Today a man told a **** joke.
Everyone laughed.
I stood there and thought about it for a moment
And then I asked,
"What is funny about that?"
The laughter stopped
and they stood there in silence.
The momentary silence of shattered illusions,
There was no answer
Because it wasn't funny
So why laugh?

she calls me
she calls me & I don't answer
she calls to say her grandma
is failing fast & the twins
aren't sleeping & they're angry

come on over I say
I only have two calloused hands
& a sixty hour work week
bony feet & a bottle of
chocolate wine & I ask if she's ever
slept four on a full sized mattress

the boys will be fine I say
bring both elmos
a set of pastel paints
& you can run your fuzzy-sock feet
up my legs & warm your small hands
on my space heater heartbeat

grandma will see good Friday
& easter sunday I say
& probably even her own
late April birthday
barely audible as the boys snore
like miniature sawmills
through peppermint toothpaste
ringed open mouths

the last thing I feel before sleep
is her smile stretching across my
bare chest & her hands catch fire
& wander toward a cooler spot of skin

"Don't touch me...*"

But that's all I want
Touch me
Please just touch me
Even though I'm fractured and broken it's all I want
You frame my face in your hands and call me beautiful
But you've never asked why I wear warm clothes year round
I want you to touch me
Down my side beneath my sweater
Over my thighs seemingly permanently masked by dark jeans
Across my stomach and around my back
Touch me
Trace all these fractured cracks that were abandoned
Abandoned and called imperfect when my title was taken from me
You call me beautiful to my face
But can you say it to all of me
Touch me
And show me what I mean to you

love is a four letter word that has always terrified me.
it has been replaced with other four letter words-  "lies" and "gone",
harsh words with harsher meanings buried underneath the gentleness of love.
but when I look at you,
I know that "love" is more than just a word.
I know that it doesn't hold nightmares behind its sweet exterior.
I can look at you and see myself loving you for forever,
and maybe forever is too long,
and maybe forever is more terrifying than a four letter word could ever be.
maybe you can't see forever when you look into my eyes,
but I see forever with just one smile of yours.

Dreams are a fiction reality
Where sometimes it brings you to a wonderful place
While other times your left in your own hell.
How You wake up and take it is more important.
Are you happy?
Left in a confusion?
Or just get up like nothing happened
because, you know it didn't.
For myself,  Dreams follow me all day
Eventually until they're either forgotten
Or the next night comes and a new dream appears.
I find it funny that a good dream
Can now be left as a nightmare
And a nightmare isn't so scary anymore.
Although tell me this,
When you know it's a dream
Do you wanna wake up
Or just see how it goes?

let's just say that i'm drunk enough to sober you