It's two o'clock - Post Meridian
Time to raise a glass
Of wine or flask of gin
To the Good 'Ol Gov
And Marvelous Dr. Acton

Take action, Homebound Heroes
By extensive handwashing
And endless binge-watching,
Baby Yoda and the Tiger King

One day eventually
There will be
Cause to celebrate,
Gather outside
And roam

But until then,
For Grandma's sake, people
STAY THE **** HOME!!

Clear your thoughts
like a break in the clouds.
Memories float by
until you’re left with nothing
but an open sky,
a star to wish upon,
a constellation to recall,
and the blackness to remind us
we are all so very small.

I remember waking up very early the next morning,
maybe three hours after I fell asleep on the bathroom floor.

I tiptoed through the house, careful not to wake anybody up,
even the guy who kept telling you to drink
even though you very kindly asked him to stop.

I'm not sure if you ended up drinking,
I forgot most of what happened that night,
but I remember shouting from the tire swing
that I loved you and that I loved you
and that I loved you.

I found where you were sleeping,
relieved to find no body next to yours,
and calmly placed a hand on your forehead.
You stirred, before gently grabbing my hand as it pulled away.

Eyes still closed,
you asked me how I felt.

I feel okay, nothing appears to be broken.

You said nothing and went back to sleep.
I said nothing and sat there for a long while.
I watched your chest rise and fall with each breathe,
and I loved you and I loved you and I loved you.

After a time I stepped outside to smoke a thought,
and the thought I smoked was not of you or of the night before
but of my mother.
She told me,
after I brought home my first date, two months into my freshmen year of high school,
that just because I desire somebody's love,
does not mean I deserve it.

I loved you and I loved you and I loved you
but I did not deserve your love.

If there's one thing I've learned,
It's that love is real
And it does exist.
And you have no idea
What it is like
Until you're over your head in it.
And there's never really a specific moment
In which you fall in love with someone.
After a while, you just realize that
The way they squeal a little
When they laugh to hard,
Or how they always get  way too many banana peppers on their snadwich,
Or how they jump out from behind a corner and scare you
And laugh hysterically because you screamed,
Even though they knew you would.
Or how their heartbeat sounds when they're holding you in your arms,
Are things that you can't imagine ever living without.

And if you ever went to Subway with another person,
And they didn't ask for extra banana peppers,
It just wouldn't feel right.

And I love you.

1) Your heart is so entwined into mine that I'm not sure if it hurts you or me when I pry it out with a crowbar and leave it on your windshield.

2) You're letting boys ****** you sweaty in your backseat and I just want anyone to write about me the way all my blank pages scream about you.

3) I've always been one to root for the underdog and baby we're a million to one shot.

4) You're the Dragon and the Damsel and I'm not sure what to do.

5) You're the draft I've been writing on for months. Art is never finished.

6) I'm wicked and I'm proud, just like every fallen angel.

7) That's not a light at the end of the tunnel. It's your eyes and I think I always knew it was.

8) There is no salvation. There is no damnation. There's only you.

9) And I'm sitting outside the Pearly Gates, cigarette perched in my lips like a crow.

10) Or maybe I'm sitting on the bank of the river Styx, I'm not much of a cartographer and Dante doesn't have time for fools like me.

11) My poetry is a lip-synched prayer and my goddess has turned a deaf ear to them.

12) I was replaced by we and me by us and you wonder why I don't know who I am when you're gone.
12b) You wonder why we don't know who we are when you're gone.

“Write about ***” I whisper to myself
“No. No, that’s disgusting” I respond with vigor
“Write about love.” I suggest in the condescending tone adults often take with me
But I do not want to write about love,
I have never been in love
I have never felt anything like love
I hate writing about love
I hate the pronouns
I always want to write about hers
About the smell of perfume on her dress
And the way her hair curls and twists like the plotline of an Oscar Wilde novel
I always want to write about she’s
And the way she never makes fun of my silence
And the way she laughs
And the way she cheats off of me in geometry,
Even though we both know my answers are always wrong
She’s like a triangle
A cute
But if I were a shape
I’d be obtuse
Because when  we walk to together in the hallway I always get the urge to grab her hand
But I never have
And  I want to tell her to take off her makeup because she’s just so perfect
And you know she cried last week and I didn't know what to say
I never know what to say around her
But she never minds, she can have a conversation with me and I never have to say anything
And some days it takes all my restraint
Not to write about her
And I want to write about how I love her
I want to write about the way I love her
But hatred always hits me in the gut
And pain in the face
And shame cripples my fingers
So that I can never write she
And when he comes out of my pen
I rip the pages of my failed poem out of my notebook
And cry
Because I can’t stand writing lies

we got a goldfish,
for my little boy.
a tank, some coloured grit, three plants not two,
must practise goldfish fung shu.
all the water testing guff
and of course a filter.
a sunken ship
and a treasure chest .
we paid the pirate...
and took our ***** home.
so we set Bruce.
( for that was the name chosen).
up in pride of place on sidboard.
the list, above,
was positioned after meetings of commision. water tested to the highest degree,
filter fizzing, wizzing,whirring.
Bruce swam in his bag
in the tank,
for a time as instructed.
then released to a slightly larger freedom.
he swam and swam,
golden scales a flickerin.
we, (that being, mr just about three and his dad)
fed him, watched him poo, and eventually,
read Bruce,
a bedtime tale or two.
one fish, two fish by Dr Suess went down a treat.
the little man then,
was bundled off to bed.
thoughts of Bruce left our heads.
the evening lengthened.
we retired to sleep the sleep, of ignorance it conspired.
for in our planning we forgot one thing.
a devon rex cat,
who has a bath weekly,
a penchant for tuna,
no top to the tank.
so we thank the lord
for Bruce. however,
brief was his reign.
now we introduce
to you....
Murtle the turtle
who has a glass pane,
sitting above her head.
just in case......
the cat likes, turtle soup.