Happy tears in my friend’s voice
over the phone, and, my God,
the earth and my soul both swell
in the relief of a rainfall, just
how long were we holding our breath,
anyway, feels so goddamn
good to rinse off.

The winter was dark and
was warm, my body bruised and
aching on the living room floor,
careful stretch, balancing act
between challenging and loving
this self, left the psych ward
in January and sobbed on
the train, please let there be
no funeral in March.

You paint my wrist pink and
blue, on a couch eight hundred miles
from the city, and we don’t say
it’s a miracle, but it is,
you and me, here, still
somehow a soft landing spot
for one another, eight hundred miles
later, still here.

I still see light in the sky at six,
and I exhale my relief, another
dark chapter behind me, and
I remember the glow that kept me
afloat, friends on couches and
phone calls for the bleak walks
home, and everything changes
but this heart stays the same,
tender, wanting, bruised, and bold,
and the light hangs on a bit longer.

The train barrels by, tossing sun
like lightning into my living room,
and I am out the door and onto
a footbridge, names in graffiti
as I descend a staircase rust red,
everyone wants their permanent
mark, and there we are, rooftop
corner, and what if I just
don’t dream of this anymore?

My childhood is Indiana summer,
chlorine skin and fresh-cut grass,
the sound of a marching band in
summer, nothing to do and
everything is possible anyway,
car-hood conversations through
a sunset rinsed blue, nobody fidgeting
cause they’ve got somewhere better to be.

The day is coming I will set this
down, close the chapter, I
won’t burn this city but I
won’t look back either, arrived
with the wisdom that nothing worth
loving will force you to hustle,
then tore off at a sprint, concrete
miles, the thunderous lights, spilling
out of bars at the sunrise, and
marveling at the blur.

I am my own constant company, I’ve
nursed every bruise and
scrape on this body, spun gold from
the rust cuts in my story, mined
pearls from the tears in my
sternum, painted meaning into
memories, a heavy gift, but
I’m well learned in the carrying.

There is nothing I have loved
I have ever known how to love halfway,
the city was a miracle even as it
broke my bones, and you were the
best friend I’ve ever known, whether
you ever meant to stay, I have
loved you, eyes unblinking, and this
is my ‘permanent mark,’ my name
in graffiti as you whisk right on
by, a love who doesn’t know
better than to love you in full.

My cat doesn’t tense in the moments I set
him down, because he knows I’ll make sure
his feet find soft landing, because I mean
for him to associate being held with the
promise of safety, and we delight in this
ease, tender man and orange tabby,
watching the train rip by through
the rain-specked glass.

A lover mocks me for the way I pace
in his kitchen, why are you like this, and
I laugh, and neither of us thinks about
how sad this is, how nervous I become in
every room where he controls the
temperature, and it goes on this way
until it doesn’t, and thank God it doesn’t.

My friend, over text, seems delighted
and surprised
when I meet his joke with warmth, and
I wonder where the hell I’ve been, feel
shame rinse down my spine as I
remember the energy I couldn’t escape,
why do I become so prickly whenever
I am healing, and am I worth loving
on the days I am not very lovable?

Wednesday evening, couch cartoons, and
I mention what I’m going through, hurry
through to the conclusion, and my friend tells me
no, you don’t have to do that, and
my throat catches, is there ever really
time for my broken bones to mend,
his eyes say yes, and I hope to believe them.

The city is hard
you don’t look like yourself
but my heart is so soft
I see glimmers of you
count my bruises in the mirror
there you are, there you are
crying in shaky breaths once you’ve gone
your laughter is home
feel my tears freeze en route to the bar

If I had tasted even a glimpse of the sting
how can a man hold all the stars in the sky
would I have made a home in these pages
and crumple inward like this
packed up a life, determined and ready,
I curse the concrete for scraping so coldly
and, fuck, the rush of vibrant everything
wish for everyone I’ve loved to be sheltered
even the deepest of cuts feel, somehow, novel

We story the setting, rather than vice versa,
for a few hours, you and I press pause
where else could anyone want
trading stories and pop-tab cans
this life is a wild ride, we shriek and we thrill
tuck you in beneath the violet galaxy
and, if we’re crying, nobody gives much notice
you whisper, aw, look at the stars,
arms and legs akimbo as we sweep through the sky.

My resting heart rate is 51, which
means my heart moves slower than
the second hand ticking against
a concrete wall, and maybe this
is why time seems to heal me
slower, always catching my
breath as I catch up to the page

Those sunflowers die in a vase on
the counter, yellow petals cast
as yesterday’s hopes, because
giving flowers is an act of
surrender – to the idea that
nothing lasts, to the choice to
be right here now

I pride myself on how smoothly
I can pack up a life, T-shirts
rolled in suitcases, the hotel room
already forgetting my warmth,
and I do get tired of going, I
do yearn to find home outside
the confines of my body, but
I am, in fact, home here, and
wherever I wander, home.

How’ve you been, someone asks,
how do I talk about healing, want
to say it’s been Hell,
how I’ve had to learn to
house fury and cradle bruises,
all the hundred conscious
steps back to a self, stringing up
lights and hoping the glow
warms me down to the bone,
but I opt for can’t complain and
a sip of my beer.

Back then, the world stopped and
we shattered, empty apartments, promised
never to take a thing for granted, and
oh, the honeymoon year, the
wild blur of color, saying yes and
figuring the rest out later,
reckless abandon and endless
nights, no wonder even the
cruelties felt like love.

You were the drugs in
your pocket, a few nights of
wonder in exchange for
so many bruising tomorrows,
the loneliest boy who taught me
some company is lonelier than being
alone.

What came next was a rerun, Sophomore
slump, boring story, stupid prizes,
nothing better to say, except
I found myself in the fallout, the
surprise gift of disaster – you take
the shit that matters and you run.

Can’t complain, but some wounds
always will, joints that swell in the
face of changing weather, whiplash
October, and I’m more or less
the same as always, tender and
wanting, defiant and gentle,
breaking into a run and
holding onto blue yesterdays.

Summer was something to survive
this year, autumn a rusting finish line,
I revel in October because it reminds me
of letting you go, the way I
breathe more freely the second
I stop reaching for you.

I’ve sworn all my life I’d rather be
taken advantage of for
my gentleness than remain
cold and unbruised, and
you very nearly changed
my mind, took a sweet boy
and made him afraid to want,
but gentleness returns like
autumn air, all at once,
just one morning arrived.

To leave a lover,
it’s quite conscious,
first hell and then habit,
soon stranger than a stranger,
a song you once knew, a
joint aching only in
warning of wild weather.

I haven’t found a way to
tell those stories, so bleak
in the light, so I
drop them as punchlines,
and laughter makes
the monsters shrink,
watch them skitter away
amidst the browning veins
of what trees once clung onto.

Rain in small rivers against the living room
window, greens spilling into the concrete
grays, kiss my tabby cat on the crown as
he watches the world, and the hours
go on stacking.

Indie music reminds me of autumns in
college, flannels in October, dorm room
movie nights, the worst beer and the
best company, a guitar strum rips
me back to my mid-twenties, sharing
headphones and shaking hands, and
you kissed me in that hotel room,
those wild first hopes of forever.

These days I say goodbye
like I’m nursing an old injury, a knowing
nod, it’ll sting like hell for the
first few days, but I’ve known this
ache before, and nostalgia is
nothing but pain from an old wound.

I confess, I am something of a gardener,
and it’s been a season of tilling the
ground, pulling out the roots that
wrapped their thorns around my
gentle edges, go right on singing softly
in the stubborn hope that my
love knows how to bear fruit, and
fledglings evergreen will become
my forest, a canopy stronghold
beneath the wanting sky.

Memory has become a library
crowded, and nothing says vanity
like a shelf of books collecting dust,
so I scribble notes in front covers,
dropping books on park benches,
coffee shop counters, empty seats
on the train, maybe this story
will serve you, and depart and
return to a world that
still might hold surprises yet.

Here I am, on some midnight, feeling another summer pull itself away. Normally, I’d be drifting to sleep right now. Maybe not even ‘drifting.’ My lovers have sworn I fall asleep in a snap –– we hit the pillow and you were gone –– but not tonight. Tonight my mind is a kitchen sink overflowing, thoughts in amoeba puddles across the linoleum floor:

closure comes years after you stop wanting it.
forgiveness can happen behind unforgiving boundaries.
we outgrow life chapters the way teens outgrow clothes.

Get too close and they bleed together. A larger amoeba now, messier in its boundaries, murkier and deeper at once. (I don’t know shit about amoebas.)

Life’s lessons feel messier this year, harder to untangle and stretch in ribbons across the desk. A younger me would have been eager to sort it all out, find a throughline. An older me will be all knowing wisdom, with his better view.

For now, I’m content to let amoebas be amoebas. Bleeding into each other and crawling themselves through the seasons. (Still no idea.)

–

People don’t always stick around. This is hard, sometimes. Heartbreaking, often. And sometimes it’s good fucking news.

I finished the show Community this week, and I got tearful at the final scene’s notion that sometimes people leave on a boat and never come back. It’s meta, like quite a bit of the show, but it’s honest. Not everyone comes back for more episodes.

One day, they’re written off. Just last week, it seemed they’d be here forever. Now the remaining characters find storylines without them.

I think about the final scenes I’ve shared with people. Sometimes I knew this was it, and other times I held onto hope for another season. Just a bit more, to really give the characters closure.

Just recently, a cameo from somebody I thought would never find their way back into my story. Some people have an energy, a way of recoloring the world around you. We laughed over old memories (and reminded each other of younger days). But the sun rose, and the plane lifted off.

Closure, about five years after I stopped chasing it.

–

Memory can be a jagged thing. It’s like I’ve got a drawer full of glass shards, sharp-edged things I could throw away but I’ve been meaning to find a use for. I lift them out, study them under the light, and cut my fingertips bloody.

Can we ever really throw these things away?

The happier times are there in the drawer, too. Their edges are sharp because they keep company with the brutal times. For every time we lost ourselves to laughter, there’s a time you made me cry on the streets of my favorite city. The night I thought we just might have conversations forever is stacked against the night I reached for you and watched you let me drop.

I don’t want to just hold onto the good times. Without the others, without context, they become a saccharine lie. And I could toss them out, see all the ugly hardship without any of the joy, but that feels sinister and a bit lazy. How can I avoid bruising myself this way again, after all, if I don’t remember the pearls that coaxed me deeper, darker. (I’m mixing metaphors.)

So, if you’re gone, you can know there’s a drawer in some closet beneath my ribcage where I keep the shattered fragments you left behind. I remember your hair in the sun, the way you looked at me when you thought you could love me, and the chill of your goodbyes.

–

Are you okay?
Yes, I’m okay. Writing a feeling down is the closest thing I know to setting it down and letting the wind carry it away. When I write about sad things, I usually feel lighter. Trust me on this.

Who’s/what’s this about?
Good question. It’s about me. I had an ex once express frustration with me for writing I’d done about our time together. He said it was our story, that I shouldn’t share it. I understood, and I disagreed. Writing is my way through. I was working my way to new pages. Same here.

I don’t think that’s how amoebas work.
You’re probably right. Wikipedia is right there, and yet I persisted.

This is a weird one, Michael.
Phew. Agreed.

Dinner gets cold, right
there between us, the sight
of it turning my stomach, and
I spend weeks trying to settle
the tab, sharp edges to everything
we owed, until deciding,
like the food, some things are
better thrown away.

It’s funny (no, it isn’t) the way
some reckless boy wanders in
and all the colors change, and
when he goes, they stay,
stubborn hues, bruises in blues,
grays, indigoes, and
there I go, trying again to
paint sunshine onto my wanting skin.

The warm returns slowly, golds,
oranges, roses, and I forget
you in sunflowers, but
memory lives on in the corners
within us, the axe forgets,
the tree remembers, and you
return in sharp edges, shards of
glass in the carpet, and
I remember everything.

Dinner’s on me, I decide,
because to settle our scores
means to stay in proximity, and
trying to weather your rain
to prove I had faith in your sun
only ever choked me, pruned
fingertips and graying eyes,
that’s on me, on me, on me.