cover your face

hands, scarf, distortion

not really concerned

you laughed and drank

they huddled in side streets waiting for your liquid grin

hoping you’d grown more compassionate over dinner

or did the switch hit lit-up arrogance

walking through the cobbled town

desires to destroy details is how i found the reasons i continue to come around and wash your dirty sheets.

filled with monsters who lurk and creep with punishing stares and dirty feet slish-sloshing through their standard beat when they found us

our legs were criss-crossed

we shot up and left

i would have danced with you that night, awkward humming rising and falling in your ear as i try to steer you through this vacant fear with a twirl there and a dip here you giggled as i tried to compare myself to that guy,

his name

that’s right

Astaire

but beware

they were watching

judging

thinking of a set of ten numbers to assign us

don’t look

it would have been ours

if they wouldn’t have noticed

now

it’s only a memory that never existed

try to catch the conductor as he clears the way for my departure

another place where rest will cease its all that is

a drink for those who couldn’t quiz and questions asked about where to go i left you with a open window breeze blowing in at intervals we notice enough to leave you not embarrassed that you stayed the night in corners of clear cut forests

that i can’t seem to find. i’m lost in leaves with liquid sleeves wishing and wanting

stand there for a few minutes

let it sink in

how are you different now?

did you take the time to watch him?

living in his moment

self centered eyes shut off as he was gliding through costume changes wondering if you knew the exchanges he had with those in his eight hour day and make hay they say on the other side of day the vision of owls brought me to you

trapped in their talons and dropped. rearranged and bed ridden i remember getting to know you: i don’t.

i lost myself and thought it was you pressuring me to become like the few who slither away with broken leg ideas hobbling on weakness you continue to persist,

wedding dresses missed

ripped magazine fantasies fall to the floor

frames that bore my insecurities

does it surprise you that i rise in the day and tremble to sleep?

she took a piece, ate it, and with ho-hum eyes begged to be released.

I can’t tell anymore

capitalized on punishment

throw me in

swallow me down

a place to find

that i’m unfounded

refundable souls don’t have a clue

trailing off

suffering through

the ringing in my ears

of your last i love you

is that what you said?

could you have wanted more

was i just hoping

the echo was directed at me

Even the ones who hide behind charm

can cause alarm

when they notice the hair on your arm

and look away

it took me time to realize that it doesn’t matter which way the crow flies it depends on where you’re going. i’m not following your dirty sweatpants walks, colors change talks when crunching leaves left a colder stare of what was there before you tried to repair shattered words with better despair? searching your eyes for pond jumping days when all we had was afternoon stays lunging into one another’s space a race to erase the frantic pace of what they all thought we could be

climbing scaffolding in search of the one who wouldn’t talk or ripen me

Kathy was suspicious of the way he walked

I couldn’t blame her

Seth had a way of rushing around

Even when he wasn’t in a hurry

Her nerves were usually shot

In the dark is where they’d start she’d blow out the candle and he’d depart not before saying happy birthday dear a fading sound and clink of the door Kathy sat wondering, ‘what more’?

what more did she want with second grade knowledge an understanding of font, at least the ones her teachers hated and they were the ones who sat and graded her experiences and abilities trapped sensibilities reworded casualties a disdain for realities that involve everyone but her. unless the plastic fruit bowls sat on all their kitchen tables while fruit flies followed her dumpster bananas into Thursday night when ‘he’ came to provide light and undress her mom

Kathy knew this couldn’t be it and wouldn’t just sit when the counselors goaded her down a path of welding or mechanics. she could give no fucks about her hands – they were used enough. she dreamt of zebra legs holding vases while dahlias dripped off Abe Lincoln’s faces and she knew we all had two though some three or four. she cradled thoughts of mongols rushing the delaware and st.nick standing in his underwear wondering where the ape people went. purple passion parties with kings and queens greeted her at sunrise a surprise for living though the candle cries of her little sister learning what ‘don’t touch the heat’ means.

she drifted through classes left alone to daydream in the back right corner, until he spotted her.

she quickly shot up

he saw her

she shifted in her seat

‘do you have a pencil’

she scrambled for her bag

fumbling through folded permission slips never signed and reports that she was doing ‘fine’

he was gone before she could say

‘no’

she went back to Bolsheviks riding elephants to the moon.

we found sam

sitting alone in the dark

he tried to move

we kept a close eye on him

sam was a solitude sort who could easily contort his limbs and senses in an effort to abort this mission of living one day at a time with rerun shows and pathetic mimes who hope you’ll try to understand the box their trapped inside, fuck you, it’s the same as mine.

sam knew that.

sam knows that.

though he wouldn’t have told you through that toothy grin and bowl cut hairdo, lower lip quivering when you’d give him attention. a standard smile wide eyed hoping you’d succumb to his defenses. set in motion by an impenetrable weakness his dad gave him for forgetting to close cupboards and turn off lights.

he wished dad would say goodnight.

at least

once in a while

sam didn’t care if it was through song

like the other kids

he knows he’s not his sunshine

no, dad stumbles through the kitchen counting utensils a spoon to simmer his eyes closed.

sam was seventeen when the words came without questions, when he stopped responding, instead defining what would be his next move

then.

when he thought he found it

they came in and ruined everything

I skipped over your name today

Obviously, I noticed you

Choosing you was another story

I fled from certain circumstances that kept me trapped by time taking procedures and the middle gap where we would leap and play from end to end until your riverboat thoughts started to trend to the far away places i couldn’t comprehend. snapping at me turtles and your tongue, i understood the turtles, they came from the water. your ideas of me shot out of the sky, clipped my chin when you drove by it’s something for me to whisper inside that you’ll be better someday. I can weather your frantic mind storm the racing around in an effort to form complete sentences and control

to feel warm.

you kept kicking sunday’s blanket thinking it’d grow, sacrifice the toes to cover your furrowed brow. how? how can i knit fast enough for you to see i’ll keep breathing alongside you as we toss on this sea, i can’t judge you for it’s also me let’s acknowledge at least we’re not the enemy, there isn’t a thing to blame. my night time temper rises with your whimper, just go to sleep. I know it’s not that easy when your senses are steeping deep in images flashing by of five year old friends and family lies. stay with me. let me count the ways. we can get through this time. without falling away.

force field confidence

shutterfly reconciliation

it’s saturday night and you want no affiliation with those who brought you stability and moderation it was never my mind that redefined time and what we learned

a tooling for the second go around to justify and comply with what they want

a second hand lie

passed down for you to feel comfortable looking them in the face. appearing interested in moments they erased to get to you. rehash and recast every person you meet with a symbolic blast to fake you were fast, when second gear is all you reached the trust of lovers comprehended and breached when pounding in rhythm trying to find a climatic rhyme to signal the rushing in of bottom feeder friends with you they stand and that still depends if you outline every detail in the sand. can’t you see me? is it that hard to say? try to. be by my side and say you reside in the same dark pit of trapped emotions clashing boom bashing stirring my vision straddling my composition of what it means to examine this side of travesty’s walls where the writing is clear and to the point scrawled by infants who knew what to anoint. it’s me. free. lasting.