Hey you
You on the corner of space and slow time,
With the Wednesday smile that looks like you stole it from a prankster
Are you for real?
Or are you that sidesteppin passerby
Who took two steps off the sidewalk and one into me
Took a knife to the inside of my skull
Wrote down a life I forgot wasn’t mine
Cause sometimes I’ll admit I can’t tell the difference
I’ve been throwin baseballs of the back porch of my soul
Since the day the monster under my bed grew teeth
Hoping for someone to catch up catch them and catch me too
I’ve been running since the day I met God on the banks of a backwards river
Spinning this world like a record played one too many times
Sk-sk-skipping across all the riffs we used to glide over like it wasn’t a sin
He and his pals foolin us for the fun of it
Burnin a driftwood fire just to watch the colors change
I traded in my bibles for a pawn shop prayer
Cause everyone knows that bookstores are just pawn shops
For ideas that people were too drowned to keep on drinking
To keep on keeping


Hey you
Imagine we became all the words we breathed
Out of fairytale pages turned cigarette papers
the night you became a constellation
Us, riding a magic carpet woven from strings
Stolen from Fate when she wasn’t looking
I’d never been one for shoplifting
But that night we made off like barefoot bandits riding on a broken hymn
With nothing but chains of laughter round our ankles
I, the night dancer and you, the day singer
And we two seeing both sides of the moon
Sing me the song that day sung the first time she realized
That the night was more than a coat her dad told her to wear
Because it was raining
The universe ringing with the words of convenience store philosophers
Things people are too scared to write anywhere but on the walls
Of public bathroom stalls so far from the city that
Blackberry picking still involves thorns
I wished I was an ant so that I could carry
Things that were bigger than me without breaking
So that my biggest worry would be microscope lightning
It wouldn’t matter if you only wore your turban on nights so cloudy you thought God couldn’t see you
Cause when’s the last time somebody judged an ant on their headwear?


Hey you
Sometimes when I’m with you I mistake myself for a queen
And right now I’m ruling these words shamelessly
My subjects whose only job is to grow fields of sunflowers in December just for you
Let it sink in
Let it be known that my physical transition fails to interrupt my meditation
That I’ve never known a dream that did anything but embroider the ether
The air between us quit smelling like a cinderblock romance
Your hands a kinetic ignition to my saltwater synapses
That connect in double-time to the electric current runnin from your heart to mine
If you’re just some sidesteppin passerby that took two steps off the sidewalk and one into me
It’s too late cause I’m dreaming of you like pumpkins in spring
I already burned down my fortress of forget-me-nots
When I tried to write your name with a side-split matchstick
I can still see you amidst a mountain of ceiling tiles and plywood floors
Closed doors that I knocked down because they wouldn’t open
You are a brick
I have no shovel
I have hands
Will you take them?

We sat in the snow and cracked schemes to soften our mortality, like if when we died the soil grew up and over our bodies to pull them back to her instead of leaving them like shells to fall where the living had dug uninvited into the darkness.
And You
You were just some
sidesteppin passerby

Who took two steps off the sidewalk and one into me

Took a knife to the inside of my skull

Wrote down a life I forgot wasn’t mine

I’ll admit now it had been a long time.
I’d been throwin baseballs of the back porch of my soul

Since the day the monster under my bed grew teeth

Hoping for someone to catch up catch them and catch me too

I’d been running since the day I met God on the banks of a backwards river 

Spinning this world like a record played one too many times

Sk-sk-skipping across all the riffs over which
We used to drift like it wasn’t a sin
Before we slipped into a chemical mist
And the trembling of our fists
Became mixed with the hum of the night
And left us listless
The fog it curled its fingers like a gauze round our bones
it was a soft fear.
It was a soft fear.
Imagine we became all the words we breathed

Out of fairytale pages turned cigarette papers the night you became a constellation

Us, riding a magic carpet woven from strings

Stolen from Fate when she wasn’t looking

I ain’t never been one for shoplifting

But that night we made off like barefoot bandits riding a broken hymn

I, the night dancer and you, the day singer

And we two seeing both sides of the moon

Sing me the song that day sung the first time she realized

That the night was more than a coat her dad told her to wear

Because it was raining

The universe ringing with the words of convenience store philosophers

Things people are too scared to write anywhere but on the walls

Of public bathroom stalls
That night, I realized something.
Our love was an easy veil to wear.
Till forced perspective tugged at the seams of our sobriety
I was never brave enough to break.  
My memory is a womb.
My memory is a womb.
Let it be known that my physical transition fails to interrupt my meditation

Putting your life into revision never called into question my salvation
I’ve never known a dream that did anything but embroider the ether 

The air between us quit smelling like a cinderblock romance

Your hands a kinetic ignition to my saltwater synapses 

Connecting in double-time to the electric current running from your heart to mine

Lift me like a lost key
Triumphant like used furniture
I see you now your hair is long.
Your hair is long
In your left hand is a brick.
In your right, a summer morning I have yet to wake up in.

bein' alone with my thoughts, that’s my own personal hell
no wonder mom and dad convinced I need professional help
meanwhile, the air’s getting staler, sicker than Vlad the Impaler
this girl is fit like she's tailored, and I just want to impale her
and nail her and maybe regale her with a tale or two,
a sick and sordid affair, yeah that’s the tale of my youth
harried and scared of the truth, and very wary of you
unfairly comparing myself to Mr. Magoo
what it do, baby boo, hoo, you need to quit crying kid
it's not like you grew up poor or surrounded by violence,
my right mind, I can’t find it, the shine, my memory’s blinded
I forgot what my line is, I need to be reminded
another day goes by, sidesteppin' the pain
count the hours, that’s another 24 down the drain
that’s just more of the same, steadily losing my way
riding the pines like a veteran who just lost his game
call me Juwan Howard, call me Tracy McGrady,
call me a coward, I’m exactly as the Lord made me
this is what the world made me, a shady container
of creativity and malice and lust and anger and talent
and flesh and blood, I’m a man with no plans, and too much time
on his hands, that’s a bad mix, dangerous equation,
temporary high, always chasing that elation
sick of being patient, and putting up with this fake ****
I’m packing my bags and making my way to the station
need to increase my concentration if I’m ever gonna make it
take it one step at a time, this ain’t no nickel and dime
I’m already this dope and not even close to my prime yet