Dude,
please slap me
bruise
tongue and cheek
island week
you and her mightn't speak
I wonder if you wondered
if anything could ever feel this real forever
if anything could ever be this good again

Siblings parrying sincerity.
Brooklyn to Scranton to Bristol and back again
couches embrace
rewind it.
Front yard fabrication of a happy family
play pretends in the paper bark tree
squeeze my arm and ask me

are you okay con?

Passenger seat canary
Jeans in 40 degrees, out to the rock wall
downpour, Shaq soda, ephemeral lyrics and a deteriorating weekend
when I'm meant to see you i may sleep in

i do this thing
where i let people
make their homes
in the midst of my words.

they are cordially invited
to bring their joys into my home,
(sorrows optional, if you do not
have sorrows of your own,
some will be provided to you)
i am always excited
to have new inhabitants living
in electronic pages of my memory,
if only for a night.

i love it when i know
the weight of a soul
just enough
to set it down gently,
surrounded by literary furniture
so it feels at home.
i love to watch from afar,
patiently,
while these people
find their bearings
in the monstrous maze
that is my poetry.
they get lost sometimes -
in mixed messages,
messy metaphors,
silly sentences,
violent verses.
I am in awe of how gently
they can navigate my mind
and come to rest
in a corner that they make
for themselves,
and no one else.

i do this thing
where i let people
make their homes
in the midst of my words -
a small colony,
a peaceful civilization -
with the occasional war,
a rare skirmish.

their homes have windows,
and on most days,
i don't mind
letting the world have a peek.

O eraser! O eraser!
You were supposed to make it white
Instead you made it gray
O eraser! O eraser!
You smudge my work all day
O eraser! O eraser!
I'm throwing you away
O eraser! O eraser!
You're hard and black from pencil dust
You're sticky gray from acrylic crust
O eraser! O eraser!
Away!

One night I was delivered
Birthed from the womb
Of a hospital car
Into a dark room
With a chipped wooden desk
Where I sat to cry
Without light
Without hope
I read the walls
And quieted

"Love you will be okay"
Scrawled above my bed
In jagged strokes
As jagged as the edges
Of my broken mind
Sharp shards that cut me
Loose from my family
Stitched together
Only by the words
Of the walls

Crude were the scratches
That held me together
For so many days
They were borne of the same desperation
That I was
Sometimes, just knowing that
"You are not broken"
Was enough to keep me sane
When the doors screamed
And the moon kept me awake

How many times did I break
Behind thin and lapsing walls
With only the comfort of
"You are enough"
To beat out the chill
Of frosted windows
And Portland rain
With red eyes
And chapped lips
I turned to face the wall

Building up a broken will
Packing bags
With papers
Of a journey not so much travelled but
Fought I laid for the last time
Upon that bed
Taking pencil to plaster
Trying to let them know
"Someday you will read these words for the last time"
"This is not the end"