broken highways mended fences

I drive my fist into the face
of another beautiful day

when it changes
let it

it's supposed to be
like this

kind of happy
kind of lost
kind of broken
kind of sweet

my love is
a permanent,
bruise

admire it in
the mirror
think of me after
i've gone

a bee- sting
a car- crash

i charge at each day
each love
each word
each you

as if it were my
last

Oh, it's the little things you miss

Tell me a story:

when i was little i had a teddy bear named Cocoa, and once, I forgot him in a motel room. I'm only guessing because it's been such a long time, but i think it was in North Carolina. I remember passing lots of Christmas trees. I rolled down my window so i could smell them. They weren't in vacant lots for sale, like at home, but just growing on the sides of the road and in the mountains.

it was the holidays and we were on our way to visit my aunt. I didn't notice he was missing until hours after we left the motel, and when i did i was instantly heartbroken. how could i have forgotten my best friend in the entire wide world?. I instantly shifted blame to my parents...how could you let me leave him?
I must have been in such a rush. there was a Waffle House right in front of the motel and my mother had promised we'd eat breakfast there before we headed out. we never went out to eat. my mom usually packed a cooler with milk and drinks and brought cereal along with plastic spoons. and you have to understand my love for waffles and chocolate milk.
I must have left poor Cocoa in bed, under the mounds of covers.

We have to go back!!! we have to get Cocoa! my Dad squealed the brakes and nearly drove us off the mountain. He must have sensed the devastation in my voice because we got off at the next exit to call the motel. My mom asked if they had found a bear. No, a teddy bear. I heard her say. Yes, i know you have real bears in North Carolina but this is my sons teddy bear. I caught my father rolling his eyes at this. Did they thrash it or not? we gotta get a move on.

A few minutes later the lady on the phone said they had indeed found Cocoa. He was safe and they would mail it out right away and my mom gave them my aunt's address.

When Cocoa arrived at my aunt's, I opened the box and began to apologized over and over. He just started telling me about his trip. How it was bumpy like a roller coaster and only a little hot inside the box. cozy was the word he used and much needed sleep. He said the motel room wasn't so bad and the cleaning lady was pretty and nice and sang him songs in Spanish. She gave him a bath too and indeed Cocoa smelled clean like dryer sheets and his fur was bright and fluffy.

he made the journey back to me seem fun and exciting not scary like i knew it probably was. I promised to never leave him behind again, that i would be careful with the people and things i cared about. but, he was a bear and even though the lesson i learned wasn't lost on him, he wanted to know how the waffles were and was it the bestest chocolate milk i had ever tasted in my entire life?

beneath the fireworks

I'll spare you the details of being off- the- grid for a bit. cause you'd hardly noticed. It's just that hard drives crash especially in laptops. all the pictures, and things you've written, the stolen songs, i-tunes, emails- all of it. you kinda wish you made a back- up of some sort- but who has time? and in the grand scheme of it all, is any of it really worth anything. I mean. really?

but i do know how to get up and running fairly easy, I know from experience. I know a lot of things from experience and when you are charging very hard at 39 years old you are fucking old enough to know a few things. you kind of earned the right to have the scars and lines and fine, I won't live forever and I don't look as good as I used to but somehow better in other ways.

So, what I'm saying is I know about getting a 2.5" usb enclosure and sticking your bad laptop drive in it - plug it in to another computer and save all the data you want from it.
10 U.S. dollars and a spare laptop hard-drive i had lying around and wow I'm back. A few re-installs like the OS, (operating system), drivers and all my music and porn are waiting like stalkers. Isn't that what computers are for?. That and looking up suspected illness i might have or get in the future. That and saying hi, saying i miss her, saying come pick me up. I'll pick you up.
That and fantasy football, and looking up hacks to take spaceball.gif off of flickr photos i want to save. that and the letters and how she looks in plaid dresses in the summer sun. looking at cute dog pictures, and movie schedules, getting music months in advance to their release date. I'm not saying i could live without it. without you. without.
I'm saying i try. The things it's good for..... you finding me.
that and telling stories.
some as good or as bad
as this.

credits:
supercult

promise i don't have to worry

it took some time to get over each other, which really meant they were playing bows and arrows in different parts of the woods. the sharp edges filed down, the distance and silence.
so they wouldn't get hurt.
which meant: Yes, time, but also forgiveness.
which meant: learning closure has nothing to do with moving on, but more with going beyond.

the underlying love and
hate towards each other faded into a strange friendship that developed years later.
despite their age difference they still shared what can only be explained as chemical connection.
a twisted attraction both dangerous and troubling. A devils trick or a little joke played by god. but, something either could do much about. by the end it never really mattered.
now, he is good advice and warm skin.
she is
his sunshine in the distance.


someone hurts you that bad. that good.
in a strange way you can do nothing more than admire them.
how many times in this short life will you get to feel
the moon light
kiss-
like electric
over your skin?
to him, that was her.

A beginning with
no end.
and to her he's
become
the inescapable truth
the eventual
choice of silence
and
living
with the ghosts of his
words

Strawberry Milk

She was feisty and punchy with a dark sense of humor. During our play fights, she often would threaten to punch me so hard in my kidney that i would, as she said.... pee blood. Jokingly, she would point out boys we passed on the street or in stores or waiting on corners for busses. If she thought they were cute she'd ask me if it was okay for her to maybe.. ... to you know...just a little. She was bad and she said It was me who made her that way.

I've been dirty since 1st grade. I fondly remember my first erection. it was little becky getting spanked by Sister Mary in front of the entire class. her plaid skirt hiked up, bent over an orange plastic chair. was there gum underneath the chair? boogers? how dirty. I also noticed beckys hair, pigtails tied with green bows. flying every which way smack after smack. the fact she was in trouble for talking to me, made it all the more exciting. The crocodile tears and whimpering. all for me. Becky -her strawberry-milk pink panties. She told me later it didn't even hurt.

I turned from a dirty little boy into a dirty young man and now i am fully preparing myself for e dirty old man status.
I am telling her this story and she punches me in the side. See if you don't pee blood now. I fake-punch her kidney and instead tickle her side. She laughs and squeals like a little girl. I tell her i won't stop until she pees her pants just a little.

Once, she bought me an 80's E.T. collectible glass from a thrift store. She got it cause it had one of E.T.s cute little catch phrases on it:
BE GOOD.
Something I used to say her. something i still say. It was like instead of saying goodbye. be good. A joke but not. Something she hated and loved. something she was and wasn't always. something we are and never could be.



Does anyone drink strawberry milk? and like it.

shedding our summer skin

ninety three fifty :

that's what the marriage license cost. cash. she held his hand. they both were there, they must have been. signing names and writing down addresses. excited. my name.
your name
her name
his name
3 day wait and good for 60 days.
i asked the lady behind the glass if i could keep the pen
so i could write this

is this a court house or a prison? when i went through the metal detectors they told me they would need to keep my knife. Security wrote down my name and then slipped the knife into a manila envelope. Gave me a pick-up ticket for later. Is it so strange someone carrying a pocket knife these days? My girl seemed to think it was cute. My Daddy carries a knife? she says sounding all surprised.
Oh, the mystery of me is only just unfolding. I tell her.

I carry one that belonged to my grand father. when i was little my Dad and his Dad and my Mothers Father also, they all carried pocket knives. I wanted one so bad. When you are bigger. is what they say to a 7 year old who asks.
So October comes and I get one for my 10th birthday. I felt all grown up and put it under my pillow every night when I went to sleep. I've long since lost it. I've lost many knives since then. to irresponsible - to careless. I've lost many fine things that way. but, I'm older and I haven't lost this knife. I won't lose this girl.

While waiting for our number to be called I asked her what was it like her first time? i meant her first kiss. was it like this?
was it like how i did it or better? was it like ..... did you know
that the best thing you could do right now is run away?

and miss out on this? she moves her hands as to introduce me to an invisible crowd.
but the mystery of you is just unfolding. I don't detect a smile and the way she says this scares me a little so that i like it. Like she knows something i don't. Like she knows where i was before last Halloween. The best thing I could do is run away. But I don't. ninety three fifty and quiet as a church mouse. We raise our right hands and I quietly swear to the truth about something. I'm thinking about not forgetting to get my knife back. I finally speak up and ask the lady for the pen so i can write this.

strings and horns

Hummingbird

Suppose i say summer,
write the word "hummingbird,"
put it in an envelope,
take it down the hill
to the box. When you open
my letter you will recall
those days and how much,
just how much, i love you.

- Raymond Carver

what if.......

At summers end:
The wedding i attended, the dinner, the dance, summer, fucking september. the cake was fine. the cake it's smashed all over her face. but fine. happy. i kept hearing that word.
Happy.
all smiles and glasses tipped back. I drank wine.
There was a girl who wanted to dance with me. She had tattoos and a red ruby ring.
the bride she held out a silk bag for money gifts. i slipped in my money, my complaints, a cigarette butt and advice.
I could see the moon from the window. traces of lip-gloss glitter on my shirt.
the glimmer and shine like stars.
I try holding these moments and not letting them slip away. Not letting her slip away.
but things change, they end, they begin
and back again
my glass is empty
open bar
full again. this is life and love
and you have to have been in love
to write poetry.
so I write words down on a paper napkin and
hand it to ruby ring girl. a smile. her hand on the back of my arm.
the bride is months away from having the baby
this time me
the one who
slips away


Fall: We come here to visit each other and tell each other lies. or maybe it's them we tell the lies to. maybe things we write seem more believable than what we speak. Maybe I can write that I let you visit and you did. Or maybe you can say you've seen my bed or pet my dog.
You told me that i was your one true love.
I'll make you feel good if you do me. it's not much different than before. telling you that you're pretty, adding bear to the end of your first name.

When she'd come over and stay up late. Curled up on the couch writing in her notebook in black ink. We had this kind of sad-love soundtrack always playing in the background. This sort of waiting around for our big crash and burn. She'd bite the cap of the pen, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes. The soundtrack. It was so obvious. so obvious. She'd come over and she'd say that she'd stay forever. fall asleep holding me, after we fucked. once she woke me up sucking my dick. She never wrote that down. I didn't either. since when are secrets stories? that's what she'd tell me.

she signs her name with my last name.
that makes her more mine than yours.
If you find me I'm yours in a heart beat.
the illusion of our lonely is
now,
an us and a we.
my heart, god willing
it will stop beating before hers.
she is much younger than I.
and days passing
we visit each other
my world
Alive.
because of you.

photo credits:
Aytnena
the selby
m0thyyku
heliumglow