mean this-
I believed in you- same way some people believe in Jesus.

Because you never judged my albatross mouth when I said things like,
"Self deprecation is the new love."
You kissed me-
less like doorstop,
more like lighthouse illuminating windmill.

You were a merry-go-round pivot decorated in Kona coffee beans, Christmas lights, cough syrup, paper mache pineapples, plastic dinosaur bones, a collection of worn-out Asics, board shorts and a dubstep remix broadcast through the static of a blown-out rotary phone.

You were everything I could get my hands on-

A full-tilt action-packed kaleidoscope jungle
with blender tongue and volcano heart.
I looked good in your sad panda coat tails,
teaspoon swallowing my doubts
while you Tarzaned my ability to breathe,
gave me ocean view and weak knees.
Is that sea breeze in your aftermath or are there already tears in my happiness?

You came camouflage out of my blind spot dressed in magnet armor,
diving board and drum set.
We passionbent cymbals into cannonballs.

I found comfort between your breastplate and your shoulder blades,
where you held me like a promise
when all my wishing was for want
and all your wanting was for wishes

Granted,

I know that there were days when you couldn't help but wake up like gorilla speaking Pidgin
and I couldn't help but waking up like an abandoned highway with a chip on my shoulder-
some maps don't show this much detail, Google Earth-

Which is why I always came through for you like a well-lit citrus truck stop
pressed against the dusk in your moonlight life crisis.
We only saw stars.
From our moon base.
In bewilderment, in our hunger, we learned
that if you hold me to my vending machines you'll get what you pay for.

So here it is, the truth, as I have always known it,
delivered to you on the outskirts of an echo,
my voice, supporting my existence like a monolith.

I'm standing in the middle of a you-shaped hole.
It's as wide as a promise crater-
we built it together.
It's not my favorite place to stand
but the exit strategies are made in the shape of a me that I haven't constructed yet.
I had a lot of things planned.
I referred to things as "ours",
when I really meant "please".

Bury me in your time lapse.
When your emotional excavators discover me in your sediment
they'll find me all pterodactyl-
wings spread wide as potential, sky-diving toward forgiveness,
forever.

Truth is, I'm wingless.

We met at a stop sign.
Our paths crossed.

There's a lot of accidents at some intersections.
Maybe it's because that's not where those two roads were supposed to meet.

We can't time machine argue with the way things landed.

We weren't an avoidable accident.
We were just two cars that really wanted to dance.

I don't know what I'm trying to say but I know when I mean it.

There's a tyrannosaurus rex cradled head-to-tail just behind my curator heart-
all fossil spine, monster teeth, jaw head and piano hands.
His presence says a lot about the past.
There's an asterisk on the surface,
above this moment,
that confirms with absolute certainty,

˚something wicked awesome happened here.

They say having good friends is like winning the lottery,
Well who gave me a fake winning ticket?
Every friend that comes and goes is just a mockery,
Of my undying kindness even for those who don’t return it.

Is it dumb to believe in the phrase “Best friends forever”,
Or am I just stuck in my 2002 kindergarten playground?
People seem to drop me like a bird sheds a feather,
And I am unwillingly isolated by the time I am found.

I was not aware that friends were like snacks in a vending machine,
Picked and chosen when it is most convenient for you.
I guess I am the little pack of crackers stuck in between,
The chips and the Mountain Dew.

God forbid that machine runs out chips and drinks,
Because then you may have to settle for my boring ******* ***.
And maybe for once it actually won’t be a jinx,
But it’s too late I am no longer a convenience so I shall pass.

I miss VCR players and Saturday morning cartoons
Star Wars marathons every weekend.
I miss being terrified of the mouldy basement dark
And watching Homestar Runner for hours.
I miss blowing things up in the backyard
And building that tree house, and making ****** movies
On a ****** video camera
With my oldest brother, who in many ways
(such as by blood, and parentage, and legally)
isn’t even my brother at all.

I miss the world the way it used to be,
Before things inside me began to go numb
And other things began to burn like live wires.
I miss the innocence I lost. I miss the cents I lost
To the arcade games and the broken vending machines
To the bullies on the playgrounds
Who even I learned to make excuses for.

I miss the days when a Weezer song
Could fix just about anything at all,
Back when I climbed more trees,
Swung on more swings, ate more candy.
I miss my kidhood, when I thought that
Growing up was going to be just fine.
I miss walking to ****’s for greasy hamburgers.
I miss the way the Space Needle used to
Make me crane my neck to follow its yellow elevators
All the way up to the spinning top.

I miss growing up with you, stuck between Freakmont
And Far East Ballard, going to Archie McPhee’s,
Rubber chickens, refrigerator magnets, hamburger hats,
Bacon soap, Jesus tape, pickle bandaids.
I miss your house that smells like cats
And your wonderful parents, and your too-many brothers.
I miss your kitchen and your living room
And your amazing singing and your air guitar solos.

I don’t want to date you or marry you or *******
But since you started dating that awful girl
Five years ago - FIVE WHOLE YEARS! -
I haven’t seen you all that much.
It wasn’t really a choice, I couldn’t be around her:
She makes you into someone that is not-you.
Someone that is quiet and shy and reserved,
Not loud and strange and outrageous.

I miss you, oldest brother.
I always felt like you understood me in a strange
Sort of distant way. I miss you a lot.
I feel less alone when you’re around.
I hope college changes you, I hope it makes you
Into who you are again. I hope you write more ****** movies
And film them and act in them
And I hope you break up with her
And find someone beautiful who makes you happy,
Who doesn’t make you into not-you.
I miss you, but not the not-you you’ve become.

I miss the first you I ever met,
Too tall, with way too much poofy hair,
And long skinny everything, and thick glasses
And a good sense of humor, and a taste in ****** movies,
Videogames, airsoft guns, horrible puns;
A pyromaniac, a secret fatty, a terrible dancer,
A geeky awkward kid from Tennessee
Who somehow changed everything about me forever.

a voltage feeds my mind
like that of a brief rainfall
where there is an asterisks
of insignificant social commentary
whose reality pertains
to disproportionate events
whose commission
makes a profession out of trivia
which is no more ******* durable
than accumulated dispersion of adrenalin
that of a psychophysical explorative
exploitation of unrealized
perpetual fermentation
that seethes with the singeing smell
that accompanies its lie
those demanding untruths
that lock each and everyone
in a burning prison of panic
a prism of unfocused
visionary liberation perhaps to some
the realization of the cosmos
that lives within the poets interior
a mighty roar of space
waiting to be filled
with visions of future worlds
of future social commentary