The closest thing to God my father has ever seen, is dawn at the brim of a lake.
Finding forgiveness in its tides.
Seeking solace in its depths.
Building a chapel on a coasting boat.
Discovering answered prayers hooked on a line.
There’s a hallelujah echoing from the trees, if you stay silent long enough to listen to the birds.
You can find grace in a no wake zone.
I’ve always admired my father for unveiling hidden faith in the heart of nature.
For developing a catch and release mantra.
Feel and withdraw.
Love and surrender.
Live and abdicate.
I’ve never been much of a believer in God until I saw the same light at dawn in my father’s irises.
I found the same forgiveness in his hands.
I sought solace in his mind.
I built a chapel on his morals.
And discovered answered prayers in the strength he hooked in me.
I am silent and still, hearing a hallelujah echoing every time he says he’s proud.
I have found grace in knowing we share the same blood.
My father loves me like a prize winning fish at the end of his line.
He reels me in, and lets me go.
Because he knows I was never born to be a trophy.
I was born to be a legend.
Catch and release.
Love and surrender.
That’s how I know, and how I believe.
For only God could design such a man.

Drag me down to the bottom of my glass
And let the burn of the whisky make everything I say
True

Drag me down to the sleeves of my sweater
And let them filter my words
Beautiful

Drag me down to the soles of my shoes
And let the steps I take towards you forever be
Worthy

Drag me down to the curl of my lips
And let my harmless smirks stay
Humble

Drag me down into your heart
And let my roots remain
Forever

Somewhere close to a black hole, time slows to a steady pace
Slow enough to reach out and trace every inch of a face and love every blemish your fingers reach
Slow enough to know better
Slow enough to know that when each second feels like a minute, you better eat up every moment

My heart has four chambers.
3 of them pump cold blood throughout my body, just enough so I can tell you drunken love tales.
But one of them

One of those chambers stays reluctant while I reach for an empty bottle and mistake it for an empty hand.

As I float, so effortlessly, headfirst into a black hole, and I see time progress slow enough to watch a smile fade into a scowl,
as I do what I shouldn't,
I can't help but obsess over the longest seconds I'll ever feel;
the ones where I'm touching your lips

I find it incredible that after two decades, I still have no idea what I'm doing
But somehow, my lips on yours came as easy as a habit.


Oh God.
How naturally I ruin everything.

when we met, it was tipsy tuesday and donnie had swollen fingers
and nate sank into his plaid frock and dropped his shadow
on the patio like a heavy slug, and the flies
cavorted in the vortex of our subtext
as the night skies spat stars
at our foreheads.

you were beautiful;  too beautiful then.

i was smitten, i was tossed on stormy seas, unsick.
i was healed. the world spun filth and dull glamour
but your face hurled fireworks
and my mind leaned into my heart
and i knew i loved you.
whoever you turned out
to be.

i babbled and groped, as the inertia
of falling, filled my sails
and I was purposefully adrift -
in your brown-black eyes;
as a dog fetched a frisbee
for an illiterate.

and i think i bit my lip a bit.

I saw you for the first time.
for the last time
in my life
and was never
the same.

my heart, now more precise.

you had fierce speech
underneath your sweet speak
and long hair.
i had you in my soul's yurt
on a plain of windswept pavilions
with free horses and costly
remoteness.
i was ' there ' less
and more somewhere else
alone with the perfect you
reading my lips
as they tremored
delight of it.

i babbled speechless.

i remember you tossing your locks
at my cage. and i was set free.

please add me to your wishlist
and complete me.

"You're my favorite mess."
I'm sorry about the coffee stain swallowing your button down.
And don't give me some ******* about how it actually looks better that way.
There will always be my lipstick stain on the edge of the wine glasses.
I've never been so brave until I licked a tequila bottle dry and told you I loved you.
I do love you.
I love you in the same special way a ****** agrees to kiss you on the mouth.
And she means it.
Sometimes I don't write you because I'm too busy wondering if you're staring at the same moon through a different window.
Lord knows, I love to keep you guessing.
Torturing you with too much imagination, I'm an *******.
So I scream into thunderstorms so nobody ever has to hear me suffer, especially you, because you think I'm better than that.
I'm here, tripping over any subtle difference on my path
And you are there, walking a straight line,
accepting.
I'm a spilled beer being mopped up by an old t-shirt.
"You're my favorite mess
I could never bring myself to clean you up"

You love me, even though I've never heard you say it.
And knowing that, my ***** soul ignites, becomes rigid, and forever remains uncompromising.

What I needed was a dark page to type on.
Something dark enough to compare to the walls of my soul that have been painted black since you left me.
God saved the right ones, and for the rest of us, we're adorned with cinder block ankles and told to swim.
God loves you more than I ever could.
As for what remains-
It's all just an echo of a viola recital staring at my empty seat.
A bowl of cold soup I'm drowning in.
I loved you then
I love you now
But I will never love you more than me.
Until I die or heaven takes me
Please don't let the good lord break me.