as the bus pulls along the lazy river on Main,
a slouching mind and pressed cheek is a swimmer,
dipping toes

and meanwhile
the gentle murmur of pool-goers living inaudibly,
like hunched bunches
in shawls of shade

(interrupted only
by the occasional l-urch)

nodding, nodding
off and on and off and
into the water,
the swimmer slips in
...

Here, it is heaven on earth

an oasis
...

and the mind swims ever so far
ever so deep
...

i wonder...
...

and outside
a boy, barefoot
runs upstream

a shimmering second
an apparition of summer?
and out of sight

your eyes,
waxy and chromatic
seeped through my clothes and
soaked my skin,
bent my bones and
dyed my concrete spine
blue magenta.

forgive me, forgive me
my revolving-door mouth,
my pendulum heart,
my clammy hands.

my religion is jazz but
i swear to God,
I'm Roman Catholic.

and so I brought you some tulips,

cause I can't lose you
to New York.

[Untitled]

i opened my mouth
and i spoke in colors

no fanciful words and no hollow adage

i spoke in feelings,
so raw and unbridled

my lip did a tremble as music spilled out

i spoke in melody,
save rhyme and lyrics

and everything else that's so vain and worn out

i spoke in colors,
from my lips it rose
formed constellations in the afternoon sky

so i spoke in colors,
and they loved me for it

yes,
they loved me for it

i've become old...

i can tell by

1) the seasons, growing shorter

trees these days seem to be in such a hurry to
shake their leaves off

2) the growing number of people that are gone

by the time you come back with tea and
madeleines

...

wherever the days went
that's where they took my friends, too

they've all gone in search for
Bigger & Better
(although i can't imagine what could be
Better than my tea)  

they've all gone in light of
promises

"she promised to live with me..."

"i promised myself that one day..."

"the future is promising..."

"more promising than here..."

me,
i stopped believing in these promises
last Sunday when i overheard the neighborhood tarot
sobbing in the Confession booth:

"Father, that's when I realized that
the only promise in this world
is the present"

...

i find promise in
smaller promises,
such as

1) a good chance of rain this afternoon

2) your alarm has been set to 7 AM

3) see you tomorrow

...

people don't remember what they ate for breakfast,
while they remember the life they have yet to live
and so
i stopped remembering

...

i only hope that when tomorrow comes the
view outside my window will not change
and what that view means to me
will not change, as well

the city will still light up all the night with its strange fire
and the people will still be in love with powerwalking

...

in truth
i live in this state of constant fear:
when i turn away, the city will cease
(like dream machines)

if i blink too hard,
this all might just become a line
from some book i think
i read sometime in
grade school
(which name i can't recall)

if i were to move away
would it all wait for me?

do i really love this?

or am i just afraid of losing it?

and while i wonder,
i don't dare take my eyes off of
the view outside my window

...

you say that life is loving and leaving
again and again,

then i'm not interested in life

what's so beautiful about broken hearts?

...

if happiness for me
is 2nd paragraph on page 149,
let me be an inkblot
in time, forever still

the rain makes the asphalt look sad and pregnant.

i turn my head for one moment and a lonely 7 train skitters by, barely grazing my left ear. i close my eyes. i close my eyes because if you look, you get sad and that's how you lose. so i look down at my feet at the soft, shimmering asphalt instead

and i watch the train through the asphalt. it torpedoes by, one silver frame at a time, like a silent film still bobbing around in its chemical bath. i continue to watch, from a safe distance.

(its like looking out the window at the cars zooming by. its all fun and safe until you reach your hand out a bit too far and the next thing you know, some ******* car up and runs away with it.
its like marriage.)

except im in college and the wheels of the train never quite touch the ground, but hover, hover over like some kind of homeless intoxicated guardian angel stranded in a sprawling urban desert.

(he lies on top a one of those BigBellys, lies on his stomach, sandaled feet dangling just inches from the ground. blink blink, goes the BigBelly. Gabriel groans,
incomprehensible muttering)

and the train throws bleachy yellow squares of light throw themselves onto upon the pregnant asphalt in fits of just destructive laughter and when they hit the ground by that time they're already hugging themselves, hugging and shaking all over like fuuuuuuck, it's sooo cold in here (in my body!) each one of em murmuring in a foreign tongue about how someone keepzon etching street names into the bathroom walls

Thayer and Broadway at 3AM on a Wednesday morning is someone's oasis, mine for as long as i stand here, my mind stumbling back n forth from one airpod to the other as i feel like im sinking down, down into the soft squishy asphalt wit the weight of my backpack making my shoulders touch the floor wit my bleachy yellow head dangling from my neck as i blink needily / cravingly / searchingly at a sidewalk that stares back at me with the most deadest honest (to godest) blankest expression i ever seen on a no-body

and when i look into its eyes i can see myself but im standing in the  middle of Times Square and -- hey -- everythings looking up! but it cant be me because im here at Thayer and Broadway dangling my head and angling it AWAY from the passing train because if you look, you get sad, you think of home, and when you think of home, thats when you really know you've lost, not sure what but you've lost and you probably cant even actually go home after youve lost because, well, mother**** it you've lost and life just likes to call you a cuck and hit you in the throat like that

but i wouldn't know, i haven't gotten that far yet

food. i wonder what
money. tastes like, i wonder what
freedom. tastes like, i wonder what
you. taste like, i wonder what "taste" tastes like, you know, like
the
word
'taste'

bOUNces off the
tip/ of/ my/ tongue, a tinny little--

t-uh

skinny little--

t-uh

--a thing,
some-thing, th-thing, th-thick,
a phull-er th-thing to
phill. me. up.
make me pheel

so p h u c k i n g

WHole,
a-gain.

(ag-yen. ag-yaaeeen. mm.)

the water
rushes and swells
tumbles like chaos
off the ledge  
into your palms
chaos, perfected