The night we got drunk and told each other secrets
Wasn't a good night
But it was a reading poetry night
A looking up poetry on your iphone and reading out loud night
Our favorite verses
Leonard cohen, andrea gibson
We're very different for best friends
But typical, a boy and a girl
Stealing liquor from the grocery store
In my purse, under your shirt
Secrets
A few drinks and you're crying, telling me
People only see your looks
And I think you're superficial, get some real problems
Until you tell me
About how he held you down and tried to choke you
In the middle of the night
Another drink and I'm holding you saying I'm so glad they called the cops
So glad you're here now
So glad we're best friends
So glad we've bonded over shared
Awful secrets
Another drink and you're telling me not to feel self conscious of my scars
That even though they reveal to everyone
The worst thing I've ever done to myself,
And they show this without my consent to anyone who might look
That they are a part of me not to be ashamed of
And you have another drink and say you don't think worse of me
Not anymore.
And we have another drink and look up another poem
Read it out loud until the words are too slurred and we're laughing
Like the worst things that ever happened to us
Are only parts of us
And they can be remembered without falling apart
And forgotten without losing everything
And we have another drink.

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

It is summer
And the wind presses the thin fabric to your body

Every woman’s *** looks perfect in a sundress

You have been sweating
And the fabric sticks to you in the next breeze

In stillness you are a Greek statue
With wet folds of fabric outlining your frame

There are wrinkles in some places
And I think that you might look like this when you are old

Writing poetry is a lonely thing
It looks you square in the eyes, smiling
It asks you to write alone
Even in company
When writing poetry
You are alone

And even lonelier still
It asks you
To go inside of yourself
There are things there you must find

There is a man inside my body
A boy
And they look just like me
They each hold letters
I do not know what they say
I must find them

Poetry is love you want
Is someone you want to be in love with
Poetry is a child tugging at the pant-leg of someone
You want to be in love with

Poetry is the coffee stain on long sleeve shirts
Right over the wrist
Your mother called them chocolate stains
Never blood

Poetry is my drunk fingertip stumble
My white-boy wasted
My way of loving less awkward

Poetry is someone telling you they love your poetry
Poetry is loving someone for loving your poetry
Poetry is also kissing that person

There is a man
In mirrors he might be me
We have a letter we want to give to you
But they read like a feeling

We spend hours in solitude
Finding ways to step into the daylight

Poetry is convincing you
You need a reason to step into the daylight

There are words etched into your teeth
All white
No bling
The letters change with the shape of your mouth

Smile more often
Even when you don’t want to

Poetry is trying to teach you to speak peace
with the words in your smile
To people you don’t want to speak peace to

Poetry is an angry father
Is neck bruises from belt loops
Is rug-burn from being dragged across the floor

Poetry does not love you
It simply asks you
To find space inside of yourself
And then it wants you to give it to someone else

There are people inside of you
With stories

Writing poetry is a lonely thing
Giving it away
Until no one can be a thief to your soul

That too
Is poetry

Having a Coke with You
is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the **** Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse

it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it

by,
FRANK O'HARA

I came to you because I thought you would save me.
You laughed over the John Hughes quote
That now is a seminal classic
But I’m not sure because I don’t believe in it
Because I’ve never known it
or maybe it’s just you I don’t believe in.

I didn't have enough energy to actually make an effort to laugh
and pretend I was having a good time.
I would rather sink into you, slowly, like I would ((in a shipwreck or)) in oversized couch cushions.
and be usurped by ((cold water that wakes you up)) musty fabric
when it swallows us whole
and we sink to the bottom.
I'd only feel
your long arms around me and nothing else

I’d rather strip for you
Not to be naked but to take my layers off.
[You bore me, You shaped me, You taught me]

And then I’d try to not love you so that I could fall into you once more.
let the  overwhelming overwhelm me (again)
until I forget the ongoing drama of the heart and the heart (a purposely neverending story)
[There are no words with which to describe thee:
My darling my love I need you beside me.]

we quote our favorite title page to our favorite epilogue.
An absurd story about love and blowing things up
Because really, (like hospitals and prisons)
it’s the same thing.

what does this night mean in the greater consequence of our lives?
Nothing.
I’m okay with that.
I’m just saying that.
[?]

Opportunity and random occurrence are just a farce
That we use to pretend fate doesn’t exist;
(it doesn’t, does it?)
Everything that matters seems too big to be real.
but I lived long before this, and I will exist ever after
one day I will achieve greatness
you will be forced to know me then
Since you won’t nor never will now.

We loved them because
they loved to create.
A tailor and a builder.
made art from nothing.
Left a legacy.
Constructed beauty
from seemingly nothing.

Oh boys,
Our tailors and our builders,
Without you, we’d be sleeping just fine.

He blew her mind
Made her consult
With her old dear friend
Jack
(Daniels)
At hours unmentionable to civilized people.
Who indeed made her feel better
but also made her feel
Worse in the end.

He could talk real pretty things around my head
And I was hooked like a fish
It’s been 4 years and I’m still not free.
I’ve never met anyone so broken
And yet so comfortable with his millions of pieces.
He taught me to take the lenses off
And embrace this life, this love, this way.
Everything that happened before
Is over.
Tomorrow is just what we’re calling 12 hours from now
And oh, won’t those 12 hours until then
Be ******* glorious.

He molded her
Into a volcano.
The kind you see in middle school art class
That the kiln hardens
and it becomes supposedly unbreakable
Until one day, you find it has been chipped all along
[You did that to her, you know.
Broke a piece off her without even knowing it.]

Now that we’re older
they suddenly saw us
When before we were just the backing cast.
Made things that belong in the deep
Accessible to us without fishing lines
Now that’s just a cruel game to play.

It’s funny that it was
a tailor and a builder
who gave us the courage
to not need
to be built or tailored
anymore.

I want to drive a million miles and bring you home, where you belong.  
I am patiently composed on the outside, but inside of myself?  

Oh!

I am a squirming mess of,
'Please, God, can we begin the forever part now?'

Do you see how you move inside of me?  
Are you quite certain that you can tackle this poet's heart?

I am a mess, and well aware of who you are.

You are cotton candy, spun so light and sweetly;
It doesn't matter to me one bit if you are pink, or blue.
You are sweet things written into the air.
  
I want to **** you into my mouth,
Inhaling your beauty into my lungs.

You are cotton candy,
So light and delicate,
So ready to melt upon my tongue.