Parade of Want

I want to stay poor forever.
I want to be selfless enough to love you all again.
I want to dream of people that meant something.
I want to spin a web of truths.
I want to escape so many forces of habit.
I want to fall back asleep in the bed of my childhood.
I want to force time to be inconsequential.
I want to believe in more than I do.
I want to trust that I will die happy.
I want to knock on a strangers' door and be invited in.
I want to breathe the air from twenty other countries.
I want to rebuild those who matter.
I want to imagine the father of my future children being an amazing man.
I want to be contented by the sound of wind.
I want to grow my mind like a weed.
I want to accept my inability to ever fully know.
I want to learn to be a duck and allow words to roll of my back.
I want to remember that my days are numbered.
I want to expect what I deserve.
I want to feel my laughter shake the tips of my toes.
I want to smile in the faces of adversaries.
I want to be confident in the life that I choose to lead.
I want to create good.
I want to create good.
I want to create good.

These Threads

Over my head, into you.
Each particle of smoke twisted between these threads
Stands tall with wild hair, pensive eyes,
And a thin coating of hatred.
Each particle that I breathe in is you.
You in jeans and a yellow cardigan. You.
You hiding in the air of my clothes.
You beside my closing throat.
You coursing through my lungs
You and every. Single. Ounce. Of your complete and utter abandoning indifference towards me.
Me. Only sometimes. You.
You all tangled up in this shirt.
Me stretching every long sinew of my back to drape myself in these threads.
Me breathing impossibly deeply.
Me soaking myself in this smoke.
Me forgetting all of your bitterness.
Me. Falling into you.

Rabbit Foot

I miss missing you, rabbit foot
Oh, dear, gasp, choke the faith I had in all that's disturbing
Your cool, soft smoothness in my hand
The luck I gleaned from actions so unnerving

I'd rather just pretend that we've moved on.
So I can't stand this slow dance.
Cheek to cheek I can't help but love
Which is why my habits are those of avoidance.

Speaking of which, you're just a habit. You fill the gaps my mind creates when it over thinks until all that surrounds is a masticated mush--ohhh, no--of spoiled secret feelings. Bitch?

I Could Be Something Done Poetic

I just need time. But time isn't what I have or want.
I wish time could be inconsequential, like TV programming or waffles.
Then maybe--not to get heavy or anything--I could be something.
Things could turn out alright.

I stole a clock from my school. Their clocks were always on time.
I figured, heck, this might mean something, like the word defenestrate or the Bible.
Then maybe--not to get artsy or anything--I could be poetic.
Now it's on my wall and it just freaks me out.

I keep telling myself that I'm running out of it.
In my mind that sounds positive, like leaving Detroit or escaping a rip current.
But really--not to throw a pity party or anything--I could be done.
The clock could strike midnight on me.

And being finished has a certain deliciousness to it.

A Couples' Weekend

"You don't really love me!"
Shrill female tones
Back to the wall, high pressure
His lungs feel every grove
In the plaster, dust
Wrists in hands
Fear in passion
Tongues in cheeks
Figuratively, then literally
Weird.
"You really do love me!"
Shrill female tones
Back to the wall, high pressure
His lungs feel every pulse
Breathing heavy
Loving heavy
Deep admiration, need
To stifle every
Mistake and such great heaviness,
To stifle every---
In mind.

Good Cells By Now

From up high, you look so good
And I can hardly quench these needy cells
And what am I inspired by?
Other than what I'm doing now
Which is disabling the youth in my bones,
Adding to crow's feet and laugh lines
Representative of self-depreciating self-preservation--
Not to mention bending myself
Over backward into an abdominal paradox.

Aged Up To This Day

She was really old. Like, insanely incredibly old. The type of old that makes you uncomfortable to be anywhere near it. Forget the smell. All old people smell. This woman, this woman--she was so close to death that you could see it on her. And feel it. Death vibrates.
Every hour on the hour she would reach out one of her hands towards me, usually the left, leaving the right to clutch her bedspread, painfully knobby joints terse and full of emotion. Her hands were sharply veined and transparent. Insect wings. I feigned a sneeze and jerked away every time.
I couldn't stay focused on her words. Over time her voice had worn around the edges like everything else in the room, leaving it jagged and unstable. This instability was impossible for my ears to tolerate. I tried to listen, I really did--I was so terrified of her that I felt that I owed her that courtesy. But I just couldn't. My mind would wander.
Naturally my first thoughts would lean towards my own aging, a topic that had long perplexed me. It creeped upwards without me, leaving me to rely on the calendar to track the years. I never felt aged, even now, far past my midlife crisis. Always just the same me. To this day I'm still not sure if that's a good thing.

On the Knees of Seven Words

Bile bubbling up the slit of my throat
Beside seven words that I'm choking down:
You are the one that got away.
Knees against tainted linoleum
I do my best thinking while powerless,
With you I always have been.
They're pushing back up, cannot be consumed
Those seven words I can't accept
Rupture between my lips in black.
My tongue is being attacked by teeth
I do my best thinking while powerless,
With you I always have been.
Droplets of arrow-shaped longing,
Messier than blood, pus, spit
Coating every surface within legs' reach.
Eyes closed to the mess I've made,
I do my best thinking while powerless,
With you I always have been.