Albany

If I close my eyes I can smell your detergent.
I can't ever find that brand.
My laundry never smells as good.

What the fuck is honesty
Seriously though
Who knows me?

Happiness is being terrified?
Big leaps, I suppose
That’s why they invented hanging roller coasters, I suppose

I would like to work at a gas station
And sip tea
And disappear completely.

I am the prison warden.
The inmates don’t run the asylum anymore.
There is a certain sadness to that.

The Lilacs Will Bloom Again

It's not fashionable to love this city. Not in winter.
New York you love, or you dream of Miami and LA;
Here you languish in roadside snow,
Resentfully bundled against the sharpness of the air.
Well.
I was a toddler here, in a little house on Vick Park A,
Before we moved to a quiet suburb to escape the bad schools,
The crime rate,
The busy street. And although my vowels never learned
The local flatness - in spite of the fact that
I have never seen a garbage plate - I am a son
Of these cold buildings and salt-veiled streets.
I have fallen in snowdrifts at Mount Hope Cemetery,
Clutching a camera spun with Kodak film,
On my way to photograph Susan B. Anthony's
Flag-spiked grave, and twice
I've donned glitter and white sweatpants
And glitter
To sing as a snowflake
In the Eastman School of Music's Nutcracker Ballet.
It's not love I feel for Rochester, nor shame,
But a kind of fierceness - even in January -
An unexpected loyalty or faith.

Tomorrow

Light finds an ecstatic stench
Beautiful Ruckus
Shadows ring the joy
Outside is only Darkness
Darkness extending in four dimensions

arms flail wildly
searching for bodies
for light, for heat
hoarding

The doors will open
the lights will go out
it's always the same

7 Attempts

I.

I used to tell the story of our first kiss as black comedy

But now I just say “who even remembers?”

II.

Your guard was up

I should have sensed

We cried and giggled in the darkness

And I should have seen it

You were safe

So fucking safe

I kept your reading

Its so fucking trite now I want to laugh at you

But there are tear stains on it.

And the top of the stairs in front of everyone.

And my cheeks red

And I should have seen it coming.

III.

Mortified by our act, I flaunted you

Which was more insulting, the revulsion I aimed at you, or that which I aimed at myself?

IV.

Sanctuary stairs wells and Basement Floors

How did you do it?

Even now I marvel at you. From my elder vantage point every action of yours was pure.

You toiled against me, against my insecurities. You pedaled hard beneath it.

I remember the color of wood on the kitchen table

And the cover of the the book you read your brother

And the corner of bathhurst and blore. And the apartment on 17^th and dupont. And buying cookies with you. And the way you felt when you hugged me for the last time.

In my dreams I write you a note telling you that I loved you the most.

In my dreams, you don’t remember who I am.

V.

“It was never you, it was me.” I say in passing

And you are too nice to reply sarcastically.

VI.

I was like a kid in a pet store.

But you were the Dog and I was the chew toy.

I would have followed you anywhere

Even after you spit me out.

VII.

You’ve shown me my weaknesses

And I hate you for it.

I’ve already ended it in my head

But if I let you fail

Is it possible to succeed?

Five Fourteen

If ever anything innovative entered our imagination

Dizzying displays of darkness daring to delve deep within us

Would we wrestle within it?

New is nervous. New never knows.

And anyway all anyone answers is always

“So? Someone sooner said something sillier, sexier, smarter”

Life loses luster learning limitations

Yet you yearn

Break Bonds! Be Big! Bully boring beyond its bounds!

Dull dies during displays of daring

Fortune favors the fearless, fun follows the free

Reforming regrets, we resolve:

We will wonder wider, wish wisely, warmly welcome all.

I Wonder

I wonder how much larger a rim is than the basketball it lands in.

That is to say, I wonder at what point it was determined the end goal of a game was challenging enough.

Each act has a threshold. The world is far more black and white than made for tv movies might wish you to believe. A light may be dimmed, but light is light, without qualifier. The threshold is darkness, pure and true.

Sometimes I will stand in the shower and pretend to cry. I shut my eyes tightly and clench my fists. As I let the water wash over my face I let out a small, stifled cry, the manifestation of a breath attempting to escape a restrained chest. Slowly I will lift one hand to my eyes to wipe away the water, but my face never dries.

I am willing to believe that each of us in unique. Unique means many things though. My car is unique from his, I might say. Unique how? Mine is blue, his black. Mine has a CD player, his has the distinct smell of cigarettes.

So how am I unique? Does my doppelganger exist, but with blue eyes? Does he like hiking? Is he a woman?

What if there is someone that shares every characteristic: here is our cd player, here is our smell of cigarettes. Must one of us fail and one succeed in order to maintain the cultural norm of uniqueness? Must my career path change to allow his to survive?

Sand

Driving through Sarasota, I almost begin to feel pity for those whose full foundations are stuck in the ground. Most buildings here base themselves with pillars of concrete, solid roots that seem to sprout from the asphalt parking lots, solid reflections of the abstract fears of the patrons of each business. The clientele of the earth-hugging establishments glare enviously upwards towards their loftier compatriots as my window passes by each panorama.

Walking along the beach at dusk, I think back to the stilted edifices as the shifting light makes the buildings’ pillars appear as legs, as if the buildings were simply resting and would, at any moment, get up and join our stroll. I point this out to my companion and she laughs, lecturing me on how anything as stiff and bulky would most certainly make a spectacle on the beach, slipping and sliding over the shifting sands. As we decide to turn back, I pause for a moment, and feel the sand beneath my toes and the waves lapping at my ankles. At that moment, I resolve:

I would rather face the insecurity and embarrassment of my choices and actions than remain motionless as the sands of my life shift around me.