I wasn't there

The price of my pain is threehundred dollars

I blow smoke up in the air

dollar after dollar

until my throat aches

I sit around at landmarks of the city
making tourists uncomfortable by my teary and desperate presence
I try to lock eyes with people on the subway
to make someone see me in this city where I've learned to hide

I spin my index finger in amber waves in my glass
and flirt with men at the bar

that'll be seven dollars, ma'm

until I feel hazy and get the courage to finally go home

And yet I am not numb enough to look you in the eye

but I have no more cash

You look at me and tell me it's time to be past this

because our lives are still the same

So we go back to work,

play board games at the bar with your friends and

we share the covers in the bed

where nothing is the same

You could've chosen anyone but you chose me

So many people I've let tiptoe through my poems
let them spend the night in those words I've written for them
and numerous times I've sworn hand on my chest
that they were the most worthy creatures to lock behind the curly bars of my handwriting

the thing is

For all those times I've feared that was really it;
that my love was something you could release with a simple gesture
or by a human mistake
of  leaving the gate open and it would run off like a wild animal
desperate for fresh prey

You let my heart run free
but before I got even halfway
I realized I've never felt as safe as locked up under your sheets at night
and that no one has ever been so worthy of my words than you

because there's nothing more lyrical and poetic
than the madness you have driven me into
where diving from a cliff feels safer than falling asleep to the sweet memory of crashing waves

Different worlds

I carry my heavy body from my sheets in the morning

with such hope and defiance
that's only held by the mountains that surround our city

in these recently icebound mornings

I'm amazed we're this brave
and we're going to share the meaning for 'home'
along with forks, sheets, the sink, the morning light flowing from the windows on Sundays, the house chores, morning kisses, knives, fights and lost gloves

I place each limb precisely around the idea of you in my bed

and fall out of my strength for tonight

and with a mothers dilemma

she removes the tears from my eyes that are going to fly her daughter miles away

Give me something to return to in your heart

I am a house
young build but old at heart
so we can spend Sunday mornings rummaging through the dusty corners and get excited exploring the attic
and find more surprises to complement the others already found
lying around between the hardcover books, scruffy stuffed animals and rusty candlesticks

Who would've known it needed just some containers,
the right kind of uncertainty and your practical mind to
make me cook meals and love unconditionally

We don't sleep
but pretend to do so
but it's hard to sleep with the wind of change in our sheets

I need your calm footsteps on my creaky floors
to carry soft carpets in
so we can sink our feet into the mellow warmth of silence
and you'll make fun of my wrinkly and crooked grandma toes

Just keep laughing and tell me you haven't given up on us just yet

Hyperballad

In my mornings I live like a blind man
and carry my fingers around your body up down up back to the soft skin behind your ear towards the bones of your hips and back to touch the slight dimple where the curve of your nose ends

Waiting for you to tell me it's enough
but you never do

The reason everything from my cuticles to my light wrists slither on your leather shell every morning
without exception
is just so I can memorize every single bit of you
before I must carry my own weight away
so those three white metallic eagles can fly me across the seas
to the bed I haven't slept in for 358 days

You kiss my lust out of it's sleep to drape it over your pelvis

Boats stay silent and still
surrounded by wandering waves
before my intoxicated and damp eyes
and I hope you are going to love me more than all of those arches of bent down spines
cracking underneath my collapsed sanity

I'll find a map and draw a straight line; over rivers, farms and state lines; the distance from A to where you'd be; it's only finger-lenghts that I see

Funny thing is
in a couple of months I'm going to carry my things into your apartment
but instead of staying it is going to be a sign of leaving

and for 17 days you'll share your bed with me
and I'll make my morning coffee in your kitchen
and make a mess in your living room
while listening to your roommates indie rock cds
kiss you to sleep
and wake you up with my snoring in the middle of the night
wake up early to have a shower with you before you leave to work
but crawl back to bed when you close the door

I am mostly just teary
you're trying to stay strong just to keep me sane

hush hush hush below my auricle

and your roommate is just a ghost wandering around his own apartment
without knowing where to go or where to be

And in the end all three of us pack our coffee mugs and couches and books and sex toys and loud speakers and passports and the microwave
and walk out from that apartment where we spent complete
3 days of lust
2 days of peace
9 days of desperation
1 day of remorse
2 days of escapism
all of them wrapped in insubstansial love and ignorance

and I'll hold the plane tickets 4675.2 miles away from you

If you let me here's what I'll do; I'll take care of you

"What time should I set the alarm for?"

"Don't bother
Let's just stay in bed tomorrow and be in love" you say

and silently I agree
and kiss you goodnight
while the morning sun already burns my eyelids