happy december.

Winter is always hard.
Money runs out and people run out and
we all seem to wilt just a little bit until
spring sneezes us back out
into the sunshine.
We slump through Novembruary,
barely paying any attention to the holidays
except our drunk uncle makes us uncomfortable
and we swore we'd ward off another ten pounds.
I want to leave town.
It's time to go weast and leave behind last summer,
as if it were possible
to forget how cinder block holds heat.
The river pulls back the
mittened and scarved undead:
This town is a gravity well.

Bukowski (2)

It was hot in Nashville.
My hair was up.
I found you in the History section,
took your hand from the shelf and
dragged you back into Poetry:
"Read these. In order. They tell a story."
I watched your face change shape
eyes, lines, sometimes your mouth made word-shapes.
Your cheeks got red every time
you read the word fuck,
or another description of a whore.
After five poems, you looked up at me
like I'd just told your future
and you said, "I was this guy."
I explained to you that the difference is,
you got it out of your system
before you were fifty.
Thank God.

and you said

semi-concealed, the blinds
let in just enough light to cast
half your face in streetlamp orange

sodium-powered, artificial
stripes}of{shadow
laying across the bridge of your nose

we whisper while the neighbors count their sheep
we tangle all our limbs up while we sleep

gush

i am the bold one
making sweeping declarations
movie one-liners drenched in
whatever that is that calls your guts to arms

you make me feel molten.
i could write pages about your arms
ending in hands
ending in fingertips
but it's been said before,
and we appreciate cheese--
here's my fondue.

(youmakememelt)

a quick fuck

you came home on your lunch break
just long enough

you never even took off your hat but
you were naked when I
put the idea in your head that
you couldn't love me

we will run away

Mothers sisters bestfriends roommates
none of them will know until we're
far enough away that they can't
do a thing about it except
wonder if they're good enough to
come
back
for.

form follows, follow-up

i still trace your back before we sleep
but i am not exploring or memorizing
i am driving down a familiar road in the dark
windows down

[ i am your passenger ]

now i have learned to notice
black skids on your asphalt
breaks in the tree line
pockets of fog that
return night after
night

your curves are automatic but
you are not stationary.

sporadically you turn and i jolt awake
you do not let me fall asleep at the wheel