dissect me into pieces
mathematical
manic
make me
make sense
solve the pieces
like a puzzle
break me
then make me
intact
but I'm not built
of numbers and facts
when you filed my edges
you created gaps

i said “im not going to marry you”

and you said “oh. do you want to get married?”

and i said “…no”**

i was standing in the shower in someone else’s house when i told you i couldnt be with you

and you said “please don’t do this”

and i said “i’m sorry”, like i had to

and i said “goodbye,’ like i had to but i didn’t have to i didn’t do it because i had to i did it because

there’s an itch

you get in your feet

when you realize that all you have to do to be happy is, do

what makes you happy

and i decided i wanted that more than you.

last night when it rained i remembered what it sounded like

when it rained on your tin roof

and how you slept with your breathing shallow,

in case your grandma with dementia walked in and

called you by your grandfather’s name again. i remembered

the day you put the latch on your door to keep her out.

i bet you kept it there to keep me out too.

if i were still there

i’d be riding my bike to you now,

down that long stretch of littered sidewalk,

past that path where you smoked joints behind people’s yards at night

into the driveway by

your house, frame light enough to be carried away by wind

but the wind came

and it blew me away instead.

if i were still there i’d say happy anniversary, i love you so much

if i were still there it would be a lie

but i’m here, so it’s not, because

i can only love you from here, seeing what a fool you are

forgiving you anyway

so happy valentine’s day to your aforementioned  buddy

and happy valentine’s day to the high school that almost killed you

and happy valentine’s day to whatever music you’re making

whether its metal,

or blues,

happy valentine’s day to the safeway cashier

who knew what we were up to and the school theater whose floor we slept on

and the kisses snuck between sleeping bags

and the arms that for three years were my home

in your bed, by your star wars curtains

light every morning, breakfast with your mom

who added me on facebook

and could never spell my name

february last year i was in italy rinsing you out of my mouth

this year i’m in israel eating salt and reading old emails

taking a bath in an empty apartment

wondering when

you’re going to cut your hair.

Did you know they pay people to study here,
to stay here after studying? It’s the human
capital flight of the tech-smart who type faster
than an entire room of secretaries in cardigans and pearls.
But the bigger question is, if all the brains
are draining out like spiders in a shower, then who is still here
weighting the state lines down with stones
if not zombies? Brainless bodies hungry, crabby, and without
an appropriate sense of boundaries.
          They lure you in
with home values and cheap houses—the tired ones
who are getting old for their age, who don’t run as fast or as often
and want an easy life with chubby children and a yard,
or those who are sick of being felt up ‘accidentally’ on the 22 Fillmore bus.
This is how they get you.
          And you stay because it grows on you
the way everything grows in Indiana, effortlessly and way too fast.
Plus, let’s face it, you’ve gotten lazy and don’t
make enough money to one day move away
with the kids and the yard and all.
So the zombies win.
          But being Indiana,
the neo-conservatists would swoop in to save the day
against the zombies who hate us for our freedoms
and the liberation of our women. And sometime after
the "Mission Accomplished" banner is broadcast
to all 50 states from a ship safely tucked away
on Lake Michigan,
          the zombies will regroup again
and pick us off like old ladies at the bus station.
Then with even more determination and hatred of the living
they’ll get fat on intellect until they’ve eaten the last,
and the un-dead of Indiana will die of starvation.

I never leave the West when it isn’t raining,*
My brother says to me through the phone.  
He is on his way back
over the Rockies and through Nebraska.
He’ll never make it intact—
hands fuse to the steering wheel
like nylons on a burn victim,
knees and elbows bolted in
precise angles keeping the car straight,
tires pulling everything forward.
One foot is the pedal, one becomes the floor mat.

Shoulder to armpit with a semi truck
hauling jet wings from Denver,
he notices the paths of rivets
like bread lines in Omaha.
Some of them are starving.

But where is the rest, the airplane body
without its wings? A hollow silo,
pilot in a cockpit
not going anywhere.  
I think airplanes molt this time of year.
It’s still raining or it will be,
the white-lined highways
will carry you here unscathed.