no no yes no yes no

my beautiful mockery of my own youth,
my growing and writhing and losing
and living and hurting and healing
is nil
to the frantic, shuttering
lifeless old screen
but i read to my friends the words of rejection
and know that for once,
i'm worse than the rest.

strange.

you once told me
fire at my feet
and i told you back
and water in my toes
that closeness is a virtue
i am feeling the smoke
and so we embraced
and i am breathing the rain.
if catharsis is cleansing,
you smiled a bit
why do i feel wronged
this strange, fleeting world
by nothing, by something
is at your toes.
is, at the most, a dream.

so if this is a dream,
i can singe the sun,
and collapse in a heap
and dream of you and dream of me.
or dream of you dreaming of me.

you hug well.

goodbye.
it was good, tonight, to know you as a friend
and i've set up a rhyme but i can't use "end."
that seems too harsh, too real to be true,
but now i feel like i know you, i really do.
maybe it was the beer,
but i hope that you know that i hope you do well,
i hope you succeed and i hope you will smile
to know that i look up and see you every once in a while.

i also hope that you forgive me, this poem is lame.

i have a history of taking off my shirt

at age four i wanted to play violin
and you said, "honey, you don't know how,"
but i do now.
maybe i left it for better things,
for flying kites or having a social life
(well, trying).
i guess what matters is that the hollow body is cracked
and the bow unused, a still life,
and i do not remember how. so i'm back to
square one.

one day i picked up a bat and began to swing
and you saw your life and you thought,
"my boy, disappointment is at your feet."
you were right
and i cried too often and i lost too much,
so i left that, too. and then you knew
that i was destined to leave and never come back,
to have dreams unrealized
every moment of my life.

so you must have sighed when i bought those jazz shoes,
and began to dance
and began to tap
and began to drive you out of your mind
with the life that you wanted to correct,
to live vicariously through me -
it's a burden, you know. but i think i've thrown you off.
well, the shoes stayed with me longer than
the bow,
or the bat,
or your sighs.
but i guess i've given that up, too. in search of what?
(a social life?)

and i've given up the terminals and lines of code,
the computers full of promise
the camera that i once used (and paid for)
some of my friends and some of my life
my sexual identity
my relationship with you.

and in the end there are things i still do
only you don't see them
because you know they have no future
but heartbreak and abandonment.

but who will abandon who?

so when i tell you where i want to go,
i know you laugh and sigh,
and think that i have an unrealized life.
well, if you'd open your ears
you'd hear
that i am not the child you think i am.

and honestly?
shut up, please.

perseid

the clouds conceal your flying flames,
the archers are ready, they take their aim,
and heaven is angry, shouts and screams,
silver bullets through comets unseen.
o valiant night, swallow the light,
roil the beasts and hear the song,
life is short but lightning long,
so sleep with the owls
and listen to frogs.

happy birthday (this isn't about you)

so i stood by the lightning wind and rose
and the gulls picked me up
while the doves all sang songs
with their olive branches tucked in their beaks
we made small talk and watched as the lightning struck.
give me up to the lions
to feed their young
for the howling is growing, it's laughter and fun
and the moment is coming you're going away
you're leaving
and i never knew you,
and yet you laughed and you sighed and you smiled a lot.
i wish we'd done this earlier.

eighteen

far off.
boys are dancing and girls are laughing
down on the river
boats flying in twirls and swirls of
streamer and a dragon's whisker
and you're giving me a view of
tomorrow and the next day
and a year from now i will be saying that i am
almost eighteen.
but the best days are yet to come
unless
in the sky
birds diving upwards onwards backwards
towards the endless abyss and sometimes they miss
while they look for the phoenix and hope.
thinking sometimes muddles the mind
and one day i will be saying that i am
almost eighteen.