wantingly be, all of the time








what can I do?

i am no simple, nor am i 

plain, just a little shine and some

dull areas but that's okay

i have enough lace to wrap myself in and 

feel perfectly fancy for the rest of my life

how easily the un-ease slips, scary how well I know it now, an old etcetera met with an almost-warmth because it is so much a part of my own body, a familiarity, that is, familiar in my own skin, just a swimming in my gestures. just a shift every so often, for I have not settled. just a bird perched in the center of my chest and I cannot open it --

I have been 

interrupted and re-visited with no 

                  memory of how I 

                  began. 

sc

today i fell in love with every face that didn't look away when we made eye contact, godjust lean down and (stoopinglike stone arches) lay heavy kisses that ground me so, just so i can stretch my toes and my neck through and pulling every nerve to it's end just
kiss you, too

so uh

I like to categorize myself and yet I avoid categorization at all costs.
I wish I understood myself like I think I do sometimes.

if I could, I would draw the back of every

time she turned away from me - her hair and how it met the base of the skull and repelled

downward or climbed back up, she'd cut it short and then 

watch it grow,            

if I could, I would re-trace her ears and marvel at how the skin joined in perfect harmony behind them.

if I could, I would have had her a million times more in between my fingers, running them through her -

every "every" I have and had and will have. 

i am comforted in my own - just like ice melts, only not so
warm, just warm enough. lay like a leaf in the sun, holding up lace, so that
when i lower it the pattern will be burned across my face, intricate enough
so that people will have to lean inclose
to see

i am forever changing, like no mona lisa because
"bullets pass through me and I keep moooooooving"
only the bullets never reach me - i know i'm dreaming when i'm
dreaming.

today, someone told me I don't smile very much. 

and I think I'm okay with that. 

it's almost like

you know how to notice things, but
you don't know how to use that information to your advantage.






I wish you did, sometimes.

maybe it's gone
and maybe it's been replaced by
other things. maybe I'll find it
curled under the desk, after quite a time
without it

and maybe it's gone

maybe you can feel me,               the clunk
the clunk in my chest                    in yours

the drop in my                                 the drop
diaphragm,                                       of your hand

maybe you can see it,                  your eyes
my eyes open as open                 seeing as
                                                              mine
                                               

maybe you can hear it,               is
the hum inside my                        from your
                                                              mouth


maybe you can think me            as I
                                                              think
                                                              you

tired, but empty so

I'll lay at odd angles, in uncomfortable 

positions so as not to fall asleep. keep

hoping that maybe I'll make something

more of today, make

something, just make

something that makes today

a little more worth it, makes

me a little

more 

worth

 

today

pale 

speech 

can breathe                             in this

pick my breath from the empty,

carryit in your lungs, like it's your own

clear space in my own lungs, let you curl
hear my heart beat above your head

feel my breath quicken
and slow

my curved spine will cradle you,

hold my knees against my chest so you are 

warm, lift my diaphragm so as not
to crowd
you out

I have room, for you
here, I have
room 

This is not why I like your poetry. This is why I love you.

"Because poems look like pies through rose colored glasses and it's really hard to find a bad pie."

 - SH

I never want to talk over you.
I always want to listen, listen and perhaps respond.
but mostly just
listen.

MPDG

used to wish I was one of those
Manic Pixie Dream Girls.
you know,  like Zooey Deschanel or
Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.

most of the time the MPDG's don't have goals
or endeavors independent of the male lead.

I reject that thought when it pops into my head nowadays.
I reject that title.

I won't be a lubricator to your peace of mind if I haven't ever had my own.

a big fucking blur

like someone moving when you take the picture

in a constant state of co-existence in parallel dimensions, never in

solid form, particles

atoms - movingbeing

us

we're trying

the floor is covered in ash, we trudge
through to the kitchen to pour ourselves some coffee,
then to the bedroom to lay in the empty space there, left
to us - everything is - to swallow like a bad thanksgiving dish
you're too polite not to eat

our hands are never clean, our feet are always cold and
we don't have enough sense to put on socks. 

the faces are heavy, they give off sawdust smiles and
big red-marked cheeks from leaning too hard on other people,
we are craning over one another, reaching past one another, never holding
eye-contact

it's the emptiness left from the previous emptiness here,

it's awful here,
it's awful
here.

"Goddamnit, sonuvabitch!"

this is your legacy, basically.

"When the weeds are poking through your skull, then there's plenty of time for regrets." - Han Shan

There are two voices (among the many) in continuous opposition,
always finding their way into a mouth or two or three of the 
hungry tongues and teeth and lips of this place:

"Why spend time chasing when you are nothing but
a bag of bones prattling along the path to a concrete slab?" says the one. 

Says the other, 
"Yes but this is life, jump in! 
Join the fray - play. For the time - there is only so much."

and

everything goes.

like a church, without the echo.

my love is in this place, runs through it
like blushed cheeks, and wind
carries our laughter.

it helps to read (about) other people's pain

 it helps to cradle your own, in the crook of your elbow like
a catch in the throat, like pulling off a sweater's static cling and
stripping down to nothing but a a set of teeth for eating and
a set of eyes for tearing up when you feel human enough

don't don't
make anything
you're not willing
to see destroyed