I live in a small town with nice people.

Nice community theater people.

Nice non-swearing churchgoing people.

Nice people who keep their mouths shut and their eyes closed.

Nice people who live in ticky tacky houses and sweep their front porches.

Nice people with children who send text messages and drive to nowhere in the middle of the night.

Nice high school teaching, comfortably living people.

Nice mothers-and-fathers people with bright voices and dark eyes.

Nice bored people.

I live in a small town with nice people.

But occasionally they all go momentarily mad.

The ending to our night
Was as beautiful as the beginning
Bright eyes were still there, three warm hearts.

Shivering as he stared up at the stars,
Speeding soundlessly down silver roads in the headlights
On which the speed limit is
30.

Listening to dogs bark,
Laughing wildly,
Bright,
Pointing out stars
("That one's a UFO.")

Accidentally brushing hands
And pulling away to avoid a mistake
That would have to be made
On both parts
(I'm better.)

Shaking and sobbing and slurring your words
I almost wish we were drunk
But we aren't
("I don't know what I did wrong.")

Trying to force you to believe what you won't
That you're beautiful, amazing, and more
("I wasn't built to make people happy.")

("But you make me happy every day.")

The girl with the brown hair
And brown eyes cries
Three people stand in a kitchen.

Two steady, with eyes that pierce holes in her head,
The third pacing restlessly, eyes undead.

A dog skitters by
And jumps on one of them,
They pet her, as she is oblivious to what is happening and therefore innocent to the quiet screams and hopeless mutters of the brown eyed girl and her worries.

One of them taller, hands in his pockets and eyes just a bit red
But not quite red enough to be marred by tears.

The other small and leaning on the counter,
There is blood in her mouth and tears in her eyes
Even though this isn't her tragedy.

The brown eyed girl,
So beautiful, so smart,
Silently torn apart by an emotionless kiss and absolutely meaningless talks about absolutely nothing,
Slowly tries to die in front of them.

Sways on her feet as she leans on the couch-
They've moved now to the living room and though the house is empty it has been filled by feelings of melancholy and mutual worry for one another -
Though nobody will let her fall,

For the eyes in her head
And the heart in her chest
Are worth a swim though broken glass.

("No, because glass gets in your fingers and it's really hard to get out.")

Nothing compares
To shaking on top of an old
Broken down windmill
With you.

Nothing compares
To silent summers
Sweating in the sweltering heat
Of love.

Nothing compares
To bright blue brick walls
Bringing about a brightening of bleary bland feelings.

Nothing compares
To dark auburn dreams
Drifting down my darling's cheek.

Nothing compares
To radical rants
On ruined romances
raining rivulets of righteousness
Upon those rotten adolescents.

Nothing compares
To myriads of murals
Of most moved men
Materializing
Meandering
In the fields below.

Nothing compares
To falling flat to fear
Fretting and fanning
To finish off
This fantasy.

We're a sad starving bunch

of stupid teenagers

sipping from the sky

an occasional rain drop.

We're a sad starving bunch

of secret-keeping teenagers

shrieking to the sky

the phantom growing pains and all too real slowness of our sappy lives.

We're a sad starving bunch

of sanguinary teenagers

shooting our brains toward the sky

attempting to sacrifice ourselves for something more serene.

You are gone

and I can finally allow

the tears to fall.

Someone wrote a poem about me

Once

Wrote me in as a hand holding the chain of a swing

One of two hands,

keeping them safe,

With my other hand I feel like I carry the knife

but that hand is for our

collective protective

our blockade of secrets

We Must Keep Hidden

from the world.

When I think of the word, poets,

I see a small group of people huddled around a tiny tinny coffee table

heads close together as they produce what is ultimately their life and death.

When I think of the word, poets,

I see a single bearded man standing

at a small stage in front of two person tables

with a crumbled piece of paper clutched in his ever aging world changing hands.

When I think of the word, poets,

I do not see a group of teenagers circled around one another in a clear classroom

with a box of cheep cookies

trading words and telling jokes.

When I think of the word, poets,

I don't see the boy with lingering loneliness, or

the girls with brightly dimmed eyes.

I see the Greats,

The Bukowskis, the Beats,

without realizing that one day

we may join them.

She is art personified

she speaks in soft bursts

of golden sunlight.

She is thin

and shivering

she is sad;

she is withering.

"What are you afraid of?"

"Ghosts, killers, guns?"

I'm afraid

of you.

You who hold the power in your hands

to break me open

and leave.

You who hold the ability

to tell me I don't matter

and the authority

for me to believe you.

I'm afraid of betrayal,

of not being right for you.

I'm afraid you will hate me

afraid of losing my friends, so few.