I color in between the lines
A darkened circle on a
Standardized scantron
Like the other numbers in the room
Wasting my life
With every stroke of breaking led

I color in a circle on a scantron
But I'm really coloring in
To America's capitalism
To the capitalism that acts as God-
The “Invisible Hand” made visible
By McDonalds and Burger King;
By my father's law firm
And the rest of the world

In coloring in this little circle
I'm coloring in myself
Marking myself
Right or wrong
Form 32A or Form 32B
98th percentile or 95th

And as I become applicant
Number 8574
I realize
I've become unable
To do anything
For the person
Beyond the number

Our failed attempt at change,
Re-elected in a last ditch
Show of democracy,
Sits in his oval office
Looking at the ice left
At the bottom of his drink,
Wondering what he should do

Surprised that his half-assed attempts
At diplomacy are poised to fail,
He's already shown America
Where we really stand
Which is just about nowhere

We don't want vengeance
And we don't want death
We just want a voice
And what that voice would say,
If he cared to open those office doors is
'Wait; not yet.'

Because we understand the pressures
We understand what happened
Ninety-nine years ago
On a rainy day in July
And we want the skies to stay clear
For even just a little bit longer this time

If he even so much as looked
Outside his window
He would see the picket signs
Of the storm set to brew
Upon his push
Of a button.

I love you
Especially when I
Drink.
If you feel-
The same way-
Maybe shots should be
Called: good

And if you
(Love me)
Maybe we should
Kiss.

More often.

My mom welcomes me in from the cold fall air
With a plate of home-made french toast-
Maple syrup pouring like the lies I tell her;
Powdered sugar, the dots of truth I work in
When it's convenient to do so

The smell of *****, spilled
On that place on my jeans beneath which
I have tattooed every moment spent without her,
Is masked by the batter of a sleep-deprived morning
When all I want to do is go to my mom
With all the problems she doesn't even know I have

Over that breakfast of laughs and warm family smiles,
And over a warm cup of tea to get me passed my hangover,
She asks me all about my night that didn't happen
And I continue to paint for her
The lie I don't even really remember first telling.

Your nails
Drum on the frame
You stand in,
Calling all eyes
To the blue paint chipping
Into clouds of colorless
Like the wood on the door
That peeled polish
Serves to form-
Separating my creaking
Wooden porch
From the motel lobby
Of endless strangers ignored
As your nails still drum
With stories still unheard

Fleetingly holding
Air of lungs in palms
I gaze up at floating blankets
Incapable of warmth
And hanging just below
The stars and bodies bouncing
Off the water in my mind

Though confined to basement
I see the shore we stand on,
Skipping stones
Across the lake
Until me my body throws
To a wind too powerful
To threaten sailing thoughts
Like the hands I hold-
Refusing to understand
The weight of breath

Autumn rushes from the vortex
Where a bottle-cap used to be
And as last drops run down dry throats,
Glasses now empty like the people who are,
Winter pours from the spring
That a pen-cap once clogged
And I sit in the bathroom wishing
A single variation of summer pleas
Would keep the modern world's fallen leaves
From manifesting themselves on wrists and thighs
But a collection of words can never be more
Than all the tattoos that are all just scars
Like the people who are-
And when the hell
Did the leaves turn orange?