Botanical Gardens

A weeping birch:
branches respond to gravity almost
like lovers,
Small leaves like fingertips
caress roughdirt skin
and form a dome
like the kind lovers make
in sheets
in solitude.
As I sit in the heart
of this, a small child almost enters --
he is afraid of what he does not understand.

The sun sets
the tree grows cold
I am reliving
fucking.
This tree reminds me of things I've only felt
a few times.

Soon I will go to the rose garden
and think about how I feel now.


written 10.11.08

Four Years

It's been four years of this
four years of waiting
counting drops of spilt coffee in cafés
feeling my cheeks flush when I realize you're not coming
and quickly hiding the embarrassment
behind the neck of a sweater.
I made the excuses
you probably won't bother to
for you, I understood.

Four years turning into sediment

Two years of wishing I was kissing you.

I don't think it was wasted time, and I try to believe it's not
becoming wasted time
You don't believe in wasted time, as you go from state to state
as you quietly wriggle out of the warm
night grips of boys
but where's our time going now?
Honestly,

Days

I do official work for the only ones that matter;
they're up there somewhere
dunno where regardless and

I NEVER STRAY
but that's self-employment for you.

Meanwhile

You're somewhere, running scared
from something, I don't think
you know what it is --
if you do
it's unutterable

We're all too serious for our own good
serious in the wrong way, obsessing
over archaic structures and the past, our past lives our lives are passing stop WAIT!

I think that Kant could tell me what to do:
he can't. Nobody
always gets what they want, NOBODY
ever knows what's coming next or what will follow in 100 years
or even what came before them even if
we read read read
compulsively eat
up text, study, wonder, FANTASIZE THEORETICALLY WE WILL NEVER KNOW THE KEY TO OUR OWN HAPPINESS BECAUSE ONCE WE ANSWER THAT QUESTION THEN WE MIGHT AS WELL BE DEAD. THAT IS THE END! ULTIMATE HAPPINESS!
IT CAN NEVER BE FOUND ON THIS EARTH
(only for a moment, maybe?)
(please)
(just let me taste it)

- - -

People always want things
but never what they actually need

can we predict our own need?
or is it like everything
else.

five letters become
the universe; today you
are my only thoughts.