Hi, it's me.
But, I mean, you probably already know that.
And you probably already know what I'm about to say, but now you can have proof of the words that run around in my mind endlessly while you enjoy your mothers pasta dinner.
Yes, I miss you. And maybe you don't know it yet, but one day you'll realize what it really felt like.
I've never held a gun between my hands before, but it felt like I was pulling the trigger, guiding the bullets through my heart as you watched and didn't stop me. As I placed the blade between my chest to ensure the only thing that was really keeping me alive was ceased from pounding and then you cleaned the weapon clean so I couldn't remember what happened if I somehow survived.
And although these are things that didn't happen, it's what I feel. And my feelings may be metaphors, but they feel far more than just a figurative language used to compare a thing that has meaning and something that is just simply there.
But maybe you already knew that.
Maybe I'm just saying it for the hell of it.

to me,
love was always a mystery to me. i never truly understood what it was.
though, i like to think that i did and sadly, i thought everyone else knew what it was too but just like me, it was a mystery.

as someone who grew up without knowing what it truly meant,
i always thought it was something you can look for again after it's gone, something that will make you feel better on your bad days, something that will complete you.

i have loved so many times, or so i think i have.

but honestly, aren't we just a bunch of people throwing around the word love thinking that we know what it means? unintentionally making someone else feel special, not knowing what the consequences of using the word love really are?

now that i am older,
i think i finally understand.

that love is something no one can ever talk about without mentioning how much it actually hurts. loving someone meant truly wanting them in every way possible. most of us cannot handle how imperfect a person may be, and we will try our best to change them because "we only want the best for them." love is not finding perfection in someone's imperfection, but instead it is accepting the imperfections in someone and learning to love it as well.

i know i still can't tell you what love really means but i have found someone who helped me understand what love might be.

i loved every bit and piece of him, i loved everything about him. all his flaws, his appearance, his heart, his personality, his tantrums, the way he talks over me when he gets excited, how he tries to see eye to eye with me even when we have completely different point of views, **** i loved everything. everything that i never thought i'd like, i did anyway. i didn't only want him, i needed him. he did not complete me, but we go so well together. i never wanted to change anything about him even though i wanted to see them do better. i was willing to go through it all with him, good or bad.

is this what love really is? the fact that you know someone's bad side and you still love them anyways?

you see, no matter who i meet in my life and maybe, just maybe i might love them but i will still be able to pinpoint their flaws and maybe those are the things i won't like about them or the things i wish to change about them no matter how much i love them because i am selfish.

but with him, it's different because i loved it all. i still do. i never wish to change anything about him because that wouldn't be the person i love anymore and that's just something i can never do with anyone else, i can't love someone else like this.

he taught me how to be patient, kind and accepting.
but most importantly, he taught me how to love.
sadly, this love is only meant for him and no one else because love is not meant to be thrown around like how we did to others before we have met each other.

i guess your last lesson was teaching me that love also means wanting to see someone obtain the bigger and better things even if it means doing so without you.

i can finally say this to someone and mean it,
i will always love you, no matter what you do, where you go and who you meet in life.

thank you, my love.

When I was five (and this I barely remember mind you, I was five or so—maybe younger, who's a boy of five to say—and all memory is as cloudy as Seattle in copyrighted images or Tom Hanks movies I've never seen or something) I carried a dead squirrel into my small white boyhood home by it's bushy tail. I presented the creature to my mother as a gift, like a dog with a dead rabbit between it's jowls, limp and nubile. I guess it could also be a rabbit.

I was proud. In elementary I took upon myself to own the blacktop playground for what it was; a mound of black something to step and pound on and run and scrape knees and kick things, forms of kickballs or tetherballs, always red. I remember standing in line at Sunny Vale Elementary and promising the girl behind I was not cutting but not quite knowing how to say it.

The summer after we moved. I don't remember school after that, not until third grade, but it was different. My attention felt divided. I was a boy in two, interest piqued by different sectors of memory, such a selective doll. I remember reading with my father and having fun with my mother. I remember my father's beer and my mother's youthful smile. She will be forty-three years this year. My attention is divided. I am a half-man in two.

मानसिया साननो रोँगौ
आरो बुजिनोबो रोँगौ मानसिया
जेब्लासिम मानसिया बुजि रोङा
बे समाव बियो थारैनो लाजिया
देलायनो सोलोँनाया मानसिनि मोनसे रोँनाय
देलायनो रोँनाय लोगो लोगो
मानसिनाव मोनसे गियान सोमजियो
अब्लानो बियो लाजियो
लाजिनायानो मानसिनि मोनसे समायनाय
समायनाया मानसिनि मोनसे रोँनाय
बे बाथ्राखौ गोथौयै बुंनो हायोदि
जेसेबां रोङो बिनि आखल आखु गासैबो समायखाङो
लाजिनाया माखासेमानि रोखोमनि जायो
मोनसे नंखायनि थाखाय
आरो मोनसे रोङैनि थाखाय
अदेबानि मानसिया नंगौ नङाखौ लानानैबो
मोनसे गिनाय फैयो
बेयावनो लाजिनायबो थायो
मानसिफोरा गावखौ फुरायै बिजिरनो सोलोङाखै
नंगौ नङा बेखौ थि खालामनो हायैयाव
गुबुननो फोरमायनांगौ जायोब्ला
मानसिनाव लाजिनाया फैयो
नैबे बाथ्राखौबो साननो होयोदि
लाजिनाया मानसिखौ समायना खालामो
आरो बेनो गाज्रिबो नुहोयो
अदेबानि बियो मानसिनो गासै
गुण गियान आरो जाम्बाथिनि सायावनो
सोनारनोबो हागौ नंगुबैआव।

GOD is a white guy in his 30’s. GOD wears a royal blue Petsmart hat.  GOD has on a grey, short-sleeve button down shirt with a clip-on i.d. badge. GOD’s i.d. badge contains no letters or numbers, just a picture of GOD wearing an i.d. badge with a picture of GOD wearing an i.d. badge on it, and so on into infinity. GOD has cold sores on the corners of his mouth. GOD wears stone-washed jeans. They’re too short, but they have an elastic waist which is really comfortable, so it kinda makes up for the whole “too short” thing. GOD needs really thick “George H. W. Bush” glasses so he can open the rodent cages at work. GOD grew a mustache to hide the scarring from years of using old crusty disposable razors. GOD wears high-tops from 1998. They’re rather worn, but remarkably clean. GOD knows what to do with his hands, but not so much his fingers. GOD is in her 20’s. GOD is sad sometimes and she doesn’t know why. GOD nods. GOD once proved that the country of France does not exist. The fact that the country of France actually does exist makes the accomplishment that much more astounding! GOD is the dark and terrible Dragoyle! The first and last of his kind! GOD is a vicious, taloned beast born of the boiling pits of Borok-‘Tor! His reptilian wings expand across all of space and time and, with even the most gentle twitch, stir up a dense shear of molten flame scalding the skin of all Creation! GOD’s ancient black-diamond eyes, forged from eons of wrath and pain blast-melted in the great furnace that is his heavy heart, peer only inward, leaving him an uncompromising and limitlessly powerful but ultimately humiliating and repulsively weepy creature! GOD is All and All is king of all of All and all of He! GOD is the Unmirror. GOD is the final mathematic tragedy of what happens when we only ever try. GOD is the ghost of a dead thing that never was. GOD is the shattered, petrified shell of Pandora’s box cast down to the crackled crust of Pan’s windless desert. GOD loves you more than himself because GOD knows you are real. GOD farts on books! GOD sips on soup! GOD is a very serious actor in full make-up and costume doing an intense and superbly crafted representation of God, getting to the heart, the true reality of what it is to be God, the essence of Goddom, but in the end fears losing control and holds back, resulting in not genius but blasphemy! GOD masturbates to the Salt-n-Pepa 'Shoop' video! GOD caught you ******* to the Salt-n-Pepa 'Shoop' video! One time GOD got so drunk he forgot you were in the room! GOD invited you to the event “Max’s Karaoke Birthday Bash”! GOD knows you, but isn’t in know with you! GOD is 8,9,12,5,9,4! GOD is . . . ! -hha-hha- GOD is heard breathing. GOD breathes like you do when you’re asleep. At the start of each breath there is a very poignant yet very subtle lip-smack sound. The breathing is steady, never changing pace. Like that of Darth Vader only intentionally ridiculous. Like that of a ticking metronome only . . .  lifeful, which is a brand new word.

Out-of-that same hole, you built the bridge that brought you into my apartment, and closer, enough, to laugh, at my-joke. Enough to make you comfortable, once. And well-built-bridges survive torrential burns. 
[Good pitching usually bests good hitting, bad defense is hard to play-beyond, but, for some reason, sonny keeps-on. Practicing that shot, past-the-arc, [page 8] feet-so-far from the floor.]
I bet on another-blaze, from that boy. Bet his broker--- down at the "bridge-insurance-agency"--- bet, that he bets, too. One big tragedy and The Bad Boy-Blonde bought himself a little capital-l Legitimacy. Or at least a capital 
M-mulligan, ~~~~ _~~. "******, man, can't make another mistake?"

I mumble, again, to myself. But this time, I'm not complicit. I won't be the lubricant, whilst he wears-down his looks, or when he can't use his **** every day, or when he runs out, again--- back, with mean things to say. And now he's ******* disappeared, and you're back on my couch, and we both complain. And you read a poem, and I write a love letter. And---

That part there, that ain't-even projection! Another delusion, maybe. Again. Am I trapped, in [page 9] typing out words that later, I'll trick myself into believing? Or? Truly? I'm more sum, than total, when you tag-along. I'm totally, and tragically, head-over-heels. You'll hear this, here, and have a hard time listening--- "no, listen, I understand all that, and have a position on your counter-punches."

I couldn't, possibly, corrupt my own kingdom by exiling you entirely. Because, yeah, you're so beautiful, but you're also my-best bud. You, fit-flawless, and fearless, and effortlessly, into the hole, left by the jigsaw-piece, lost-years ago. My friends, and ******-when, had it, penultimately, "pieces-no-more," way-back then. 

Yet you're sure you weren't there. "You're sure? You weren't there?" You can be sure, I [page 10] believe you. I'm not under the impression that this is the long-con. I know, I'm a little-less-adorable, when I yawn. Or I cough, or I cry. And if I fawn, all-over you, still, after, I admit. I've really been trying to get-over-this, for a bit. (you could, honestly, be the best-friend that I've never-had-yet.)

And, you could, plainly break-my-heart, again. Apathetic over my annoying requests, for you to, "read my ****!" For it to be this, and you, getting-so-mad. For Adderall-sale to become the staple of our "extra-workular-relationship." For us to lose all contact, like my personalities, currently. For losing the ability to over-explain HBO programs to "This-girl-from-seven-nine-three." For you, this might be easy!

No, sir! Miss, I mean! No, you! I won't let it happen, if you say you won't, too. Put this down, make no mention, if it's made you upset. I've [page 11] already trusted you, once, to forget. And, he did, as well, so we're on the same page. Writing about him: lettered-love, turned toward rage (never, in-your-direction). I'm sure, at one-point, I had promised: no-more interventions. Lashing out was true, but convolutes my intentions. True, also, is the certainty of this-thing, I claim. The third-dream, "with ~~~-~~~~ ~~~," ~~~~~~-~~~~, yeah. You're the name.

I don't have recurring dreams, but... right..., my dreams... recurring themes. And, if in-them, I've a ... "love-interest?" ... they've taken many shapes. The one, and-one-and-one more, who've shown up more than once, I could cough up, cry-out-over, and name. Only three come, through the old haunts, of my odd-head's hallway, Round-and-round-and-round trip. [redact] At least here, I dated her. In real-life, as-opposed, to the annals of [page 6] more depths-delusional. Did wrong [redact]. couldn't believe she was "glad I came." Care enough, to care. She couldn't-care-less. Middle-ground, Grey-areas, and misinterpretations make my skin crawl. Excepting another-day-in-April,

[big
redact]

and maybe if I sing it better this time she'll seeeeeeeeeeeeeee... "wait, Kay, Cee, and Ell?" I've noticed too, and it's cute, but a fluke. Not some-hidden-meaning. "Got a subconscious, on me," Freud couldn't pursue.

Silly, and I didn't mean to be serious, but you're starting to get a grip-on-it. The feelings may fade, but the drip-drop flow of dreams adds to the direness of my dilemma. Alas, around when she's leaving us-all, in Natick, [page 7] I began-becoming acquainted with another-animal-lover. "Any port in the storm?" Any pill, and a razorblade. "A penchant, for an interesting existence!" Next-door, the slowly-nailed-coffin! Where people are abandoning their unloved pets! She mentions Bertrand Russell, in-the-line to buy, more jet fuel.

 "(sung)Way down in the hoooooooooooooole..."

...

I invite you every-which-where, to hang with whoever, because, if "not-the-bother" came not-with, neither would have I. 

                                             [page 3] I invite you every-which-where,
                                              ­ to hang with whoever, because,
                                             if "not-the-bother" came, not-with,
                                               neither would-have-I.

I could show you that rock, I just found, and be sure you'd see the lion's-face in it, too, and if not, not so-say, as a saving throw (for my sanity). A welcomed throw, at that. But, merely, a prediction. An-[Dad just startled me, by design, kicking down my bedroom door. This wasn't left in as some song-for-sympathy, but a solid,  and tangible-manifesting of a shared assumption: that this planet won't pity us, even for an instant.]

Projected predictions probably-not-preferred. They aped me, in April, when I accidentally abandoned discretion, and made you [page 4] aware of my more-amorous intentions. [I made that too wordy, for my reached-for tone.] Regardless, I don't misread your messages, rather, I'm quite sure you've sent zero. Real appreciative of those rapid minutes, relived, wrapped-up in last April, that I got to hold you, and reel, and ring-in, your ear, right-next-to-it.

I know, it "isn't-like-that," But I hope it wasn't awkward. And that hug, that wasn't-awkward-hug, well, no, it wasn't weird for me, alsotooeither---it's always... just, a little-too-tough, to let go of you, leaving me. I can't even remember, the lie I allotted, to attempt an escape. From my outcry of "awkward hugs!" as I hid, you still made an anxiety, into an awesome-day. "Even-if," you wouldn't have-shown, [page 5] had today not been paid. And---wait, no, you know I don't mean-it-that-way. [I'm sorry. I think about you reading this, and my writing will ramble. Maybe, when re-written, post-forced-revision, and transcribed. Maybe I'll annex all these tiny annotations. Maybe I'll never regret the exhibition, if I never air-it-out.]
...

[page 1] I already regret writing this to you. I already regret sharing this with you. I've already told you, before, but I'm bursting---I'm skidding, like my brakes are busted--- bottling-it-all, inside. And, a wise man once told me, "If it's eating you up, you should ink it, all-out." I just wish I could remember whose words those were.

Sometimes, when I'm searching the Rolodex, for the right-scene, you've been around, to remind me. [Almost-like, you'd read along.] You tell me, you assume "I'm always awake," and, I would only elaborate: with-fear, my dear, for falling asleep would draw you back, to my dreams.

See, and I've said this (to much poorer souls than yours), [page 2] before I allow my ambitions the axiom, certainty must surround the word "love" like an aura. My so-flawed system of authentication, of authority, in my own-hearted matters, starts and ends with my dreaming. Only three romances have recurred. Randomness is much more regular. Rarely do my dreams speak with structure, or in-a-story. That real random. [The reason I'm a poet?] Flying symbols, from "seven hells," heavens, or highways. If you left the top-down, or had a bad-day.

[Relax, Flagstaff]

sighs

[Ready, again?]

Ready.

...