TO: romeo
you could’ve loved me but you didn’t and that kind of ******
TO: romeo
i wish we could go back to when we were still possible
TO: romeo
i’d rather be just friends with you than nothing
TO: romeo
see, we only worked when the gravity wasn’t on
TO: romeo
see, i could only love you from 5000 miles away
and we’ll always have the last city we trampled through
TO: romeo
see, i loved you, on other continents and always at the wrong time
TO: romeo
see, i’m not sure i loved you because now looking at you is like disconnect
and maybe i just wanted you because i felt so small,
without a hand to hold under
the heavy weight of history crushing in around us
TO: romeo
see, you make me feel like i’m eleven again,
listening to “you belong with me” by taylor swift and wondering
is that what love’s really like?
not realizing that the girl in the video was wondering the same thing
TO: romeo
so “if you’re wondering if i want you to;
i want you to, i want you to, i want you, dude, i always do.”
TO: romeo
i can’t listen to weezer without thinking of you
TO: romeo
i have this bad habit of tangling up the things i love with people i’m trying to,
i have this bad habit of ruining them that way
TO: romeo
i want custody of our song back  
i want you out of the baseline, hiding underneath the notes

I wish I could go back and just have fun a little longer,
sit and listen to that song before it felt so somber.
I wish I could go back in and make more friends,
because those good grades don't feel good and don't give these nights ends.

I wish I could go back and talk more,
I enjoyed those nights in the car,
blasting weezer,
with my sister,
but those never really the nights when I needed it,
I just wanted what she had,
but now I'm here and they're calling me mister,
ive grown up just like my sister
but now I know why she liked those sad songs and night time drives

I miss VCR players and Saturday morning cartoons
Star Wars marathons every weekend.
I miss being terrified of the mouldy basement dark
And watching Homestar Runner for hours.
I miss blowing things up in the backyard
And building that tree house, and making ****** movies
On a ****** video camera
With my oldest brother, who in many ways
(such as by blood, and parentage, and legally)
isn’t even my brother at all.

I miss the world the way it used to be,
Before things inside me began to go numb
And other things began to burn like live wires.
I miss the innocence I lost. I miss the cents I lost
To the arcade games and the broken vending machines
To the bullies on the playgrounds
Who even I learned to make excuses for.

I miss the days when a Weezer song
Could fix just about anything at all,
Back when I climbed more trees,
Swung on more swings, ate more candy.
I miss my kidhood, when I thought that
Growing up was going to be just fine.
I miss walking to ****’s for greasy hamburgers.
I miss the way the Space Needle used to
Make me crane my neck to follow its yellow elevators
All the way up to the spinning top.

I miss growing up with you, stuck between Freakmont
And Far East Ballard, going to Archie McPhee’s,
Rubber chickens, refrigerator magnets, hamburger hats,
Bacon soap, Jesus tape, pickle bandaids.
I miss your house that smells like cats
And your wonderful parents, and your too-many brothers.
I miss your kitchen and your living room
And your amazing singing and your air guitar solos.

I don’t want to date you or marry you or *******
But since you started dating that awful girl
Five years ago - FIVE WHOLE YEARS! -
I haven’t seen you all that much.
It wasn’t really a choice, I couldn’t be around her:
She makes you into someone that is not-you.
Someone that is quiet and shy and reserved,
Not loud and strange and outrageous.

I miss you, oldest brother.
I always felt like you understood me in a strange
Sort of distant way. I miss you a lot.
I feel less alone when you’re around.
I hope college changes you, I hope it makes you
Into who you are again. I hope you write more ****** movies
And film them and act in them
And I hope you break up with her
And find someone beautiful who makes you happy,
Who doesn’t make you into not-you.
I miss you, but not the not-you you’ve become.

I miss the first you I ever met,
Too tall, with way too much poofy hair,
And long skinny everything, and thick glasses
And a good sense of humor, and a taste in ****** movies,
Videogames, airsoft guns, horrible puns;
A pyromaniac, a secret fatty, a terrible dancer,
A geeky awkward kid from Tennessee
Who somehow changed everything about me forever.

I think the end is mine to write (Cry For You, September)
Tell me darlin’ where do we begin? (Feel Good Drag, AnBerlin)
And if I die baby just know that I never got over you (Clocks Remix, Tito Lopez ft. Coldplay)
I’ll never give myself to another like I gave it to you (Rehab, Rihanna)
Cause anything worth my love is worth a fight (I’m Free, Kenny Loggins)
You got me lifted shifted higher than the ceiling (Sugar Sugar, Baby Bash ft. Frankie J)
Why deny it? It cannot wait I’m yours (I Won’t Say I’m In Love, Hercules) (I’m Yours, Jason Mraz)
Why don’t you sit right down and stay awhile? (Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?, She and Him)
We can share a cigarette cause we’re both fools (Yesterday, Atmosphere)
I can’t believe that’s what you said, I wonder am I sick? (Disco, Metro Station)
And all of these emotions are pouring out of me (Soundtrack 2 My Life, KiD CuDi)
Nothin’ heard nothin’ said, can’t even speak about it (Disturbia, Rihanna)
Cause when a heart breaks, it don’t break even (Breakeven, The Script)
I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore (The Fear, Lily Allen)
And I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore (The Fear, Lilly Allen)
Take me to all that we had, the good and the bad (Never Forget You, Lupe Fiasco ft. John Legend)
These tears didn’t care, they just hung in the air and refuse to fall (Crooked Teeth, Death Cab For Cutie)
This is the way it’s really going down, is this how we say goodbye? (What Goes Around, J.T.)
Know that you could set the world on fire (Walking On Air, Kerl)
If you are strong enough to leave your doubt (Walking On Air, Kerl)
But baby, you make me better (You Make Me Better, Ne Yo ft. Fabulous)
And it makes me feel so fine I can’t control my brain (Island in the Sun, Weezer)
I keep on runnin’ and nothin’ helps, I can’t get away from you (Erase Me, KiD CuDi ft. Kanye West)
We can’t rewind now, we’ve gone too far (The Internet Killed the Video Star, The Limousines)
And all I could do was think about sleeping next to you (Reflections, Atmosphere)
No matter where I am, no matter what I do, I’m always coming back home to you (Always Coming Back Home to You, Atmosphere)

my sunny days were spent
cooking plastic spaghetti noodles over
a wrinkled sticker depicting an oven eye
while kate shuffled through invisible mail
and tended to our adopted stuffed animals
imitating her mother’s affection.

my sunny days were spent
building lego castles on the cool screen-in porch
while the radio played mellow weezer
that was suddenly replaced by sparks
and foul smoke because of billy’s antics
with the hissing water hose.

my sunny days were spent
drawing tattered pirate maps on jelly-smudged
napkins that guided us—the brave hardened
rapscallions—to the attic to horde stores of
gold and to battle foes in the dusty shadows
with our swords made of cardboard.

my sunny days were spent
hiding and seeking until mom’s heels
clicked up the hot asphalt driveway where
she would chastise me for the mess i had made
of myself in cuts scrapes and grass stains
worn by me as medals of honor.

***** Diddy Dean\
principles clean flirting\
***** on the street tuning\
girls squat ******* off roast\
principal toast jetset mason\
braces racial faces erases fascist\

aCes amoosha\

frisky leniently\
nick unchain wrist\
reel chastity handcuff\
trust the best way to eat\
with your hands and knees\
near the ground on your feet\
head up high top of the more\
under the great blue sky define\

Convenience Cross buddy divine interference\

Culture shock the biggest radial in the room\
Centrally round about ways\
Cave the elephant at the mouses house daintily\

faintly fading narcotic wince\
swine like a good nightmare\
Dare not get locked into close\
without Darkin Diddy in it\
Hit unstuck with good fun gang\
bangers conundrum the dyme drop\

flip the quarter youngin do the tyme Shyne one more\
chance at a lucky snakes dessert dry spell farewell\
take the KAbala Ruby KAaba keen in a seam Weezer\
Diddy peel back pay out after the mailman waned\

inn deserts righteous weasel sheath creature nurture\

feature posted up at the penitentiary motel\
*** as clean as the club they spiked\
to party in the hotel room\

bash and dash with rash baseball bats disintegrating rats\
in baseball caps stash in a ****** astounded Jay Lo\
pulled the Trigger\ Sang\

rapper song rewind hiphop psalm lip i dip you rip we cryp hark of a Hawk warlike\
bullet sound dock store shiruba nest warm shepard impression out of the cold\
     famish at the government mansion retain sharpened noreaga apex angle fang\
dine forward booking round ticket found trinkets of chicken fry Kern El Sanders\
hid ashtray banked future matters in Hakim fortune empowered Peaceful impart\
Eye for Eye
    Evil constrict Haikus conduct leg work contradicting the Porphyrogenita bylaw\
ratify gear Goddesses strike stamping thee passt charging Neo vitasphere Rage\
                   electrician the Machinist\
          hause Morpheus envogue yoke hymns romping a vampire respect pinion droves\
pronunciation moody grove converge throng over durst drac stirs Period crop Verbatim\

party zone with johnny brown




johnny’    hi dudes and welcime to the 2nd party zone for 2016 and tonight we are going

to party real hard and our first party dude  is lorraine

lorraine’  i want  to be so happy  

i want to be so cool

i want to drink scotch on the rocks following a lovely bbq

i am very happy as happy as can be

i don’t know why i am so happy

i only know i am, party on dudes

johnny’  yeah you look like you are ready to party tonight

lorraine’  it’s the end of the working week, why not

johnny’  ok here is patric weezer

pattrick’   one sheep two fish red fish blue fish

going ba ba ba every ****** where

five sheep six  sheep silver sheep black sheep

you see it’s  hard to become the black sheep of the family

nine fish ten fish isn’t that a dainty dish

to put before prince william on the way to buckingham palace today

eleven fish twelve fish

i wonder who i will find at the party for my best mate tom

it’s fine to have fish, especially down the coast with chips

johnny’ are you creative

patrick’  yeah, i am an artist and a writer and a youtube entertainer, i am cool

johnny’  ok here is harry with a great rhyme

dave bought a honday for his best friend rhonda

to make her pretty wealthy

dave bought a honda

and he will make it a party

yeah, we will get down and boogie and say oh lay

hey little old lady

pretty pretty baby

saying

dave bought a honda for his aunty flo who went home to make pumpkin scones for joh

but joh didn’t want any cause he ws too right wing

dave bought a honda from adelaide and every night we say dave bought a honda for everyone around oh dude

johnny’  yeah what a great one, but your choice of politicians, ya know a bit old and dead

harry’ yeah, but i am 56 years old and i still want to party

johnny’   here is another party song from kenneth

kenneth’  16 pounds to buy a car with

it is a very cheap car if it costs that much

a dollar bill to buy a car mat

cause it really protects your car floor

and aussie cent ain’t around anymore, cause it can’t afford anything no fear, so chuck it away my friend

a japanese coin is a wonderful coin

i notice how there is a hole in the middle, to stick your finger in, yeah

$16 is a lot ya see

you could buy an expensive tub of honey from the bee

so if you spend all this money now

just remember the tune from hello in the ‘80s with oh yeah bow bow

johnny’  thank you kenneth

kenneth, yeah, and i am ready to pardddy, now party dudes, have the best hangover cure if you are totally wasted tomorrow

johnny’  thank you kenneth and thanks dudes for enjoying party zone

catch ya later dudes

I'm Forty Three

Lines form on my forehead and neck,
lines form on my upper and lower deck.
I'm middle aged without a plan,
I'm thirty something, I'm an old man.
I'm forty three, no idea what I want,
going blind and needing bigger font.
Forty three, gotta get away,
I've been straight, I've been gay.
I've gotta get out of this place,
my parents want me out from the crawl space.
I've gotta thirty something brain
and an old geezers heart,
I blame the dog, whenever I ****.
Took forty three years to get this far,
still listen to cassettes, when in my car.
Don't always know what I'm a saying,
Uncle Sam, I keep on paying,
not gonna tell ya, what I'm a weighing.
***** swing low from the left and the right,
silly kids always ask, Mister was there always light.
Every bone in my body cracks,
rolling in sand, I leave wrinkle tracks.
I'm in the middle age of my life,
I've been a boy, girl, husband and a wife.
I'm thirty something and an old geezer,
I listed to Elvis and also Weezer.
I'm forty three and I like it,
I travel around with a Depends kit.
Yes I like it, I love it, I like it, I love it,
I'm forty three, forty three, forty three,
and all this yelling made me ****.

it's 3am
Well, 3:08 to be exact

Congratulations Tina, you've made it...
You've seen the time on that laptop of yours,
You've contemplated the thought of sleep but then dismissed it because you know you'd never get up in the morning if you went to sleep then.
You've listened to every Weezer song know to man
You've stared up at the ceiling for a good 10 minutes without thinking about anything except how hot the bottom of the laptop was on your legs
You've checked all of the social media sites while thinking about how you were wasting your life.
You got up and walked around your room because you were scared you were becoming one with the weird furry green chair you love so much.

Two hours goes by in a flash and Mua's just now getting up for work
She walks in, tells you that she's kicking your father out for harboring yet another one of his presumably ****** friends, then walks out, leaving you not very surprised at her decision that she'll forget about in an hour.
That's your cue to get up and start your day that never really started.
You've now walked out of your room an taken a look in the bathroom mirror, staring at yourself then giving yourself the finger as you stumble into the kitchen
Tea time! You love that morning cup of tea, you can tell by the huge frown on your face.
The door is cracked open, and so is your life, so now you've taken a step outside and you realize that the sky is a different shade of purple then it was earlier that afternoon, and that made you smile... in the first time in several hours... you smile.
now you're leaning on the 3rd floor railing drinking your green tea with a familiar tune ringing in your head "my momma wouldn't say you were a nice guy but you're under forty and you have a job.." over and over and over again but you don't mind it at all because it's accompanied by that cold breeze that you've longed for all night.
Now you've walked back inside because your neighbor saw you pouring the last bit of tea you had in your cup over the railing.

Now it's 6:30 and your back in the little fuzzy green chair...
** it.

At 10:20pm on a Tuesday night
The number 14 bus is full
Bright, glistening, and fevered
These tired commuters expend vast energies
on wishing they lived here—so they’d be home by now.
Transients—the unhoused—talk in believable lies
About Portland’s oldest bridges
And salmon runs in the Willamette
And every time the bell signals a stop requested
Those of us remaining heave another sigh of delay.

At SE Cesar Chavez, which was 39th when I was growing up,
More people get off than on—
A man in a brutal cavity t-shirt,
A 30-something in a grey hoodie –
Both transferring, probably, to the line 75.
I get off around 47th,
Pass the long-closed and over-priced vintage furniture shop,
Cross the street at the fading crosswalk,
Pass a bar, a home cooking joint with and early bird special of $2.95,
Another bar, and a lonely busker playing guitar and singing Weezer.

In my building, on my floor, the hallway always smells like chicken
I’ve yet to cook, to even finish unpacking
But all of this already feels familiar
My first night’s commute home
And I am as practiced and nonchalant as a New Yorker in the City…
At least as much as a Portlander can be in Portland.
I’ll have wine, or tea,
Put on my lounging clothes
And settle into an evening alone
As if I’ve been doing this forever
As if we never were.

expecto patronum.
the first time i got on stage
and read my words to a library full of high schoolers
with wide eyes and open ears, i thought i was going to puke.
everywhere.
my hands were vibrating like all the molecules in them
were trying to break free and leave,
like i was trying to break free and leave.
but *******, i’d never felt so alive.
i’m learning that if you’re afraid of things that, sometimes,
it just means that they matter.
the first time i was on stage, i practically shook out of my skin.
i thought i was going to ***** or faint or explode all over the front row.
and when i didn’t, i realized nothing else would ever feel good enough
after that in comparison.
i guess i’ve always expected to be a poem that everybody forgot about,
not one they memorized all the words to so when i stood on stage
and people told me they like the way my heart beats,
that’s… that’s everything.

expecto patronum.
the time difference between rome and kansas city is 7 hours.
we pile all the pillows and blankets into my hotel room,
and we drink limoncello from paper cups,
talking about everything and nothing.
our mouths are always running away, tangled up with our hearts.
we have been laughing too hard and running into the ocean
without looking back for the last two weeks.
it’s a funny feeling, to know that you are in the middle of a memory.
there are places to be in the morning, places to leave behind.
you sing along to weezer, half asleep under a mess of blankets,
and i like to pretend that you sing for me.
you will always remind me of the sun of my skin.
i love every single person in this room so much it’s kind of ridiculous,
a bond born of late nights and dumb jokes and stranger streets.
this is the time of my life thus far.
around 3 AM the room clears and i feel a little less lonely
than i’d ever been.

expecto patronum.*
we are singing along to saturday, front row of the lawn.
it’s been twelve years since 2003 but we still know every word,
learned them along the way,
and fall out boy still closes the show on
the same guitar chords and melody.
some things don’t need to change.
the song gets more relevant by the year,
and that’s how you know art is good --
when it still matters after you probably should’ve outgrown it.
our feet still keep time.
so we’ll always have saturday and the songs we play,
blaring loud from borrowed speakers and mouths.
i close my eyes and sing along, not caring if it’s off-key.
my ribcage feels like it is not near enough to contain my heart.
and when pete wentz says
“can i see the kids on the lawn tonight get ******* loud?” into the mic, we all scream.

expecto patronum.  
i am seventeen today
and i still fluctuate between feeling seven and seventy,
but that’s okay.
today’s not a day for counting candles anyways.
today, we drove downtown to sit outside as it gets dark
and listen to other people sing because we can’t carry a **** tune.
later, we climb and sit, watch the city lights spread out beneath us.
in that moment, there’s nothing better. there’s nothing else.
we know it’s a lie, but it still feels like this city belongs to us,
at least for tonight.

expecto patronum.
we are groggy, somewhere between sleep and consciousness
as 2016 rolls in.
the last week of 2015 has been a good one,
full of sore feet and laughing and sunsets i’d never seen yet,
but we’re tired now.
the display menu for star wars: the empire strikes back
is playing in a loop on my TV screen,
we both fell asleep before darth vader tells luke that he’s his father.
upstairs i can hear people counting, cheering.
tomorrow i will drink flutes of champagne for breakfast
and think the snow outside is beautiful
even though i hate the way it feels.
the morning light will feel new and old at the same time.
my skin fits a little better now than it did a year ago.
i’m not always good, but i am so much better.
right now, there’s nowhere i’d rather be.

We’re on October break, which is a 6-day weekend. For the last two weeks, everyone’s been making plans.
“What do you think of Cancún?” Sunny’d asked me.
“The only people going to Mexico are on the cheap or trapped in a trunk.” I’d answered.

After two weeks of weighing every conceivable terrestrial destination, amenities and available attractions, we (there’s six of us suitemates - Sunny, Lisa, Leong, Anna, Sophy and I) settled on good old Manhattan, where you’ll find us in adjoining-suites atop the Plaza hotel (thanks, Grandmère).

Things went CrA-CrA (crazy with a capital K) right off the bat. Sunny, as it turns out, KNOWS people here, and we decided to ‘walk on the wild side’ for one or two nights and check out a few fem-facing clubs. Now I know how sensitive we all are about pronouns, and what-not, but I’m going to try to simplify for a broad audience. These are lesbian clubs.

One thing I like about Music is sharing it with friends. Communities have always formed around art in whatever form. There are book clubs, film societies, Trekkies, Swifties and apparently, wild-*** lesbian dance clubs.

On our first night in Manhattan, the sun had barely set when Sunny said, “Ok then, let’s go!” And off we went to a “Femmquerade Ball”. I think that’s a combo of ‘feminine, queer and masquerade.’ She’d told us beforehand what to wear, “Take sweatshirts, those will come off - it gets hot in there - otherwise t-shirts, jeans and ballet flats - no purses.”

You know, I thought punk music was dead, ideating its death somewhere in the 90s. I was wrong, it’s ALIVE.
You know, when everyone’s feelin’ it, when two hundred people are rocking as one, club-life is transcendent. The club vibe was interesting too, there was a safety and freedom to it. You're in a crowded club, somehow without the limitations of the banal male gaze, with its sexist expectations. I don’t know how else to describe it.

I don’t think music has to have a message to earn its place as art. Folk romance music’s ok, jazz has its reach, opera is still happening and of course there’s regular dance music - cause sometimes, you’ve just gotta jiggle it.

That being said, there’s a saying that “Punk is truth” and that comes from its rawness and authenticity.
Punk has a ‘low barrier of entry’, as the academics say. It’s a game anyone can play. Punk isn’t autotuned, the bands use second-hand guitars, there are no synthesizers, the speaker stacks were shared, the vocalists lacked training, and I’d guess that none of the players were burdened with unpaid Juilliard tuition.

Punk’s always been outsider art, a scream along, you can’t go wrong, fire and every punk song is a garage invitation to joyously rage. As we drove to the club, Sunny had said, “Think of punk as dance music without inhibitions. It's straightforward and unapologetically for the people who can’t bother to keep to the dance steps and aren’t above getting in each other’s precious space.” Every word of that was true.

Punk lyrics are about the problems and issues of real-world people. It’s a roll call, a manifesto, implicit and explicit in stylish screaming. I’ve always called it scream-0. The point being, that while the rest of the world is restrained, heteronormative and reduced to a corporate gray backdrop, there’s still room for comradery, agency, outrage, pumpkin-Jello-shots (@ $16 each) and a bit of winking fun.

We DID have fun but I’ve been hoarse all day today. As we’d climbed into the car, last night, for the ride back to the Plaza, Mr. & Mrs Charles pointedly removed ear plugs from their ears - the kind they give to airport workers who work around jet engines all day. Charles laughed and said something, but I couldn’t hear him.
My ears were still ringing.
.
.
Songs for this
Rebel Girl by Bikini ****
Hash Pipe by Weezer

Your fingers on your guitar strings,
Plays a song deep within me
Watching you play makes my heart ache for you
There's a missing piece of me, your spot
Where your supposed to be.
I love you, I still do
You tell me not to wait but you're my baby
you were my baby

Who are you now?
I don't know you
You look the same, you feel the same, you smell the same
But you're not the same
You're not the boy I fell in love with
My heart hurts, I want to hold on
I want to love you, I want you to love me
But I want you to want it
I'm not going to force you to love me
I'm not going to play silly games in efforts to swoon you

I want you, I don't need you
I cry for you every night, every couple of hours actually
You're still playing, it's been ten minutes

Now you're playing say it ain't so by Weezer
No
You can't do this, you're playing with my heartstrings

Strings
You're great at playing with

you’re like art or something --
i don’t understand you and i always think i’m supposed to.
you remind me of stealing from my parent’s liquor cabinet,
i can’t look at you too long without feeling like
i’m gonna get caught up in something.
i can’t look at you too long without feeling like
i’m breaking some sort of rule.
now i know that love was the first time i saw weezer live,
that love was losing your voice because you’re singing too loud,
that love was pressing you down the backseat of your car,
that love was censored out of this poem.
too explicit. too tongue and teeth.
love was an honest liar.
love was at least 70% proximity, maybe.
love was not a victory march, just the drive the home.

we are terrified of it, maybe that’s why we like it.
there is no litmus test for love. just trial and error.
just… a lot of error.
love is hotel room we’re never going back to.
we existed there once
but we time ran out and had to return our keys, go home from vacation.
there are no good poems that come from that.
just 2 AM and missed calls and quiet.

see, i am bad at doing simple things.
my hands shake too hard and ruin dreams.
i hold too hard or push even harder.
baby, you were never hard to love, i just wasn’t any good at it.
see, i can write three page poems about the curve of your eyelashes
or the way your laugh sometimes gets stuck
in the back of your throat like a secret,
but i cannot seem to look you in in the eye
and be honest with you.

so tell me what to do when you’re staring god asking if he exists,
tell me what to do when every shot you’ve taken has missed.
tell me what to do when you’re standing on a dance floor
after all the music is gone,
like the fifth of july when all the fireworks have faded out of the sky
and all that’s left is casings and matches.
tell me what to do when you run out of words.

it’s fresh sticks of vanilla deodorant,
cap’n crunch going on sale,
ladies selling mangoes in midtown,

it’s the pictures of baby cows,
the most specific dream tattoos,
documentaries about unsolved ******,

it’s an oxymoronic vegan cheeseburger,
striped shirts with a graphic one layered on top,
the clear memory of pacific air,

it’s all of robert smith’s hair,
prodigy kids on cooking shows,
stinging sunburns quickly fading,

it’s the perfume of onions and garlic sautéing,
smooth sidewalks where mom’s back is safe,
well-loved shoes that used to be white,

it’s an avocado perfectly ripe,
girls riding skateboards alongside boys,
rings that don’t turn fingers green,

its bras that won’t make memory foam of me,
jars full of change -- saving for something,
still going strong senior couples,

it’s an anthem that came up on shuffle,
the last clean socks without a hole,
chipped tooth smiles, snaggled ones too,

it’s just the word hullabaloo,
three new albums in a day,
someone else’s king sized bed,

it’s the **** pieces of loaves of bread,
an empty train after a long night,
dog tails that are just teeny nubs,

it’s sour candies and numb tastebuds,
weezer’s ever expanding discography,
end-of-day hair thrown into a bun,

it’s cobalt.
it’s b flat.
it’s twenty one.

it’s whistling.
it’s goosebumps.
it’s serendipity.

it’s getting out of the sound of the city,
untangling tiny necklace knots,
reuniting with my long distance cats,

it’s tongues to the tune of soundcloud rap,
learning a language even a little,
finally seeing real lighting bolts,  

it’s tourist dominoes when the train jolts,
finding keys -- being able to leave,
breaking in the most stubborn shoes,

it’s the empty after puking up *****,
flirting with customers and getting paid,
knowing every word and singing along,

it’s not breaking my friends’ bongs,
still doing cartwheels because i still can,
getting a thirty but taking an hour,

it’s waking up first, getting the warmest shower,
cutting my own hair, well, when it goes well,
having an umbrella when it starts to rain,

it’s getting out a demon stain,
taking pens from work, they don’t pay me
enough,
walking in to no lines at trader joe’s,

it’s picking things up with my toes,
learning the chord i’d been looking for,
tacking knick knacks on the walls,

it’s loitering in suburban shopping malls,
frosting cookies during christmas,
laughing for the first time in a while,

it’s getting told someone likes my style,
feeling a heartbeat other than mine,
sneaking in a second to breathe,

it’s witnessing every single thing,
picking through the good and bad,
and letting the little guys win,

it’s seeing.
it’s living.
it’s taking it in.

loving you was kind of like oversleeping.
quiet and so, so loud
when i opened up my eyes.
i spend all my time running late,
shaking the daydreams out of my head.
something about you
reminded me of all times i just wanted to sleep the year away,
wake up next september and have everything be okay,
and how glad i was i stayed awake for july,
a few months past my bedtime.
it’s the line running on repeat in the cracks of my brain,
there’s a symphony in here playing, it’ll never be the same.
looks like the conductor called in sick,
so it’s like some ill-conceived medley
of tchaikovsky and biggie
and if you don’t know now you know
to the backing music to the nutcracker.
every book i’ve read and every movie i’ve ever fell asleep to
are so tangled up that i can’t make out the lines
i actually wrote underneath them.
what i’m trying to say is that it’s all cymbal crashes in here
and i’ve run out of metaphors, i fear  
that i can’t seem to say anything at all right now,
i am writer’s block at 3 o’clock
and the afternoon has no right to feel 2 AM like this.
i used to think loneliness only happened
when it was the middle of night and i was wondering why
i couldn’t seem to take up all the space in a twin bed on my own,
or when i was in the middle of crowd
and i kept catching myself searching for someone who just... isn’t there.
and this poem has been in process
in the back of my head for a long time,
for about as long as i’ve known you.
i keep adding lines and crossing them back out,  
i keep opening my mouth and sewing it back shut.
you see, it’s very… crowded in my head,
often i feel like i’m exceeding capacity.
like a thousand word per minute,
like a thousand poems and i could never finish it,
i guess that’s is why i “write like i’m running out of time”
i guess that’s why when i perform i speak so fast
my words get caught and my tongue gets tangled,
i’m stuck looking for new angles,
i haven’t met a cliche i haven’t mangled --
what i’m trying to say is
that there’s a lot of ******* going on in here
and you make it all go…
quiet.
and don’t get me wrong,
i love myself, in the way you’ve got to love yourself
when you don’t really always like yourself.
but still, i spend a lot time wishing i had a better handle on myself.
wishing i could press pause
just to give me enough time unscramble myself,
wishing that i was less;
less difficult, less rough, less soft, less messy.
because sometimes i feel so ******' chaotic
and you...
you make everything stop for just a second.
you make everything about me feel okay.
and now, i don’t know about god
but i believe in love and i believe in poetry.
now, i’m not much for destiny
but i believe in the way you sometimes look at me.
to put it simply, you make me want to write poems
about weezer and way you smile.
simple stuff. good stuff.
and i like you because you never pretended
that you were too cool to know the words,
our lips moving just the same.
because we are stumbling, tumbling through life
and i want to spend mine with people
who aren’t so ******* scared of admitting that.
because i measure my heartbeat in drumbeats,
in what’s pouring through my headphones,
and the fact that you get that makes me feel so much less alone.
all the chords/cords tangled like our hearts on the floor,
i’m not going to write you love song, baby,
i’m going to write you an anthem.
because you and i, we we're composed to same notes.
and i could find a lot of ways to phrase this --
we’re made of the same stuff, stardust, kindred spirits
or something like that;
because i’m so good at words,
but my words aren’t near good enough to find a way to say
that you are the space between silence and noise,
where my heart goes to rest.

Today I witnessed something spectacular.
What it means I'm not too sure,
It's not that clear.
The story will come in time.
I happened to meet my hero,
in a dream that's for sure.

Next I was gonna die
he was there and it made me cry.
But I was not ashamed
nor was I sad.
Glad he was there for me
almost like my dad.

My family at my side,
also Annie and my fiends Sam and Mike.
Into the room,
the four-person crew,
immediately I grew teary eyed.

Oh can it be?
Weezer is in here next to me?
But how did they know?
Who told them so?
They've come here to complete my life.

Laying sick in bed
tubes bulge from my arms
no hair covering my head
but I've never felt so alive before.

We created a song together
and now it's fading fast
I awake from the dream
and grab some paper fast.

Few notes linger in my head.
Lightly I whistle the the tune.
It's not quite close
but it will have to do.

I've awoken from the dream,
the melody is in my head
but words to me
are as heavy as lead.

When I was young I was a bookish soul
who hung out in the chafed leather chairs of Barnes and Noble
wearing an itchy, chafing sweater,
listening to Weezer,
waiting for something good to finally happen
in my rotten teenage life.

It didn’t.
It never did.

The Sweater Song would come on Q101 as my family visited Michigan City,
stopped by the beach, the outlet mall, the zoo,
hitting up pretty much almost all the attractions before 2:30 p.m.

Weezer roared on the stereo and later at the august
Tinley Park Amphitheater,
where it was easy to park but impossible to escape.
The band tore into the much-requested cover of Toto’s ‘Africa,’
knowing everyone who paid a ransom to be there
just wanted the hits and to get home
and cocoon themselves unthinkingly in the comfort of Netflix,
just waiting to arrive home.

When I was young, I was a bookish soul
who hung out in the chafed leather chairs
at the Barnes and Noble
wearing an itchy, chafing sweater,
listening to Weezer,
waiting for something good to finally happen
in my rotten teenage life.

It didn’t.
It never did.

The "Sweater Song" would always come on Q101
as my family visited Michigan City,
stopped by the beach, the outlet mall, the zoo,
hitting up pretty much almost all the attractions before 4:30 p.m.

Weezer roared on the stereo and
later at the Tinley Park Amphitheater,
where it was easy to park but impossible to escape.
The band tore into the much-requested cover of Toto’s "Africa,"
knowing everyone just wanted the hits and to get home
and cocoon themselves unthinkingly in Netflix,
that everyone swaddled themselves in a sweater
somewhere
in some cozy and familiar domicile.

We were in your dad’s truck. I am so endlessly in awe with you. I am putty in your hands and thought nothing of the vehicle. It was then I remembered that I hadn’t been in a truck since my father. The man behind all of my trauma.

I was wearing my sunglasses and lip syncing to Weezer with your brother in the back, no one would know about the tears streaming down my face as I remembered the abuse and the sleepless nights caused by a white pickup truck and a tall man that gave me my blood type.

No one but me will know the terror I felt as he ran red lights with rage. No one would know the pain in my legs and arms as he dragged me out of the truck and onto the hot pavement on a sunny day.

Your golden smile as you sang your favorite songs offkey (because you know it makes me fall for you more) couldn’t distract me from the flashbacks. No one can calm my busy mind, not even a boy with blue eyes that gives you his heart. You will only know love from the man that showed you nothing but pain.

I hope you read this,
Because I hope you're driving safely.

I hope you read this,
And know that I love you.

And music plays in the back of my head,
And I try to remember the song,
I believe it was Buddy Holly by Weezer which played on
July 4th, on the way to the restaurant we met up with your family at,
That also was playing today I think on the way to breakfast/lunch.

I Miss You by Blink 182 has a tendency to play
When we're in the car together as well.

"Hello there,
Angel from my nightmare"
Seems a little accurate,
I think.

I hope you're driving safely,
I hope you make it home safe and sound.

I hope you read this mainly because
I know you're going to read it.

“He wasn’t even your brother”
“Why the **** would you want a tattoo?”
“You know that ****’s permanent right?”
I don’t want a tattoo
I want way more than a tattoo
I want people to see it and ask who he was
And I want to say he was the little brother I never had
Until he became the little brother I had for only 7 years
I want my eyes to fill up with tears
I want the world to know that pain is temporary when you shove a needle inside of you
But its not temporary when you lose someone who was a part of you
That **** lasts forever
It will last forever in my brain
It will last forever in my heart
Is it so bad that I want it to last forever on my skin
That pain in my heart that pain in my brain that's the forever I’m scared of
That's the forever I don’t want to have
I crave the forever of this aching ink stain
It's a stain that has been in my brain for four years now
If you asked me I couldn’t even tell you HOW I’ve lived these one thousand four hundred sixty one days
Without him the world quickly turned grey
The thorns overpowered the beauty of the flowers
The shade got in the way
The rain burnt out the fire of the sun
Where Weezer used to play
The moments became pictures
The pictures became memories
The memories became moments I took for granted
And it took four years but the picture frames eventually fell slanted
These pictures were handed and planted on this wall just to become slanted
These pictures of the miracle that ran out of miracles at only 10 years old
I was 13 watching his body go cold
You think I’m too young to put some ink on my skin
You think I’m too young to be smelling like gin
But am I too young to be dying?
I close my eyes every winter just to see miracle boy lying while my best friend is crying over his miracle powered body
I see others tears drip down his miracle bald head
I see that rubber tube giving him air
But he’s already dead
You ******* fools you thought air could bring him back to life
He breathes miracles *******!
He lived on prayers
He never ****** in your airborn *******!
I can’t stop staring at that little chair where he used to sit
It’s been 4 years no one can move it
It weighs 2 pounds but the memories are a ton
We just look at it cause he was the only one
That could make something special by loving it
He was the only one worthy of the **** that he loved
He was ******* miracle boy how hard is that to understand
I want everyone to know his life like the back of their hand
I want a tattoo at 17 somehow I’m sick in the head
But 3 years is old enough to be sick and 10 is old enough to be dead
I write this **** down and realize this is what I should have said
Not “oh yea you’re totally right I’m an idiot sorry”
SORRY that this time I’m not throwing my opinions AWAY to be agreeable because november 29th marks the DAY my brother died in front of my eyes
Try to tell me he’s not my brother you’re full of ******* lies
Id tattoo MF in the center of my face
He was my brother and he can’t be replaced
By this little trace of permanent ink
But maybe if it’s there I’ll finally be able to THINK about something happier than watching miracles fall 6 feet under
During these winter months of depressing rain and scarring thunder
Ill know I’ve got bad memories on my mind but good ones on my skin
And I can sleep with a little pain on the wound but no more pain within
With this little symbol of love
Ill be spreading his story till the day I die
Like hell I want the people I love to be on earth
But miracle boy belongs in the sky.

I refuse to abuse the information
Or accuse to confuse Son sensation
It's just bust or elation
These waters rust relations
Readily reprise all re-creations
Heavy on reprisal wrought in radiation
Of Free-Radical Radial Radio recreation
See that at all ****** or catch this bat call
That's some sonar and so far none at all
Can fall on me no **** got a gimp limp
No descendant of wimp, imp, or chimp
Those simply either geezer or ether
Style stay froze door close freezer
When I was younger I'd listen to Weezer
Singing bout being Buddy but I be neither
Just a man in search for Wisdom I need her

Where's Ophelia?

Lately my thoughts are scattered
No filtering bladder
Happy un-birthday lets have
Tea cuz I feel madder then hatter

Like my brain was ***** matter
Recycled which explains
Why my parents call me a
**** for brains

In my eyes it always rains
So the forecast I'm callin it
Cause I can predict the ****
Like a meteorologist

Even my psychologist
Has to see a psychologist now
And all I did was tell her about
Bein a kid so my childhood turns out

Was ab normal or a portal
To immortal hell
Probably why I'm amoral as well
Directing ***** at 12

No no no Barbie be submissive
For ken no one likes a *****
And where's Gi joe this is a
******* scene ****

I'm a professional and refuse
To work like this
"No mom I have no clue where my
Sisters Barbie is"

That probably led to the dead
Cat, who I asked can I feel ya?
And before you know it the
diagnosis Was necrophilia  

i need help like Ophelia
So get me to the nunnery
If you don't get the reference
It's ok I'm full of odd dummery

So concluding with summary
Is ima mind **** like ******
Resulting in psychosomatic
Brain Assaulting causing lobotomy

Which I consider a commodity
Cuz it's better then mediocrity
Plus more interesting is sarcasm
contradiction and hypocrisy

Which is all part of my psychology
That offers me Psychosis
Acting as my main excuse for
My high in strong flight like Locust

Which is highly corrosive
Very ferocious to the brain
Which was already ****** like
It was the victim of a jailhouse train

Yelling bomb! bomb! On a plane
That's why I took the train
I couldn't be fixed by sigmand
Froud 50 dr Phils and a dr crane

But I swear I've been framed
By my mind frame no less
But no more either so I'm no more
Eager to fix it I guess ....

Seriously .....where the ****
is Ophelia?

I'm not in the mood to be
Serious or Make valid points
Or debate social issues
I just wanna anoint

To cleanse the emotion
And see what comes out
And hope it's not insecurity
Self pity or self doubt

It's hard saying help
It feels like a dogs yelp
Perplexed while still vexed
I can't figure life out

Or what it's about
Will I ever feel success
How can I relieve the stress
And achieve my best

When I believe my death
Is right around the corner
So many feelings bottled
Up inside I could be on hoarders

I'm a *** can u spare a quarter
Hi, hitman? I'd like to order
Can you shoot me lucky number
7 times it seems I'm out of order

I'm outta order? Your outta
Order!
This whole ****** poem is
OUT OF ORDER!

Please excuse the obtuse
Blown fuse I'm ok now
Stupid ****** what do u mean
U dont take pay pal

**** if u want something
Done right u gotta do it urself
I have no chance in life if a well
Liked success hangs himself

With his own ****** belt
So what chance do I have?
At finding happiness  I know
It sounds bad cuz I'm a proud dad

But that can't fix all the
**** malfunctioning inside
I'm so use to life ******* me in
The *** Ill probably go to pride

Part of my soul has died
The other parts like why ?
Why the ****** hell did I
Survive, I hate being alive

Even the devil wouldn't
make A deal and take it
And all I wanted was some
******* and to look good naked

I'm definitely not gods favorite
Even my parents seem to love
Other kids more than me,
ashamed their kids ******* up

But i wouldn't be if I stopped
Huffin gas and glue
Or unexpectedly had a child cuz
My birth control was Mountain Dew

Who knew that myth wasn't true
Maybe Santa's not real
Then my psychiatrist asks with Condescension
"how does that make you feel?"

I felt caged young like veal
So I conceal all the things
That add to the pile that will
All help when I explode and squeal

Like the pain is too real,
To live through anymore
Hearing countries going to
War and we talk like a score

Is being kept when both wept
When soilders on either side
Fought for their believed and
All that's bequest is bein denied

Being alive to see what survived
If his cause justifies it
So his future he may devise it
But his destiny defies it

Don't cry ****, your eye dry it
Don't be blinded by sadness
At least he gets a piece of peace
Ours is fake like an Easter rabbit

Live in his honor, less a maggot
And more patriotic
Comfort to a fool is a promise
To be honest dont me honest

I rather live thinking I'm ok
And die In surprise
Then be told my fate holds
Deaths cold hand that slides

Over my shoulder knocking
Over the chip
Which I woulda ate but I was
Saving it til I had some dip

I can't seem to get a grip
******* the exception
I give Too much information
On occasion it can't be corrected

Cuz my brain has rejected
The original factory settings
I know what the yellow and white
Stains are but blood on my bedding?

What's going on, something
Is seriously wrong
I been menopausal all my life
Oh well who cares I guess, yawn!

I'm growing tired here's a song
That's when I put country on
To have a cohesive vibe with
The depression comin on strong

Ouch I sat on my ****
Solving the mystery of blood
I didn't know ******* ripped
So easily...HUrry get me tongs for my ****

I seemed to have lost my thong now
too..But lost... never gone
Sing about that sisqo ....
where's the crisco I'm goin deep and long

The Hail Marys of retrieval
The most uncomfortable evil
But my fingers are ******* lucky
.....According to my ego (wink)

That was a good line people
Even if it was about my **** hole
Oh **** ....emergency evacuation
Someone get me a soup bowl

No seriously it's crucial
There's no loop hole out
Now there's this!.....high blood
Pressure, *****, **** itch, and gout

Otherwise I'm in perfect health
This poem has been a blast
So much depth, so much honesty
All wrapped up in.... class

Cause naturally I just have
That kind of suave demeanor
In Corduroy pants and a wool cardigan
While I listen to weezer

Lol I sound like such a wiener
Or...ahem.. winner if you will
Cause I hear what I wanna hear
And chances are... I always will

Cuz I'm idiotic neurotic and
Making constant deposits
Of elegant,to be eloquent,when  
i refer to the skeletons in my closet

Please... step into my office
Cause your ****** fired
Why is the crack I been smoking
Making me feel wired.....??