I guess shoving the sheets under my pillow so precisely didn't help.
I watched you throw the quarter in hopes it was going to sink.
But you, military man, you smirked and let me off.
I think those early nights when the TV was still going and I’d cuddle into the little nest
of your legs as you slept so loudly reminded me.
Your rough hands also reminded me. As when one grabbed my ear
for I decided to be sassy for a moment.
Even though I knew it was hard to say yes, I think you saw the yearning on my face
and I saw the hesitation on yours but I would just whisper dad.
For some reason, buying them didn't matter because you thought those books were necessary.
You already had Shakespeare and the thought of my own haunted my thoughts.
But those rough hands weren't always rough.
And that nest wasn't around as often.
But my books are still napping lightly.



Sometimes I see the old woman’s face staring at me after she told me
that you didn't know what you would do without me.
I didn't stand there very long. You never told me.
So, I didn't believe her.
Maybe it was the seventh or maybe the eighth concert
when I didn't see you out in the audience.
By the fourth year, I forgot you even knew.
I stopped telling people my mom was coming.
Sometimes I would cry for you as you were tenaciously
bent over in the kitchen working on your Korean food.
But you also had rough hands. Ones that meticulously graced a shade of rose on your lips
before work each morning.
Guilt washed over me as a little more than kin and less than kind
surfaced in my thoughts.
The stain in your eyes said you wanted me to do more.
As much as you focused
you didn't know what else could have been done.
I wanted so much not be the progeny of hard hearts.



Humility was a virtue you reminded me so fully I had to practice.
Pride was a fault, turn the other cheek.
He that is proud eats himself up, hoping you hadn't misquoted.
You wanted me to read. But academically speaking, reading was too expensive
and not meant for some.
Why bother?
Mom had turned out fine.
And one day I’ll just have rough hands as well.



I think I watched you go outside four times for a smoke
before you finally finished balancing the check book.



I had recounted over and over in my head if it had been a dream.
Sometimes I have to tell myself it was in order for
it to be that much easier.
I didn't like believing that either of you were considered a pillar.
Because you hadn't been.
Sometimes I forget, but then the books begin to snore
and the pink shade peeks through my makeup bag.
I wasn't one for pleading. It had been years, I’m sure, since
you’d heard it the last time. What is past is prologue, though
he had mentioned it in different context.
When you answered the phone, humility set in and I had
become a child again.
My worn hands were bleeding and I had no one else to lean on.
Shakespeare had been in slumber for far too long.

late at night you can hear them clear
the voices in me
saying that you need to fear.

clean up the mess
they said
and you need to hurry.

you have a knife in your hand
and you hide it rapidly
you didn't want them to worry.

you're writing your story
this is only the first page
don't let them win
we all want you to stay safe.

what have you done darling?
you're hurting yourself.

This letter was not meant for you
it was meant for me with you
to that crystalline time when we were two
before the shattering was through.

The mornings in 
when we lay oblivious to the shuffle and the city din
when the weight of the world was still 
not enough to budge us a single inch 
from between the linens.

So I recollect
all the fragments I thought I left
I'm not one to dwell but what else
is left for the lonely boy at the bottom of a well?

But now there are three
There's you and there's me
and there's who we could've been
And I've not spoken to him yet
as I'm not sure this specter is real
Or maybe I'm afraid to ask if he once half-lived,
was he thrown from the wheel
and tossed down the well here with you and them?

But I've fooled myself again
What I saw as a window
was only a mirror that needed mending
And what I heard as your voice
was always the wind
hurling back at me my own laments.

Beauty brutally murdered my captain
One touch, and the crew deserted
a hasty mutiny to an unknown island
Where I before with calm weathered
the waves, now the torrent upends
the bow, wrecked upon rocks
that could've been havens.

So I'm thrown from the sea to the sands
Left alive by a wiser hand than
I, doomed to make beach castles, just a man
mending the grains, seeing the slate
wiped clean again and again
forever banned from the mountain
and the densely wooded lands.

One day I'll abandon my post
cut short my careful tending
and set off from the coast
Leave behind the crooked lines
and SOS signs, the feeble moats
Face the interior, each step deep down
and further down into the jungle dark
and every fear the most
Hope beyond all Hope that all I own is Hope
and one day reach the sun, then I'll know.

And what keeps me shuffling through the dark?
The thought of you shuffling too
alone and apart
Not the thought that our end
will be as our start
but that the art
of the whole **** thing
is all we are.

I've been waiting here for such a long time,
inside this waiting room, inside my mind.
I'm sitting alone, I wait for my turn,
While all the while, my suppressed heart burns.

The woman at the desk sits with no fear,
She knows who I am and why I am here
Neither she nor I knows why I wait
but I have an advantage, I believe in fate

Although I am waiting, I know not what for,
I know not what lies beyond that door.
I dream it is happiness, tranquility, and peace,
but perhaps it is just the lair of a beast.

I'm chained down to my chair, but I never fight,
I'm only a prisoner of my own device.
Why do I wait, why can't I run free?
I need that door, it's become part of me.

So yes, I'll wait, until the room ends,
since it's in my mind, on me it depends
I will wait in this room as long as I can,
wishing all the while to be a real man.

I don’t want to be afraid…
I don’t want to not be with you…
I don’t want to back away…
I’m just not ready yet…

I know I come off playing hard ball…
I know I come off like I want to rip your clothes off…
I know I come off like I know what I’m doing…
I’m just not ready yet…

There’s only so much you can have of me…
There’s only so much I can change…
There’s only so much of a burden I can carry…
I’m just not ready yet…

I want to be tethered to you…
I want to be by your side…
I want to be your perfection and passion…
I’m just not ready yet…

I’m sorry I can’t be everything you need…
I’m sorry I can’t be flawless…
I’m sorry I can’t be a rule breaker…
I’m sorry, but I’m just not ready yet…