insomnia

more often, it seems
i'm awake on the edge of morning
on edge, unsure of whether
i should sleep

the clamor of truck beds
in my 5th-floor apartment
suggests
i postpone it yet again

until my bloodshot eyes
roll back into the night
unfamiliar hibernation may
dream sweet but not soundly

ecosystems

golden wheat husk of a
beer bottle
caps peel off into pales of
wasted space
six meters deep and they
never decay
rinds from 1953
six crushed cans and
one crushed heart
lost beneath the foam
something comforting about the
rusted tabs and blood vessels

sparta

tamarack beach smells
of melted footprints.
the speed bumps hardly hold back
our sun burnt hearts
from racing

Mountain passes

you told me that you loved me on october 29 2005
it was a Friday and you smelled like Marlboros and Heineken
chipping golf balls of the backyard mountain passes
overlooking the gold course you grew up on

overlooking that I was terrified
that I was seventeen
I loved you too
But the smell of Marlboros and Heineken made me freeze

Enveloped in your figure, 14 inches taller than mine
But we were the same size from an airplane window
Places remote would never know
How you smelled

But in a microscope they would see
That we both broke down into molecular beings
That we could combine into a cellular mass
Of friction and feelings and chemistry

I love you too.

straw hats and button downs

paisley yellow pattern
button down over a
white beaten wife beater
worn by a white wife beater

but the paisley button down
and straw sun hat
that smells like stale perfume
and apples and iodide

hide the beaten beater
and the beaten
blood drips and black eyes
but they hide they hide they hide

under straw sun hats
with tattered pink ribbons
satinesque at best
smelling of apples and idodide

break lights

break lights on the causeway
rearview mirror on the rearended car
on the causeway
looking back looking back looking back
forgetting to look ahead
on the causeway
causes and accidents and happenings
and the break lights.

eclectic

it didnt make sense
because i didnt want it to

for the last 20 minutes ive been alone
thinking you were in the room
just to look behind me to your
empty armchair

reverberations slightly scattered
from the movements of the fan
air is my companion in this
white box building

the knick knacks on the mantle
are the same as always
just rearranged to be more dynamic
with the antique bones of life

sitting on the mantle
disposable camera photos
wedged into dusty mirrors
in the same corner they have been

the same corner
since they were taken in 1998
an older number that feels new
and reminds me that im not little anymore

it doesnt make sense
it doesnt because
because i dont want it to