at nineteen

well, well
it's a fine time for rustling up feelings
of dogwood summers
i left behind for you
back when i was wide-eyed enough to do
such a thing. and
i left a lot behind for you.
but we're not untouchables.
i laugh that we were ever considered so
in such web-crossed minds as
ours at nineteen.
i didn't quite know what to make of you.

i chose my wave not knowing
it would turn me black and blue
and drain me of the rest of my color,
transfused into your veins
when you were finished with me
(so you could go on living
and i could become parasitic, pathetic).

how i tripped over you.
your play-thirsty lips were begging
to be slaked
and i did not want
to leave them parched
but i did
and immediately wished i hadn't
for i lost you then
right then.

ignorance is not any sort of bliss
when it comes to you and me;
i spent months as your shadow,
dumb and matching your moves
but always a minute behind. when
i let my voice mix with your broken harmony
i also found that i was jaded.
how does it feel, i wonder
to know that you're the one who jaded me.
i have known many versions of love
but yours was by far
the most brutal.

i want back, if anything
except time and some tears,
the faith in love i abandoned
to breathe to your
he-loves-me-nots.

06.2011

intentional

i wonder if you're all happy

now or if you're defending lives

you've gotten accustomed to, lives

you ended up with but never

actually chased down, lives

tethering you to the place where

you grew up, where we all grew up.

i wonder, as the flame still alight for you

in a corner of my heart finds a

bit of new air for rekindling --

i wonder if this is the life you had imagined.

i hope you're happy.

i hope that no one has called you names

or judged you for being a small-town boy

who had a child out of wedlock.

i hope your marriages are stronger

than your parents' ever were

and that you didn't do it

because it was the cool thing to do.

i hope we've all moved past that notion

of doing things to be cool.

i hope you aren't stared down in hallways

or tripped in stores accidentally-on-purpose.

i hope your shoes are always with-the-times

and your hair, not yet graying.

i hope you are making your own money

and realizing how hard it is to keep it for yourself.

i hope you smile at more things now

and that you've had to swallow your pride

once or twice. i hope that

for myself a lot, too.

i hope that you don't hesitate

to help someone when they ask

and that you help them even

when they are too afraid to ask.

i hope that all of your struggles,

everything you've lived through,

have enabled you to learn

about the kind of person you are

now.

i hope you think of the people you've hurt

with fondness, especially those

you didn't know you were hurting

and i hope you forgive the people

who have ever made you leave the table

to go cry in the bathroom.

i hope you forgive the people

who offered empty apologies

just to make themselves feel better.

i hope you never get tired of hearing or saying

i'm sorry.

i hope we are contributing members of society now

and that we think seriously about the future

even if we aren't sure

or don't want to know

where it will take us.

i hope the diamonds on your fingers sparkle

as brightly as your eyes do

and that you remember how good it feels

to be complimented sincerely

by somebody you don't know.

i hope you've found something lonely

in this world to believe in.

most of all, i hope that we don't forget.

whatever it is that you still hold on to

from then until now, i hope

it stays with you, welding itself

into the workings of your psyche.

i mostly hope that you are

better, stronger, kinder and humbler.

i mostly hope that we have all

changed from imbeciles into adults,

into human beings who matter to somebody.

that is all that i hope

for all of you, whom i'd nearly,

intentionally,

left behind

08.2011

wait around now

i'm leaving again -- why

do i always feel like i am saying

unnecessary goodbyes?

life should be full of hellos and see you laters, i

can't take finality like i can't take

not remembering where i set my hat down at age twenty.

well the way i see it

au revoir means "until i see you again" anyway

so let's leave it at that

pretending i don't need to feel like

a lovelorn desperado

shouting across fences i got tired of sitting on.

i never actually wait around now

long enough

to hear anyone answer.

04.19.2012

another shore

how freely we think we are immortals,

our word most certainly each the last.

today we threw out love

and instead rode our high horses ably

into the jester's parade.

i'd like not to be thought of like that;

i held my wary tongue, wavering.

i know the limits of this, and i've received

every bit of it on another shore:

the piercing of a well-timed heart,

the assassination of a beat-bitten soul.

so i need a sort of puerile grace now,

something delicate to counteract the

greed of knowing what's best for everyone

(you only ever know what's best for you

and that's a fortunate science).

i fold in threes, triangle faces and fingers

keeping me from lashing out.

this isn't my desire, to mudsling, to steal the throne.

i cried yesterday so i'm not a martyr now.

11.2012

a girl with a heart

i'm caught in you,

being tossed amongst your melée,

and i used to think it might be healthy for me --

i'm convinced

it's so good for my soul to love you.

should my soul, then,

be splitting itself down the center

in what can only be called a civil tug-of-war,

shredding me

in a juvenile game of

to-be-or-not-to-be?

a tragedy at best

written for only your benefit.

and suddenly here i am,

naked in the glare of a rogue headlight,

and i really wish you'd run me over,

slam into me head-on

and be done with it.

it would be less painful

than this.

i'd even venture to say

that i wish you could hate me

or that i could hate you

even though i know

it's not really in me

to ever harbor such emotions

or to let you know.

so could you please just sever this thread

that binds me so readily to you

so that i can be free of all this?

i'm coming undone at your feet

and i'm losing myself

over the pieces of us...

i can't be the done-up doll

the pill-popping priss

the mascara-smeared Marilyn

you chase

you drool over

you claim will complete you;

it's me,

this, just a girl with a heart,

or nothing.

that is all i can offer,

now or ever,

and so i must request to be

put out of my misery

or else risk

making a mockery of us both;

be attentive and real

or be done with me.

01.2010

sense

world -- struck blind and deaf,

no sense left to make some sense --

judged me anyway.

04.21.2010

only ours

you're not sure when you stopped

meaning something.

well, since you asked,

yes, i do miss the things

that were once only ours.

our favorite place to be

was in the front seats of your car,

you at unsteady wheel

and me picking up your misses on the road.

Matt Nathanson would happily serenade us

and you and i would serenade him right back

as if he could hear us through a one-sided stereo,

but we always did him one better

by harmonizing --

you so loved those harmonies

we shared.

they brought his music to life for us,

the too-true lyrics

resonating long after the songs had ended.

it was like

this guy

had taken our own lives,

read every page

and written about them,

spreading experience, emotion

across radio waves

and bedrooms

and iPods

and hearts

like the tastiest butter.

i still recall fondly

the concert he gave at our school;

at five bucks per head

it was a fucking steal

but he must have known

we were broke college kids

who'd wasted our parents' money

on beer the week before.

he asked what we wanted to hear

and we told him

and he listened and played it all

into perfection.

you got it all on camera

and sent me the videos;

i watch them now

and as amazing as Matt was that night

all i can think of

is you

because he was ours.

the best day i had last summer

was my 23rd birthday

when you visited me in Florida

and we spent it in Walt Disney World,

a place that had seemed only mine

for weeks

and then opened up to accommodate you

there in the midst of my dream.

we rode Mission: Space together

and Zach got so excited

to be a part of the journey

that he dubbed us Team Awesome

and there we were,

a cluster of young adults

who'd been transformed by the magic

into invincible kids.

we had a superhero stance and everything.

we rode it five times in a row

so we'd all have a turn at each role,

and that day

all of it --

the buttons on the inside that we couldn't wait to push,

Gary Sinise as our trusty flight director,

going to space and back in four minutes,

all of it

was ours.

the night before you left

in the hotel

we were in bed

talking about life

and i cried

because i'd been lonely and homesick,

because it had meant the world to have visitors,

because i didn't want you

to go.

you held me

and cried with me

and told me that you loved me

and that at last

you understood what i felt for you.

it pains my heart to know

how often you think of that moment now;

i remember it like yesterday

too.

but somewhere in between the beginning and the end

i got hurt

and in turn you got hurt

and the things that had been only ours

disintegrated back into

facts of life

for everyone.

i'm not sure when you stopped

meaning something;

i don't think you've stopped

meaning something.

but if we've lost

those things that were ours,

much of the meaning

has gotten lost, too,

all that ever defined you and me

has gotten lost, too.

yes, i do miss the things

that were once only ours.

05.2010