Come Find Me

I know you're out there, somewhere.
I need you now, in fear that soon may be too late.
We can escape the demons of our past that creep behind our backs.
When we are slowed by nostalgia, they catch up and grab our ankles, laughing as we fall face-first into the mud.

Let's outrun them, together.
No, let's grow wings and take flight. 
That will leave them no footprints to trace our escape.
Make them as lost as they made us when they cashed in their mortal state to become the ghosts that haunt our hesitant hearts.

Come find me, resilience.
I need you to reconstruct my severed soul.
Hope went up in flames when my fears grew hands and strangled me.
I need you to reinvent love, because all I know of it is falsities and masks and hollow promises. 

Poetry Stirred by Silence

I know you’re 34.3 miles away by road 

And 18 as the crow flies

But I haven’t talked to you in exactly 26 weeks

Which is astonishing because

Although there were only 47 days between 

The moment you first kissed my lips

And the moment I stole that last kiss from yours, 

I was 100 percent sure that we were soulmates

100 percent of the time we were officially a pair.

I still haven’t added up the reasons you left

And subtracted that from the number of times

You told me you’d never lead me astray

I think, if I divide that by the circumference 

Of the hole in my heart…

Well, the math gets too convoluted.

What have you done with my shiny?

This oasis never looked so thirsty.

I wished you to life during a meteor shower

Abundance never felt so empty

Until you showered me in the stones

That failed to fortify my crumbling heart walls.

You taught me that pain 

Is weakness leaving the body

Weakness is loving you from my kneecaps

With my hands pressed tight together.

Not one prayer escaped my lips

Until you told me you wanted to be alone.

Your emotions grew stagnant

Indifference settled into your heart

Like a thick onerous fog.

On your breath I smelled stale air 

That stillness when something dies 

In a deep dark corner within you.

Your cold demeanor sunk it’s claws

Ineluctably into my optimism

Twisted it backward

So I had nothing to look forward to

I had no way to look forward

Disoriented, no one ahead

Just the culpable ghost

Of your wasted promises.

Promises are baby teeth

Intended to gnaw at everything

Gentle and frivolous

But never puncture pacifiers.

Designed to last the early years

Then painfully fall out

Leaving a big awkward hole

Where a smile used to be.

It takes so much time to heal

For a more durable one to relieve it 

And even that new one

May grow in crooked.

I loved your snaggletooth

It tickled me from the inside out

To see it wildly disrobe

From your stoic mustache

Which disguised your faintest smiles.

I would twist every fiber of my integrity 

Just to see your smile clearly

To see those eyes ignite 

Crows feet reaching wide from your beam

Like arms outstretched for an embrace.

So when the weight of surmised loyalty

Became real enough to breach

The clasped hands that cradled our bliss

I crumbled like dirt onto your floorboards

Instead of spilling my tears feebly 

Like red wine on your pale carpet.

It took a knife fight of self-torture  

A forged facade of understanding nods

To forfeit my resistance to letting go

Without leaving my mark

To make your spring cleaning easier

To help you erase me completely 

Instead of putting you through the trouble 

Of counterfeiting a one-sided story

With bandages over the verses

That vilify your image

When your guests point and ask 

“What happened there?” 

I know you never told our truth to anyone

So I’m helping you grow into a better person 

Who doesn’t have to build a plinth of lies

Upon which your ego can mount 

To stand taller than your honor

I will allow your eraser to wipe me clean

From the pages of your life

I will allow your broomstick 

To jostle my stubborn footprints

Burn the poems and the postcards

I don’t care anymore. 

You’ll never know about the way

I fizzled and popped inside

Shaking like a hot kettle

Screaming “drink me, I’m ready!”

Urging you to sip from my internal tantrum 

Burn your tongue and say 

“I shouldn’t have left you on the flame so long

I regret it, it was wrong of me.”

But I’ll continue to fade 

Without kicking and screaming.

All my baby teeth are gone

And I’ve got a good man now

I don’t love him like I loved you

Because you taught me that being madly in love

Is an unsustainable trance

A rabid kiss that spreads through the veins

It gets stuck in the joints of your spine

So every time you bend backward

For someone you’ve just met

It hurts in more ways than one.

That’s how contempt becomes contagious.

That’s how skepticism strangles the imagination.   

I learned that cloud nine isn’t magic 

It’s made of ice crystals settling on dust particles

Too often stirred up by the restlessness of solitude

And let’s be real, honey 

Humans can’t build homes on that medium

They don’t sew bedsheets from heartstrings

Or illuminate exit signs in the confines of depression

My depression taught me 

True love doesn’t speak

I never told you how my body felt

The week it purged you

I knew it would scare you

I know it hurt you too

My heart disintegrated 

Into that empty space

It got molded that way

And now only fits into pieces

Opposite your shape

And I like doing puzzles

It sure beats doing math.

A ukulele song for his deaf ears

I Have Your Sweater

by Yours Truly

Farewell, so long

You slipped right out of my hands

I was hanging on for too long

'Bout time I changed my plans

I dove right into your charm

I love the way you kissed my neck

Thought we were written in the stars

So I hope you'll never forget

Oh, when you throw me out, you pull me in

Your foolish games I cannot win

So while you're living life all alone 

I promise I'll be moving on 

Seemed like I was in luck

You said you'd never lead me astray

Confessed your love while you were drunk

Guess I mistook it for honesty

Now I'm cleaning up your mess

I'll probably forget in time

And if I wished you the best

That would be a boldface lie

Oh, when you throw me out, you pull me in

Your foolish games I cannot win

So while you're living life all alone

I promise I'll be moving on

Your bullshit smelled like a flowerbed 

You winked at me and I lost my head

If I'd known that you were untrue

I'd still have fallen in love with you

Rebuild that bridge that you burned 

If you ever want your sweater again

But it won't keep you as warm

As the love that you didn't let in

Oh, when you throw me out, you pull me in

Your foolish games I cannot win

So while you're living life all alone

I promise I'll be moving on

Just Knock On The Spot

HURLING CROWBIRDS AT MOCKINGBARS (HOPE IS NOT A COURSE OF ACTION)

by Buddy Wakefield

If we were created in God’s image

then when God was a child

he smushed fire ants with his fingertips

and avoided tough questions.

There are ways around being the go-to person

even for ourselves

even when the answer is clear

like the holy water Gentiles drank

before they realized Forgiveness

is the release of all hope for a better past.

I thought those were chime shells in your pocket

so I chucked a quarter at it

hoping to hear some part of you

respond on a high note.

You acted like I was hurling crowbirds at mockingbars

and abandoned me for not making sense.

Evidently, I don’t experience things as rationally as you do.

For example, I know mercy

when I have enough money to change the jukebox at a gay bar

(somebody’s gotta change that shit).

You understand the power of God’s mercy

whenever someone shoves a stick of morphine

straight up into your heart.

It felt amazing

the days you were happy to see me

so I smashed a beehive against the ocean

to try and make our splash last longer.

Remember all the honey

had me lookin’ like a jellyfish ape

but you walked off the water in a porcupine of light

strands of gold

drizzling out to the tips of your wasps.

This is an apology letter to the both of us

for how long it took me to let things go.

It was not my intention to make such a

production of the emptiness between us

playing tuba on the tombstone of a soprano

to try and keep some dead singer’s perspective alive.

It’s just that I coulda swore you had sung me a love song back there

and that you meant it

but I guess sometimes people just chew with their mouth open

so I ate ear plugs alive with my throat

hoping they’d get lodged deep enough inside the empty spots

that I wouldn’t have to hear you leaving

so I wouldn’t have to listen to my heart keep saying

all my eggs were in a basket of red flags

all my eyes to a bucket of blindfolds

in the cupboard with the muzzles and the gauze

ya know I didn’t mean to speed so far out and off

trying to drive all your nickels to the well

when you were happy to let them wishes drop

but I still show up for gentleman practice

in the company of lead dancers

hoping their grace will get stuck in my shoes.

Is that a handsome shadow on my breath, sweet woman

or is it a cattle call

in a school of fish? Still dance with me

less like a waltz for panic

more for the way we’d hoped to swing

the night we took off everything

and we were swingin’ for the fences

don’t hold it against

my love

you know I wanna breath deeper than this

you know I didn’t mean to look so serious

didn’t mean to act like a filthy floor

didn’t mean to turn us both into a cutting board

but there were knives s-stuck

in the words where I came from

too much time in the back of my words.

I pulled knives from my back and my words.

I cut trombones from the moment you slipped away

and I know it left me lookin’ like a knife fight, lady

yeah you know it left me feelin’ like a shotgun shell

you know I know I mighta gone and lost my breath

but I wanna show ya how I found my breath

to death

it was buried under all the wind instruments

hidden in your castanets

goddamn

if ya ever wanna know how it felt when ya left

yeah if you ever wanna come inside

just knock on the spot

where I finally pressed STOP

playing musical chairs with exit signs.

I’m gonna cause you a miracle

when you see the way I kept God’s image alive.

Forgiveness

is for anybody

who needs a safe passage through my mind.

If I was really created in God’s image

then when God was a boy

he wanted to grow up to be a man

a good man

and when God was a man

a good man

He started telling the truth in order to get honest responses.

He’d say,

“I know.

I really shoulda wore my cross

again

but I don’t wanna scare the gentiles off.”

Gotta learn how to let you go

I sleeplessly woolgather 
You're my bittersweet muse
It pains me to remember
But I can't forget you.
You'll never lead me astray
Never find someone better
Love me 'til my dying day
Share adventures together.
Your spirit on the wind
Guided me into the wilderness
No promises to amend 
No trust to harness.
Like the dream you left 
So abruptly interrupted
I woke alone in a cold sweat
This heart now corrupted.
I love you, it's true
But like a rose and its thorn 
I hate you, I do
So forever I'll mourn.
These bags under my eyes
Have replaced your presence
But they don't keep me alive
Like the warmth of our romance.
Though my reason and emotion
Will be centered in time 
Your ghost stirs commotion
Your memory remains divine.

Have You Seen Me Lately?

I believed in true love

Until it stabbed me in the back

Suppressed me with contradictions

Lead me astray and beyond

You were amazing to me

A rudderless dreamboat

With sails of butterfly wings

And hummingbird feathers

My winds were destined

Straight for paradise

For heaven, for Loveland

I would sweep us there

If only you were strong

All I could do was love you

Like the tidal wave I was

Marveling from afar

But to swim you knew not

So we had everything to lose

Straight from the gun

We were two tumbleweeds

Rambling across the desert

And in all that open space

We somehow collided

B-lined for the highway

Bound to cause a car crash

Well you didn’t want to see

All the good I was to bring

And I preferred to muffle

The darkness in your depths

So we were always separated

By a barrier of ignorance

But you seemed much closer

When I wore those rosy lenses

“When you know, you know”

Until you realize you don’t know

Then I’m just standing there

With a dizzy grin and my heart

Outstretched in both palms

Naked to the flesh, vulnerable

As he draws the curtains open

The audience is howling

Like a hundred starving wolves

Well, the jokes on me

Because he’s in the front row

Holding up the laugh track

Foolishness arrests me

So I’m trying my hardest

To break down evenly

To become a pesky stain

On your creaking floorboards

Until there is no surviving proof

That we fell miserably in love

Then fell gracefully apart

Silence and Stars

You feel about as far away as all these stars out here tonight, and the eeriness of your disappearance haunts me with the same unease as the infinite nature of the universe. Really, love, you’re something cosmic to me, a collision between timing and bad fortune, and the aftermath was a shattered mess more uninhabited than the night sky.

I try to connect the dots to make logical constellations.

It’s all a puzzle fresh out of the box: pieces upside-down, pieces right-side-up, corners and edges scattered amongst the shuffle. I ache to build the framework, but is it worth it?

I’ve sorted the edges out from the rest, and started constructing the dream again.

Would you even notice? Have you buried some pieces deep inside you, where they can’t complete what’s inside me?

I look up at the stars again, this time with binoculars, but they only amplify the number of fragmented light particles piercing through the black backdrop.

Where do I begin?

How can I remind you of the constellations we painted when we were falling in love?

The sun set in haste, and adjusting to the darkness is torture.

In the end, when I’m in my loneliest hour and I hate what you did to me, I love you all the same. I said it out loud, because it slipped away too many times before. Because if I never told you, you’d never know.

I wish you’d fallen in love with me, too.