I think i should
take this warmth in my heart
and roll it into a ball,
keep it tucked away in the pocket of my bathrobe
so when i pace the house late at night alone
ice clinking in my glass
I can hold it,
rub it like a worry stone
like a souvenir
made out of hearts
and it wont get lost or dirty

 We are of a certain generation.

Absent fathers, and manic mothers

Cradled our tiny hearts

During our earliest breaths

but by our 8th, our 3rd, our 5th birthdays

one or both gone 

scattered by wind
or war
torn apart before our eyes
leaving us, adults
tiny immature adults

there is no fault at work here
this is the way of our kind
there is no gaining on it
overcoming our wanderlust
or infidelity
we will never be calm
never taste happiness for more than a few moments
and this isn't
an atrocity
it is life
and we will
live through this like our parents before us
we will have children
we will not have children
we will make money
we will burn all of it
we will worry and be free
and all at the same time
in the same place
as the sun spins circles around us

embrace your missed chances
love them like an absentee father
like a manic mother
like big brown eyes heavy and sad
asking for your approval
and breathe the breaths
of generations before you
as important and insignificant
as you are.
And remember
doom and sadness and
philosophy and love and time and hate
and understanding and abandonment and
fidelity and laws 
and responsibility and shirking responsibilities
were all made up
by someone...one boring
day when they needed to fill some void
that by nature is unfillable

and then, smile the smile
of a human who sees
their own undoing.

and repeat.

330 in the morning
is when the world is at its
still point.
pendulums run out of momentum.
leaky faucets slow almost to a halt.
even dogs sleep, undisturbed by shadows and
paranormal whispers.
this is when i am caught
somewhere in between insomnia
and curiosity.
dark curls spilling
on the keyboard
typing with one hand
in the dark
like an amputee conductor
leading a deaf orchestra
in slippers and a robe
and i think,
sleep is for those who know what will
happen next.

if you want a wild thing to walk next to you
if you crave the company
of conquistadors
hoping to become a lion tamer
a horse whisperer
a crocodile wrestler

beware,
what makes a thing wild.

heart in the wind and teeth at the ready,
they are fence jumpers.
they are storm riders.
they will chew your arm off
in the name of freedom
long before thier own.

they are raw and
hardened by the rules

of love and loss.
all the while
haunted by sunsets, and
fires.

Promises of love,

And calm.

They are
driven feral.


if you want to hold a wild thing
remember,
its only a matter of time
before she slips away,
before he drifts out of
your reach.

the only hold you have
is on the memory.
one day you will be old,
they will be old
the memory will fade into
others, like puddles of time

disappearing in the sun
you will only recall
a smell, a taste,
shoes shuffling dead leaves,
a laugh, a hand on yours
holding you on the ground
for just a second.

i don't want to be in bed.

unconscious and still,
i want to rage against the world
from my kitchen floor.
full of cigarettes and moonshine.
full of warm thoughts and old guilt.
full of lipstick teeth
and ripped pantyhose.
hair wild and breaths deep,
i will remain.

propped up by the fridge,
empty until payday.

i will write late into each night
staring just past the page
until, either the world comes into focus,
or i become certain that it never will.

friends

I love plastic bottles of lighter fluid on a back porch
next to an old chair, pale blue paint cracking in the weather
dirty boots kicking it over steered by drunken feet

there are stories that i cant know about that bottle
how it is old, and hardly used,
slightly watered down because the cap was never fastened tight
how it holds the screen door open for groceries, for laundry, for goodnight kisses
how its a shrine, or a legend
or a fraud, holding only water
or the chair has become too attached over the years,
and the inside tenants cant bare to separate them