There were times when I thought
For sure
That the feast of reality,
An all-you-can-eat buffet for the senses,
Was surely a mirage
In the thirsty desert of my cloudless mind.
Sometimes,
All I could do was lick my lips,
Rub my hands and scheme
Because it seemed
Too good
To be true.

I called your name
Once or twice;
The first time to see if you were there
And the second
Because I liked the way it tasted
On my insatiable teenaged pallet.
At first, it tasted like cheap ***:
A sweet burn,
But enough to draw out the fine
Delicate strands of truth.
One kiss:
I'm fine.
Two:
The gears are loosened.
Three and I suppose the rest
Is history.

I am no lightweight,
But the words went straight to my head
And I am warm now--
Warm the way thieves are
When they steal
Supper,
Warm the way nuns are
When they smoke their
Cigarettes.
Warm because it's the idea
That something so wrong
Is now a basic necessity.



It's not so wrong, though.

I became jealous of my friend;
He hung around the intersections
Just a bit too long.

He used to slump around
In the corners of my eyes
And I didn't notice him when he'd frown--
We didn't notice him--until he hung around
That intersection for longer than we'd care to think.

I became jealous
Because he vanished
Right to that street corner
When he thought
No one would care but the coroner,
Right to the asphalt that received him--
Soft,
As I hoped my own
Last moments
Would be.

When I saw him,
Mama said he was sleeping.
He looked like he was,
But the lights were dim;
His arm cradled his head
The way he used to sleep
On his desk, in class
And for all I knew,
He was.

They said he was driving
Like he was late for something,
Like had he not been driving
Exactly 65.32 miles per hour
He'd have been late,
And it was only afterwards
That he'd figured out that he was
Right on time.

And when he arrived, his car blossomed into
A beautiful metal flower, and when it fully bloomed
He was the fruit
Which fell.
And all I could do was recruit the strength
I'd left at home on accident by the drain
The same one that ****** him into that downward cyclone,
Confused him and made him believe he was alone--
Not to just think or to have a hunch,
But to really believe it
To the point where he needed to expunge
Himself.
No.
No, no, no.
Not like this.

And so, now, I sit at the intersection
Chucking rocks with my weepy hand
At my grayish concrete reflection
Trying to see if he'll come around again.
I'm still
And still kind of mad within
Because life's not fair,
I'm jealous because he found the answer
And left us all to figure it out
On shards of glass
Pieces of metal
and intersections,
Which too long
He hung about.

Buildings gently rake stars
As they go by
And the buildings stand up straight,
As I do when I think of you.
The old saying is that absence makes the heart
Grow fonder
But when I’m in that airplane
So high up that I can
See the curvature of the earth
Well!
Travel makes the heart grow eager.

I’m an eager bear
I’d hibernated for so long,
Occasionally waking up to be loved
Vaguely
And drink the milk of the lavender moonlight
Which whets the appetite of my swollen dreams,
That when spring comes
The sun is just too bright
And I just want to stay in my den.
Yeah, I’m eager.

I’m a hungry wolf, too-
Hungry like the desert.
My soul is skin and bones
While my body gets big
Because I can eat my feelings
But I just swallow my empty pride.

In the corridors of the body,
In the halls of the jagged ribcage,
I milk the stars in her eyes
In a field of tissue and organs.
They fall from my memory
Into the hummingbird heartbeat
Which makes my body
Nostalgic warm.

I hated the way childhood tasted
Like sticky kisses from unfamiliar lips,
But I remember you softly,
As though thinking too hard about it
Would shatter the memory.

You’ve nested in my brain
And kept my small hands warm
With your big heart.
You are channeled into me
The way west winds
Whisper their messages in and out
Of metropolitan suicide suites,
Telling us not to jump,
To put the knife down,
Not to pull the trigger and
To get off the chair-
You are a lifesaver
In ways we can’t count on fingers
And toes.

My mood swings like a pendulum
In a long-broken clock
And I gently fray at the edges.
I can feel your hand on my face
And I am comfortable like a cloud.
I give my entire heart to you
Neck and all
And in return, you give me yours
Pale, pretty wrists and all.

Somehow, through the dresses,
The curled hair and the pink nails,
I felt you reaching into me
From some private distance
With eyes, hands and body.

I come from the low-downs,
The after parties and the mornings,
Tough to wake up from.
I come from fast, domestic cars
Driving ninety miles per hour
Away from problems
Down country back roads in Saxesville;
I come from beaten children.

I come from down under and up top-
Places where it would literally be
A miracle
To meet anyone new.
I come from a son and a daughter,
A brother and a sister- Friends
But only from a distance.

I come from moments where, suddenly,
It gets serious and quiet
And everyone stares.
I come from falling phonebooks
And martini glasses,
Dry, with two olives.

I came to accompany my brother.
I came from farmhands and family babies
First borns and middle borns
I came from children who grew up
Too fast.
I came from a man and a woman
And I came to find my own way
In lieu of theirs.