This sweet maiden
Was locked in a tower
Hoping for safekeeping
By the walls she grew to like after awhile
Enjoyed her prison
As it brought her solace
understanding, she knew those walls
like the back of her hand.
Alas, she was convinced to leave her respite
In search of happier experiences
She found love one day
By a minstrel that played to her window
And wanted to see the rest of the world
So she picked open all the locks
As she knew the combinations
And stepped outside into the light for the first time
Embraced by the man that lured her out.

And now,
The minstrel travels alone
and the maiden floats out to sea.

Vapors

Simple and clean
And unmessed and not perfect
But something to behold.
Keep seeing vapors of you in front of me
Grey, curling, twisting, elusive
Even when you’re far away
Somehow it’s all still there.
So now that you’re here
And I’m weary
Sing me a lullaby, love
And send me off to sleep
So I may see your face there
Exactly as I remember it.

Things

I have always been a genuinely happy person
If I have the room.
Do you know what I mean?

My room to be happy has no walls
except when I need them on bad days
quixotic and fleeting, to fence me in.

The span of my room is just enough
to breathe for myself yet think of you,
brilliant and whole.

It’s the place where I set my keys, rest my head
in that room, it’s all there
I need little else.

Everything else is just things
just somethings and nothings
these things no one needs to be whole.

I had a dream the other day, you were in it too. We were in an elaborate mansion that was crumbling in the corners. The rooms were filled with birds, and each time we tried to catch one it would multiply. There were thousands of birds: in the kitchen sinks, swimming in the pool, on top of shelves. I had a net and I was jumping through the air, trying to catch them as they flew but that didn't work too well.
"What are you doing here?" I said.
"I just want to pet one of the sparrows," you cried.
"Just brooowsing," said the owl, an incredulous stare in his eyes.
"Free as my own species!" said the sparrow.
"I like walking*finding treasure," said the two heads of the crane.
"Missed me, ha!" said the mockingbird.
"I love to sing," said the canary.
Nevermind, I thought. Too many creatures in this conversation. Then we left all the birds in the rooms and went somewhere else. We figured the birds needed some alone time. I wish I could have seen them all in color. My dream was fuzzy so I don't know where we ended up going. I won't soon forget my bird mansion dream though.

Why I work for the weekend

Petting chickens
Heckling Avril
Coincident silence
Sunburns
Google Earth exposure
Cuban sandwiches
Ironing board
Scrabble scores
Movie lullabies
"Thank you"
Gargoyles on carports
Shared stories
Boo Monday.

So much I curse this present, the words flow out from tonsils and tongues within but I can't seem to stop it, anger's my sole defense for such vulnerability. Missed the train, missed the memo, things you say but I don't receive or believe and I'm maddening angering amidst the nice letters strung together that you said to me so long ago and repeat verbatim to me now. I'm screaming, yelling where no one can hear, my ears are the sole audience, the guy in the back of the room saying fuck you, can't you do better? I can't, is all. Can't make you believe it's dead and buried in the ground, falling upon deaf ears these words are. But these words are all I got. I can't make much more than what comes out, can't trust much more than what I have, can't be much more than what I've tried. I just want something more than this, want something wholer than nonsense words and sentiments, words that cut and regret their own existence. You're drunk, more tears fall, I'm drunk, more tears fall, both lone stags in crowded places, different times and faces, and all I do is yell louder, such miles away from you and that's all I know, how far apart we are, how this distance and loneliness is your making. Seek unforeseen solace in strangers, I don't see anyone wanting to be a tangible, talkable friend. Suppose I'm supposed to be living and laughing but I'm at full capacity yesterday or last week or whenever it was I smiled for real. All I can do is think of the words I wish you had told me then and wonder what those are, will I remember, want to forget, wonder how the hell I fall so hard for you then and how hardened I've become. Who the fuck cares, I give up so easily now on new people, wanting to run away from possibility of being hurt so bad, something that already came to my doorstep. I forgot to sign out, forgot to give my name to the man that counts things and makes things count, and just can't comprehend these systems. Systems of games, systems of words based on time, systems of affection based on sympathy, just don't get it. Love hurts and leaves me, I see washed out copies of it everywhere, a skinny promise but it's just a lie, just lost hope. Return my hope.

OUT.

Thinking away everything about you, want to scrub it off my conscious but you've sunk in too deep, my memory steeped in your presence. Want to go to the beach and waste away, have the water rub down to my bones in ideal preservation, be endless in the ocean yet so fleeting to you. Need you to forget me before I get burned again; I don't always want what I need though. I'm bleeding you out like molasses but you're still stuck on every day from now until who knows when. Need my heart broken for my resume; gain the experience, feel the pain of it, to remember how it feels when you're loved and when it's gone. Don't want permanence, don't know alternatives; just want to hold, to love; is that so bad? He held me once, told me I'm spoiled now by something I can't have or just can't handle. How willing I am to offer that love to you, raffle it random on a return gesture; for now I just wish blindly that the vapor of utopia might someday thicken so I can just hold on.