Yesterday was your birthday

All day, my hands weighed me down

With the itch to text you to wish you a good day
With the need to grip a steering wheel, navigating me to your house
With the idleness feeling sinful as I wasn’t baking you confetti cake
With the feeling of being misplaced against anything that wasn’t your skin

To keep my hands busy I piled memory into a grinder
And
Ground
Ground
Ground

Turned the parts as if I was winding up a music box
Because this sound was full
In comparison to
The pit of my stomach that was still waiting to
Share your birthday cupcakes with you

When the flashbacks filtered into my brain
The high was pulled lower still
By the weight of my hands
So that all I could do was cross them
And pray a prayer worth all of the birthday gifts I’ve ever given

“Please, God, on this day make him forget himself.

Please, God, let him find a sweet tooth for things other than the melancholic poison he puts in his coffee

Please, God, let him not remember the time when he broke open too wide and let me slip out of him

Please, God, allow him to feel something, on this birthday, even if it’s just his birthday candle blisters

Please, God, give him his heart back, as it is buried in the past that I was never gifted to know

Please, God, let me not weigh him down with a guilt seed that would root him to a chapter in his life that he wishes he could rewrite

Please, God, let me stop dreaming of him.
I know what it means when I dream of someone.
I know it’s your way of wordlessly telling me I’m being thought of.
Do not let him think of me.


Please, God, fill the parts of him that his worker’s hands have carved out of himself so cleanly.

Visit the wounds that sit in his posture
Will his veins to carry his soul back to his heart

Remind him that his sadness is his own special brew
That he continues to sip at his leisure

Help him understand that feeling lonely
Comes from his own brain that remembers isolation better than love

Please, God, give him
A better year.
A good year.
A year when his time won’t be stolen by someone so insignificant
That he has to translate her words into the language of gibberish,
Until they mean nothing at all anymore.

Please, let him find someone.
Please, let that person captivate him.
Please, let that person know him.
Please, let that person sit in bed with him and feel their good fortune in their bones.
Please, let that person see the moon in his fingertips and realize that they can control the tides, if he wants them too.
Please, let him smile at this person, in ways that would be ugly in pictures, but beautiful in my memory.

Please, God, let that person be HIM.

Please, God, if you won’t cut the ribbon to the start of his new life, at least give him the scissors.

He will say “No, Thank you.”
He will say he does not need your help, because he knows the power of his paint brush,
and that he is too busy washing color out of his brushes to take hold of the harsh metal,
And then he will make confetti of your offer.
He will shred every pleasant thought that comes his way.
He will cut himself open and gaze at every beautiful thing, insisting he sees the wonder.
He will not see the wonder.
He will say he understands the things that live inside himself.
But he will turn their volume down
And tune deeply into the metallic music of sorrowful hollowness
He will go to extreme efforts to ignore the starting line that sits just outside of his comfort zone.

But, God, Please,
Send the trees to trip him
Make the animals chase him
Let him
Throw tantrums that are disguised as the silent treatment

But wrap him up in his ribbon, so that the only way he can move
Is forward.
Remind him that the scissors are always in his hand,
And he needs to learn that
They need not destroy.

Make the clouds rain on his new life,
And remind him that he has a knack for watercolors.

Lure him with oils
Guide him with spraypaint

This Year, show him the paint that
Will reteach color to him.

This year, let him understand that colors are bright,
But not the enemy.

Let him not fear red from the times that he bled,
Let him not cast away yellow, because the sun got in his eyes,
Let him not hate blue, because he almost drowned.

Build in him a reservoir for happiness, that could sustain him through this life that has already been too tragic.

God, on his birthday, please indulge these heavy hands so that they may not cross the fingers for his return,

Because God, it was not I who was born today,
And it was not me who was stiffed on birthday cake.

And though this prayer is selfish,
It is the only thing I can give him,
That he cannot refuse.”

And as I looked down to see my clasped hands, I couldn’t help remember
When one of them was yours.

And for my final birthday wish to you ,
I hoped that only your sleep
Could be relieved of the white knuckle tensions of restlessness

So that you may sleep, and know the peace that I felt,
When I slept next to you.



Happy Birthday,
I miss you.
Happy Birthday,
I’m sorry.
Happy Birthday,
This is selfish,
But Happy Birthday,
So were you.

Today,
I washed my sneakers
With a Mr. Clean
Magic Eraser.

With it,
I erased the evidence
Of where my treads
Had led me.

Mud cleared from
Inbetween the grains
On the soles of my shoes,
I feel lighter.

With a blank canvas
On which
To write tomorrow's story,
Tonight I spraypaint my sneakers black.

Magic Erasers Are ******* Expensive.

And she opened that window
And hands came out and dropped
A book of spells in my lap
And I lit another cigarette
Opened it up
Right there on your firefly soaked back yard
Reading about spells that could bend the whole world to what I wish
I shook my head and said no
Don't call me honey
Because real love never lasts
Things twist
And pull
The gears that hold you together
Somehow shifted
And i can see golden sunlight pour through
Window good morning
I fell asleep with you open last night
A praying mantis is having a battle with my fingers
And honey bees swim around the whiskey
Birds call and look like tiny painted toys on the deep blue
You could be
Are everything to me?
Put in my pocket for later
Forgotten
Like a soda tab
And a square head nail
A knife
A brass tack and a pair of pliars
My hands are cut and *****
Dried blood
Black spraypaint
A phone number written in pen
A single cigar burn scar

Thermoplastic acrylic acid scent suspended in my sinuses
And red splatter on my glasses
Camel Turkish golds in my lungs
The way this air sits is low hung
It's impossible to make it by
Without asking why we play these games
With ourselves.
Always playing time games with ourselves.

These murals can't capture what I'm thinking
My breathing can't relay how or why I cheated this world.


I'm simply
Alone
And on top of this mountain.
Freezing, breaking the law.

Part 1
My third car broke down
All that metal
It will outlive me

I’ve been jogging to work
Taking the back ways of a neighborhood
I barely know

Yesterday morning
I took pictures
A modern day romantic

A pack of camels followed by
A pack of Marlboro silvers
The cellophane glittered with dew
It will outlive me

A sunset behind a church
Sunsets will outlive me

A shopping cart next to the church sign
The grocery store is very far from here
I imagine it belonged to a homeless man
He found this spot and was saved
The art of being saved will outlive me

Broken glass
I want to touch it
Leave my blood upon it
I want to glue each piece
To form a ball
And hang it from a nearby tree
So that it may own the morning sunlight
Reflect it like small miracles
Some parts red
That glass will outlive me

A dead rabbit
Mostly bone now
That rabbit did not outlive me
I feel good about that

There was also a woman walking her dog
We passed by a tree at the same time
She and the dog were old
She would not let me take her picture
So I took one of the tree
She and the dog will not outlive me
I don’t feel good about that
Part2
This facebook status will outlive me
And I feel like a caveman
Scrawling poetry on cave walls
In an attempt to be remembered forever

I want to place my hand upon your belly
And bite my lips
So I can spit blood
Like a human can of spraypaint
The outline
So you cannot forget what my own touch looked like

You
May not outlive me
And I may not outlive you
All we have is now

All we have is now

There is a portrait
Sketched in aerosol color of blood, gently preaching love
Every day I've passed it asking myself where it was
Years later
A local artist calls himself Truth, added a dove
Mostly white except grey letters that say
"No dreams left behind, no hopes shunned"
I am not much more than the legacy or signage saying welcome to the 6-1-7, peace to Huntington
We are where little more than where we're coming from
I always figured if I paint a picture
Call it poetry
When I needed a rhythm
I'd listen to the avenue grind and hum
You can title it a documentary, but the thought alone reminds me of a homie who said you are buried beneath hate only
He moved away to Jamaica Plain with his lady
She a trap queen
He called it escaping, all I really saw for enlightenment was tail lights
And I was never one to run
Asked if me and my family would follow
I said I would holla soon
Haven't spoke in some time
Funny to find
The red letters are bold as ever
Even as the walls surrounding dulled
The avenue still grinds to the familiar tune

Your eyes touch the back of my mouth. Make it so hard to swallow.
I never breathed so evenly, my stomach feels so hallow.
I'll bury my face in your neck. Allow me to sink my tongue, and
Drown my teeth into your arms. Your breath fills my lungs.

Everything is easy now, since we simply let it be.
This is anything but sarcastic, the way our colors bleed.
I love your golden irises, I love your sepia skin.
Wrap yourself around my bones and melt into my ribs.

I feel like our arms glide through each other,
Like dancing lovers, after years of familiarization
Predictability in every step, but for once
Comforting to know what's going to come next.

Your hands hieroglyph the language of my fingernails
Decoding a sensation that belongs to something bigger than us,
And finally understanding that it's okay to touch that.

Contentment for war. Trading pity for empathy.
Trading sympathy for care.
You were always in the confines of my aching head,
Your name is in all my search-bars.

If I had the right fingers, I would create you in marble
I would design a statue and have it be gilded
In your honor. And if there was a temple for us,
It would be in the shape of a man, aimed at the earth.
He would be bowing to a large evergreen tree.
And our initials would be carved on the side.

Let's finally spraypaint our faces in underpasses
Eyes like this deserve to be gazed into.
Eyes like yours.
Deep breathing, my face in your chest.

Breastbone meeting skull
Dripping my lips onto your skin
Like candlewax.
If you kiss me with finality,
"I promise, darling, I'll kiss you back."

Do you wanna be friends with me
  do you wanna be friends
  with a punk like me
My iron cross tattoo and a
  middle school concept of
    anarchy
  we can
  go to shows and smoke Newports
  bring down the establishment with
    empty cans of PBR and spraypaint

So you wanna be friends with me
  So you wanna be friends
  With a wretch like me
My dog eared copy of Slaughterhouse-5
And my irrational distaste for
   Humanity
We can
Smoke *** in your backyard and
Scream about ****** babies
   While burning bible pages
As if we were making a statement about the inherent theocracy plaguing
Our government

Do you wanna be friends with me
Do you wanna be ****** like me

and scrawled spraypaint messages of
young summer love
litter the sky
she comes to mind as the humid dawn approaches
and the birds strike up their morning song
she is probably up north serving food
in some greasy spoon
or sitting quiet lost in her sweet thoughts
at the counter of some comfy
mom and pop hippy coffee shop with all natural herb teas
she is someplace safe i think to myself
i just know it
someplace she is loved
and that enough for me
it was so many summers ago now
im sure she has forgotten me
but i will never forget her
tortoise shell glasses
and a cup of coffee in a denver coffee shop
while we tread in civil gardens
and shared ice cream cones

I chose to squeeze the lemons into life's eyes
sue me
but lemonade is never all that satisfying
until you see the ******* screaming on the floor tugging at his hair as the chemicals
sting his eyes
bringing a whole new dimension of pain
that is the definition of satisfaction
because if life throws a wall at you
spraypaint mene mene tekel upharsin
your days are numbered and so is your rule
i will not be subject to your cruelty any longer.

an old, decayed mine, far from civilization
psychotic warriors occupy alleys, resolutely
this here is their last match, the death match
only one survivor remains, bloodbath

walls are covered with intestines and *****
fuckburst killed five, a female voice moaning:
double ****, multi ****, mega ****, ultra ****!
each increase is arousing our speaker

unreal tournament, land of fun and gore
your addiction is called "flag canon",
"rocket launcher" or "monster ****"
i'm all in now, no worries, no regrets

bloodshed covers you in bloodred
but i don't know the truth, barktooth
we are drinking silver-blue fantasies
as bullets spraypaint your apartment

you switched the game off, but the
monsters are attacking you, warrior
vibrating echoes and their dark voices
in rainbows, in rockets, in repetitions

shadows eat up your courage
motionless, swooshing swoosh
you are trapped inside their thoughts
no chance to escape, you get crazy

On a throne of spraypaint driftwood
                   I watch the sailboats glide,
A painted aluminum ocean
                                               With Sunsnow reflections dashing
                                                         ­                      across the waves.
Lovers in their old age cause friction
                                         in the pebbles
                                       as they walk,
unlike many things, I refuse to believe
                                                         ­                       romance is dying.
People like them help solidify my hopes.
Gulls                           approach the tide wavering in the wind.
                              Another September has come.
                            What should come with it?

Old friends have found their place
in Vancouver.
                                                      ­          Some shall return here,
In attempt to                                                 escape desperate situations.
                      (The recurring waves are calming)
               Smoke and vapor
                     cloak the mountains softly still.
I'm unsure of where things are going,
what a change of pace!

Nine months
                     since that night in a hillside cabin
                                         where dreams foretold
wound up in chaos.
                  (More to change is on it's way)
                                              But for now, I'm content with seeing the cities
                    continue g r o w i n g.


.........The seasons sway with the breeze.

I want to spraypaint every chorus,
every note
every breath
There isn't room
Instead I embellish my mind's
synapses with them
and it keeps me alive
a little longer

-cj

It feels just like yesterday, whispers
a croaking voice inside, so familiar,
but ownerless, like that same white van
passed on every morning’s commute, a canvas
where somebody beautiful took the time to
spraypaint in pukegreen bubbleletters
“WELCOME TO HELL”, to
urban sprawl, or capitalism,
or something? Something, slinking like a
roach through rotting throngs of desperation
marching blind through subwaycar shackles,
carrying away the hopes of tomorrow on
yesterday’s dollar, building justifications
for plunder out of cold metal and glass…

eyes open. I open the morning door,
pierced by a crow’s shadow at
oppressive dawn. Bleary, half-formed,
each step out of the homeshell and down
the street feeling slowed down, like
the air has hardened into a sea of fudge,
saccharine bliss of ***** birds resembling
the endless sobs of the guilty, keeping them
down, today, locked up inside—

I have wasted years
apologizing for not being
enough to replace this futility—
I have no butterfly net
big enough
to seize the day.

On the far side of an idyllic fence
a groundhog darts out from a hedgerow,
barreling awkwardly, shamelessly,
away from the familiar cover of the underbrush—
Sparkling, from this distance,
playfully glazed with new sun
this shuffling ball of fur
hurtles through the empty field…

Why can’t I?
Stepping up and into
public transport, metallic husk,
the question remains, lingering
far after the sounds fade out.

--Graham Kellner

The lighting of the parking lot that night should have told me everything I needed to know about our fate.
The grass stains never came out of my favorite jeans from our picnic at the park which I guess I’m thankful for because I don’t need to be reminded of the way they came unbuttoned so easily that summer.
The scent of your cigarettes still linger on my sweatshirt and after four years, it’s probably time that I either wash it or throw it away.
The scent hasn’t spread to the rest of my clothes yet but somehow they seem just as tainted.
Have I told you that I only adventure during fall and winter now?
I can’t venture out in the summer without seeing the shade of your eyes in the sky and I’ve learned to despise the sun for that.
My walls and ceilings still release the sound of your laugh sometimes and it’s in those moments that I miss you the most.
I can’t wait for the day that they finally detox from the sound and are set free from the memories but I can understand why they’d want to hold onto it a little bit longer.
The spraypaint murals downtown are still painted over by your goofy grin in my mind and that gas station on the corner is still haunted with burning desire.
There isn’t much I can do to escape your ghost, but I swear to you that I’m trying.

I can't remember what movies we saw.
I can't remember which nights I lost in you.
I can't remember the shape of your jaw,
or what convinced me I loved you too.
I forgot about your birthday,
and on Valentine's, you didn't cross my mind.
it would have been a year in January,
but I forgot until almost nine.
the box in my closet has collected dust.
empty spraypaint cans starting to rust.
my bed smells like me again,
and less like us.

I think the more I forget,
and the more I live longer,
I'll search less for a duet,
and just learn to sing stronger.

I spraypaint the stars across the sky,
I paint the night with black,
I send goosebumps down your spine,
you never remember me, you're an amnesiac.

I send the sun up every morning,
the waves on the ocean are for you,
amethyst colored mountains tipped with snow,
on the horizon is always new.

Shining gray at midnight,
the light of the moon,
sets your eyes a sparkle,
your heart I try to harpoon.

Poetry and music,
I write to catch your heart,
you enjoy for a moment,
then I must restart.

I shall never give up,
my love shall never die,
the only thing I will do,
is forever continue to try.