Here’s the bouquet you say you deserve

After all that you’ve been through
Here are some flowers

Symbolic of whatever
I couldn’t care less

It’s on the table next to the dinner that you said I never cook

Off center is a hallmark card about how I don’t love you enough
But should

We are stagnant like holy water
Which is stage three in the second half of a relationship  
according to Knapp’s Model

I did the math and researched the reasons why we don’t work anymore

Here is the math

Sometimes

I is less than or equal to U

Not that

I could or ever should be greater than U

|But I want our equality to not be a battle to maintain|

We don’t need each other anymore

I don’t need you like I don’t need teeth in my *******

And you don’t need me
Like an extra head on your shoulder hanging so heavy

So here are your flowers
Here is your dinner
Here is you apology letter to the both of us
For how long it took for me
To tell you to go

It’s simple math

It’s 20 minutes over dinner in silence
+3 bags I’ve packed for you
+1 20 minute drive to your friend’s house

It’s the remainder of me
When the fractions don’t fit
And I want to be whole

This is me becoming whole

The square root of dying to an over-exaggerator

Maybe you deserve flowers

I deserve to deal with life in whole numbers

I’ve fallen from your fractions
Been rounding out my edges
And I’m almost done

Now go

And leave me to the simple math of being alone

Corduroy
by far
is the sexiest fabric

Zipper wisp you thighs a bit faster
You cat-call of body language

I wanna hear you coming

You are not a denim ******
Not cotton soft

My hands are rough
Let me feel your texture
Of parallel lines that go all the way up

Let me lose your button

You can find it later
Keep your innocence like that bear
In that children’s book you might read
To your own kids someday

Corduroy is ugly
So are we

Has texture
So do we

Is made from finely twisted fibers
Like DNA

Corduroy makes me sweat
Literally

And figuratively
If
We were trapped under a blanket of it
And could not tell the difference between

Scar tissue and fabric
Hair and fabric
I will have to bite you to notice the difference

Unless you holler like corduroy
A sound you could beat me with

Then we would just be a transcendental blanket
Of
This should be burned later

So
When I tell you
I think you’re **** like corduroy

It’s a compliment

1
If unicorns were real
I can’t imagine much would change

I might own one
Get high on the finely chopped fibers of fur
Collected from his grooming

And when girls ask me how I came to be so sweet
I’d tell them how I was ***** once by my unicorn

How some sorts of sticky sweetness haunt your soul forever

2
In the second grade
I swore I had dinosaurs living in my backyard

This is after I swore that I actually had a backyard

Never mind the hand-me-down t-shirts
So big I often exposed a boney shoulder

I had the strangest tan lines then

3
Under my bed was a cave
Where the boogeyman taught me
I should be more afraid of my father’s feet at the entrance
And less afraid of things I could not see

In the shifting dark I could have been anywhere

Anywhere was somewhere
My father’s claws could still not get me

4
For the longest time I thought my grandmother’s ghost
Haunted me
I’d often wake to the smell of her musty home
Mixed with her perfume
and the sweet scent of the soft earth she often tended

Until one day I didn’t notice her anymore

Ghosts are the parts of the people we miss
When our stupid brains are still learning how to deal with loss

I’d like to say that once I finally stopped missing her
She was free to leave earth for heaven

I don’t believe in heaven

5
If god were real
And I could live forever by his side

I would still break everything
From bones to hearts

Because I can’t live for tomorrow
I need to live for today

6
As a man
I still tell stories in order to get people to like me

So
When my unicorn finally dies
Or majestically sacrifices himself
For my sake

I will grind him down to glitter
And unicorn glue
(Which is very strong)

I’ll make a sign so big you can see it sparkle from space

I was here *******

And this is how I will live forever

Your smile inspires me
To write

I have already spoken about hearts
and their inability to affect other peoples hearts
I'll never go there again

But your smile
makes me smile

You've got dimples designed for sailing
kiss me
and we'll make a ship
big enough to break the bay

Brave enough the beach our bellies
to kiss new land

Smile so big you chew the tip of your tongue again
I want to make you laugh so hard
and so often
you have crows feet by the time you're 30

You are an ocean-throat whisper
of salty air
and sand that sticks to the bottom of my feet like a memory
the way my feet always remember how to land
to cushion the blow

Inside your smile are lists
lessons on living
that you might one day tell me
it's hard to talk when you catch wind like you do

I want to kiss the words out
taste your language

Run my thumb along the bottom crescent
curved first finger under your chin

Your smile is a language
anyone can learn
I can read your lips

At least I think I can read your lips

They always say kiss me

say

There is a secret hidden between these teeth
Tucked under this tongue
Buried in the back of this throat

Coax it out
I dare you

Secrets are prone to laughter
find safety in the crevices
of dimples designed for sailing

Tell me what it is

Your smile inspires me
To write
To kiss you
To mirror back your language
With my
Broken toothed
and ***** dimpled
secret

Your smile
I want to kiss it

Looking for love in different faces
Looking for love in carnival mirror beauty

Alex does this
Tells himself that she might actually love him back this time

He sees them all perfectly
Falls for their touch
Can’t tell the difference between passion and love
The difference between being caught up in the moment
And when the moment actually ends

I am going to ******* as hard as we hate ourselves

It takes a long time to actually make love to somebody

And being caught up in the moment hasn’t ended yet
So Alex doesn’t realize this

But it ends eventually

Ends with him wondering

Why is there so much wrong with me
When all I wanted
Was a warm body
Because I don’t know how to sleep alone
I don’t know how to sleep alone

Alex looks at this new girl
Gives her his weight
In patience
In presence
In hope

She doesn’t bite
Doesn’t take the bait
She smiles and removes her clothes
So he can see her carnival mirror clearly

He only sees himself
He wants to stretch her out
So he can make sense of the lies next time

He knows
If he were really broken
She wouldn’t see herself either
Wouldn’t run scared at her own image reflected back
Alex no longer has a carnival mirror

The truth is the scariest thing on the planet
Since like
Ever

And Alex is honest
Knows
People don’t shatter when they feel broken
They melt and make harder
They stretch out

It takes a long time to love yourself
It takes even longer for someone else to love you
Like you want to be loved

Alex has been waiting around
For almost that long

He hasn’t seen that yet
He doesn’t know what his own reflection
Really looks like

But if he’s lucky
He will

1
High speed and truly unlimited will soon be so 12 seconds ago
in the largest network ever

I mean let’s head on down to
Mylife.com
And see how well it matches with
Yourlife.com
Toss in a daily couple’s horoscope
And make magic

2
Nature has a knack for making connections

There is a redwood forest
With trees so close
Roots so tightly woven
Biologists can’t truly tell where one tree begins and one ends

It is one of the largest living organisms ever

But I could only tell you which tree I’d like to maybe climb
If I weren’t afraid of heights

Which is good because you are afraid heights too
I learned this on your profile

We are thirty percent compatible
I did the math

3
High speed your lips my way

I wish I had told you that 12 seconds ago

I mean
I’d like to dock in your port
And double click until you GOOGLE

Don’t worry about an overload or a virus
I got some burly surge protection

Unless this is too soon for you
Then maybe I can play with your thumb drive
Nibble on your wires til you’re ready for a MEGABYTE

4
It’s what we do
Find reasons to touch other people
Operate at high speeds til we crash
We need the crash
Pass by near hits
Some people I pass by and never see
We are praying for the cooldown

Sit with me a little while
Have a cup of coffee

You have an eyelash on your cheek

I am lying
I just wanted to touch your face

I sometimes wonder if we could be like play-dough
And I might melt into you if I wasn’t careful

You laughed when I asked you about it
Shifted uncomfortably

I think everything happens so fast
I’ve stopped amassing information

I just wanna single-cell feel this life for a while

5
In twelve seconds
I can be unlimited

It’s just long enough to be charming
Long enough to make you laugh

12 seconds ago
I farted
You are smelling it now

You do not say a word about it

In 12 seconds you can learn how polite someone is

My heart will beat fifteen times
In that same amount of time

Less if it skips a beat
Less if I am dying

6
Pretty soon
This life will pass you by

And god will quit texting long enough
To say

Unlimited?
Welcome to forever
Sorry you missed out
On the debauchery
And the laughter

You’ve all had your heads
In electric clouds so long

Keeping touch
Without the touch

Now join the light
You won’t feel ****
Maybe happy
I dunno
This ball just keeps getting bigger

7
Life is high speed
Feels like twelve seconds

I’m not saying we should always stop to smell the roses

Just **** more often
Touch more often
Look someone beautiful in the eyes without being afraid more often

There is only now

Now there only was

Oh so I guess it was infected
On so many levels

Probably my fault for loving
an angel ****** Scorpio
who gives ******* like a greasy exhaust pipe

who swaps ****** fluid
like a last ditch transfusion for a cure
done in an ally in Mexico

I thought you could save me with your shameless passion
The vibrating underwear at dinner
The dare to straight face in public

You were *****
And you were *****
And I was trying to make a mess
So cleaning myself up might look drastic

You were an adventure I can’t shake

The kind of adventure you can’t catch twice
Until you catch it twice

I have been told
Learning is a change in behavior
Learning is finding ways to not make the same mistake
Over
And over

Clearly
I am still learning

Still infected with
With the self-inflicted wrong decisions
Of loving people who don’t love me back
And filling holes
With the parts of myself that are designed to do that
Hoping mine will be filled too

I’ve put a pillow in my open chest wound
So you might still think it’s safe to lay there
So you won’t hear the heartbeat race of hope
That things won’t hurt so much later
Won’t feel like a film on my skin that doesn’t wash away
When I watch you leave me in the morning
And all I want to do is beg you to stay

Stay and pretend this is real a little longer
I’ve never been one to tear band-aids from wounds quickly
I pick scabs
I have scars
I am ugly
And I am still learning
Still trying different ways

To love healthy

So yeah,
I guess this is infected

Your rose colored glasses make everything okay

Until the shades blend
and you're seeing red again

There will always be a point
where filters deliver their ***** backwash
and you're left with the mess the elephant made
in the corner of the room
and he's rubbing your nose in it

He's rubbing your nose in it

I know I am only beer goggle beautuful
A latex layer of desensitization
to try and make our crash last longer

And you see in hues
of rising shades of deadly
Miss my blushing
so you don't realize
how uncomfortable this is making me

But you're smelling roses
Feel the thorn's *****
but miss the blood on your hands

Wonder why the roses suddenly smell so coppery

Please let us learn how to peel back the layers

Flay me like a whale
on a boat-deck-cutting-board

Pull me out of my element
and peel back my skin
while I am still begging you not to

See me for who I am
while I am at my most vulnurable

writing poetry at 2 am
when I should be sleeping

A t-shirt over a lamp shade
because I am afraid to sleep alone in the dark

The door cracked so I can hear if my father falls again

Sometimes silence scares me
Sometimes it is all I want

Right now it is so quiet
There are no filters here

Your rose colored glasses make everything okay

Everything is not okay

Flay me

See me for who I am

without any filters

Then tell me you still love me

She said
When you're done slaying dragons
and fighting for thrones
will you come back and stay for a while?

But there are not enough puddles
Not enough dirt

He is the king of the living room
when the carpet is lava

Don't come out of the kitchen
The carpet is lava mommy

She says okay
and watches as he jumps from couch cushion to chair to tile
to save her

There will never be a man in her life who can save her like he can
No man who knows the exact distance from doorframe to bedframe
so the hands underneath will not get them
if they jump right

No one's ever thought to save her
From the things she cannot see

I wish I were old enough to use a saw

He is stomping a tin trashcan lid flat
Cuts kite string with his teeth

Discovery says its duck season
If I have armored wings
and get hit by a shotgun
I'll still be able to fly home

I wish I were a shark
I wish I were the wind
I wish I was a lost boy but didn't have to be lost
Can I be a boy forever
and still get homesick?

If peter pan came and offered to whisk him away to neverland
The hardest thing would be for her to let him go

Maybe he can be a boy like ten more years
she thinks

With fistfulls of crayons
and constant pleads for one more of everything

Just one more night as a boy
Just one more day as a dragon
Just one more day as a bird with steel wings
One more day as the wind

But she knows he'll be a man
And he'll visit
and call
talk about
The damsel in distress he met in college
When he saved her at a party
How she spent the whole night laying on his chest
While sleeping on the grass
And for some reason
The cold biting air smelled like home

She knows mothers raise the best men
Because they know what they want in a man

It's not always okay to be your father's son

She says,
When you're done with dragons
and steel winged flights
and being emperor of the living room

Be honest
Women love men who are honest
Smile about everything
Smiling is attractive
and sometimes it's all you need to make yourself feel good

Call me now and then
Or I'll call you every five minutes

Now go
*The wind is calling you home

Paint splashes of dirt on the bathroom floor

Kyle coats the room with war paint

He shakes dirt from his ****
and it splatters walls with childhood

This is when being ***** was a good thing
When showers were a chore

He is still muddy when he steps from the tub
Pigeon chest protruding like a plate of armor

She is not mad at Kyle
His smile is a saving grace

She is practiced in spit baths
And spankings that didn’t hurt
Only scared him

Kyle is a little warrior
With long skinny arms
And long skinny legs
And a smile like a lighthouse

She ruins a white towel
Is rough when she rubs the dirt away
Pays much attention to his ears

Kyle knows this is pointless
She knows this is pointless

It’s what boys do
They get *****

And mothers
Can only do so much
Acknowledge that they are helpless to the process
Of becoming a man

Kyle will always find ways to get *****

She won’t always clean up his messes

But parts of her
Will always want to

If I could say one last thing you'd know I was different

You’d see these walls as something else
You’d see the holes for footing

The scars on my shoulders
From the grappling hooks I’ve shaken

It’s a reflex
I’d like to reset

If I could
I’d rip the seesaw from my spine
Break the balance in the fulcrum of my chest
So when you jump away
I don’t fall from you

Call me swing set
Give my arms monkey bar bravery
So I can shimmy close enough for you to see
I want you here

I won’t try and nock you off
I am done playing chicken

I am done playing chicken
Foot on the gas pedal beggin god I run you off the road
Again

This path I am on
Is lonely

I know this

I want to tell you I love you
When I know you won’t say it back

If you could
Shake the dust from your knees
After my walls reflexed a shiver
In your embrace so hard
You fell to the floor

If you stuck around long enough
You’d see
All the cotton I swallowed
So when I heard you leaving
You wouldn’t hear me say

Stay

If I could say one last thing
You’d know
I was different
Was better
Might be ready
With enough patience

Please stay

I’ve written all these first lines
But I am out at the moment
And
I am drunk

So here is mine

It is 1 am and raining
I want to stand in it naked
Feel the wet and cold bite my body into shivers

Feels almost as good as being punched for the first time
Where you realize that these the people you’re afraid of
Can’t hurt you as badly as you thought they could

I am a body practiced in resilience
We are bodies built soft enough for the bounce back

Only now I am not so sure I can bounce back from this

I want to want someone so badly that thinking about them
Helps me sleep at night
He said

Thinking about her helps me sleep
And I want to be wanted like that

Right now I am tired

Maybe it’s the beer
Maybe it’s the comfort of a bed
That I no longer get to sleep in

My ex is out for the night
And I am in our old bed

If I wake up early enough
Leave before she knows I was there
I will still have slept shamefully

There are days where I remind myself
That the strongest men
Are ones who let the chinks in their armor show
And keep walking
I’ve got some nasty holes you might’ve noticed

But I’m trying

And I’m sorry I push you away sometimes
Just that I don’t want you to see me
When I have to retighten the springs in my knees
To keep the buckle at bay
Or when I have to loosen the screws in my jaw
Tightened from a tear-bite

Holding up this armor is hard
These shoulders want to hang heavy
I don’t want to rust in the rain

I want it to break
So the truth might punch me perfectly
Into understanding that this hurts right now
And even though for the moment I want it to **** me
It’s not going to **** me

I am better than that
But I am lonely

She smothers me with her words of desire
So I kiss her to stop it
And choke

I choke on her words
Choke on her soft tongue
Like a vicarious seizure

Put a wallet between our bear traps
So that I might catch my breath

Her lips brand my brain
With short circuits
So I stutter responses

And if she were any less beautiful
Or I could somehow be gay
I might actually have enough confidence

To say
Shut up and bring them gnashers my way

It’s okay if you bite
I like it rough

And
Already I can barely breathe
Suffocating under a blanket of words

I can smell the alcohol on her breath
As she speaks
As if her words could be any less flammable

Makes me wish I could drink gasoline without dying

Do you hear that dark room dancer?
You liquor breathed torpedo tongue
You cat eyed lighthouse
Reminding me where I want home to be?

You make me want to drink flammable liquid just to compete

I pull her close
Like the gentle slam of a car door

Are we dancing?
Or swimming?
Or drowning?

Go ahead **** me with your words

I give up

Your voice is like a silent whisper that I no longer wish to hear

On any given day it breaks me down
like the soft hiss and hush of waves
working to break the levee

I feel your voice speaking from inside my cheeks

It feels like forever
and I still can't seem to shake you from my skin
how I say things the way you used to say them

how I sometimes think about things that make me uncomfortable
and say your name out loud to halt my thought's direction

I ******* miss you
but I don't want to miss you anymore

Moving on is the dilemma for ghosts
Who have nothing left to hold on to

I can't hold your ghost
There are people here who
are still perfectly capable of holding me

And when I see you again
Maybe you won't be able to hold me

Because I imagine
heaven
is energy

I know this in the way my skin still heats up
at the thought of your touch
you move my molecules a fire-friction-engine-rumble

You are energy
and this is how I know you are happy
because there isn't anything else you can be

This is how I know heaven is real
God is a ball of light that feels like a fiery smile when you touch it

But I still hear your voice at night
and maybe your memories creep up
like epiphany shivers
like

   oh
This is just me missing you
I am still human
and I am allowed to do silly human  things

Because I am alive
and so much self preservation
I haven't let you go yet

Which is why I still hear you
reminding me to do stupid things like take care of myself
and to not hang my head so wrecking-ball heavy
unless I am finally breaking down my own walls
to sucker punch my gut
in order to remind my lungs
that even without you here
the air still tastes so sweet

Reset my suckerpunch
to gasp
to fight for inhale
to understand
that my own breath
still tastes so sweet

I hear you
you silent whisperer
I hear you

My heart was in spin cycle and I knew she would hang me out to dry
Michael tells me

Tells me
I knew she would find someone to fill the gaps I couldn’t fill*

Dear Michael,

You knew this was going to happen from the start

But it felt good while she let you hold her
when her past came back to haunt her

How your arms felt like the biggest arms
And your heart felt like the biggest heart
And you felt like a man

A real man
Who can make her feel a little less lonely
Until someone comes along who’s better at it

She tells you about him

Tells you how funny he is
And charming
And about his mini crooked sailboat dimples

You are better than he is
You are better than the wind ******* back his cheeks

And you know what?

You’re brave for trying
Brave for giving someone else the weight of your arms
Brave for the buckle of legs when you saw them kiss
And wished he was you

You are so much better than that

And you’re brave

So don’t walk away from this
A lonely casualty
Or a martyr

Wring your heart out red again
Til your body is a fortress fire pumping passion
Into swollen arms so heavy
They dangle like chains

Let them know they can weld around anybody
But not just any body Michael

Not just any body

And not hers

I know
It doesn’t feel good

But boy

You’re so ******* brave

To the simple minded man
This day would have been like the rest

Would have been an overdone steak dinner
Alone

But he plays a broken bone remix
Of ex-lover’s gritted teeth

It is the click in his jaw over steak
That reminds him of the gnashing

He nurses a beer
In between helpings

But there’s always the click
A painful metronome
For past music
When he was capable of lapping the language out of her mouth

Days when he was all noise
Like a hallway echo
Or a fist through drywall
Or a nightmare gasp

But now all he needs is the cotton he eats
To soak up the sound

So he won’t have to listen to himself keep sayin’

There used to be this growl my gut made
For your bitter music
When we choreographed a collision
Of bone
And breath
And teeth that touched when I still thought I wasn’t pressing hard enough

The masticating click
Reminds him of her smile

It hurts his jaw
And his memory
But he continues making her painful sound
Like it might actually bring her back

And it does a little
Just for today

And tomorrow?

Tomorrow is too far away

There is a woman I know and she speaks like she is dreaming

The fog in her throat pools on her tongue
It pulls me in and I wonder if I’m dreaming too

Wonder at what age my voice will be like hers
So gentle I listen carefully
Like what she is saying will eventually make sense

Like listening to that high caterpillar
Talk in tongues
And dancing language

I wish she were my grandmother
So visiting her at the nursing home wouldn’t be weird

A woman who looks like a coffee stain in red lipstick
offers her a ride back
Though it is walking distance

She takes the smoky dreamer’s bags
And leaves
Says she’ll help her with the bags at least

I’m so confused
Where are my bags?

I remind her not to worry

Oh I feel so lost sometimes
But everything feels familiar too
I’ll feel better after a nap maybe

This is déjà vu backwards

Like walking into an empty room
Still expecting to see you there
I still get surprised sometimes

I put my hand on her shoulder

She talks in dreams
And childhood mornings
Of stereotype
Of longing
Of knowing
That any day she’ll forget again

I still have to remind her my name
Even though she smiles when she sees me

Like
Why does this boy make me so happy?

And just like in dreams
Whenever everything makes no sense
You realize your dreaming
And then everything does

If you could see the way she looks at you
you would know

But you're busy building walls of doubt
nursung weary what-ifs
like feeding gremlins after midnight

I have this picture of the both of you

You are staring off into your imagination
always just above the horizon

And she is laughing
at something you said

She is looking right at you
smiling honest

Only you can make her laugh like that
Only you

I guess some of us need it spelled out
Our egos need to be reminded

You are not always going to be her favorite everything
You are not the best

But for whatever reason she chose you

Chose you like a raffle ticket
from a barrel full of so much better

You are not a jackpot
she is not a jackpot
but you both have won something

You're both walking away with what you came here for

You break her heart some days
How her eyes sadden
and she does that thing that girls do

you know
when they go
awww but it's pronounced oohh
(Men love that sound)

I see the tremble in her arms
the hesitation to hold your head to her *******

But your signals cross
and you beat yourself up later
for not acting differently
because she might fall in love with you
if you had done things differently

You can't act your way into a relationship
If you're not being yourself
You're being somebody else
and in that case
she's better off with that other guy

It makes me wonder about lightbulbs
and how many people it takes to ***** them in
depending on your occupation

I wonder how many pairs of eyes it takes
to notice what love looks like

Because if you could see the way she looks at you
you would know
and the only thing you might do differently
is continue to be yourself

Her ceramic mask hid everything I already knew
It's a reflex keeping her soul alive

Smile girl
Smile girl

Laugh when your head hangs heavy
When you never thought you'd breathe deeper than this

It's amazing I've been saying
All the things you're capable of

She might not be as pretty
Might be early aged
Might dance decietful
Making people look more graceful than they actual are

But she can't be any more human
She can't be any more human
than me
or you

She wears a mask
statue hard
and beautiful

Her neck is strong from the weight
People want it to shatter

People who don't wear theirs as well

You've gotta be low to keep people low
You've gotte be willing to be *****
To make others *****

She is better than that

I know this
because I've seen her naked

Flayed her smile
like breaking a clock

She ticks a metronome of humble heartbeat

Is a wonder woman
that makes women wonder
How it is
that she can smile
when being kicked in the mouth
by her own feet sometimes

How she swallows sadness in beautiful breath
palms miming
exaggerating the air in her chest

She knows she can breath deeper than this

I see her for who she is
and who she was
I accept her broken beauty

Relax
we're human
and I don't want to keep you low

Stand up here with me

Where the both of us can see
how our angel wing footseps can keep us light on our toes

I look at her
after the overflow
and I know she wants me to leave her alone

No one wants to be seen
after stepping of scene to change costume

I see you

She steps heavily back into her boot straps
Slides on her angel wing shoes

I tell her I think she is beautiful

She puts on her mask
and says

Thank you

She struck a chord although off key
She heard the beauty

So much noise like an overly passionate remix
Of a song that should have said one thing

To her there was language
In the rough off key finger press of her piano

To the rest of the band class
She was noise

Even after the teacher explained
She would never learn piano
How some people can’t be good at everything

She still showed up for music practice
With a song in her heart
So heavy
It made her consider opera
And Latin as a second language

Some of us will never learn some things
Like how to give up
When all we ever wanted
Was to make enough noise
For people to notice

So after practice
As she walked home
Her teacher picked her up

Explained to her about wasting time
Left out how secretly he wanted an entire successful band class

Explained how the truth hurts
But better learn it now
Than discover it later and feel like a failure

“You’re the only one who feels like a failure”
She said

And the next day
Her bench was empty

Though every note was perfect
And the music teacher was smiling
What happened was a tip-of-tongue beauty
Like something was missing

Even without her
They all felt a little off-key

Her mind is as loud as a whistle blow
I can see it in her smirk
As we talk over dinner

I hear her silent sarcasm
I’m not psychic
But her wheels turn quickly enough
That I know to be ready to dive into the dirt
And out of her path

I hear her train comin’
See the coals burn in her eyes
The way her eyelashes flicker flakes of cinder away

I feel one fall on my arm
It singes my arm hair
It smells like the square-root of burning bodies to an over exaggerator

This feels like

People who have prayed in silence
And caught fire
Because they were begging for the answers
Before the bomb went off

They are souls who have been told
Praying is a waste of time
Wondering is a waste of time
You don’t always get answers when you ask for them
You don’t always get answers when you ask for them

Sometimes you’re lied to

Souls who have to learn to accept
The helpless agenda of living

Whatever happens was supposed to happen
If it wasn’t
We wouldn’t be here

Ready for the fire
Ready for the whistle blow
Ready for the hog-tie train track love she has to offer

I ask
Do you still love me?

She picks up her glass of wine
Sips it
Leaves a stain of lipstick on the rim

She says
I do

She says
I do

In a sea of lost souls
I can’t believe you haven’t found me yet

I mean
I’ve never seen so many people
Get so close to each other without touching

And I want so badly
To tattoo in thick black letters
Over my heart
The word

FOUND

This is for the people who
Are still waiting to be found

For the boys who thought they had her heart
and lost it

This is for the bravery of trying
For the bravery it takes to let someone hurt you
On a chance that they won’t

This is for the bootstraps
Caked in the dirt that you fall in
For how white your knuckles get in the rising

For the ones who have something to give
But think they have nothing to give

For the ones who have nothing to give
And try and give anyway

You will always have something to bring to the table
If you are willing

This is for the ones who’s walls of strength
Are so thick
They can’t feel the touch
So it doesn’t have to hurt when they see you leaving

Press harder
Press until you hit the soft
Find something worth holding

You are worth holding

The game of tag and all its variations
Were just preparation
For the time you spend hiding your heart diligently
Until you see the joy in being found

Know
If you are reading this
I found you

Which means it’s your turn
To find someone else

I know it takes courage
To touch someone
In a world where no one touches

But you did it once when you were a kid

I know you have doubts
I have doubts

I don’t see in me any of the things people see in me
I own a mirror
I mean ****
I shave me
No one knows how ugly this mess gets better than I do

But *******
We have got to be found

Know this is the year you do everything right

Ask someone to dance
Show them how they’ve been swimming all wrong
In this sea of souls where everyone feels so lost

Even Christians have to find Jesus
A man who can only save them
After he is found

I challenge you
To write a letter to a stranger
Telling them you’ve secretly loved them
Remain anonymous
Only send one

Hold a door open for someone

Smile like you do when you read a message
From someone you care about
And don’t realize you’re doing it
Until one of your ******* friends asks why you’re smiling like that

Smiling is ****
I promise

Do stupid things every chance you get
You’ll become a good story teller
It will make you interesting

Shake the dust from your tired shield
Let your walls fall like the crumble was healthy
You do not need walls in wide open places

Know whatever you have been made to believe
You should always love like you’ve never been hurt
You should not be afraid to be hurt

Know
Love is yours
If you want it

Want it
I dare you

Tag

I found you

Now find someone else

Ps. I also have to take a ****
He says

It’s what best friends do
They tell you things you don’t want to hear

Like
Ps. You’re being a ***** right now
We both know how badly you want to
Just ******* kiss her*

You are sandpaper laughter
So much grind in my double over we both tear up

This is the stuff I’ve been trying to tell people
For at least 12 years now

How we are so good at following each other’s lead
We get lost in the process and crash into a heaping mess
Of what the ****

Like when I pretend to be gay Christopher Walken
And you are his best friend some Australian guy
And the whole room laughs like this was a joke

I have stenciled SAFETY in microscopic letters
Around the outside of your mattress
For the days I can’t sleep at home

For days where rest
Is the warmth of 3 blankets and a room heater inside your freezing granny flat

You satiate my soul
Like the 12 packs we **** alone in one sitting

Inside your throat
There is a harmonica exhale
Tuned to the key of gritty

It was designed by people who have learned
The true definition of lonely
And It calls to them a song that has only one word

FOUND

I feel found in your ***** harmonica voice
It gets me
Plays my song when slow dancing alone
With my beer belly is all I need for company

You so much an ambidextrous best foot forward
That you occasionally forget which foot is your best
So you remember where your heart went
Always the right place

We might be a cacophony
Of whale farts
and silly accents
and ***** mouthed prayer
to everyone else who meets us

But I have only ever loved amazing people
And I love you

Ps…………. I hope you pooped well

I picked up the pieces of my shattered heart
and put them into my jar of fireflies.

Only way now to keep my heart-spark alive
To live healthy in the glow

I've left the lid open
Living with the fear that this light might leave me

I have to remind myself some days that dust still rises
So I walk like an oil well to keep your memory alive

I watched them bury you
and realised my biggest fear come true

Heaven can't be real

And coffins only trap our dead
I need to let you go

When I die I want to be naked
wet
and covered in seeds

Heaven is the transfer of energy
into new life

I don't wanna be a goddamm tombstone garden
I wanna be a real garden
With ******* roses
and lillies

And weeds
Weeds are hard to ****
Make me something strong again

Give me a reason to keep on going
Help me kick my own dust

I wanna make life
even after my life

and

I want you back
I want you back

Because I miss you so much some days
I drive sixty in suburban neighborhoods
Prayin the fire finaly takes me
and
I can't do it

I know I will wake up in the morning
and you still won't be here

Sent you an e-mail the other day but purposely got the address wrong
I just wanted your name in my inbox

Someone already has your cell phone number
I called them and cried
because when they answered
they sounded exactly like you

They've asked me to stop texting
Saying I have the wrong number

Did you know all the people on tv sitcom laughtracks are dead?
It is ghosts reminding us to laugh

Remind my smile
Remind my dust
Remind my firefly glow
To get bigger

Remind me that you're not really gone
Not gone gone
Even if you're just plant food
It means something

It's why grass itches your bare skin
Reminds you it's alive

I don't want to itch like your nightmares anymore

Just know
I am picking up the pieces as best I can

And I ******* miss you

The snow crisped to your eyes made me giggle
Made me wonder
About the lightness of snow

How the white in your lashes made them seem more wet
And how much heavier they would need to be
Before they bent

How heavy can your shoulders get
Before the shiver shakes the weight

I want lie beneath you
And catch your cold

The doctors asked me how long I’ve been feeling this way
I told them I didn’t know

One in particular
Gave me a mirror
Told me about actors
And how they would practice making different faces until they could completely control their emotions

When you feel sad practice happy
Practice angry
Practice solemn
Practice confused

With this much control I could be held accountable for everything

When I was 14 I learned what living looks like

In the mirror

It is that jaw dropped gasp for air
After the rope breaks
It is smiling at the neck bruises
It is being thankful for ******* up
Again

And now it is forced breathes of air
Visible in the cold
It is you smiling
Carefully wiping the wet from your eyes

The weight is building
White wet and heavy
But thanks to you
The bough is not breaking

It is slowly shedding
You collect it
To make a man
You make me

I ask you not to break branches from the bough
To give my man arms
I am afraid of the collapse
Maybe I can’t hold you the way I want to
But you have fixed me so much already

You have fixed me so much already
Flakes fill your lashes again
I laugh at how cute you are
When you fight to let them stay
The slow flutter
The pursed smile

I wonder about you
And am thankful at how much you have done

To fix me

The movement of her body was entirely too loud

She is desert throat gasps
When the water is so good
She doesn’t stop for air

Can hear her comin’
Her rusty train wreck tremble
On loose tracks

Her collapse is a cinderblock rain
The crumble is so much quieter than the crash
Her crumble is so much quieter than the crash

Her hands shake as she swipes her EBT card for the fifteenth time
She puts back the bacon this time
Throws down 5.50 for the Marlboros

She talks to herself
Angrily
Slams ever door she enters
Every door she exits

Her children think she is crazy

She is crazy

She is a body built
On passive aggression
And the threat of a shaky foundation
When the earthquake hits

Any day could be my last day you know

Her son turns up the tv
Her daughter plugs her headphones into her cd player

Do you all think I am talking just to hear myself talk?
And if you don’t stop sleep talking
Telling me you’re going to **** me
I am sending you to the hospital

The boy mutes the tv
Dries his eyes before they’re wet
He shakes his head
Begs her not to do that
Says he doesn’t know he’s doing it
Says he doesn’t want to **** her

She walks away
And he is left wondering

I remind him later
That we were not raised on truth
So it’s hard sometimes
To trust people

I put a lock on his door
Tell him to shut himself in at night

As for the mother
We don’t talk anymore

Like I said
She’s crazy
And I’ve got too much of that myself already

Somewhere a door is slamming
Somewhere cinderblocks are crumbling quiet
There is a sizzle like slowly cracking glass

I feel it crawl my spine
It crawls his

The girl misses it
Head buried in pop culture
Going deaf in trying to drown out
Her mother’s noise

Do you think I am talking just to hear myself talk?

As a poet I ask myself the same thing

Ask how far the apple can fall from the tree

If any one of us are lucky

It will be just far enough

My love looks scintillating on you my blue

With just a hint of black

When my rough love meets your tough love

And the two wear us smooth again

I mean

There has to be something to justify how ugly I am

Be ugly with me

And grind sandpaper skin

Til we can shake the shavings away after the sheets dry

You’ve always wanted to know what it looks like when ugliness leaves you

It looks like dust illuminated inside beams of light

After you’ve decided you’ve collected enough

How good did it feel

When you notched my bedposts with your vampire teeth

Dulling them down so that you couldn’t draw blood anymore?

Not even with your words?

You said that becoming human never seemed easier

Let me second chance

Your too tough tugs

With my lizard tail laughter

And I have two cheeks to turn if you need a third

My shoulder is only cold

Because neither of us know how to hold the other

Being

Beautiful

And Nice

And Capable

Take practice

So I am sorry I rub you the wrong way sometimes

Just that

This kind of black and blue

Looks good on you

And these faded bruises means

We’re healing

I tell the rain beneath her eyes
A story I know

With my forehead pressed to hers
I can feel her thunder building

She is still a natural disaster
Beautiful and dangerous

I know some things you can’t control
Like who comes and who stays
Or the moments you do everything you can
not to cry
And you burst like a balloon
Caught in the rain

I speak a story into her mouth
About a boy living in a hospital
who wouldn’t let go

So a woman came to see him
The doctors called her a specialist

She was dressed in
A calm riptide

It ****** the air outa the room
But begged everyone to stay
And drown


She rubbed his hands

Rubbed his boney kneecaps

With her index finger
She ran circles over the giant bump in his chest

The chemo goes there?

The boy nods his head
She asks him to close his eyes

He is seven
Already has grown in his adult teeth
because his child’s ones have fallen out

He smiles like a man

I want you to imagine
You are jumping on this bed

She pats the bed
Her riptide coats his skin

He imagines it

Now imagine you’ve jumped to your own bed at home
You jump so high

Now you’re on your parent’s bed

You’ve been jumping for a long time
You’ve been jumping for seven years
It will be your birthday soon
You can’t jump much longer

So you jump off
You jump off

The boy falls asleep

I tell her I slept for two days
before I woke again

Nature does not take orders

I tell the rain beneath her eyes
To fall warm, wet and heavy
I rub it away with my thumbs

There will be days when tears aren’t enough
To wash things away

You need a riptide
You need a flash flood
You need a natural disaster as beautiful as yourself
To make the dam break its promise
To never let you flood again

Sometimes even god needs to be a liar
In order to rebuild

You need to be helpless
Then when all hope is lost

You need to accept
You’re going to survive this

If only to prove that you can

You’ve got rain falling down your cheek

You natural disaster

Dressed in a slow building thunder storm

You’re too strong to cry
So I know that those heavenly heaves
Are just tornadoes beating in your chest
Winds whipping away heartache

Know you can discard your debris here

Because when the smoke clears
And your coal corrupts the sunset

I can lay beneath you
Point out the stars on your back
Imagine that home is ******* to the right
And ******* down
From your left shoulder blade

Laugh for me a hallelujah of thunder
So I know how much longer this will last

I am helpless beneath you

Not enough sun in my smile to clear it away

I mean

I am glad the last time
Your cheeks were wet
It was raining

It’s a different kind of helpless

Because we accept it

And if we were children
It might have been easier

How telling you your rain tastes like tears
That won’t kiss away

Is like saying
Okay
You perfect storm
You natural disaster
You lungs filled with cold front
Breath the sweetest fog I can’t see your face through

You are only raining again

*And this too shall pass

I can sleep on her thighs if she’d let me

Hear the ache in her hips when she moves

She is a body of bricks crumbling
Succumbing to the soft

It is my head pressed to the wall of her belly
Her hand on my face
Like a shield from the noise
Of her bombing

She is a fort
Still standing
Months after the ***** ricochet
And I know I could sleep safely there

She tells me I’m cute when I’m comfortable

I want to tell her she feels like shelter

Want to tell her I haven’t slept well in months

From nights where I drink til my eyes shut proper
Nights where this bed is one person too close to being empty
Nights where I wake up from dreams
Heart so heavy
I sink into staring
And don’t go back to sleep

I want to take refuge there
On thighs like trench walls
Hatched with bed post notches
From lovers who have lost

I don’t need you to love me
I just need to know what it’s like

To sleep in safety

My heart can’t hold
True
To anything

It has been rumored that if you hold someone long enough
Their heartbeat will match yours

If this were the case you would have seen me for who I am by now

Hearts are ugly blood pumping engines
Keeping us alive

I’d like to say you keep me alive
But you don’t

And if this works out and I lose you some day

You won’t

I mean
I am tired of the love poems
About the longing
And the passion
And the
If I had you’s

Love happens in stages

That is stage one

And you are stage two
After we drop the five acre metaphors
All forming like words from the mouth of a man
Who is still learning how to swoon something honest
Still learning what it means to make things right
Still listening for the flaws in his passionate stutter

I have counted them all
Made notes on my own
So let me learn yours
So I can write about
The years of learning

The study of your mistakes
I will write them beautiful
Even if they’re really bad
Even if they make you really mad

Woman
I know I am broken
If I can’t change me
Then you can’t change me
I will write about your stinky feet if I want to

Maybe they’ll smell like the miles you
Walk on sunny days
Because you’re trying to lose weight
Maybe they’ll smell like losing weight
And therefore
At least for you
It will be beautiful

I will always think you are beautiful

And stage three is when you finally leave me for good
Even if we have been broken up for years by now
You leaving
Is you leaving
Is your heart finally failing at doing what hearts really do
Because if me holding you causes mine to beat like yours
Then I’d be leaving too

Here is the truth
I have been told
The heart is deceitful above all things
This is the truth

And I or you will be left
To pick up the pieces
Still alive
Still breathing
Still bathing in the stages of love

But I am still stuck in stage one

And you beautiful future deathbed lover
Are stage two

The snuggles and the kisses stopped the pain for only so long
Until one day
They didn’t stop a thing

Around the time you stopped using the word snuggle
Around the same time you tried calling her Carol instead of mom

Around the same time you learned
If you lick your own wounds
You heal just as quickly

We are practiced in healing
The small miracle of single cell resurrection
And finding enough blood to fill the deepest heart fissure

And sure
You scar up sometimes

But we are also practiced in remembering
Everything but the pain itself
You can’t physically remember pain
But you can-recreate it

Unless you’re practiced in remembering
Then you won’t

My bad choices were borne of good intentions

I just wanted him to hurt a little

So much like a lost boy
I explained to him how things are
And how they are going to be

And he is gone now

He is skinny like water cascading
Down a xylophone ribcage

He is a clumsy song
A constant struggle for a high note

“It’s the thought that counts,” he says

Says, “The cream takes the pain away in my feet
Don’t worry I am making myself better.”

So many days I wish I had his dumb hope
Believed that people are only bad in movies
That everything works itself out

I have the wool
And is eyes
But lack his energy
There are holes he has made
Through bitter curiosity

It comes honest
His head throw-back mouth-agape cackle

“I am making myself better. It doesn’t even hurt right now,” he says.

Only because I love him

I wish it did

Hurt

Just a little

The sound of you chewing broken glass

The way it crunched beneath your feet after the mirror broke

The best way to get blood out of clothes is
To accept that you can’t

On good days
You are a gumpy smiled
Heavy footed
Head hanger
Curls that branch out like leaves
So much weight your neck branch hangs heavy

And I know there are days you want to die
Like Friday

And I’m glad you are still afraid enough of leaving
That you got your palm instead of wrist

In the tremble
In the passion

We wrestled on broken glass
Until I pinned you down
I’ve never had someone else’s blood on my face before
It tasted metallic and warm
Sprayed a fine mist when I blew it from my lips

Every page in every book
Remembers the tree that it came from

We stole life from the same tree
So many of our pages come from the same story

Of father who left mother
But came back to care for sick son
And made you

Thanks to me
He made you

I think how crunching glass
Sounds so much like ice breaking
And how cold the floor we both lay on is

And how you kept saying

I want to go home
This isn’t right
I hate you
I hate you
I just need to go home

To keep calm
I remind myself how some people
Chew with their mouth open
Sometimes
They chew on glass

A cube of ice resting on my tongue

                       I inhale

                                    It cools my mouth

Press the cube against my teeth until it hurts
           Then gulp coffee and listen for the shatter

                                                        ­                       There is no sound

Only the understanding that pain has layers

                                                         ­           I can hurt in just as many ways as heal

Kiss me bitter devil

I know I will feel guilty when I leave you in the morning
                      
                                                                ­                   But I will leave you nonetheless

You loved the way my mouth tasted when it was cold
                                                
           ­                                                  You shivered

                                                       ­            From the kiss or the cold

                                                           ­                                                     I don’t know

But you shivered
               And I lied
                 So you would shiver again

                                                          ­   And you loved me like a liar


An ice cube on my tongue
                      I chilled you
                                   Killed you a little more than
                                                            ­                                 Le petit mort


Sometimes

                                            Cor­pses can have goose bumps

You cold again?
      Or did you see a ghost
                         After you found my side of the bed empty?

I never said I’d stay for breakfast

                                                   I never said I’d stay

                                                           ­                                                               Th­ere are just as many layers to hurting

As there is healing

                                                        ­         Sometimes I can’t tell the difference


Hurt me like a lover

Who is frigid and fearful

Until we temper our bones to burning

And listen for the shatter

It never comes

And I always leave
                                                           ­          First thing in the morning

I let the towel drop and heard the first bird chirp of the morning

Strands of gold melted through the blinds
They warm my skin

It felt good to feel the warmth without actually being touched

Eyes shut
I find myself leaning
praying for the pressure of fingertips

I put my clothes on
Outside a cacophony begins
I think about the fabric of my clothes
How I don’t even notice what it feels like to wear them

I am more aware of being naked

I have been naked in front of you

And now I wonder how long it will take
Before I forget what your fingers felt like

I think of the birds outside my window
I think they live in the orange tree

Their sporadic music sounds like fear to me
Sounds like stress
Sounds like
What you do after you’ve put your ear to the ground
And have heard the rumble coming

I heard the rumble coming
And I waited for it purposely
Just so I could have a little more time

You are the most beautiful stampede
To have ever pummeled me

And to be honest

It felt good to be touched like that