The lights of the city sparkle from outside my window.
They, this view, will always remind me of you.

Water splashes down at my face and up at my boots as I walk these cobbled streets
- the same ones we used to stroll
hand in hand
white dog in tow
glancing up at the brownstones we passed
and joking how we'd live there one day.
Only I wasn't joking..

Remember when you kissed my face
and wrapped the strength of your arm around my shoulder like I was yours,
the only one?
I do...

Because the thing is I'm going to miss you.
I'm going to ache for you
and maybe cry myself to sleep a time or two.
I wonder if it will ever be easy to let you go
the way it was for you.

I'm not sorry I have to go;
I shouldn't have to convince you to love me.
But I wonder if you will remember me
and each night we spent wrapped in each other's arms
watching movies and knocking my laptop to the floor
because we were so eager to touch.

These are the things I need to know.
Because as I stand near this window
and watch the lights flicker on with twilight
I remember you waiting there,
watching you throw your bag over your shoulder.
I remember waiting for the smile and wave that never came
and the call that never rang..

and still
it was the sweetest goodbye I've ever known.

There was a war that day between
A little girl and a red balloon.
"Fly!" said the girl to the balloon,
"Fly me away, take me away from here!"
"Be still!" Said the balloon to the child,
"If freedom is peace, we've found it here.
If freedom is peace, we've found it here."

As the undulating bodies part
the neon lights catch her face,
and her piercing gaze catches me.

A panorama of nothing but a blur.
But her- sharp.
Thirsty. Blazing.

Her hair is sleek and straight
but the way she throws back her head,
runs her fingers through the strands,
makes a tousled mess as entrancing and as
playfully wild as the club swirling around her.

Her lips are red. A challenging red.
The color of a delicate rose, but also
the color the harlot wears in old films.
The color of sin; of desire.

To unlock those lips
And tousle that hair
And lure out the voice….

To have the power of a man’s gaze now.
To be able to throw at her the force of
a chiseled jaw and stubble across my chin.

To know my role is to chase her
like a brave doe that turned
to look at me in the forest.
Who bounds away gracefully,
Knowing my sights are set
and the target is upon her.

How she would know my adrenaline
surged with every step she made
that took her farther from me.
All the power would lay in my
virile hands, to pull the trigger
on her when I may.

Ha! I laugh at my roots in the world that
imposes a craving for the rule of power.
Your gaze tells me we don’t belong there.



I move through the bodies toward you.
Toward freedom.
Lift me from my roots, darling.
We’ll run together.
Give up the vision of a pointed gun.
How’d they ever make me think
I wanted to be shot?

Oh, what a vision. What a creation!
My long locks twisting around yours,
how my lissome fingers get their
chance with you. And those
supple lips lend me the magnetic red hue.

How different the whole scene becomes
when the both of us are provocative
creatures, two nymphs swimming together
in the water of seduction.

Continue on, Odysseus.
Go conquer Scylla and Charybdis.
Master the seas of half the world.
The Sirens are singing to each other.

Bluegreen complexion taught ‘round listless soul.
I guess you weren’t there to catch me.
Gray is the sky of my mind, blue out my sill.  

Let’s sit down and tell each other the stories,
Omit the part with tears,
Note the laughs and kisses,
Grapple with the time frame.

Nodding off inside boxes of strange gazes
Only for ever, even off the train.
Where to place my eyes today?

I

We sit on a tailgate pointed toward
the hills, where life ripples down the slopes
gathers in pools of the creek and begins again
to climb up the peaks and tree trunks on the
other side. It colors the breaths we take
green.
Children run here, learn their legs, as stalks
graze their shoulders and block their
view. They get dizzy as rows rush by.
We rein in our bovine friends here, watch
them jump and kick, see them call in
spring

II

We walk between rows of highly stacked cement and exhale smog that drifts
upwards to
join the cloud of soot.
We walk among so many abrasive shoulders. We get
hung up on abrasive personalities.
A gray wave in a black sea we’re vapidly
drifting. Legs move quickly to stay afloat.
swimming. Swimming always. Swimming further.

III

We sit for pictures with clogged eyes and stuffed chests
We coo at portraits of masks and dummies
We write books for laughs and money and friends
We read a little to find the romance and sorrow
and lay cold on the slab while our own pages turn.

IV

We pass out of porcelain faces with their tightly
drawn eyes that cast gazes over shoulders, homes
of last night’s kisses. We pass out of the electrical
current of youth
numbed and still alive
with eyes that look like stained glass windows of the
Church of Holy Suffering.


V

We wait for Sunday night to turn the dial to the Blues. We keep throwing something for an animal to pick up and return.  We string beads and sell them for redemption.

VI

We think of our friends. They’re draped in a future,
warmed with hot blood rushing through their veins,
slamming fists to tables, pronouncing their minds.
ripping off dresses, sharing their madness.
tossing paint to canvas, showing their hearts.
asking questions to startle, proving their love.

VII

We think of our parents.
dead and gone, dead to us, dead by self-proclamation -
Is their blood cold and still in their withered veins?
Have they their fill of slamming fists and ripped dresses and tossed paint and startling questions?

VIII

We are sad.

My love is torn apart
Like the yarn that comes from your sweater
You know it’s there
But you never know when it will start to unravel
Unravel 'til there is nothing left but one long string,
What’s left is my love for you
From the tints of red and blue
I never saw anything quite as beautiful
The way the thread touches your soft skin beneath it
Like it wants nothing but to be worn,
And worn out

Your love runs deep
But it doesn’t tap into the water
That makes up 90% of my body
Flowing through,
Every heartbeat
Every pulse
Every word
That comes out, is for you
More importantly
Every word
That doesn’t come out
Is for you

I keep most things in
Like a safe that has been untouched for years
The dust on top aches to dance
And whirl about
But its duty is to hold our families most prized possessions
The type of holding that no lover knows
Birth certificates, life insurance, wills,
But does any of that matter aside to prove we are but a tiny piece in the puzzle of life

We see ants like we see people, just another thing that is in the way
We’d rather stomp on their souls than lead them to where light is
Because if someone is in our way
At the wrong time,
Better believe we will make it right
Have to be at this very important meeting, at this very important time, to get very important money, to buy very important things

What a shame
We all are
But you never shame me
Sitting at the top of the highest tree
Looking about with your telescope eyes
You cry
“We are all tiny fragments found within the oldest ship in the sea!”
Underwater broken up and scattered about
The captain tries to collect us, reconnect us
But would rather drink instead
He is our god, for all we know
His head is cloudy and his eyes are dull
He gathers our pieces to construct them as one
But is rocked by a wave and loses us forever

What were you to me
But a dream,
But dust
On the flower that I gave you
Two months after we met
That you kept on your dresser
As if it would make a difference if it was there or not

Your ocean like eyes showed me the answer when I showed up that day
I was lost in them but I heard you say
“I’m going away”

My heart sank like an anchor holding up time on a never ending clock
Ticking away until one day it stopped

can i lie awake in the sadness of your broken hand?

can i call you up when i find the band aids are contaminated by childhood dares?

I don't know if i can call you mine with a care
like I had in those julys, sleeping there
hair intertwined
carnivorous and bare

can i say your name in the stillness of the fire while they laugh in awe at my gracelessness?

is it fair?

do they know it has always been there?