forgot to breathe

what did you do to
make it so hard on yourself, kid
it doesn't need to be so hard
so why are there tears in seven-p.m. droplets
rainy evening songs?
come on, kid, tell me where
did you go wrong

dylan-voiced, ragged edges
to bring you back to earth
i tell ya, it doesn't really work because
you were never really here,
were you

i love your dry eyes and your
mind, it's good for adventures
there is lots of you i like
but you can't keep the beat

and some part of me won't stop saying
you can't take the heat.

magic 22 (part 2)

in seventeen years, i sit unmarked
pilate, me
i killed you in five different locations
but i killed myself more
and it's not my fault
i keep saying, i keep rowing
it's hard because there is no shore

and this big stupid river, road, whatever
it doesn't matter
faker than fake, cornmeal and flakes
better in words than in song or
reality, give me up to someone, something
but do it before i forget to dream

ten thousand goodbyes, and
this is the hardest.

i dream of the city, the ocean
i dream of arms on mine
i dream of your smiles, words, memories
unsolicited
nothing else

there are only pages and headstones
where we lived, charred smiles
like candlelight lashes
i want to believe, i do
i want to believe in mending a broken connection
love, too. i want to know it all

sometimes. when life hits me square in the jaw
when i accidentally run you over.
only then, but it happens.
i keep on looking at this passenger seat
and i keep on wondering

"who used to sit here?"

and of course, the answer's air
shouldn't i be used to it by now?

flickering freak (part 1)

sometimes. when black and blue sit
in the lipids
(down in the depths)
when i can't bear to smile through you.
only then, but it's enough.

with strangers, it's easy
line 'em up and knock 'em down
knock one back. it's
on me, today
empty bottles and balancing bar stools
i wore my cut-offs
because i am.

so i guess someday we'll meet again
back at the start of this
same dead end
(oh, and thanks again)
and i'll be driving, diving
that's all i am

(i'm a)

heart person

hey missile, straw man
where were you going
on saturday last?
because fire is fire, no
matter why
sometimes we're just soft

endings are hard, you know
i can watch the start
the finish line grows until
four years down
where did we go?

it's world war three down here
this vast, metal life
like boxes, fish bowls, thin film
i could never dream of dreaming big
but i did
i did

they all laughed

i dreamed i was a sunset
in or on your tongue
these sanguine spires calling
from above and
oh, i went to find my future
in the needle of an eye, i let
the voices follow me from grave to grave to

sighs upon the last green valley
smokers traveling in a row
i couldn't find my body in the
cold september snow, oh child
child, give me the benefit of

everything was raining when last i
returned from home, believe you me, child
i can never go
no matter where i wander
these hills all point that way
they catch me, i'm falling

in case you didn't know
from zenith to horizon
but i will never go.

setting

sometimes there is glass between me
splintered off in every grain of hair
and doubt, it's like the world
in your nails, this sun
it hits you just right
because you write it
about as good as it can be

shell-shocked, sea wind
the salt in my bones, it feels all wrong
frenetic, frantic i'm a max i'm a
seaside lunatic these days
i want to feel
do you know how that feels?

it doesn't matter how much salt i see
this part of me wants to love
how many dishes i break
and this part wants to be loved
how many times i try
sometimes it's all glass, all windows
all screens and glares

corn king

strange dyslexia, suffering
mucus mouth
that will bring us back to doe
in the headlights scatter horizon
throat culture of capitalism
sinking through my eyes, my
scratched-cd, dead light dance
telling me, "hey. come back"
but i can't.

something in me shouts
every car alarm awakens
these clouds, they are me and i
i pay you back in guilt

undeserving tulips, undeserving
just write me already
do it once and get it right this time
i am no
baby loan, babbling on
not anymore, not this time, not now
i'd rather not be wrong ten
years in a row
like planted corn, corn king, baby
sinusoidal happy ending
i wonder if he'll be happy at eighty

i've got bugs on my hand
cover all and cover nothing
i'd feel more at home with a bloody rag
dramatizing delirious dilemmas
knowing what's what, what's when
international affairs
but of course, you know
there is no then

it's true. sometimes you are my favorite.
(and other times it's you, or you
or you or you again. multiple sclerosis
brainchild, brainseed grow grow grow
things would be easier if you would just glow)
and then sometimes this all feels
obligatory, purgatory
you are all my judge.

the other one

today, she said we should date
because the line between our eyes
normal to none
behind frail collarbones and
thick-skinned mantis
blurs so beautifully, alabaster eyes

your blaze fits so serenely among the fog.

i sat down inside myself and
pretended to know you for two days straight
but came out alone, at last
just me and nobody
smiling at each other

normal to none
to nothing, i mean
feeling so undamped
uniform, cuniform, under-done
sometimes i mean to say, "you're
my favorite"
but i don't because i never say what i mean.

the sigh in the boy

half of the remaining percent of me
lies for fun
in a park, to your face
a referendum on my future, fantasies
wondering how far up or down
i'll have to stare to see my own hem-line
to know you're there
and if it weren't for you, you wouldn't be

this microscope is limited
to tangible fact
to anchors and ships and seas
not seers
not me
no matter how much i want it to be

and that hurts, you know?
like splintered wood, we go
our own way
we don't look back
it's not my fault i have to see your back

i'm not so sure anymore

i wish i could smell your fear
i want you huddled in your room gasping for air
and ten thousand thoughts running
no, racing through that thick skull of yours
because you deserve to think,
to reap what you've grown on a hot summer day
dry september, october, november rain
the world was swimming when i was born
sometimes i think i'm like a time bomb
ticking away. i knew it, i'm too good to waste
i'll shove you into your grave.
why am i like this? why do i feel violence
every morning, every night, eyes, yes
ten thousand bridges and all of them burning
turntables keep turning but i can hear them stop
mixed messages, minds, tattoos on your eyes, yes
i know you know, somewhere
but you've sterilized georgia, and jersey
one of us will come out alive, alone, a locked
door for a portal, cold sores in your eyes, yes
it's all true one way or another, alien baby or alien brother
the world doesn't revolve
around me or anyone else
it stops
and stops
and stops.

alphabet

free-for-all fire in the hole
like dying, like living undesired
enterprising lovers
this cliff is very steep

and freedom follows sleep,
remember the time when
smiles meant smiles and miles
of heartache were just for fun?
i don't either
underneath and over on the beach
we stormed to see the future
hoping we'd win
(but just because i'm happy doesn't
mean i'm in)

i feel like
age-old languish, re-invent the wheel
cross the demilitarized zone, there's nothing left.

surprise attack on faulty data
intelligence could never prepare me for
many things, like love and life
but i still try (why on earth do i do that?)
i still try,
and it's still hard
but i bet that when the dust settles
over sunset crabgrass, twilight marsh,
i'll still be alive.

the adventure i didn't have

"buddy!" she yelled
and for a second i thought
she was yelling for me, twinkling
eyes, maybe ten
she's very brave, i guess

the best day so far, i thought
and ten seconds later
all i could think of was
help, maybe i should help
it could have been better

(i didn't help, in the end)

a gradient shadow the white
sun can't even begin explain
there are days when
i dream of reading you to sleep
fantasies of remembering fantasy
but up here, at the top of the flue
all i feel are fumes
and i know, i spy downwards every day

and breathe in fumes

the birds

this neck of mine, it
keeps on snapping back
and i keep looking up, obliging
white mist and crystalline
feathered fears, feelings

lately the sky has been descending
so that if i stand up on that cliff
i can feel the world thin
light looks so plain out here, but
it makes me ache

these wings keep pulling me down.
believe me when i say
if i knew how to say it, i would
i would.
something in the air sounds like
new, old, deathly silent songs
stairwells at the bottom of nowhere
this silly marionette has
lost its strings, crumpled

but only for a moment.
now isn't that weird?
this neck, it's mine.

... you can tell everybody

behind your dirt
left of the line, on top of
the world you made
there are two eyes
one is for seeing, and the other
looking

sundrop tears, you think
ten thousand years will cure me
and until then, repent
but i've repented
every day since i made you
out of graphite
and wires

if i told you i cared with a blink,
would you nod?
i guess the moment's too quick.

missing day

i try not to think about
you not here

it's hard. i try to reason
myself into a blanketed corner
and i try to find my tears. at least

here, the ground will catch them.

it only hit me five years ago
but i've always been lonely, reluctant
light has always moved this slow
and now, supernova and
what's left is a hole

the wires swept away my trying
they tied me up in belief
in dreams
but light moves so slow, for me.