Talking In Moments 

We’re not talking about poetry.
We’re talking about the night
your father died and your
back was so broken
only liquor could fill in
the cracks.
It took the five of us
to pry your counting fingers from
the fractures behind your
belly button and remind you
that we don’t live to win.
We love to thrive.
We’re talking the suction
of my hello kisses on your cheeks
‘til the pucker bore you
a new dimple on either side.
We’re talking about that walk
in the snow even though
I had nothing but
a fever and a light coat
to warm me.
We still collected slush
on the bottoms of our boots
from every street on your old
paper delivery route, and
grimaced when it soaked through
to our socked feet.
We’re talking about god,
but we’re also drunk so
we’re talking about a god with
immaculate boobs and a heaven
with dolphins swimming in
Daquiri fountains. Yeah,
That’s probably how it is.
We’re talking debates at three am,
and hanging onto consciousness
like we hung onto the words
falling from each other’s
lagging mouths.
It was the first time you spoke
of your parents’ divorce
and I felt a gap close as if
you and I were stones being
pushed together and touching,
just enough to make dust.

For the Girl Who Stares at Flowers

We just stood
with our inward-pointing toes,
headfuls of tension staring
mesmerized by some flowers in a vase—
or at least pretending to be.
I studied the delicate purple petals
as if written in their dimples was
a script with my cue
and what I was supposed to say
next, but silence
still clung to the air, thickened
fogged my swampy mind
staggered the splintered wood planks
of my spine and threw my voice box into spasms.
Beneath concrete teeth
I struggled to utter
a phrase
a line
any witty slip of the tongue
to make you lift your face and
point your gaze towards me.

Something like,
“I bet you’d look pretty with those Violets in your hair.”

Truth is
I don’t give a shit about flowers.
Truth is
I was just jealous
of how easily
they caught your attention.