Weekend

I’m pacing to the door 
back and forth 
the dog is pacing too
picking up the shared unrest
so now I have two shadows
three times the moods

and I don’t want to go out
but I don’t want to stay in
so I’m vandalizing the carpet
with miles of misadventure 
in different outfits
with different shoes
to confuse anyone tracking 
someone must have spelled me out
into a hex of indecision 
and now I’m being judged by the plants
who would all be dead without me

I went to the porch meandering,
enlightenment! Alas!
but my neighbor had the same idea
and now I’m forced to drink civility 
back into my blood
until I’m one with the universe

Driving Alone

I miss that feeling of missing someone and I want to get it back. I want it back, and I want it in the way that I could read your mind in the morning knowing how you want your coffee black and burning so you only sip it slow.
I want it back and I want to listen to how you listen to the plants and whisper telling them to grow. I want it back and I want it in the winter when you crawl into my skin, and deliver little kisses bringing heat into my bones.
I want it back in the form of little stories made up on a whim when we look at pictures on the fridge in other people's kitchens. I want it back like laughing secret codes at things we only tell each other in our world of secret jokes. I want it back in the way that I need to learn your voice and pick up all your tones like inflected treasures and live between the words you never say and the ones I read on your face.
I want I back and when I meet you speaking plainly of the worlds I lived in looking for my ghosts, but I don’t know you, and I want to miss the feeling of missing you the most.

Terms for Departure

I forget to exist, and what I mean when I speak of vacancies is that sometimes I’ll get lost right in front of your eyes. Adrift in a what-if of imminent adventure, terms for departure. It’s only a few seconds, a stand-still, a minute at most, where I stand quite still, staring and the story stares back, unfolding in acts of confrontation and contrition. Odysseus the domestic, delivered from fates and all I did was blink behind a conversation that never happened, another car crash, a hero’s journey. And in a few seconds I’m standing in a room where I forgot to exist, where no one knows my name.

Plans

I dream of the future like a planned oblivion from the couch, where I curl into punctuated forms wishing I was an anomaly. My body floated off an hour ago but we didn’t say goodbye, now I’m left contending with shapeless decades swirling, slipping, bending--balled up in the blankets for all the things I’ve seen. Unplanned and unforgetting, each time unbeknownst to me--thinking in the future, most days it’s all I see. I get anxious and depressed so I’m living the next ten years for the person I was ten years ago, and I might not even like those guys. Time is linear in a way I never agreed to, but the lighting in here is pale enough to convince me otherwise and I guess that will have to be enough tonight.

Creep

I’m plotting against grief in full steam futility. I’m all-in ignorant in the face of forces that will break me, all-knowing against the wind, and I’m always falling into things, like trying to feel the future from my porch on the cold wood bracing my bare feet to The Sound of Jazz. Like I’ve earned it in bouts of blood through spirals of anxiety in preparations I’ve overthought. My toes are losing touch with reality, but October nights remind me I’m still here and I could never let someone save me from myself, but love me enough to watch me flail and still tell me it’s going to be ok because I only believe it when other people say it. There is going to be breaks when I can’t return the same, when the ugly interiors of my brain lose color and I rely on clichés for comfort about being in a better place. Tomorrow I will wake up thirty-seven, and I’ll wander the forest suspended for those few miles in the damp because there’s comfort in quiet abandon, and betrayal in that creeping grief.

Slipping

I’m losing my voice again looking for signals in the dirt from someone else, slipping into casket fantasies and the death of anything I love. I’ve been dabbling in dark arts again. Stressed in the silence of little secrets I keep like momentary loss on the train, like forgetting the definition of words I know how to spell and use to describe the light. Like convincing myself on a Sunday that none of this is real and the songs I string along on repeat are just constructed to bring me to life. I’m bordering a birthday and all the stories I tell myself are slipping, and some days I want a cigarette to remind me that I’m allowed to love myself and not the person I thought I would be.

Melting

I’ve been melting into the couch. Sliding around my brain looking for way out because if the present is the only thing in life with no ending then I am swimming in unlimited fiction. I’ve got two different voices coming out of my mouth, one screaming love forever, one crippling doubt. The life in my head vs the one on the ground, the sound of my voice from the top out pouring down. The people I talk to talking back out loud about waking up early and late lights out, about drinking too much and campfire rounds, about missed opportunities and long flights in the atmosphere. Life is happening on the borders of sleep, under little silver screens and I’m waking up, stuck to the ceiling looking down at my dreams. 

Neurons

I have too many neurons. I know this isn’t true but it tastes right falling out of my mouth. Everything is happening all at once and I think I’m moving too fast but don’t know how to slow down. So, I (do not) have too many neurons. This room has all the right tones and I’m bouncing from the golden hour slouch couch to the deep green jungle cup (lush). I’m starting over every time I blink and the girl at the table across from me has an American Football sticker so I’ll love her yellow curls for the next half hour longing for the two empty seats between us to contain the quotes of a conversation that never happens.

Immediate Violence

Live-wire on the interstate, I’m reading the lines in the road. Saturday morning and I’m in two places at once watching Morse code divide the highway. show me the way to the beach this time, show me the road at night. I’m a little Kerouac in the in the car, a little shadow under the light. First deaths are on my mind but I don’t think that’s what the billboard said. I’d rather be the last death of the year for punctuation and quick mourning. There’s something about a long drive that swings me from one left turn to starting over and -- immediate violence. 

Two Armrests

Four days down, and I’ve been drinking through old haunts and airports. These are my favorite corners of all the small earths. I’m paying a price on a Monday, in the middle seat gaining the territory of two armrests. Stolen between strangers, as if they would know who I was. Jammed in the slot, coach cabin with plastic cup cabernet that I spilled down my leg. Wet ankle at takeoff, and TTX on repeat again (all year)  "I’d have held myself much closer then"

Night Visions Only

It’s hard to see
in here despite all the
mirrors,
reflections on my reflection.
it’s heavy on my eyes
and I change my appearance
often enough to
question recognition
in the early morning
in the wake of three dreams
three different faces,
night visions only.
and I regularly
ignore what everyone
else sees in me,
so I don’t break character.
who am I without
the stories
I believe about myself.