There was a great black and white ring

around the moon tonight

like a shift in space, a mushroom cloud as the sky exploded,

a ring of empty atmosphere.

I stood out with my father, who tipped his head back

and said: "Count how many stars are in between the ring."

One, two, three, four.

Maybe five?

I accounted for the few that

may have been so far away from our little earth

that we couldn't see their

faint glimmer in the ring.

"Each star is a day," he said, "and that is how many days until the next rain."

I laughed into the low desert sky. It never rains anything but fire here.

Even if there was only one star in the ring, it would never rain.

But I counted still.

Four days from the moon ring,

it did not rain.

I expect it was because of

the stars we could not see.

My father is the whimsical type. You would never know it

if you met the desert of his quiet, solid self.

But it is there, just like the invisible stars.

And I believed him, so I accounted for those stars unseen.

It was 147 days later,

he was gone and the rain was here.

I had spent those 143 drought-dry days waiting on the

invisible stars, the invisible rain.

He was right, he was always right. There is a great black and white ring

around the moon tonight,

there are no stars in between.

It will rain nothing but fire without my father.

And it seems once you leave,

you’re left out to roam

in a world full of people

that can’t find the way back

and the porch lights are no longer on.

One hot summer day

you’re just packing your clothes

and looking back at the trashcans

lined up in neat rows

knowing pieces of you are stuffed inside- time to let go

and the porch lights will never come on.

You couldn’t walk around

this new house with your eyes closed

and the empty, unfamiliar house smell

made you feel exposed

All the light switches did the wrong things, it wasn’t home.

and there were no porch lights to turn on.

Would she love you if you became

a different man?

gave up drinking, stayed in

one place at a time, revealed a

hidden jimi-esque talent for guitar,

learned french well enough

to get that guttural 'r' sound,

did your laundry twice a week,

fabric softener included?

would she be fascinated anew

by your sensitivity to

nature, your startling sense

of humor, and quick wit?

would she smile to herself

over the way you tip the waiter,

the poetic way you process grief, and the

fact that when you kiss her you

don't put your hands underneath her shirt?

the way you suddenly grow roots

that are meant to stay somewhere

be something finally?

or will you always, in her eyes, be

the man that you are-

low and grey,

a watered-down imitation,

a shadow ever moving.

I want you too close,

I want my guard down so you can ruin me

and I can run the streets displaying whats left of my chest hanging, saying

look who loved me, look who loved me once.

I want to make a big mistake getting

this close to your hungry face

I want you to

rot my teeth, burn my stomach

like the alcohol I drink

I want to stop drinking it when it makes me forget.

to remember is pain, but

it means you touched me and

any way you touch me

is good.

i like to stand in front

of the mirror

stand up/sit down/stand up/sit down

and watch the light die in my own eyes.

fasinating,

that buzz

of human consciousness before the deafening crack

the string

of tightness in our chest-

stretch stretch snap

the psychedelic colors,

my blood

like lsd bouncing blue blue black

bars open near me/how to win someone

back/convenience stores

open past midnight/symptoms of depression/places

open at 3 am/why does my

chest hurt/can you buy xanax online/map

directions to home/bars open near home/how

long is a direct flight to paris from la/what stops

vomiting/how to quit your job/what

is legally considered assault/how to learn

another language fast/why do my arms

feel numb/plane tickets to europe/how much

vodka is lethal/getting over someone/how to

start liking being alive/healing bruises fast/

how much tylenol for a migraine/best guide to europe/how to stop loving someone/best way

to change your life/tattoo shops near me/which painkiller is strongest/what bars open earliest this morning

all these years

of being alive,

and i am struggling to put something

to words, to express

whatever this

ache is. an untranslatable language,

who will understand?

all these years

to push it through

the pores of my

fingertips or

between my breathing.

i am tired,

so tired.

A friend once told me that several times throughout the day, we humans experience a form of pain that our brains register as mild enough that we just have to sort of quickly touch the afflicted spot to feel better. We call this pain an itch.

I wonder if my addiction is an itch too. The pain begins, mild enough at first. I rush for the closest, most preferable vice. And the itch goes away for a time.

What I want to know, doctor, is do humans really stop being itchy or do we just not notice it once the skin has been scratched raw? When will I stop desperately reaching for distractions to fill the time in between when I feel dead?

Better yet, doctor, was the itch ever really there or do our brains fabricate it? Am I the one causing myself to spiral to death and back like this, and it's all in my head?

And, doctor, what happens if we scratch an itch too much? How far can I go without being too far gone?

she was standing at the kitchen counter

cutting fruit with a heavy knife and

listening to the beegees,

she was caught up staring out the

window after something invisible

humming with faltering breath and

shoulders weighed down and

it made me wonder suddenly if

long ago my mother had ever been

something other than a mother.