I’m still picking little pieces of you
out of my teeth.
Bobby pins on the edge of the sink.
A hair dancing with static on the sleeve of my coat.
Your scent on shirts and sheets.
The food that you bought, spoiled
and left in the refrigerator
to extend your existence,
now lives at the bottom of a garbage bin on the curb.
I hope you’re happy
with your poor decisions and your poor attitudes.
I blame this whole thing on you
and me.

we are collapsing from the inside out,
we are out of and under control.
hello, this is dawn and we are dying!
illuminated light bulbs fall from the sky
and crash down like raindrops onto the street
as we stand in awe and stare at the clouds
we are drowning in light.
this is life
and it too shall pass.

I wrote this a couple years ago. Rediscovering old stuff is interesting.

hung up
two shoes, laced together, dangling from a telephone wire
dirtied, worn in, beaten up
seared in the sun
rotating, slowly, with the wind, never against
shifting, becoming familiar
nubuck, faux leather, faux suède
rough laces snaked through frayed eyelets
rain-soaked and heavy
shrunken and stale

I’m burning for you tonight;
a candle, lit at both ends,
the center is dynamite.
I’ve forgotten things I’ve never seen before
while you’ve invaded my brain and barricaded the door.
You can’t be trusted with keys,
like I can’t be bothered to sleep.
I’m chasing a ghost with nails in my feet.

I realize now that
I’m just an old, despondent fisherman
casting my line into an empty sea;
gallons of toxic waste engulfed the lake
and stole all the fish from me.

what’s there to do but to die
and be reborn as a raccoon
who eats your garbage
and fatefully, one spring day,
gets caught between your
front left tire and the road?

it’s like we live inside the walls
we always whisper when we talk
inhaling dust, exhaling coughs.

I’m entirely obscured as you fluoresce.

nothing occurs when you’re away
our lives run on a taped delay
the same old corpses, fresh decay.

I tried to make it hold, but I digress.

I did some writing a couple nights ago:

as i lounged on the sand in the midday sun
the scattered clouds cleared away.
i felt the ultraviolet rays burn into my chest
but then it was quiet.
the waves stopped crashing and the gulls stopped cawing.
i could not breathe and everything was blue.
my mouth was filled and my nose was filled and this swell engulfed my entire being
and this was you.
you are more than an ocean wave
you are a beautiful hurricane.

my darling little ukulele
i want to play you, but you always play me
not from Portugal or Hawaii
my perfect little jumping flea.

I’m having trouble letting the sun in
it’s a struggle for me to let the cold leave.
I’ve tried blankets and quilts and old afghans
but it just curls up inside, it won’t let me be.
I’ve struck at this flint a thousand times
but I can’t seem to light the match to smoke it out.
you told me stories of surviving in an avalanche
and now I know what you had warned me about.

I will abominate this glacial grasp
and this eternal freezing will sing its swan song.
I will send this aimless wanderer
back up into the firmament for it to die.
and it will die.