My jaw clicks when I chew gum.
It's a strange but pleasing sound I'm not sure
can be heard by anyone else, but
chewing on my left side makes my left ear feel
like shook up soda
pop.
I have to chew on my left side;
the right side anymore is out
of order.
Canines in the back,
wisdom TEETH hogging the front
(and that one table top I cracked on a taquito
before I learned how to switch
hit)
I was skinny then, and for a long time.
I loved no one and only now
does that seem to have been a terrible
waste.
I am shaped like knee pads and tupperware now.
Like helmets and tissues and the written word SQUEEZE.
Stretch marks n' Xhaustion mark my heart
in the sand,
and here I've fallen madly out of love
with the only person who ever
dug it.
Alright, alright.
You want fewer nuts/more nougat, right?
Fine, fine, fine.
I must have stared for 10 solid minutes
at pictures of us before,
you know,
we became allergic to
each other.
I marvel at how well my excitement still communicates
despite 7 years of steady sneezing.
My eyes looked more like commas, then.
I didn't need instruction to smile
for the camera.
I can hear myself gabbing and it hurts like a sonofabitch
to know that I currently have No Idea
what the hell I kept on about.
The Me Now would have told the Me Then
(with a finger poked in her blooming breast),
just how utterly foolish she sounded
'cept the Me Then wouldn't have cared
what some bitter old broad thought.
Mom has said for years
that we'd probably make better friends
than lovers.
Though I've never heeded her advice.
I guess I'm kinda dumb
that way.
If love (whether I like it or not love) is being smothered by heavy,
Goddamn You, Shut the Fucking Bathroom Door pillows,
then this feeling I'm talking about,
this Nowhere in Particular feeling,
is the same pillow before any pressure is applied.
Just a cool surface laid on warm, wanting cheeks.
The smell of clean. A millennial who still believes in
dryer sheets.
Gaaaaaawtdamn.
I want to know what his palms feel like
pressed flat against...wherever I'm still flat.
I want to know what he looks like
cruising city streets at night,
with the orange glow of street lamps
absorbed in his
new skin.
Like any other handsome fella,
I tell myself that I could probably learn to love him enough
to take permanent markers to his bathroom door-
KEEP CLOSED,
but I like him enough right now to spare him
the awkward trip
to Home Depot.
You're like a lightning USB cable that everyone wants to borrow
but nobody can find
so they keep asking me,
but I'm too flattered and embarrassed to ask
why the hell they would think I had it
in the first place.
You're the sticky substance on my keyboard
that I'm fairly certain is a harmless soda spill,
but I've lent my laptop to someone this week.
But nevertheless,
you're sweet.
You're something like the Good Lord in that
I'm still skeptical you exist,
and when I tell people I know You,
they seem unusually pleased
for me.
You're like the oscillating fan in my bedroom.
I get great satisfaction from staring at you
when I'm bored.
You're like change I forgot I had in my pocket.
I am pleased each and every time I find you,
but I also feel like shit for telling that homeless guy
that I didn't have
any change.
You're like the vanilla scented candle on my bookshelf.
I enjoy watching the way in which you melt
when I blow
on you.
You're like a freshly sharpened pencil
that keeps stabbing me from inside
my jacket pocket.
Like most things in my life,
you'll become dull before I even get a goddamned chance
to use you.
You're like a well worn book.
I like the way you feel as I turn your pages,
and I find you much more enjoyable than reading on my tablet
or phone.
Oh,
and sometimes you smell nice
too.
I wanted to freeze us in time, last night.
I wanted to capture the moment in pictures,
or that quick drying putty that immortalized Han Solo,
and I wanted to put us in a museum.
Next to less lovely masterpieces.
I wanted to keep that moment especially.
Your head makes so much heat, little boy.
Your chunky trunks stay cool.
Cold, almost.
You kick at random and reach your pudgy mitts
up toward the collar of my tshirt.
And you anchor yourself.
Like a sweat-headed chimp
on an ugly, lumpy tree.
You whisper before you fall asleep,
Daaaa....daDAAAaaaa....shashashaaaa ....
You close your eyes and drift away
and I love you more than the word has room for.
I love you more than speech allows.
I love you more than God so loved the world,
because I wouldn't give you up
for anydamnbody
or anydamnthing
or anydamnplace
for anydamnreason.
In fact,
I'd grow another lump
for you to rest your head on.
I'd grow a thousand little branches
stemming from the corners of my eyes
down to the corners of my mouth
through my hands
around my belly
and down to my rough soil knees
and I'd carry you gently
with leaves softer than sweetness
to the place where I'm allowed
just one thing to hold onto.
There is a jackal there now,
but I'd rip him apart.
After all these years,
I'd let that goddamned beast go.
And I'd put you there instead, love.
And I'd be alright.
Perfect, even.
I want you the way the waiter girl at the dive bar
wants me to stop talking
and just leave her tip.
I want you the way the neighbor’s dog wants
attention –
hands new and patting
and new and
petting,
I want you as bad as his tongue wants to lick.
I want you the way the street sign wants compliance;
I want you the way the black van wants the same.
I want you over and under and buried between like
a slow-working pin turning thread to
crochet.
I want you soft like a question afraid of its answer;
I want you hard like a 'p' in an unfiltered mic.
I want you now and every day like
a child wants Christmas,
but mostly, I want to know that
you're doing alright.
You are perfect in your roundness, child.
Your eyes reflect the viewless room -
this safe place I have made for you.
They still lack understanding, love,
but even that is perfect, too.
My gleeful darling,
my joyous Hoot!
your smile mimics love in bloom -
nervous first steps, then full on swoon.
You are perfect in your roundness, child.
A glowing soft, craterless moon.
there are spaces between the warm
worn fibers
tiny holes in the weave of his
tired being
he lays himself down in random patterns
always with a sigh
as though to let go of some ling-
-ering fancy
a girl he thought he might reconnect with,
a beer his lips fantasized they might kiss
how I long to be that girl, I think
as my own stitches come
so irreparably undone
how I yearn to be that pint after work,
consumed with purpose and
sensuous greed
those same lips that tell me
we’ll buy diapers next week,
I want to wear them like a bed wears
silk sheets
oh, that I could be
his deep
Breath
IN
a life-giving inhale
before eventual sigh
tight, like a quilt
before the moth mouths
of time
I see constellations in your eyes.
Forces bursting with light and all matter,
chemicals only produced
twice a life.
Your eyes are not too young to cry,
but true sadness is knowing,
so tears never come.
Your whines and quick smiles
strip galaxies of wonder;
they become, at best,
a left-handed sketch -
a shadow that didn't exist
before dawn.
Child,
my sun,
I revolve around you.
And the interstellar gas
collapsed in your diaper?
Yes, nebulove,
I orbit that, too.
your eyes and mouth take shape
open like needy palms in winter
close like the madness of lips out of love
spread like a narrative across pages impossible
and with my tiny hands
and needle mouth
we weave shelters that defy
the knife
you were different then
your worries filled the bulbous ends of pens
and the ink was almost always re(a)d
you were made ill with promise
and ill you’ve remained,
but it isn’t just you
I was different then, too.
There are traces of weather
cycling through your pores
I give and take cover
but fall through the earth
Abandoned cities smolder in your eyes
I respect their ruin with unsubtle avoidance
and know that this city will join them
in time
your lungs are a graveyard
littered with near Mrs.
and as I listen for laughter I hear
only rain
I want to live inside your heart
like a mirror hung
inside a closet.
the days will pass without us, dear
tomorrow’s murder of the mountains
will resemble a fistful
of nervous pastimes
and they, the things that will grow to spite us,
have already soiled their sheets
(which Must mean we are free)
((to amputate roses/
to snuff petaled doves))
I want to be your wild thing.
Your complete work.
Your cherry tree.
if the day should come
that your eyes start to focus,
that you realize you’d prefer your material
cooked,
then I will abide by the laws keeping your bottle caps rosy
and let it pass by
without me.
Wrap yourself in my longing for the unremarkable, dear.
Let my arms assume the warmth
of day-to-mundane things.
The clink of a toothbrush,
the click of a seatbelt,
the clang of a bottle,
and eventual collapse.
Pad your palms with my palms
and let your morning scratch linger.
Rub your forehead and know
that it means
everything.
goodbyes are such masturbatory things
let us avoid the indecency then
and, instead,
expose ourselves to the problem of the ping
we are hopeless chromantics, you and I
t
r
i
c
k
l
i
n
g
down one
half
(hearted)step
at a
time
As The Call (reaches s l o w e r )
So The Echo (responds
lower)
and the distance,
cozy little Control freak that it is,
shows us that while we are very willing
we are nothing against the
Very Able
I want to preserve us in
eighty-eight different ways
and leave Pete all alone
in that stupid boat of his.
nothing prepares you for the runaway train
the same screaming vessel
that held you between sleeps
now sings
commandeered by a misshapen hero
you mouth to your friends
"are you seeing this?"
but they aren't
they can't
explanations are useless
[and] you're almost alone
the masked individual
warns you with a kiss
that your time together
is long or short
and forgetting will be the task
of the goddamn century
your friends are asleep
in the distance, a howling
a soporific screech
what happens next
bleeds or pleases with poetry
and love is beaten
and beaten
and
Come to me quietly
tip-toed and five shy
breathe inward between the
betrothed lines
make good on your promise
make love on my time
and know that this comes
at a price.
I am the one who stays put
Your pens fills my
round mouth with awe
with rounded teeth
and rounder words
you press down
firmly
making beautiful patterns
patterns that resemble
one thousand poems
two thousand miles
and four beating hearts
I am a flightless bird
on a leather leash
I am conditioned to choke
please
forgive me
In my haste to douse
the rising flames
I have forgotten the most important rule
and neglected to leave myself
an avenue for
escape
In a crowd of people
struggling to pronounce my name
the heat has become
overwhelming
I have backed myself
into a closet
where I find you
hiding beneath someone's
Going to Work pants
you pull me down
while the smoke screams rise
and you put your mouth on my mouth
your breath is my breath
your fear is my fear
I wasn't around when they built the house
so I don't know if we'll survive
but I can think of no place I'd rather be
when it inevitably comes tumbling
down
it is you that I belong to
not the strung strummed guts
or the floating down feathers
not the lonely tap or the crowded bar
or the seventy-sixth trombone to say it
not the cobwebs or the canvas
or the Guest Only glassware
or the heartbroken rib
aching
writing this
it is You
that i belong to
and i think i finally know
why the caged (hulking tweety) bird
sings