I visit that place once more,

Where the boiler has been going

Strong for 50 years and will last

For another 50 with regular

Maintenance and elbow grease.

I found my anxiety in-between

The door frame, in the form of

A great huge German Shepherd,

Fighting off change and visitors.

But soon I calmed him

Pulled on his ears like daisies or

A fire-bell, and looked out

The storm windows, single-paned

And flexible. A line of trees

Far off and green are tempting

Some like a matador,

To run through, fast and far,

Red in their eyes. I’ve done this

Dance. The red slipped to my mind,

And lit up the darkest parts,

Woke them up and brought them

Forward. I’m done with all that.

I’m through with sharpening my teeth,

And sprinting, full-tilt- into an open cage.

The trees still stand there, listening,

And to others, they mean warmth,

Keeping safe and distant

From the Honda factories, skyscrapers,

And all those filled graves.

From the stone bank where I now stand

They are a blanket held up to the light.

Sheet after paper-thin sheet,

Waiting to be written, waiting

For us to see them.

My mother spreads out her arms

Like eagle wings, but I can’t

Hear what she is saying.

I’m drinking now.

I’m thinking now.

The ideas breaking like waves

And waving at me, nothing but

Smiles, as I sit on a porch swing

In the town my family came

From, in the house my father

Came from, in the arms of

No on in particular.

They’re calling me out to the

Water where I will dip my feet

Into the cool green blood that

Soaks into your cells.

My fingers soak in spit

As I trace the outline of you

In your Sunday best,

The shape of your every side,

On the glassy palette

Of my eyes. The colors will

Start to blend like cheap

Acrylics once I fail to dam

The waterfall and condensation,

Reclamation of 12 years of feelings.

Yet waking up from the world’s

Longest dream, I am awake and

Always blinking away the disbelief

Like scrubbing rust from a turning

And burning engine, hand slick with

Grease and sweat and, honestly,

Only half-upset,

But blinking it all away:

The fog I’d started calling home,

The moisture on my fingerprints,

The shake within my very bones,

And the shape that stayed

And made me write all of this.

If she be ancient as me,

Would we hold a contest

Up and out inside our hands,

Soft as velvet

But biting in other ways?

She might smart me,

Smite me like the weeds

In her ancient red garden.

They’re always crying out

To God, I guess.

But they don’t know,

Know they don’t,

That their god is the one

Who is old like me,

With velvet skin

And mud-stained rain boots.

So throw my head into a bag

And carry it with you to the shore

Where the water is allowed

To make such loud noises,

Sighing with the release

Of our expectations.

I want to smell the air there,

But all I can get is the flour

That used to be in the bag.

And all I can hear

Is a huffing,

A puffing.

In imagining a happy moment

You take me from reality,

Adopt a picture

And sell the memory.

For one of these is

Worth more to me.

The way you will dance,

Hands out straight

And knees doing their best.

You let out a laugh,

Pure and clean,

And pull me out

Through forests of perfect teeth.

The first time I drank liquor

I spent most of the afternoon in a daze.

A friend of a friend invited us over

to take part in the eternally average

yet respectable activity of suburban

disregard for any certain set of rules.

You wouldn’t believe their faces

when I said I’d never had the stuff by 19,

had so far in life only tasted cheap beer

at grungy parties that were everything

but intoxicating. Once shock had left them,

the one friend Christa slid a clear container

from under her bed and I could hear

the angelic chorus of glass on half-empty

glass. From each bottle she poured a double

into plastic cups, assumed the air of an expert,

and told me which poison was which.

The rum scabbed up my throat and the

vodka left me singing an old Russian tune

that is mostly just rough, crippling coughs.

I felt tight as Tuesday by the time I’d stopped

to breathe and by then was the only one.

They watched and laughed and thought

to catch up would be a noble cause, if not

just to make me feel like part of the team.

At one point the friend I knew better, her

arms thin and beautiful, fragile swan necks

wrapped around the bottle, holding so tight,

almost told me secrets when begging for

a kiss as she rolled around the wooden floor.

I went to pick her up, but she just pulled me down,

and I sat there, already sobered up beyond belief,

uncomfortable, sketching the ceiling with my eyes and

hoping to leave. We fell asleep, all three of us

in Christa’s bed, except I was just too nervous

to close my eyes, and instead spent six hours

smelling the beautiful one’s hair and holding her,

regretting all my decisions beyond the ones that

brought me here. My would-be kiss

got up at six and stabbed me with a question,

“Haven’t you ever wanted to know what

it feels like to be some kind of slut before?”

I honestly hadn’t, but now I started to think

of all those girls, expelled from the throne they

sat upon for just one night, their crystal slippers

held together in one perfectly manicured hand,

the other either cleaning some smudged up makeup

or to clear a virgin tear, and thinking that

the sun seems to always stay much too still.

It’s mine only underneath

The stones I’ve asked

To turn themselves over,

Spread their Truth like animals

Who only want love.

There are hallways and boulevards,

Two-seater cars and run-flat wheels.

The scent of uncomfortable silence

Has worked its way

Into my hair, and I see

The flies buzzing in your eyes

As you witness me

And my descent into madness.

When I slip out of the door

Of that dream and pop up,

Unannounced and underdressed

To a finely tuned aristocrat’s ball,

I will seek you out

And tell you every single word

That I’ve ever heard,

Every prayer and cliche

That have been dumped

On me and thousands of others.

You’ll blush and ask for my name,

Because you lose the memories of our

In-between, midnight-crossing

Brainwaves.

I want you to know, at the very least,

That all the beauty in my dreams

Stays underneath those stubborn stones.

Fitting through the bottleneck

I lost my dream just short of the

Length of your hair, amber and burnt

By God’s favorite fireplace,

Laid across the chests

Of newborn children to show

Them the best that this world

Has to offer and what they should hope for.

Chopped up,

Melted into medicines as the cure for

Insomnia, ulcers, and a broken heart.

Mother always warned this day

Would come.

A single thought could slink

Down the staircase of my mind,

Check each door in the hall

And find them all unlocked and

Eager for the warmth it brings.

Like Apollo in his chariot,

Carrying the very power

Of the sun into the darkest caves

That I have chiseled out

Year-by-year-by-hand-by-hand.

If Spring sprang too soon,

Could we…

Would he allow me

To turn him back?

Wind his flowers down

Into their coil.

He would resist?

What if I used

My gentlest touch,

My maternal, hugging hand

And cradled them in the kind of love

That I haven’t felt in years?

What if then,

I turned him like a key,

Locking though?

To sit upon a favorite bench

And think of all the times

Its cold-and-slowly-warming touch

Brought comfort to my mind

Is such a gift that only comes

From fewer things than I have known

To stick around in cities’ parks:

The transient and turning over “home”.

I felt it once, or maybe twice

When sitting under bark.

My friends were talking round my head

And a stillness struck my heart.

Standing tall and reaching out,

My fingers fought the space

Which lingers there among the thoughts.

You should have seen my face.

For if you would not think me mad,

You’d be among the lesser few;

The friends and feelings all accrued,

I watched them just fade from view.