Tonight's Tumult.

My hands begin to shake and that’s how I know it’s starting.

Everyone else has gone off to be alone.

It rushes through me in an instant, like a freight train,

Manipulating my veins to serve as tracks.

What the hand tremblers forget is that this is a circulatory system.

There is no point A

And point B;

That a freight train traveling from A to B

At a rate of 10 miles a minute

May never meet the train that rushes

2 for 10

That my heart pumps to the click clack click clack

Of tonight’s frightful breathing,

That I don’t know who’s waking up tomorrow

But I hope that you do,

And I hope that if you do,

You won't forget.

You will know I was alone

While you slept soundly

After sweet teas

And salty records,

The wind outside is violent

But nothing pounds on my nerves so hard

As the sheets of rain that shroud my brain

When the clock reaches for

Single digit hours again.

They call this the middle of the night,

But that logic cannot hold,

It is the double-digit, ambiguous

Glass half-empty-full.

It is the end of the night.

When each hour stretches exponentially

After the decline of our central star,

I will take any excuse to end

The keen and crippling debilitation

In any attempted search for solace.

I beg daylight to reach for me

For his arms are always open,

I will because I must

Maintain my midnight

As the start of my morning.

I understand it was named for the middle of the night.

But I feel so much stronger

Than reasonable understanding,

I prefer my delusion.

This is the start of the morning I will wake to

In the brief seconds that follow

The epiphany of the trains

That shred my veins,

And how many more single digit dark hours will they waste away

In pursuit?

My pulse systematically distributes tension,

Returning always to my heightened nerves,

How long does it take two fright trains leaving from point A

To race along through each raw vein, capillary, and ventricle,

To finally realize that there is no point B?

How long will it take

To exhaust such determined conductors,

To convince my sentient body to cooperate

With my rational mind?

How long must it take

For tonight’s anxieties to realize

That their rushing and racing is futile?

Their efforts, existentially nugatory.

Only until the storm that encircles my head

Warns them,

It’s too rough to race on.

I remind my nerves,

You’ve had the time

I won’t allow you in scheduled waking hours,

Please, leave me unimpeded.

My eyes are dry

shadows dank and deep,

I will beg for rest

Until it swallows me

To sleep.

2012

Midnight Minded

In the vulnerable hours

Of the night,

I am frightened by much more

Than the dark,

There’s a certain curse

That falls upon you and me,

When the swelter of the sun

Descends behind the sky,

The moonless sky

Of my midnight mind

Extricates my repressed past

To the forefront of consciousness,

The anxieties and disorders,

Project a forecast

For tonight’s panicked nerves

Which during daylight hours

Are so easily concealed,

Which tonight,

Stand proud and pure.

My lungs deflate,

My blood grows acidic,

My muscles, taut,

My bones, arthritic,

I call to you

With no reply,

I wrack my brain

Still a starless sky,

I am prisoner

To my own raucous head

My frail, shaking skin,

My prickling bones

The sun rises

The alarm drones

The sun rises

After a scheduled sleep

With watering eyes

And baggage deep

I hear your voice

But talk is cheap

I think I’d rather

Be asleep.

2012

The Interim

Holding fast to my own empty sheets,

Never have I imagined with such clarity,

Felt so vividly in my head,

The touch of your hand on my cheek,

Or your fingers sifting through my hair.

Smiling and sighing,

Eyes closing, and fluttering

And catching
Mine.

Never have I missed

With such immediate intensity,

Never have I so vividly relived

A moment
I’ve not yet had.

2012

Intertwined

The scramble

To your hand

Left me blushing.

But you couldn’t tell.

I still can’t believe

Your smile

Could be even more lovely

In the dark.

Your scrunched up nose,

Your glowing eyes,

Your nervous giggling,

I never knew.

Your thumb shifts

And sends me shivers.

I can’t think of a thing

In all the world

But your skin.

Whose fingers were
Whose?

It is unimportant.

Now we coexist.

2011

Connotation

do you look at me and think butterflies


do you look at me and think rosy cheeks


do you look at me and think maybe


do you look at me and think comfort


do you look at me and think hands


do you look at me and think understanding


do you look at me and think tea


do you look at me and think future


do you look at me and think love

do you look at me and think possibility

do you look at me and think nausea


do you look at me and think sinking hearts


do you look at me and think no


do you look at me and think awkward


do you look at me and think secret


do you look at me and think silence


do you look at me and think metaphor


do you look at me and think past


do you look at me and think bitter


do you look at me and think mistake

you look at me and say nothing

you don’t look at me
at all.

Oh, but I know you can think.


2011

Through the Lens

I found a picture of you,


While she stood alone

At the Potomac,

And I adjusted my lens. 

I told a lighthearted

Sweetheart

Not to smile,

With dandelions

Encompassing

The outline of her figure.


Hands, arms, hair, shoes,

And all.

The air swung around

And waved her confused half-smile goodbye,

Before floating out

Over the water

And leaving her staring,

And laughing nervously.

The wind in her hair

And her hands

Was so beautiful

Amid a more vacant expression.

And isn’t that sad?

And isn’t that beautiful? 

A watched much thinner legs dangle


Over a wash that led


To a much more intimidating


Body of water.
Water that buoys


The boats that surround you


As you sail your way under the bridge,


And find your way home


Through my black and white lens.


2012

The Laemmle in Spring

The credits crawled up the screen at a constant pace.

Like bugs, scuttering across the lens of the camera that had been focused on the rushing river in the background.

We didn’t say anything. It was too soon.

There was something profound about the arial view of the rushing water between trees.

There was something profound about the trees that would create lace shadows on the shoulders of the family that had been picnicking during the final scene.

There was something profound about the unseen hat floating down the river.

We didn’t really move either. This was different than deliberate, though. Accidentally deliberate, maybe.

There’s the kind of being still that is associated with freezetag, where you actually utilize your muscles to keep still, and then there is simply not moving. There was tension in the arm that was underneath yours, but it took no effort to sit still there.

We didn’t even move our heads, or our eyes from the screen.

There was something profound about the silence that hung between us.

I couldn’t tell if it was the kind of comfortable silence you always hear about, because people forget that there are two sides to every interaction.

What may seem like comfortable silence to me could be awkward and tense and excruciatingly quiet to the person sitting beside me, especially because we were not communicating, even through body language.

Or were we? Since even stillness is communication? Since every twitch and movement, and every stillness in want of movement says something.

To me the silence was profound, though. I didn’t label it as comfortable or uncomfortable, but it stirred an unfamiliar feeling deep within me, and that, I think, is profound.

The mountains, obscured by running white words, and I were esoteric. I liked to believe the heartbeat in your fingers was in a way esoteric as well, but I could be idealizing again.

I could hear people shuffling out behind us when the words on the screen had transitioned from the names of the main actors to “Waiter Number One” and “Man on Bridge” to the titles of the songs that had played in the background of each scene.

The people behind us that had muttered a rude remark when I kissed you scuttled out, exchanging grumpy comments. I don’t think you heard them before, so I let it go. I think they provided another inappropriate remark as they were leaving, but this time I did not hear it.

The couple sitting to our left stood and left.

The man sitting alone a few rows in front of us put his headphones in his ears and walked out.

The credits ran on.

It got to the point where I thought they’d never end, but for some abstruse reason, I didn’t really mind.

And in my mind, they don’t end.

We just stay there, sitting with nothing but an armrest between our interlocked arms and fingers, as the credits roll up against the blue sky until all the blues turn to blacks and the words fade away.


2012