memo to self:

stop making love to make people love me.










It doesn't work.

I tried,

and as much as I want to,
I can't find it within myself
to feel happy for you.

secrets of the south.

As the resilient honeybees
make their return from the grave,
I take my own leave
in search of their vitality.
I pack my treasures in silken bundles
and stick-tied handkerchiefs,
oil the rusted hinges in my legs with red wine
and head south.

I’ll follow the dirt roads
trimmed with weathered, wooden houses
painted in creamy pastels,
their screened-doors opening onto
sturdy front porches supporting rocking chairs
and tall glasses of homemade lemonade and vodka.
I’ll trace the lines of laundry blowing in the wind,
passed the southern cross-windmills and vegetable gardens.
I’ll gossip with the wild flowers—
daises, honeysuckles, tart cherries and bluebonnet;
the Queen Anne’s lace blotted with blood
as thick and fresh as the juice
dripping from the blackberries—
and follow their directions
to the corn fields.

Here, I’ll pitch my tent,
under the crescent moon
and the buttery stars
slipping across the sky.
And if meteors should begin to fall
I won’t seek shelter—
I’m more than well-practiced
in the art of dodging houses
falling from the sky—
I’ll simply open my pillowcase
and then pawn my plunders
to the devil at the cross-roads
in exchange for
the secrets of the south.

on bad taste.

And when people wonder
why you're still single,
you can turn to them
and casually respond:
"it's because the curtains
in my bedroom are hideous,
obviously".

This is the only reason I can think of.

on unnecessary reminders.

"I'd rather not reminisce this.
I'm not ashamed,
it was just a lot of
unnecessary heartache."

"You know you enjoyed it."

Fuck you.

but you are, my love, the astronaut.

As satellites fall from the milky heavens
studding the fields of Wisconsin in luminous pearls,
and airborne volcanic ash grounds flights all over Europe,
it seems like the end of the world.
Plunderers raid the Midwest farmlands, hunting for fallen stars,
global travel was brought to an unexpected and alarming halt.
However, amidst the chaos, reports of humanity emerged:
“It was so beautiful to be in an airport during a crisis time.
Everybody talks to each other and shares their stories.
I wish the world was always like that.
It’s not.”

To be festive, I watched Armageddon.
And I hoped, as Bruce Willis sacrificed himself to save the world,
that there is an astronaut somewhere out there
willing to risk his life
to save mine.

testing the waters.

I’m a skeptic.
It runs in the family.
Every time it storms
I gather my treasures in a wooden milk crate—
prepared to seek shelter in the cellar—
on the off chance that the mighty winds
of the darkened heavens will swirl and coalesce around
the yearning finger of a seduced god,
and a silken tornado
will breach the murky skies
and slip down to briefly caress
the flattened breasts of the exposed Ohio plains.
I have a collection of tomato sauce jars
accumulating on my window sill
filled with water and oil
from the nights when I’m not quite convinced
that the liquids will separate.
I rub salt in my wounds,
and purposely burn my fingers on the hot stove
just to make sure that my nerve endings
are still functioning properly,
to feel the burning,
to make certain that I’m still human,
to confirm that I can still feel.

I'm restless.
I want to skip town.
Part of me wants to run off and join the circus
and disappear into the sunset in a patchwork parade of lions
and ladies in shimmering ball-gowns carrying leather whips,
but I’m a country boy at heart.
It’s spring, and I want nothing more
than to fly my kite from my rooftop,
and climb my neighbor’s magnolia tree,
and play my guitar on the front porch,
and send hollyhock dolls and newspaper boats down the river,
and get lost in a cornfield.
It’s the little things that count.
[I can’t raise a barn,
but I can build you a sturdy cathedral
out of chairs and bed sheets.
I can’t spin straw into gold,
but I can unspool a trail of thread
to guide you home.
I can’t steer a ship,
but I can wait for you
out on the widow’s peak.
I can’t lasso a horse,
but I can exhale
twisting smoke ladders to the stars
and hand you the moon.]

Winter has long since passed
but I’m still thawing.
I’ve been taking things bird by bird,
day by day,
limb by limb,
phrase by phrase.
I’ve been stirring hurricanes in teacups
but I don’t know if this is the right approach.
I want an ocean.
I want someone to melt my icebergs
and test my waters.

a haunting, a reality; familial confessions.

“When I was about five years old,
I remember waking up one night
and sitting up in my bed
and I saw a figure dressed in black
in the hallway staring into your room.
I couldn’t see its eyes because it had
its hood pulled up over its head.”

-e. goetz, my sister, April 3rd, 2010 in the toysrus parking lot