Hey boy, are you a turtleneck
                                                 because you're pretty dorky to everyone else      
                                              but I think I like you
Boy, are you a penny
                                 because I would pick you up off the street when those  
                                  other hands didn't think it
                                   was worth it
Boy, are you a button
                                  because I lost you somewhere and I have lots of
                                   others but they just don't match
                                   no matter what color I paint them
Boy, are you a freckle
                                   *because my grandma calls them angel kisses and
                                  that's what I think you are

Not sure if you’ve ever
heard of
Phineas Gage,
but he was a railroad man somewhere
in Vermont
and one day he accidentally blew a
******* iron rod through his
******* think-box and
here’s the kicker:

He
*******
lived.

Now, this big metal cylinder,
on its flight path,
carved a cavern in Gage’s
cerebrum, more specifically
through his frontal lobe
and when the bleeding finally stopped
and they got his left eye all sewn shut
he told the first person he saw,
probably a loved one crowded around his
filthy hospital bed
to kindly
******* and Die.

He got out of that hospital bed,
eventually,
and when he did, he tried his damndest
to go back to work
but he just couldn’t.

What’s more his friends said he just wasn’t
Gage
any more. His personality
had changed.

He didn’t give a **** about
the sunset anymore.
He liked his coffee black and his pancakes
dry.
Which is strange because beforehand
he didn’t drink any coffee
and he didn’t like pancakes much neither.
He also became quite
the drinker,
which is funny considering he hadn’t had
a drop
of alcohol
in his life
before then.

You see I always thought that
personality
was something you couldn’t
touch.
That it was some grand unifying evidence
of the existence of the human
soul.
But here’s Gage,
who just so happens to take
a pole to the dome
and suddenly he’s just
not
Gage.

So maybe it’s true
that we’re all just
machines
and you can pull a man’s
favorite color
or his taste in music
or his eating habits
out of his head
and set them on a sterile tray
right in front of him.

That makes sense.

But everything in me
still wants to
believe.

Late nights with itchy fingers and waiting paper,
With trampoline eyelids and legs still mid-race,
With home so far away you can't talk to it with a can and a string and a secret,
And silence,
Filling your ears with cotton ***** soaked in maple syrup,
Late nights with rusty elbows and creaky knees,
The darkness a blanket of barbs coating the air that flows in and out of your mouth,
And chamomile dreams just a hair too far away to sip,
Those are the nights where happy meets a cliff,
And sad comes rushing up to greet it,
Entangling and intertwining,
Birthing a melancholy mood that dives into your pores,
Prolonging those late nights.

I am cobwebs and smoke.
I am shards of a person who cannot decide
The difference between
Love
And god.
I am razorblades and thin air.
I am ink and shadows.
I am drowning in moonlight-
I am a spun web of starlight and wanting.
I am the wire frame of myself-
See through shape with nothing inside.
I am the wrong port in this storm,
Sending out beams of
Don't-ignore-me,
Blades of light that split the hazy fog of apathy.
You've sewn me with seeds of humanity
And I feel the life beneath my skin
Like it will sprout
Roots
Any day now.
I have a ribcage full of fireflies
That shine through the spaces when I breathe.
I have glimpsed dreamcatchers
In your eyes
And snagged my darkness in their dizzy thrall.

I want my name tattooed on your lips
stars tattooed across my back
my name to be a star
I want you to hold me on your tongue
to leave stars in your hair
when I run my fingers through
I want you so bad it’s driving me mad
playing on our radio
I want your lips so bad on my stars
-want stars when you taste me
your fingers to ******* tattoos
the stars to taste our fingers
when they wander through our lips
I want our fingers touching lips
by the stars that bathe our tattooed names
in the music of the madness twixt our hips
I want our ink all over our skin
A stellar map to lead us in

Certain people have come to understand
That they have a soul
Don’t write me off because I’m a ginger
I still know what I’m talking about
That’s why words are important to me
If you read what someone wrote
You are reading what their soul would say
If it had any other way
So when I came across your Story
I fell in love
Your soul was written for me to read
I read everything
Twice
And then a third
Interrupted by pictures and songs
That only added to my amazement
I love you and I know you
I have never seen you or met you
Your taste in music lets me know
Your cooking would always have the right amount of salt
Taking you on a date that isn’t trying
To prove anything more than
“I like you and want to make you happy,”
Is something I will suffer through in my dreams
I like that you are intelligent
A well-spoken soul who has read a book or two
You know what you want to do
And what you might fall back on
Without defeating other people’s dreams
I would be willing to share mine with you
And I hoped you could take my dreams
Tie them to the clouds and
Be brave enough to come along for the ride
The corners of your eyes tell me enough
Of the doubt you have in promises and good intentions
Your written soul proclaims the faith
To trust again and risk everything
Because sometimes you don’t know you know until
You know you never knew
So know that I know that I never knew until
I came across you
I don’t drive trucks, but I will cook for you
And give you book suggestions
I would fit my heart into a picnic basket
Set us down in fresh-cut grass on a quilted blanket
I would see the world as the sun reflected in your eyes
And I might even get a chance to see
What you might see in me
Probably a little awkward, I would lead us through conversations
Of family and friends – and how we don’t talk to some of the people we love the most
We all have people we should move to speed dial to make it easier
When the breeze picks up, take my jacket
I would ask you about your life and the scars you have
So I can know
In perfect detail
Why your soul set mine alive

You’re the singer standing in front
Of a standing ovation
Trying to hide behind a microphone
Because you cannot comprehend
How bright you are
Actually shining

"The Earth laughs in flowers."
-Ralph Waldo-Emerson*

Maybe that's why,
in my dreams,
we are always in a garden-

You could always make me laugh.
You left me with
Smiles blooming upon my lips.