i always thought
you were thru traffic
that you were just jet lag
background noise
the kiss in the rain
i've never had
but what if you aren't?
what if this
was the thousandth time
i have loved you?
what if this is just a fresh coat of paint?
what if god
keeps a handkerchief
soaked in the day we met
next to his bed?
maybe theres a reason
i reach for no one in bed
the way i would
if someone used to be there
you know, they say
the road behind us
is littered with things
we couldn't hold onto
i wonder how many times
you've slipped through my hands
like hour glass sand
do you know
how much erosion you've caused?
i heard cupid
stopped keeping count
of how many times
we came together
just to come apart again
maybe it was just a rumor
it makes me think
about how many times
i've almost had you
like if all this talk
about history repeating itself
endlessly replaying is true
i wonder how many times
things have happened already
like the time
i tried talking you
into loving me back
back fired
or the time i could have sworn
jesus & lazarus were playing chess
with my heartbeat
but it was only you smiling
how many times
have i tried to tell you
how many times
have you read this poem
how many times
have i tried not to meet you
in my dreams anymore
it's like sleep tries to warn
me of what's happening
before it does but
i keep having this dream
where i tell you bedtime stories
and each one
is a different way you die
and in every one
i can never save you
it's like you're this song
i have on repeat
and every time it starts over
i forget the words
it's like you picked up the book entitled "us"
and the back cover
said you'd leave
so you never bothered reading it
tell me you aren't
going back in that bookstore
just to do it again
or will you tell me tomorrow?
or is this the time
you don't say anything at all?
if this has all happened before
if we call it quits
before we begin
again
from the beginning
i just want to ask you
to be my fire
because i am tired
of these old lives
and i'd like to see them
burn

I guess I hate summer days,
where families gather around a grill and laugh over clinging bottles of beer.
I hate the way the empty seat looks next to me,
mocking at my soul, laughing, taunting me, reminding me that I hurt you.

Not even a cup of coffee or a splash of sugar can fix the wounds I gave to you.
This is my apology, my first spoken recognition that I not only miss you,
but your heart was too big for me to hold,
you wanted to hold me so tight every sleepless night
and I needed you to let me go.

I hated the cage you created with your arms every night,
you convinced me that the constant texts and calls were love.
That the Skype talks we had every night an ocean away from each other weren’t taking time from my family,
but that I was devoting my time to you.
I was being true to the salvation of my boredom.

I brought the cage of your arms with me to college,
as I put my ring on the finger that shows engagement so boys would step away,
I created a force field for you so that you could sleep easier at night,
even though  I was only ninety miles away.

I ******* hate these summer days,
I became so accustom to your flesh cage that without the rails in front of my face,
I forgot what happiness was supposed to be like without your rails.
Home is not this place anymore,
your presence infected the streets and I no longer see love and happiness,
just broken memories with your smile plastered on every street corner.

The days you're gone I think about gravity, about tectonic plates,
about fog so thick you can't see your own hands even when you're holding them right in front of your eyes.
I think about you, not just unable but also unwilling to consume me whole.
I think about my mother, cigarette smoke and lonely days, cuddles with children too big to still be in bed with her.
I think about deserted islands, car crashes and how sometimes life crashes down around you like the remnants of a 747.
I think about echoes, about shaking hands and trembling voices
and I think about her, singing daughter's still until the ocean swallowed her whole.

A concept consists of a series of correlating ideas.
(The bees are on fire)
An idea is the interplay of memory and imagination.
(There is butter in my coffee)
Memory is what happens when a sense experience is recorded with language.

You can't go wrong with a song about a horse.

In an effort to feel:
Eat beets.
take drugs.
Let recordings of the vibrations of the vocal chords of strangers captured by equipment transport you.
Pete and repeat were on a boat. Pete fell off. Who is left? Repeat. Pete and repeat were on a boat. Pete fell off. who is left?

What if there were many men?

Do you contradict yourself? Very well then. You contradict yourself.
Oh and when you come back on Friday you all have to be gay.

Great white whales glide glistening gently through the sweet butter *** of my mother's voice.

Each tine of my spine like the spokes of a Fork is a notch on the belt of a God I can't know.

Every car holds a human going somewhere.

We are all alone together in the traffic on the highway.

You have your drugs but not your woman to take.

I refuse this poem.

All these strings that held me, bound me
To the ones I love and the ones around me I
Tied them
And maybe I can’t take full credit maybe
Somethings I didn’t choose I just let it
Happen, let the world happen to me, happen through me, but

I’ve been thinking
I don’t wanna be sad anymore
And I’ve been drinking
And It’s making me sore

Don’t wanna glorify this pain, I’m pretty over laying on the floor
No one else can make me better, there’s no escape and no trap door
Do we learn to pay attention or
Pay attention to learn?
I’m glad that I trusted everyone,
too bad I know now it must be learned


I used to disappoint you, used to
Lower your bar
If I’m already a **** up
Your surprise can’t break my heart
Maybe tomorrow could be different
If I believed that I could change
Maybe instead I’ll put it off
Maybe I like, like feeling estranged, like feeling estranged

i don't know if i know anything about trauma
but its been two years and i can still feel his thick palms on my hips
i can taste his sweat on my lips
i can hear him shout not to tell
and no matter how hard i try
no matter how many showers i take
i cannot wash the filth away