from a fold out bed, loud breathing

your lies kept us together

disorganized thoughts ordered into chaos as i wonder, while the answer waits

i’ve basked in synonymous questions for a dense decade decorated in more dancing than dread

but

they keep coming up

the questions

a mark

i emphasize key words hoping to bend your ears into your heart for a reality to create a fresh start

your bafflement and approach are beyond reproach as a new spin catches up to my doubt within this empire of frustration that you love

minute to minute

facts left through the back door, carrying the means in a worn out brief case

i see an end

it’s because of the means and they don’t justify a thing

relationships don’t have a blue finish line ribbon to rip

nothing to cross

just the one over my shoulder

and i don’t believe it’s there

i do know what’s in that box stored deep in the recess of her minds mind minding your business which is carrying suitcases with starched men who drink double scotches and order them like every asshole orders a double scotch

on the rocks

i’m getting lost as you’re forgetting you tossed two mop heads and loyalty to a cost benefit that’s your analysis

did you win?

i can’t say it was anything more than a tie as this goodbye suffers in with a favorite lie

the one we told when i played with the fold of white hand sweat paper

i didn’t need to look

i remembered and rehearsed those words

not needing to bow, it wasn’t a show

maybe i’m tethered to a web of my past masking itself in the way you bask in everyone’s sunlight while guiding relationships by moonlight

maybe it’s your patience that keeps us together

maybe

from a fold out bed, be careful of pronouns

i zipped it shut and walked away

innocence trapped in a bag with my initials on it, an ode to a forgotten time when gifts were working to define how i’d view the world

it sits on the top shelf in my closet now

holding letters to mysterious creatures and old candy bar wrappers

i peak inside from time to time

inspiration for a way home

stuck inside, curiosities roam from peak to valley in midnight walks around a room built for two, or three, maybe four. there are enough doors, pick one you want to exit through

or, we could take them all off in fits of honesty and clear out the pretension that sits with knowing we’re somewhere they can’t be

they’ll always run free

because they get to treat the sounds that clatter from our room as little more than the raising of little ones to do our bidding when the mice shriek down the stairs they’ll be crushed by side-eyed stares and who cares if one of you light the flare it’ll only alert hyper-egos and selfish sun soaked children to look away while their loved ones are feasted on and carried to a place of infinite corners and steam shop loaners wandering into one another wondering if there is a way to grab that bag out of your closet

unzip it

and let the dreams of children fly through fanciful forgotten scenes of innocence

those are my initials though

it’s mine

that’s what they were trying to tell me

close that thing

from bed, she reached for my arm

sniffling through thursday i realized i might desecrate the real estate if my markers don’t keep their caps on

i’m impulsive

they’re responsible (the caps)

i kept wondering, who’s afraid of losing everyone if the time is right for me to move on and continue this plastic emotion piling up for future generations left with charlie brown sippy cups and forgotten glass jars that used to hold our consciousness

you said it was a reminder

it was your best gift

that empty jar

you told me to stare at it when you were away

it held us

i can’t remember if i threw it down or accidentally knocked it over it was mid december and the people were practicing how’d they’d greet later sunsets and cancer walking tombs

televangelists came to our door

it’s not jesus they want it’s your little girls mind to refine this garbage pail philosophy that subservience is the key

leather whips hang in the closet waiting to zipper my mouth shut and cross our eyes for something more tame this friday night

from bed, well timed

like you

i navigated ancestral waters to an opening in the sky, splatters of holy water were left covering her thighs

careening into valleys

sliding down alleys

puddling

rippling from the vibrations of my crossing chasm screams that came crashing out of lungs learning to leave

an understated goodbye

a piece of you and him

alone now

i leave messes for you to remember

it was your decision

a collision kept from love

though that doesn’t define what platforms i design to account for mountains swallowing my pride in moments when i catch a glimpse of your puckered face twisted from grace grabbing and gobbling the giant goblins gift as i grant permission to press on in this plane

plain to see what was given from you to me

this dimpled chin, blemished skin, and a sin to thin out the crowd

stop and listen

to the others joining us here

crawling out of a home where we’ll all return

they hold the answer

from a couch, balanced in branches

click bang the new year rang

i felt for your hand

it was lost in a pocket searching for grandmas locket

a faded picture of her daughter

trapped

welded wings collapsed on themselves giving way to limp handshakes and greetings of insincerity

you were welcomed

just not in the way you desired and time expired on frosted lily time signatures glancing over at us from grandpas turn table round and round my heart couldn’t be found in this profound clouded confection

a rhyming misdirection

more time to counsel our protection

shield up

disarm

drop down and disguise yourself as a sixteen year old lover going undercover to know what the cool kids do

i was street corner wise and casting goodbyes before diners were closing

give me back my childhood

a snickers bar and rotten wood the frame of a bed creaking when i bring you home to visit

i miss you

the mystery

i misused you

the misery

we could start over

give me your hand

from bed, working on tongue biting

erase the thoughts i wrote

menacing mountains of emotions flip over in time causing the seismic rift penetrating what was the sublime and rearranging our past in a staggered line of when and where did we fall in love

can we sustain this walk through changing sunset hours and sunrise flowers

can we continue to nestle away in beds when stars reach their formations our eyes too saggy to see that arrow he flings is from you to me to the people i meet hoping to rip this heart melt beat out of my chest to get your attention before ticks and spasms give way to dirty underwear and my final stare

it’s dark in there

i warned you

the mind wandering positions i contort to sort the dirty drawer thwart of a nice morning laying side by side are many

and i’m flexible

i hop in and we confide before you even open your eyes it’s not a surprise i kick at you with bad breath morning dew lips desperately trying to hold back

my tongue is loose and becomes the noose i hang this day on

sorry

they’re hard to stop

disorganized and damaging

daring you to walk away

i would

i warned you

this ink is indelible

from bed, i need work

caress the images i left behind

it may be the last time you feel free enough to engage with me

i didn’t want to leave… where we started

an endless first kiss tongue dance with no hands

lost in brain chemistry and other people’s poetry, songs that broke time barriers as winter blankets steadied the shiver between a floor-heater’s cycles and our rising and falling blood pounding excursions into flesh felt thank you’s and one day i do’s

we couldn’t have known

it would have upended the trial by smile we shared when you asked if loneliness made me scared

i didn’t like the way you yelled

i remember thinking as you felt compelled to uncover your red face over a roommates propensity to use your curling iron

i’m thinking too much now

caught up in how this sounds

early months and years i was drinking too much you stayed in touch knowing there was, maybe, something redeeming with all this late night passing out after a final doubt that i missed the way it felt to be held by someone who cared enough to wrap around this drugged out heap of flesh casket bound and unleashed, friend’s, foe’s and stranger’s eyes judging the one who got naked for you, not just you, everyone in the bar night after night avoiding a fight wondering why morning coffee pissed me off and tore up my insides i couldn’t get up i fell until the next bell carried in the smell of hell in truth i must tell you i was fine all along lost in a song over and over crimson and clover they gathered around. that was the truth. they were gathering

not around me

self importance mixed with pity gives you this poetry shitting out of my head a way to communicate i’m not quite dead

actually, very much alive and thriving yet still on this coil wanting to be seen proving something to somebody every fucking day. look at me. did you see that? i wish i were more like you camouflage depressed not wanting shit from anyone. we know that’s not true i grew up a few when i put down the brew. it wasn’t even alcohol it was control. loss of it and now i rearrange the toilet paper in a woven basket by the sink and that somehow gives me more comfort than vodka and coke. where have i come? where the fuck do i go. smiling in this exhibition just hoping one of you will say. genuinely. please stay. wrapped up in me. for a little longer

please, will you judge me as if i just slit my throat?

will you ask those questions now?

why?

why would he?

how could he?

what did he do?

then i step away realizing i don’t need that, yes i do, what a waste of false desire to be self important and left trapped in another’s thoughts for that lingering moment after we leave this conversation of the mundane. yet it says what i can’t in plain clothes. just fucking leave me alone while we’re together

i want that unspoken desire to live longer.

from bed, i want to play with this one

i forget

how wide do you cast that net?

is something lost in the width

a myth

dilution of relationships

the ones we claim with a first or last name junior status and the patriarch game is comfortable, traditional and somewhat unconditional.

where do we go when we can choose everything?

you want that, right?

the ability to choose

are you scared you’d lose the tethering of strings a single mass of balloons, thirty or forty each, helium filled, carrying up individuals into the night sky taking turns who gets to ride on by

we couldn’t possibly come together

who would be lifting and recognizing from above

the specks we laugh at perspective gained a person to blame for their reign and i couldn’t possibly remember all your names unless it’s mine

drones walking

careful what you wish for

we are all in this together, but not how you want

there is no common goal

save that for falling off a bridge.

hate me

question and cause a disturbance knuckles in my face causes growth and believe it or not that’s for all of us.

benefit a few at a time

over the wall humans are confined and kneeling down for an unwanted god just give me your time and help me plod i can’t soar that’s bullshit and more

look for what’s more

utopian drunk visions blur our ability to realize we’re at sea drinking salt a bit less buoyant i can’t hold three hundred million or six billion hands and hearts. i got fifty, maybe five, you read three hundred but they’re just taking pictures back to their hole

with their five

doing their thing to stop being alive. the answer, it’s drifting. stop thinking we’re all anything. we’re all everything realizing, collecting in groups benefits the whole. which i dug myself one, but these gatherings are not defined by race or religion. those don’t exist either. i mean, you made them up cause you were afraid to gather with the thirty who were around. lost and found. fight fucker, fight and love. you’ll hoover. you’ll meet the same disastrous light. careful now, it’s got only two generic D batteries to last through the night.

from bed, cud

she usually saunters in with stale sunlight revealing her sin

i walked by as she broke the silence

it was required of our relationship

stunned violence

leaving my desire for later in that day i made a point it was in the midst of hampering their progression as street weak police officers glare their vision of what happened in lies of mouths to ok the invert slavery shuffling back in our gardens too small to see a city plot working forty your not acres and fools it’s enough for our tools to be left on corners and stealing its borders fold the corners you ducking idiot he doesn’t laugh at those jokes it’s the eggs benedict cover your yolk you god damn fool know your boundaries quit pushing people away with your derivatives of cancer and fishing story answers it was as big as you think you made it up in that pea sized shit brain you call home of good luck and we’ll all wish it while walking away from trite phrases and mint gum

to each their piece of your normalcy blasted blanket eating tuna sandwiches stinking up everyone’s world get out of her fat bastard fear