We come to a complete stop.
At a red light.
We wear our arms like seat-belts-
crossed for protecting our pilot lights.˚
I can't help but wonder how many airbags might deploy
if a meteor crashed headfirst and heavyset into the planet
and pancaked us eternally into this moment-
and how our fossils would look confused;
funeral flowers on a wedding cake.

None of this matters, we're both thinking it,
God is a foster child playing with his erector set.

You grin with as much conviction as a dented automobile,
breaking the months of silence to say,
"I miss you."

We can never fold these road maps back the way they came.

Somewhere existentially above this moment, there is an asterisk
that confirms
you- are here.

There was a younger version of me that you never got to meet,
he was here once,
stupid as a slinky.
Shaken like an Etch-A-Sketch.
Crooked as the question mark that punctuated his voice.
I looked good in hydroplane,
my eyes- bigger than my belly,
so I drank my weight in promises- I knew would be hard to keep within arms reach.
I also knew an encyclopedia's worth of how it felt to lie to myself.
I did it for twenty-three years
until I finally let go of stupid and held on to reason.

At some age I wrote letters to my favorite musicians,
using the sloppiest side of my penmanship, I'd ask for answers
and my mother, like a paperclip, used to tell me - she'd say,
"Kiddo, just because they don't respond
doesn't mean they didn't get the message."

She kept her chest of hope upstairs, away from the living room.
She only opened it on the hallow end of October;
that's where she kept the blankets.

Shy, I kept my hope chest covered in a T-shirt-
at the very least.
I never opened up.
I emptied my toy box of all its fiction, filled it with voices.
Deployed an army of rubber wrestlers, martial arts amphibians
and those inanimate toy soldiers with plastic parachutes attached
in search of the confidence I knew was supposed to belly-flop inside of me.

It hid, unfound for decades.
Until you entered.

Hawaiian domino effect, circus of chain reactions, avalanche of affirmation, chest-plate yielding gravity mouth speaking brightest anything forever night light, all apex and eyelash and cheekbone.
You -from big island- broke me.
I opened like the dry side of an umbrella, kept my back turned for shielding you.
I showed up for love on time, like a subway train in echelon city
wanting these arms to feel less like turnstiles.

All my sign languages were in waves.
All my ceilings turned to skies.
All my jitters packed into my hunger stomach.
Typing hyper with caffeinated hands
a swarm of nervous words bee-hiving in my butterfly chest.
Something like a hummingbird
when I finally drop your name like an alarm clock whisper
my lungs empty like cathedrals on the day after Christmas.

I brought the sermon to your Sundays,
you brought the choir to my masses.
We built a church around these esophagus bell towers.
Held ourselves up to the stained glass and showed off our light;

I swear I don't believe in a lot of things, God knows,
but there's always a but,
so much as I believe in the eternal depth of everything,
so much as I believe that we'd have plenty of water if it weren't for salt,
so much as I believe in eight marbles rolling around a gas lamp,
I believed we'd find a way.

'Cause in all the ways my sky could never hold you- and I mean this-
I believed in you- same way some people believe in Jesus.

Because you never judged my albatross mouth when I said things like,
"Self deprecation is the new love."
You kissed me-
less like doorstop,
more like lighthouse illuminating windmill.

You were a merry-go-round pivot decorated in Kona coffee beans, Christmas lights, cough syrup, paper mache pineapples, plastic dinosaur bones, a collection of worn-out Asics, board shorts and a dubstep remix broadcast through the static of a blown-out rotary phone.

You were everything I could get my hands on-

A full-tilt action-packed kaleidoscope jungle
with blender tongue and volcano heart.
I looked good in your sad panda coat tails,
teaspoon swallowing my doubts
while you Tarzaned my ability to breathe,
gave me ocean view and weak knees.
Is that sea breeze in your aftermath or are there already tears in my happiness?

You came camouflage out of my blind spot dressed in magnet armor,
diving board and drum set.
We passionbent cymbals into cannonballs.

I found comfort between your breastplate and your shoulder blades,
where you held me like a promise
when all my wishing was for want
and all your wanting was for wishes

Granted,

I know that there were days when you couldn't help but wake up like gorilla speaking Pidgin
and I couldn't help but waking up like an abandoned highway with a chip on my shoulder-
some maps don't show this much detail, Google Earth-

Which is why I always came through for you like a well-lit citrus truck stop
pressed against the dusk in your moonlight life crisis.
We only saw stars.
From our moon base.
In bewilderment, in our hunger, we learned
that if you hold me to my vending machines you'll get what you pay for.

So here it is, the truth, as I have always known it,
delivered to you on the outskirts of an echo,
my voice, supporting my existence like a monolith.

I'm standing in the middle of a you-shaped hole.
It's as wide as a promise crater-
we built it together.
It's not my favorite place to stand
but the exit strategies are made in the shape of a me that I haven't constructed yet.
I had a lot of things planned.
I referred to things as "ours",
when I really meant "please".

Bury me in your time lapse.
When your emotional excavators discover me in your sediment
they'll find me all pterodactyl-
wings spread wide as potential, sky-diving toward forgiveness,
forever.

Truth is, I'm wingless.

We met at a stop sign.
Our paths crossed.

There's a lot of accidents at some intersections.
Maybe it's because that's not where those two roads were supposed to meet.

We can't time machine argue with the way things landed.

We weren't an avoidable accident.
We were just two cars that really wanted to dance.

I don't know what I'm trying to say but I know when I mean it.

There's a tyrannosaurus rex cradled head-to-tail just behind my curator heart-
all fossil spine, monster teeth, jaw head and piano hands.
His presence says a lot about the past.
There's an asterisk on the surface,
above this moment,
that confirms with absolute certainty,

˚something wicked awesome happened here.

After too many years of mom’s psychiatric issues,
whose pendulum of unpredictable emotions swung
between fits of violent rage and victimized hatred,
I gave up the struggle many of us
try and fail to endure.
Some people who love the insane
fall into the pit of personal torment,
an anxiety or depression of inner madness.
Others choose eye for an eye revenge.
Headlines of such retaliation steam over social media:
‘Wife Murders Husband Over Cold Turkey Complaint’
I made the completely selfish choice of maternal divorce,
to spend Christmas with a neighbor friend
who had endured much of the same abuses
and learned the same lessons years earlier.

Ana and I spent several merry Christmases
at one of those all you can eat seafood buffet joints.
The restaurant was simply a massive room.
A trough ran the 100 feet length of the back wall,
where the cattle lined up to feed.

Each year, we looked forward to our glorious feast,
not for the quality of the food, but the friendship
and the king crab legs neither of us could afford
any other time of the year.

We’d trade laughs and stories of the year.
We reminisced about friends and family passed on.
For 2 or 3 hours on a cold winter’s night,
there was no poverty, no family, no hardship,
no greed, no fuss…only laughs.
Except for the year I asked myself,
‘What would Jesus do?’

Standing in the long, sweaty buffet line,
a mumbling buzzed about a **** up front
taking too many crab legs.
Even though the restaurant claimed unlimited portions,
in reality, the kitchen workers played a good game,
only filling the large metal bin every 30 minutes.
The unwritten rule among buffet veterans
is to take 5 or 6 crab legs and leave some
for the others behind you.
The poor must look out for each other
because we all **** well know
rich ******* only care about themselves.

After a couple minutes of the crowd grumbling,
a heavyset woman in a moo-moo screamed,
‘Look at that guy! Look at his plate!’
The slicked-hair office drone the moo-moo pointed to
confidently strode past the hungry patrons
in his business casual golf shirt and khakis.
In one hand, he balanced a plate stacked
with at least 20 crab legs.
His other hand carried a cereal-sized bowl of butter.
The apparent jeers of shame from my fellow wretches,
whose bellies would go empty for another half hour
didn’t affect this guy’s silent march,
his corporate attitude to loot, to conquer.

I stepped out of line in the guy’s path.
‘What the are you doing?’ I said.
‘It’s a free country.’
He tried to squeeze around me, pressing his hip
against the orange chicken buffet station.
I moved to block him again.
‘Free for you, but no one else, huh?’
‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘Just move.’

His empirical entitlement inspired me to perform
a little Christmas justice.
With both hands, I lunged for the man’s plate
and wrapped both hands around all but four crab legs.
‘What the hell, buddy?’ he shouted.
The guy had become a moneychanger in our temple.
‘Do something,’ I said.
A woman in line looked at me, her eyes wide, startled.
I handed her a crab leg.
The coward ran his mouth in an emasculated mumble,
but skulked back to his table.
I then walked down the line,
handing each of my fellow diners a single crab leg.
Old men formed expressions of confusion,
Young mothers and fathers laughed.
Children pointed their single crab legs to the ceiling
in a show of solidarity to the cause,
victory against a great evil.

A short Asian man approached me in line.
‘You must leave,’ he said in broken English.
‘But I paid for the buffet.’
‘No troublemakers. You go.’

I’d become a scourge to the Roman power structure,
an immoral bandit of Nazareth.
Being bad never felt so good.
After all, one can remove the boy from madness,
but without intense psychiatric treatment,
one rarely removes madness from the boy.
Ana wasn’t happy that we missed our annual feast.
I drove us home quietly content.
Another Christmas celebrated.

days pass like other days, just
lullabies in single,
you, and me, and the end of everything:
how we had found thoughts, like life, unraveling,
in that pristine and angular field,
locked up- brilliant, crystalline, and in voices shaded pale cherry,
some statement of ephemeral lust, no doubt;
we've always been fools,
holding ideals, far too grand
for the size of our routine worries

and, now,
the clock's still claiming moments,
the faucet hasn't lost it's gauze, yet,
the radio's crackling paper moons, in sevenths,
and, me,
recalling a patchwork sentiment and, then, little charming you, you, you, you, you...

made up of scattered electricity, you always leave me lost and drowning;
drowning, drowning, drowning, and
watching those soft-changing colours, through the drifting canopy as
brine-soaked seafloors meander, take place, and
me, falling,
dreaming in shades of slow loss.

so, good night to all the lovers,
all the shimmering faces;
to all the lights of the cities,
all the pleading droplets of rain,
all the shortwave signals, furrowing their ways up north,
to all the heavyset expressions, long led goodbyes,
all the sorrows, left a mess for so many years.
good night, that is all,
good night.

4:00 a.m again.
The bluegreen lanterns fly the sky,
Guding me home.

My eyes fall like bricks.
Sinking into the water,
The overflowing madness in my mind.
Salted by the drops within my eyes.

As the water begins to stir,
My mind becomes a blur.
Blackened liquid waves rage in a craze

Winter winds blow.
Send ice and snow.
As i toss a match to set the wave
Ablaze.

This clawing red monster,
I let her grow stronger.
She takes my hand,
Tell's me she'll show me the way.

A turn of the wheel,
A press of the foot,
And all i know
Turned to soot.

And then my friend.
That winter wind.
Turns back the wheel once again.
The ash and gloom,
My blazing doom.
Only the beast of my heavyset eyes.

That bluegreen mist, lighting the skies.
And those lanterns float, my guides.

Tighten my grip on the wheel,
While gently caressing the pedal.

It's 4:01 a.m again.

Fix your posture, sit up straight
Your smoker's cough, your wobbly gait
Fix my problems, I'm a reprobate
Find what I lost and compensate

For 40 years nothing really changes
In 100 years, mostly still the same
1000 years it feels barely gone
Rearrange the furniture and carry on

I saved your seat on the city bus
I whispered "Please don't self-destruct"
Amongst strangers I stared at the wall
and wondered if I really knew you at all

For 20 years you held on tightly
Kept the faith, maybe wavered slightly
In 40 years they'll still be deciding
The differences are a change in lighting

Lightning strikes in a fitful shake
The world swirls in it's peaceful wake
I felt stunned, even cast aside
You looked vacant, dewey eyed
Your mouth set, your words hating
Your eyes wanting
Only wanting

Fear

1000 years make you feel clever
I used to forget, now I remember
Everything

100 years make you heavyset
I used to remember, now I forget
Everything
but your eyes wanting
Always wanting

one afternoon I said to myself
“Why isn’t the joy leaner?”
Are you upset by how heavyset it is?
Does the joy make you shiver?
does it?

down, down, down into the darkness of joy,
gently it goes.
just like an ******, is the joy.

one afternoon I said to myself,
“why isn’t the playfulness lighter?”
does playfulness make you shiver?
does it?

One afternoon I said to myself
“the giggling is not unexcited! the giggling is exceptionally nervous.
a giggling is emotional
a giggling is a drunk
a giggling is on pins and needles however

his eye was on the sparrow
heavyset and rolling
in a great golden socket,
bulging in a way which told the
world
he was God.

with every touch,
so enlightened
so unoptional
so curse-d with understanding
yet the bird shrinks away,
for her wings and feathers find
no flight in
purism.

shelved somewhere with survival
was the epitome of Death
He takes shelter in the songbirds respite
and leaves nothing for her
winters, proving more onerous
with each shift of night.

and by the light of a meat-eating sun,
He takes his hand and lays it upon the earth,
with such an exclamation:
Mine! This word which in express means
nothing less than what the human soul can
manage.
Mine.

she is furious, alas, and lost so,
in agony she sings
she dwells in darkness,
and darkness is where she
belongs.