direct flight backwards

ten years ago
when you picked out a house
for our future

when i was too distracted
to notice
you meant it

that house
is looking perfect
for us now
and the five children
you envisioned
rolling around on the lawn
with no shoes

children should never be in shoes
you said
they should never care about clothes
or drinking lemonade at midnight
or going inside just because I said so
I dismissed your romanticism
but I finally agree
this is true

that we should rest at the end of every evening
together
with a drink in our hands
and casual conversations
wrap our fingers around
napkins that match the new couch
your mother bought us
we should marry

plant a garden
replace the lights
take turns with the trash
watch our kids catch fireflies
and discuss
changes in our neighborhood
from our front porch swing
let our skin grow old together

I have since tossed and turned
in the sheets
staring at the ceiling
at all hours of the night
picturing the Sunday
you picked out the house
I wasn't brave enough
to step into
and longingly desperately now
to assure you
that i am ready to inhabit it. 

I find everything depressing

most especially
happy endings

I do not weep for the characters
who stand on the brink
of irreversible and ugly truths
what a cruel fate
the universe returns

when i was a child
I stopped believing
in fairy tales
I squeezed rotten fruit
from my pen
until it hung
like molasses
and plunged to its death
taking the sidewalk and every loving thought
with it

the way words
come undone
is easier than teaching them to fly
when all we have left is a photograph
one miserable longing

one everlasting conversation
with defeat.

Exclamation Point

I explode the stars

that form symphonies

I am the one
that catapults red thoughts into space

to bounce up
to bounce down
to bounce up again

to break the ceiling tiles

with a hammer

shatter glass houses
with a single swoop

I am

a thunderous bird

through the universe

on wings

that hold
the most passionate conversation that’s ever been heard

an unapologetic soliloquy

or an uninvited guest

when one carries a question mark

meant to explode

helium is released to the sky

filling balloons
never meant to return to earth

with such forces
never intended to meet their creator.