red knee socks

wednesdays are typically sweaty, we wrap our feet up like babies but yanking our toes so our bunions stop growing (like babies) waking up our heaters in december smells like climbing gyms and Other Mindless Activities we do to keep our Heads Down   without focus (not on Work or How                          It’s Going but on why we                          we feel an absolute sorrow,                          sorry for bringing it up) You can fall asleep with the door open, baby, i’ll come to bed soon.

i’m going to remember this time now as the six weeks of september when i could run and you couldn’t, i could work and you didn’t, when i was stronger than you and you still hurt; please but don’t slouch on couches, please but kiss me at bedtime remember only love is on the moon so what shape does the moon make when its stomach hurts?

held hands are soft, rattly, something loose - brain down in your stomach but i know your heart’s with me, and mine hurts (sorry, no really like that time and that time and the other but this is different not for you so far away, but because you already left and your hands and slumped shoulders were the last things that i got to Keep or got to spend Time with, and i didn’t need to kiss you; i knew you’d known my heart) 6 weeks is too long to be wrapped up in a blanket, and getting better soon becomes more and more for me

we’ve never been so close before, you huddled up to me that woman’s engaged and a man plays music for all of us we are quiet but stabby - one hand to God, up on the rail, we want to be alone but have never been closer, finding our own peace and quiet

i don’t understand the insides of my brain (when i am supposed to, when i am not) and these are very sturdy poems but that time you met me at the train station surprised me into being solid over you;  you see the weeks (hours) are hard when ADD cancers all up in me and i wonder or think or fear or cry about the Bible in my bed; yes really you know getting married is like realizing you’re already there

if i grew 10 inches and found narnia, would you still answer “maybe”? would you still stay at home?

i am leaving you alone; you’re better off doing a lot of untouching

sometimes i get dried off before the next straw but sometimes the water begins again, and again is when the world fits inside my broken up brain and doesn’t make sense

sometimes the last mess to come out of your mouth is the notes in your trombone, and the sweat in your underwear has nothing to do with the trouble in your stomach. Other days, your friend moves to barcelona and your handwriting gets worse. wait for me at he bottom of the stairs nd we’ll take a picture together (nope) but why does everything good always happen at once? watch the sad, like the cheeseburger in your stomach, that time you lost $19 after going to a yard sale, the other time you thought about your perfect friends together kissing, and when you weren’t good enough and looked up to God and asked about tomorrow morning

too sad, too slow to get along: i moved from san francisco on a sunday and became closer to God and farther from my christians hey hey hey today you prayed that your brain is too balanced, always adding salt because your mother lied about sodium, and one night suddenly remembering to keep your eyes open and maybe some night in a whisper you hit your head and tell your guilt: there’s no fishing in these waters

i don’t know why there are So many irish people in san francisco; take a chance to watch - no walk past them And there’s nothing you love so much more than back home a slipping-between-fingers-home, no-good-yelly-mom-home, best-friend-goodbye-home; while doing half of what you did there here you have a handful of weeks and a kiss full of pizza, a sink full of dishes and a commute full of irish people, So far from where you love, so close to just one love, finding that nothing is so comforting as real winter

the balconies from the train aren’t anymore covered in the fog from the hills or the family far away or the God in your church. all the people with the jackets who want to take the elevator have to make a plan for freedom; prayer is something your pastor can help you with - prayer is something to listen for

we work too hard for you with the cell phone

and one minute, at another point maybe yesterday, you wonder how you got here in a theatre covered with gray hair on top, looking at What You Did and letting the pre-show music want you to not let them take the set away - chapstick chapstick today and chopstick tomorrow and a mixy stomach and accident hair makes you forget why you hated your mother; you’re only hating everything around you now because it isn’t her

both sides of florida can’t undo the walk to the golden gate bridge, but i like the sun on the days i’m happy and the rain on the days i’m not so hills aren’t an option any more but you will always be so i choose you on the days with the sun and you on the days with the rain but if there are any others, i’ll eat chocolate in your stead

every time i pull out an eyelash i think of you (mostly nobody else is fueled by the world and not their fears and you’re my favorite of the people who plan for their fears and let their brain dangle (my only people( nd until then you eat chocolate or old wrapping paper or lists

and that makes me miss her