We met in kindergarten
Miss Wolfe’s class
Into an ear I whisper
A shy boy’s bargain

I knock on your door
Pray the dog
Doesn’t **** me
Seems like a metaphor

Laughter and chasing geese
Stealing glances
And prances in the woods
Sprained ankles in the creek

Your moon-drenched family room
And our primal need
Bodies glide
Into foreign feelings
I concede

We’re both shaving now
Not children
Yet not men
In between and fooling around

In my attic bedroom
Space Jam soundtrack
Hoping my mom doesn’t hear us
My hands on your back

Then moving down
Committing little sins
Shhhhhh
Don’t make a sound

Then the bed of my dad’s truck
Some hand stuff
Never a ****
Never enough

You get up and leave
I want you to stay
I play the radio
97 ZOK

Meredith Brooks
And I hate the world today
Because I’m a *****
But I like me this way

Fifteen and fevered
Down Mix Street
I rollerblade
Turn right on Worth
My love for you
Is such a sad parade

Remember when
We camped on the lawn
Quiet light and secrets
Then that wicked dawn

Dragging us back
Into a world
Where our desires
Don’t belong

We are strangers now
With a little bit of everything
All rolled into memory
Like a sacred vow

I’m your hell
I’m your dream
Do you remember anything?

I recall it all
Your tousled hair
And my forbidden grin
I think you live in Wisconsin

My friends have cross tattoos
Verses on wrists and calves,
Hands pierced with nails-
Symbols of a love craved.
But never found; not where
It was promised. Some doors
Don't open, despite the desperate knock.
So we draw the door on our skin.
We're getting closer now,
My friends and I, closer to a life
Without end, to love without condition.
This love we were on our skin

Are we still here
Are we still loving.
Were we as lost as they said?

The way he held me
How his eyes sparked
When met with mine

My god it threw me
Into a hope
Consuming

But hope is tricky
And slippery
And devouring reason
Committing treason
For a season

Then returning
In the yearning
Of the glance
From a new boy
From a new romance

****.

Phases of the moon
Of the heart
A slivering slice of a crescent
The
Oh dear god
HOPE
Of a new start

LOL.

Just kidding
This new moon
And this new thing
Can’t be seen
In the dark of night
In my limited sight
Black-on-black
It’s all just the same ****
Right?

No way, baby!
Call it a maybe!
Call it a feather
In your hat
On your wing
Just fly into the horizon
Of the hope
Of this new thing

Until the arrow
Of the truth
Enters the marrow
Of your VIP booth
This is not cool
This is ruth…
Listen to me
You idiot
You fool

Remember boy one
Who held you
And flew too close to the sun
He burned you to ash
Then said “goodbye forever
I’m done”
Well, **** me up
That was fun

Then boy two
Who shoved you
Into the abyss
Wait...I’d be remiss
Not to mention
All of that ****** tension
Simmering
Steaming
Boiling
And Gleaming

Like the rays of the moon
Is she full yet?
Nah, it’s too soon
She’s still hiding
In the newness
Of nothing
Of black-on-black
Call me out
I lack a back
Bone to hold up
Any more hope

It’s all rotting now
In bed all day
Jotting down
Memories as if they will save me

Wow.


Okay.
Less saving
Instead
Evaporate me
Into the ether
Into the sun
Into the moon
The end seems far away
So I’ll just bide time
In my cocoon

Dreaming of the day
When she will bloom
Into her fullness
Picturesque
Over the crescent
Of a dune

I start my walk home with heavy feet after a long day at work. My earbuds are charged and ready to tug at my heart. The early summer heat is setting in and I wipe the sweat from my brow. I feel the thud of my boots against the sidewalk like the percussion of a tone-deaf child clamoring two cymbals together. The beat doesn't match the music, but the sentiment is sincere.


The light switches from orange to white; I make my way across the vacant intersection. I wonder if I ever cross your mind because you've invaded mine like a virus. I almost catch my breath but cough up blood. I wipe my hands against my jeans. Sometimes this is what love feels like. 

Feet still clanging like metal against the pavement...I walk. I think of you always. What a waste. My mouth full of pennies and you don't even see that I am golden. The salt I rub from my cheek does nothing more than provide patina. All of this sorrow goes unseen, unnoticed. 


Two hands of shimmering glitter. Will anyone ever see them? The purest gift to offer, yet everyone keeps walking fearfully away. I've never liked coins, but I flip one into the air and watch it spin. The axis turns and I wonder where it will land. 


The cymbals are no longer mashing against one another, and I stare at my boots on the carpet of my room. Silence. My bloodied denim folded neatly on the floor. Do you still taste me in your mouth?


Because you're on my tongue like a good luck charm tucked away in the corner of a drawer somewhere. Someday you might remember me fondly and think of what could have been. Or maybe you won't.


Vulnerability is a double-edged sword, and I am ready to be laid bare. It takes an incredible amount of bravery to allow love to split us open...our insides bathing us in gold. 


I will say it again: love is a heavy apparatus to wield, and it requires more than two hands. 


My earbuds beep incessantly...


Battery dead.

My childhood comes in fond waves of recollection.

The holiday seasons of Thanksgiving and Christmas were always my favorite times of the year. Times in which familial bonds felt their strongest. It was so easy and wonderful to be swept up in the whimsical magic of the holidays. Little problems or concerns are forgotten for the sake of repeating another year of well-constructed joy.

I would shiver with glee as we unpacked our three-foot-tall artificial spruce, set it on a stack of boxes covered with sheets, and decorated it with care. Proudly displayed in the window of our single wide trailer. Every night before bed I'd stare at it admiringly.

It ******* glistened.

My mother and I would piece together a jigsaw puzzle on a card table set up in our living room while watching Christmas movies on TV. It was humble, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I recall being upset one year when my father (correctly) guessed that I bought him a Buck Knife for his Christmas gift. He then made a comment suggesting that he didn't need another knife. It crushed me because I thought it was the perfect gift for a man I tried so hard to relate to.

Most of my childhood memories are filled with joy.

Pretending my G.I. Joes inhabited the branches of our softly lit tree. The elf and angel ornaments were either friend or foe and offered either shelter or a diabolical plot of destruction. The angel atop the tree (from my mother's first marriage in the '70s) was the queen that all the other ornaments and soldiers bowed down before.

She was a goddess.

These days I can't help but be brutally honest with myself and acknowledge that the connection to my biological family is barely existent.

There are no jigsaw puzzles.
No Buck Knives.
No glistening lights.
No tree.

Just me alone in an apartment with a glass of whiskey.

There was a time when I carried on the gleeful tradition of the holidays. With my own three children by my side, I carefully placed that angel from the '70s atop the tree.

I think they were as enamored by her as I once was. I could see the innocent thrill in their eyes.

I haven't looked into their eyes for over a year.

The naive childhood excitement of the holiday season is a distant memory. Now, these days on the calendar remind me of things I will never experience again. They gently, but painfully enter like a dagger between my ribs.

The wound is reopened every ******* year.

I look around and see happy little families shopping for holiday meals and gifts as I push my humble cart around the grocery store alone. I imagine them with a crackling fireplace in their living room like I once had; decorating the tree and listening to holiday tunes. Dancing and giggling.

I can't help but wonder if my children are placing that angel atop the tree with their new dad.

The angel their grandmother passed along.

Her broken marriage.
My broken marriage.

And still, that cardboard angel sits atop the tree spreading joy.

She's a goddess.

Time has been
                          lost again.
Falling
into the
cracks in
the floor.

With a pounding heart
I grasp
for the remnants
                              of memories
but they have      slipped
into distant          caverns.

Blurred figures
of my past
constructing walls to
                                   opaque themselves
to mere whispers.

I keep falling in love with ghosts
They flitter in and fade away

Three little spirits slipped wetly into my hands
****** and beautiful; we called each other family
The foundation cracked and poison filled the gaps

They used to laugh and call me daddy
Now…silence and estrangement
That name is reserved for another

Everything in my life was thrown into a heap
Misunderstanding and pain collided to spark the flame
I walk through this new reality, ash covering my feet

Yes, bartender, I’ll have another
And another

///

A wraith tall and handsome extended his hand in kindness
I reached with my entire being
Poured my heart into his chest

For a moment he washed me clean
We laid bodies entwined as poetry spilled from his lips
A summer zephyr under my wings
I was a phoenix

Balladry devolved to insult
He removes the dagger and ashes spill out
My brokenness is scattered everywhere

Yes, bartender, I’ll have another
And another

///

Splintered, scaly hands attempt to rebuild
A heavy mind sits in an empty room
Passing by houses filled with the ones I love
Never fingers to grace cheek again

I’ve become the stranger that can’t find a home
Saliva stretches as lips part 
Lungs evacuate and heartbroken cries disappear into the sky

This hollowness haunts me like an apparition
Love…the ultimate curse
It’s previous forms have burned me to ash

Yes, bartender, I’ll have another
And another
.
.
.
I’m in love with ghosts
They flittered in and faded away

They call my name and I fall
Falling, Falling yes Falling
It has me feeling quite tall

You call my name and I fall
Falling, falling, yes Falling
I shrink to the ground, feeling small

And hey deadname
I hate your stupid guts
You ruined everything and anything
there's no one else to blame

And oh my God
I'm sorry for fixing your
mistakes
I didn't know you'd mind so much

Now people look at me differently
They seem to pray to you God
"Change her" they ask of you intently

spewing hate and judgement gently
It only hurts if it has sharp edges
Sugar coated pills I take daily

And hey deadname
I hate your stupid guts
You ruined everything and anything
there's no one else to blame

And oh my God
I'm sorry for fixing your
mistakes
I didn't know you'd mind so much

Colors cover my body and brain
Sticky thoughts, sticky hands
But I'm the one to blame

I treat the sickness you gave
Without your sugar coated drug
acceptance is what I crave

I've come to realize the fragility of life itself as of late; a delicate dance of psychological and physiological elements, converging in the process of sustaining a human life.

These components become so complexly intertwined; wrapping themselves around each other whilst expanding and contracting.

My biological systems may keep humming along, subconsciously—yet it is in my mental environment that I choose to allow them to continue. A fascinating concept.

Neurons fire in my brain, telling my arm to extend itself outwards in front of me as if to point at something interesting. More signals are sent, instructing my arm to bend at the elbow; I am now staring at the palm of my hand that rests a few inches from my face.

Neurons continue to spark and my hand slowly twists for me to examine its backside, and then it returns to its original position. My eyes are entranced as they explore the landscape of my palm; its creases and folds resemble a map of sorts.

Fingers methodically open and close—fist, open palm, fist, open palm. My grey matter is aglow as a colorful lighting storm of activity pulses throughout.

Eyes close for a moment.
Thoughts.
Memories.
Thoughts.

They open up again to glare at this dead hand. That’s the fascinating part, the fact that the very signals that are sent to trigger these hand movements—or to trigger my lips to form a pucker or toes to tap, tap, tap to a beat—can also instruct those fleshy appendages to move in such a way to extinguish my own life.

No safeguards? No life-preserving big red button that my subconscious can press in order to save itself?

Nope.
A choice.
A dance.

And I’ve decided tonight…I’m staying alive.

Because somewhere buried deep in my psyche is a little wrinkled-up piece of notepaper with the following words scribbled upon it:

“The sunrise is just over that hill. The worst is over.”

I always wake during the strangest of hours. Time is supposed to be a foundation—something in which to measure and organize our existence. For me, it slips through the fingers of an outstretched hand and dissipates into vapor. There is no comfort in its passing, only a fleeting shadow of an old friend. I recently drove through the worst fog imaginable; every moment was a struggle to remain between the worn-out lines. I squinted even harder and my singular headlight tried its best to help illuminate a path. Its efforts were valiant, yet meager. This is how it is for me now. This is how the days flicker by; in fog, in a haze, no true distinction from one to the next. I squint. It is in vain.

3:00am. I abruptly sit up and my eyes dart around the room that has become mine for but a little while. My conscious mind is still unscrambling data—separating dream from reality from memory. It all comes into focus and my chest heaves as I remember that my children are 539 miles away. They are in their own temporary rooms. My fingers touch the place on my bed where my son recently lay and told me how much he loved me during our last night together before the Five Week Separation. I cognitively continue to process the situation while simultaneously repressing it into deeper and more distant caverns.

My feet touch the floor and I find something to eat. I watch a movie to distract myself, but only feel all the more hollow. I shake my body into movement. I dress myself and head outside. An introspective playlist accompanies me as I walk along the Rock River. I drink in the breaking morning light until I become intoxicated by the sheer beauty of every single moment: the couple walking quickly by; the glow from a nearby kitchen window; the fishy smell of river water. This is the town of my youth, and in a few short weeks, I am leaving it far behind—yet again.

I walk the familiar streets and enter a café that is filled with countless memories of old friends, love, and laughter. The tables are now bare and the chairs empty, but I can still see the ghosts of memories projected throughout the room. The owner asks me how I am doing and how many kids I have now. I respond in as few words as necessary without being crass. I pay for my latte and scone, then turn away and wonder if I will ever buy coffee here again as the door’s abrasive dinging announces my exit. I slip my headphones back on and turn the volume down on the world around me. Everything seems more cinematic when I am orchestrating the score. Cars rush by and my scarf flutters in the breeze as a violin crescendos and a banjo jangles.

I trek back to the place of transient residence. Enough self-reflection for today. It’s time for some productivity. Everything is so very different now. Strange and painful, yet beautiful and mysterious. I am still me. My children are still my children. I think of them as I breathe in the damp morning air and slowly look around one more time, trying to record every detail in my memory. Everything is calm. I exhale deeply. As the breath escapes from my mouth it leaves a vapor that dances upward and disappears in a second. In that moment, time seems tangible again.