i promise...

"i will kill the spiders. i will share my fries with you when you’ve finished all yours and are still hungry. i won’t ever pop my collar. i will never be rude to your tummy- when i hear it growl and gurgle, i promise to bend down and reply respectfully. i will eat the mushrooms when we order the supreme pizza. i will kiss the papercuts. and the door-slammed finger. and the counter-bumped hip. i’ll try my hardest not to get annoyed when you whisper questions and comments during movies. i will be the big spoon. i will let you win at wrestling. sometimes. other times i will not. i will go faster. harder. i will pull when you want. and tease you when you don’t. i will send you random texts and leave you silly gifts. not always. not on schedule. just whenever i want to. whenever i think you need one. or seven. i will check your tire pressure. and remind you to take your car in. i will hold your hand. i will love you. i will love you. i will love you."

summer 2010

river

the red baloon
now
soars over an
indignant sunset-

where are you now?
( i miss your skin)
your gravity,
your love -

come back to me when
you are lonely
and know i did not
deceive

-----------------

dyshi

the air is thick.

we ride your motorcycle
through the
palpable winds of 71
north,
the engine hums and
roar
at different intervals,
and you reach back for me with
one hand,
as i let go of your side and
the seat -

the sun is racing us;
each mile you would check for me,
and i would
gingerly feel the
sweat of your spine in the billowy, hot space
and think of his face.

------------------------

honesty

am i
that transparent,
that vivid against a
lie?
that criminal,
that you couldn't give me,
your color
your world?

am i that
abrasive, that you couldn't
forget my name?

you don't love me

i have heard
too much advice
from lips to toes
months that go
from March til May
and back to
December days/

falling from the weight of your words
they go round and round
and to the floor they pull me
too close
nobody says it but
everyone knows/

and i,
i have heard
too much talk
from your eyes to your ears
from the shadow of your fears
that i sleep with
too many nights i sleep with /

i don't want to run with
empty promises no more
don't come to the door
i won't come back
no more/

you + me

January 7, 2010
3:11 pm

come March in the spring
i will have spent
enough moons to
shake off this frown -
you will belong to
someone else's shoulder,
dark and cinnamon,
wild and near;

come june and the sky
i will drive by the lake
smell the seagulls and their cries,
and i will have
lain enough battles down
saltwater and scabs
over miles and photos

and i will have
enough to get by
and i will have
spent too much time
and i will have
said my goodbyes

and i will have
said my goodbyes.

and so the story goes

i went snooping into the grounds
where my father laid his peace,
the house of small children
and little bitty white lies --

twenty years ago doesn't seem like
-- such a big loss,
but he has given up these tactics
for a much poorer life --

i see now his yes behind dark lashes,
they stare back at me when i
smear off mascara,
eye shadow,
all this dust.

i cannot give you the things you crave for,
the die that lands on one road,
and the choices between left + right
( i cannot tell you the places i've got to go,
you are all i have been
and my father disapproves.)

keep the ring.
feed your kid -
wash your sheets,
fix your car-
i will be waiting i,n the water,
sliding down your drinking glass.

new

tcafe

you'd always been an
open book with
endless chapters
( of some sort );
yellow-stained pages smelling heavily
of Camel Lights and coffee grinds;
the war used to be a
lifelong- fascination,
a box with tightly held secrets
that were undisposed;

( at night I would wonder where you kept
all your dust-covered fears )


your jokes now,
too bland, too
trivial,
too scattered --
I wait in my hopes that
it's not just the years,
falling by and counting up;
your quiet moments are filled with
smoke, and small, unprepared meals --

( i am sorry, for not having been enough )

Fall 2009

lilies of the subway

you lit your cigarette
and slowly strum back tar-
( i drape a careless arm over his back. )
you leaned against the cold and lingered,
and i
swayed back and forth in his grasp,
circling round the living room like
ballerinas on wooden music boxes

there you were in a crowd,

your body hungry,
your eyes of slate--
-- i brush a hair back and listen to the wind outside
where Ella does not hear and Coltrane cannot touch
the places we have been, and the lives we cannot have -
the distance that shrouds fragile memories,
sparkling, fading,
like ashes on your winter coat
and the kisses i left on your shoe

his hands steady me tight,
and the fire light crackles a slow, soft moan.
i caress his cheek, and
miss your smile,
( the way you easily erased scars and
inhabited its space )

we often search
but rarely find,

and what we find,
we often lose.





distance

there were nights when
the traces of your last cigarette
dissipated into the
drunken air,
where the buildings were alive with lights,
that scattered its weight from Seventh street to
Main,

the crowd sways,
and you shift breath,
your body softly calling out to
my vacant hands,


but i stay where i am,
and converse with my feet;
your nicotine hit preoccupied you
just fine.

and i would miss you,
i would miss you

so
much.





arm's length

you are a bullet
and i have bitten the gun,
if it should
rock, steady,

( i will wait - )

but if you truly believe
that we could live this way,
with the curtains open, and
all the doors shut,

then i won't,
then i won't.