dream job

there is something so sacred
and tender about the strength
resting across your shoulders
that asks to be crawled upon,
and the broad plain of your chest
that seems so willing to be carved into.

i would like so desperately
to peel back your skin
and suck the juice
straight to your bones.
--to grip the back of your neck
and show you i am just what you're looking for

if we could get past the posturing
and the petty politics
i could make you realize
that when you look at me,
it is your knees that should be weak.
because i have the power to make you tremble,
to make you invite me to wrap myself around your torso
and squeeze into your ribs
until you beg me to never let you go.

no one at work would have to know.




anthony.

Originally performed on open mic 2/17/11
Originally written on 7/23/10

We slept side by side and woke up in a heart shape. My spine curved to accommodate the emptiness you could fill and your forehead arched to reach mine. With our knees touching and our chests sighing, someone watched over us and laughed inwardly. There was a whisper in my ear and I mistook it for an unconditional understanding of where I would always be. If it wasn't a definition left to the dreams that happen in the satellite hour of consciousness, I might not have to look upon that moment with such delicate longing. There was no backward or forward in time---only the complete conglomerate of some essence of one magic fitting perfectly into another, no desperation or wild rallying; just soft, light, content. The happiness of half open eyelids in an unbelievable, unremarkable miracle.

I used to struggle to tell dreams. The struggle to explain with painstakingly accurate detail the occurrences from another realm used to take me all day. with time, I have learned that my dreams were more fascinating to me as I saw them than to anyone trying to paint their own picture with my words. I slowly learned that the message to be found was not within the placement of the walls but the broadness of your shoulders. No, wait, that's not right, it can't be. I learned how to keep dream and sleep separate---where were we? Ah yes, my chronic obsession with talking about my intimate adventures of feathery dreams. So I rode a roller coaster right off the tracks and into the sunset where I found the dragons living in the glory of the blazing sun. (Your breath became the fire in my gut and the sleeplessness in my lungs.)

I was traveling over the snow and ice, over the highway separating us from realities and time. It wasn't a spark that came from your hand as it grazed my cheek but a fresh tenderness. I felt a renewed wordless something and it spread from your fingertips to my depths. There was an unimaginably large grin on our faces that started in my eyes and spread to your feet. (Or was it the other way around?) My eyelids wrenched my sight back to the road and then suddenly I was awake. I heard a far away, familiar voice scolding you and I wiggled my toes remembering the sensation of your touch without any contact.

Laying in bed and continually recalling the memory you traced into my skin will not bring me closer to any conclusion. I've grown older in such a small amount of time, all I have to do is close my eyes and I could be back there, wherever that may be this time. Now the problem is not that I am scared of tomorrow, but that yesterday and the fantasies beyond dance out of reach and it seems less pertinent to mutter any yearning for them to return. It was never about how far I could go but how long I could keep it.


Originally performed for slam competition 2/10/11
Originally written on 4/2/08

The Sound. (Part 3)

I tripped over my own shoelace while I wondered what you were staring at. And it made me frustrated at the time that you didn't say anything, but only now do I realize you were trying to tell me with your eyes.

And talking without listening is a way to say you remember the past instead of hearing me now. Because losing that small anchor you had means that you cannot go back, even when you know the truth.
The places and people and things, all these proper nouns (now-ns) you hold in your heart, are long gone outside of you. Everything you have seen will live in you for as long as you have loved it and continue to do so. You cannot be lost from it. Not ever.

But it seems that no matter how far across the world I reach, you will keep looking at something else, at some other warning sign. And still, even in this isolation, I hope you feel all the warmth I have for you. I want you to do and get the best.

I hope, someday in a fairly distant future, I may be allowed to speak at your wake or throw dirt on your coffin. And then I will know how just peacefully you rest.

Originally performed on 1/27/11

Originally written on 3/29/09

The Size. (Part 2 of 3)

I run into this kind of problem all the time. I cannot sleep at night because I oversleep in the morning. Or perhaps vise versa.
The silence shared with one person is screaming about sadness while a loud concert with someone else is so peaceful.

It's just the little things you have to really watch for, all of them can speak in echos that count frequencies in the thousands and depths that no one has the strength to see. The way you can miss someone so new to your life or feel the way a memory plays out even when the sensation has passed.

These are just the small parts that speak so loudly. So when your eyes splinter your vision into a million sights and chairs become mountains, you'll learn to navigate your way to the shore and calm yourself before walking away again.

Originally performed on 1/27/11

Originally written on 3/29/09

The Shape. (Part 1 of 3)

There is something clear to me.
Part of it is that you haven't gotten it yet.
Another part is that I see that you're not ready to, but you want it.
I wonder if you have this clarity in a different way, though. Like seeing what you know I'm not ready to see.
It is a shame this misunderstanding is actually an inability to communicate something so subtle and so obvious.

When it comes to it, there are feelings and motions that I cannot begin to narrate so I make do with what I can. In the meantime, I hope that someone will pick up on the subtext of it all.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to know telepathy. I want to speak in measures and notes and heartstrings. I wish you could feel what I am feeling because I think it would mean so much more that way.

Originally performed on 1/27/11

Originally written on 3/29/09

Compulsive

I keep checking the mail.
Looking for a package I know will never arrive, because no one is going to send it. But I just keep checking to see if the courage has been gathered for anyone else but me to shout out words into the rain. I'm singing out my life story and I'm wondering if anyone can hear me. And I'm pretty sure I'm being heard, but I'd like someone to shout back and tell me they think I'm doing well enough and could be on TV one day. I'm blasting my radio with my favorite song and I'd like to see if anyone else will make a fool of themselves with me. Because I'm dancing like an idiot in the supermarket and I'll always be doing funny things if it'll get a smile on someone's face.

I keep going out of my way to make a scene. And maybe it's not the best idea I can have, but I'm digging my nails in until someone screams out with an actual reaction. I'd like to hear a response filled with opinions and thoughts. I'd like to know if my being forward makes others uncomfortable or gives me freedom. My freedom to do the extraordinary will always be a free invitation for others to join in.

So when I ask what you thought of what I did, it isn't because I want to hear praise. I want to hear you. So come grab my hands and dance down the dairy aisle with me. I want to feel someone else screaming lyrics in the car seat next to me, I want to lose my voice between the raindrops. I want to open the mailbox and have something outrageous come flying into my world.


Originally performed 1/20/11
Originally written on 11/12/06

common knowledge

I am mining in my history to find that simple nugget I can sell to someone. Perhaps I can just keep trading up and find something worth a lifetime of searching. It doesn't have to mean a thing to anyone else other than me, so when I find it, I'll know.

But until then, I've just been looking at what I've done. I hope that I can uncover something that was accidentally great or subtly indicative of genius. I'll bring it out into the light and expand upon it. Or maybe just show it off to people who haven't seen anything like it before.

The truth is, I won't find silver or diamonds in my history, only rackety old buildings filled with dust. In all reality, and all realities, those places are abandoned for a reason. One cannot create a masterpiece by piecing together one's individual failures. The past can only teach you, it cannot build you.

There is no possible way to make gold out of cobwebs.


Originally performed 1/13/11
Originally written on 10/12/08