I used to write about heaven
Because, I knew that I was the type of person
Who would never see it,
Not one that drinks too much
Swears very often
Smokes so heavily, as I do
I used to think there was beauty
In a place that I couldn't see
In a location that isn’t mapped
I thought that in the absence of the tangible verification
Of its own acuality that
It could be anything I wanted it to be.
It changed over the years
First I wrote of it as a couch of clouds
Blue bundles of cotton
With light pink underbellies
That floated free and molded to only me
Then I wrote it as if it was a movie theature
With pictures blown up in front of me,
Mostly home movies that would zoom in on my mothers face
As some Elton John slow song played in the background
Timed perfectly with my mother's movements
And the popcorn was free.
You read all of these ideas of mine
Of what heaven was like
And you agreed and said,
"They are equally bad places to never be."
Now I don't write of heaven often
I sleep next to you much more
Than I drink
Or I smoke
I still swear very often
But the beauty of a place I can't see and could never be
Seems to have lessened to me now
And my idea of heaven are things I can verify
This bed,
Blanket,
Your head underneath a pillow.

no one loves like we do
no one appreciates the weight of another's
hand inside our own
nor the wrinkles from another's body
in bedsheets
nor the balance of another's heart
on our sleeve
not quite like we do.

If I had a son.
If I had a baby boy
I would tell him, "cry to your hearts content baby"
I wouldn't say,
"If I put you down now will you be a man about it?"
because he wouldn't be one yet and I would
cherish the time that I could speak to him without
response and when I could still comfort him with kisses
he couldn't turn his head away from yet.
If I had a little boy
I would fill his head with tales
of wizards and knights,
of dragons and princesses
so his mind wouldn't know the limits
of existence and his imagination
could have wings bigger than the ones
I would paint on the ceiling of his bedroom
I would tell him daily, "respect your father
and mind your mother"
because your papa ain't no rolling stone
and your mama only rewards manners.
I'd take him to the water and I'd tell him to mind that too because that's where he'll find peace.
If I had a teenage son
I would tell him give valentines day cards
to all of the girls in your class
because beauty is in everyone and only
a fool would see it as only skin deep
and mama didn't raise no fool
I would tell him read all you can write down even more
because each moment is fleeting and best to
remember all these times when you know everything, right?
when he makes mistakes I would tell him,
"Tough."
because thats what my mama told me
and there ain't no point in crying over
a problem that you know you can fix
and if you can't fix it on your own
know that I can help and there isn't a problem in the
world a mother won't fix for her child.
If I raised a man
I wouldn't tell him anything anymore
I would let him tell me
of all the things he has done all the things he wants to do
and all of the person I raised him to be.

I think I knew you as a child
not then you were young but when I was.
you weren't a child at all to me
in fact I think you were something else entirely,
a haunting shadow at my back
less peter pan and more boogie man
I could feel you growling at the bottom of my ears
hot breath wet with spit whispering things I couldn't understand yet
you were frightening-
the reason I slept with all the lights on
and the closet door always either wide open or completely shut
my fear of what you were slept in my dreams
it manifested your face in my imagination
as I had never been brave enough to look at it
as a minster with fangs and claws
gills and wings, things that couldn't exist together
that somehow all lived on you.
I was seven or so when I first felt you
and not knowing what to call you I shouted at you all the names
of all the four letter words my little ears had hear
from much older mouths
I used to hear you though, your feet bumped to the beat of my
heart like you  wanted to match my pace
like you thought I walked with my heart as my feet
your breath was as heavy as mine
and sometimes I swore you lived inside me
how else would you know the structure of my organs so well
I lost you around 20 when
I learned that monsters weren't real they were just something that
bore from vivid and growing children's brains
a year later I meet you again
I didn't know your face but you felt like
something I felt before
you made my heart race,
my fever pace around apartments and staircases
my breath struggled to keep up
and so did yours as you chased me
matching my foot steps and labored breaths
acting like a shadow around noon that reapeared again
after you thought it left
the monster I had known as a child
really was you wasn't it?
something powerful and scary and unknown, but familiar
I wish I would have looked under my bed sooner
I wish that instead of having fear for fangs I had strength to see your eyes
yo find out sooner that monsters don't live under beds or in closets
and they don't exist solely for children
that monsters can live inside us
and if we just look at them without covering our eyes with fingers our blankets
we could see that the unknown isn't a masked monster
that what is masked could be love,
be it scary and unknown
it lives in us just the same
wanting to be seen for what it is and what it is is what we are
apart of ourselves that never changes or ages and
knows us wholly as us, even down to how or organs are structered.

Would it be too much to ask
That we use this bed as a cocoon
And wrap ourselves so tightly in blankets
That we forget that there is outside for awhile
Morph ourselves together  
And only to each other
Finally emerging as something different than what we
Were before
Something easier to handle than two
Something more simple like one.

The best things in life are free
The littlest things in life matter the most
This poem was free and it is little
It is for you the best thing that matters most.

Do you know how often I speak of you
Even when you aren’t around?
No one notices as I don’t speak of you
In words nor in phrases
But the spaces in between them
Vacant as you are-
The pauses marked by punctuations
When written but when spoke-
Marked by nothing anyone else can hear
They are an empty space in time
To everyone else who doesn’t know
To me they are filled with you
Even when you aren’t around.