beautiful little fool: October 2011

Why I Can't Sing to You

they stare forgivingly

growing faint

that feeling you slipped about her

my disposition to nervous laughter

worn-out pages of exhausted excuses

free-falling face down

the obsession of wordless songs

and the overwhelming traces of our choices

drowning each lobe

parallel figures white flags

and she wishes there were lyrics to sing to

[no title]

your eyes can't help but close

they've left us in this room alone

your bed is stiff

don't struggle to move for me; I'll fit

each breath brings

this overactive nausea

closer to my mouth

I convince myself I smell

your high school cologne

July heated pavements on our backs

a kiss in Zippo-lit garage corners

this time I wish your mom would walk in on us

your words blocked

by a deafening rattling in your lungs

my words blocked

choking cowardice

so I run most fingertips

back & forth on your knee

hoping it will pinken

ignoring its resemblance to my bent elbow

wake up, wake up

I'm enveloped in lines of panic

trying to make up for the last 1,384 days

and I breath so deeply

I break through all fabricated familiarities

the smell of

empty Kleenex boxes

monitored room-temperatures

bleach white pillows

enables instant paralysis

I silently plead

wake up, wake up

so I can continue to not say a word to you

Taking Pictures at the Ocean

with each step we take

two to your one

grinding salt and sand

I wonder if you're thinking

about the space between your toes

I try to fill the empty space

between my first two toes

clenching them tight

forcing closure to this humanly void

the first overlapping

strangling the second

because the phantoms between

remind me too much

of the lack of us

Wrong Turn

slick fingers

retreat through yours

to race to her mouth
to tear at the anxiously red bits
of her bottom lip
your questioning fingers are rough
strangling hers again
if those knuckles were necks
they’d go limp
you’re trying to manufacture
a sense of security
she feels your heartbeat against my pinned wrist
You’re feeling my pulse, not my heartbeat.
her pulse buried itself
behind both eardrums
banging on it
begging to it
spelling out arbitrary words
and she’d choke on her own breath
if it wasn’t holding those words back

Are you sure we’re here?

Appointments

“She”
the name casually assigned
by your shrink
twice a week
this damaging orange bottle
chemical assurance
why you've been placed
in this morbidly tidy space
for the last 42 minutes
two undiagnosed
broken right hands
two unhinged
broken bedroom doors
two less-than mutual
mutual separations
one bottom-heavy list of
things thrown against a wall
defense mechanisms
against retaliation
her tears, your targets
and any chance of a clinically
healthy approach at intimacy
for either of you
suffocating under the debris
“She”
doubles-up on
her daily face
but she doesn't have to come here

Shoot-out

she cries just to calm you down

displacing worry about your grip
that chair clearly aimed for
wreckage or her dropping jaw
she begins to shake
the buckles on her boots echoing her movements
she's wearing weathered cowboy boots
the spurs fall silent
she doesn't shoot
but you fall to the ground
pray you never get your hands on a gun again

[no title]

it lines
her teeth
her mouth
her tongue
tipping the

crest

of her
top lip
when she
tells you
her name