grandmom maria and kepto marie

i feel guilty, i do

for the endless hysteria lines i cannot picture
like stealing mania and other people's treasure
of my grandmother's smile a walk home later
(seems alien and strange in colours that falter)
my feet scratching a lightling, indecent leaving
taking out trash from the lives we are not living
bought a basket of dollar-grade fruits and fuzz
one day, left it while rummaging an afterthought
win some, lose some; steal some, fool some
the playmates hard to come by when too young
or too far gone in a sixty-year decade of loose change.
poverty and the good fight gauged
and ingrained even as i listened to your withering winds
come back to me in the park, by the buried walnuts
bike rides you waited and i forgot
how ephermeral you are.

If you could read standup prose
if you could see that I share your nose
if you could know now what i never knew then
if you could hug me tighter than pornographic men
I love you like years in a single bed
humming nights to electric fan fights that left
when I turned thirteen, fourteen, seventeen,
and forgot the dream catcher you made with stories
and ticklish foot rubs i hated so you hurried
now, but for the expired food freebies, the only time I can touch you again
is when you are leaving for the last time
to the waves of the Earth and the wave of my hand.

the old in and out

And here we go again, she said,
the old in and out, the old inscrutable smiles that old men recall
that young men ignore
here it comes again,
the next bathroom floor for a fiddle, for a faker,
for the girl who can’t come and the boy who can’t cut
really,
they’re the same person
as the girl who can
and the boy who can
really,
it’s all the same person as the sitting sharpens like sudden rainfalls can growl:
as the bed hardens as the sheets can roll into themselves:
as the room of best-friends and faux lovers can feel more alone
than a room of one’s own:
as I am everybody in every moment of every emotion.

And here we go again, she said,
the future familiarity of red blinds and black tides – what I see when I read Kerouac page fifty-three concerning the utter unknowing
of Kerouac (footnote page 53).
Conversations going nowhere in my head, selfish reasons to be my friend,
a song by a beautiful boy who never realized what we had,
a battle and a penny, a bathroom light and a cellphone call,
an ex-lover and a new lie,
a misquoted guide who tries to tell us:
there is an answer when there is no question,
there is a song when there is no music,
there is a mosquito when there is no skin,
there is a slipper when there is no ground.
I can’t stand to be alone in a room not my own.

And here,
HERE,
HERE HERE HERE HERE HERE
we go again.

the screen of a staring contest and the worst,
if you can believe there is a worst part to all this parental guidance bullshit that I never had,
i never lose and I never win, but while you wait in the other room,
while I wait in a room not my own,
while I write in a house un-alone,
while I sit on a bed across a shared room,
i can’t do the things I do when I am at my worst and my best:

no cries and no cuts,

no slaps and no lust,

no truth written on mirror fogs

no bongs alone when I am sick of thoughts.

close the door and when you leave, the turning of the back and the swing the shoulder will make me love again.