Haylie - 7/28/19

You know, I don’t only like
Slow, sad songs
And I wish,
Oh, I wish
You were here
To listen to all of the
Fast, happy songs
Playing
In my ears.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry
That I’ve gone so far
And I wish,
Oh, I wish
You were near
To witness each
Faded scar,
Stumble, catch,
And cheer.

You know, I still love you
Every day
And I wish,
Oh, I wish
You could hear
That your wisdom
Keeps me strong
Each year.

I’m sorry, oh, I’m sorry
That I don’t text,
That I can never
Think of what to say,
That I keep my love
All to myself
Instead of telling you
Every day.

weak interaction - 03/19/15

heavy eye lids
are hard to open

heavy lips
are hard to speak with

heavy limbs don't want
to leave bed

heavy particles
mediate this
weak interaction

won't you break me down
into something
light enough
to just

drift away?

and you leave such an awful taste - 07/29/14

At first I thought
I didn't like
dark chocolate
and
black coffee
because they're
bitter.

Then I remembered
I like you.

Renormalization Group Equations - 07/22/14

Run these couplings
up and beyond
the Planck scale
where the gravity
of the situation
may finally
distort your solutions
and force you
to take another look:

just because
you have the capacity
to crush,
to obliterate,
to decimate
each quanta of joy
I find,
doesn't mean
I must listen.

Quantum field theory
and I
are inadequate at this scale,
so pardon me
if I fall back
to another.

Blood, GUTs, Glory - 07/17/14

No direct product
of groups
will give any
unification
of these disjoint hearts,
no matter
how many new quanta
of thought
you add.
There is no representation
that fits
every sigh and lie
and hope
fizzing through
neurons
during all the songs
that remind me
of you.

XF2 - 07/17/14

A poem
for a friend
I refuse
to talk to
first
is not
the most
passive aggressive
I've been,

but that
was over you
too.

XF - 07/17/14

I could be spending
pretty poems
on pretty girls
who'd love me more
than I make believe
you will
if you'd just read
these pretty poems
I leave around
for you.

Hawking Radiation - 07/16/14

I want
all your love
the way a
black hole
wants to swallow
every quanta of light
to pass its
event horizon:

that's just how
the universe works
and neither
can be reversed.

How I'm Gonna Be An Optimist About This - 07/07/14

They're playing
"That Song That Reminds Me Of You"
I say as if there's only
one.

So I keep closing my eyes and pretending
    nothing changed at all
will the walls
start rebuilding themselves?

If I stockpile mistakes
for you to mock
or break social protocol
just to piss you off,
will that provoke you to
open my snaps
or text me back
or say anything at all?

Believe me, I know:
writing poems for people
who make you feel like shit
won't make them love you

but that's
how I'm gonna be an optimist about this.

Trial & Error & Error - 06/18/14

WhateverWhatever - 01/31/14

I've got no doubt
About my side of the bargain,
But darlin',
I wish I did.
I can be sure
That my part is pure,
But it's you
I doubt to to oblivion.

And, somewhere,
I know better.
And, somewhere,
I'm not here.
There has got to be
somewhere
I don't disappear.

Whatever, whatever
I still got the radio
And I won't give a fuck
As long as this song's on.
Whatever, whatever
There's still tomorrow
To let it all play out wrong.
Whatever, whatever.

Love Poem For H - 01/10/14

I sometimes wonder
what your heat break
tastes like
and if you lick
any wounds
when I retreat
from your life.
I wonder if
you're sleeping
any better
these nights.
I wonder
and I hope.
You can weave
a sunset
in your eyes
and fill me up
with pretty lies
that I believe
every time.
So I wonder
what I know of you.
I wonder if
I know you.
I wonder
and I hope.

Tea Shop - 01/03/14

Don't look up from the coffee pot
where your sweet tea tears
flavor bitter caffeination
to feign regeneration
of your heavy, longing eyes
and quicken the pace of your heart
with chemical uncertainty.
 So in the dust between
first edition Dickinson anthologies,
pine for pages
to spark beneath your fingers
and the scent of rose petal tea
to fill your heaving lungs.

Increased Police Activity on 82nd - 01/02/14

A healer handed me
a miracle stone
while we waited for the bus
outside of a bank
being robbed,
red and blue flashing lights
for a block in
every direction.
He said I was going to be
on a magazine
because I had vision.
He said to remember
that no matter how much
hate, racism, and evil
we encounter,
there is also and always
love.

Graph Paper - 12/01/13

I've heard tale
of lives
that fit inside
of neat blue lines
on graph paper,
flowing like poems
that actually rhyme,
and, from time to time,
I tried to stay confined.
But I don't grow like
differentiable functions;
I grow like vines.
I grow intertwined
with other
not so tidy lives
that hopefully
aren't too eager
to leave mine. 

Feynman Diagram - 11/13/13

Color me potential.
Highlight paths
that sprawl away
from the interaction
of the present.
Shade each outcome;
cool colors for low days
and warm colors for low days
where I still have the momentum
to smile
and colorless confinement
for nights
when I fall on your floor,
close my eyes,
and interject parables
and physics equations
into your day-to-day life.

Sure,

there's some finite possibility,
but here's how I see it.

Covenant - 11/113/13

Pass me through
this bisected flesh,
this disjoint bone,
these severed arteries,
split infinitives,
bloodless muscle
over bloodied soil.
Bear these words
before mountain and sea,
before Heaven and Earth,
eternal to my
fleeting soul,
fleeting to the sky's
eternal emptiness,
and should I stray
from this oath,
cut a covenant from me.

Degradation Ceremony - 10/23/13

Wipe away the smudged make-up
that I ruined
before I ever applied it;
cast aside
clinking jewelry
crafted from discarded mementos;
strip;
peel back flushed skin;
scoop away viscera,
my liver poured out on the ground;
knot veins,
burn bones,
break heart and lungs;
penetrate cells,
shake off electron shells,
split protons down
to the jeweled quarks and gluons.

Then put me all back together
with a poem
and your favorite song
and your anecdotes about
your cousin
and your repeated
adventure stories
and your bitter rants
and your blushed cheeks
and parables about
physics equations.

There Have Been Times - 10/19/13

You should know
that there have been times
in my life
where I didn't want to
run and hide
when confronted with conflict,
when I haven't licked back tears
and kick back fears
to be calm and collect.
There have been times
when I have been loyal
but not to a fault,
when I have been polite
but not to a fault,
when I have been quiet
but not to a fault.
There have been times
when I have scream.
It's true,
I can be loud, too.
And I can laugh,
really laugh,
not
whatever way you described it,
"held back."
There have been times
when I couldn't contain my smile
and when I wouldn't
hide my glares.
There have been times
when I have been unapologetic.

I know there have.
I just can't remember when.

Meditations on Letting Go - 09/09/13

I:
But if you ask the same of me,
I'd say,
"Never have been,
never will be,
but learning to live
with the consequences
and find stability."
So, by pale yellow light
reflected off bronze
that I can't believe
doesn't move when I look away,
I guess I meditate
with aid of orange juice
God never returned
slipping through my fingers
and trapped lyrics
dripping from my lips.
Sprinkler systems sputter
into white noise
intermittently broken by
passing feet and chatter
and crickets and humming
and an occasional direct address,
drawing my thoughts away
from the cobweb down
Jesus' bronze back
and to an even more
unfamiliar face.
Because:
"No, it's fine,"
and
"Sure, I've got time,"
but
"Just let me check up
on one thing,"
to confirm my bias
and push my mind
to draw reaching palms
from grooves in
rusticated stone.

Still, I am sure
that if I glance away
Jesus will reach to me
and explain,
"God left to get some orange juice,
but that was years ago.
It's time to grow up
and buy your own,"
as if it's a lesson
that I don't know.


II:
I wonder if anyone goes home
to write a poem
about meeting a
strange girl
meditating
on a statue
way too late
at night.


III:
Wine glass full of
soon forgotten
memories and
streetlights raining
parametric down
conversion from
birefringent crystals
in your mind,
fast and slow
axes indistinguishable.