A POEM A DAY

I'm just happy to be here.
April 25, 2014

24/30

She told me                           
No one is alone in their suffering
then looked at me as if to say                           
Yes, even you
and my eyes met her mouth like
honest truth or fresh fruit
either way, she spoke slow and
I saw all my favorite colors fall out
her bottom lip, saw them blur 
into a bridge, or a plank, or some other
distance one must make if he wants to
see the day again.

I tell her how I keep every beautiful thing I see
that way I can leave it behind when no one is looking
and how I call that positive pollution, and that I am
overwhelmed every day by what some might call
the breeze, but what is most obviously a river of what’s next,
a universal breath knocking against the stars
we have stuck in our chest,
and she is glowing
like she knows
like she knows what it means to collapse 
and come back
brighter than death.

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April 25, 2014

23/30

VALENTINES DAY

It is 5 AM, and I am holding a woman without fear of what may come
when the morning does, and this is the first time, since the last time which
no longer matters, except to say I have become an expert at holding on, which
is to say I am terrible at letting things go, and this is nothing new, but oh
the way she cracks my body open like allergy season is, and that ain’t nothing.

I should rewind.

You are on your bed and this is my first time in your room and
I don’t want to do anything to mess it up so I just lie on my back and listen
and watch you sing your favorite songs to me and oh now you are bright-
eyed, now you are a lighthouse, and I never even had to tell you about the
shipwreck.

I should rewind.

I loved a girl before you who never listened to my favorite songs because
they were too sad. Then she stopped loving me back and oh, nothing prepares
you for that. Except the sad songs, and there is never enough ice to break
the irony.

I should rewind.

Depression is an ocean and I thought since my father was a sailor this might
save me but it only made me more dissolve faster and that did not solve anything,
so I lifted my body from the bottom of my bed, and tried to make myself happen,
like how anything happens to anyone in the course of a day, but no one noticed
so I went back to bed and buried myself dead.

I should fast-forward.

We spent Valentine’s day getting drunk and eating tacos from a truck outside
next to a jukebox that played nothing but love songs. Just My Imagination
by the Temptations became the soundtrack at 2 AM for stumbling lovers and
I held your hand ‘cause sometimes my worst fault is falling too soon, and
oh darling, I didn’t want to ruin the music.

It is 5 AM yesterday now, and like I said before, you are gone, and I am terrible
at letting things go, but oh that ain’t nothing new.

Oh, I think
It was just my imagination,
running away with you.

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