For Tara

We sat, naked on my bed
and smoked my last two cigarettes:
The ship captain and
the Queen of France
on a raft made
of loose change and pocket lint.
You breathed the clouds out
of the rising sun’s view as I
whispered cardinal calls with
my lips pressed against your neck.
“Cling tight to the window, darling!”
I shouted, in my most hushed tone
“Morning’s ahoy”
And you laughed in the sunrise
as the light splashed through the window
so holy
I could have sworn
your voice was church bells on Sunday.
Noon struck us
like lightning molasses
too sudden
for all its slow sweetness
Only hunger
chased us, eventually, out of bed
you waltzing, and me
still tripping on my morning
baby doe legs
The sunlight
too bright for either of us
but still beautiful.

When our brief tour of
my neighborhood came to it’s
local sandwich shop conclusion
I surveyed the streets we had
just stumbled through
and promised myself to someday
promise you
all of it.

I built you a house
in my head, that day
Gigantic, at first
Then, slowly shrinking inwards
until it was the size of a room
anchored to a meadow by
a window with
no blinds. Close,
but not too close
to a sandwich shop
where we could eat breakfast
and childishly smile
at each other, each morning.

The house
the size of a bed now. Just big enough
that I could hold you and
watch your eyes herald in the morning
and mark each day holy
with your smile.

I live
in the dark finger of space
between two fences. One
on the formless neighbor’s side
and one on ours. In
a two sided attempt at
keeping each other out
by building
taller and taller fences
we have trapped an armpit inch to
permanently become what
no man tries to own.
So I burrow my secrets through
holes and
over the top, into the crack
and have named that spot after all
my bad habits and poor judgments.
I record my
petty lies just quiet enough they
never make it out
the other side, instead they
gather at the bottom like
broken leaves and cobwebs just
waiting
for my digressions
to burst the poor fence open
and wash away
my childhood home
in a tidal wave of hidden
personal shames
I’ve only spelt out here.
Some days
I get so goddamn remorseful
I worry all the
ants I’ve ever stepped on
have been reincarnated as bigger
ants
and are under my bed
just waiting to swarm me
in my sleep.
And the ants don’t scare me
as much as
the concept of retribution.
So I bury apologies
through the cracks in the fence
to the crack between the fences
because there is a very real possibility
that I might actually have hurt some people
that my petty lies combined
might weigh too much.
I’ve filled the fence to overflowing
with every small misdeed
that I commit
Tagged
with an excuse
and a note that says “I’m sorry”
“I’m sorry
that I hold parts of myself behind a fence
that I tuck the
ugly things
into the nothing between slats.
That I try to deny
myself humanity that way.”
I write this same apology
over and over
until my hand cramps too hard
to keep moving.
I have always
been afraid of retribution so
I wrap all my admittances in
the same silk apologies
hard knuckle pressed into fences
and forget them as strong as I can.
It’s easy for a boy to forget that he’s a man.
It’s a lot harder for him to accept it.
I’ve put this fence up
and I don’t know how to knock it down
I don’t know how
to allow myself the
most foolish pleasure of
openly wearing my flaws
It’s hard to see into this fence
And it’s hard to get out.

Dear Tara.
I know you know this: every minute that has passed since I last opened my eyes against yours has been an increasingly stretched hour. I am considering naming each day that passes without inhaling your exhale at least one time, a week. I sincerely hope you will not find the age that I will be freshly wearing the next time you see me unattractive; but each month that I don’t see you buries itself so jarring against my skin that I have wrinkled harder than my twenty years are worth.

What I mean is, my watch and calendar have conspired against me. Sometimes I lie down and close my eyes as if to sleep, and open them an hour later to see them proclaim it already the next day. The sun is in on it too. They all tell me I just miss you a day’s worth each hour.

If this were true, it would help explain how few sunrises I have seen in the year since our fingers unlaced.

I have been wearing your memory heavy, like a wool perfume; it often overwhelms me with warmth and sweetness, and even strangers have noticed how lovesoaked I am.

What I mean is, the letters in your name sometimes fill my mouth so aggressively, they spill out quicker than I can catch them. They have flooded the rooms of a handful of strangers, who are now also vowing their love for you. I have told them that whenever they are ready, I have an open challenge for a race from here, to you.

Because I have no other choice, I will win.

The problem with two asteroids falling in love is that they have a whole lot of space to fill. And so sometimes, the radius of their orbit around each other needs to expand. And with every inch outward, space gets a whole lot bigger and a whole lot colder.

What I mean, is I have written “home” between my arms, and will someday bring you home.

What I mean, is I miss you. Come home to me.

What I mean, is I will see you soon. It will never be soon enough.

For Tara

There are nights that hold
a handful of seconds,
brief like breathing out,
during which
the stars line up perfectly
to make monkey bars from you
to me. Know this:
If it ever lasts longer
than my eyes can stay open,
you can be sure,
I’ve been training for this voyage a long time.
I’m going to ride the sky to you.

For Tara

Before you go,
and taste the world outside of
the image of the home I’m building you,
Let me memorize your breath.
Make it cling to my lungs so tight
you teach my body to rise and fall
at the same rate as yours.
There will be bitter nights
that we cannot fall asleep wrapped in
each other
(that is the danger of a comet falling
in love with the moon)
so in this moment
let me memorize you
Let me burn your light in to my eyes
so hard
I see your outline every time
I close them. Bite down
on my shoulder so deep
the indents are still there
for you to kiss better two months from now
Shatter my bones
tear out my hair
Leave me scared with the shape
of your fingers on the back of my palm.
When I am gone
I will name every blank page after you
even before I set down my pen.
I will trace the same circles on my arms
that you do
when we sit together.
I will feel the enormous weight
of the memory of your hands on my back and
I will have memorized your breath so perfectly
I can fall in to it each time I fall asleep.
And wake up thinking of you.

For Tara

My hands are somehow rougher
than I expected them to be when I
was young and
scared of my grandfather’s
calloused fingers. I did not foresee mine
getting
splashed with scars I cannot trace that
race from pointer
to the thumb; and flecked
with paint stains
that grow, only
grow, over
the perpetual layer of
long days my fingers trace
through yours. Your hands
play songs through mine when
my joints ache too hard
to percussion themselves off
your linen shoulder. Your hands
smooth my scars out. Iron them
back into accidents, and then
away completely.
You wash the long days off me.
You turn my trembling cacophony
percussion fingers into
piano keys.
You take my paint stains
and give them shape
and stories; I can’t name them
“stain” anymore
when you kiss them.
You have made an art form
out of sculpting
my reddened knuckles
my calloused palms into
the same hands my
grandfather once used
to build his wife a home.
You’ve sculpted a man
out of these hands with
your own.

For Tara

I am moss
growing slowly
and climbing up
rocks at catatonic
crawl. You are lightning
Splitting the ground with
proud movements. I’ve
always been ashamed
of the moments
when my subtle
is too much but
When you touch me

I explode to grow into
the whole forest. This
is like a million years
of sunlight
condensed in to a single second
like a magnifying glass airplane
right over me
like the ground is covered
in broken bottles
refracting and acting like diamonds
I’ve been

rough.
I’ve been the moss
and the rock
I’ve been sand on the bottom of a lake
been driftwood
been dead leaf been
mulch
It’s never been like this. Listen

there’s never been a painting
like
your light
through my leaves. Please
keep
shining. That’s
all I need to
Stop
being moss
To start
climbing up
It’s never been like this
Trees were never ladders until
I had somewhere to meet you between
the canopy
and the sun. I’m
running up now
for the first time
and this time
It’s permanent, so
keep your light on me. Please
Listen

I never did know eyes could glisten like
yours. Like
the whole sky
in half an inch
I used to be moss
but you
the sun and moon and
the in between
have made me
Greener
than I thought I could be
You
have realized
the forest inside of me.

For Tara

When I have finally peeled myself
off your back
And slip my arms from
under yours and
back in to shirt sleeves
And prepare myself
for the impossible task
of leaving you
In those moments
while my body wakes up and remembers:
it did function without you before and
can again
It is then
you can hear the breath sucked in
by the space between us
which we have spent the night
smothering. Space which,
as I push my feet into their shoes,
balloons outward; between
me and you.
So I stop moving
and inhale what is left of
our breath
And stain my eyes with
your smile
And turn the doorknob
which always feels like ice
Look, I’ve memorized
the feeling of your hand in mine
Though there are mornings
when I will have to leave you early
It will never mean goodbye.

For Tara

Before you,
and before this,
I was a wool sock
full of lead bricks
in a clenched fist
I was
stone.
My favorite books;
those love stories whose quotes
I had once etched into my
eyelids
had moved
to the bottom of the stack
had
slipped under the carpet
my eyelids
were erased
and replacing these quotes
were notes to myself
saying
Keep these lids closed.
You can’t miss what you pretend
you’ve never seen.
So I spent one month
this past summer
sleeping on the floor
And I always locked the door
and I never bought a bed
Instead
I focused on
turning myself in to bread
With the hope
that enough people could
pull pieces from me
as to make me feel needed
I needed that.
Meanwhile
I laughed
as I gracefully slipped in to cynicism
like a robe made of glass
It’s a lot easier to
say you may never fall asleep
beside anything but the wall
if while you do, you laugh. I
wish you knew
how few things I believed in
before I believed in you.

But I could already feel
these fists unclench
the night we met
I changed my pillow cases.
I didn’t need to erase
my eyelids again. They’re
wide open now
I can only barely remember
what they once said.
The robes I wore
are burnt and
forgotten
The first time I got dressed
after meeting you
it was all linen. Soft
like I had forgotten how to know.

I was writing poems to
pray that you existed
before I ever knew you or
knew this
I knew I was looking for your eyes against mine.
I just didn’t know
what they would look like.
And I don’t believe in resurrection
but I do believe in redemption
and you pulled out of me
the man who needed to be saved.
So I renamed love after you
It’s a small thankfulness
for reminding me
that it existed.

For Tara

A man once climbed
the world’s tallest mountain
just to prove
that the air there did not
smell like his love’s perfume.
When he got to the top
he realized
it does not work that way.

The whole mountains itself
looked like her smiling face.

For Tara

In first grade
Everyone drew the sun
as a big yellow cookie with
orange triangle arms.
I picked so many fights
over how incorrect that was.
But I have the same problem
when trying to describe love

My love
wears the face of worry
Which manifests as
I hear your voice around
every corner
and see your face
in places I know you are not
My butterflies are cannonballs
playing hopscotch in my stomach
I swallow rocks
sometimes
to keep all this emotion
down.
And how
many pages were torn
for me to get this book tongued
for me to get this binding spine
This is a true story
of a young man who loved
so hard
he could quote Shakespeare at you
and mean it.

There comes a time
when my words are not enough.
Some days I lick newspaper
and eat sentences right out
of my close friends’ mouths
just
to make use
and make language
like paint
I mix words
just to make sense. You
send my senses
to the base of my stomach. You
are the penny in my dryer.
I would have to
swallow rocks
if I ever thought
I wanted quiet.
If I ever wanted to quell the riot
you’ve got going
in my body. I’m
not blinking so much
to shut
you out
That’s my eyes
fighting to give you a
standing ovation.
If I turn sideways
I’m not looking at anyone else
that’s my ears trying to hear you
loud enough
That when you’ve gone away
I can still hit replay
But I’ve got to be careful of
what my mouth does. Listen
you should know this
I have spoken love
so hard
I might have broken love
before
This is a warning:
I am typewriter fingered
and I talk
a lot
I know you know this.
If you notice
that I repeat myself
I apologize
in advance
Sometimes my heart beats quicker
than my mouth can move
So when I run out of ways to say “love”
please
don’t think that means anything about you

I’m trying to teach myself silence
I’m not great at it
I know you know that too.
If I ever get it right
it’s just practice
I still have the world to say to you.
And when I get it wrong,
on the days
that you want
to tell me
to shut up
and I keep name-dropping “love”
That’s because
I stopped eating those rocks.
I want to feel this.

In first grade
I was asked to describe the sun.
So I stared directly at it
And when my teacher asked what it looked like
I said ouch
It’s really bright
I can’t see anything right now
Talking about love
or you
is the same thing
Blinding in all your bright
I still don’t ever miss the night

For Tara

Beauty exists
under blankets. This
moment
is punctuated
by bare skin.

The sun peaked in
this morning
and found us
still talking
about
our childhoods.

Every word
actually meant

love.

And when
I actually said
“love,”
that meant
“You are the reason the sun rises each day.”

For Tara

We don’t have
tin cans or string

Sometimes
we don’t even
know how to speak.
Still

there is something
connecting
the two of us
Causing constant
revolutions
around each other

You speak to me
before either of us
ever know it
I’m

tied to something
that’s tied to you
and nothing
can cut through this

Even when the tin cans
are rocks. And
the string stretches for miles
Just pick up.

I am always
on the other side

For Tara

If these arms
were yarn
I would unravel them
just to wrap them around you
that much tighter

If my poems were stars
I would rearrange them nightly
Just so you
would always have something new to point to
and say
“That,
That is all mine”

I want to dedicate other people’s books to you

I want to rename time
after you
so when I wear a watch
I can say
“I’ve always got
the time”

The small of your back is the island
that my shipwrecked hands
have been swimming to find.
It’s been years
in the ocean
To be honest
I stopped believing in land
for a long time.
So I’m sorry if I
still carry
wilderness, This
body
is still a little bit bark
But you

are the artist who
I’ve been praying
would come carve poems
into me.

I’ve never been a door before
but if I were
my hinges would creak out
your name.
I’m wide open now
This key
is all yours and
The arch way is just high enough
to echo
each time you speak. To be honest,
I thought I was a wall
It turns out it isn’t that at all
I’m four
walls
With windows and doors
and I am also hardwood floor
But you
are the all important roof
that makes me
a home

There is life
in here now
The bark’s broken
right open
I am green leaves in spring
taller than Manhattan
I am
one
big nest
I am twigs from all over
But you gathered them.

And I could only become
a tree
I could only believe in
an excess of life in this vessel
I’m exhaling branches

Because you are the sun

For Tara. 
Always.

I heard the ice cream truck
for the first time since October
Today.
The birds are blasting past my window
Claiming this sky
as theirs
Not mine
Little do they know I too
can sometimes fly.
Like today
when I heard the ice cream truck
for the first time.
And wondered if the wind wasn’t built
for the wind chimes
And the sun doesn’t shine
just to reflect off your eyes. You
dandelion.
I’ve been seeing you in
everything.
It’s like ice fishing
Naked
Without a pole
Diving into the freezing ocean
And gasping for breath at the hole
I thought you were all water
and I was all cold. No,
we are both
one huge expanse of ice
And isn’t it nice
to be part of something so clear
So close to glass, but
so much more alive. Like
the freezing ocean
you take my breath away

every time.

For T.

It was one thirty
and I had just become sidewalk
You were walking away
and the pavement and I became
equally unable to move

I should have chased after you

Instead
I went to my bed
And wrote myself a note
which I sewed inside my pillow
It said

Do not ever
let her go.

For T.

All of this light

seems to be coming
right from the inside of the moon
and reflecting off you. And I
have for such a long time
been the horizon. I still
never knew

I could feel this bright.

For T.

Maybe
You’re the eye
And I’m the storm.
Or
I’m the mountain
And you’re the peek,
It snow mater.

Right now
It’s 50 degrees out
At night, and
In winter.

The moon is shining brighter than I’ve ever seen
And you say I’ve just made you smile.
If anything exists outside of this
Right now

I don’t need to know.

For T. 

My heart has been beating
two times faster than usual
for the past week.
I sometimes think
I have many hearts, Battling
each other and logic
for control of my affection
They all
live in my chest, Although
often take turns getting caught in
my throat, Or
sending subtle impulses
to the wrong hands
at the wrong times.
Sometimes each one takes control
of different eyes at once
Which is why my horizons
are now painted in water color
With too much water
And an excess of color
I often think the whole world is dripping
down on me. I often move
as if I’m sloshing through a foot of water
It’s at these times you can tell
that my many hearts are all
beating at
different paces
Playing
single notes of the xylophone
in a cacophony that expresses itself
through me
as general confusion. Some days
I have to remind myself to breathe
and write down all the million thoughts
barreling through me on my mattress
so I stop losing track of
myself, Starting
the moment I wake up. My train
has been moving fast enough these days
and, lady,
you’re throwing grease on the wheels and
conducting electricity through me
You should know
I’ve been thrown off this train before
And, goddamn if it didn’t hurt
Every single time
I didn’t stop getting back on
I hold a one way ticket
to somewhere these poems can’t describe yet
But I’m riding this out

There’s always room for more passengers
I don’t know at what expense
For either of us
I’m pretty sure
I can survive being thrown off a couple times more
This might be the right kind of electricity
There are moments, though they are rare,
in which my million hearts
beat at the same time
I’m always looking for harmony
It might
just exist
In the other seat

On the leap day
Of the leap year
I step out
the front door
while concurrently
Asserting my
non-existence (daringly[?])
on the bed. On the
leap

Day,
(My first in four years)
I con all my conclusions
And dissolve my disillusions
in eye widened awe
of the rain
under
the awning
(on leap days and[/or] Long Island
it rains sideways)
today is broken into moments of
blinding amazement at
something so simple as
exhaling
and how close it is to whistling
Yes,
we all breath music
We naturally harmonize
on Leap Days, we

Don’t.
Along with the gained wild child-hood
of this day
I’ve also lost a basic understanding of
sounds and shapes
And have found my slouch
pulling me
earthwards
to Crawl again.
Dazed.
On the Leap Day
I don’t understand
Anything.

Which lends itself to
believing in magic
But unfortunately flips
the horizon. I’m
upside down now
I’m caught in the ocean
And all my answers have become
Shrimp.
Which are very hard to find when
it’s just you in the ocean.
On a leap day. Or

any-
When I become five years old
When everything has new meaning
but also
No meaning.
At all.