it took a few months to recognize my first car.
i’d wander through parking lots reading license plates
as if they were names i should know, but forgot.
i just looked for the college parking pass to show it was my own.
i graduated two years ago.
i still looked for the parking pass last month.

it took a few months to recognize my keys.
they didn’t feel like mine for months;
i was used to touching doors with the reticence of a guest.
i couldn’t tell which unlocked what,
i just looked for the college logo lanyard.
the red fabric may have unlocked as much as the keys did.

it’s taking more than a few months to move on.
i’m still in therapy for the therapy i didn’t ask for
when people couldn’t tell the difference
between the will to live and the will to die.
the keys on my lanyard led to doors that weren’t mine anymore.
none of the other cars there had to leave.
the parking pass laughed as i drove away.

it took a few weeks for the airbags to stop ringing in my ears.
i didn’t hear the sirens until i saw the lights,
kind of like the way i didn’t feel myself being pushed
until the door was shut. i didn’t know what to reach for—
i would have held the steering wheel tighter.
i would have looked a little longer.
i would have watched what they did and not what they said.

it takes longer when i’m in the driver’s seat now.
words need more salt. i take roads more slowly.
the car that was my home through shut and locked doors
was my safety one last time.
i have new keys. i have new doors.
a home where i’m not a guest.
i walked from both crashes, but only one still haunts.
the parking pass was towed away, and i wish i had laughed.

I remember all of them.
Maybe because there only were a few.
Still, I would sacrifice one of them
—but no more—
and instead of love and sleep, the two most beautiful things,
I would soak up
the scent of the moment,
the depth of existence,
the essence of life,
disregarding the finitude of moments.
And I would etch every detail into my memory—
our bodies,
the room,
the sounds outside the window.
I would give my entire old age
for the chance to live forever in one night,
next to you,
in a time of love.

You’ve got a city pass in City of Uncertain Love,
walked through the door,
didn’t so much as flinch,
even after all the plasma drawn from this love,
you walked away hissing,
bared sharp fangs, jaundiced from all the scathing words that flowed,
pale as a vampire,
it was you after all and not me you said.
Enamored with the sights and sound, the 360 degree dining experience with a view of the future, complemented with vocabularies to match your mood, aged like wine in the vineyard of pick-up lines,
while I’m left here in a curiosity shop of brokenness:
kisses spat back into the bottomless void of yesterday;
thoughts of once newly-minted strangers we were scrawling notes and now smeared by tear stains;
a heart with no discernible shape, slapped for dragging beats on the snare;
A corpse of a phone you have murdered taking it off life support when you eloped with my charger;
mismatched pillows you left, still possessed with the ghosts of restlessness nights haunting the halls of my mind with echoing arguments of what to eat for dinner;
a spare key—a wedding ring for a keychain.
I fell apart.
Ring!Ring!Ring!
“So, everything didn’t work out for you?”
—inaudible—
“Do you know what time is?”
—inaudible—
—you missed me?”
—inaudible—
“Uh-huh….
Sorry to hear, but there are no refunds for your freedom ticket. Bye!”
Click!

When it was the holy ghost, and fire,
keeping us alive,
believing was just what we did,
knowing one does not live
by bread, alone. As
we'as born free,
as free as we could be,
while knowing nothing needful,

truth wise, having no clues to start with,

how might one discover fire can be made
artificially, using wit wit' gumption,

to feel the heat,
live and learn to keep a secret
without ever asking why
why why, I wonder
did she run away,

why do some say life
is like an egg,
is that a hardboiled egg, eh

the games around egg finding, learning
where to look, what to look for, color,

blue, on green, jewel among jewels,

all the manifestations of gravitational
coherences causing such things as us

and causing us to be the first mortals,

contemplating long now laws on
conscience usage, with knowing never outlawed,
forgone conclusions forbade partaking,
for mere hearers of the songs,
learning early to enjoin the dance,

but never hearing music laugh.

I am Shiva, imagine me,

I rode the ox, imagine that,

death
merely threatened life,
life laughed and let its shadow pass.
us gaseous weform nodes in ancient hate.

Old bull minds baited good as bears...
After somebody did let the dogs out,
a we cheered to witness the killing,
made the ****** proof
a national pride,
freedom from the press, let us have,

teach the children backward thinking,
make them read Red Badge of Courage,

after the library lady recommended Plato,
as a follow up to Orwell, in 1962,

break my mind, feed me lost generations,
recollections, all we learned of war is lies,
all we learn from peace is past understanding.

mi casa es mi casa
i dream of family
slowly all pass

I’m sorry, I’m sorry I am not gonna make it to our dinner plans on Saturday. I had something else to do.

I’m sorry I am not gonna make it to the party on Friday. I had something else to do.

I’m sorry I am not gonna make you breakfast on Sunday. I had something else to do.

And what I’m mostly sorry for is I am not gonna be able to kiss you tonight love or the night after that, or the night after that, I had to go and I couldn’t say goodbye.