She painted the collars of her gloves
With a box cutter

We still do not know
Whether she was running a marathon
Toward Athena
Or screaming from her palms

The difference matters less
Than the price of milk
To a herd of cattle
But still
You have to wonder

When I asked you the truth
We were separated:
A flimsy footnote
Fewer years than I remember
A wall of hair dye
And one bastard of a door

I wonder now
If you remember lying
I wonder now
If you were

At times I hate you.
Some days I can only remember you.
The days between
Feel like teeth:
The soft
Fleshy part of my back.

Balk

If you find the mire has surrounded you

Invent, for yourself, a plank filled with holes

And climb on top.

This way, we feel the warm dampness

Of our lessons

Within the brink of learned remorse.

When even the space between is kindling

We built ourselves within the fire:
Twiggy legs uproot the scalp.
Kerosene soaked veins.
Tinderbox heart.

The rules of the waterproof children
Amuse those who simmer.
The blouses they tuck within
Their unforgivable pride.

I calmly palm the cheek
Which once burned him in five directions.
If he were as awake as his flames,
He would know as much as yesterday.

Backhanded compliment

When the fist is your refuge,

The bloodletting is

Your dangerous wish. He

Likes to turn on his side.

Likes to make you wish

He would yell. If only

To be mistaken for violent compassion.

Your hands have coated themselves

In tremors. A reaching

For some sort of salience. They

Want to be worthy of their love's

Worth.

They feel too easily cast away.

You hate yourself

Because you know you would

Trade the silence for a tirade

Of door handles to your cheekbones,

Of matches to your palm;

Memories that your departure

Was feared.

You have met these women. Held

Them. Men. You would have freed them

If they would have allowed it.

And you hate yourself.

You wonder if there is worth

In this.

A glassful of broken beauty:

Unspeakable in its deaths.

And just once...you carefully

Place a hammer

Not wishing,

But at peace, comfort

With the recovery months of hug

And coddle.

2

I am sorry I could not remember
The name that you stole;
I have never been one to swallow rain.
My fingertips were holding tight
To my palm. I believed that to fight this
Would win you over.

My body likes to make fun of psychics like this
To prove that it can lose its own battles:
Nobody will tell me where I wind up.
Not until someone can tell me
Where I've been.

Tonight is a new kind of savior.
My breath is held
My knees are begging me
To stand.

The ramblings of the loved.

I sometimes pray

That my mother and father

Stop believing in me.

I feel taken by the privilege

Of their love.

The shaky scribbles of their hands

Etched in the small of my back,

My shins healed in scabs

From fences they did everything

Everything

Each thing they could

To get me over.

Sometimes I like to pretend

That my "I Love You's"

Are received with the intensity

I feel them with.

But I know they are not

Because nobody has yet responded

With, "Ouch.

What the hell did you do that for?"

Nobody has broken into tears

And so I know

It has only ever been

A sentimental trust.

And I can accept that,

But I don't want to.

On occasion I wish

That the children of this world

Were taught

That beauty is not the thing admired

But the admiration.

That flowers and perfect bodies

Are only created out of necessity,

While the sneaky moment silent

In trusting these things

To be filled with the beauty

They demand,

This moment is where holy begins.

Once or twice I have demanded truth

But truth is like puce;

There are so few people it looks good on

So I like to take funny pictures of truth

I like to discuss it when I am drunk

And pretend I will ever believe it.

Teach a man

And I have taken to filling

Your bedside table

With matchboxes.

I have filled them with my memories.

Wait for you to strike the strip.

In your sleep,

You wield a flint-tipped sword

In the likeness of a future.

Your horse is unmasked.

There were self-proclaimed

Heroes before you;

Each with his own voice of truth.

They each played siren songs

And handed me pounds of fish.

The ignobility of these men

Was shell-shocked

And filled with practice.

You walk comfortably

On feet you own.

Wearing only the t-shirt

We one-quarter stole.

Cast your shield aside,

Strike upward and pull down

Ignite the piles of hushed tears

And mistaken promises.

The night of bitter coldness

And its draft.

Let us set the night on fire

Let us be baptized

In the sea of flame.

Cardinal Direction

And you begin to fill your mouth with birds

Hoping to pick their faults through your teeth

They do not beg

You do not speak beak

If your mother taught you better than this

She is now forcing rice fistfulls down her throat

If you beg her

She will swoon

Do you remember her perch from some morning?

You have forgotten how to take her to the sun...

Your fingers are feathered

Your wings are clipped

&

When did your pockets

Begin their emptiness of fire?

I like to think

You were taken with the ocean

But my arms are lined with clues

That it was the wind

Which stood against you.

You have all of the answers.

You avoid the difficult questions,

And your feet

Frequently strike upward

At your beliefs.

You talk of bliss

Yet sing songs of the ill.

Your eyes were baptized

In ivory.

Your tongue was wet.

Synonymity

Rest assured,
Young observer
You are filled
With your years.
They hunted for you.
Know that there is now
A poem written
On your behalf...
If you accept it
As your own.

If you love it,
It is

An incredible poem.

Synonymity

Rest assured,
Young observer
You are filled
With your years.
They hunted for you.
Know that there is now
A poem written
On your behalf...
If you accept it
As your own.

If you love it,
It is

An incredible poem.

Waiting for

Laced with sun-dried tears

And a scalding message from the moon

The secret of you

Lies dormant.

I will use man-made claws

And the spine of a bear

To pry the untold story's end

With eyes closed.

The secret must be saved

But never revealed

Unless I can remember

Where my own secret wound up.

Mine once wandered like an avalanche

And it slipped through a crack

It made for itself

The sweater it wore in July.

Yours smells like pine

And the child aching to escape me

Is begging for a tiny handful

Of its light.

I have a dangerous but exciting suspicion

That looking into the secret of you

Will see it wringing itself of sweat

That its scent will be adolescently familiar.

Oakes

Sip the tinted pill they demand;

Tilt.

Feel your freedom like black-blue sand

Palm it

Squeeze

And see how easily it is overcome.

Make the apologies you wish for.

You are the bigger man

If you believe in forgiveness.

You have a padlocked mouth

Filled with keys

Each named in a number

You somehow know.

The beats of tongue

To temple

Of righteous

To hand-picked by sisters

This is how you were delivered

And I pray you the healing

I know you now need.

I once more embrace you,

My brother.

The morning I was forty-five seconds late to class

With all the majesty

Of your lore

I found myself taken with hair.

The bright crispness of it;

It's impeccable worth.

This pillow of a chest

Is both manmade

And natural

And it smells like a correct answer.

If the morning were any brighter

I would have to lie about it:

The brilliance of your palm

Will always take precedence.

The Inadequate Guilt Of Troy Davis

I am no better
Than any citizen
Of this country.

I am just a man.

A man without a gun,
Bullet, knife, needle, or
Yearning to find revenge.

And I wish to stay this way.

I am just a man.

No better.
Hoping to be contested
For my proposed sameness.

To the boy I used to believe in

You have finally chosen a life

Which allows me

To fall out of love with you.

Thank you,

It is a needed centripetal force,

I could never have overcome

Myself.

My fingers used to ache

Within the memory

Of your locks.

The likes of which

I am now free.

I wish you a smile,

Clarity,

And an avoidance of the judgement

I cannot offer

Myself.

Before you leave

Into the forever of my hindsight

Please know:

I did love you.

Your goals were attainable.

And the two were never

Mutually exclusive.

Hard as you tried

To make them so.

Backbone

If, somewhere, there are poems

Written about your smile

I do not want to read them.

I am too scared

To find out

Where it will end.

Withdrawn Jupiter

I complicatedly want you to know,

Brother mayhem,

That tonight I wanted

To fuck you

As if God had given me

A gift

Which he would now judge me on.

I intended to score

A perfect 10.

But your pretenses were un-vacant.

Your mouth belonged to a sister.

Our paths were,

Inevitably,

Beginning to part.

The Tightrope Walker

Was it her intention?

Did she mean to end

So many laughs

When she bit that tightrope

Clean, in-half,

And reached to hug forty-seven stories

Before she fully embraced Earth?

The woman,

This town starlet,

Had finally failed.

On the inverted flight

Into the traffic skyline

Sons seem pigeons.

The mayor's speech

Is a bald-eagle's squawk.

The city tenants point impolitely,

Not having time to think

Of their manners.

In the next two weeks,

Before the tightrope walker's name

Is banished to crisp and tan

On newspaper headlines

In the backs of closets,

Children asked their mothers

Why the woman fell.

Mothers asked each other

The same.

Fathers started drinking

As they maneuvered the fine strings

Holding their families together.

It seemed as if the town

Was makeshift bound

By the rope;

Pulling these skyscrapers together.

Now, the sky seems to be

Crashing downward.

On the trip down

She rips her leotard

Clean off.

It will later be sewn

By a mother

To remember her daughter's beauty

Now seamed.