All of Us, Together

There is a ceiling fan twirling somewhere
Slowly circling around and around
And a little child me watching
As tears dry on his face tracking
Down his temples to his hairline
And he thinks about the place deepest inside his heart
This all-white room where everything is safe
And no one can hurt him
And he lets the ceiling fan take him away
And he is breathing


And at the very same time
He is breathing
With a slightly older me starring into the distance
On a summer night
With the window open
In some trailer
In the middle of a wheat field
And he is looking out
All the way across the grain
At the one street light in the distance
Shining on a country dirt road
And wishing with all of his heart
That one day he would be in a great big city
Where the lights outnumbered the stars
And he is breathing


And at the very same time
He is breathing
With a teenage me
Blooming
And discovering
What it looks like to run in the moonlight
With a series of women
Howling and dancing
And scratching at the earth
And leaping across stages
He is breathless at how wonderful it is to worship Dionysus
And he stops

He watches the ladies of the night
And he tears up
And he is breathing


And at the very same time
He is breathing
With myself not so long ago
Crouched down in my shower
While my life crashed around me
And the tears mixed with my shower water
And I watched both of them rush down the drain
In ways I couldn't reach out and stop
So I watched
And I sobbed
And I called out for my father
And I prayed to my Gods
And I stood up
And the me that is somewhere still in that shower
Is forever standing up
In slow motion
And he is breathing


And right now
They are all breathing with me
And you
In this moment
As we ride at night in a cab through the city
And I watch the yellow light behind you
And the reds and greens and blues
Dance across your face
I lean in to kiss you
And I am breathing
With you and I
At the same time
In the shower holding one another
While the water
Washes over our kiss
And collects in between us
And I realize I have found a way
In this moment
To catch the water
With you
And I breathe
With you and I
Holding one another
After my burlesque show
Among feather boas
Corsets
And the applause of the ladies of the night
The bacchants who surround us
And we are breathing
In bed
Squeezing one another
While the city lights dance outside of my window
Too many of them to count


All of us are breathing together
In a chain
That links all of myself from then and right now
Right this moment
To the future
I feel your past
I feel the yous of then
Present right now
Breathing with all of us together
And they are breathing into my ear
As you hold me
They are reaching my skin
After a journey so long
It will take the rest of my life with you
To hear all about it from you
It will take a lifetime with you
To catch all of what you have been through
Inside my ear as you whisper your stories
And the yous
Of your youths
Touch me
And mine
But take your time
Because I am enjoying the way we are mixing


You all are warming my lips
As you kiss me deep and our breaths
Are mixing together
All at a time that we share

I Find Myself

I find myself
Trying to not listen to videos
Of you singing to me
More than 20 times a day
I find myself
Never having the self control to
Follow that
But follow you
Follow your voice
Instead
I find myself smiling
So much
I forgot what it's like to hide my teeth
I find myself
At 8am
Dressed and ready to go
Asleep at a reasonable hour
Because I need to see you
When your eyes are open
More than I need to see the moon
I find myself looking up
And looking forward
Waking up
And moving forward
Finding myself
Along the way
As I follow your voice
Up the road
To where you are
Moving toward you
Every second
Picking up pieces
Of myself
That I'd forgotten about
Or that I am discovering
Along the way
So as to tie them all together
In a presentation
A gift
For you.

I Could Taste the Stars Again

I was clinging to my pack of Marlboro red 100s
Not even actually
But the off brand
That smelled even worse of baby shit
And bad choices
I stood on them like a crutch
Buckling under my entire weight
I reached every night for NyQuil
And coffee
Because as much as Courtney Loved her uppers
Ms. Garland needed her downers to sleep
I got sober
To roam the streets at night
Lookin for trouble
And to give up on love

And then oops one day
Yes
Oops!
There you were
And the lights at Moulin Rogue
Turned back on
And somebody plugged the stars back in
And I remembered why the hell I got sober in the first place
And I brought to you my NyQuil
My caffeine tweaks
My John Wayne smokes
And told you how they made me sick
How heavy they were

You just stared at me
And commented
How lovely the stars look tonight
You said
How beautiful all these lights
And I looked up
With you
And dropped my chains
Watched my cigarettes turn into
Fingers
Free for the touching
Watched my coffee become
The second best part of waking up
And my NyQuil pour upside down
Into the sky
Who needs it
I said
With all these stars to sleep under
All the while you looked at me
Never asking me to change


But I could see in your eyes
How wonderful it was
To watch me take a deep breath in
For the first time in 9 years

I could feel the night in my lungs
I could taste all the stars again
I was falling in love with you
And then with a smile on our faces
I put
Myself
To sleep

Introduction

I never even bothered
With the question asked of so many poets
What would it be like
They ask
To discover a brand new color? 
To hear a sound you'd never imagined before? 
Why bother,
With such silly ideas 
I said 
When so much to discuss
Is already loaded and cocked
Ready to shoot out of our pens
Onto the page. 
I've come to understand
In these moments
Since I've met you
How beautiful that question is.
Coming at it backwards.
Because what is a color
What is a sound
But a feeling, waiting to happen?
Here it is
This thing I've never had the pleasure of feeling before
Pouring straight into my ribcage
With only a hint of permission
And wrapping around me on the inside
Promising me. 
Promising.
And I know now why poets have been asked
What of new senses?
It is so we could tell you
This is what.
This is me opening up
With a hint of permission
To a thing I didn't know 
I was even allowed to have an opinion of. 
This is me 
Staring 
With open eyes
Calling upon a part of myself
I haven't used since I was a child
The part of myself that receives, without pretense
An introduction
To a brand new experience 
Accepting 
That it is a part of the world.
Like the first time I looked into a computer screen
The first time I realized 
If you look at the moon
You can see a landscape
The first time I stepped into a body of water
That wasn't a bathtub 
Or swimming pool
But an ocean
A river
A water of God
This is me losing a virginity
I had forgotten how to lose
To a force I had forgotten
Could be wonderful
Re-learning that the trade-
Virginity for Experience-
Could be fair. 
This is the sound of something I have never heard before
This is a color I already know
Looks good on me
Before I even look at it
This is what it looks like to introduce myself
To something that wants inside of me
As much as it knows 
I will want it inside of me
Once it is there.

Fly

The first thing you learn to do
When you get to heaven
Is fly