21.
You in the living room. You on a sunny afternoon. A breeze…seen when the curtains move. You by the window with both eyes fixated out. Blowing smoke out from your mouth. A cigarette placed between your lips. Moving elegantly through space. Striding softly, to the edge of the bed. Where I sit, you placed your body next to me. Mesmerized, careful not to let my words slip. Then you sit and you read and you breath. Slowly you cant help but fall asleep, and I cant help but watch you carefully. From the window where the sunlight frames your silhouette. I think of lighting fireworks, I think of pirouettes..I idly write down observations on the scene. Like do the blueprints name the rooms alone? Do we name them on our own?..You with a book propped on your knees. A breeze…seen in your coffee steam. In a seat right in front of you. “Is this science or is this chemistry?” I ask myself, “how do you do these things to me”. Thinking back to rules of poetry. It’s fourteen lines, the last two rhyme, what does pentameter mean? You in the bed-room legs bent at forty-five degrees. I write AB… AB…AB…AB.. trying to find your rhyme scheme. Hard not to think that about how. All of this imagery, now, could all just be a dream. Or reality, or perhaps something slightly in between. I look for objects on the desk with which to sculpt your image best. What would I name this could I paint it “Woman (reading)?” “Girl (at rest)?”. You live like lightning, yet you move like thunder. I remember it so well. Thinking about last summer. Like photos in an album. So we could look back and we could talk about them. How we started out as a mystery. Yet we were perfect symmetry. Confined to a party scene. July 4th in the backyard. Our emotions we kept a secrecy. Exchanging numbers between the subtle glances. They’ve written books about things like us. Things like summer romances. Things like the dangers. That accompany the thought of two neighbors. And you living all alone. With your apartment you called home. And a road of stairs leading up there. Day after day I’d ascend them. Then followed a set of carefully choreographed knocks. And how they made the chains on that door of yours unlock. I remember how I would laugh. At how long it took sometimes. I guess I have a problem. When it comes to things about the mind. Constantly thinking about things I shouldn’t. Like empathy, happy moments of our past, even death from time to time. You with your body laid carefully in my bed. Placed hip to hip. Morning was slowly coming in, our lips quivered after every spark after every little kiss. And although we were sober, there was a sort of harmony. What has come over me? That fire in your eyes. It Said “I felt electricity surging through my body”. I look for a reason. Something to explain the sparks. Something to give this feeling meaning. But found nothing. It wasn’t lightning when we pressed our lips, it was thunderstorms. But what explains the hums made when our heart skips? Then back to the present, time after time. Day after day. History is said to repeat itself, how the sparks never went away. Summer came as quickly as it departed.  I still remember watching you shifting your weight, turning the page, I can see it all there. A role in name alone. And I pause where I am for a second when I hear your name. Sometimes I think I see your face in improbable places. Do those moments replay for you? I mean do you sometimes feel the same? When I’m suddenly there and then won’t go away. When you’re sitting in the bedroom reading for the afternoon. When your laying softly on the pillow, dreaming about whatever it is you do.  Do you put your book down look and try to find me there? Sometimes I think of all rooms we have visited. How the spaces. In the memories you make change the room from just blueprints. To the place where you live. When we leave there. When we go from a home. You take all that you own but the memories echo. Yes, they echo. On hardwood floor in the living room. Tore the carpet the scratches below that we found. And the wine stain I accidently spilled once on the couch. How we got drunk and decided we’d still try to move it around. And that time we drank tequila for a night, how we laughed with every moment we stood up but kept on falling down. And I can’t tell what the difference is between the memories and the risk, the ones that we made and the ones that we didn’t take. They’ll still be missed, Still a joy, still a cool wind passes over me. Somewhat somberly, the imagery of seasons changing rewind and replay. Through every season you were still a part of me. I was happy that it was your image that haunted my sleep. They all conjure images. Vivid and descriptive.  Where you sit and you smoke in the sunlight aware that I watch but never for too long. And I don’t feel alone. Safe forever in an echo. This feeling will never go. Safe for the hums in the walls. We don’t feel alone now. Our hearts will live safe in the echo. This feeling will never go.

When you look at me can you see what I'm thinking?
Can you see the moment of hesitation in my reply
When you look at me do you see the searing fear running through my veins
Do you notice the shake in my hands
When you look at me what do you really see?

This 'you' that everybody writes about are
The tears that stain our cheeks late at night,
The eyes that haunt our dreams every night,
The scars that remain as devil-ish memories of our weak moments.

I'm sick of this 'him' I'm sick of this 'her' that torments people day after day,
Making then write until their brain is pulsing and their hands are shaking.
I just want to be an okay me.
And if I need a 'him' to help me feel okay,
Then may God help me.
For I have no purpose in this world
Other than to rely on others for my heart to continue to beat.

I want to be the reason that I am still here.
I do not want to rely on another human soul.
For we are all doomed at one point to be nothing if that is the case.
But I just pray that if
Nothing we once were,
Then may our memories of life forever remain.

A kid wakes up; tuns on the news
Sees the Texas police killing children again
What can I tell you?  You the few
Does anybody listen here, my friend

So this kid he gets a brainstorm
Let's keep killing more and more
I know I can be just like them
I'll go to school; **** all my friends
And it's
Monkey See, Monkey Do
Inspiration is so cool
Monkey See, Monkey Do
I'm a killer, how 'bout you

Where are all the fearless leaders?
Ain't there anybody left?
No, not that kid from jersey
Mobsters really aren't best

All politicians are are sinkholes
Usurping monies for their parties
It makes this country one big stink-hole
You know behind their backs they're farting

They passed the rest of all the guns out
More More More is all they shout-shout
This is great for all the children
Who sit scared ****-less at every grade school
but it's
Monkey see, Monkey do
One good leader showed us to
Monkey see, Monkey do
I'm a killer, how 'bout you?