Love Her Wild Page 2

  all spinning throughout the darkened sky

  as if

  the whole world

  was created

  just to hold her—

  asleep on the couch

  in the morning sun.

  She was that wild thing I loved.

  My dark between the stars.

  SHE TORE POEMS

  FROM MY FLESH,

  IN FIGHTS,

  IN LOVE,

  AND SEX.

  She didn’t want love,

  she wanted to be loved—

  and that

  was entirely different.

  She was the most beautiful

  complicated

  thing

  I’d ever seen—

  a tangled mess

  of silky string—

  and all I wanted of life

  was to sit

  down

  cross-legged

  and untie

  her

  knots.

  In this world of bits and pieces

  she was whole

  so entirely in front of me

  the one honest gift

  of my life

  dripping there

  in the rain.

  Brushing a girl’s hair

  behind her ear

  once a day

  will solve more problems

  than all those

  therapists

  and drugs.

  The world is made up of

  too many girls

  wondering

  if they are pretty

  and too many boys

  too shy to tell them.

  I loved her most,

  for all the things she hated

  about herself,

  for that is what

  made her different,

  and it was the different

  that I loved.

  She was just another broken doll

  dreaming of a boy with glue.

  She sat in her perfect house,

  with her perfect husband,

  wishing that her perfect life

  would end.

  They saw in her

  a bright star burning,

  and basked in the heat of her flame,

  but behind the bright

  she was smoldering

  for breath

  in the black of a life

  she never asked for.

  She beat on against his sky

  with forbearing wings,

  and with

  him gone

  she soared

  into who she always was.

  SHE FOUND HERSELF

  OVER A LONG

  AND TREACHEROUS ROAD

  AND THE MORE

  TREACHEROUS

  THE ROAD BECAME,

  THE MORE OF

  HERSELF

  SHE FOUND.

  Her soul dwelled

  in the wild parts

  of her heart

  vibrating

  to the music

  it found there.

  She sometimes talked aloud

  when she thought I couldn’t hear

  about how she felt

  or what she thought

  and I would just listen

  and fall in love

  again and again

  from the inside out.

  Don’t ask her to be a rock

  for you to lean upon

  instead, build her wings

  and point her to the sky

  and she will teach you both to fly.

  Angels must be warm to fly—

  that’s why she always

  slept in socks.

  To me

  she is

  those final steps

  the turn around the last bend

  and a little house

  with a light on

  and a fire lit

  with a faint laugh

  floating on the warm wind—

  she is

  my always,

  coming home.

  I’d always watch

  as the world

  fell in love with her

  I’d smile at the inevitability of it all.

  And it wasn’t just the boys

  the girls loved her more

  they’d grab her hand

  and run her away

  to drink beneath the stars—

  they needed to discover

  what I already knew—

  if she kissed

  better than

  the champagne.

  She was cool—

  the whole world

  seemed

  to spin around her

  in smooth jazz.

  There is nothing

  prettier in the

  whole wide world

  than a girl

  in love

  with every breath she takes.

  She was too busy wishing

  on shooting stars

  to see the dreams

  come true around her.

  She had been through hell

  and though no one could see her demons

  they could see the face

  that conquered them.

  She wasn’t waiting for a knight—

  she was waiting for a sword.

  That was her magic—

  she could still see

  the sunset

  even on those

  darkest days.

  I LIVE

  MY LIFE

  SO

  HAPPILY

  IN

  CRAZY

  WITH

  HER.

  I feel

  like girls

  who drink

  whiskey

  tell

  good

  stories.

  A sky full of stars

  and he was staring at her.

  It

  was

  her

  chaos

  that

  made

  her

  beautiful.

  Chase your stars fool, life is short.

  I would rather

  have a body full of scars

  and a head full of memories

  than a life

  of regrets

  and perfect skin.

  Youth came over me like a mad storm.

  I was helpless to the chemicals

  roaring in my brain.

  Our poems

  were notes

  left behind

  to a

  confused

  younger

  self.

  Keep your bustling cities,

  give me only the moon,

  some wine, and old friends

  laughing in the desert,

  and I will show you

  what the

  pagans

  called god.

  Sometimes

  I want a quiet life

  other times

  I want to go

  a little bit

  fucking Gatsby.

  AN ASHTRAY

  WITH A GOOD STORY

  MAKES THE SMOKE TASTE BETTER.

  So many of us

  are starving for life

  and have no idea

  until the end

  when we look back

  and see the

  uneaten banquet.

  The world’s perception of you

  exists only in memories.

  Give them new ones.

  Drugs

  to me

  have always been

  a pretty girl

  with a sly smile

  beckoning me

  with a finger

  down the dark path

  of a fork in the road.

  I was drunk

  on her

  laugh,

  and the

  moonlight,

  and the

  rum.

  A good muse

  gives you calm seas

  in the morning

&nb
sp; and storms

  at night

  to make you kiss the shore.

  There are beautiful words

  on that blank paper

  you hold in your hand,

  use the magic

  swirling in your mind

  to paint the pictures that you see.

  FIND SOMETHING

  THAT MAKES

  YOU

  FORGET TO EAT

  AND SLEEP

  AND DRINK

  AND THEN DO IT

  UNTIL YOU DIE

  OF THIRST.

  Go forth and conquer

  for the world is small

  and you are a giant

  and every step

  you take

  will make the ground shake

  as it rises

  to meet you.

  To him

  the horizon was just a slight curve

  fading out behind the last tree line,

  begging to be straightened

  by a quickly embarked adventure.

  We

  are

  never

  alone

  we are

  wolves

  howling

  to the

  same moon.

  SHE WASN’T

  BORED,

  JUST RESTLESS

  BETWEEN

  ADVENTURES.

  The trees seemed to breathe more at night.

  There was a freshness in the air

  like the world was being born again.

  Steam billowed from the machine

  and danced up

  mixing with my breath.

  I rode on into the black,

  leaves scurrying from the tires,

  startled by this strange one-eyed beast.

  I always wanted to remember these moments,

  alone on the road

  the smell of wood burning somewhere,

  and wet cut grass covered with tomorrow’s dew.

  Fast I’d ride,

  deep into the ghostly night,

  wind in my face,

  eyes screaming tears,

  blurring the sky into diamonds,

  and my engine,

  in its symphony,

  became my silence,

  a knife’s edge to the numb world

  my blissful blurry road.

  The hardest step

  we all must take

  is to blindly trust

  in who we are.

  We humans

  are so tortured

  by not properly guessing

  what will make us happy.

  I’ve always liked boxing,

  there’s nothing like

  a punch in the face

  to remind you

  you don’t want to die.

  Every word he wrote stood in proud protest to this

  most organized world.

  Poetry’s magic

  is that it is found when it’s needed.

  Art takes time—

  Monet grew his gardens

  before he painted them.

  She made gentle the wild oceans of my soul.

  New York

  is the quietest city

  I know,

  only among

  a million beating hearts

  could you still hear

  the cigarette burn

  on a balcony

  in Brooklyn.

  Hidden away above two thin staircases

  a bed, a desk, and bookshelf,

  a writer’s paradise

  the rain would fall and set

  its cadence to my thoughts

  the old radiator pumped hot breath

  forcing my window to be cracked a pinch

  and there each night I would fall asleep

  in a melody of cold and hot—

  wrapped up safe in all my ghosts.

  I think sometimes

  of the great stories lost

  to old basements,

  floods,

  and fires,

  it makes me sad

  until

  I think also

  of all the stories

  not yet made,

  in young minds,

  in full pens,

  and on paper

  not yet printed.

  Poetry is a lifelong war waged

  against ineffable beauty.

  BOYS

  LEARN TOO LATE

  THAT BEING

  “THE MAN,”

  IS NOT THE SAME THING

  AS BEING

  A MAN.

  We are all born free

  and spend a lifetime

  becoming slaves

  to our own

  false truths.

  I worry there is something broken in our generation,

  there are too many sad eyes on happy faces.

  There

  is always

  a glimmer

  in those

  who have been

  through the dark.

  Loneliness

  is a fire

  I hold close to my skin,

  to see how much pain

  I can stand

  before running

  to the water.

  Depression is being color blind and constantly told how

  colorful the world is.

  Don’t give up now,

  chances are

  your best kiss

  your hardest laugh

  and your greatest day

  are still yet to come.

  Even the bravest wolf hunts with his head down.

  We are made of all those who have built and broken us.

  POETS

  AND

  MOTORCYCLES

  DON’T MIX;

  IT NEVER PAYS

  TO DRIVE FAST

  WHEN

  YOU HAVE HAD

  TOO MUCH

  TO FEEL.

  True art

  comes

  from flying

  with the madness

  so close

  you burn

  your eyelashes.

  Some write for fun

  others write

  because if they didn’t

  the words

  would grow

  and fester

  and burst from the seams

  of their souls.

  Some words

  are safer down

  on paper.

  We all wear masks,

  some with makeup

  some with smiles

  some with wives or husbands

  cars or clothes

  we hide from the world

  and from ourselves

  we hide from our truths

  behind our eyes

  running always from our real

  but somewhere there

  where truth meets courage

  we are waiting to be found

  waiting to stand to the world

  masks down

  and say loudly and boldly

  this is us

  this is our truth

  this is everything real about me

  and when that day comes

  if it is true

  we will begin our lives again

  the way they were intended

  when the world first

  saw our face.

  Let my death be a long and magnificent life.

  Don’t fear,

  her father said,

  sometimes

  the scary things

  are beautiful as well

  and the more beauty

  you find in them

  the less scary

  they’ll become.

  All life is a revolt against death

  and all revolts are eventually quelled.

  The question is:

  in those moments

  with a rock in your hand

  and tear gas in your eyes

  can you smile to the fates

  stand tall

  and


  make your voice heard?

  There is an island I know

  I shouldn’t even mention—

  it’s a fairy tale, you see

  where no one wears shoes

  and no one needs to—

  the houses are hobbit-like

  with grass on the roofs

  and the food is fresh from a nearby farm

  every morning the tea sits steeping

  on long wooden counters

  with toast and jams from local berries—

  the crickets always crick here

  and the birds call, the kind

  that make you stop and say,

  “Now that is a beautiful song”—

  the sun is hot

  without a cloud in the sky

  and the beach runs out for a mile

  in silky white sand

  so that when the tide flows back in the afternoon

  it heats up, warm as a bath,

  when it rains

  you build puzzles, and paint, and read

  and light fires that crackle

  and smell like cedar saunas

  and each night, rain or shine,

  you drink wine

  and listen to records

  while you play games—

  and sometimes

  you’ll lay in long grass

  and chase the stars around the sky

  heads close together with the ones you love—