When I walked in to biology class a couple days back,
I found a gum wrapper
sitting on my desk.
It was torn in half, with the remaining piece folded
right side over left.
It became apparent that someone had left it there,
deeming it unimportant.
As I sat there in biology class, bored as hell,
I began to twirl that little piece of paper
between my fingers.
All of the Wrigley's, printed across the outside,
became acquainted with the space between
my thumb and forefinger.
But when the wrapper fell from my grasp
and on to the floor, I realized
how easy it was
to let it.
Hours could pass, even days,
and no one would bother to look
at the crumpled piece of paper
sitting on the floor.
When I extended my foot to guide it
back within my reach, it came to me
how appealing the green box of recycling
looked too.
Here was a gum wrapper, an inanimate object
of no apparent value, forgotten by a student.
But it was not the breaking of the no gum rule
where things went wrong.
The real prize, most would argue,
was within the wrapper.
The rest should be trash.
But, despite the laws of recycling,
the wrapper was left here,
sitting on my desk,
in biology class.
I decided to pick it up.

The rain that's been falling for the past 17 hours
would look good dripping from your shoulders.
It would pool at the edges of your hands,
right past the calluses you have from
seducing the frets, that could just as easily
****** me.
It wouldn't take much, just a condensed
exchange of skin cells and oxygen,
opposed to the usual
phone number.
The numerical value would be much less
than the value of sharing the borrowed space
of the room
anyways.
Maybe one day we'll open up like
the clouds and create something that
drips from the edges of our minds
instead of our hands
and ****** the storm raging within us
along with the frets.

I went driving yesterday
In the little blue pickup
That my folks used to own
I almost went by their old place
But realized
That they weren’t home
And hadn’t been
For quite a while

I wonder if someone
Will think of me one day
And drive by my little old place
In their little old pickup

When you asked if I'd like to get coffee, I knew if I went
that it would be the last time that I would see you
for the first time. I went anyways.

After I saw you there, sitting with your friends,
I realized all my previous conjectures were fashionably wrong.
Things started to become clear when your knee
settled against mine, and our eyes locked fatally
for the first time.

It was then I began to fathom that I wanted
to touch you how you turn the pages of a book
when you're lost between the words.

It occurred to me that you could read
the names and dates and causes
of death off a gravestone, and
I would still sit and listen to the way
that your voice collides with
all that empty space.

The one thing I knew I would never be able
to do was put you into words. Yet here I am,
trying anyways.

Warm coffee, foldable chairs, and wholly sounds--
maybe this is the way to spend your free Wednesday nights.
At least then there will be an escape from calculus and combustion reactions.
Here pencils are used to write a different language,
one with a beat.
Between toe taps and smiles there's a place for the music to go.
It seeps in through the molded cracks and bounces around
like the acoustics.
Hold fast and don't blink, take it all in.
Go home and hum to yourself.
Sit down at the piano and remember the night spent
with the kind local stars
hoping to hear their sound
until the night breaks.

As I sit here listening to you through my phone,
I can't help but think how familiar you've become.
Your smell as you walk into my room,
and the sounds of your guitar played so simply
while trying to figure out just the right chord.
Your laugh when you look at something embarrassing,
and the little symphony of noises you make
while falling asleep.
You see, the truth is, I don't mind.
I don't mind being familiar with these things.
I don't mind that you don't always want to talk,
but that you want my presence anyways.
I don't mind watching videos of you
in your younger years and listening to the
sentimental pop music that accompanies it.
The truth is, I rather like them.
I like feeling the familiar curve of your body
when it's curled against mine.
I like that you look to me during scary movies,
even though I'm just as afraid.
Familiarity isn't just an empty word.
For most, it's the feeling you get when you
walk in the front door after being gone a long time.
For me, it's the feeling I get when I walk through the front door
of a caribou, or a movie theater, or baseball stadium...
and see you waiting on the other side.

Let us go then, you and I,    
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Let us stroll, hand and hand,
While the cities fumes encircle us, like a marching band
The moon will wake from its drunken stupor
Only to ask who the hell we are
We’ve met before, you say
As I steal a glance, and we walk away

Down the nicotine streets
Past the rusted pub on the corner
and the funeral mourner
With his stolen beggars cup
That no longer contains coins
But instead a lover called jack

He looks familiar, you say
Always in the last pew, back in May

You haven’t been back to the chapel since
Constantly wondering, and questioning the Prince

As our heels become worn
and the sun begins to yawn
We arrive back
at my little brick place
The steps a little too steep
and the roof a little too slanted
The flowers never planted

Next time, you’re following me, you say
As I slip the key into the lock, and you walk away.

The synthesized chords in the background
Were all starting to sound the same
As I took the last sip of
Whatever fine liquor had been served
On this evening that had been filled with
Harlequin girls
And their lustful partners
Hoping to one day
Remove their masks

I don't like writing about you, because frankly I don't know how.
I can't write about the way you looked today, because then I'd have to
mention how your whole face was engulfed by your smile, like a wildfire with endless oxygen that's exchanged between us. I'd have to include the manner in which the waves of your silken hair fall on your neck, and creep across your collarbones, like a full moon's tide. I can't write about your sense of humor, because I would have to go into detail about how it brings out my goofy smile, and we've already covered that. I can't elaborate on your eyes, because all the dictionaries in the universe couldn't team up and find a proper adjective to do so. The truth is, darling, I could write about all these things, but there isn't a single way I could twist my words to form you on this piece of paper, and frankly, it could never do you justice.

there was something about those nights
i laid illuminated
by the light of my phone
and the light of her
with the blankets as drawn out
as the silence between rooms

i thought about the little moons
and craters that lay within her eyes
and the constellations that ran
across her lips and down
the deepest crevices
of her neck
like a marathon

i want to go to space
but not the one that floats
above the ceiling
or even below it
but the one that lies within her
and within me