She has a boyfriend

She has a boyfriend
usually this fact
Does not escape

But her beauty
Closes in around me
I am paralyzed

Picturing ice cubes
As she moves closer
To tell me all her boy troubles

My mouth waters as
I watch her perfect lips
Make shapes
Words
Sounds
I should be playing attention to

Be brave
Don’t back away
Stay
Feel the burn of wanting
While she remains
Completely unaware
Perfect in her ignorance

Instinctively my lips part
Only to know better
And slam shut

My eyes threaten to go on strike
As I direct them back to her gaze

She has a boyfriend
But I can wait.

Comparing Wounds

He said
“when you are in enough pain again
you’ll write”

Immediately I choke back
comparing wounds
like two little boys peeking over the sides of urinal

Instead I buttoned my lips together
who knew silence could be such a verb
my lips still hurt

Someone once said to
Identify with someones wounds
is one of the lowest forms
of connection with your fellows

The healing begins
when one
is able to connect
to the beauty
and love that surrounds them

But, until then I’ll be finding the pause
and crushing my lips

Powerless

“You had a really hard life”
The words came out like a jaw dropping
All these years we’ve spent loving eachother through it all
Tonight was the first time I saw you apart from me
A seperate entity
You are the heart that lives outside of my skin
Making your own desisions walking your own path

And I am powerless
To love you through it all
No matter what the cost

When you hurt
I push it away
And hope the best for you

Each morning I say your name
And wish you well
While I picture your smile

And tonight I got down on my knees
Thanked god we found eachother
Made it through the quicksand of our childhoods
To become brand new

Inbox

I like seeing your name in my inbox

truth be told
I’ll take what I can get

sunlight stretches over my face
and I open my eyes wider
taking in the blue blue of the east river
feeling the warmth of your name settle into my belly

I know the sensation won’t last
so I relish it
as I imagine the way my poetry
would look in your hands
bidding my time
chewing on bubble gum

distraction called today
hopeful I’d give

but instead
I slammed the door shut
resolving to stop pretending
my feelings of desperation
or ones of true longing
true hunger

when in truth all I can hear
ringing in my ears
is “stop”
“go no further”

because the price
of admission into me
is now
heart & soul
mind & body

the many months of inward investigation
has taught me
to follow my guts

so the truth is I like fantasy smearing across my inbox

that is until I clear the fog
from my heart
keeping me in delusion
and lost

one day these new actions will pay off

Close Attention

Today she walked through my worst nightmare
With eyes wide open
Head held high
Looking over her shoulder
I paid close attention

spin a yarn

She said
“I love you”
With a sigh that stretched all the way into my heart
Filling it with her breath

“You give all that you have
And all you know
You share everything
And keep nothing for yourself alone”

Only an hour before
I’d been clutching my wrists
Certain she was through with me and my ways
My selfishness
Anger
Rage
Unending fragile state

Certain she didn’t even want to sit beside me
My mouth hung wide open
Color me stunned by kindness
As she sat beside me
This must be out of pity
She couldn’t possibly want to be alone with me
Then as we sat side by side
With our meal spit between the two of us
Spilling out to the table beside us

Laughing for a solid hour
With our freashly painted fingernails and coffee
Her love stretched across the table towards me
And I reminded myself to remember this moment
The next time I decided to spin a yarn

pledge of allegiance

Some days I wake up angry
Bent over from loneliness
Isolation pulsing in-between my hard pressed lips
And all I can remember of my life are disappointments
Every good deed
Every miracle washed away
And the color of the sky
No matter how bright blue remains gray
Head tosses ideas around like a game of croquet
As women waiting for the train look right through me
I pretend they’ve recognized me
This must be how it feels to be famous
People whispering your name like a punch line
Everyone knows you, but doesn’t really know you at all
My heart beats like a pebble is stuck in it’s shoe
Glittering fans cry out for poems of politics and war
Poems that will hit the edges of their teeth so hard
They’ll have to swallow it down
And ingest change without their consent
But, really I’m a pacifist
Whose existence has been brimming
with politics of race, of men, of women, religion and gender
From the moment I could string sentences together
Each movement made a contradiction to the social norm
The pretty boxes they put me in
The pinky tails I wore
The skinned knees that wrecked my tights
but made me feel proud and strong
That was my pledge of allegiance
That Daddy squashed
each time he gave me the belt
Told me I wasn’t good enough

Capture The Flag

Everytime she calls me dude or buddy
I cringe
Secretly
Deep down inside
While stretching a smile across my face like a welcome mat
So shed never notice

And I want to be happy for her
That she’s found a lover to stand next to through thick and thin
That she wants things
Like children and marriage
And the white picket fence
And I
I want none of those things
Except for her to kiss me
Stop calling me dude
& instead to tell me how sweet my hair smells

I want to watch her face when I take off my clothes
for the first time
I want to take her breath away with all of me
My mouth
My body
My lips on her lips
I want her to know how good I kiss

“Is she the one”
My friends pester who’ve tired of having their ears bent
About the girl with the girlfriend
“If she gave herself to you would you stay
Or would you walk away with the winning flag
The fight
Won
Fought
Mission complete
Flag captured
Move on to the next one”

And I want to be happy for her
Her and her lover
That they’ve found one another
In a city that conspires to tear love apart

But, I’d be lying if I said
I didn’t still have a strong desire to play capture the flag

“second date”

I forgot to read you my poetry 
when we got to the apartment 
maybe because with you I’d rather make it than say

Tangled in your arms
smaller in proportion but strong enough to have
every single inch of me pressing into you
with only gluttonous smile in place to wear your effort

I can still feel your hands swimming up pass my knee
pass the many layers of winter
barriers to skin

Intertwined in our own private oasis
housed on 10th and broadway
ignoring the mid february chill
we’d just spend hours riding on
among the tourists and the regulars
the wounded children who were carried off the ice in stretchers
while their friends snapped pictures on their camera phones

We steadied each other while moving with the herd
I thought you were bending down to contain your nervous laughter
after each close encounter
but soon learned you were trying to steady yourself
which sent laughter out from the bottom of my belly
sailing across the ice to blend in with Chet Baker on the loud speakers

Now there was no sound except Doris Day
playing hard to get with her love interest
and the sound of small kisses meeting the back of your neck
the palm of my hand

Trips to the bathroom reminding me what it’s like to get worked up
Wetness erased down the drain

But as soon as Your perfect blue eyes were in sight
natures lubrication seized me
and all I could think of is licking every single inch of you

This cannot be only the second date

“A Giver”

Fingers moving rapidly
Pushing toward that powerful source inside
Which cannot be seen
only touched

These are the visions i hold to
When squeezed next to strangers
Catching wiffs of cat pee migrating through the air
While hurdling under ground to destinations
is the funk to my right or left?
One can never be certain

My thoughts drift toward better things
Namely
You
On top of me

Whispering haughty directions into my ear
Five feet two inches
Never seemed this tall before
Words pushing through
Like thunder
“keep quiet..”
Biting down hard on my lower lip
I try

“forget what i just said
Scream
as loud as you can
Into my mouth”

And i do
Feeling my voice
Vibrating against your lips
which have grown just as hungry as mine

You ask that sometime soon
I make the journey up to your mouth
I begin to nod in agreement and get wetter with the thought of it
But it isn’t enough
you want me to speak
Eject words
though moans of pleasure
So you can listen to me struggle to form a three letter word

“I want to fuck you when your house is empty and hear you scream as loud as you possibly can. Will you do that for me?”

I choke out, “mmm hmm”
Your fingers reach even further in
Pressing into that sweet spot
that makes every
inch of me echo
Yes
again and again
until i can no longer speak
each muscle in my body
clenching right before splendid release

“you promise?” She asks determined to hold me to it
Despite her earlier admission
Of never making promises

Apparently she only receives them

Good thing I’m a giver