What St.Patrick Never Wanted

It's been almost a year

since he told her he was numb

and that she wasn't pretty enough to sleep with anymore.

She's been asking for honesty all this time

and he was sorry but he was "just being honest"

like it was the simplest feeling

.A feeling and an excuse.

What she always asked for

but never wanted.

So she sent her babies to her sister's

so she could be alone with the cold

and painted pictures of trees with leaves of purples and blues.

Trees you would never see in real life,but made beautiful pictures.

She searched through her months, trying to pick out the lies like they were berries

hoping all it would take were eggs, flour and sugar to bake them

and turn them into something sweet she could choke down.

Because her mouth tasted like metal

and every kiss before this hung on her lips like someone desperate to jump off a bridge.

He said he didn't leave for three reasons

the last one being he loved her.

But it was the last one and it was like it wasn't a reason at all.

The paint made her calmer and by the time he came home,

both the tears and the trees had dried.

They both said hello and he followed her to the bedroom.

Apparently she had gotten prettier in the last few hours

or he wanted to fuck out the honesty.

And its been almost a year since she took that picture.

That black and gray one where her eyes still stained with old mascara even days later

and she looked broken and sad.

But broken and sad makes great art so at least she could get art out of all of this.

It took a rusted city and a summer

to make her smiles come easier

.And he tells her he loves her

and its the first thing he tells her now.

His skin is warmer

and her hair is darker

and it seemed to make all the difference.

But she still counts the number of times they make love in a week

and tells him what a great man he is b/c all men want to feel like winners, she heard.

She makes his favorite meals and listens to his electronic music

hoping it all stops him from feeling numb.

Because she can't be a lie again.

Something he's settling for because of the mess it would make if he left.

A terrible mess.

Your Old Diary

My favorite nights are staying up with Anna, with music, with Southern Comfort and with adderall still coursing through us. Those nights made it seem like everything mattered. Everyone was beautiful and everyone was fun. And for some reason, those nights made us want to be with one person we never could. One person we've never met but we felt such a strong connection with. This is my Uncle Frank. He took his life because of the absence of love and the presence of drugs too many years before I was born to even be a distant memory, but we have his diaries and through them, we know him. So we stay up until 3 or 4 or 5, not worrying about how tired we'll be the next day. We read out loud his entries and talk about how brilliant and creative and how much like us he was. How his ideas and his brilliance should somehow live on.

I was sitting in Phoenix coffee shop with stolen moments for myself and I started to think about Uncle Frank. He deserves a great poem and this is a start, but I want to work hard to write a better one someday.

We read a dead man's diary

and thought about how we could bring it to life

so's not to waste his ideas

b/c we wouldn't want to be wasted.

Turned into nothing but ink on paper.

Nothing but the result of acid and a diseased mind,

they say.

But that night made me realize

that night the drugs kept us awake

and brought us tears and laughter and dreams but no sleep

that we are the same.

We are all the same.