19

peeling sweet tarts and
sour straws from your finger
tips, saving them
for later to eat
with your delusion.

mixing narcotics with
a shot of gin for the
full effect of nothing-
ness and ecstatic
reverential illusion.

words go on and thus
go and continue to go
until they've landed on the
window sill
and started their
diffusion.

ubiquitous forgetting
about the state of your
everlasting and unfortunately
named
orgiastic confusion.

telling all the secrets
we've got kept inside our
lockers waiting
for the biblical announcement
for our physical
infusion.

tell me something though.

if i could tie a rope to the
winds of your tornado and
pull your safe-space into
my place,
would you give me
your entirety as a
monastic conclusion?

time has told me that
i hurt a little,
but you hurt a little
too; i'll do anything for
you, write anything for you
to
be my resolution.

i think it's why i'm not a
painter, see, for all the
youthful wonderings i could
art-ify are too hard to
find within the
skyscrapers of your
highly romantic
allusions.

jaunting

just like everything else,
it twisted up backward
and mistook me
for the martyr
and the lethal
undertaker
it had forgotten
without; or nothing
and no one
to promise the
pages to. I didn't ask

for anything;

they will give me
more and more

and more

like damns built backwards

until your skin becomes 

a sentimental interlude
to whittle
down the love into
you. Your
elegance
is understood
to be —
forever —
unmistakably
free.

Wednesday

I drank until you weren't real

and then I drank some more. 

The eyes of the kryptonite

(nothing like you)

nothing more temporal

nothing more true 

clean

Aflame/
holding out incarceration
fogging
for your reputation''''


|| indefinite ||
star struck for returning;
felicitous--
nearer to it than

you know.


Hydrate
and wash my remnants
away
so you can be clean.

Confessional

I had a confession for the Priest when I met him in the bar.
“Forgive me father, for I have sinned”


I.

Its like the first night when
you were telling me
to kiss you without your words
and your lips were
sooooo close—
— you couldn’t
keep my
breath from loving
yours—
— and you told me
that i could
without saying it
and i did


II.
because
of
the stack of books
that june
afternoon
i thought
that this wasn’t what you
could have
wanted
as haunted as your
crystal eyes
had crystalized
into.


III.
i watch your fingers
and try to decipher
how they could’ve
pushed past my skin
right on in
and grabbed the
pulse
that thumps to
your name


IV.
apparently
when i’m drunk
i tell you what
you already know


V.
there were nighttime clashes
and crashes
where i thought you
might
disappear
without
what you wanted
to say
or i wanted
to hear


VI.
but you called me
like a river
and you held me
like a pause
because
it seemed to be you
might’ve seen
a cause


VII.
juvenile
the flowers rained
on us
while we writhed
soft blanket
singing nothing
of import
because
the ocean is
music enough
and
oh
have you got
a way
without
words.


VIII.
i would situate myself
on your shelf
for
ever
if you were
sub-limely
interested in
pressing
on
and
on

here's to hoping

heaving your
heavy
heavier
nothing left
but
never-er
little children
marking
hop-scotch on your trips

breathing your

breath

breathier 

nothing left

but 

ever-er

little no ones 

marking

nothing on my hips

levying your 

levy

levier 

everything 

yet

together-er

great big daydreams

marking

nightmares on your lips

as the clock hit

now

forever-er

i bit

big

bites on

endeavors or

made your words ecstatic 

and your mind erratic 

erotic enough

to tough out

and flush out

the bruises i've been 

pinching on your 

poker chips

i bet a thousand

on the hand

you'll deal me

when i 

rip 

into your

lips

sweet summer, kid.

Their lips were wet
and it was very
hot on the roof

and they were
not supposed to be there
all alone.

They were stoned
like the songs
said they should be.

And it was summer
and they couldn’t
help the way

their heat headed south.
Migrating for
the winter

time, antiquated and
reminding them
of their grandmother’s

doilies. Sticking
to the undersides of
skimpy skinny things

not quite ready to
make the leap they
were headed to.

Oops. I didn’t mean
to put that there
where it would

hurt you. But you
are being dramatic;
you can stop

screaming now. And
I think I hear your
dad’s door opening

downstairs. Does he
have a gun?
Gotta run.

And he’s gone
quicker than he had
come

which was pretty
fast to begin
with.

Departed

Over the moonshine, the both of us wept

while waves pulled slowly at the wandering shore

and wondered, as the stars our secrets kept,

if we could ask for just a minute more.




We were in the past before you spoke,

the salty air congealing in your lungs;

so when you breathed, your quivering voice broke,

and made your wrinkles smooth, your hair seem young.




Light by light, all the stars bid us ‘depart’

as I, rapt by the ending of your mind,

beheld the empty noise to stop your heart

and leave me with a lock; no key to find.




The sky turned pink before we said farewell,

so sure were we that we’d next meet in hell.

maybe november

Behold it like
French loving in
the summer

afternoon. It
made the weakest
knees of

busy bees in
June. Here, Lucy,
kiss her like

a kid, your
kid held on like
smoker's cough.

You slept through
parting parties,
naked truth

or dare to
bleach your hair
so the boy

in the leather
will notice you
there.

The car alarm
woke up mom
and you couldn't

silence the
breaks, screaming
scram while

you take hits
from the little
bowl peep

making sheep
sing across your
sleepy eyes

and part the
cold December
(can't remember)

maybe November
skies. Losing youth
for the sake

of being young.
Faking love for the
sake of

having fun.
Tell the truth, Lucy
please

spare us the
shit. We want nothing
more than

for you to
pass the bowl
and let us

take a hit.

Her

There was a ring around the ash tray

Held aloft by your desire to stay 

And heralding my love of the way 

You listen. 

In the room I'm drawing out for you, 

Where the space melts and the loud subdues

Into melancholic subtle hues,

We wait. 

Jazzing and boozing all lovely and young,

Hanging on lightly to the sound of your gun

While my padding footsteps keep us awake

And the storm in your nerves has no faltering wake. 

Pardon my trafficking graffitied trash

as I watch your cigarette morph into ash

Noting nothing and everything tucked in your stash 

And say it. 

In between a sheet and a memory, I'll let myself wrap lightly into your skin to fall for you like I've never fallen for anyone before. And the nights I spent then craving more are blown away to empty windows when I make connection with your flesh and our fingertips admit to each other (maybe even before our mouths can quite agree) that freshly laundered sheets feel better when you are holding me in your June dream. 

Patiently, I hold the door for you

And wait until you wander through 

To do what we have come to do

Admit it. 

I know what you’re doing.

 

There was something (sym)pathetic in the way she watched

the shades of the sky keep marking on 

keep harping on 

about yesterday and yesterday and all those great things

yesterday

 like tomorrow had nothing to offer
a girl so remarkably past—passed .

Hearing the forgot-ten

ne’er

re-membered

re-collections

re-called

at about an auctioneer’s pace

stuck in young man’s race

balancing in empty space

and still re-membering her

misbegotten face.

 

she would drink another chandelier and let the champagne clink inside her veins

 

and swear she’ll never love again

not love again

until the

red has burned into any ashy grey

until today

or

yesterday.

 

she cannot see how much the world

has written in her storyline

because she’s all en-compassing

and

trying to exonerate a god-dess

who has forgot-ten her name al-ready.

All ready for tomorrow

while she’s still stuck

on

yesterday. 

the sea caught fire

From above, it might have looked like a painting, the oil on canvas glistening in the sunlight from the windows behind a quizzical face; a face whose crows feet would kiss as she contemplated why he could've thought this splattering of red would make an impact on her mind. It did, and she didn't understand why. 

But it wasn't a painting. And the sunlight underneath the glistening oil was the sound of the sea catching fire. 

It was a gentle whooshing of your breath on her skin and your gestures in the reflections of her eyes. 

Children playing on the shore, with the sand sticking on their skin, watched the way the blue turned to blood and the sky sunk into the clouds. 

Fluorescent lights above the universe made the scene seem oddly serene, surreally naturalistic. Like they had always been so meant to be. Like the sand had been born as a barrier to the destruction of the land. Like the waves were always, always ash. Like the gentle breeze off the beach smelled of smoke for a reason. 

Mother Earth smiled as her children wept for one another. She smiled like a ray of sunshine, her elegance illuminating something just beneath the surface. The animals were just deep enough to relish in the warmth. The sky was just far enough away to love the steam against it's face. 

But the most beautiful space in the midst of the disaster was the lick of air between them; the sliver of space where the flames' batting eyes touched the water's cool skin, and they realized that their miraculousness could never be duplicated. They were a once-in-a-lifetime realization of something otherworldly touching down on humanity for long enough to be noted, then -- as well all expected -- to disappear.