some connections can't be adequately explained
freezing wind and gilded ceilings, mousy brown roots
on bubblegum hair
keeping a scarf in place is too hard, and staying inside is too easy
(the bottom has cobblestones)
why is there is only such thing as effortless
when the air is cold enough to burn?
(the best veins are beneath the lids of my eyes)
if footsteps don't echo there's neither point nor interest
menthol, sorbitol, glycerin, xanthan
I exhale mint when I breathe in the world.

Fig Newton Vanilla Wafers
Like sand through an hourglass
The smell of Doublemint Wrigley’s
Gum that lingers in the air like
Your poltergeist hanging on a string

Chicken and dumplings
Christmas at your place
There were so many pictures and
Do you remember me anymore?

Quicksand neurons coughing up
Phlegm and congestive heart failure
Diabetic membranes hooked up to pacemakers
You’re kidneys were caustic waste bins
And you ****** yourself

Cancer Cancer
Don’t shut your eyes
***** and hypertension
Hyperventilation
My mother is crying
I’m crying
Don’t die
Please don't die
"She’s not responding"
"Somebody say something"
Amazing Grace
Amazing Grace

Oh look!
A tree!
It's beautiful!
Nature!
Green!
The breeze blows!
Look at those leaves!
Look at the beauty of God's work!
The magnificence!
The wood!
The fruit!
The flower!
The knothole!
The...gum?
There's gum in the knothole?
There IS gum in the knothole!
Doublemint!
Pennies and figurines too!
Who would do such a nice act?
Oh...
Right...
Him...
The one hidden within.
He must really be misunderstood.
I wish we could meet him
So we would know the real him.

Your lips were so small against mine
Slick, soft, slippery, alive
Pulsating imperceptibly
Sticky, sugar, chewing gum spit
The taste of children's wine
Ambrosia, Spanish fly kisses
Sweeter than old bones can stand
Electricity that forces eyelids shut
Shocks, sends spiraling
Into another dimension with you alone
Joined together, flying or falling free
We made a Heaven out of nothing at all
Ruled the darkness and named it "light"
Let it shine on our naked souls
Pressing against denim, moistening cotton and silk
I slightly opened my eyes to steal a peek
To see if yours were closed
To see the roundness of the orbs
Indeed sheathed beneath thin skin

I traced those small lips with my tongue
As if to gauge their width
I kissed your cheeks, your nose, your eyes
But always back to those lips
How many hours lying there
Did I taste the Doublemint gum
That was somewhere in your mouth?
And pushed the candy to the side
Whenever it got in my way

I woke up when I sensed the change
Peppermint grotesquely morphed
Into stale tobacco
Thirty years came crashing in
Memories of plans abandoned
Empty prayers, empty mouths
Good times, bad times
But never that Heaven again
Whose to say you'd be the same
Had things not changed, had you remained
We are not the captains of our own destinies
Our ships are fated to never again cross
In daytime or night
Perhaps you stopped loving me the hour in which you left
My love for you died a slow and painful death
In it's last years it barely had a pulse
But I remember when that thing stopped beating
It was when I found out you'd started smoking
After you walked away
And the thought of Doublemint and Marlboro mixed together
Makes me sick

Resilient and sturdy you fight on, because it's all you really know
Brilliant and *****, the day bright, and the wind continues to blow

Where once you were caged with an alcoholic rage
55 years of sobriety waged performed on life's stage

So many brushes with death,
But you never fell from Grace
She was there to give you breath
Right time and the right place

Tough as a turtle's shell,
So firm and coarse
Pick me up after I fell
No belief in divorce
Drive like a bat out of hell
Kicked like a horse

You're not my parents you can't tell me what to do
Are the four year old words I once muttered to you

Wrigley's Doublemint gum always, I'll take half a stick
Even down pneumonia's hallways, can't keep you sick

I've traveled far and wide through this glorious nation
But Thank god that I made it for our last conversation

You were as sharp as a knife up until the very end
You Rejuvenated my life and my time left to spend

A man of integrity, vigor, humor, and who stuck to his vows
Even when his ignorant grandson tried to round up his cows

Any day turned into an extra two weeks to no one's surprise
One last Easter sunday appropriately on the day of the rise
"Follow the leader" you said merging smiles with our cries
Grasping your hand I realized from my last look in your eyes
That the turtle shell may pass but your spirit never truly dies

"Take me up I'm ready to go"
The very last words you said
The best George I'll ever know
And now we must forge ahead
Your soul has only begun to grow
Heaven is glad we think you're dead

Before the revolution,
I snuck into the capitol
with a pocket full of
Wrigley’s Doublemint
and a ski mask.

Lurking in their hallways
after hours. Hiding
in their aisles to find all their
loose pens,
I chewed gum
and covered all the tips
with Doublemint.

The ***** money in a politician’s pocket
will stick to their fingertips
from all the sugar and spit.
I stuffed the president’s inkwell
with gum stick wrappers.
Countless taxpayer dollars
will pour into the pockets
of Bic and Paper Mate
because of my vandalism.
Watch me take a bite from
the budget and chew.

While my comrades are
in the streets taking
tear gas and pepper spray
my breath smells of peppermint
and my bullets come in 35¢ packs.
Pens get capped with dextrin and aspartame
to snipe a signature from falling
on the bill that signs your life away.

I’m on the couch with my mask off
flossing and watching C-SPAN,
as the House collectively
wastes hours scraping
fountain pens and ballpoints.
Looking at a government
full of corrupt pearly whites,
my head thrown back,
I cackle like a mad criminal
with a mouth full of cavities.

We tap-danced in Target
Skipping up and down with
Doublemint and Milky Ways
Twizzlers and the bittersweet chocolate waltzes.

We crouched in the corner
Not to shoplift, just to talk
Exchanging philosophy with paper towels
And lead the paper plates through secrets.

We walked on cracked sidewalks
Chipped with the dubious glances of fate
How many feet have wandered these streets
And how few have really seen?

We sat in the backseat
As the brownish gray fields rushed by
The setting sun stayed suspended in the sky
Burning up the tired atmosphere.

We drank mixed lemonade in chilled, clinking cups
Front porch step afternoons
Frosted glasses drained of sugary pink
Summer expectations.

When I wished innocently in February on
One cold night saturated in body spray
For friendship to be free
I had no idea how lovely life could be.