List Poem: From Untying Old Boxes

1. How many secrets would I loose if I tossed it?

2. Watch for falling poetry.

3. "Resilience should only smell like cigarettes and hope."

4. Pain unsent.

5. "Can we tie him to his bunk tomorrow? Duct tape?"

6. Watercolor sunsets.

7. Dear John poems full of regret.

8. Bus tickets to Washington, DC.

9. First sketches from 1872.

10. A hundred half-filled notebooks.

11. Unsent presents.

050910: Secrets Made In Caves

I lay your head upon my chest

and here shoots lightning

Lightning I tell you!

Glass split in my veins engraving,

"I love you."

I slipped on the most evident sound

of summer sighs under pounding rain

and fingers curling over skin

and here I tweeze from my sputtering heart: Tines.

This one made of crystal

This one made of glass

and my favorite

oh- my favorite

made from ghosts of nicotine

and whispering,

"Don't worry,"

with the surest of eyes

"you could be like her."

And every time I hold you

press you to my place

you could break

with just your hand

I am pounding out diamonds

from the cave in my chest

whispering,

"Forever."

VAULT: May Sometime 2010; From the Bottom of Broken

I'm a destruction

deconstruction of function

but she loves the drinks I make

like no other intoxication

and that day in Seattle

we kissed for the photographer

by the fountain; no-

on the hilltop; no-

down the staircase; no-

in the street.

But really, we kissed for destiny.

That was fly slaps on white thighs

and wanting desperately

I'd never dreamed of you before.

To show without shouting

world announced as yours.

Yours.

But then I dropped it in the river

and now my cherry skin is over-ripe

I'm no cherry.

And I'm actually infected.

I'll eat your brain

or heart

whichever I can get to first and

one day you'll wake and realize

you don't love me anymore.

Or will it be me?

But we made promises.

Promises damn it!

And promises I intend to keep!

(And I'm so scared of loosing you.)

So come what comes

and bring it on

'cause I know I wont let you go

without a fight

and then some!

Come what come

I'm keeping you

regardless of the struggle

'cause when I said forever

I meant until I die

and then some!

So I'll break your things

I'll be terrified

but this sickness I carve from your worry

will be shaped like:

I love you.

And the barbecue flesh

will taste sweet

between bed sheets and aloe

I love you.

And when I look into your eyes at night

I will know completely

you love me

and then some.