Still

In the beginning, we'd never have sex on top of the same thing twice, remember?
Her breath would be shallow and pleading.
That was the only time you really needed me, remember?
Right before your body reshuffled itself,
Like a deck of cards.

Several nights ago you told me you needed me forever.
But hey, the beginning still matters, because
If someone handed me a transcript of the last 8 months,
I'd still highlight every word on that page.

She still does that a lot. Reshuffles. I can see it;
She says words that I've heard before
But never in that order or at just that time.
She keeps reminding me about feelings that I'm still only just finding out about.

And hey, there's still space between us.
Instead of watching movies we
Make lists of movies to watch and
Instead of going on trips we
Make lists of cabins to carry each other over the thresholds of and
Instead of sliding fingers into and over and around each other we
Clutch phones to our still heads and slide words into each other's ears
Which miraculously feel similar enough sometimes.

The only time I've felt like the second thing on her mind is
When there was a horse in front of us.
He liked her better than me too,
But I still got to watch,
Which miraculously was enough that time.

Depression Room

She is finished cleaning her room.
Her "depression room" she calls it.
The crumpled notes and envelopes strewn across the desk have been
Ironed out and piled neatly,
Like flags of dead nations.
The empty plastic water bottles have been
Swept into a bin
And the sprawling peaks and puffs of plaid laundry mountains have been
Collected in a singular, central location.
Except for my jeans.
They stayed on the floor, right where they were hastily deposited.

Before she finished cleaning her room
I laid under a heavy pile
Of hoodies and tshirts,
Remarking that this was quite a comfortable pressure
Under which to sleep.
She suggested I purchase a weighted blanket.
I didn't have the words to tell her
That the position had already been filled, as
I didn't feel the need for a weighted blanket while she lay next to me.
She is, so much with me.
She is so much, with me.

She is finished cleaning her room and returns to me.
I lay my sleepy head on her shoulder.
She says "thank God; at least we know we'd be compatible".
It's a hollow offering,
Like so many Plans B that will never see the edge
Of the cutting room floor.
I do not thank God.
Now, driving home, I feel like I'm falling through a great space.
Like I have hundreds of miles of empty distance around me.
So much room.
So much depression room.

So I spend a little bit of time
Mourning the loss of something that was never mine,
Mending clothes that actually
Still have a lot of wear left in them,
Making remarks
To re-mark territory
That already has a flag
Buried in its wrinkles.
The flag lies fallow right now
But its nation could kick my ass.
Ironically, she's into that sort of thing.

Later, After the Ice Cubes had Melted

I knew a girl in college who never told anyone
Anything. It wasn't any of their business.
She only looked me in the eyes once.
One time, in all of the years we spent in
The same kitchens, tramping around the same wooden apartment floors,
Sticky with light beer and heavy fingers.

She had been dancing with a man
In the low light of a rural shithole bungalow
House party, his eyes blurry and, at the same time completely transparent.
His hand wandered up her thigh
And under her shirt, his fingers asking and, at the same time demanding.
Immediately she stopped her gyrational motion,
Reached for the beer he had close to his face.
His now inquisitive eyes widened in confusion and he floated it up, up,
Higher, out of her reach.
She finally caught up to it, now directly over his head, and
Squeezed the thin aluminum until it's cheap,
Reduced contents rained down on his scalp.
As he swore and spat, shrinking back
Into the carpeted darkness of the party,
Her eyes found mine from across the room.
I handled it the same way he did.

Tonight I sauteed garlic and basil in olive oil.
They say there are certain populations on Earth
With markedly higher life expectancies than average.
They have little in common besides a
Generous employment of olive oil in their cooking.
Olive oil,
The more dry and puckering the better,
How jealous we all are that something
Which comes in both "virgin" and "extra virgin" are of equal worth.
As long as the flavor lingers on your tongue,
As if it were alive, it's good.

When I reached for the sauce pan,
In order to stir it's contents,
Forgetting it's handle had dawdled idle
Over a second, hotter burner,
It singed my skin.
The organic, protective insulation that
Covered the tips of my thumb and forefinger
Momentarily bellowed in pain,
As did I,
So instantaneous was the blistering.

Later, after the ice cubes had melted in my palm and
The cold water tap had been left to rest,
I inspected the rubbery remains of my appendage.
The fingerprint was so disfigured it
Wouldn't unlock my phone screen anymore.
How ironic that something so perfectly allegorical to myself and
So in keeping with my identity
Had poached that identity away from me.

Maybe when my fingerprint returns,
I'll text the girl I think about most these days.
My lover:
I cover her in kisses and sweet devotion,
Which she shrugs off her shoulders.
That makes her an atheist,
But it makes me an acolyte
And a fool.

Things You Can See More Clearly if You Don't Look Directly at Them

Every afternoon, 

I pull up to the red light by my house,

And if the light had sentience,
It would catch sight of me pause my podcast,
To hear the Stevie Ray Vaughan bleeding from his speakers,
And it would see me roll down my window,
To inhale his cigarette chem trails,
And it would see me muse to myself,

About how many queer women are dating
Men they want to be,

Or at least men whose lives they want access to:
The blessings by which we condemn ourselves.

Every morning, 

I pull my phone charger out of my phone, 

Like the pin of a grenade.

And as the morning slowly explodes into being,

I turn to her.

All she gives me is space - empty space on which to 

Propagate my own thoughts.

How strange and wonderful - to gift someone empty space.

As the primary subject of my poems,

She is fully aware that she is actually 

Just immortalizing herself,

With words of prosciutto and honey,

To exist in lines like:

"My baby smells like angel dust, I'll call that heaven scent".

Sound of a Tree in Love with her Log Cutter

I am a sick tree. My bark is painted in moss and furled swells of rigid tissue which have liberated themselves across the trunk of my body. I live next to healthy trees. They can control their swelling. They can grow oblivious to the insects and vines tugging at their roots. But this heartsickness touches so much of me. Everything between my canopy and the very last vertebra in my starchy, wooden spine.

If I wasn't dying slowly where I was planted, I could be buried in the hum of some faraway occupation. I could serve on a great ship or maybe submit to the curvature of a barrel, housing French Bourbon. But I wish she'd just fell me already. I wish she'd don her wooliest flannel shirt, smelling like she does, of sweet summer sweat and dark fruit. I want her to drive a wedge into my trunk and fell me where she wants me. But she doesn't offer me release when she comes.

It's been nine seasons and each one cut a thin, spindley ring into my trunk to mark the passing of slow, cold time. She climbs and climbs, swinging her own branchy legs - thick and consolidated, like my own - over my swells and burls. I feel so good with her arms around me. I feel warm to my innermost rings. Like after the first bloom. So good. So warm. I don't breathe. I'm a tree, without lungs or circulation or blood. Sap is a poor substitute for the kind of constitution swirling around inside her. But she breathes into me, struggling not to fall. Her breathing is so loud. Trees live in silence, you know. I've never experienced a pulse that demanded so firmly to be heard. Then she's gone, and I wanna fall. I want her to cut me into an unfeeling stump.

Felling is better than feeling and Fall is coming soon; I can taste it on the breeze like war.

One Last Moment on the Ground

The people who love me and the 

People who fuck me are never the same people,

But both leave me voicemails.

My voicemail is full. I keep it that way, like a motel - 

Indefinitely full of tenants incapable of moving on.

And I'm living a life full of teachers;

I'm grateful for the teachers.
Thank you for the teachers.

There are teachers in my brake pedals.

There are teachers in my mornings.

There are teachers in my freezer, and in my printer, and
In the hard days

Of no money and no justice.
There are teachers in my voicemail.

As winter ends,

And the days inch longer and longer,

Stretching slowly like a cat does after waking,

I go for runs along the river in my town.

Rounding the corner of the last fence post, 

I can see my porch light.

I sprint, combusting the last of my energy into one final kick.
The porch light is a teacher,
The cold air is a teacher,
The strain in my lungs is a teacher.

It feels like the last moment on the ground before your plane takes off.

Sometimes fight and flight are the same choice.

He Must Have Done Something

I want to write a poem about
The texts you send with the lights off.
I want to write a poem about
Keeping her close to my belly like
A pocket watch.
And watching her take big swings,
Asking me to cancel plans for her.
Snapping my fingers,
While she thinks of the name I can't grasp.
"John Steinbeck...?"

Yes,
That's the one.

Do you think John Steinbeck ever did
Something shameful?
D'you think he ever did
Something that felt yucky?
Something that resembled worms
When the memory slithered
Through his gut?
He must have done something.
Maybe a lie.
Or a low.

Yes,
That's the one.