Frozen

Listening to Mew Makes Me Feel…

If you want we could get a bottle of wine,
sit outside and watch the cars drive by.
I think it would be nice, just sitting there,
and maybe some snow will fall and maybe
we’ll drink up all the wine and go get some more
and end up too drunk to even go home.
Maybe then we could just lay there
and scream out every fear and worry into the night,
send them out into the stars and if the snow
is falling we can try to catch snowflakes on our tongues
just to watch them melt. As long as you’re there
and I’m there I don’t care.

A Series of Haikus About My Dad

I’m dreading the day
I get the call, confirming
my fears: it’s cancer.

I do not want to
bury my father when I’m
forty-five years old.

I wish you cared for
your life as much as we do.
I just wish you cared.

Reality

One day I watched you speak
to the guy sitting next to you,
and you laughed and smiled at him.

I wanted to pounce down on him,
destroy him, or maybe I’d settle
for making him leave. Instead
I continued watching, watching you all talk
and laugh until class started
and some crazy German lady expected me
to focus on calculus.
I laughed to myself and tried.

Instead of doing anything I sat back
and I’m still too afraid to say barely anything
to you. I don’t know what I expect,
maybe that you’ll think I’m a dork
(the bad kind of dork),
or you’ll run away, or humiliate me,
but I doubt it. I’m a pretty alright guy
and you seem like a pretty alright girl
and I think that could work out,
but not so long as I’m petrified and mute.

Ruiner

You hated my mom,
and I will never forgive
myself for staying.

Courage

Even the alluring tendrils of fall
couldn’t incite the courage
to speak more than passing comments
to the cute girl in my math class
who sits right in front of me.

Door

Today was the first day I showed up to class
without sweat dripping down my face and neck
from a twenty-five minute walk
in a blistering 90-degree heat at nine a.m.

Today I put on pants, two shirts, and a jacket
and still shivered when I stepped outside.
I even cranked up a little heat in my car.

Today I walked to class against a drizzle of rain,
and I had a moment of peace. You know those, right?
Those moments where everything seems not only manageable,
but simple. In the past, almost. It’s a moment
where you can’t help but smile and be thankful
for being allowed to exist.

Today I heard fall knock at the door,
and I can’t wait to swing that door open.

Tonight

Tonight I have a stomach ache in my brain.
I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in 2011
and haven’t felt well in weeks
and somehow everyone I know expects me
to keep pushing on, keep trying, keep living,
and I just want some sleep.

Tomorrow we’re putting my dog to sleep
and I’ll never see him turn around
and stare me down with his one tooth
that always poked out over his upper lip.
I’m never going to walk in the door
and be greeted by his tail wagging again.
We’re not going to play in the yard this summer,
or next weekend, or even tomorrow.
I always hated when he would run out the front door,
get halfway down the street and turn around,
acknowledge me screaming for him to come back,
only to turn right around and run off again.
I’d take a year off my own life
if I could watch him run off again.

My dog got a disease that more or less killed him
and I’ve been mildly sick for weeks now
and I can’t ever fall asleep or wake up normally
and people are still expecting me to live my life
like everyone else and all I want is a little fucking sleep.

I don’t proofread or edit.

Woke up today like every day,
not sure if I feel like I’ve slept enough,
knowing I didn’t sleep nearly well enough
but awake just the same. I haven’t slept well
in months now, certainly not once in 2011.
There isn’t much going on at one a.m.
on a Tuesday though, so I got back into making music.
I guess there’s a silver lining to everything,
but I want more than making music at home
that my friends hear and compliment.
I want random people in Florida to tell me they enjoyed it,
I wanna get out and see the world
and watch them hear it. I want to see
the looks on their faces after a bass drop,
want to hear them laugh and absorb
how their bodies begin to move. I want everything
I’m doing to mean something and I’m trying
but I don’t know if I’m trying hard enough.
I don’t think I am, because if I was, I’d feel something,
some sense of success.

I’m writing this right now because I told myself
I needed to, and since this isn’t bringing that successful feeling,
I guess I’ll go back to my music with fingers crossed.

A Letter to My Future Wife

I’m sorry I’m awkward. Honestly, I’m sorry.
I wish I had a beautiful way with words,
I wish I was Jesse Lacey or Max Bemis
and I could make you feel gorgeous,
make you feel like you’re the only girl in the room,
just with more words.
I can’t. I can fumble sentences together
and hope that the touchdown is what you deserve.

I want you to know you’re one of the beautiful girls
I’ve met that was available, that wanted me,
that saw me for what I am and loved it.
At the point of writing this I’m tired,
and I’m sick, of meeting beautiful, nice, smart,
funny girls who are taken by other guys
(no, this isn’t and underdog story;
many of these guys are awesome dudes
that I love hanging out with
and that hurts even worse).

I’ve just wanted to once meet a girl like you,
a girl I deserve. I want you to sleep beside at night
and I’ve been searching and searching
and thank you for taking the time
to make a second glance.

I’ve been doubting my faith in a god.
I’m lonely; I’ll be the first to admit it.
I’m lonely and every perfect girl I’ve met
has been attached at the hip to some other man.
I question my faith because I’ve never
bombed, killed, maimed, publicly humiliated,
or otherwise seriously wronged anybody.
I question my faith because I’ve been the best
man I can be and I’m constantly rewarded by women
I can’t have. How am I supposed to believe
in a god that tortures me?

If you’re reading this, it’s because god
has seen fit to grant me with someone I deserve,
and I thank you for my faith and self-worth,
but mostly I thank you for putting up with me.

Displacement

Every day people buy into stories
they hear on the news just because
they heard it from a well-known,
well-scripted man in a suit and
they will continue to buy
and buy
and buy
and buy
until we all go broke.