R

White petals curl up
to me obviously they're perfectly thin little
eggshells and soft moss under my feet
thin soled
tentative and tender
brushstrokes, obvious everywhere
other petals are spreading out like shaking loose paint in
water-blooming
pink champagne rockets arcing into the
sky which had intense colors like these
impatience in the early morning hours
we spent under little green fans waving from a tree that outlived
time lines the bark which make wood surging, flowing falling when
perfectly still
I lean in closer
or step back to drink in
green foam overflowing from concrete
cups and napkins, which are the only thing I can compare to those
soft pale skins which lie on the grass
with you
seeing the trails of each seedpod's giddy heartburst
or the corner of your soda can, which I leave in the frame because it's something of you
parting from me when I walk home, wandering
little yellow stars unhide their faces and wink through roadside green, rough
hem of my jeans
which are finally and completely broken in
the pinpricks
make me sigh and smile.

You wanted to know why I think that it's me
that needs to be responsible for everything.
Look at the clouds!
feverish and dragging their bellies horribly across the sky
Look!
That baby bird that fell and burst
hasn't washed away yet
and boot-sopping grey water
pools where the drains choke!

I can't even keep my phone charged
But at least I know how to grit my teeth and say
"I'm working on it."

And at least I know how to put my coat on.

People are always sitting in my living room
sipping tea
Kind, concerned eyes
and snide little half
smiles shaking their
heads and asking me
What exactly I thought I was
going to accomplish here tonight.

I don't think anything.

I have to live here.
All of you, go home!

I can't see this ending well.

I might be wrong!

I've only felt absolute certainty maybe
five times in my life.
(This isn't one of those times.)

but you and me?

We could rip up roses and daffodils
heaps of
candy-bright tulips
and meet
those
things that writhe in
the
unknown
soil of you.

Lawrence train station and the empty sky and the red lights of a cocktail bar and the huge tower of an empty theater, There are lights in those windows over there, and this is the most desolate station in the world but If I lived here, I'd be home already.

My friend's couch, frayed and dusty under my fingers, warming up from the way the wind sucks the kindness out of you, and later in her bedroom where she takes approving stock of my bare torso and grins wickedly, and afterwards she talks about leaving the city.

Apartment with the brick walls, before we crack tomorrow's donuts down the middle and dunk them into each other's coffee. Thinking about the cell tower out the window with that single blinking red eye at the top. About what it was going to be like to watch that light blink on and off, slow midnight snowflakes, although this was the first night and long before things actually went to shit.

Maybe seeing something in the way that the snow spiraled out in the lights of the enormous double-decker cake of a train which will stick in my mind. Trying to live in the moment, heading far outside of this puddle of light and sitting down on somebody else's couch and trying to fall in love again.

My uncle at a funeral, talking about how I bring back stories of my adventures in the Big City, and he doesn't understand that there's no city out here at all.