When We're Away

When our eyes were first formed,

the striated iris was solid.

We stared into each other’s deep, colored

eyes but there was no hole for the images

to penetrate.

We pierced a pupil with our sharpened

fingernail and all the world came flooding in.

Our hearts too, were once intact.

A balloon of blood floating in our chests

but there was no need to beat until your love

cracked it and a red river spilled into our starving

bodies.

Stars wouldn’t be as majestic

if there wasn’t so much emptiness

around each one.

A lifetime’s worth of space between the suns.

The million miles of highway

between where I sleep

and where you sleep

is what pulls

my daily momentum.

If we ever meet

then we may as well disintegrate.

It’s no longer necessary

once it’s complete.

We Kidnapped the Principal's Dogs, but She Was Working For Him the Whole Time

Last night I dreamt of a woman

with overwhelming purple eyes

Instantly I fell in love with her

though I knew she told me lies.

Ash Wednesday

I haven't been to church in years.

Well that's not quite true.

I snuck into one last spring

to kiss a girl against the unlit altar,

and I wandered into one last fall

at sunrise, drunk and empty,

listening for meaning in the silence.

I haven't been in a functioning church

in years.

Still I want to anoint myself

with premium grade oil,

walking around looking

like an unemployed mechanic

who wiped the back of his dirty

glove across his forehead.

Tomorrow I will wake up

lurching into the desert

with all my sins draped

across my back.

My feet will burn in the white

sand, my throat will clench

with fury.

Returning Home After Four Years of College in the North

On the Night Before Valentine's Day

The hallway was filled
with party-going kids
waiting for the bathroom.
We all let the girl who walked in with ripped tights
and bloody palms go to the front of the line.
She had fallen outside on the ice, and there was gravel
mixing with her nerve endings.
It was the same color as the streamers and balloons.

My roommates and friends, and my roommates’ friends,
were all here
scattered throughout the floors of this house.
The kitchen smelled like syrup, and the floor was sticky
with footprints.
I made my way through the crowd and found a drink.
When someone caught my eye we’d talk about the constant
stream of work, dwindling hours of the weekend, and who else we knew
here.

We didn’t say anything about the thousand miracles
that trumpeted our arrival.
The clockwork automobiles fueled by dead monsters.
The sink on which I sat, where a simple twist would summon up
a river fresh and boiling.
The constant rhythm of our collective heartbeat.

It takes a certain amount of mindful neglect
to enjoy one’s self,
or perhaps it is purposeful ignorance,
or just unconscious abandon.

Pulling the stairway door open,
my free hand swung and knocked over someone’s beer.
For a minute too long, I stared at the amber pooling on linoleum.
Gravity makes us congeal. This invisible force pulls people together
at our point of greatest depth.
I’ve heard gravity described as resting on an infinite trampoline,
and its mesh is the fabric of space and time. Every body, no matter how small,
makes a dent in the fabric, warping the very nothingness around it in all directions.
Any object rolling by gets pulled in
towards our individual depression.

If heavy enough, the object will orbit us until it has the momentum to break free,
but even if it just glides by we have still altered its path.

I got the man another drink, and tossed some toilet paper over the spill.

Flying down the stairs, I used the railings like rope swings,
holding on dearly as my feet left the ground.
Two,
three,
four stairs at a time. The corners are my favorite
part because estranged walls of the house can reconnect.
Passing by the first floor door I felt the February breeze from the backyard,
instantly made aware of the thick sweat that hangs
in the air.

The lights were off in the basement, except for one bulb right above the washing machine. Bodies swayed between the pillars that held up this house.
Looking into the crowd, there were no faces
that I knew and every song was foreign, which probably meant that they were new.

I walked into the center of the dance floor and closed my eyes.
Starched cotton rubbed across my arm.
Turning,
pale blue lights
jump and flash obscene letters.
The floor began to sink beneath my feet.
Someone turned the cement into quick sand.
Slow and falling, we all reached out our hands.

V-day

We live in a society completely drenched in fairy-tale fantasy.

I think that's why so many people don't like valentine's day.

How can we be happy since none of relationships will ever match up

with hollywood romances. But in reality, that's not what true love looks like.

True love is dedication and hard work. It means not giving up the first time there is a bump

in the road, but relentlessly pursuing love. Even if your love leaves the state and claims things

"won't work" because of "obvious mental problems". Those are just ways of showing love.

And gifts. Buy her lots of gifts.

Rest In Profanity

They say that we all

live our lives and die

completely alone.

Which is good

because when I die

I'm gonna cuss

like a motherfucker

and just go buck wild.

A Response to Mark Doty

The first thing you notice

when you're dog has stomach cancer

is that she eats less

and shits more often,

usually everywhere in the house.

As a puppy Goldie would squeeze between

our legs, as we walked in the front door,

and tear down the path to the beach.

We'd chase after her, leash in hand,

apologizing for her slobbering terrorist affection

and relentless bliss.

Crowds would form around us

as we threw the tennis ball again and again

in the cold and rolling Atlantic.

Goldie would throw herself bodily

into that wet mess, honing out the spot of yellow

among the floating seaweed and debris.

Of course she only swam doggy paddle, but with impeccable form.

Never once did she return without retrieving.

It's in her blood and bones to bring back

what we've lost or tossed away.

Goldie would tear through salty waves

with hacking breath, and when she'd land safely

back upon the sand the audience of beach-goers

would burst into applause.

She never took a bow or victory lap,

but shook herself dry from the last rescue

and waited for me to wrestle the ball

from her vaulted grin and launch it into the sea again.

The day before we put her down

she slumped off the green plaid couch,

which she used to claw and gnaw on as a puppy,

and stood before the living room screened door.

Abigail and I let her outside

and walked down to the beach.

We all sat with our chins in the cold sand, watching the lighthouse spin.

Goldie rolled over on her back and we scratched

her bloated belly,

laughing as her legs thumped out joy.

I wonder what the steady crash of waves

sounds like to a dog,

or if her huge ears used to fill with water

in the days when we played fetch.

Perhaps it was all the saltwater she used to swallow that made her stomach sore,

but nothing can stop a fearless dog.

Hibernatural Beats

A mix for Winter Warmth.

Of course

Is it unreasonable to be sad when I realize
that I very well might never again,
in my days of blooming adulthood,
have sex in an open field,
beneath a brilliant sun
and clouds shaped like medieval transportation?

Making love in dorm room
beds never seems to last as long
as the red river scratch
of long grass on my backside.

The stream bubbles secrets
over our toes.

I love you

I love the way your eyes light up
at the sound of distant explosions
or when you have been fully charged.

I love your metal claws
and how they click together
once they have severed the sinews in a neck.

I love the way you throw fire
from between your jaws of death
singeing my shirt red.

When I hold you at night
I press my chest against your back
and feel for the reverberations
of some sort of heart beat,
but all I hear is the steady hum
of gears, like a mechanical buddha's prayer.

I love the way you try to destroy me,
printing all the reasons you can never love.
Its cute the way you can't connect.