I should have lived to thank you more,
where the blue dots and the green dots
met on a stormy porch-front streaming
crack-paint, blank and dirt from years
of games on the blurry tabletops.

Years of games.

We should have walked in the fields,
you the tide swelling and falling and
ultimately disgorging universes of all
you used to know: the good and the small
and the stern and the silly and the cruel.

The good and the small.

He will take your place in the shows,
in all the nightlies and the dailies,
grey hat and black sash. He is taller
by far, and you can't look up to someone
that unabashedly taller than you.

Grey hat and black sash.

You would have made time for me between
strides on the honest diamond of the sky,
and I? I might not listen at all, but
the pearl in the glasses, those awful
brown glasses would stay with me.

I might not listen at all.

She sat with us many evenings as the
winds raked the small lights of our speech.
What has become of her, I wonder more
frequently, but sleep with my head
on my hands all the same.

Sleep with my head on my hands.

They call me under the door, they call.
They fill me with themselves until I'm out.
Just what they want from me and less. Still,
they can't tell me the good and the small,
The fact that deep down I am nothing at all.

The fact that deep down I am nothing at all.

O,
Row from the tabletops if,
If, if
Row from the tabletops if,
or when
O,
Burn at the fun'ral pyre,
pyre
Burn under heaven's fire,
fire

Stop me if you hear this one,
under the flesh
heavy wantonness,
energy light to dance
moves behind your lid
undo the flesh
future corpses do dance
do dance

O,
Future corpses do dance
do dance

Sometimes, right before drifting off,
when your leg's planted against my cast-iron limb,
your arm's length cradling the fear of deprivation
I can't shake without at least a teacup's worth of
bourbon or whiskey or patient caresses,

I forget the ground and find myself
circling the rings of Saturn, using the friction from
your fingertips making patterns to flip to a moon,
Titan, where the dirt feels like cotton on my skin
when I try to make angels out of the dust.

You once told me that you weren't quite
sure this isn't all pretend, an alternate reality
conquest that everyone's in on but you,
and trust me I've thought that, too, but,
baby, I'm sure now this is blissful actuality.

I don't know if you're up for perpetual
ventures in dry humor and messy tabletops,
but I'm willing to build some shelves for
my multitude of flowered vases, and, like you
said about this game, at least we're winning.

I'll crochet us some covers with crazy colors,
to blanket the trouble we'll sustain in
burnt suppers and getting the hammer to
do its job when it doesn't want to mar the
beauty of a freshly painted wall.

You can entertain any aches; I'm well-versed
in phoenix tears and have a safe ear for wilting
daisy petals that you should throw in the soup.
It's tomatoes and old *** and some carrots
(for the eyes), a meal to eighty-six tremors.


Our exploits are easy because your toes
are catapults to another galaxy at least,
and your shoulders cradle my war stories
so well, like a warm rug after cold tile,
like a spot on Earth that's never been stood on.

You've fanned my simmering flame with your
kisses like raindrops, light and heavy, and I
can't be sure if I'm still masquerading or holding
a candle with a spotlight's incandescence,
but I've stopped spending pennies on worries

and instead free my palms to keep my hands
in your hair. I see your smile at the train
station and I'm willing to bet my stash on
our chances at breathing freely (why?) mostly
because of your leg, still firm against mine.

A girl, a fool, a sinner.
I dance on tabletops of marble and glass
And when I fall, I fall hard.
My blood on the floor
Stars in my vision
I stand, and I sway, and I laugh.

You see, I bleed everywhere.
Red stains on my sheets,
The pages of every book on the shelf,
The hands of the people who try so helplessly to hold me up.
A bullet wound that never heals
And my clothes are crimson just like my smile.

My fingerprints are everywhere,
****** and smudged,
Because I need to exist and I need it known that I exist,
I need my existence to be scientifically irrefutable
Because if there is no proof I was here… was I?

I am a ghost in the hallways of my own palace
Haunting my own home, a whisper in the walls.
I do not belong here I say in the mirror.
You do not belong anywhere my reflection replies.
I find the darkest corner and bury myself there until somebody comes looking
But nobody ever does. At least, not looking for me.
They’re looking for her, the reflection, the girl I could be,
But I go with them anyway because I can’t be alone for one more second.

A long time ago I was a healer, and people believed that one touch from me could fix
The worst of their problems.
It was a beautiful concept and when I held court there would be a line of villagers
Bowing at my feet, begging for a kiss on the forehead, and I obliged
Not knowing what infected my kiss.
I spread a plague amongst my people and they all fell,
And I woke up one morning alone.

I’ve realized that the gods aren’t invincible.
I’ve met them and seen their faults, their broken pieces.
I studied their weaknesses (and trust me, they all have weaknesses)
And when the time came, I didn’t just destroy them.
I devoured them.
If you’ve ever wondered what ichor tastes like,
It’s a lot like blood. Like copper.
(Ask me how an angel tastes. That’s a story for another day.)
You see, the only thing that is invincible is the teenage girl.
A stake through the heart, a silver bullet, the teeth of Cerberus himself,
They can’t touch her. She dances around them all
With agility you can’t fathom unless you’ve been her.
You can’t stop watching as she rises and falls, rises and falls,
Blood on the stage and her dress and her palms.
Like me, on my tabletop, a chipped-tooth smile
And bruised knuckles that let you know I can fight.

You don’t look invincible my reflection says one day.
Tangled hair, glistening eyes, pink splotches on my face.
I’m smiling but I’m shaking and there is blood everywhere this time,
On the mirror and the sink and the floor. I’m scared of her,
The girl in the mirror, because she is the only person who sees me like this.
She is the only person who knows the truth about me,
Knows my awfullest secrets and yet she stays in the mirror.
You don’t look invincible she repeats. You look broken.

I smile. A true, genuine smile, and there is still ichor on my lips.
Same thing, I tell her.

I'll write and say same words I've said
     ten thousand times before
Until I don't believe
     that I believe them anymore
Because riding on this carousel
means spinning one's wheels
into moist ground
     thought I had some traction
     but it seems I thought too soon--

So I am off of the rails
Off the wagon. Off to nowhere.
'Cuz it's, "Onward, lads,
to one more night spent
covering ground's familiar footsteps
and sheeting snowy sidewalks
in the dollars we don't have."

And we'll lay 'em kinda thick
     press our prints in Presidents
pro bono comes advice
from the corners we can't heed,
but por argento comes the cure
we choose to **** our heads with

I'll pick a place, polish my boots
     get far as my front steps
where I'll sit until the summer rolls around
     and sweat rolls down in sheets

Short sheeted best hopes,
shortened thank-you notes
and lists of ****** quotes
lay around and resonate
on floors and facebooks,
tabletops
in summertime,
          when it rolls around

But, now, it's winter
and we're all 364 1/4 resolutions older
     --at 33 revolutions per minute,
     and 16 ounces at a time,
     we can almost cope.

Now, it's winter and the sheets are
          still too warm

Now, it's winter and we sheet the
          snowy sidewalks
in Presidential faces
in the dollars we don't have
and the cure we **** our heads with
keeps us safely insane
'Cuz in a world built by psychopaths,
the sane don't always last.
And, if I'm the last one out?

I'll sing a song and **** the lights before I go.

In a few more years I see myself playing the piano-drunk

And signing on tabletops.

In a few more years I see myself kissing strangers and falling out of love

Or back in.

In a few more years I see myself learning to swim

And jumping off cliffs praying that I live.

My Mother was sad –
When I had walked, talked
And left the girl there,
All alone in her bed,
The bed I’d fled
And cushion not my own
As I’m now laying,
Sheets up to chin
And lying as well, at home,
My mother’s home,
But the home she said,
I’d "always have.”

     I roll over.

My bed, my very own,
Is hours away and if I were,
“There,”
I’d still hear her tears,
My mother’s
And those of the “others” I’d left
Behind, left before, abandoned
In that very bed that’s now
And hers, only hers,
Far from ours or ever will be;
An “Eden,” becoming exile;
Truth in prior trespass – an end.

     I roll over.

And as selfish as all this may sound,
I saunter to the smell pancakes,
Maple syrup,
And fresh coffee in sobbing’s stead;
Up until the grief of a mother –
Tears atop tabletops,
A stream quite displaced from mad,
Where my visits, become few, far
And even further,
Most importantly – Alone;
For her, for me and it pains her even more,
The solitude of, “I.”

     I roll over.

Alas, the clock’s ticking not only sorrow,
But something else awry. Awry or away,
Where mom’s finally tackled slumber again,
Snores intermitted renewed grin
Under dreamt up birthday cakes,
Sunlit orange juice and dandelions; Whisps
Breeding the only smile, her son’s come home.
So with light whimper, fried eggs come ‘morrow
And a small dog at her feet,
She’s in a moment, she’s satisfied.
The one left behind, probably not though,
As she’s atop a pool of tears and drapery boiled
Drink come reckless.

     I roll over.

And like her, I’m still awake,
Dreams taunt, but sheep can’t sleep,
Because I’m –
A little ashamed, a tad content,
Still tired though and as odd as this may
Sound, or not,
Hungry for breakfast
As pancakes overcome pillow-muffled
Cries
And burnt bacon mirrors souls and a
Sacred long gone;
Solace in only one of the two being happy,
But one more than the two that weren’t before.

     I roll over and will again and again
    And again.

I
An orange overcast this
evening splayed pink
hues stripes and
saccharine beads. The

twilight caricatures live golden years.

Restless becoming in the garden of
her drunken sons their flowers
soaked in brass, seams
bursting in uncontrollable
laughter we pause. To
admire the briefness

of that era exploding
its petals peppering
spraying saliently we spill
indoors churning across tabletops.
My arms hang dead by my sides.

Her eyes gaping sway
swiftly biting deeply the dottedfaces
lurch. Streets fall unconditional
amidst tears we comb lips
sharply distinctly

her stubborn *** stumbling
handles loosening she holds
my hand my arms hang
dead we pause.       

II
Children babble sunlight across
lawns; I hear sirens traffic icecream nips
our tongues twinge on windless
pipes gust our hair flying smiling
at laughter  from the
playground behind us.

Placid smiles stain enamoured
halls; for glimpses
we mumble necks crooked
sheets flap  draped over bars
her eyes waver glisten
shiver. A warm breeze
dries my hair.

III
Wallowing I oscillate utmost trep-
-idation entangling grappling but
hushed beneath foliage eyes
downturned soil clings when her

fingers impress deeper through
to where rivers end.
Glowing dawn I turn further
lighter almost her hair caught

between the floors;
gently feverish we see turgid
lines the tinniest cracks we pray
on tranquil mornings.

Window panes blemished it was
spring only darker from
deafened rivers throbbing;
under lucid eyes I fold
and heralds blare. We consume
the silence sounding from still lakes.

Elbows propped on tabletops,
we roll out our worlds, like a red carpet,
across the surface between us.
Mapping out our weeks
we speak in riddles
only able to be understood by
present company and others with
an acute appreciation for the absurd.

Round 1
We begin by bouncing pleasantries
mingled with snark and
littered with nonsense stories
across the space where our scotch glasses
drain lazily between us.

Round 2
Brings with it a new tone-
we begin to slip into hypotheticals
and start the dangerous
and all too familiar process of
looking over our own shoulders.
The past seems to sneak
into the pauses and reminiscing starts
to seem too surreal to be appealing.

Round 3
And we are forced to keep reluctant company
with the regret that now speckles the tabletop in front of me.
Our eyes retreat from each other
as our  mouths start forming
around our greatest inadequacies.
Fear of the future,
we're petrified by the present.
We are forgetting how to be hesitant
as coping mechanics drift and split.

Round 4
**** starts to get real.
You try to be ambivalent.
And I just get angry.

Round 5
I am entertaining the possibility
of weeping publically.
(It's an unfortunate emotional default setting)

Round 6
We find our way back
to the familiar.
Accessing the damage
we joke to save face
while working to wind the loose ends
back together again
to stash them from where they came.
(But nothing ever fits back into its box as easily after its been unpacked)

Each week we try to be
each other's comfort zone
to crawl inside
to rest awhile.
But tonight we're too exhausted
and too self-absorbed
and too similar to get it right.
We'll try again next week,
on the next high-top next Wednesday night.

maybe some day
we’ll get the courage to tell the people we love
how we feel
but that day is not today
still-
there’s this danger
that tomorrow may never come
that there are too many things
we leave on the side
and save for a rainy day
that we push onto a shelf
and bookmark for later
and the words never come pouring out
but stay quiet and hidden in the dark
and maybe it’s for the best
but then we never realize
that these words could have meant something
to someone
that maybe they could’ve changed one thing
a little thing
that meant a whole lot
that maybe they just needed
a little push
an ounce of support
a single word
to lift the load day by day
and maybe we should have taken the words off the shelf
and given them away day by day
left little bits and pieces
on tabletops and car windows
on seat cushions and blankets
on television screens and corkboards
on billboards on the way to work
and traffic signs on the way home
on arms and hands and cheeks and chests
things that accumulated day by day
and made someone feel a little less heavy
and a whole lot more loved
but the truth is
every day goes from hours till dark
to minutes
to seconds
to moments that drift away and slip off our fingers
and before we know it
the sun has set
the lights have gone out
the birds have gone to sleep
and the moment has past
“there’s always tomorrow”
we say
but what if the load gets too heavy?
what if it breaks their back?
what if everything comes crashing down a little too soon
and it won’t take a little word to fix it?
what if you open up the jar on the shelf
and find that the words you’ve saved up
are no longer enough?
what then?
what then

The smoke curls into the music’s soft beat,
Crushed plastic cups amidst broken bottles,
Guitars scratch while lights flash on dancing feet,
Swaying as they sing, fair faces mottled.

Sticky air matches sweaty tabletops,
Grimy shoes crunching to midnight’s raw throb,
The next table neighbors taking more shots,
Smell, puke on the floor from Kelly the slob.


This is nothing like your green mountain trails,
Where air is crisp and stars smile not scream.
***** or pine straw, ash or fresh gale,
Not *****, my dear, but taste the pure stream.

Hurry waitress to the lackluster pancakes of the restaurant, your fingers smelling from its bacon.
Past my dingy silverware, vacuous plates, a cup of dead coffee grounds, your watered eggs. Your hair-tie snapped like a bomb exploding on the cover of a paperback Hiroshima. Let us go, waitress, and learn all of the reds in that sunset. The crimson sun hovers over deep cornflower waves. The ocean’s mist blinds us from ketchup-smeared napkins fallen onto waterlogged tabletops. A disaster zone you hope to be rescued from through an exit sign door.

Unfrozen, surviving in miles of silent wasteland
Somehow risen from cold to my feet, but not breathing
Am I flawless that I drift so lightly with a Western wind?
Or so flawed that I don't admit I'm desperate for coming home
The final night with my elbows on the throne
Laughing over longing after end to the infinite.
Beheld well with the highest intention to flatter you
Maybe I'll die in laughter when you realize I invite you to bitterness,
brittleness to the shattering for which I'll want you close
Because with another's bloodstains I can live alone
Using what I've siphoned to make my ill-advised scratches on tablets on tabletops.

Mutterings and murmurs all inane
Tabletops keep turning, turning round
I do think I have gone insane

Polychords create a dissonant chain
Of ghastly nails-on-chalkboard sounds
Mutterings and murmurs all inane

Dysfunctional symphony in a hellish train
Along the way to iniquitous underground
I do think I have gone insane

We stop; the left man pulls me into acid rain,
And we waltz in an urban burial ground
Mutterings and murmurs all inane

Fleshy neurons dance vapidly in my brain
Amber, scarlet, vermilion flames abound
I do think I have gone insane

Macabre figures gather and dance in the nefarious fain
They put thistles and roses on my head; I am crowned.
Mutterings and murmurs all quite inane
I do think I have gone insane

advancing in alcoholism: when it happens, alcohol for a long while doesn't hit you in the head for a carousel, alcohol exfoliates with the fact that 50ml of whiskey make up 50kcal; the alcohol goes to the body, rather than that abstraction of the brain known as the mind - it's sedative properties become more pronounced, there's no dancing on tabletops for miles, there's no care for binging a day in a week, there are no drinking games, drinking dares - that slogan 'enjoy responsibly,' it applies more to those who drink alcohol and decide upon drinking games, that alcoholics who drink it for alcohol's medicinal purposes; i seriously don't know any better sedative - and if alcohol was such a poison, why was it first used by arab surgeons to disinfect surgical equipment? i'll tell you why... if alcohol was originally used to disinfect surgical equipment, it's used by those who drink it to cut into the realm of psychology, and calmly pull out the intestines.

with a short hangover i sat and mused
over the content of everyday value coca cola
(17p for 2 litres, you get the picture,
it really can be everyday,
forget the logo lego in the mind
that fools you that you're drinking something
better),
BARLEY.... sodium citrate (lemon salt),
i have the secret formula, citric barley,
a lemon infusion of barley, plus the sweeteners.
other than that? i'm perched on the windowsill
hunched, bewildered at seeing a bee
fly up to my window, and it's december,
but the koranic reference is of being -
just be... and all this thinking about my trips
to the brothel, and my genteel approach
to prostitutes drunk, even the one that stole
my debit card and denied it - i called my father
and told him i lost it taking a dump in valentines
park, i climbed over the fence, fell off it once
when i punched through a window of a church
near barkingside (st. augustines) then bought
some sweet cakes from the jewish bakers
with a ****** hand... other times i just climbed
over and roamed in the thick of it of unused
purple ivory of the night - yes, at night
certain things glisten with a sort of milky way aerosol
pollen of dead stars.
again: but other than that? i can recognise about
ten bird species around me - apart from foxes, deer,
badgers and hedgehogs only a step away from me
in the area i occupy which is about 4 square miles:
seagulls (oddly, it's very inland here), crows,
magpies, sparrows, canadian geese, swans, kestrels,
blackbirds, wood pigeons (much larger than
their urban counterparts, which have a more
rhapsodic coo-curl; in polish *synogarlica)
and of course mallards: where the males are so well
distinguished from the brown-freckled females
that they aren't like most androgynous animals where
you can't really distinguish the two apart...
but there are also a few white doves...
some roost on the roof of the church
of the good shepherd on the b174 road...
but you can also spot them on a woody path in
raphael's park... close encounters of the migrating kind.
crap... i'm starting to see myself as a hybrid of
bukowski mingling with wordsworth.

This is the first moment that ever was, the crossing metal beams and glass panes,
The blurred reflections of finely polished tabletops
The meticulous tangles of crinkly hair in a variety of unique styles
All murmur to me from a shared experience of eternity
Reminding me that I should
Wake up
All the past is here with me
Unsteady, unwieldy
All the past is waiting for me to open the door and let it be free
And when I do I too will be free
For I am the past even more than the past is me
But I too am the future
As is the past
But I can't let past become future
If I don't WAKE UP
I'll be DEAD soon
Here I am, at WAKE tech*
'Twould be the height of ignorance
Not to see the message
Wake up.
Wake up.
Here I am for the first time in my life
The empty branches never held life, even losing it now
They are not characters of linear narratives
Even the happiness of unions between me and me again
They are born today, none share histories but those they've writ themselves
Wake up.
Remember that time,
So present,
It slipped away
That short synchronous gateway
When I broke through,
When I was nearly awake.
That time is not gone.
Look, look down,
You're wearing a t-shirt from Cup a Joe,
The place where you nearly woke up
Look down, your umbilical cord was cut
And you lived there
On Hillsborough Street,
Just past Cup a Joe
And a beautiful woman right above your head
WORKS there, the mythic place
Where you, where I nearly awoke.
How absurd, to think all would decide to converge there
Independently of each other
It was written
Before all began,
And now begins Time, untime
Now it begins

Remember? Look down, she said
"Be here, Be Here Now"--but remember? HE said Be Here Now
And here I were--
There I was
Impossible, yes, I know
But do you really want to pretend
That it matters
what's
POSSIBLE?

I want to get the universe off with my presence,
take apart the grass machines and put them back
together, we can eat the sun whole if we want to,
and I will swim upstream back through the tunnels,
folding time over for an ant to walk across, if only
I could live forever, I want eternity to *******
to my image, if only I could wander without getting lost

I would dance on the tabletops,
and tie you down with rainbows

The Moon is bright tonight,
I have a thousand sheep to count

You're on my mind, you're in my head
The last thought that lingers above my bed

As I breathe, as I pray, as I sleep, as I dream
With gentle steps, you'll interweave
your being into my subconscious

You've been here for a while
a few years you've claimed your place
The lines around your mouth when there's a smile upon your face

Can we dance beneath the stars tonight
and whisper of the Divine?
And when you've left, I'll write poems of how you were once mine

When I walk I'll remember, the silences, the glances
secret clasped fingers held beneath tabletops and hours hours hours
those long dark days of discovery and shared moments were ours

These days are ours for the taking.

You were all the shades of purple
Violet petals blowing in the wind
Mauve smashed grapes between toes
Plum like bruises on bent backs

You melted into the hues of blue
Cornflower sky vibrant in July
Teal waves bombarding the coast
Navy like jeans with grass stained knees

You faded into the tones of green
Olive leaves on thick trunked trees
Lime frogs hopping on branches
Chartreuse like fresh cut kiwi

You gave into the tints of yellow
Golden sunrises on the horizon
Khaki canvases stretched thin
Canary like lemon drops on tongues

You were all the shades of orange
Tangerine bonfires at midnight
Rusty nails twisted into planks
Amber like dripping honey bee hives

You darkened into all the hues of red
Cherry slick tabletops in a diner
Rosy cheeks flushed from the cold
Pomegranate like bricked suburban houses

You waned into the tones of pink
Magenta cotton candy stuck to lips
Coral reefs blooming on the seafloor
Peach like skin after a day at the beach

You disappeared into the tints of white
Powdery snow on concrete ground
Cream goosebumps on silky thighs
Ivory like teeth through pursed mouths

And in sharp contrast, became black
Obsidian rocks at the volcanic base
Charcoal soot stuck under fingernails
Onyx like the deepest darkest night

early morning at the
coffee house
toasted sesame bagel with jam and cream
cheese
coffee and cigarettes
crazy sparrows jumping in the hedges
of the patio
you and the old men
steaming cups, unraveled
weekend edition of the newspaper
on tabletops
you and the sweet, quiet old men
only they understand

going for a long walk
you hear two boys shuffling behind on their
way
to soccer practice
singing about the sunny side
of the street
your blood sings with them
blood is not of a violent
theme
not today
it's what keeps you alive
keeps you moving along
loving more
wild smile on your face as if you know
the damnest joke
a real good knee-slapper
a killer
of all solemn thoughts and
a promiser to
to be better, behavior and heart
a re-fertilized mind
from now on and ever

entering the city
the day smells of beach nights
lingering scent of sunscreen, sand, dark ***,
vanilla cigarellos
the light turns green and you
step off the sidewalk
catching yourself in the
reflection of a skyscraper 
emerging
from a busting, exploding crowd
looking like you always wished you would
a ballerina on-the- go

you are not a ballerina
but you whisper thanks and
keep the magic of today in your back pocket
like a paycheck
you've been owed

There's a crack in the swollen sky today
We're caught
          standing, stuck, underneath it.
Looking bad for the good guys down the home stretch
'cuz that ******* looks to be leaking.

Sad news from front offices
Sales figures are down again.
So bummed to slash your benefits
but what's best for you is none of their business.

With newsprint leaving light ink stains
on tabletops
          and tips of the fingers,
they'll just dust crumbs from sweater vests
and sling their quarters into cold parking meters.

****! Here comes an avalanche!
Stay still. Just snow. We won't flinch.
Pretend that we can stand the stench
of the bodies on another warm Christmas.

Sad news from the offices
Pension plans are expensive
Have to reap your benefits
You should prob'ly look for work on the weekends.

Hope they like their breve drinks
Hope they won't stain fresh-bleached teeth
When the North Pole melts, the stores will sink
and the roofs of malls will stand in for beaches.

There's a crack in your lean wallet today,
It aches,
          it's nothing money can't fix.
Maybe try and reapply after New Year's Day,
'cuz for now the sky is still ******* leaking.

I feel those stares
gnarly infringements  
a flash of photograph
a creaking doorway
a breathless hallway

I swear I feel those stares
hidden under staircases
creeping around corners
kneeling under tabletops

I press my hand into my eyes
so I can't see anymore

there are eyes everywhere
but only those of my consciousness
a doorway here, a path there
an unmarked territory
a charity to my soul
thank you, my body
for allowing to remain me

You live in the memories inside me
The flashbacks at the slightest trigger
You're in the footsteps I take
Holes in the ground that lead nowhere

You're in the cup of coffee that I hate
For I still crave a sip in the wee hours of dawn
You stay on tabletops like the dust of summer
Falling slowly only to stubbornly linger

You're the sunburn etched carelessly on my skin
Wishing for the pain to go and nostalgia to stay
You are the sun, the moon, the stars and the sea
The air inside my lungs, forever within me.

We have acquired the ***** to experiment; to spend Tuesday three a.m. puking our guts out one bad pitcher of margarita after the other; to dance on tabletops twelve tequila shots later – whether our favorite songs are playing, or even not at all; to drown all melancholy in bottles of beer we keep losing count of until we, too, forget what we were sad about in the first place; to celebrate the crazy by playing cops and robbers and hide and seek behind trucks beating the red light; to refuse to go to class just because; to kiss strangers and best friends and roll out of bed the following morning not remembering even the slightest bit; to spend the night walking through deserted neighborhoods and off-limits roof decks; and to just live however we want.

i. afternoon. coffee slops over the edge of your cup as you set it down. we stare at the wreckage. i won’t clean it up.

ii. i hold your head in my hands, jumper paws swinging like empty wine skins. you lean into my touch, though i know you don’t want to. it is instinctive, this gesture; instinctive like coasters on tabletops and welcome mats at front doors. we don’t own either of these things. maybe this is why we began falling apart.

iii. the pantry is empty and darkness swallows you as you open the door. the grocery list lies untouched on the counter. i was meant to shop yesterday but i spent the day in our room. you take the list and hold it to my face, so close the letters blur. the paper shakes; your hand shakes. we are disintegrating, like so many old stars.

iv. i don’t know how to live with us anymore. you have forgotten.

v. you leave with the morning sun. i wake to a wiped clean countertop, coffee cup rinsed in the sink. the pantry is full. i don’t even know that you’re gone.

i just want to be the person you write poetry about.
not even good poetry.
the poetry of 1 AM text messages
that try to spell out love in sloppy metaphors about stars and eyes
the poetry that swells up in your throat while you're tired so when you speak it into my voice mail it's just "you're so beautiful and wow i'm so in love with you"
the poetry of rearranged letter magnets on the refrigerator
the poetry of small notes in jackets,
half rhymed abandoned words you scribble out between classes and forget in your backpack.
i want to be the person you spend hours scratching your head, tugging at your hair
trying to frame "you're so amazing and i'm waiting for you to realize i think you're so special" into beautiful flowing words.
i'm just saying
write me poetry and i will dance
like dust on your tabletops
glimmering in the light of the sun

Not another love poem

It's 1am and I'm drinking,
Sitting here trying to convince myself that I should not write another love poem.
When things go sour, those love poems remain etched into my journal, my messages, my novels, my tabletops, my online profile and my soul.

They lie around like satirically ironic reminders of what once was, and either make me feel so stupid for ever writing them or so sick that someone will no longer be reading them because I wasn't ready for it to end.

All those love poems are like the ring I received from my first boyfriend- too precious to throw out, but too taunting to keep.

If I wrote one for you right now, I'd feel like Romeo who I, for one, think was as pretentious as bottled water. Was no one else doubtful of his love confessions to Juliet when just a few scenes prior he had said the very same things about Rosaline? All I could think of his words was that they were nothing more than recycled material he was using because he didn't know any better.

If I wrote you a poem right now, would you merely join the many Rosalines I have written for in the past? Of course I had no intentions of acting like Romeo, but each time I fall I feel I've fallen deeper and I don't even know if I have experienced true love yet.

I could write thousands about your eyes, your voice, your arms around me
But it'd just be another love poem
And I am too scared to let you join the many I've written for people that soon left my life.

Ugh, I just did it again, didn't I?


I wrote another love poem.

We're all nervous
We're all scared
We don't move our limbs
Like ribcage tabletops, hearts like coasters
We cry
Varnish tears
And prop
Fists
On our brazen wood.

We're all anxious
We all need breath
To twist our tongues to words
And our lips to a grimace
Fooling no one,
But the ones who don't care.

And we all shine
Like carbon diamonds
Under the pack of a thousand years of dirt
We're not normal
But,
We,
We so are.

We are so alone,
Together.

On tabletops and in bathroom stalls, his audience he does
astound
A dazzling show for one and all, his talents know no
bound.

They call him Pierrot
He himself he does not know.

Toss him your rotted fruit; he graciously will
eat
Sickness but paltry price; to grovel at your
feet.

They call him Pierrot
He himself wish it were not so.


For your gold and silver, earnestly not he
plead
To bathe solely in your veneration, gladly he’d
bleed.

They call him Pierrot
He himself pulled undertow.


A shield of alabaster betrays a scarlet
face
A gleaming retort to innermost dis-
grace.

They call him Pierrot
He himself no arrow nor bow.

His grossest corruption, that which he does
imbibe
For one more day, to lucifer, he offers a
bribe.

They call him Pierrot
He himself fodder for the crow.

In the Abby his copper chalice he does
fill
Desperate panhandler imploring of you good
will.

They call him Pierrot
He himself unrisen dough.


Oh to drink and guzzle your sympathy, such
chance
For taste of your tepid affection, evermore he’ll
dance.

They call him Pierrot
He himself a blemish in snow.


But when the poison seeps from his
head
And those of conscience sleep soundly in
bed
He will look upon the mirror with bated
breath
And to the man he recognises not wish for
death

The call him Pierrot
He himself pleads you: ‘Don’t go’.

A bruise is nothing. They hurt for the most part but then they heal. They’re like coffee rings that stain tabletops. Easily removed with a damp dish rag. A scar is something else. More like a true friend, always there, even if you don’t remember quite how you got it. Most people are like bruises or fleeting moments, here today and gone tomorrow. They’re like invisible ink. But a true friend, that’s a scar. A permanent imprint that’s left on the soul which marks you forever.