pescetarian

I love you
for the time you forgot the word
for the vegetarian who still eats fish

i look at you
and hope
you think i am perfect for you
as the paintbrush was to nick
or the guitar to jon
even though he plays that song
that wakes you up every morning

i wonder
if you ever look at me
and think i will be successful
but that is selfish
much like my thought
that i have never driven a mercedes
or ever been in the market to buy one
and i wonder if i ever will

it is your face in the morning
that helps me through the day
the soft features that bled from your pillow

it is that when i leave in the morning and
leave you sleeping, it is you
that makes my bed
and when you leave me to go to work
in your khakis and the polo that you hate
it is i that makes yours

when the bed is made it means
that we are not together
and that is fine, for in your heart
i am there touching your soft red hair
as you do to push your bangs from your face
and you are in my heart rubbing your soft closed
fist alongside my arm (of which we would both laugh at)

it is that when i write you
it is usually left under your windshield wiper
or left on your dresser while you shower or sleep
and when i write from you
it is a world i only know through your eyes
it is the beauty of the day you closed your eyes
it is the wonder of the day you laid in my bed
and before i slept on your chest
you told me those words i longed to hear
and there they were

out in the wind
where the trees could grab it
but since then it has circled around like a cloud
collecting the beauty that i see
and it rests with me before i dream
to know this world with you
to be in this world with you

since childhood
i have longed to share

Twenty Five East

i walked out on my stoop
looked about the brick street
where the cars were parked
the neighbor next door (a cop)
just got off work
his gun and belt slung over his back

the lawn littered
with cigarette butts
the ones we forgot about since winter
the snow covered the yard
and presented us with an ashtray
"we'll see you again in spring"

and now we do
a disgusting display
of the cold nights when
we huddled beneath the overhang
the beer in the living room
for outside it would freeze our hands

what were we thinking?
the summer gets closer
each month is our change
for the day when we all must part
where no longer we share this house
with each other

goodbye old green duplex
we hardly knew ye.

hey, remember when...

We went out into the night
Two bottles of wine
And a starry sky
We were trying to forget about a sadness
That had plagued us for days
Our motto
“If it’s still there in the morning
We didn’t try hard enough”

As the night progressed
And we watched the constellations
Bleed over into different sides of the sky
We questioned if we brought enough
Of the juice.
I turned to the grass and whispered
“Whatever it is you’re trying to do
I’m not having it.” And stood up.

“I never liked the taste of this red.”
“I never liked your cynicism.”
We argued like it was us we were trying to forget,
No sooner had we remembered
We were our own saviors and what comes of this will be
In the morning we hoped to feel the dew
We did.
“This has to be the largest moon I’ve ever seen.”

We climbed a tree as most boys do
And what we saw from there we counted
If it didn’t fit in our pockets, it was counted and remembered.
We passed the wine as our stories dwindled into
“Hey, remember when?”
Not the finest of memories we recollected
But it had to be said.
The language started forming into
What we had hoped would have come of a night alone
And two bottles of wine

The phrase that sold us
On the fact that we made right
Was muttered from a tree branch
As we looked across the pond we stumbled on
With the frogs barking, and the lone wind flowing about our hair
“What was the reason we came all the way out here?”