the couch

"can i sleep with you tonight?" 
the bluish-green glow from the forgotten tv illuminates my darkened figure, cradled in a sound system. it takes a while before your eyes adjust, before you notice it was me. shaking your head out of the afghan draping your body. half asleep you motion for me to just get under the covers, your brain too scrambled to even connect the sentences, too weary to dream straight.
we lay together in the living room, where you have slept as long as i could remember, telling me because he snores too loud. i knew there had to be more to it, like this rerun of cheers keeping me from dreams of a school that i could better understand. there had to be more to the witty jokes of bar stools talking about sports and women, always there while you are on the couch.
your arm glides over my tshirt shoulders as i shy my eyes away from the screen and into your chest. the clicker fell out of your hand to the crumb carpeted floor radiating a  familiar touch that calms my anxious incineration. forgetting i'll have to face others in the morning until i dress for the snow outside to get there. the uncertainties of tomorrow weigh on my young mind with black colors as we drift together through the darkness like mother, like son.

thinking of everything

there was a thinly stretched cloud moving overhead, buckling a little from what pushed down on it, like a sharp nail held to a balloon. you pulled on her familiar hand with mild urgency, causing her to lose her balance and almost fall like you had around this time yesterday. when you sat in the mud, water rose, waves of embarrassment impaired your vision of her standing beside you. now you hold three of her fingers like the handful of acorns you collected earlier, now tucked away in her front pocket for safe keeping.
loud ridges on the tips of her fingers surprised your soft hands, abstaining your nail on the divots. you nearly scratched your thumb while lost in the idea of something harsh, something different.
"why are your hands like that?" you asked with tepid wonder, amongst other things rattling around your mind.
"well, i play electric guitar and stuff." she said absentmindedly as a worm itching for the grass.
the green blades caper among themselves, dressed up and dreaming of the wind that ensures their soundless routine, which they were missing. the shadow of the building only allowed the patch at your feet to shine, you thought of the moon.
"oh, that's cool." is all you said as you sat down, bringing your head to your bent knees, grabbing at a bug in the middle of the field, fenced in but real. you put it on a crumbling leaf, the color of your hair, a neatly cut bird nest with flower patterns that you wear. you held it with tender admiration, giving yourself a reason to keep your jeans dirty forever without even knowing it. you felt a raindrop land on your forehead first, wondered how that didn't hurt and let go of her grisly hand to wipe it away. your friends running by pull you ahead by the wrist, racing the looming storm, dropping the bug in the now darkened grass. you broke loose and ran inside behind the rest thinking of everything.

one of the living.

  

another dead moon

.................................................
some things aren't meant to be.

big sur death drop

the california republic was the end, her open ended birthplace, like a brief shower, your foot nudging mine on shadowed stairs, a passing meteor in the sky. these are things you can never know, things we claim to cherish. reaching out with our thinning imaginations that only remind us of the smell that night. she was a big sur death drop, a constant struggle between land and sea. a gang of howling seals at the bottom of a cliff haunted something inside of someone, passing it to you like a note from a world that i found myself happy in; passing it to me.

the things around me that i've been becoming, swing again as the van changes lanes, cutting through hills, closer to you. but all i see are choppy waters, my ears pop passing the bay. the dull red steel that represented my first impression of you costs me six dollars to cross, but i don't mind. i didn't know you until i felt you; the cold fog that sunk into my skin through the rushing window, moving fast through my veins, waking me up. it's the bitterness that you can acquire soaking in an entire ocean of cherry coke and emotionalism; the innards of the beast entering your city. the city you were to me, but not the even city you grew young and aimlessly angry; a dirty feather reluctantly shining in my eye.
i'm getting high on the freeway trying to picture a nirvana smiley face tattoo on your thigh; the color of your clothes. walking up sidewalks on my tippy-toes swearing that we don't have a god, setting me apart from the old tie-dyes with shopping bag arms, and young people working two jobs to say they are the bay now, they all hurry by. "too many sunshine pills," they'd say of eager feet avoiding cracks on judah and sunset. familiar streets. you seemed embarrassed when you told me you grew up with orange trees, it was then i saw in your unguarded eyes, tearing through your tough skin. a small green promise of a spontaneous truth that i found myself believing in. you said with a hoarse accent that beauty can be captured, like a tiger in a cage.  
the rolling fog above the prison of past souls surrounded by water are all forgotten as two sweaty bodies sink into each other like wooden skeletons, eroding bones splinter into each other, aching for happiness.

“i don't know why you kept asking about me,” is all i thought as I kicked the loose stones, not able to comprehend intentions among the darkened clouds. but when you said under that distorted yellow streetlight in ohio, "you decided to come..." like you were surprised, the clouds that seemed so heavy hung high but the grey sky just bluffed. my heart doesn't feel like the answer now though, beating harder in the backseat miles from there.
i'd imagine if we'd happen to bump into each other, we'd be matching aside from the blonde freckles that fell like confetti onto my pillow. i couldn't remember the sound of your voice for much longer after you left, perhaps distracted by your last simple look that weakened everything. your eyebrows sank low as the corners of your lips pulled back like an eight year old at a slingshot. i wasn't sure you'd think of me again, as you skipped a step or two down the porch, back to your van.
there was a moment minutes later, a dusty box fan blowing in my face, that i wanted to cry, i think i wanted love but not really. i stood alone, brains more scrambled then before. like dead crickets in a mason jar, quiet birds take flight in the morning sky. i don't care to recognize everyone's adult looks anymore, like some expected understanding. playing games and fucking around like anybody else; as i look out beyond the moving glass i've been glued to, i see those adults running along the bay but i'm stuck on black pen scribbled on faded receipts, oh my mind! when i drowned my eyes and saw a swine, in the feed where we hide our thoughts from things we need, tucked away in my desk, stamps and envelopes stuffed in sadder books than i could ever dream i've lived. the words i couldn't say to you unless i bumped into you, black short twins displaced in things that have already happened. we'd talk and that would be enough for me as that california sun blinds the land and the sea.

glass twins

during my lunch break i decided to walk around the city, my early afternoon stomach felt like cold lava dripping down into a secret cave, making sounds. as i turned i saw you two in the pizza place through the glass. one of you were waving from the dimly lit table and the other walked toward the window, squinting, pointed your thumb toward the ceiling as if trying to let me know that i'm alright, in general. if it was always that easy to know someone likes you, that someone appreciates you, would it matter? i didn't walk in to talk. knowing in the back of my mind that i wouldn't ever see you again, at least the young you, the only you i've ever known, pizza sauce on your face and olives in your teeth, looking at me like you could tell me something. i just waved and kept walking, my mind hazy with visions of you running and yelling and grabbing my arm, scared of the wind. lost track of time and had to get back to work. i stopped into the corner store and stole a candy bar, wishing i could split it with the two of you, but there is more than glass in-between us now.

pushing our luck

god is a human,
he's all we can imagine.
enlightened first by
european hats,
material things around him.
rooted to Holland.
before the moons of Titan,
met satellite towers,
were we happy?
is a question.
did we ruin the simple life
if curiosity sways along with us,
telling time,
ticking; spinning,
simplifying ignorance.
god has material things.
what can we make that will,
above just moving on,
live on
and work.
living and working
and swinging
and ticking
and talking.
there is a heartbreak
in real things
because they always change.
but to always know
that we will die.
that is so sad.
its why Jupiter fails
to be the second sun.
finding clarity in the longest gap
in the moon's orbit of Saturn.
does it exist if we don't know it?
the reason why the woods grow thick,
and why i lose myself in people's heads.
if i held the button in my hands,
i wouldn't push it.