i am waiting for my coffee
i am the old couple eating pastries
with their chairs turned towards the window
i am the wafting scent of musk and amber
i am the bright magenta trees lining route 240
blooming in april while it rains
i am the veiny hands i know nothing about
except that i wish they would touch me
i am gulping down the foam
tasting the bittersweet memories on my tongue
the ones that have yet to happen
i am remembering what it means to have teeth
to feel so different, so distant
but entirely the same

the daydreams aren’t just daydreams anymore
i can get on the train whenever i’d like
the doors are wide open and waiting
for me to lie naked in the shifting light
of a four-story brooklyn walk-up
to fall asleep on a freckled chest
to run my fingers through fields of white sage
i am the opening iris
the floating dust that glimmers like crushed diamonds
the feathery eyelashes caught on eager fingers
i am the sunlight and the wind
intersecting across the gleaming reservoir
where the bluegills breathe underwater
where you and i dance gloriously on the surface
where we become carelessly entangled
before slipping underneath

Come to me, my darling,
with your pen and your paper,
so I can show you the true lines of a woman.
Trace my contours and follow my curves,
to all the places that you adore,
until your southern borders rise to meet mine.

Can your hand capture the motions we make?
Like silhouettes of swelling grace?
Abandon your ink, and sink into me,
like the universe crashing inside of the sea.
Rock me like waves, bend me like sin,
whisper your pleasure into my skin.

Come to me, my darling,
come into me.

And in the moments before she sleeps,
when thoughts begin to feel like dreams,
she often wonders to you.

She's a painter with her words,
but a clown with conversation,
so she stumbles through to give and take,
lost in ill translation.
So what she meant to say,
when she asked you every stupid question,
was she wished you longed to hold her close
with zero hesitation, and...

no ****** connotation.
Just the comfort of your touch.

You imagined me as a child
And a family portrait
Drawn in number 2 pencil
From a 1972 television screen
No one in the picture looks like you
No one looks like me
Strangers to the world
Erased from an electronic hologram
That remains hidden from your experiences
No matter how far you can see
You see me as them
I see me as you

You retreat, but I advance
Looking for a sign, a mere glance
There's a presence consuming your reality
This I can clearly see
I could be succumbing to insanity
But I feel your energy leaving me

Perhaps, to you, I am nothing more
Than your way out, a simple door
The desperation intoxicating the air
Wondering if you honestly care
What would happen if I left this place?
Leaving only ashes to hide in a vase

I keep running, chasing you around
Am I not making enough sound?
Maybe if I scream, yell and shout
You'll see what this is that I'm on about
I've seen through your wavering shroud
Don't you dare stand so tall and proud

I can tell, don't mistake me for a fool
This shameless act is painfully cruel
There's futility cloaking the darkness
Believed to be only harmless
You draw back each and every time
As if I have committed such a terrible crime

Is this where you draw the line?
After all the times we whispered, "Mine."
I made a promise from the start
Deep down in the depths of my ravaged heart
I refuse to leave my world behind
If all is lost, it is you I'll find

Though I suppose it's to be expected
This brittle feeling of being rejected
Every bit of helpful advice
Praying this distance will soon suffice
I will be here, waiting for you
And maybe you'll do the same for me too

Please, don't leave me here
Take me with before you disappear
If you want otherwise, it's quite alright
I'll be here contemplating amidst the night
Never forget, don't let it slip by
I'll love you far past the very day that I die

A bit off the heel and a bit off the toe,
It won't hurt very much, and they're pretty, you know.
I've got the perfect pair of shoes for you,
All you need is some fitting- an inch off or two.
A slice of skin here and a little blood there,
These are the most beautiful shoes you could wear.
Let you go? Heavens no!
I admire you so
With your perfect physique
And your delicate feet.
Oh it's only a smidgen, a droplet of blood!
Come now dear, no one's fond of a stick in the mud.
Come- rush to the ball and we'll all have such fun!
On second thought, maybe you, ah... shouldn't run...
It's worth it, though, isn't it? These beautiful shoes.
And darling, they look so exquisite on you.
There now, not so bad, and they fit perfectly,
All you needed was just a little surgery.
Now let's off to the ball and you'll dance all night long.
No silly, don't cry, you've got it all wrong!
I told you- you're beautiful just how you are,
Now come on and stop whining, you don't have to walk far.
But you see, there's no daughter, or stepmom, or shoes.
There's none of those things- there is me and there's you.
And you've got this idea of what I'm s'posed to be,
And as hard as I try, I'm not her, love, I'm me.
I'm afraid that no matter how much pain I bear,
I just don't fit in the shoes you are making me wear.

You can't safely have a cigarette outside of the bus terminal
without a couple of folk asking for one.
You can't safely have a cigarette in general.
But, if five of them have to last you a night and a sunrise,
you don't really mind turning down a few nameless hands.
Some of the bus drivers like to talk about football, weather;
others complain about management or the patrons;
a few don't say much at all, avoiding sympathy.
They're probably the smart ones.
They don't want to learn the sad stories in between stops.
I usually like to just sit in the back and ride out the best bumps.
The handrails jiggle and crash with every pothole.
-
The men who work at the metal scrap yard
usually get on in front of Debbie's Diner on 22nd street.
Bundled up for warmth and firm of face, they only speak to each other.
Small talk about who almost missed the bus, broken crane joints,
and who moved the most barrels of copper piping fill the blocks.
They tend to pick on the guy who runs the aluminum can crusher;
big guy, they call him "Boose" and he couldn't be much older than I am.
His hands and lips are dry and cracked from exposure,
but his face still shows ember of teenage years, though jilted.
There is a bar that serves three-dollar chili across the street, spicy.
The workers go there when they miss the first bus, have a beer,
down a bowl of boiling chili, and catch the return bus in better moods.
-
The railroads on Brush College road tend to hold up traffic.
The ADM plant doesn't really mind if a few twenty-something mothers
are late to their practical nursing and phlebotomy classes,
but they voice their complaints out of a cracked window to the side
of a ten story soybean silo nonetheless; steaming ears and all.
I stare at the graffiti on the laggard train cars, each unique
in color, quality, style, and message; the industrial Louvre.
These waits sometimes last a half hour or more.
In the days before Pell grant rewards come in,
when students still feel like they're working toward tangible cash,
the seats are all packed with heavy breathers.
The air becomes thick with community college carbon coughs.