Goodbye 3 Love letter to the bougainvillea vine

8.9.16
R.


In April I first saw you,
you've just begun to bloom
red blossoms.
I fell in love with that early Oakland morning
between the green doors and white garden gate
you waited, as if you have always been waiting
for me. My excitement grew
with you against the wall,
it began to take up space.
I pulled petals from the vine,
kept them hidden in my books,
pieces of you everywhere-
life is beautiful and gracious
again.



And now I am gone.
I won't be back.
I won't caress you
in front of those green doors
behind that white garden gate.
I won't kiss your fiery flowers
or taken breathless under your tendril grip,
 stand for hours as you climb with the Oakland sun
stroking my back.
I am gone.
I did not say goodbye.
I'm sorry, beautiful tensile bougainvillea vine.

Goodbye 2 sadness is a sedative

8.7.16

R,
Sadness is a sedative,
like the hot afternoon sun of your somnolent childhood-
remember that languorous  lullaby?
a sleep aid
for those restless thoughts that won't lie down,
it will help you sleep,
no need to answer
no need to speak
no need to open
no need to close
no need of words
no need for touch
even your own
just stuporous slumber
until it's done.
Doesn't that sound nice
then emptiness will cease to be
a word,
you, and, or, I.

Goodbye 1

8.7.16

R,

When I don't have us to protect me
from myself
When you have taken your arms away
I feel on my chest the weight
of your absence
This is grief.

I put myself

-for R.

I put myself there with you,

between pauses on still surface, 

where sky and water hold each other.

I put myself there in the mornings
on that bed where you lie,
where I pressed our bodies close

until we couldn't tell which is sky and which is water.
You kissed me and looked outside--
morning seems pale, you said, 

as if it hadn't seen much sleep.
Lucky morning, I said.

I want to smell the sweet late night whiskey on your breath,
taste your face,
like the sun rising from between my legs,
your nose and lips wet in the glistening of my dew.


I put myself in that house, naked by the door-windows,
their parted curtains open
to a carpet of bruised camellias. 

I put myself on that balcony reaching towards the dogwood tree.
In the spring it will bloom 
pink curvy blossoms 
for us to kiss. 

I put myself by that garden gate,
on that stone path to that bougainvillea vine. 

I want to fuck by that bougainvillea vine.
So I put myself on a bed of translucent petals,
crawling to gather them in, because I love them,
and you, in all my naked beauty, could not resist.
I won't let you resist.

I put myself with your body-
your eyes, your lips, your fingers-
my body in your body- 
my eyes in your eyes my lips on your lips my fingers
where your fingers have been my mouth my face my pussy your cock - 
I put myself in that emptiness without you, 
my darling.


-6.13.16

Day and night

I survived the day.
Now, the night.

These misrecognitions keep on happening

Misrecognition #1
The body as love.
I saw the body by itself
and thought it was love,
but years later, I found
Pain is not just visceral,
and the body only
is lonely. Pain came back.


Misrecognition #2
This time the body was dismissed.
Instead I waited for words
and the bodies of texts.
Love was a book--
many books, and my body was one--
opened and flipped through--
perused. Pain grew large.


Misrecognition #3
I dismissed both the body and the book.
I touched without reading,
but my body knew. it recognized
absence, and it rebelled. Pain was somatic--dull and constant.
all I could do was keep my mouth open until
Pain can hear itself deep within
pauses between breaths.

Misrecognition #4
The body is sculpted (in fact, it sculpts itself.)


Misrecognition #5
To know, you cannot feel. (in fact, to feel is ancient knowledge that came before thought; it is old as love is old and does not doubt itself.)


This is the truth:
Pain is itself desirable.

This night

Darkness hides its face
in cigarette smoke and wind.

At the station
the dog and I sit, waiting;
the dog yawns
and I open my mouth--
we swallow the night.

I can't remember

She called you little baby
You named her your buttinsky
She said I love you
You said I need you
You said I'm eating whipped cream to fight the loneliness, want to
come over? want to
sleep over? I need you
I need you
I need you
I need you
She asked do I have to wear clothes?
You said no.

The picture you texted me that night,
the picture of your face
that I love, that I said Aww, hello there love I miss you
she must have read my mind
because she, too, she said, Aww, hello handsome I miss you.

And I cant remember
if hearts break
from hypertrophy or fail
because they are weak.


(11.28.15)

I miss you here

I miss you here, you
a thousand shards of light,
while I bottle up rainbows--
the energy condensed will explode
---

your love is a windup clock,
I turn the gears, synchronize
my needs with your highs,
curb my cries on your lows
-----

when your drink is bourbon on ice,
my drink is your coming
and leaving

me
to silence.


(anodyne 10/25)

promise of the end

I would like to welcome death,

hang a banner on my door,

prepare a feast,

write a poem

for an old friend whose forgiveness I seek.

But I am afraid to tell you,

afraid that you will be afraid

to see the gentle promise
that death brings.

Because I can love you

and leave you at the same time,

this life in which I do not fit
 there isn't enough time

to dig up all the dirt in my garden
to pay back the debts I owe,
the loves I needed and destroyed
the bodies I touched and breathed in and touched and breathed in again every time
 I work my fingers deep into the earth,
this life of coming
                               and
                                            going.

what's wrong with leaving
this world

at once too much and insignificant?

I leave it each morning

I get to wake up with you,

each night with the cool breeze moving
through the windows,
 across a sky so dark space

is just the beginning,
what a relief
when time stops counting in days
stops being lost or wasted
on measures of things.
instead it just is. and I just am
together we exist until
we don't. that is death's gentle
promise.