i miss you most (possible)

i miss you most (possible)

I could die right now, Clem. I'm just...happy. I've never felt that before. I'm just exactly where I want to be. 

Joel, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

i miss you most in the mornings

when i have to face the day

and slip from between the sheets

where i have dreamed and you are still possible

i miss you most in the early sunshine

when i am alone in a parking lot

or sitting in the coffee shop

where the day is potential but you aren’t possible

i miss you most at the pauses of the day

when i hear a word and turn to find

and you rush over me and smile

through the layers of you in memory possible

i miss you most every single time

when i see others hand in hand

aching for that second when you held mine

and i should have stayed there because it was possible

i miss you most in the drift toward darkness

when night is inevitable and closing in

and i can steal away again to sleep

where dreams and you and possible are possible

i miss you most

acrylic (heartless)

acrylic (heartless)

the acrylic heart they made

to bury in his hollowed chest

had small motors that sounded

like shaking tiny paint cans

and on the day they removed

his failed and shattered organ

while he lay briefly heartless and dead

attached to a machine pumping blood

if his mind could have reasoned

for those surreal moments between

he may have smiled at the irony

of his being heartless and dead

since this is what people had thought

him to be every single day of his life

but it was the other side of this operation

when the doctors circled around to ask

just days after the insertion and restart

as he rose to walk with a mechanical heart

“Do you still love them, deeply, deeply?”

he paused against the clicking in his chest

and knew he could have told them all along

“They were always in my bones, my bones”

cured (when)

cured (when)

(1)

when they gut me

and hang me

up to cure

they’ll wonder

how they can ever

eat all those words

(2)

when i stare

at the reasons

long enough

everything runs together

like the alphabet

of my blood trickled

on the sidewalk

where your footprints

track my incurable disease

(3)

when i lay birds at your feet

and leave mice at your door

i am your feral cat domesticated

delicious (just deserts)

delicious (just deserts)

humans are delicious

and quite likely

too much for each other

and never never enough

to taste and smell and feel

the one you love just to love

yes these fleeting desserts

consume humans everyone

•

he traces her name

and his feral love

on his headboard

each night with his finger

these prayers as mantras

before slipping into sleep

where his dreams conjure her

like cotton candy or ice cream

delight in the night

where darkness blankets

the solitude of sleep

that serves and reserves

memory like loaves and fishes

•

completely lost in her moment of bliss

she smelled something wonderful sweet

and her mind (she realized without thinking)

had turned to the pages of him warming

inside her like moments before an avalanche

or the sounds humans hear after the collapse

•

this is what humans deserve

baked in the oven heat

of their desire laced with love

welding these powdered confections

they line the ledges with all the moments

that leave their hearts in shards

and hands weighted with frosting

the end of me

the end of me


after you toasted
the end of me

did his lips taste
as sweet as mine

and could he taste
my blood on yours

and can he see me
reflected in your eyes

lingering there since you
swallowed me whole

our rare sober day (uncanny)

our rare sober day (uncanny)

it was a day of rare sobriety

when these things happened

when we flung ourselves in

so no one can blame the usual

inebriation we swim in freely

against the animosity of clarity

we woke embracing the next day

rising from intermingled dreams

smelling of sweaty sex&laughter

how could we have known such

innervating lucidity like a clock

measuring us through day&night

we lie still in bed unwilling to peel

ourselves apart as if to pause today

drifting through dreams to memory

in time we know our pictographs

covering our sacred bodies&walls

will fade slower than recollection

today&tomorrow we’ll have to watch

uncanny faces of those lost&unaware

of our rare sober day lacing us together

do you think the snake at our door came

for the chameleon living under the rug

you ask with your face against my ribs

let’s not do coffee or a shower for now

and i’d like to think it did like me for you

i say inhaling you before opening my eyes

confessions (this bay of love)

confessions (this bay of love)

I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees
I never married but Ohio don't remember me

“Bloodbuzz Ohio,” The National

they told him “Don’t move”

their voices hollow

echoing as if in a tunnel

he lay perfectly still on the table

arms crossed on his chest

waiting as if in a coffin

although he knew their commands

were arbitrary except to control

like the bright light in his face

“What do you want?” they asked

he lay thinking about which word

they had weighted in their question

then

“I want to be loved,” he heard himself say

“I want to be desired, I want to be craved—”

drifting to the piano haunting that song

“That’s not so much,” they interrupted

“That’s not so hard” voices not comforting

but swarming his head like bees or smoke

“—by her,” he heard himself shout

(he thought bark)

“By only her, only her,” his voice trailing

tucked between his legs because he knew

“Ah, so, that is entirely different, you know”

he wanted to say “I read Foucault in translation”

but his throat was frozen like a mossy rock wall

there he felt tears pooling in his eye sockets

and them surrounding him stiff on the table

just before he recognized the straps tightening

“I can barely breath” he would have said

he couldn’t think clearly beneath his own tears

had he confessed yet another mistake?

“Well, since you mentioned her, let’s do that”

and this was the part he always expected

in his dreams of being strapped to a table

surrounded by disembodied voices buzzing

“You think this is funny,” they stated the words flatly

and this was where he knew something else

his happiness of only her stilled them

like a life-sized puzzle of the entire universe

every piece black and the clock ticking

“Belarus is flooding,” he heard himself laughing

he imagined a wolf howling in moonlight

high in the shadows of Pico de Orizaba

this bay of love they will never understand

amper&and (& other stories)

amper&and (& other stories)

i. (ampersand)

i love you like an ampersand

however short

the coming to be

of you and me

as you&me&you&me

this curving over & into

becoming both of us

& something new as one

and per se and

as well as how each of us

intertwines the other

like the beach against the shore

& sand between your toes

or saltwater coursing our veins

i love you like an ampersand

et cetera

ii. (the snake of you)

if i could i would

draw all the invisible songs

you have sown into my sinew & soul

starting below your ear

& down your neck

& over your shoulder

& across your back

& around your side

to your stomach

so everyone would know forever

the dancing of my heart

coiled & intertwined

with the snake of you

iii. (swimming)

once we shared a pool

you & i

in a town & hotel where neither lived

a point between us

this water joining us impromptu

like the life we never allowed

& now here i am earthbound

treading water alone

not the stroke i wanted to swim

or emptiness i sought

this pool these beds those hotel rooms

& beaches warm & cool

we cannot undo & cannot forget

floating atop memory

no one is faithful & of course

everyone is

powder, frosting, & slices of lime

powder, frosting, & slices of lime

Our hands are covered in cake

But I swear we didn't have any

"The Geese of Beverly Road," The National

for five days from May Day until Cinco de Mayo

we ate red velvet cake with dark chocolate frosting

& drank grande Mexican cervezas with slices of lime

& when we leaned close in the corner alone kissing

the cake & frosting & cerveza could not mask

the unmistakable dessert of your lips against mine

later

i ask you

to slip off your clothes

& lie on the bed

i take powder

& coat my palms

to draw on your skin

dusty figures

& prints of my hands

tattooing your back

i press my lips

to your tan line where

my art disappears

before turning your face

to mine & touching dry lips

to yours tinted with lime & beer

and then

we will curl together

like nude powdered donuts

& watch The American

because the actors are beautiful

& Italy is beautiful

& the story is bittersweet

like powder, frosting, & slices of lime