i may be a joke

I want to be significant. 
The constellations and crowds rustle a whisper, 
"Get in line, kid,"
and I may be a kid
but I'm not kidding.

i think i want to write a "thank you" series that contains unexpected thanks, sarcastic thanks, thanks i wish i'd said, etc. anyway. here is the first one.

thank you haiku

thank you for always
being late, i always have
time to write a poem

autobiography

in biographies, there aren’t often symbols

or crashing cymbals 

to emphasize what is symbolized

or anything otherwise

so if you have something to say

don’t let it sit atop your lip

like a foamy mustache of skim apprehension

while you open even automatic doors for me.

clean your face and clean the waters.

• 
  

Swollen

when no amount of junk food or jazz fills
my chest cavity,
an uncannily appropriate name 
for the spot i so infrequently floss,
i swell.
i don't know the exact science or method,
and it's not quite growing
or inflating
but i manage.

jake

so i grabbed his arm on the curb and said

"i'm sorry i touched your eyeball

but you were so beautiful

and it was so glassy

i thought you were a doll."

i stayed up too late writing this

i wrote this at 2am. i'm also noticing that whenever i write a song lately, the lyrics sound kind of folky. i guess that's not a bad thing, just odd. or maybe they don't even sound folky, but i hear them folky in my head so that just predestines them to become a folk song. anyway. here is a start to my maybe a folk song. 

plots of land fold into other like a pop-up story book

but you were always in the plot

i'm plotting routes to omaha because i still feel undercooked

and your stuck in my blindspot

there's no oven like your laugh, though it never raised any dough

i was raised in its warmth

instead of being teased by you, i'm humbled by the city's glow

and even younger than before

i'm just a kid in a brick building

but i'm getting grounded.

you're still my home.

my dad gave us goofy nicknames and my mom woke us up for school

my sister snuck into my bed

quiet sundays at a desk and lonely hymns in a church pew

they isolate me more instead

i miss the morning sounds of family, miss the nighttime sound of friends

the comfort of a memorized landscape

i miss the nippy kitchen floor, i miss my mothers favorite pens

the simpleness i thought i could escape

i'm just a ape with a moleskin notebook

but i'm getting braver.

you're still my home. 

i'm just a newly stringless puppet

but i'm growing bones.

you're still my home.

i'll return with christmas lights hanging from my eyes

and hanging from my home. 

blinking messages in code north to tell my eyes

come on home. 

you're still my home.

come on home. 

man feet

even when i paint my nails,

my feet still look

like man feet.

the sun's art

i pointed at a freckle
an inch away from his left nipple
"this is new." 
"don't worry, it wasn't intentional.
it doesn't change anything."
"it's art. the sun's art. and yeah
it probably doesn't change anything."
but still, i moved my head to cover it
with my ear. 
i could hear his throbbing heart
underneath the sun's meaningless art.
it rises and it falls
and he let that change everything. 
it rises and it sets
and it doesn't change anything.