Water and Shore-Villanelle

We were children, brother, water and shore.
Indistinct, like the grains we walked on then.
That time is gone, we are children no more

Born a year a part, one year, and no more
Never separate, from boys to mock men
We were children, brother, water and shore.

Our senior year they said make plans, be sure.
We said to the coast, we will go my friend.
That time is gone, we are children no more.

A man in Dress Blues, spoke country and corps
You believed him, signed your life with his pen
We were children, brother, water and shore.

His tongue made no mention of blood and war
In youth we stormed beaches, bullets-pretend.
That time is gone, we are children no more.

Now sand and no water, tainted not pure
There was a time with nothing to defend
We were children, brother, water and shore.
That time is gone, we are children no more.

Attachment-Charlie Smith

Little prongs, hooks, eyelets
threaded through you,

some days almost invisible, love
a pertinence unapprehended,

magnolia spikes, swept up curlicues of scent,
bird feathers in the grass, a park

we crossed at dusk talking about liberation-
clasps, brackets, childhood mixed in,

the sacred memories-Baltic Sea, the South-
cathces, latches, holes in sound,

some of these, the words
more important than before,

a glimmerance, limerance,
the rain-softened lights among the monuments,

the way I hung back
to see you walking, a step ahead,

as if you were leaving me.

Don't call me peanut

Drink up beautiful;
I spiked your cup with angst, and a heart attack.
I've got so much trapped and it's all because of you.
So i figured you might like some back;

And when I see her I'll tell her whats been on my mind,
All these sleepless nights, she'll recite her excuses,
Put my tail between these legs of mine;
Like i do all the time

Can't live my life;
Knowing you'll be in his arms, each time I blink my eyes;
Know what goes on behind my back; every night.
Afraid I'll never leave; afraid I'll never know whats good for me

And when I see her I'll tell her whats been on my mind,
All these sleepless nights, she'll recite her excuses,
Put my tail between these legs of mine;
Like i do all the time

And now you say that; you say you love me.
Well i may have your heart, he has your body
And now you swear that; you're being honest,
But you're not honest, you never could be

And when I see her I'll tell her whats been on my mind,
All these sleepless nights, she'll recite her excuses,
Put my tail between these legs of mine;
Like i do all the time

Wake up to a pounding head and blood shoot eyes and I'm mad at myself because I thought this was behind me. That old Sinatra song Cycles is playing in my head and, Frankie, I guess I'm in the middle of a down turn. It's a condolence that I caught myself.

I finally got down to the truth of you and I. All this time I've been hung up on you, it hasn't been love. For all my posturing and bullshit I'm really a small man. Everything that came after us-the sleepless nights, the panic attacks, the blackouts and punched walls-None of that was heartbreak. It was nothing but a bruised ego. Big, hulking, black and blue fucking ego. I thought what you did was betrayal but it was nothing but robbery. You took the self-worth I had and thrashed it, left me effeminized and weak. I don't miss holding you at night because what is that? Just an arm that falls asleep and a shitty night sleep. I don't miss talking to you because you could never hold my attention for more then a minute. I never think about the sex. What was fucking you? 30 seconds of lip-biting inadequacy. I want to feel strong again. Need the validation. Need to be built up.I want to make you feel ugly and stupid and worthless. I want you wondering what I'm doing and who I'm with. I want the control back and that's much harder to come by then some misplaced notion of story-book romance.

I can't help but realize that I don't belong here anymore. I live with them. I go to class, work out, fuck, and drink beer with them. But I'm not really with them. Not too long ago I was here and it wasn't all an act but now I can barley even put on the face anymore. I'm past the meanness, the whining, the emotional wastefulness. If i'm going to pretend to be something I'm going to pretend to be somthing better then what I am-something besides apathetic and mediocre. A person should always act up not down. This isn't for me anymore.

I'm not moved by any strong sense of self-worth or a positive self-image. Its the opposite that gets me off my ass. I'm pushed on by all the people that made me feel small and insignificant-the men that saw some kind of weakness in me and tried to walk over me-the women that left me to find someone better. If all men were driven by such things nothing would be left undone.

I get it now man. They all just want to take something from you. And its not just money. I wish it was. That would make things easier. I could just pay people off and be done with it. But they want more then that. They say they want your love but I know what that really means. They want your lust and your jealousy and your peace of mind. They want your strength and your independence. Others say they want your understanding. But their lying. They want to take you down to their level. That's why when you ask someone how they are they say things like "Times are tough right now" or "Oh, I'm hanging in there". No one is good anymore.They're miserable and they want you there with them. They want your pity and sadness. I don't lack compassion. I have too much of it. I see people breaking and it breaks a little bit of me every time. Their selfish. They hurl the stones off their backs and onto mine. I have to hide from them. I have my own boulders.

Stay In

It's Friday night and you're sitting at home by yourself. You have a hoodie and sweat pants on and you're bundled up in a chair in the corner of your room. Your face is clean and white. Your cheeks are glowing red for no particular reason. But you're always like that. Glowing. You're reading something but I don't know what it is. Maybe Fitzgerald or Faulkner. Maybe just Harry Potter. I don't care what it is. I care that it's in your hands and I'm jealous of how your eyes hang on every word. Sometimes when I look at you I wish they would hang on me like that. At some point your roommate will walk in with her tits propped up and a fake tan and a layer of paint covering up the tired blotches on her face. She's gonna call you a nerd and shove a smirnoff into your hands. She's gonna try to drag you with her. Please don't go. Stay at home and wait for me.

Cocaine flame in my bloodstream
Sold my coat when I hit Spokane
Bought myself a hard pack of cigarettes in the early morning rain
Lately my hands they don't feel like mine
My eyes been stung with dust and blind
Held you in my arms one time
Lost you just the same
Jolene
I ain't about to go straight
It's too late
I found myself face down in a ditch
Booze in my hair
Blood in my lips
A picture of you holding a picture of me
In the pocket of my blue jeans
Still don't know what love means
Still don't know what love means
Jolene
Been so long since I seen your face
Or felt a part of this human race
I've been living out of this here suitcase for way too long
A man needs something he can hold onto
A nine pound hammer or a woman like you
Either one of them things will do
Jolene
I ain't about to go straight
It's too late
I found myself face down in a ditch
Booze in my hair
Blood on my lips
A picture of you holding a picture of me
In the pocket of my blue jeans
Still don't know what love means
Still don't know what love means
Jolene

Whats really driving me

I know you love a guy that's not me and I'm trying not to hate you for it. I can't be anything to you except what I am but I look at him and I look at me and I wonder what it is I don't have. I'm playing it off so well but I feel like I'm suffocating when I think about you. It's driving me up the fucking walls. I finally quit drinking. I go to the gym six days a week. I bought all new clothes. People see me now and tell me how great all the changes I'm making are and how strong of a person I'm becoming but I could care less about any of those things. I'm not doing these things because I'm strong I'm doing them because that's how pathetically broken I am for you. I'll make myself anything to get you back. If you can't love me then I'll become someone else.

Liberal Arts

I sit in class and wonder what 4000 dollars a semester gets us. The girl in front of me had an abortion before she declared her major-then she went Women's Studies. The guy to my left did a line of coke in a bar bathroom and let one of his fraternity brothers blow him. I figure there's at least one date raper in here and I use that term loosely. He probably didn't have to use a roofie. He probably just played the nice guy and bought her a few shots of Sex on the Beach. The method isn't really important. What is important is that he had to get her unconscious so he could fuck her. She didn't press charges because she had too much fun last night. There's an eating disorder. Maybe a cutter. Probably a few pre-cancerous growths hiding under fake tans. It tears me up. I'm so fucking tired but I can't sleep because I have a mid-term tomorrow on symbolism in the short fiction of Flannery O'Connor. Earthquakes. Budget deficits. The Taliban. Flannery uses windows to represent gateways to the soul. Fuck it. I'll go to the bathroom to snort and adderal and suck it up.
Gotta graduate.
Gotta get a good job.
Gotta be the man.
Money
Cars
Pussy
And the chick next to me she's
Gotta lose weight
Gotta make her ex-boyfriend jealous
Gotta find her husband
Houses
White-Fences
Babies
We go home some weekends and our parents ask us how classes are going.
"Not too bad."
Go upstairs. Lock the door. Hide our faces under our pillows.

Pearl Harbor

Hey Pop. It’s been over a year now. I flew back to Boston for your funeral. I was the only one of my brothers to make it. I’m sure you didn’t mind. They were all pretty busy now and besides they never got you like I did. I’m sure you didn’t want a bunch of people crowded around your casket blubbering. I didn’t cry at your wake or your funeral. I didn’t want to look weak. You were probably proud of me for that. I guess being stoic is in the blood. I’m not that tough though. I wept later on in my room. I know you saw me but I hope you didn’t mind too much. My dad cried for you. That’s more emotion then you ever gave him. He’s too good of a man to buy into the bullshit that you and I buy into.
I only have a few memories of you. Like how you used to roll up your right pant leg just above your knee and let me see your scars from the War. Long and pink-like lighting bolts shooting down your thigh. I never had battle scars to show you but I do now. A nice one inch gash on the back of my head. I didn’t get it storming a beach or warding off global fascism like you. I didn’t fight Japs or the German wehrmacht, just some frat guys in pink Polos and ass high khakis. Five of them and one of me. I bet you would have liked those odds. I’m not real sure who started it. I don’t think it was me. I’m too quiet for that but I was drunk and I have some of your mean streak in me-some of that blood that can’t walk away. There wasn’t much honor in it. Just fists and boots on my face and ribs. I got worked over pretty good. I woke up a few hours later on the pavement and as I wiped the blood and vomit off my face with my ripped shirt I looked up at the sky and part of me felt like you were proud of me for taking a stand. Whatever I was taking a stand for. You had Okinawa. I have drunken frat brawls. We take the wars that are given to us.
How am I supposed to live until my real fight comes Pop? You didn’t have to wait like me. Tojo attacked Pearl Harbor and you were good to go. I’m trying to be patient. You used to tell me stories about how you were the arm wrestling champion on your ship during the war. Sometimes I feel like I should have been on that ship with you. People now they don’t’ understand men like you and I. I need a war. I need a proving ground. It’s not here. There is no glory in Facebook or the Real World or iPhones. I can’t find any honor in Jager bombs and bar sluts. Nothing. I need to be a champion like you.

For you

If shallowness is what I need to survive you then I will be low-tide for you darling. You shot my self image and I couldn't let it slide. I think you'll be surprised to see that I have taken the dust of my shattered-ego and fashioned it back into stone. It wasn't easy. I've done some things that were hard. They hurt me. But I think it will all pay off. 5:30 A.M. workouts till I vomited were nothing in light of what you did to me. Sticking needles into my ass that will make my kidneys fail and my eye's rage red are nothing if they help me get you. It's been so much work sweet girl. I don't go out or see my friends anymore. They're distractions. So much time alone to get myself right. But it will all pay off. I haven't done anything to my personality or my broken heart. You see nothing but skin-deep, so fuck it. See this tanning-bed bronze skin? I'll get cancer for you. See this Armani shirt? I'll put myself in the poor house for you. I'm stuck on appearances just like you. My skin's perfect now sweet-girl. My arms are bulging out of my shirt. My abs taper down into this perfect little V. I know it gets to you. Now maybe your thinking you can't do better then this. I love the look on your face when you walk by me now and realize I'm out of your league. You don't want me to see how much it bothers you but its all over your face baby. Sometimes before I fall asleep at night I think of you standing in front of your mirror comparing yourself to my perfection. Your hips. Yea, maybe you're not as skinny as you thought you were. And your smile. Its not as straight and cute and perky as you thought it was.Is it? Look at the acne on your forehead. Its fucking disgusting. Look at me. I put these thoughts in your head without a word. With my lifestyle. For you. I did this to you and makes me fall asleep with a smile on my face.

Marathon

Sometimes when I'm running you're in front of me and I'm dashing towards you in a frenzied sprint. Your faster then me and I can never catch you.I fumble after you. My stride is sloppy and yours is text book. My legs are screaming.Sometimes you slow down and let me get into arms length and I think I might get to you. I'm dieing but maybe if I dig deep, spend the last piece of strength in my beaten body you'll let me have you. And you always let me spend it baby. Then you look back and smile and turn it on again and your out of sight. This is your game. Other times you're right behind me coming up fast. I can hear the soft clatter of your footsteps just over my shoulder and I run like hell to get away. You could overtake me anytime you want but you like to watch me squirm. So you run me down till there's no blood in my legs just acid and I'm broken down on the side of the road screaming for a little mercy and that's when you pass me by and leave me there to be beaten and robbed and killed. You're the only person I've ever met that I want to run to and from at the same time.