It's just that like, I miss you and stuff.

Memory - Winter

I walked down and saw the biggest Christmas tree in the world

and in the lights all the rain was misty and it maybe even looked

like snow, like instead of water droplets falling boring it might be

crystals absently forming into unique shapes, like you or me

or everyone in the world and we all will be there in that tiny

square, that millimeter of time when the world is utterly quiet

and bathed in white, missing everything that it knew was

important and wrong and right, dreaming about the greatest

day in the world - the snow day - when we would throw on

our layers of clothes and three mittens and the snow pants

newly purchased and race around the village of our lawn

and create all the necessaries for life. Because life goes on

even in the day-glow newness of snow, because it goes on

beyond even the crest of a drift or the igloo or the tunnel

weaving past the backyard, beyond the train tracks,

to the place where the sledding occurs, where the power lines

bend with packed ice and there is nothing more than the cold white

hot chocolate breath as the first exhalation of steam

before the plunge into the unknown frosty whiteness

on a piece of plastic colored blue because that was my

favorite color when I was young and somehow Mom knew

that she knew she knew my favorite color was blue and

it was not any simpler or any more complicated than being

outside and then inside and then warm and then sleepy

and then a dream inside the heart of a long winter.

Flashes

So I'm walking this girl home and she asks

Which one is your eating disorder?

and I tell her and she says, That makes sense

and we should hang out sometime. So we do.

So I'm walking this girl home and she asks

How many times have you fallen in like?

and I say Lots, and she says, Well, that makes

you kind of a LikeSlut, doesn't it? And I don't

answer and maybe never see her again.

So I'm walking this girl home and she asks

What's your favorite position? referring

to a soccer team, and I say, Winger and she

laughs and says, You must be fast! So we go

home and fuck and it means little.

So I'm walking this girl home and she asks

Where are you from again? and I lie to her,

I say, Australia, and she vomits in the next

trash can and I call a cab and that's it.

So I'm walking this girl home and she asks

What is your disease? and I tell her and

she says, I have that too, and we make out

but I'm uncomfortable because I have it too

and don't want a reminder of it

when I look into her eyes.

So I'm walking this girl home and she asks

How much do you like Charlie Brown's Christmas?

and I say, Lots and then talk about how my favorite

is when Linus tells the story because it makes

me cry. She doesn't know what to say, but takes

my arm and strokes it for a while, which was almost

to her stoop.

So I'm walking this girl home and she asks

When was your heart last broken? and I tell her

and she gets really silent. So we keep walking

for a while, and for a while we don't want to say

goodbye on the train and I wonder if I should

kiss her and pretty soon I'm walking her home

again and I do kiss her and pretty soon she's

saying things like, How was your day? and

making fun of me and my awkward strangeness

and that lasts for a long time.

Untitled #4, based on Japanese love poems

The reeds crack in the frost

and you breathe in the air -

you expire warm steam

in a small cloud above us.

untitled #3, based on Japanese love poems

The waitress asked if we were ready

and we said yes, and you kissed me.

It was enough.

Untitled #2, based on Japanese love poems

There was a drop rolling down a leaf

and to me it painted your cheek

in green sadness just after a summer rain.

Untitled, based on Japanese love poems

I cannot find the picture of you

so I dream it. There I draw you

and you smile innocently, like

the flapping of a butterfly’s wings.

Musing

It's like picking up a tennis racket again.

Or the first gear shift on a manual after

a couple of years away.

Like talking to a lover you dismissed

a long time ago, but everything's ok

now, because you're both much happier.

Like learning to play golf.

Like speaking to a ghost.

My muse is fickle, and won't come out

easily tonight, after his forced vacation.

I Guess This is Sad

I have a cough that won't go away

and when it runs me down the ground,

I think it will move on and find

someone else to lay low for a while.

This is my hope. My nothings

are made of imaginings, of futures

that coalesce like fungi on a petri dish,

rings of green and yellow cities

that are brightly lit by ultraviolet

light and frozen to perfection

in a batch of premium diluted

water. I think that we are simply

the worldly, all stepped awry

from our bottomless, bottomest

pit of an excuse. All I thought

about tonight was how wonderful

it was that it was raining outside

and I was inside and watching

my Netflix account, streaming

New Age documentaries that

scream about the goings on I

seem to be missing when everyday

just passes me by and I spend it

inside like a new convertible

in a Seattle winter. My thoughts

turn to grimmer stuff, to blood

and guts and gore and violence

and all the evil things that root out

fears and place them on the table

at Thanksgiving so that when a meal

is supposed to be shared in reverence

it finds itself a macabre decadence

that worships a culture dead a long

time ago, the evidence of which

is writing itself in this nonsense

I'm putting on a virtual screen,

on a virtual server, to be virtually

appreciated by - no one. Maybe the

printing press was the worst thing

ever invented, because after that,

I'm sure no one talked to each other

anymore and I know that because

parts of me remember being a little

old peasant lady getting kicked in the mud

by some bootsteeled patron

of the chivalrous soul. And parts of me

see how no one really talks to each other

anymore, and how no one really talks

to each other anymore and how no one

really talks to each other anymore.