She is as lines to Bauhaus, oblique
In category yet commanding in form;
Her mind a pool of wealth and Grace,
Allusions to illusions, omega to
Alpha’s strongest gaze. I stand
Failed, distraught, lacking the
Dexterity of voice to call her name,
The temerity of will to regain her fair
Charms and affirmed charisma.
Lost I am within a cascade of
Superlatives and tribulation.
Were only she to have conquered
My mind, I would be of sound spirit to
Elicit some tempered comprehension;
Yet alas, I have been taken in soul
And I can do naught but wait
To see if she will one day return.

I hate you
I don’t like you, no not even a little bit
I don’t like the way you smile
I don’t like your sarcastic comments
I HATE the way your eyes lock with mine and our souls might as well be intertwined.
You’re impossible.
You’re ridiculous.
I don’t like the way you look at me when you think my head is turned
I don’t like it when you listen, and speak to me the way you do
It makes me feel like I will never be as good as you.
You’re dogmatic
You’re erratic
I don’t like you when you overrun my dreams
I don’t like you when your emotions are so in between
I hate that you’re so full of charm
And most of all I hate you for being my alarm
in this fairytale world of love I myself created
Because I always use to say reality is overrated.

Call a                          doctor/ plumber/ priest
My heart is               broken/ leaking/ deceased
My life is                   worthless/ so much better/ over
I'm going to              **** myself/ tell your wife/ Dover
How could you         leave me/ not know/ lie?
I hope you                return my stuff/ come back/ die
I'll never                   forget you/ forgive you/ go away
I need                        closure/ a DNA test/ to tell you I'm gay
Your                           face/ crotch/ top of your back
Is                                so beautiful/ lumpy/ unusually slack
Your                           ex/ mother/ best friend from school
Always made me      great coffee/ feel inadequate/ drool
I will                           miss you/ **** you/ stalk you forever
That way we can      be friends/ get away with it/ be together
I'm sorry                   you did this/ I did this /we failed
I promise to               pay you/ dye it back/ get you bailed
Please don't               leave me/ show the Polaroids/ write or call

(*delete as appropriate, just delete it all.....)

If you think this might be about you, please, don't stop reading.
Though I might not know you yet I have probably encountered you before.
We probably avoided colliding but secretly we wanted to. Maybe you are one of the boys on the bus who, for a sixteenth of a second makes my heart pound and my fingertips go numb, hoping that you'd notice me.

I want you to play your tongue across the piano keys of my teeth.
I want us to sing the themes of Pucchini operas while we make rainy Sunday pancakes.
I want to walk with you through the vineyards of your homeland.
Let me take the weight of your world and put it somewhere beneath my shoulders,
for me to carry with me.
I will never use us in the past tense.
We will never look sad in photographs
and our airmail correspondances will be kept in floral boxes and hidden
for one of our daughters to discover.
Our love will be in the brushstrokes of Signac and Monet.

We will discover that the island of Hawaii
is like the excess emotions of the world
that have congealed out of the earth
to be comforted by the rocking waves.
The sunsets hearts of the people will welcome us.
On the black earth
they walk
their hands filled with sun bleached coral stones.
And they spell out messages and write out the names of the ones they love
so even God can read what's in their hearts.

And when the world takes you from me
which it undoubtably will
I will scatter your ashes in the places we have walked.
along the vineyard trails
and the mountain peaks
and in the deepest oceans we crossed for one another
I will let go of you
let you leave my hands on the winds that rush through Death Valley
while I drive along the same highway
that we carved together.
And I will return to the island of Hawaii
carrying white stones to write out your name
for God to read.

In my house there is a cupboard

Full of VHS tapes

One of them is a recording of a news broadcast

On it I stand

Hospital gowned and smiling

Clowns are there on the terrace where it was filmed

Painting our faces

They all smile

I smile

The other kids smile

None of us over 4 feet

But balding

Black eyed and missing toothed

A clown takes my hand and begins to paint

It is cold

The paint

And the Terrace

I tell her how I want to run away with her

She smiles

Maybe

On camera

You can see my back through the open gown

The bones make me look like a brontosaurus

I turn to the camera

Remembering I was told never to smile with the paint on

or it will crack

The circles under my eyes are gone

My lips are red

My cheeks are tan

I look normal

Off camera

mommies and daddies are crying

Off camera

the clowns are crying

On camera

There is a terrace full of dying children

In a hospital

And we all looked normal

My words have gone walking again.
They got up and left,
slamming the door behind them.
I think it's been a long time coming and a slow spiral downwards;
lately I've been speaking in euphemisms and grandeur that only
I can make sense of
(maybe my jokes just stopped being funny to everyone around me).

My words have gone walking again.
They slipped out the open window,
caught a ride west and said,
"She'll be fine on her own. She always is."

Third times the charm,
my words have gone walking again.
They took off on a horse with no name
and hopped a train to Clarksville.
Alphabet soup has come to life,
but not with my choice in spoonerism.
My head's not quite in my hands,
but my shoulders are keeping it hinged.
Come back soon, my mouth feels empty
and my tongue has no flap nor tap left without you.