if a poet falls in
love with you be
prepared to be
written about

in every possible way
from the way your eyes
sparkle under the moon

to how your lips form
that ever-so perfect smile
it’s the little things that
poets write about

the little things about you
makes a poet want to write
and write until their hand breaks

Imagine yourself
a linear expression of experience,
a long strip of film like
the kind in old projectors with the
sepiatic sputters and flickers--
yes! Imagine yourself a strip of film but
rolled up messily like
the earbuds in your pocket or
folding fitted bedsheets.
You are a movie and the filmstrip endpiece lies at your feet,
you are knots and coils and tangles and
if you were to lie down at the top of this mountain for a moment--just a moment!--perhaps
the wind would catch the loops of film and
you would feel yourself
unravel.

I’m afraid of anything
I’m afraid of something
I’m afraid of breathing
I’m afraid of clothing
I’m afraid of everything
I’m afraid of being afraid

Oh, I’m sorry.
You’ll have to forgive my uncultured mind.
I had no idea what being a man was.
Who would have guessed it was more than having something between your legs.

I guess I should go drink a cold one.
Or maybe fix a car.
Watch some sports?
Hit a woman?

That’s what all the real men do.
If you appreciate life and its wonders, you have to be a woman.
How many lives must society take before it crumbles on itself?
But men have it easy, right?

What if I want to cry?
No, I shouldn’t.
Mommy’s the one who cries when daddy beats her.
I guess I should just hit my wife too.

When I’m put into chains and you ask me why.
I’ll tell them, I thought mommy was supposed to cry.
Daddy would always leave her with a black eye.
It’s people like this that deserve to die.