mint

cotton shirt,
cotton skin.
cool hands,
small and soft.
eyes? blue.
(i think).
side smiles.
little shrugs.
all
the
right
words,
landing
(shhhhhh)
gently,
and with
caution -
but earnestly!

words that
fall from lips
i'm getting to
know better
with each
and every
lock.

just thinking about it...

the affection you can feel,
inexplicable, uncontrollable
a delightfully squeamish feeling
in the pit of the stomach

and the uncertainty,
it is
poetry.

The uncertainty is dangerous,
panicking, terrifying
a sign that any move you
make is only going to further
the imminent conclusion of this episode.

The possibilities, the unaccounted for plot twists,
the real life literary tricks and you,
the ultimate catalyst.

untitled

think back to when you first
believed.
were you scared when you heard
about the fire? you knew,
of course, that you were bad.
so it became about goodness.
measuring sticks.
weights and scales and
rulers - the kind that have inches
and the kind that hold rods.
every man for himself.
as a kid on a yellow bicycle
you fell and when your knee
hit the pavement you cursed
for the first time.
your best friend wiped the blood
away and suddenly you were far,
far from where
the world used to be.
he had a leg up on goodness
because in the light, everything
is measured.

bring back the badness.
bring back the madness.
wipe out the scales and say,
i'm abhorrent.
my soul is black. don't hide it.
when goodness rose, grace
fell.
and no one remembered
whose hands held them anymore.

i should write a happy poem

but…
i'm not a happy poet.
since beginning is the part
that's hardest,
i'll make a simple start.
i guess i love
this coffee mug,
sitting with an indian's style,
and how warm beds are so worthwhile.
i like best friends and
freckles,
reckless activity and
keys that work quietly.
and now that i ponder, i know i love
the heat of summer
and how we take pictures
or skate to piers to feel
like God hears
when He's been gone.
oh,
and
blondes!
i love more than i think.
and by that i mean
more often does my heart swell
than my brain tell
me to slow down before i'm in love with every thing and every body
i see.
so many gifts to humanity:
donuts and plates of cake,
television and mutual hate
for insufferable bitches -
while we're on the subject,
fuck!
tit!
shit!
i love spicy sauce
in speech or pad thai
and the way i tie
my shoe laces. not having braces,
how people fill spaces
in your heart you didn't know exist.
i love how vodka twists
and tumbles words.
man,
i think i love the world.

Oh, these sacrifices

So it's five ten a.m. and my computer is playing
California girls-a song I really despise
well, at the very least I can't sleep to it

Then down the stairs, er, elevator
to the laundry room, at 5:30 a.m.
deserted and messy

Back to the top and then coffee.
coffe and browsing on the internet
because that paper due in
-it's 6 a.m. now-eight hours
isn't pressing enough to make
me want to start

it's 11:49 a.m.-I'm still about two pages away
no reason to flip, other than the midterm
at 12:30 p.m. before the class that I
have to take my paper to.

the exam was multiple choice.
I'm not sure how I did, but
I have a paper to finish for my
next class in thirty odd minutes

Oh, these sacrifices I make to be irresponsible.

self cooperation

I have to tell my self that I actually haven't put myself into this odd dispare.
I communicate the meaning of my own obvious limitations to reality
and the world around me seems to say
'disregard the fallic notions you have of yourself'
As if I didn't want to bend myself to my own will,
as if I don't want to bend reality to my own will

And there is a desperation I can't get rid of and a civil war of sorts between the darkness and light within me.

I want nothing but to win myself.

when you walk in the dark

there's something about it
that makes the light of morning
feel more real.
the thud of a coffee cup and
the heater turning on
and
silence, too.
there's the soft dampness
of hair drying,
the texture of a dog's fur,
your
own body.
how it creaks with the chair,
yielding but unbreaking,
toes crackling from years
of being team captain.
a
smoky throat.
the hollow feeling in the chest,
followed by a rising -
remembering sugar,
remembering salt -
ghostly tastes, pictures of
other
people.

Falling

Falling in love is hard
I'm speaking on all sorts
of love there is a greek word for

there is no good reason lovers
always steal the show,
I mean they have the simple give
and take of normal human relation

What about the love between the mother and child?
certainly a battle if I ever thought of one.
And the forced bond between siblings with some sort of
unspoken, heavy, implication of success?
a fight that comes physical more often than others.
What's to be said of the love of friends?
the most painful of all, because one can just

Walk Away.

difference between parts

i am chalk on the hands, a kind of windblown pigment
tousled by water and rolled in the rust.
there's too many clouds in my blue sky but
you won't ever hear me complain.
i'm that grin, the one that bears it,
a scent hound, a falcon, a ferret, what-have-you.
i'm the eyes of the operation and i'm looking up.
there's a million other places to be but we're here and
if that means nothing to you,
it's your loss.
cause i'm the atom, the catalyst starter.
i don't follow but i don't meander
and i don't stay put oh no i'm a mover.
i'm in the nooks. i burrow. get in there.
i differ. i do. i go. i go do,
cause not so long ago somebody took off the filter
and said wishing isn't doing it's wasting.
our eyes meet and i tell you i don't want you to leave
and on my life i know it's the truth
but do me a favor honey, and kill me if i ever say
i want to leave with you.

she may never read this

sneakers rubbed raw and loose at the back heal with rumpled dirty shoelaces
-from wear though not the elements cause her shoes are always tied.
slightly high water pants and crazy t-shirts that department stores infer
only boys should wear from their department divisions

Hair that goes uncombed but washed for weeks on end that gives the impression
of an over-sugared kid that one day might get into trouble comparable to that of a
poor seventies hippie that somehow managed to get back to the present with a decent job and a college degree.
and there's that fucking Monroe, that people pierce their body for but that never tuns out quite perfect
that's placed perfectly-perfectly natural-and makes her look sort of french, which she insists she is
yet, relents soon after, in the wake of admitting she knows no french anyways (save a few scattered words)
keeping to herself her very apparent uncaring of what 'she is' in comparison to the rest of the world

She plays the drums and I've never heard her, but I'm more confident now then ever-since seeing her air drum one friday night when we decided to stay in and get far-out drunk-that she's probably brilliant at it.
I mean if she knew she was no good why would she waste her time studying jazz and explain to TSA agents that while a drum stick could be used as a weapon, she is only a music student and has no intentions of doing so.

and she's brilliant at more things than the drums and I care for her in so many ways sometimes I forget that we only first spoke to one another on my last birthday-the second of the ninth month- and it's only the second month of the next year now. She's a perfectly acceptable partner in crime and we've already agreed that, although it would be conveniently otherwise, we need a dependable third party to bail us out of jail because if she lands herself there there is no reason to believe I'd be anywhere else but in the slammer with her-you know it's strange.

but she may never read this so I won't waste the time to say
I love her here.

If you didn't know already

I sent my heart in a letter
to a friend.
A person who uses words like rage as a verb
and thinks that rollerskating drunk is
an unbelievably great idea until
the next morning when bruised knees sting.

I keep my mind half on a girl
I met in a square-a box
that was much too small for anything
she could imagine while simultaneously
holding a pen

Near one-thousand miles away
somewhere in the snow flanked
not-chicago-side-lake-michigan banks
there is a bit of my soul-split by love in my heart and not blood on my hands
that walks around and thinks and laughs

Here in all that is me
a nice mixture of what I am is
her.

The best of what a person becomes, is a friend.
and I can only hope as she is to me I am to her

These People, my closest friends

To think that a person so devoted to the givings of others
can hardly count the social dimes in her own cup
Leaves my standing confused and wondering
why people like this should have the burden to exist
To be some sort of jester,
once a fair princess or prince
of a fair unpretentious kingdom
only to one day-early on- be captured,
and painted mockingly in gay colors
-still dancing for the laughs.
because even in this sort of dispare
there is some sort of value to them in serving the
simple, yet destructive, purpose of pleasing

And to think I have the courteous pleasure-the cursed pleasure
to have two of such serving people in my heart, close to it
never far from my sometimes overwhelming sorrow.
yet, I keep hoping beyond reasonable hope that one day
I can liVe to please them.

I've been Tamed.