paper cups

i couldn't tell the difference between

the late-teen, off-key singing in the back

or the radio.

then you,

laying like a tired queen on her throne

your feet pressing up the window

and your chin on your knee

thinking what situations we find ourselves in

you were laughing to yourself

you're still the only one who knows

the state that i was in

or the state that we were driving in.

pouring out of the car.

stumbling up your stairs.

waking up around four

to the sound of your father beating on the door:

"girl, that boy had better be gone soon."

oh, how disappointed he'd have been

my reputation as that boy will always precede me

in my conversations with him.

well, if thats what love really is

four drunk-as-fuck, tired kids

waxing our politics to the sound

of rain playing couplets

on the door awning

that won't come more than more than once

so don't wear your weary eyes out

like dixie cups attached to string,

from one best friends house to the other

we sing,

"will you come this time tomorrow?"

calm again

make your choice now,

are you still trying to figure out

your way out of this nowhere town

to stand on high or sink below

the benevolence of your childhood home

i know it's harder than it seems.

cause it's either ether or it's earth,

the restless intent to reverse,

to writhe in the lows and throes

of all you gave away.

i know it's harder than it seems.

what we worked for,

all of this:

the end result is comfortless;

calm again, but listless.

i know it's harder than it seems.

recall this memory you pushed back:

a young girl lying on her back.

is she cold, alone, or bitter still?

has she taken all she has to?

is she biting her tongue or biting a pill?

i know it's harder than it seems.

i still pass for the honest,

never the same.

you've rearranged the furniture,

but you still keep those same shades up,

never closed,

always open,

'cause you know that

all the light, all the love

that could filter in from above

will never keep you from what

you've always wanted.

(when you were young,

dumb,

and innocent.)

never forget what you've learned,

those theories of some men

that

you've burned and

tossed out,

fucked-up,

run out,

now you're on your way.

but it's never too late to explain,

so you kept silent while those liars

passed you by.

i don't know where you'll live then die in.

windwaker

vagabonds wait for time to fade,

then blame it on the western world:

"i know this is so much to ask,

it's just that these things happen too fast."

i'm sure your father knows this,

as he fathers

his apotheosis of,

"where do we find our own?

all i've ever known was home.

and when the wind just picks up,

i'm left in your wake."

"now, son, you've crossed the sea,

sailed beyond our history

and my stoic eyes."

for what do i owe the sun

for my son or my brother?

my sister or my mother,

who i left behind.

sail away from you;

sail away from view.

(so clean your hands of me

or decide my worth

but cut the tendon first

to prove what i will always mean to you

though i know not the name

that you chose for me

i'd like to think it was vast and radiant,

like all the waves

in your hair that i only saw

in old pictures

i never found

in attics lost to dust and fate

did he carve my face

in all his righteous deeds and worries

did he lie awake

and did he fake sleep

like a child or like a warrior?)

black omen

you built citadels in skies

to fake your own rise.

you tore fire from horizons

to steal your own red.

you cast your vigilance,

the worms claim

their dead.

standing on high with fate--

have we illuminated grace?

the blackest omen yet.

i saw it coming in your signal fires,

as the rich grew richer

and the poor expired.

there's a purity in form,

and so i questioned

the dichotomy in our

own essence.

but if i ever saw it,

if i ever knew its name,

then i know it's coming--

three hands on a single face.

and we were kings upon that,

we were kings on that day.

we were brothers in arms

from the print of your mandate.

in all, we fall

faltered and in course

altered.

opportunist,

this is your mess.

come danze di liberta.

lionheart

burn your tomes, boy, you've got it made.

you've got your arm stretched to yesterday.

keeping secrets wont seal your knowledge away,

so arcane.

but you keep it so clandestine

when i'm standing on the mezzanine

and you're hurling your soliloquies at me--

i'm not listening.

i know i've no part in your work of art.

all this pretension will pass you away

to lesser age.

now is your time to gather retribution,

standing like a harlequin:

"do your worst, darling."

playing atlas for transience,

a transient, in transit,

a love-fettered romantic.

old stories are written before they're made.

wait for a memory.

a moment of clarity,

parried disparity:

make your choice now.

anthemic

i've marked the map so you could find your back.

i've crossed "t's" and dotted "i's" just to stay tact.

tactfully assert their roles;

carefully narrate their goals.

where they go we will not follow.

there is no indiction of your worth, so

iconoclast, you speak out of turn.

outclassed, in turn,

we'll watch you burn

these manifestos out of reach

and communiques the public breached.

(private lives are others' now.)

your monikers will run their ground:

corpses rot,

and buildings drown

as the blood floods the gutters of our beloved cities

"cut the head before it speaks.

we are lying to the weak.

we are lions among sheep;

slaughter unfaltered."

pariah,

one year goes by

as your desire

only feeds mine.

sergio leone

patron, i know you've had this all planned out--

we are peons on oblivion's dime.

in sight, in mind, never run too far to find

what is

beyond your path;

beyond my sky.

so you chalked it up to truth,

but i knew

that there was more work to do

beyond

the plaza signs

plasma signs that burned bright

in effigy of the memory

of all the worn-out ways they raised me on

"pursue your happiness--you'll be content"--

all i ever wanted was happenstance;

all that happened was your fate.

and so we fall behind

what is beyond your skyline

rhetoric to praise progress

only befalls those who want it.

you swear to the sun you'll believe what you're told you foolish child now youre only half away from your bed you cannot create this and you've gotten by just to stop me from thinking that it's colder now than i ever wanted and i'm feeling the carbon torn down i know my limits i know my crown costs a dragged lake i'll fall asleep and i'll awake two days later with the old amends that i could never escape like "its time to get up" if being chosen for words means i know my limits and where i can take them but i i'm a garden of archery and apples discard what i pay for discard my limits i paid for what i can breathe out we'll guard our backs if we trust too much i know my limits i know where i can reach yet i'm at my own arm's length i know my limits i know how to reach them but i fall beyond arm's length