Refuge

Every Time and Every Thing

I want to be someone you find in a bookstore
yelling and jumping and waiving my arms
fan-girling over some author or book you’ve never read,
one you’ve never even heard.

I want every time we meet to be the first time
I see you after a long vacation or years 
of going to school in a different state. 

I want everything to be a first edition holographic shadowless Charizard card from 1999. 

I want my reactions to be based on me finding this card at a garage sale for a quarter. 

I will hold the card in my hand
maybe even both hands
close to my chest
I won’t look at another table
I won’t pick anything else up
I’ll just go to the owner and give him a dollar
tell him to keep the change
I don’t care
then run to my car and cry.

I want you to be the one that makes me feel that way.

Lullaby of Death

It doesn’t wake you up in the night. It doesn’t cause you to slam on the brakes and return home. It doesn’t let you drift off into the night.

It keeps you from sleeping in the first place. It keeps you at home with your keys on the table. It tucks you into bed on the couch with your own fleece jacket and whispers the lullaby of death into your ear until you cannot hear anything else except the names of every dead friend you failed to remember when they needed you the most.

It isn’t only about forgetting. It isn’t even close to closure. It’s seeing him riding his bike or talking to him in the store even though he’s been dead for months. It’s more than just about letting go.

It is dying a little more each time someone says her name. And a wrinkle added to your forehead when you see her in some hallway where you used to go to school. And you know it’s just another day dream. You know it only seems real because you didn’t see her die.

Even at the funeral, you swore at anytime her hand could reach up and touch you softly. And with stale lips say “sorry” before you could say it first.

But that wouldn’t keep you from crying on the concrete church steps. It would just let you know that you’re not the only one who regrets.

I Am When You

josiahcoen:

I am New Orleans when you leave me
I will just regroup and rebuild
if I find myself in your path
I will just let you through again
and if you leave a second time
I will let you go
and if you never come this way
I will still call you home

I am a small town outside of Joplin
when you come rolling through
I will feel you call my name
I will feel you in my bones
beneath these basement doors
I will never see your face
but when you leave my house again
I will wish you never stayed

I am Seattle when you are sleeping
crying, West, and lonely
bright lights on the city docks
keep me safe from drowning
so I will cuddle deep with you 
in the pockets of the homeless
leave me there when you wake up
crying, West, and hopeless

My only featured poem.
I only like two lines. 

I Am When You

I am New Orleans when you leave me
I will just regroup and rebuild
if I find myself in your path
I will just let you through again
and if you leave a second time
I will let you go
and if you never come this way
I will still call you home

I am a small town outside of Joplin
when you come rolling through
I will feel you call my name
I will feel you in my bones
beneath these basement doors
I will never see your face
but when you leave my house again
I will wish you never stayed

I am Seattle when you are sleeping
crying, West, and lonely
bright lights on the city docks
keep me safe from drowning
so I will cuddle deep with you 
in the pockets of the homeless
leave me there when you wake up
crying, West, and hopeless

love poem

Something
about
a boy
or girl