longing

Blind Following Blind Off a Cliff

You don’t sing in church anymore,
that makes me a little sad.
And I wish you could hear me sing
in the kitchen at midnight
when you’re not home.
You say a soft, “Hi,”
and I wonder why
your arms haven’t been around
me
more often.
My rib cage and soft belly
ache for your arms.
Your alarm goes off,
your alarm goes off,
your alarm goes off,
and I just wanna let you sleep.
The world can wait for you,
they won’t move on without you,
maybe the universe
stands still when you’re not there.
And maybe we all hold our breath
until you come back around.
The center,
something to revolve around,
but it shouldn’t be like that.
Where you lead
I might follow,
even into danger
and heartache.
Snap back to reality
knock you down a peg or two,
to keep myself alive
and safely down from the ledge.

best laid plans

i’ve just created a new rule for myself:
to only ever go to bed before ten PM
under one of two circumstances,
one- i’m seriously ill
two- there is a man i love beckoning
me to bed before ten PM.
tonight, neither is the case
so i’ll stay awake and upright.
but of course, i break
my own rules from time to
time.
not this time,
perhaps some other
time.
and i remember the time
you slept in the living room
when i couldn’t sleep
just because you wanted to
be near me.
and i was an idiot
and didn’t see how
we were falling apart,
or maybe i did and i
was already too far gone
to care.
“i (only) miss you late at night,
when i can’t sleep
and get way too honest.”
but the only part
isn’t true,
i always miss you.
even when, no, especially when
you’re still standing
right in front of me
and my front door
saying goodbyes to little humans
with messy hair.

it’s a long story

is she your security blanket
or your government-issued ankle-bracelet,
or maybe you just love her
and you’re too fucking codependent?

I wrote the first verse
before you showed up tonight,
but when I saw the dust,
I knew you’d left her home.

she makes you drive lame,
like she’s precious cargo
and a bump might break her,
whereas I let you push 96

and in a Volvo too
back when it was just us.
the cop let you off easy
with just a speeding ticket for 90.

and so we stood in the driveway.
tonight I had time to stare,
to remember your face,
but not close enough to memorize

your eyes. More feet between us
than I would have liked,
but I think it was for safety
because our walls didn’t exist tonight.

I joked about being too clumsy
to be a stripper and you laughed.
A genuine laugh, probably because
you know it’s true. And now I’m taken

back to yesterday when J
“taught” me how to play guitar
and I showed him that my old acoustic
makes a pretty good drum too.

And then I remembered,
two years or so ago I wrote
“Learn to play (and sing) Sheridan
on guitar” on a list of random to-dos,

meant to help straighten
my life out and
make some sense of
a broken heart and uncertain future.

Tonight I’m looking up tab
and telling myself tomorrow
I’ll begin to learn Sheridan
and someday I’ll sing it for you.

I think this one could go on
for years because tonight
I ache to count the freckles
that color your yellow cheeks brown.

and every moment of our lives
is colliding with 30 minutes
we spent in my parents’ driveway,
encompassing fifty plus years-

our ages added together because
even our years together would be
seen different thru the other’s eyes,
@ six thirty pm on July 29th 20-16.

Iltloeenyyststektg doesn’t spell anything.

Like I always do I
Overthought it all.
Very nearly drove myself mad, but
Even thru it all

We still managed to
Imitate strangers who used to be
Lovers who long to be
Lovers again.

But the world stands in our way.
Unless we can love unconditionally,
Intimacy will always taunt us.
Like a fire that
Doesn’t have the oxygen it needs

To breathe, but
Really someone is smothering it because
Us would destroy her. But we can drink
Seventy five south and stay up all night
Talking about where we went wrong.