i still try to remember
to take my boots off
at the door

my feet are wet
from walking in the rain

i leave laetoli footprints
on the pine floor
-like the first man

trying to walk upright
but can't seem to
get it straight

There's a lot of empty space
in a house
so full of quiet

wishing for thunder.

r ~ 9/5/14

All she ever wanted was someone to look into her eyes
and tell her they would rather get lost in her milky way
than in the blue skies of another.
She wanted arms to be wrapped around her in the way
the cover of a book would its pages: tight and secure,
but loose enough to let her story build on.
How many times can a person fall in love and not be loved in return?
How many words can be wasted on people who will never read them?
Why dress up sadness in beautiful metaphors?

Daydreaming of someone looking at her as if she was the metaphor
for all things beautiful and sad in life,
how though a rose may be sharp-stemmed
he'd endure the thorns and adore the petals;
dreaming of finding that someone
who will see the pink beneath the red
and know that though passionate as she is.
there's a fragile little girl hidden, scared.

How many times can you watch the sun set and rise,
only to build up fantasies and beautiful lies?
Dancing on a field of green under the colours of the world;
I swear there's a colour that has not yet been observed.
I dream I dance beneath it, with his hand in mine;
I identify with a colour that has not yet been inscribed;
who would hold a hand of one that is not confirmed?
Who will see the colour if neither can I?

She writes poetry in an attempt to become a poem herself,
in the eyes of someone else.

(NJ2014) © All Rights Reserved

I'm studying real poets.

Shelley, Sandburg,
Frost, and Wordsworth.
Coleridge, Blake,
and William Butler Yeats.

Do you know why they're
considered real poets?

Because they made art,
not hashtag trends.
Wrote from Experience
with black quill pens.
Sure, they got high,
but wrote on instinct.
And The Road Not Taken doesn't
mean what you think.
They wrote about about life
and the world that they heard,
not ******* in the margins
of Microsoft Word.

Our box fans inhale and puff smoke,
blanketing the couch like a carcinogenic throw.
The lung cushions decay beneath us.
We fall.
We dissipate on the sidewalk with one
thumb sweep of the filter.
Stashed luggage beneath bus seats.
Springs puncture the faux leather
like we're sitting on quills dipped
in bloodwells writing poetry by several
haphazard candles. Wicks crackling
with each lap of the flame four inches
from our faces momentarily relieved
of windburn by scrawny fingers desperately
flicking to keep the spark caught.
We're caught.
Caught in this couch wrapped up
in a carcinogenic throw burning.

For a moment, right now, pretend that forgiveness will never feel like taking a bet. That the phrase, "I love you," Is not just another form of turrets. Pretend that you've got a pocket heavy with change and you walk like a wishing well wind-chime. And you've got a nickel in there for every time you cried for something. And your chance to change is as easy as flicking your thumb. Launching a coin into a pool of water. Pretend that you've got a penny melted and molded from the iron in your blood. Pretend that that wish will come true. Pretend that I just put mine down on a bet on you. Double or nothing, because ******* kid, to me, you mean something. And I don't mean any big life success. This is deathbed memories type ****. Who was there when it mattered type ****. Pizza on the car hood when the mice are asleep in the oven and the birds have nested in the old stove burners. Finding safety in a hammock held up by the corners of a mouth. Warmth in arms when you realized how cold it was actually going to be down south. For a moment right now pretend. That you've got a friend with a body made of drawbridge and hands strong enough to close it when you need to. Eyes like a moat. A blanket quilted from your lover's muscles. For a moment right now pretend that that friend isn't me. It's you. Forget God. Forget finding forgiveness and love there. On the inside that friend is you. Making penny bets like a Philippino woman in the smoking section of a casino. Double or nothing. 50/50. Pretend now that I'll be there too. Tossing coins in a well. Wishing only the best for you.

I knelt next to the bed and rested my elbows
on her pale thighs. Before I prayed, I pulled
a rosary from between my ******* and wrapped Jesus'
crown of thorns around my knuckles. My babygirl's
chewed nails massaged my parted lips, and the Sharpie
on her hand overpowered her lilac perfume.
I dropped to the blankets when she spread her legs
and the scent of impatient desire filled me. I eased two
fingers into her and begged Jesus for forgiveness.

Sheepishly held-down dental floss
guitar strings and cracked hands
like sink-side toothpaste.
Cuspid picks in a mint-scented, plastic bag beneath textbooks
and a zipper rusted like gingivitis.
A backstage house of pamphlets
slurred time like novocaine speech. Thirty-two people sat at coffee-stained tables talking about their routines between sips of créme de menthe cocktails and water.
Fluoride lyrics dripped from his mouth as people closed theirs.