This is not an accident. I used to call him
a lazy criminal. Scooping hearts and spilling blood,
leaving footprints, fingerprints. Stains.
Eyes folding over -- the blindman or the beggar?
Lips that blossomed into blueprints.
Hands that rhymed with dreams, instead.


The weeknights, dark and warm
in a season of curled paper.
No speaking -- guilt only follows
past the second trip through the door.  
And then the mornings.
More sun in him than the greenhouse
where we watched dragonfly wings.
A pattern about him
like dragonfly wings.


In those days we knew
what it meant to point
without wounding.
We knew how to need someone
without wanting,
without loving.

I'll sit on trains,
home is behind me;
home is in front.
The place I sleep on weeknights
with working mornings looming
is the place I only survive.
But at weekends
I live for you,
I breathe with you,
and when I sleep
I dream with you
because home is with you
in those moments at least.
My own bed,
twice as big as yours,
the thought a luxury
on a 12am R train.
or cold N to R transfer platform,
but too much room is bad for the soul.
I'd rather have
the Monday morning bruises
and bed spring sized aches.

for Barton Smock

     I
to see the flooding lake I crawl
through the thicket

I imagined
being the devil’s
garden
as a child

a lake
I first called
       *blue prison
but now
             love

after swimming
lessons grandmother
funded

     II
squatting arsonists occupy
the town’s church

during weeknights
I am one of four who knows

When it burns
I'll steal the stoup

     III
I dream rarely and only in naps

waking,

I try restraining
fantasies of
faceless women

     IV
rainstorms brake
the lake’s edges,
muddy the bankside flowers,
leave the canal sullied
forever

looking on, I
recall
*generosity

Cannibus
Ice cream
Whiskey
Chips

Yet you're the one that seeps into me

Karma was a dancer
at the Déjà Vu,
trading fantasies a few days a week
for *****, crumpled bills and
then living the dream on her days off.
That was before I knew her.
Before she faded just a little.

Which is not to say
that she was no longer beautiful
with her mermaid hair,
the color somewhere between
phosphorescent amber and
burning chestnut brown,
down to her *** and falling all around
her painfully sensuous curves.

The faint pucker lines 'round her mouth,
that liver spot,
a slight, barely discernable paunch,
I could see such things, too but
they only endeared me to
the façade of some silly notion
a kin to forever.

We would stay up late,
even on the weeknights,  
wine silly and
**** chatty.
She would dance
and I would tell her
****** poems in exchange.
It seemed like a good trade
to me but the truth is,
she was being shorted in the deal.

We said,
I love you
but I’m not sure we knew
that we didn’t really have that
to offer one another.
Both of us had sold more
than we had ever bargained for
long before we met.

When money ran thin and
times grew hard
she split.

Hope still stops by on occasion.
(She was a dancer, too).
But it seems a bit easier to distinguish
differences between the faux
and the genuine these days.
She doesn’t stay long.

I like to blame it all on Karma
despite knowing that I was just never
quite frugal or savvy enough to afford more than a few perfume-drenched moments at the foot of the stage.

There is no doubt about it:
You have always loved me.
A leonine love.
A love that swells in the womb and the heart
From the very first twinkle in the eye.

Hit play.

Your eyes are swampish,
Mistrustful and marinated in cheap wine,
Shot through with blood, preserved in your own saltwater.
Those alligator eyes
That watch your girls,
Watch your girls board a train and draw away
Into the rest of their lives.
Leaving you stewing in twelve years’ worth of regret.

Years ago,
I used to pinch your forearms -
Watch the skin crepe up
Between my four year old fingers.
Thin blood. Tired skin.
Silently you eat your breakfast of pills and toast at the kitchen counter.
Throw in a horrid hacking cough to remind us you’re still here.
You always write everything down.
As if to tattoo it into your memory.

If you’ve locked the door behind you, it’ll be alright.
If you’ve got half a bottle left.
If you’ve left no trace on the bathroom carpet.
If you’ve woken up in the morning.
You can feel my eyes watching you.

You spend your days watching
Daytime TV, eating salad cream sandwiches and
Hit the bottle at a safe distance from noon.
Safe enough.
Your lipsticks have gone stale,
Now it’s porous skin, sweat stains, grey hair.
I find you poring over bank statements and local newspapers.
Scouring for a job, you say,
And clippings of your daughters
At school functions, clasping exam results.
You keep them in a cereal box that we covered in paint
Age five. We’re in double figures now.
I get drunk on weeknights.

Rewind.

Hold me.
Ball of flesh and screams
And you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.

come in multitudes
come in boots, pulled up, strapped
come with hairnets, bowlers, beers
come with husbands and mothers

the starlets come, the celebrities
the politicians and adversaries
bring your conflicts
bring your problems
stoners, bring your insights
bring philosophies and religions
bring visions, or lack thereof
bring weekdays and weeknights
bring the sofa
bring reality shows or documentaries
bring the series
and bring the cat

but come
with quirks and queers,
with stubbornness with anger
with broken glasses and fists
with fits of rage, with opinions
statements, facts, figures, conspiracies
bring every one of these, but come

with your broken hearts and talents
or genius, or with yesterday’s news
with the crosswords and comics
or the convicts or the cartoons  

- hell, we’ve got more than enough room

Let's have an affair over thousands of miles.
I know you through the words you've written down,
Which tell me you are equal parts baffled and fascinated
By the billions of minds that make up this crazy, crazy world we live in.
I'm asking you to take off your work uniform slowly and deliberately
So I can see where you've tattooed all of those nights smoking *** and laughing on your chest.
And I promise not to be intimidated by the black spot next to your heart
Inked in fully with the names of every girl you've brought home
And used as a muse those weeknights you just wanted to love something.
I don't fear your short, crisp lines filled with inside jokes you're dying to share
With anyone who isn't you.
I don't fear a little bit of darkness or loneliness.
I only fear that I'll never be able to feel your breath on my neck as we sway back and forth
Cloaked in smoke laying on a bed of aluminum and grease-stained shirts.
Or I'll never be able to run my hand along your chest as your lungs fill up with the sweet smell of rain.
I don't know you, but I like to imagine that you're a cliche ocean of depth and passion
That wants to do right by anyone who will do right by him.
So let's do this, let's have a cross country love affair of the senses
And feel each other like we're just learning what it means to touch.

i am guilty of looking at your lips in the middle of class.
wondering who else has looked at them.
wondering if they've wanted to kiss them.
if they've wanted to be yours.
i wanna be yours.
i am addicted to 8:35 on weeknights sneaking away during act 2.
i am addicted to choco-coffee from the best **** barista in town.
i am addicted to phone tag and craisins.
i am addicted to your lips.

Define a full life.
I sleep four-five hours on
Weeknights.
In winter I work in darkness that
Only breaks during mid-day;

With snow blowing sideways,
Finding its stubborn way between
Garments to touch skin
With a thousand needles.
I have one deep scar for every

Week of work.
I've been more cold than warm,
More exhausted than rested,
I've been to death and back; have
Photos of my own heart from
Nearly unsuccessful surgery.

But staying dead was not for me.
With friends and interests like mine,
Heaven held no grounds to hurry.
There is too much music.
Too much wisdom in old eyes, too
Much beauty in brand new ones.  

I wake up in a warm bed
Beside a warm woman,
Eat warm food daily. Both my
Parents still live. My brother is
My best friend.
I meet challenge upon challenge
Upon challenge.
Some I win.

But more important than anything:
I laugh. I laugh and laugh
Until my stomach can't move,
And I smile to the skies
With my face still wet from tears
I wouldn't bother to hide
From anyone, saying
Well played, up there.
Love every scene; every joke; every
Set. The soundtrack is impeccable.  
Characters loveable.
Give my best to the scriptwriters.
They crack me up.

Can't wait to see how it ends.
Promise me a
Sequel.

I'd do it all again.
Define a full
Life.

Then live
It.

she told me that I need
to get some sleep,
she has a child
and works ‘till 12am
most weeknights,
then spends time
with me, until
the bags beneath
her eyes become
enough to
outweigh the need
to be WITH me,
she lays tired
but sleeps awake
until she heres “mommy”
then naps
until 1pm,
and I just get up
hungover,
it may be the
need for common-law
thats making me doubt.

she told me that I need
to get some sleep,
she has a child
and works ‘till 12am
most weeknights,
then spends time
with me, until
the bags beneath
her eyes become
enough to
outweigh the need
to be WITH me,
she lays tired
but sleeps awake
until she heres “mommy”
then naps
until 1pm,
and I just get up
hungover,
it may be the
need for common-law
thats making me doubt.

Who wouldn't want a Lexus?
Not the one with four wheels, silly
The brazen, sweet-talking girl from Philly
You could own a hundred thousand or a Milly
It wouldn't make a difference
We all should get a glimmer of romantic inference
Once a in a day
It keeps some of the stress away
Little do you know
That the influence you bestow
Can really implement change in a heart
Watch as these oxidizing effects tear itself apart
I'm waiting for your misery to depart
Like a New York City train
She spends her weeknights crying over something so trivial
Pour her self-doubts down the drain
Where it belongs
In the sewer
Because the only man that truly deserves her
Would still be with her when her last option is staying in the sewer
Somebody get with Lexus
And make her feel the elation we've always wanted her to feel
Genuine.

When I was 6 my dad and I would go into my garage with some lawn chairs and we would sit under protection as chaos hailed two inches away from our toes. He'd tell me stories of things that happened when he was a kid. He'd tell me why it rained and why lighting struck. He'd tell me how to find out how far away the storm was. He'd tell me how happy he was just sitting there with me. I remember feeling loved and warm inside. I remember being so close to him. Sometimes we'd just sit there and watch and not say anything, the silence filled by the calm and constant melody of rain coming down against the roof. We never came inside until it was late in the evening. I'd go to bed filled with happiness, tranquility, and fulfillment. Why doesn't he want to do it anymore? Nowadays all he cares about is my grades. I try to show him that I can finally do an Ollie. And he doesn't look while he mutters, "that's cool" over his shoulder. He's busy all the time. I barely see him on weeknights. And when I do see him we fight. My dad was literally my superman. He gave me the ability to fly higher than I ever could imagine. And now he is the person I want to distance myself from. I'm scared of what we'd talk about in the garage nowadays. And I know that it's my fault, I know that I'm not something to be proud of in his eyes. But I would give up everything I own to go back to that summer night when I was 6. I would give up everything right this instance to hear his voice telling me why lighting strikes. I would give my clothes, my guitar, my skateboard, everything that I own, just to hear him tell me how far away the storm is. If I could go back, if only for a minute, I would tell him how much I love him. I would tell him how id change into something he isn't proud of anymore. I'd warn him that I'd grow away from him. But he'd be to busy to listen. He'd be to busy loving the little boy sitting on a lawn chair in a garage watching the rain. I know that i can't go back. I know that I'm stuck in this terrible place. I know that no matter how hard I try I won't be able to sit in the garage with him the way I used to. I know that we've grown apart. I know that no matter how many times my brain tries to remember how easily I could convince him to sit with me, I'll never be able to remember. I know that he will never be the same. I used to be the center of his universe, and I his. We'd go on week-long camping trips in the summer, and the experiences we shared in the woods can never be replicated. He used to come home from work and I'd run to him, my arms spread wide, and he'd lift me up and playfully tap my head on the ceiling. But I know now that I'm stuck here. In this damp, depressing, gloomy, and horrible place called reality. I guess we've both matured. I've matured so much that he doesn't feel the desire to lift me up towards the sky when I run to him. He doesn't feel the need to tell me he loves me as much as he did. We've both matured, and we've broken apart the relationship we once had. And I can feel it suffocating me every **** day. I can feel the memories fading away and being replaced. My brain tried to extend a friendly hand to those memories but it can never reach them. I will never feel that same way. Just like a garage, our relationship is empty. Just like a lawn chair our memories and our love is folding to a close. And just like the rain, this pain won't stop hailing down. And all I have left is one word. One question that will never receive it's answer.

Why?

The Boys in Vegas
Crowd into rooms
Bars on Fremont
DMs on weeknights
Watching, waiting

The Boys in Vegas
With their eyes to the ground
And their smiles to your face
Frightened, small
"I'm the man, I'm the man..."

The Boys in Vegas
Tell you that you're hot
Kiss you, tease you
But never call or text
Huh, guess he's on to the next