For Sam

For Sam;
who asked I never write a poem about/for him,

I have this concept and it is that I love you
and I test it against every text
to see if the concept holds up
under further speculation

I toss, turn and talk through the night
and you stay asleep

I rant and rave
and you don’t raise an eyebrow

you look at me delighted and alarmed and
disoriented
like you’ve landed somewhere beautiful after a long trip
and I’m asking if you’re lost

this is not a pipe dream or a poem or words at all
if you don’t want them to be

this is a concept and it is an essence,
it’s a visceral and out of body experience,
and it is that I love you

I hope you have a nice time going home to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving. I hope it isn't too serious.

I hope you go through security and they say, "Where is your final destination today?"
You say "oh, destination? I mean, I don't know if I'm ready to go anywhere? I mean, this is all just a little too fast. I keep doing this thing where I go to airports and buy tickets and then it's just super confusing, cause like girls think I want to go somewhere. And I just, can't define where I'm going, you know?"
And they say "Okay. You can get off line if you want."
And you say, "I mean, I don't think getting off line is something I want either. I'm just confused."

I hope you get on a plane and sit down
and the woman next to you falls asleep on your shoulder
and she's drooling a little bit
and you wake her up to say,
"I'm just not looking for anything serious right now."

I hope the flight attendant asks you if you want chips or pretzels
and you say "I can't decide"
and she says "alright" and hands you both,
and you say "sorry, having both is just too much emotional labor, I'm exhausted."

I want to be the one that walks away sometime

that breath as we look at each other
and look to see it is who is more overwhelmed by the other
who feels the other will cause them more pain
if they stay another moment

I'd like to be the one to walk away first

But I step outside
and then,
there's cicadas in chorus of longing
there's deer
unexpectedly finding me between them and their baby
and a new moral dilemma I have put them in
as a stranger with unknown intentions
between themesleves and that which they most love

then my soft feet unprepared to
meet the ground they've found
calloused skin, nail and hair
naked to wherever they find themselves

there's the beat of the ocean
pounding at the sand ceaselessly
violent and beautiful

there's some shadows and some light
there's wildness and variety to the landscape
and the ecstasy of having this whole world to myself

But mostly there's the cruelty
I could willfully inflict
on whoever I left behind
to give myself the illusion of power

while knowing I am this funny little thing
Of meat and bones
aching for someone to commit themselves to me
that they could press themselves against me
enough times and for long enough
that we may not feel so alone

a stream of conciousness without the delete button

Pennsylvania boy
with one tooth sitting crossed legged over the other
and a dad smile
and an arm wrapped lazily around me
so crude and nameless
pennsylvanica boy
with many wrinkles in his smile
and a laugh that sounds carefully executed

there are no mistakes
there's just what there is
Pennsylvania boy
I'm trying to write with out deleting
with just adding
because there's no mistakes
and I want to like you
I want to have something to latch onto

and where am I if I am alone?
If I leave this year with no breath but my own
I'll be my own island
my skin my lips will be my own
I lay in bed at night under artificial stars and they are my own
I have room to both sides of my body
filled with nothing but what I have placed there
and wrap myself in how good it feels to not be weighed down
by another persons arm
covering my waist like a seat belt

I had a dream the other night
I had his child
and I knew it's time to burn that bridge

and I'm okay
I'm okay okay okay okay okayokay
type that word again and again
and feel how it dances in the slow monotony of okay okay okay
and in your fingers the words feel how they mean

and I feel how I should feel
and know how I am
and what does it matter to anyone else if I don't feel how I should feel
when it doesn't hurt them
so things are okay
okay

It's your second semester, freshmen year
and you're still speaking to your ex boy
in jagged adjectiveless conversations
you give reports

it's your second semester
and you are sexually liberated
you are free
a boy asks you to stay the night
so you count your sheep on half his pillow
and your legs tingle
and flee when you realize you won't sleep

you have never slept next to someone you didn't love
you have never been kissed so passively or so recklessly

it's freshmen year
you learn your limits
you drink too much
you learn about freedom
and how in freedom you can do so much wrong
to hurt so many people in more ways than you ever knew
you are so powerful and new
you are incredible and dangerous and small

it's March
you are increasingly feeling like not enough
like you have just enough time to make things happen
but you're getting to your last leg
you can't fathom how young you are

it's second semester freshmen year
you are eighteen
this whole thing
you will do again at least three more times
and your knees hurt already
and your skin is dry and cracking
you know too much
you don't know what it means to know

I hurt at least two people in the past 21 days

in the dining hall
there are
at least three people have seen me in the nude

my grandparents have been married for over seventy years

I have been alive for 18 of them

years aren't real though, we make those up, we know.
that doesn't mean much
but a hospital bed
driving through the rain
to your husband's new room
putting your own life and the lives of others at risk
to see him as many more times as you can
because how many times you'll see him again is another number you won't know

people. people are real. the people who've seen me
who I've seen
I can touch them
so they are the realest things I know

it always bothered me that I couldn't count all the hairs on my head
whether or not I know
there are a definitive number of hairs on my head
whether or not I know the number
doesn't make the number disappear

You look greasy.
are you growing a beard to cover your acne?
upon the reflection that set you free
did you leave me for the freedom to grow a beard?
Cause that makes about as much sense as anything you told me