Close ★★

Never one to extend himself,
he stands three steps behind perfection
resisting any attempt I make
to polish his edges,
to revoke the artist's hand.
He builds me up,
wears me out,
and with a devil's grin
he wraps me in his arms
presses my face against his body
and pulls me into him.

Promise ★★★★

She wears a technicolor coat
of mismatched experiences,
of scraps of paradigms,
that don’t quite
line up at the seams.
She bears a love for life
on her sleeves,
in her pockets,
along her borrowed attitudes
and chewed on paper planes.
She wears her stolen soul backwards
because she thinks it looks better
that way.

And she says
let’s never abandon our idealism
as they drift along to the radio.
And life seems like
a promise given
in the bow of her smile,
and there is everything to look forward to,
and everything to be afraid of,
if only there were space in that car
between the breeze and their bodies
for fear.

And staring alone at the bluest sky,
sprawled out on the autumn,
fingers filled with green,

she still can’t find a place for it.

Dissolution ★★

You dissolve my agonies into yourself,
slip them onto your finger,
kiss my open cuts,
and swallow down my scars.
You rewrite my inner passages,
slowly deconstruct my time,
and drape yourself in patchwork scripts
over the wounds that fail to heal.

Impossible ★★★

The night air sticks to my skin
And smells of ash and dirt and heat
I walk home exhausted
My legs singing chain songs
But it’s alright
Because my body longs to pull up out of itself
Rising like a thousand tiny birds from my mouth
Raining backwards into the stars
Wingtips fluttering
Impossible
Impossible

Crosswalk ★★

I saw him on a city crosswalk
The cars groaned next to me
and the dry breeze tugged at my hems
He was clutching the hand of a girl
walking side by side
without speaking
She was pretty, probably more so than I
and he was of the same
thin and fashionable
with hair that whipped his face
with each breath of wind and exhaust
I slipped to the edges of the worn white line
to give them berth
He caught my eye as I passed
and gave this coy smile
His face telling me
Look what I have
Look at all that is mine
Look at What I Am
And me just smiling politely
not sure if it was taunt or advertisement
As if What He Was held any interest for me
As if I myself had never been privy
to pretty boys with their coy smiles
As if he wouldn't pale
under the eyes of my lover
so like spring and fire
and shining only for me

Smile ★★

I see the world
through eyes glazed with dreams.
A waterspout,
a mylar balloon
become reason to stare,
an entrancing spectacle,
and when I try to explain to you
you just smile,
a slight lift to your lips,
and pull me close.
You are either enjoying my vision,
or my fascination,
but in the end still knowing,
and taking me places
where the world is beautiful
and there pull me into your arms,
my head to your breast,
adrift in the space of moments.
You make my heart swell and breath catch
in a single spoken line,
in the touch of your hand,
in your very existence.
And I wish the world
could always be like this,
filled with the light
I see shining in your eyes.
But the world is this kind of thing
that wraps it's loving arms around you
and pulls you apart.
It wears at you and eats at you,
and leaves charred corpses
of naivety.
It abuses it's children,
impartial to suffering or to happiness,
unaware of the difference
between tragedy and the sublime.
And life is frequently
much harder on me
than others might deem fair,
that arbitrary concept
that man so likes
and the world thinks naught of.
Yet you have such endless patience
for my endless problems,
for the despairs and agonies,
of a strange lost soul,
for it's fragile hopes.
You rebuild the walls
the world tears down
and help me be myself again.
And I know, somewhere in my deepness
that when I split my self ragged
in my endless struggle,
when I spill my blood,
lay open my insides to the air,
that you will be there,
with a needle, some thread, and a smile.

Culture ★★★★

there is nothing in us that is pure
we are not sweet distilled spring water
we are sacks of seawater saline
it is blood that churns in our veins
we are constructs of acid and bile
we are filled with living and dying
and house tiny things in our breath that devour
that move and need and perish with us
and we
well we like to fight
and fuck
and our culture metastasizes
and breathes
and tries to call down the future
but we also are a thing
that loves
that is altruistic and laughs and dances and makes art
and poetry
not despite its impurity
not in spite of a selfish ruthless nature
but because of it
because we are fragile imperfect amazingly inadequate shells
so strong and so beautiful and so capable
of really anything
no, sterility inhibits potential
my body, my mind, is no white sheet to keep from getting dirty
every now and then