Some people will sit
With their eyes nearly closed
Each lid half slit
Without a thought to be known

Then there are those that can be seen
Straddling fencepoles, drizzling on a Sunday stirrup
With eyes standing awkward at the end of the avenue
These are the ones that will be awake in the morning
These are the ones which will wear all of our warnings.

Though I do admit, I wonder on occasion
Why you would be someone instead of another.
As if you were only a single dimension
Of everything that could ever happen.

After all
There are only thin shields of differences
That calculate themselves in the burden of a characteristic
The traits that craft a sentence with it's

subject

object,

it's period.

Despite all the desires that we share
(The ones that make us want to disappear)
this is why I have to sit over here, a little further from where you are

I need to know that my eyes see beyond themselves
I need to be aware, of your shape, it's slope, each angle that turns
If it weren't for the light that lingers long enough
For me to capture you and carry your concerns
I would never remember why I need to think.
Why I would ever have to understand or comprehend
The reasons why you were born.

And no, I won't try to make you see yourself anymore.

if i were not the world
perhaps it would be

blank

a smooth sheet of paper untarnished
a field with sledded snow

one could trace out several forms
in the brisk empty field

to shadow the sense of a self
that holds no ground in a world so white

then perhaps i could stand in a state
that would be a face that strangers pass

there would be no roots in a past

no path

and all that comes through me then
would be reborn blank without any feathers attached

the pink end of the pencil would balance
the way we write our regrets with the permenance

of such a pure emptiness.

And you may welcome winter
As you wrap yourself in the wind
And walk with fingers clenched.
As you sit beside the window, wrapped
In blankets in the backseat.

And I would want to tell you that
I do believe your skin would render itself
Supple, humid and full of folklore if it were
To be against mine in the late afternoon

to be honest
you are crowding
my consciousness
with implants and incidents
errors of a circumstance
that led me off a shortened ledge

but instead we'll all linger in well lit wooden rooms
with glasses of brandy and scarves that sing acoustic
But anyway
All these people
Are only made of complaints
And all they are
are only the expired intentions
of an excuse for comfort, a facsimile of affection.

we are the skinned shelves of an elm
the veined branch that circles its age
and though we share each others pockets
this is not a dime store romance
it is withered thumb rubbed parchment
the dampened bristle of a leaf piled penchant
for cotton, for lilac, the touch of reddened plaid
and a warmth that we've never had

and we are awash in non-existence
there are two pools of glass inside the cabinent

and we huddle around a common mishap
and we are awash in non-existence

or perhaps the depth of a morning imagined
the question curves itself answered

but that's not the end of it

there were slots that led themselves around the neighborhood
when all the mattresses were pulled out to the curbs
we drove ourselves through the city sleeping

only inches away from where our nose ends the head

since we consider so often
so much that has so little

substance

or

touch.

we are awash

and we wade

with white t-shirts, flickering monitors
dying batteries and stains on the carpet.

i had wanted time to be tangible.

i wanted to weigh it with our diversions

to see if we could add i up to the same solid number

that we toss between

push and pull

the bulk of ourselves is another

(you sit with our hands splayed upon several smooth moving disks orienting each one into a reasonable location on a board that has small tubes connected to it from underneath where it links into a reason- Light under the glass screen- (you can't organize ideas) we could make them out of letters) I'm certain that they will rot after time)

and you are awash

there is something
peculiar

about the directness of the day

the feeling that for once
i am inside of a summer
or within a sundrenched winter

that despite the fact
that i feel detached
the toe hinges
against
the latch

and i catch myself crossing the muddened
campus sidewalk

slipping in sync
with the oncoming expectation

(but we have to extract the words from their definitions)

and i don't want to forget
that i thought the trees were illuminated

(i saw your details in the light of the basement)

yet there is a weighted slouch
dragging down the burlap shoes
onto the pennystone pavement

i am infatuated with a hesitation

inflated by the gullible encounter
of a delayed attempt at comprehension

i want the words
to be drenched

with the

stolen temperature of the day
smeared onto the page the waxy dew of the soggy leaves
i measure the lives i miss by the length of their eyes.