Dedicated to stillborn fetuses, 99 cent Malt Liquor and Existentialism
1.
Nymphomaniac tree huggers
And overweight bisexual vegetarians
Swallowing phentermine poison to stay fit.

2.
Funky fresh *******  
throwing pigs at St. Augustine’s pear tree
and frolicking abortions over Moloch’s philoprogenitiveness,

3.
While sipping barbecue sauce dipped in Lipton tea,
dancing around adhesive bonfires
reciting memories of holocaust, the Kristallnacht nights
and beautiful words suffered by ancestors lost.

4.
Inhale chicken noodle soup, with a side of Lithium,
And prance to Literacy class to combat envisionment
With free association conceptual constructions,

5.
Computerized like Prometheus’ fire burning through SmartBoards
In classrooms where the poison of heterosexual history
Is fed to boys in skirts cursed by Adam’s apple,

6.
Baptized by social norms and locked away in hopeless closets
According to the Tautology of Leviticus…
until they cut their breath by the vein of soteriology;

7.
Misunderstanding of God’s words
Covets the innocent to early graves
In biblical paratactic irony…like God betting Satan for a Job.

8.
Rub fried chicken oil on Bartholomaeus Anglicus’ skin
and soil his white pride with ***** flavor,
for revenge  On the Properties of Things

9.
and howl out in glory of victory
over totes of  lickerish piper methysticum blunts
that beg the conundrum,
'What is the origin of this world?'
'Ether,' he replied.
But it is not ether!
Nor Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
It is Dada. Dada. Dada!
  10.
For this is a record of the life stories of the greatest minds and geniuses of your generation,
written in boys and girls
who mimicked Basquiat’s genius and tagged bathroom walls with abstract philosophies like “Love is a prime number” and “ the weight of Duncan McDougall’s soul can only be found on the 15th of October”
who drank vampirish gulps of Vicodin while consoling themselves with aphorisms such as: “don’t rue the misses, you don’t need a Mrs. when you’re elevated by chemical kisses”
11.
Who stood naked in mirrors, weeping, for they were a mystery to themselves, but a great talent and soon to be legend to some.
Who lit cannabis in loneliness and waltzed naked with their ghosts, fantasizing about ****** tomatoes and Corpus Christi Mexican Jazz.
Who composed psychedelic anthems from dreams that were lost in ghettoes where virginities were lost for loaves of bread, for the hunger of bread.
12.
Who wrote suicide notes on a toilet seat, contemplating the texture of Marshall Mathers’ favorite underwear and whether the color green was an invention of **** Germany.
Who used to love their lovers in darkness and colored the streets of Manhattan with rainbows on June 24, 2011 to mark the date lady liberty finally bought a new pair of glasses.
13.
Who lost musical talents to a Wine-house and ended up in a whine-house where lobotomy was subsequently prescribed by the milligram.
Who indulged in pharmaceutical vices and when asked why replied simply, every recursively enumerable set is Diophantine.
Who diagnosed themselves with “start ****-itis” and self medicated by eating Fifinellas at the stroke of each midnight.
Who rubbed paraprosdokians on their skin and occupied Wall Street in search of a new euphemism for being American.
Who poured Alkalizer on a dead moose and kicked it while feasting on the divine question, “why does Rice play Texas?”
14.
who got bored with conventional relationships and bought the Origin of the World on street corners from vixens nicknamed “Jezebel” and climaxed atop of them screaming  “I’m in Babylon, the great Mother of ******!”
Who attempted suicides upon suicides upon suicides, in Oakland, until they were shipped away to private catholic universities in Rhode Island, where the history of Colossus was being taught.
15.
who serenaded love interests with four letter curse words at open bars where Kubla Khan was read and Tartars kings were licked all over like holy communion *****.
Who drove home with the spirits of wine and crashed on telephone poles where their obituaries were written in their prime, leaving their mothers weeping and calling congress to reconsider Prohibition.
16.
Who mixed Redbull with Propofol and drank the juxtaposition galore only to be woken up the next morning dead in their sleep.
Who tattooed rat poison packages with goodwill messages such as “****** divided by Water =6th day of creation” or “Seroquel + Brett Favre = St. Patrick”,
who went speedballing with Basquiat during autoscopy and woke up wondering the cost of Nautilus in Albuquerque.
17.
who took 33 hallelujah 1800 tequila jello shots and daydreamed about laying on Mithras’ grave, yelling, beetlejuice, beetlejuice…beetlejuice.
who found the truths of the Bible invalid by the miscalculation of Pi in 1 Kings 7, verse 3, and mailed death on anthrax letters to Reagan in protest.
18.
who sat empty bellied at breakfast tables wondering the temperature of satellites at Lagrangian points,  only to soon catch fire in their tongues and speak Labyrinth soliloquies that ended in
19.
Zion,
Where Google knows every answer.
In Zion
Where the youth, tomorrow’s future, quote a ***** named Hova better than they can quote Jehovah.
In Zion
Where *******’s art was used as weapon during the Cold war.
20.
In Zion
Where sartorial geniuses where no pants,
In Zion
Where David Kato Kisule is the secret hero of these words, for he was taken at a time
In Zion
Where we were supposed to be our ancestor’s sci-fi.

21.
In Zion,
Where the youth bear the scarlet letter X for they are a problem to tradition and hold no definition for the future, for they have discovered
In Zion
That the origin of this world is in their living eyes, and not in the dictionary of their ancestors who lived
In Zion
when the epitome of the literature of life ended in Revelation of Amen and Shantih shantih shantih;
this is a record of the greatest minds and geniuses there ever was, written
in Zion
where the meaninglessness and nothingness of Dada reigns, and the trinity of life now lives in the Subject, subjective and subjectivity.

Thirteen is a fragile age
For both boys and girls
Not only for girls
But mostly for girls
When you are a female,
By the time you’re thirteen
You already have a basic idea of what you’re supposed to be like:
What you should wear, how you should behave, what you should say
By the time you’re a thirteen-year-old girl in the year 2008
There is an unspoken list of rules,
A non-verbal inventory of criteria that you should have met
By your fourteenth birthday
You must shave your legs,
You mustn’t wear dresses above knee length,
You must lose your virginity
By the time that I was thirteen years old,
All of my closest girl friends had lost their virginities
Albeit, they were fourteen and I was thirteen because I was a year ahead
But that is a different story for a different poem
This poem is about ****
I remember hearing my friends talk about how they had lost their virginities
In their beds, in the shower, in the backseat of his car
But when I was thirteen, I wasn’t worried about ***
I didn’t want to lose my virginity
Not in a bed, or a shower, or the backseat of a car
No, when I was thirteen, I was highly preoccupied with other things
I was worried about love and what love meant
I wanted to feel love in my heart and in my head
Before I ever felt it in my ******
And let it be said, now, half a decade later
That *** and love are not always the same thing
I wish I would have known that then
I wish I would have known that when he put his hand down my pants
While I was only trying to enjoy a movie in the company of my boyfriend
A man who I thought I could trust
Excuse me, a boy who I thought I could trust
I wish I would have known that when he whispered daggers in my ear
Telling me that he loved me enough to “grace” me with his touch
I wish I would have known that when he pushed me into the couch
With the rough insides of his palms
And gained entry to a gate
That I never gave him the key to
And I wish I would have known that when I asked him later,
“What just happened?”
Too stunned and in pain to cry
And he replied,
“It’s what girlfriends and boyfriends do.
It’s what you do when a girlfriend loves her boyfriend.
You do love me, right?”
And I said yes
When I went back to his house a week later,
I told him that I felt ashamed, and guilty, and *****
Because I didn’t want to lose my virginity
And I had told him that again and again and again
And I was enraged
I was angry because I didn’t have a word for what had happened to me
I had been taught that **** only happens in dark alleys
Not in the basement of your boyfriend’s home
I had been taught that **** only happens when you wear short skirts and halter-tops
Not jeans and a sweatshirt
I had been taught that rapists were old men who I didn’t know
Not my sixteen-year-old boyfriend of two years
And he responded to my anger
But instead of pushing me into the couch,
He pushed me into the wall
And then into the floor
And then out of his life
And you would think,
“Good, this is where it ends. It’s all over now.”
But let it be said, now, half a decade later,
That for survivors of ****** assault, it is never over
The story continues with Planned Parenthood staff, two years later
Having to be the ones to break the news to me
That it was not normal relationship behavior
And hearing the nurse, outside the door, tell another nurse,
“We’ve got another one.”
The story continues with my father asking me,
“Are you sure you didn’t just have *** with him? Were you asking for it?”
The story continues with my sixteen-year-old classmates
Calling me a ***** *****
Because a friend of my ****** decided to tell the entire school
About what had happened to me in that basement three years prior
The story continues after I broke up with my ex-fiancé
And he befriended my ******
In an attempt to **** me off for “breaking his heart”
The story never ends for ****** assault survivors
Statistically, a quarter of the women reading this poem
Will be or have been ***** at some point in her lifetime
And for those women, the story will not end
So now the question presents itself:
How can we end the story?
Therefore, as the author of this **** poem,
I take responsibility for this question,
And I answer it this way:
In the same way that I learned
When I was thirteen years old
That love and *** are not always the same thing,
You must teach your boys
That yes and silence are not always the same thing.

So it is eighteen years,
Helena, since we met!
A season so endears,
Nor you nor I forget
The fresh young faces that once clove
In that most fiery dawn of love.

We wandered to and fro,
Who knew not how to woo,
Those eighteen years ago,
Sweetheart, when I and you
Exchanged high vows in heaven's sight
That scarce survived a summer's night.

What scourge smote from the stars
What madness from the moon?
That night we broke the bars
Was quintessential June,
When you and I beneath the trees
Bartered our bold virginities.

Eighteen -years, months, or hours?
Time is a tyrant's toy!
Eternal are the flowers!
We are but girl and boy
Yet -since love leapt as swift to-night
As it had never left the light!

For fiercer from the South
Still flames your cruel hair,
And Trojan Helen's mouth
Still not so ripe and rare
As Helena's -nor love nor youth
So leaps with lust or thrills with truth.

Helena, still we hold
Flesh firmer, still we mix
Black hair with hair as gold.
Life has but served to fix
Our hearts; love lingers on the tongue,
And who loves once is always young.

The stars are still the same;
The changeful moon endures;
Come without fear or shame,
And draw my mouth to yours!
Youth fails, however flesh be fain;
Manhood and womanhood attain.

Life is a string of pearls,
And you the first I strung.
You left -first flower of girls! -
Life lyric on my tongue,
An indefatigable dance,
An inexhaustible romance!

Blush of love's dawn, bright bud
That bloomed for my delight,
First blossom of my blood,
Burn in that blood to-night!
Helena, Helena, fiercely fresh,
Your flesh flies fervent to my flesh.

What sage can dare impugn
Man's immortality?
Our godhead swims, immune
From death and destiny.
Ignored the bubble in the flow
Of love eighteen short years ago!

Time -I embrace all time
As my arm rings your waist.
Space -you surpass, sublime,
As, taking me, we taste
Omnipotence, sense slaying sense,
Soul slaying soul, omniscience.

First Living Organism

Anyway, there is love and death and governance. With the birth of my sons, love was fulfilled. There is no romance left in love for me, women are another form of men. Perhaps their toes are painted rather than blood-encrusted, but blood runs from their bones, their eyes are friendly as camera lenses, muscles hungry. Death continues to be my every third thought, fittingly. Occasionally I feel strong, but when I don’t it’s death waiting. I think I know it’s a waste of time to imagine being dead, as if being dead were a form of living. It’s not, but last night I was reading about the efforts of astrobiologists to identify LUCA meaning Last Universal Common Ancestor and FLO, first living organism, and that gave me a calmer feeling. Bringing me to governance, how we manage together between birth and death. What can I say that hasn’t already been said by Aristotle and Plato, the Republicans and Democrats, Hamilton and Jefferson. To start, your daily discipline is a personal governance. There are many ways to know a person: by their god, by their fears and appetites, by how they spend their money or organize their time. Who is in authority, who is in command here? The one in authority is not necessarily our leader.


Patience

I live in a mountainous community about 140,000 strong. My irascible, aggressive temperament toward my fellow citizens has exiled or sidelined me to a peripheral almost insignificant role although when I arrived I was considered a problem solver, even a savior of the poor and the wealthy classes who feared for the future. Why mention this. He who knows patience knows peace. I have surely lost face often in my life. As a kid, lost most fights, as a man, chosen last to lead the squad or platoon. Only when every known leader had died did those in authority decide to use me. Someone must begin to write the federalist papers for the world. And, of course, it’s being done and heard. Books in print, blogs, debates. My vision is a world where you can fly from Madagascar to Mississippi and be greeted by a sign that says Welcome to our land. Go about your business, setting off no bombs, and fly home. Perhaps take a lover for one afternoon.


The Machine and the Season

The machine and the season are so far incompatible. The machine claims electrical problem. The house leaks from rain. The men who left the machine have started their own business. A new endeavor by which they will keep warm and purposeful. The junior partner, heavier, says the Grand Canyon’s not so grand. Jaded individual or one to set himself against the depths, abyss? Man’s systems. Man made the machine (and the town) from rocks mined next door. Some few men understand these invisible electrons moving the machine to perform. I still cannot imagine, i.e. my mind cannot move fast enough to know how so many particles can be sorted and split so quick to make words on a screen. My simplicity is terminal.


Saving Grace

Today it is fall, first day for long-sleeved shirts. The boys at school. I admonish Zach not to whine and complain about the work. Lately reading or practicing piano, prone to fits of frustration. To the point of claiming belly pain. Last night I dreamed I had pushed him to suicide. It is so important for a man to do no harm. This is what makes us crazy against Wolfowitz, willingness to **** to do good. Someone very sure of himself and shining, much wiser and more compassionate than me, has calculated for the world that more lives now for fewer later shall be sacrificed. The people he serves are cantankerous, disorderly, selfish and complaining. The same diverse, spoiled, unpatriotic revolutionaries as at the nation’s beginning. Their refusal to be more than the sum of themselves is their saving grace.


Politics

Politics can be an escape from the personal, the debates are of little interest to a man in hospice. Will the machines do their work? How will we make decisions together? Roger Johnson’s gravel pit must be killing his neighbors with the noise of boulders being pulverized to rock but Roger is certain his business is necessary for the public good. He knows he has a right to use his property as he sees fit. There is a noise ordinance, a state employee will travel out to measure the decibel level in your front yard as compared to the ambient noise level. There is a measurable amplitude beyond which the legislature has determined no citizen may be exposed or corporation go. It can be measured.


Measure for Measure

Measure for measure, all’s well that ends well during a midsummer night’s dream for the merry wives of Windsor. A million or more poets but only one Top Bard. How did he know so much about kings and fools and murderers? An Elizabethan and no Freedom of Information Act. Today it is fall. The legislature and president are at work and so are our machines. One by one and then in armies the leaves come down. It is not that someone must decide, we must decide how we will make decisions and where authority resides. What am I learning, sitting, watching the season turning? Content this morning to admire my sons’ photos, reread my own poems searching for the prize answer, and answer the phone. I seem to be alienating potential business partners with a take it or leave it comme-ci comme-ca attitude. All you can do, the best that can be done is to go to your daily discipline. Driving home or waking up at night I think I’m dying. Do the much-admired writers of our time die more content than that?


War All the Time

War all the time. I’ve been fond of saying what distinguishes America is its daily low intensity warfare. Endless but not fatal conflict. Chambers of commerce, municipal government, big corporations wrestle nearly naked and will lie as needed for what? I tire like an 80 year old man of the storm and worry. I remember my early years when I had no known skill to offer and elections occurred without my vote being solicited. I noticed no harm or good I did was noticed. Autumn was all mine, mine alone, I was alone in the world with autumn. My mind could not stand it. I cried out for comfort, someone to obey. I needed to grow up and know money.


The History That Surrounds Us

I’m not going anywhere, I chose to stay and hold my clod of soil in the landscape of community oh blah dah. I want like Shakespeare and other writers to discern the motivations of women, men, see through their lies to a humorous truth careless about success and able to explain why what happens today or on September 11th obtains. I was impressed by the critic who found that Shakespeare in Hamlet had tried to write about the thoughts of a man suspended between having decided to act and the act itself. Why bother he soliloquated why commit or submit to the great moment when mere men of bones and dust, disgusted with themselves and others are the actors of the moment, beheaders, rhymers, debtors. And, of course, the answer comes to one in the night like Chuang-tzu, or Lao, why not? The great moment is no greater than the small and the small no smaller than the great. You perform the history that surrounds you and go to your daily practice.


A Systems Guy

I’m something of a systems guy. I want the truth and death and worth to be independent of individual motives, paranoias, prejudice, peccadilloes, virginities, crucifixes, paradoxes, protons, protozoa or curses. I want pure human machinery, stainless steel, clear thinking, even handed, not a doubt that every doubt is wanted, needed, good to the last drop toward the ultimate ignition into outer space, colonization of diverse planets and immortality of the genome. Here’s what’s odd. While enduring ever more frequent panic attacks (and nudging toward survival and self-sufficiency my offspring) pounding and pinching my skin to stay sensate, maintain consciousness, I parabolate (always orbiting myself, eye on the tip of my *****) to another extreme, i.e. my belief mankind can escape the earth unlike Hamlet’s dad’s ghost. A system is a set of inputs–values, policies, objectives, procedures, data–organized and repeated to generate significant quantities of desired outcomes without redesigning the system for each individual outcome. I told John Russell from Amnesty International at Jack Shwartz’s daughter’s coming of age party about my plan to reorganize the U.N. so only the democracies can vote and no nation has a veto. He said the world’s not ready, with absolute certainty, knowledge and authority. I looked out the hotel window, this was shortly after 9/11, at dozens of American flags and a lone security guard. I’m always right I said to myself.

Pale summer bodies
Hairless, like fish
***** for one another, lost in the blind sea.
They shed their virginities like dead skin,
They call out to me,
Winter is over!
Take off your wool coat.
But my mother told me not to and I’m afraid.
So I watch them come to shore
With childhood running down their legs,
And into the ground like melt-water

Now morning comes with her brilliant glow
Today, we shall go back to the time I was orphaned
I’m finally prepared to come to terms with my origins

One afternoon he found himself in an abandoned car
With an unfamiliar beast snoring in the backseat
Blood dripped from its yellow hide
Every home repeats a cycle
Endless circle
The is cage locked until show time
Now rest, rest
Carpet stains, cracks in the windows
Sweep the dust under the carpets
Many affairs stick on these sheets
Virginities lost in the comforter

Starving untamed animals prowling the sidewalks, breathing heavy
A monster chained to the lies of the town
The tragic fate of his father
Decaying on the winter’s avenue
He ran out of the city

       -Tommy Johnson

He headed north across state lines
Leaving destruction and annihilation behind
No second thoughts in his mind

Hurry out the door run
See
Temptation’s on her way
I cannot survive this, every time she moves in closer
I allow my wall to come down
Feel the cold fear on the back of my neck
The howl of the coyote in the distance

The coyote was jet black
Frizzed and hungry
And I was too frightened to even look
The blankets were steaming locks
And my love was underneath me
So beautiful my love
Her eclipsing black eyes
Her soft, sweet tasting lips

We are all here
The values and morals we all held dear are now gone

What’s your pleasure, what’s your pain?
Are you clever, are you sane
You don’t know and now it seems
That your soul cannot be tamed
The taste of fame, this is new
Now you thrive, now you lose
Now you fear the rule of two
Just play your role and make it through

Stare deep in the universal mind
The answers to ancient riddles you shall find
The sun burns endlessly on the city
Above and beyond its limits
And the green pastures beside the calmly flowing rivers
Underneath the silent other worldly shadows of
Weary mountain men, on the cliff just over there
Wild dogs congregating
Hieroglyphics, fallout shelters, new advancements in self awareness
Hold on
The dead still linger here
Don’t pause or make one false move
My suitcase and briefcase are on the floor
We’re heading for the door
And we’re leaving now
And I guess you’re coming with me

She can’t lift the curse
I am not the one
There are a certain few who can
Trust
No one


Fighting for their lives
Crowd is screaming "die"
Savages and thieves
Bringing victims to their knees
The innocent come but never leave
Some one

Come with me
Just trust me
Some one

We hid from the swarm of nonsense and swill
The rich hide in their mansions in fear
The dead are rotting and no one cares
And we’re just lucky to be left alive

Come to me
Trust in me
Some one

His time was cut short because he crossed the line
We should have seen it, he said he was fine
The three spoke steering wheel he was behind
Enraged and drunk out of his mind

Come with me
Just with me
Some one

There are people who live their lives without faith
Now a priest is on trial and charged with ****
By some one who thought he was somebody they had known
Then and there the answer was shown

Talk with me
Look at me
Some one

Run
Drown
Die
I will make you mine
Mine

It was the blackened coyote
It's chaotic tranquility

We came home from
Laconia and Meredith
El Passo disillusioned
We hurried home
Past the lakes and the roads
We returned home with
Our tales so tall
For ten years I tried
To live on the island of Elba
The mind games I played there
Now I have returned
To the place of freedom, bravery and wisdom
Mother, father of the west
Infant moonlight
Which of you shall partake in this commemoration?

why are virginities this huge thing?
like, have my ***** and along with it you can take all of my innocence and every ounce of purity???
and after that every other man holds no significance?
but why is my virginity such a big thing?

If the eyes are the gateway
to the soul, then I have
seen hell fire, and the
lights of heaven.

He claims me to be an
angel but I don't think he
sees the murky water full
of my pollution in my entire
being.
Eyes looking like a sea during
a storm.
So how can he claim me to
be so calm.
I am a life raft being
crushed under my own chaotic
waves of temper.

My body feels as
if it lives on a slab. How
can you claim that I am
so alive.

I will not deny that I am
strong. To a degree.
I will not claim to be a
lamb asking for more people
to try and butcher me.
Only rabid beasts
feed because there is meat.

They say my sweet blood
attracts mosquitos.
My rotten flesh attracts
maggots.
My short dress attracts the
monster.
Feeding on flesh they
strip away from my bones
with their teeth.

The cobra of my nightmares
loved to toy with me. I was
not a meal. I was play time.
He loved to watch me squirm.

He locked me away in a box
of secrets, of bruises, and
stolen virginities.
You can't lie down with the
enemy without getting *****.
I am still drawn to the
smell of his poison. I once
mistook it for home.
I got choked up on his
fumes of arrogance.
The *******
intended to **** me.
But he only freed
who I was meant
to be, a bit too soon.

I crumbled. I
wasn't in ruins for
long though. Like a much
needed bridge, I was
rebuilt quickly. Only to
extend my usage time.
Though, unlike the engineers
I learned.
  I used stronger materials.
  Dark methods no one would
  attempt to undo to get a
  snip of my wool.
  I became a goat instead.
A symbol of the unholy.
I thought it was
fitting, seeing how you
injected me with that
exact same thing.

You didn't feed it to
me, make me drink it,
or force it upon me.
you only planted it.
I watered it.
I watered
the being I was
to the point of
drowning.

You injected it like
a serum to fix my
paralyzed state.
Like a ******
addict absorbs their
dope in hopes they
actually see god this
time.

Unlike his brother,
I don't need opiates
to feel at home.
In jesus's arms.
All I have to do is
look in his eyes.

They're still bright.
Still...
I had a friend, when my
eyes were lightning.
He told me to burn
bright.
But you see,
I'm not very good at
listening.

I've used up that flame
to build my body, ground-up
with day dreams I was a phoenix.
I am vibrations
lost on the
decibel scale.
Screams stuck in
ears of the dead.
The tortured only
enduring what they
fought for.
We all knew what was
at risk
choosing this life.
I'm always gambling
my freedom.
Funny how we throw away
things we only lusted
after.
Especially when they get
boring, decayed in place.
Now what's really
tedious is when lost
dreams rot in your
brain like inoperable
cavities.

It's not fair.

It's not fair that you can take advantage of my vulnerability for so long and expect to fix it all with an "I'm sorry."
As if "sorry" was the immediate cure for all mistakes mankind has ever made.

It's not fair that you get to move on with your life while I sit here wallowing in my sadness for two more years.
You expect me to be "friends" as if friendship could silently erase all of the touching, sweating, and tears you so long ago put me through.

It's not fair that you use the excuse "I was *****" to make up for the anger I now express; for the memories you've left me with of those nights still reside in the darkest parts of my brain.

It's not fair that I get to watch you feel up your new girlfriend in her car parked in front of my house. Because a new girlfriend and two lost virginities is the best way to get over a potential "friend."
Because you've made it clear that's all we ever were.

It't not fair that you ask me to delete the messages we exchanged discussing our past so she doesn't ever find out that you fell in love with a sad girl once.
Sadness is wrong but **** is wrong too, but not for us because we were just "friends."

It's not fair that you're in bed sleeping soundly while I sit here,
pulling smoke from a cigarette that burns the back of my throat, praying to a god I don't believe in,
trying to rid my mind of the one person who swore he wouldn't leave.
My one "friend" who never truly existed to anyone except myself.

I hope one day you can see, too, that this "friendship" was never truly there.

What we do in June
as the days stretch into sunsets,
gold stains our ***** skin,

What we do in June
as nights fill the shells that winter shaped,
we become reborn in the lake down the hill,
until we are ready to confess the secrets we will hide all summer,

What we do in June,
after laughter and drinks,
probably a few too many,
is create stories that some day we will lose,

and have to try to recreate in a series of words that
don't come close to the fun we had,
every night,
laughing until we ached,
thanking God for every day we have here,
where dirt gets under our nails and
our hair never had the time to dry in between
the pools we hopped,

What we do in June
is thaw
from a cold winter,
and warm our frozen bones,
and begin once again,
with a life full of things worth writing about,

What we do in June,
love, ***, trees, drugs,
our memories will fade,
but softly like the sunset into that one lake
where we all lost our virginities.

What we do in June is ours to keep,
it's ours to make

Buried deep within teenage romance
And wit and strife and philosophical musings and --

He'd nudged my foot,
His face is a gorgeous grin over these pages.
I glance back to them.

The love interest rose up now
Handsome and beautiful
Charming, clever, humorous, and deep
(But did he have to be oh so middle class American??
And did she? Or I, first person as it is?) --

He's started to stroke my toes now,
Gently, just how I like it.
I'm not kidding when I say
"If you touch my feet I'll fall in love with you"
It's almost instantaneous.

A heroic act of selfless love:
Amsterdam snows confetti
Virginities are lost or traded or gifted
Heroes are demoted --

He kisses my head now,
My cheek, my temple
Interrupts with a story,
Hilarious I am sure
"What was that? Sorry, I'm distracted"
I giggle
Engrossed in the 'other land'

Love blooms on the wings of angels
(And all those other cliches)
He is perfect, yet flawed, as they all are.
As we all are.
They click and rebound and discuss
They laugh, they cry:
They try to fill a part of themselves with
The Other --

I glance up, spying on my own lover
His soft glance on the laptop
Beautiful lips
Gorgeous style
Our own joking, rebounding, enthused exchanges.
Our own supporting, caring, deep meaningfuls.
And I'm not jealous. Not of them. Or anyone. Not one bit.

Yet tragedy is ever present!
And our handsome and perfect lover
Is tossed into Oblivion:
Or to a Something's Somewhere --

"He's dying!" I cry to beautiful brown eyes
Framed with long wavy black.
The darkness holds amusement and affection.

Their perfect and tragic love is ever more so
For its fleeting 'forever'
Its lessened 'infinity':
Beautiful and fragile --

His arms are around me tight
Why am I affected so?
Too easily invested?
But it's not that.
The emotions are too close.
It had been described so well.
Loss.
So accurate.
And these feelings not completely healed
- But healing. Slowly.
Time heals all wounds,
But maybe some are forgotten, sealed away
This one. This one slowly eases.
Some infinities are larger than others.*
And his love surrounds me
As emotions leak from some deep place
Let out to the Universe
Hopefully to never return.

one
You were my very first kiss,
But it became obvious that you loved roly polies more than me
It was never meant to work between us.

two*
Behind a tree at recess,
I showed you mine and you showed me yours
We were too young to feel ashamed of our bodies
We were pirates exploring a brand new sea
At 6 years old, every touch was a good touch

three
You told me I was funnier than all the boys in the class
You told me you hated going to mass on Monday mornings, too.
You pushed me on the swings and didn’t ask me to push you back.
I don’t even remember your name.

four
Thank you for trading me your favorite charzard pokemon card
Thank you for being my friend
Thank you for telling me you would miss me when I moved away
I was lonely before I met you
And after I unmet you

five
When it turned out that you were gay
I thought to myself ‘this’ll be a funny story
to tell my grandkids one day’

six
When YOU turned out to be gay
I decided maybe it would be better not to tell the grandkids

seven
Once we held hands in a middle school play
9 years later I watched you give your second interview on CNN
So, I’m not saying that I am responsible for your amazing success,
But I’m certainly not saying that either.

eight
After our first date,
I called and told you
That I missed you already.
I still do.

nine
Maybe one day I’ll forget the exact shade of your eyes
And the number of freckles sprinkled across your nose

I think of you more often than I don’t.

ten
Once we talked on the phone for 7 hours,
And when I told you I needed to go to sleep
You asked me to keep the phone on and lay it beside my pillow
You told me that you wanted my voice to be
The first thing you heard in the morning.
You said that you missed me terribly when I was gone.
But you were a really terrible kisser.

eleven
When I think of you I think of broken glass.

twelve
You asked me to call you ‘Peachtree Jackson’
The first time I met you.
And that’s when I knew I’d love you forever.

thirteen
I knew it was going to hurt when it started.
I was too young, and you were too old.
You were the first person to tell me that I had a beautiful mind
You kissed me greedily like a diver coming up for air
You are the reason I love poetry.
You are the reason I hated high school.
Your son is the spitting image of you,
And I hope that your wife tells you she loves you every single day.

fourteen
We melted into each other like honey into warm tea
Like new snowflakes into an open palm
We swapped virginities like baseball cards
You pressed your hands into my body like wet cement
Now when I undress for another man
I worry he can still see your finger prints
I thought of you like a small child
Who needed a hand to hold when he crossed the street
You treated me like your favorite shirt
Hung me carefully in the back of your closet
Kept me in your darkest room
Washed me out too many times and refused to throw me away
When you noticed the seams start to rip
You sewed your name into all my underwear
So everyone would know who they belonged to

fifteen
I know that you love me
But in a practical way.
I really, really did want it to be you.

sixteen
Your laugh still makes me feel like candlelight
Your sleepy morning smile is a lit up Christmas tree
Your kiss is a comfy sweater fresh from the drier
You were the first person I was afraid to sleep next to
Not because I thought you would leave in the night,
But because I was afraid to wake up ungracefully beside you
I wish you had told me the last time I laid myself next to you
Would be the last
I would have hummed the sound of your breathing
Committed each rise and fall of your chest to memory
I would have whispered my love into your ear
Instead of into your pillow
You are still my favorite part of the last 4 years
And I am the thrift shop you visit
To remind yourself what becomes of the people you love
When you’re gone

seventeen
This is for the love I have not yet met
I don’t know when we’ll meet or where we’ll meet.
It might be tomorrow or it might be 10 years from now.
Right at this moment you might be standing 3,000 miles
away from me
Or you might be shopping for groceries at the supermarket
down the street
Wherever you are, I hope that you are thinking of me, too.
But take your time, love.
You don’t need to feel rushed.
Whenever you’re ready to find me
I’ll be here.
Ready to add your name to my list.

We've been in several sleeping places.
Hotel rooms, apartelles, condotels,
cheap, dilapidated motels.
Would often wonder
who were the last occupants before we came.
Were they a couple?
A paid ******* and her customer?
(or maybe it's the other pronoun)
Two friends, lonely
and sexually craving for a warm body,
any familiar body?
(at the risk of being strangers the morning after)

Some rooms we've been in reeked
of loneliness and secrecy.
Some had crisp, clean sheets,
all traces of body fluids
laundered and bleached.
Ready to absorb our own.

I look at the walls.
Plastered white.
Crumbling green.
Peeling beige.

How many moans of pleasure
(faked or authentic) tried to seep into them
against the solid cement  towards another room?
Were they all moans, those sounds?
What if some were howling,
of force, of "first-time" pains,
of lost virginities?

The creaking of bed posts is the musical score of a three-hour narrative.

could be longer, could be shorter. Only
they can tell. There could be
cuddling (if they are lucky)
or turned backs (if they are ******).
Worse,
one could be sobbing.
Soundless, inconspicuous sobs
even the body beside her
cannot hear.

i've been in my bed, which will always be the bed,
                     as in, the bed,
      where we spent the last of our virginities
in the push of hips and hands and two-note gasps,
and i've been thinking.

i've been thinking of
     all the firsts i gave you and
         all the things you meant to me
and how
  you will always be the boy who
     sat on a table and sang me my favorite song in front of everyone and
          didn't give a **** that his guitar was out of tune.
now that
is a ******* gesture.

i've been thinking that i need to learn to look you in the eye again.

i've been thinking of how
   all i've done for the past three weeks is walk away from you.
       and how just because you walked away from me first
                                        in the biggest way possible,
                                                     that isn't fair.
you deserve more than that
    for how hard you've tried.
i've been thinking that i haven't let myself see that very well.

i've been thinking of how
  right now
    i'm beginning to feel like i could talk to you, and make myself stay,
          and look you in the eye, and not hurt,
or like i could never talk to you again, and still be okay.
i've been thinking that that's a start
                 to something friendship-shaped and okay.

i've been thinking that maybe i'll take a break from you for awhile,
      maybe patch up the sore places in my heart, talk to some new people.
   learn some things, you know?

i've been thinking that maybe i'll talk to you tonight,
      and for the first time i won't be bitter. there will not be underlying pain in my words.
there will be no accusations. no corners to back you into. no hidden hatred. no left-over love.
     there will be just you. and just me. and we'll be fine, one of these days. i'll be fine.

i've been thinking that that can start
    as soon as i let it.

Virginities, well
we could have waited longer
guess we were just bored

2. Loving you softly,
Two years seems awful short now
Gave it all away

3. Wine coolers and shots
drunk kisses and some *******
needy rebounding

4. Told each other secrets,
friendship turned to more, quickly,
then back to sadness

You said I'm a stranger.
That's selective.
We swapped virginities.
I painted your home,
And sat, and sipped
With your RFC Nandad;
Carried he and his Lady to the mausoleum;
Listened to her stories about Eleanor and Henry.
Bubba (a name you gave your Grandmother)
Sold me her car for a dollar.
I couselled your mother back into your heart;
At peril, tried to sneak your nephew back to your sister.
Your great-uncle gave us his Florida condo for a week,
I drank tea from a saucer at your Thanksgiving dinner.
I took the gun out of your father's mouth.
A stranger!
Tell the girls that.
Tell the grandkids Granda is a stranger.
Truth is strange.
Fiction estranges.

you are 12 when your sister first explains what happens between older boys and girls
she tells you not to think about it too much yet
you are years from understanding

you are 13 and you are having your first boyfriend over
your mother tells you not to kiss him yet because you are too young
because boys like girls that respect themselves
you sit in the living room next to him but not too close
your thighs are three inches of innocence away from one another
you keep that distance

you are 14 and you have your first high school boyfriend
your mom and dad sit you down for the talk
they remind you to respect yourself
they tell you how important it is to save yourself for someone that really matters
you remember boys like girls that respect themselves

you are 15 and virginities are dropping like flies all around you
boys don't like girls that sleep around
he tells you he loves you and you believe him
so you sleep with one boy

you are 16 and you fall in love hard
your stomach turns at the thought of confessing you did not save yourself for him
its okay
hes on number 10

you are 17 and past buzzed
its the first party of the summer
the boy you have had your eyes on since the beginning of the night
charms you underneath his arm
he leads you to his truck as you giggle
the alcohol and the excitement are tempting
you pull your hand away and head back to the party
save yourself for someone who matters

you are 18 and this is your second boyfriend in two months
your mother warns you to be careful
she says one day your husband will ask you your number
and you don't want to be embarrassed by that
you keep your number low and your head high

you are 19 and hookups out number first dates
you are 19 when you wonder
why you ever respected yourself
when no one else did the same
you are 19 when sleeping around seems less embarrassing
than respecting yourself for a boy who never did the same