I, too, can write passion poems:

(and if you were a rose I'd pick you and stick you
in water till you withered and died and
everyone would comment
on your color
and refined shape.)

so let's collide with night through our noses:
wake to your banging fist on my swinging door
and binge on bad ideas and beatless songs
till distended with poetry we grow ill and collectively
**** sunsets onto those 365 well-ruled pages
        that we pray to in pews in this church of hedonists--
        every book a bible, all manuals for *******.

so at dawn we
criticize the sunrise, hang ourselves
from the belltower, for kicks.
or lash limbs together under covers,
those well-rehearsed kisses
a myriad of plots:

and with our bony fingers,
tie the sumblimest of knots.

I've been riding my bike with the seat stolen for months. I've cut down the time that nicotine washes over
my gums to two times a day.
I'm on my way out to a four year
university for the second time
and reduced my drunkenness
to three days a week
it might be tongue in cheek to believe
I'm healed and ready to venture on
but I'm at least going strong despite
everything I've done and seen. My phone screen gleams with a fresh text
"Just for the record, there is nothing I
don't like about you." screen shotted,
only a hands reach away from my pocket, that text might as well be
in a locket

A velvet curtain call concluded,
A cheering audience cried,
The critics published long reviews
Predicting Broadway's newest pride.
The cast was given high acclaim
While, standing to the side,
The playwright could not understand
Why it seemed a friend had died.

it's the morning of Tuesday
June twenty fifth, and the fog, again
rolls in against lima and listlessly scales the escarpment
and Dana (like I) high on ******* and circumstance
has gone with Chris and Cameron, to watch from the cliffs
(this time something loose has shifted, and I hope they kiss).
and Corey is here
asleep to my left
tired from a whole day of travel and
Dana calls her an insomniac but
I think she's at rest.

And an empire is how she took off her shirt
and gold is the way she doesn't object
when I trace maps in her back and put an ear to her chest.

because I don't know who this is or why
my fantasies fixated here, but they work, unbidden
behind purposed eyes
buena vida es buena ficion y
good fiction is impossible to expect.
like when under your skin, New England, dunes
drift and dance to the hand at your neck.

because I have everything I could ever want and for
me in my figured out life, these flighty daydreams aren't problems but
more like preproduction films to maybe see, to get lost in, given breath and a bit of sunlight.
because I have never heard Corey complain or object and until I do I
will continue to give to her everything I have, will continue to
try to understand the invisible hairs at the base of her spine.
try to reward what goes unrecognized.

because we're all bent up patchwork machines, and
I'm sure Corey crumbles inside as much as I, but
when you fly to peru and lay with certainty your head against mine,
into a stranger's neck, and lie still
when you could struggle to explain but don't even try
when you are beautiful, but keep on going still...

the ******* can't what my hands will,
in walking the staircase of her spine.
keep me watchful, and up all night,
to try in fingertips to recognize,
that you are beautiful and someone needs
to see you to sleep. to feel you to fly.

I was hell bent on being sad
Making desperate decisions
To push away the past
Thought I lost all that I had
It all started with my dad
I used to think my rebellious ways drove him to drink
Until I learned about his eleventh chromosome
It was then I knew why the sight of alcohol made his mouth foam
He’d raise his voice
Then his fist without a conscious choice
The next morning he’d be sorry
Kiss my bruises if he could
But I’d already be gone
We all knew I would
I’d be gone before he woke
With ****** friends looking for anything to smoke
Now I only smoke the ashes of my pride and the fresh potpourri of my regret
There’s a few things like this I’ll never forget
Here’s to my mother
She could never understand
Why I changed so drastically by the unwanted touch of a man
It tore us apart the way she just couldn’t see
How that man could ever take so much from me
My little sister would worry when I didn’t come home
She’d be scared each time was real
That each time I’d finally leave her alone
But what she doesn’t know is why I’d always return
I came home to see my baby sister
Because a baby is how my eyes will always see her
My sister put a smile on even when home was hell’s prison
Somehow she always felt she had to hide what’s arisen
She was always good that way
Through every heartache she’s been the strongest of four
She’s the reason why I don’t run anymore
Now and then I reminisce back to when she was three
It took so long for ignorance to pass
Took me a while to see
How I need her curious eyes to forever look up to me
Some days I lose my calm thinking whether or not she always will
As long as she does, I’ve not lost it all
In my baby sister’s eyes, I’ve got everything still

The girl was scared of puddles
And she was scared of rain
Every time the thunder clapped
She raced back inside again

She was given beautiful umbrellas
And coats of waterproof silk
But still she sat inside
And read on the window sill

As she grew the rain poured harder
And the girl cowered away
She hid behind her mother’s back;
She never ran to play

She was afraid of what the droplets were
So she sat and watched them gather
She still refused to step outside
And so she grew ever sadder

People came along
And people quickly left
They found the girls odd cowardice;
The way she counted every breath

There came a day when it was too late
And the girl was forced outside
She was lost without her silken coats
And with no place that she could hide

The girl was chilled clean through to bone
And her shy life came to an end
In her silken coats she reached the gates
And the golden stairs she did ascend.

In God’s own home she lay down her fears
And she swore that she’d be brave.
For there there are no window sills
And no pouring rain or hate.

Saint Peter smiled and praised her,
The girl who’d been inside,
And Saint Peter whispered truthfully
As he watched the young girl cry:

“Now, girl who’s scared of puddles,
And girl who’s scared of rain,
Did you ever think that when the thunder claps
It doesn’t have to mean your pain?”

“There’s others out there, like you
Who have suffered just as much
Yet they stay strong and they pull through
And they do not lose touch.

“I’ve been here always to protect you,
And that will never change.
So when you’re scared next just think of that,
And stand to face the rain.”

You must learn to love the puddles
And embrace the freezing drops
Dance under the thunderclouds
Until the lightning stops