Impart

I hope that one day I’ll be wise,
walk slowly through the trees,
and listen to the breeze
as it bustles leaves upon the path,
clearing way for another truth
that took a lifetime to muster.

It hits me, with simple, clear conviction,
putting a stutter in my stride,
but nothing more dramatic than that;
a wry smile,
and a small shake of the head.
“Where have you been?” I say,
aloud.

I must get home. I’m burning up!
I am a man who holds a great secret;
for that is what truth is before freed,
before having the chance to pass it on.
I’m desperate to,
and I’m terrified of my death finding out
before I’ve even had the chance
to write it down.

Suddenly, I feel so mortal –
eating spaghetti in an expensive shirt,
red sauce and chinos;
I’m fixated on the threatening stains,
making them ever more likely,
of course,
like swerving into the headlights
of oncoming traffic,
like becoming weak-kneed or unstable
as you peer over a sheer cliff.

I faced death many times on the way.
I greeted them each, politely,
with a tip of my hat,
never slowing down
or holding their gaze,
for fear they’d engage me in conversation;
that’s how they get you. I’m sure of it.
“Haven’t you had enough yet?” they say,
an outstretched hand beckons.
“Come; it’s time.”

Enamored

It’s easy to feel enamored
with well-written roles,
with well-lit scenes,
with their talent and their beauty.

But I understood the difference –
a love of fame is not the same –
I could never look upon your face
and ‘sometimes forget your name’.

Left me with lessons

I’m lucky
that lovers left me with lessons,
not scars,
so that I may look upon the world
and see happy memories manifesting
in place of painful reminders
of you, and you, and you.

It waits for you in the quiet

Quite the realization;
that it cannot fill the void,
provide endless inspiration,
or fix what you have broken.

Do you notice how quiet it is,
how still,
when you put away your phone,
when the weekends come around?

The motion-blur deceived you,
for all-the-while you were sitting still,
waiting, still,
hoping, still,
that something else,
someone else
would direct your next position.

Stay young

We grew up too fast,
got serious jobs,
moved in with our sweethearts,
got dogs,
had kids,
and grew fond of wine;
forgoing the hangouts,
the night outs,
the coffee and bars,
for early nights and HBO,
and shows where people our age
stay up,
have fun,
hang out,
stay young.

Strife

There is no joy in a life of happiness,
void of strife or dilemma,
concerned only with maintaining your high,
and protecting against the lows.
You design it so:
a universe whose arms
wind tight around your core;
a black and heavy hole
that you cannot understand
or see, for all its hunger.
Forever you may feed it,
but you’ll never feel it shine,
or hear it laugh,
or thank you;
for there is no joy,
not in anything you do for you.
Not in anything you create.
Not in anything you destroy.
Unless in doing so you find
the truth, the joy, the meaning in life:
to solve the hard problems,
and end other’s strife.

Blush

I kept my distance.
You held my gaze.
And every time we laughed,
I’d turn away,
enamored,
only to find you another edge closer.

I rounded the corner of the table
during an animated recountment,
trying to interrupt the magnetism;
it drew you tight to the corner,
and you were near-upon me once more.

You may remember it differently,
perhaps bemused at this curious boy
who keeps stepping back
and blushing.

Retreat to the corners

At loud house parties,
did you ever slip away
and close the door of some corner room,
dampening the bass, the chatter,
look about at the eerie stillness –
a museum at night –
and fight the urge to sleep
in the comforting far-off cries
of sirens, in your city-loft;
the wildness swarms
but wraps and bends around your solitude.

I suppose they call this ‘privacy’;
the ability to disengage,
and retreat to your corner of the house.

Stifled

I feel stifled,
held back by the wind,
a muffled, drowsy air,
not suffocating,
but a great salt lake
surpassing every horizon,
rendering escape impossible,
where I have little more to do
but figure out how to kill time,
as time in turn works on killing me.

I’ve had years to fashion it otherwise,
and whilst I find myself in favorable stead,
I cannot live like this;
so without
the one thing that makes it all worth living –
for even the joy it brings to sing and play,
the sadness in my songs will well and swell,
and one day pull the trigger
or pour the final straw.
It is not uncommon.

I’m bitter about the whole affair;
that I could not have saved you sooner,
that faking presence via phone calls is what remains,
where once it was all we had
to listen and learn and dig and discover.
Now this in-between time has become a dead purgatory;
stop-gapping our kisses with endlessly repeated riffs
from songs we played together.

I do not wish the time away.
Nor can we recover a younger beginning.

But I am half-alive without you,
and I have half a year to serve.

Bolder

It does not weaken.
Every time, I love a little bolder.
Undeterred by the pain,
I’m stronger for it.
I’ll fight harder.
I’ll dig deeper.
More, not less.
Wiser, not bitter.
By this I shall know
(if well-received)
that you too understand that kind of love;
that power.

Method

What are you afraid of finding there,
lurking between the lines?
It’s been so long since you laid it bare,
and tugged at roots and vines
to see what wriggles free or scatters
when shaking off the earth,
to see what really matters,
and what holds on to its worth
when dragged from rock to sea and back,
when tested at its seams,
and comforts you despite the lack
of insight you can glean
from each disjointed metaphor –
but don’t forego the method
that’s seen you through a thousand storms;
there are many more yet weathered.

Tiny you

I keep reaching for my phone,
addicted not to the lights and games,
but to the tiny you that’s held inside;
I wanna pull off the screen,
climb on in, and hold you tight.

A comfortable glass of solitude

What I long for now is a rainy night,
looking out at it through a pane of glass
in some pokey, wooden bar;
a warm, apple cider with cinnamon,
the occasional jingle and crack of the door,
voices huddled,
jolts of laughters from down the bar
or in the booths,
alone, but not lonely,
so accompanied by the orange light,
unburdened of time or purpose,
I am here to observe, and to be observed,
toying with a line or two,
hanging out with my muse,
cheers-ing to the heavy drops
collecting on the cross-hatch,
working through the stages, methodically –
hitting grief only briefly,
hitting self-pity only once,
and bouncing back but armed with this:
I love who I am, and I’m doing so well,
and it’s ok that my clothes are damp,
that my drink’s a little cooler,
that my moment’s not shared,
because nothing stays,
not gold nor grey.

Drink up

Perhaps a new tradition;
arriving late, restaurant closed,
I chose instead to tread
the halls, and find my way to stalls
where shorts (not talls) call me to come hither;
not shots, but drops swirled round a snifter.
Lift the spirits, gins, and bitters.
Quick! Before the final call.
Drink up. Leave tip. Goodnight to all.

Highlight Reel

I was new in town,
riding BART in the city
when, like in the movies, I caught your eye,
and instantly worried that the movies were lies,
and that I was just being weird.
So, already weird, I went all out.
We left at the same station;
you took the stairs, I took the escalator.
Unable to take my eyes off you as I passed,
I turned,
effectively moonwalking into the lead,
in our race to Market Street.
“I’m winning.” I said, being weird like that.
You took off your headphones, and smiled at me.
You could see my newness,
fresh off the boat,
and there was a part of you that lit up,
your kind, caring, instant-friend-making spirit
that took it upon itself to look out for me,
a person you’d not yet even met,
offering to show me round a bit,
only not today,
as you were off to meet your parents at the Ferry Building.
I joked that I should come along.
“Not this time.”
But there wasn’t a part of me that didn’t yearn
when you left.
Number in hand, I fretted like a teenager
over when was too soon to text;
I texted way too soon.
And later, when introducing you to friends and colleagues at Kell’s,
you arrived from work with an enormous backpack,
set it down,
and proceeded to tell people how we’d met on the train,
just like in the movies.

You couldn’t have been a better host.
We met for dinner at el Techo in the Mission –
my first experience of this eclectic district,
like Camden Town, San Francisco style –
where we took an elevator up to the roof to be seated,
a plastic canopy to keep the bay winds off our food
and skin,
but I do not remember being chilly or warm,
my memory instead is of the expansive view,
though I cannot even tell you what I saw, what part of the city,
I only remember the feelings now;
it felt like luck,
wonder,
and gratitude, all at once.
It felt like that every time I met you since;
at the Tiki bar, at the BART near my place,
or when I kept stumbling upon a new part of you,
like when you told me you were an architect,
and pointed out your favorite buildings and features,
like that one near the Academy of Sciences,
an angular shape nestled into its environment –
was that the time you took me to NightLife?
We drank cocktails as we explored the museum
like giddy kids figuring out how to date –
or the first time I heard you sing,
and I swear down you carry a ghost in you,
beautiful and laden with soul,
playing out through you every time you sing,
a cool, blue, careful melody
that originates so deep in your heart;
we all sit up and listen to hear its tales,
its truth,
its lessons of youth.

It became such a habit.
You all did.
I’d met your housemates down on Lily Street,
not ten minutes walk from Civic Center BART,
and I rode out from work as many night as you’d have me,
passing up my Lake Merritt stop
to venture further,
to dare for more from the day beyond 5.30,
and we’d hang out, cook food,
I’d marvel at Adrian’s innovations –
the self-installed rain shower, the smart lightbulbs, the Nest,
the door-locking device of his own design,
and shouting at the Alexa –
and the chronology quite betrays me,
but there was a night, just you and I,
where you coaxed me into a small bar with a pool table.
We did our best to stick to the game.
No. We did our worst.
Squeezing by each other to get in place for the shot,
hands glancing as we exchanged the cue,
and it was the first time you kissed me,
like the choreography demanded,
directed by you.
I was an extra with a leading role.
I’d found my American dream,
just like in the movies.

But it went awry.
I was moving too fast,
texting too much,
opting for a life of gentrification
instead of enjoying the character of my new city.
And I’d mentioned wanting kids one day,
and you’d said you did not,
that the world was too fucked to subject them to,
and maybe you were right
given what happened in eight months’ time,
but it cut a chord way down in me,
and I’m trying to remember if that’s what broke,
and I’m trying to think if that’s legitimate,
because that is so important,
and I was falling so fast.
I wanted it all too soon,
and I pushed you away for my eagerness.

You know I only bought those tickets because of you.
Months in the future, I turned up,
single, attending with friends,
Cage The Elephant taking the stage,
I feel my phone buzz in my pocket.
“You look good in a white t shirt.”

I never found you in the crowd.
And that’s when I knew
I was no longer in a movie.

—
It’s 5am as I finish this,
having spent all night reliving the moments,
I could not lay there at 4 just holding on to memories,
so I wrote them down,
not necessarily for you to see,
but we only live once,
and I wonder if you’d be happy or sad to know
how much it all means to me
that our paths crossed,
and that you are the only love I ever found in the wild,
not on a dating app,
not through an institution like school or work,
but out of the millions of people in a brand-new city,
we said hello,
and I find it so hard to say goodbye,
at least without you understanding how unique you are,
and how much I wish I’d taken it slow.

Shake

Am I hindered by the clasp
that wraps electric round my wrist,
or by the sleek and silent tile
that sneaks its way into my fist?

And suddenly, there’s so much noise,
like burying my face in coke,
and even as I turn away,
the high remains, my eyes awoke
and bright in dark. I swear I spoke
a prayer into that dizzy night
to let me sleep, and hold her tight,
without the fear and anxious din,
without it pawing for my PIN,
without the midnight altercations,
without the heat manifestations
taking form beside my bed;
I leap and try to knock it dead,
and cry out something vile, and see
there’s nothing facing back at me,
just beads of sweat to burn my eyes,
and force me back to bed half-blind,
attempting once again to shake
my perma-state of half-awake.

Outsiders

Am I in the windowpane,
or are you there in mine?
Who decides what’s in, what’s out,
or where to draw the line?

Better put, we’re all beside
and caught between dividers,
put there by the kind that find
we’re better off outsiders.

It was worth a shot

It’s worse because it’s summer,
bare legs at every turn,
pale, bronzed, or chocolate skin,
flaunting the fruits of their labor,
begging you to adore the deft shadow
where lean muscles define the line of sight,
and draw your eyes ever deeper –

not wanting to be a creep, you turn,
and look to your woman,
the one you used to call your lover.
She’s busy,
focused, then unfocused, and agitated,
you try to console her,
you try to care for her,
but you’re fighting the rising feeling in your chest,
building like an inappropriate laugh,
bursting with it.

Across the street, across the room,
climbing in and out of cars,
their nakedness mocks you.

You,
a handsome man with grand ideas,
with steady pay, with artful hands,
so you force yourself to remember when you were single,
and how little you were able to capitalize then either.
But boy, it was fun to try.

I tried to take it slow

Being careful not to touch too much,
it neatly lies in line and order.
Ready as I’ll ever be.
Perhaps you’ll note the efforts made.

I wonder if you’ll see me first,
if you’ll be in that army-green jacket,
boots and shorts…
and instantly I’m lost to thoughts
of smooth legs and pressing hips,
of kisses on your smiling lips,
that I may well be the luckiest guy,
and intend the chance to not be wasted,
turning on the charm and chatter,
begging you to look at me
in that way
so I know it’s okay to draw my hand,
course it through the narrows,
and wrap about your waist.
Begin to taste the sharp inhales,
anticipating a clumsy rush
and mindful pause,
to take it in.

To us, we move as if in water,
slowly pushing through the deep,
but to all others it must look like fire,
twisting into knotted towers,
sparking at the edges,
burning at both ends.

Know thyself

I worry about the journal,
of what it may unearth in me,
of what it may encourage,
feeding into self-delusion
or fantasy;
an insidious creep of personality
that might as well go fuck itself
for all its lack of insight.

Though insight it might, a different plight
that I can’t (nor shall not) bear;
it gobbles up my words and whims,
and shits out all my care.

Congratulations. You know yourself.
And what a crock of fucking wealth.