do you remember spending hours
in that old beat up car of yours
sharing fresh packs of gum
and old stories about love and loss
concerts we wouldn't see together
moments both shared and separate
and even now we laugh together
share a pint and share our scars
and I don't miss being that young
but when I look at you, I still see
the same person from a decade ago
and it's as though no time has passed
and we are both still teenagers
driving around way too late at night
you pressed your palm up against mine
comparing fingers and hands
I hoped you wouldn't see through
the red flush of my cheeks
so let's have one more pint
get sloppy drunk together
and compare the stars in our eyes

There might have been a time
When I wasn’t full of fear so topped off
Like a gassy sombrero
like a burrito left in the
Sun to bake and there might have
Been a
Time
When I hadn’t yet eaten a burrito
landlocked
In New England, locked in a small state of
Fear and knowing that knowing
just isn’t
Enough.
There might have
Been
A time when luxury was a nickel
apiece paperback
Book at the Unitarian Church fall sale
to raise funds for
Their roof.
To raise their
Roof.
And there
Might
Have been a joy in my spark
Plugs,
A joy
In my canter
A Joy in
My legs that preceded my
Fears.
There might
Have
Been a time:
When I would pick one of the seven records we owned
And delicately put it on the turntable, thinking I will
Have my own money and
buy my own music.
When I idly lift the leaded paint
from the 200 year old wood
And scratch it to smell its sweet aroma.
And put my hand on the glass pane
Think hard enough and open your eyes and it will be
1838 again.
Oh where are the people?
Oh where
when there might have been a time
Did I not see who they are?
Or they did not register.
I must have watched them everyday
Observant
so keen to be seen
Is it possible to feel so much
for feeling so little?
Or did I feel gulfs of embrace
that were not there?
I wanted and I desired and I dug.
I craved and thought and speculated
and clung.
And there might have
Been
A time when I roared on my Schwinn down the long empty
Roads of my town.
Invoking our gods.
Invoking my claims.
There was a time when I stuttered with
Compassion and could
feel a touch observed
There was a time:
Across the street in a
lit house at dusk.
Their curtains are open, their lights are on.
Oh, the sun has settled down
There is that time, golden, when I
Look into your kitchen, and the wallpaper is
Blue and harvest gold with small pictures of oil lamps on
Them and your walls are mustard gold.
Your plates are unbreakable
I see them lustre in the
Overhead light, fashioned like a wagon wheel.
Guns ablazin’.
Trails awash.
There might be a time when I can slip back
Into your kitchen
lick the plates and then
Run my fingers over
the wall paper.
Tracing the outline of the oil
lamps imprinted.

Billy got violent
It used to be an apparition
And now it fights for a vast attention
A geist clear and present
A feast for the mealing viewing of a gross company
:This explosion tuned on tide
And now it is our SwearHeart

Billy was so silent
Now it votes out all its crushings
All its firing angers
It's unnamed energy
Wild

The progenitor speaks :
Turn that Clown upside down
You Hanged Child
You Fool Card
By your age I'd joined the military
Had friends
Knew a girl
You are hard work ;
Our little SwearHeart

You're Thin Skin
Worn outside in
Understand (blinkered)
You must live in vain sight
You mustn't cut smart sound
Be team, be trophy
Make us proud
Our little SwearHeart

You play this part brightly
Perfect this Art
Turn in The Performance
And make us quite proud
Our Bitter SwearHeart
With our backing
Join in the game
And plea tame
Our Vicious SwearHeart

At 12 years old
you learned the majority of stars
were already dead.
They are masters of deception
giving you hope that beauty
is permanent
and love is forever.
You learned that love
is too often a lie
and promises find themselves
shattered on linoleum floors
that you step on in the night.
At twelve,
you learned that your bones are fragile
paper thin like the birth certificate
you’ve never seen,
buried under other things
you never really cared about.
You found truth
at 3 am in your bedroom
followed by rivers of tears
and open pill bottles.
You saw life
and you saw death
and sometimes those nights
when you were twelve
are the only things that make you feel
like the world is real.
When you were twelve
you found out the stars were dead.
When you were twelve
you found out that you were not.

When I was thirteen
I thought that I wouldn’t make it through the year
birthdays felt like due dates
that I was never going to make
and each day brought me closer
to my ultimate fate of nothingness.
My bones felt like they were
filled with lead
and my eyelids sank as if they
only knew how to fall
like the rest of my body
into sleep.
I thought each moment was
a ticking time bomb
that was going to blow up
and leave my family to mourn
the life of someone who chose not to live it anymore.
I was so broken by my own brain
that nothing seemed worth it
and the easiest thing would have been
to step into the water
and let my leaden bones
pull me down.
When I was thirteen
I saw nothing but emptiness
within my own chest
and a body that would soon be useless.
When I was thirteen
I did not know what the future held for me
with laughter and love
and everything I would eventually dream of.
When I was thirteen
I was wrong
about most everything,
especially that I would never make it
through the year.

Crimson curtains opening and closing and draping over a cliff say:
          it’s showtime
          (or lights going on and off).

Let’s go through the alphabet and use alliteration:
          Daffy Duck, Porky Pig,
          (or other creatures getting hurt tonight).

I hope and dream that their hopes and dreams have plummeted like their bodies:
          by the wayside
          (or waist-side, or waste-side, or cliffside)—

low tide that surges shores like the seamstress from New Zealand:
          those Kiwis,
          (or feijoas, or passionfruit).

But passion don’t matter to us folks, and neither do kangaroos! We have our own hops:
          Pabst Blue Ribbon draining in sad funnels
          (or Bud Light, a treasure).

Second is the best, but Third is the one with that treasure chest in his stupid palm:
          not even knowing what to do
          (or how to act).

Are you serious, bro? It’s called a shotgun! Shoot it with my key:
          pop the cap to release pent-up pressure
          (or you can just chug normally).

Choo-choo trains chug, Thomas and me, little plastic wheels in hot pursuit:
          I know you can do it
          (or my name’s not Percy),

as I violently consume swizzle sticks before the sepia glow of:
          That’s all, folks!
          (Or is it?)

I told him a bedtime story tonight
stood over him as he thrashed
mad in the throes of far away passion
                  wild in the warm embrace of jack and coke
he needed a happy story
so I told him one
about two beautiful princes
who fell in love
and saved the world
                                 what were their names?  
I told him their names
and he fell asleep, lost in dreams of a world
where two princes in love
would be a completely normal thing