It's a Different Fashion Statement If You Wear Them Out Yourself

Someone told me the jeans I wear look pretty good.

It's my argument that they probably should.

They work hard and play hard: no fussing, no whining.

They don't dent or scratch, like a human's bed lining.

Ten years treated so tough you can't say that it's love,

'Til they fit like my own past, like a good baseball glove.

(The best of both are near unwearable right off the shelf.)

It's still a fashion statement if you wear them out yourself.

Linguistic Engineer In Transition

I've heard governments say that they “neutralized” a man,

So what? They somehow turned him into Switzerland?

When people have to go, they go numbers one or two,

and don't people pass on when they've just finished passing through?

Nobody's dying anymore. They're just seeking palliative care.

They're economical with the truth when they describe what's really there.

I've heard people “spending more time with family” complain about it.

I've also heard of people in “adult relationships,”

Which just sounds like an acquaintance with anyone adult,

So if I don't get your meaning, I don't see how that's my fault.

Say That I Remembered

I could never say that I remembered every detail;

A lie I could never commit

Grew from truths I could never admit,

But the details, elementary as they are,

Are the sharpest, and they cut.

I remember the way your eyes and face changed,

Ran to the extremes of the spectrum

Whenever I said something that you liked

Or something that you really didn't.

I remember that your lips were hieroglyphs,

A hundred shapes that meant two hundred things.

I remember all the places we used to go,

and that our hands, also, were travel buffs.

Oh, the places they used to know.

While I know that we can never go back,

The mind knows many more directions

Than are imagined in all your science.

Do What You Want

You can do what you want and refuse what you don't,

and I'm free to argue, to ask why you won't.

This is no proposition enstringèd, no date.

It's just an excuse to relax, stay out late,

Somehow separate this from your six other days.

You'd do best to get out, since you can't get away.

You see all of the drawbacks, and none of the rewards,

Or maybe I'm just bored.

Love, Factually

Love is about a person's flaws.

Love is like having a superpower

That is actually a dangerous disadvantage.

Love is about disregarding rational thought

While making permanent plans.

Love is having a ready-made excuse to relapse into self-hatred

After doing anything interesting or impulsive.

Love is about compromise, forged by quiet desperation.

(According to the Gospel of House,)

“I love her, therefore I let her keep her socks on.

If that's what love is about, I don't want anything to do with it.”

...And Spit In The Other

I wish I remembered our how-to-be-friends.

I wish I could just randomly see you again.

I wish I remembered where I remember you from.

I wish I had more to say to you.

                                                Guess I'm done.

When I Was

I remember when I was intense,

Rather than indifferent.

I remember when I was prolific,

Rather than pedantic.

I remember when I was prodigal,

Rather than pedestrian.

I remember when I was fun,

Rather than forgettable.

I remember when I was creative,

Rather than coasting.

I remember when I was hoping,

Rather than moping.

I remember when I was hungry,

Rather than gluttonous.

I remember when I was rounded,

Rather than rounding.

I remember when I was gallant,

Rather than galling.

I remember when I was someone

Rather than nobody.

Those days had their moments.

When You Were

I remember when you were eccentric,

Rather than ecclectic.

I remember when you were inquisitive,

Rather than an inquisitor.

I remember when you were spontaneous

Rather than sensible.

I remember when you were sarcastic,

Rather than enthusiastic.

I remember when you were interestingly unconventional,

Rather than interested in the mundane.

I remember when you were cute

As a habit, rather than an occasion.

I remember when you were fresh,

Rather than frozen.

I remember when you were mine,

Rather than his.

Those days had their moments.

Liar, Liar

Lies are not the sovereign territory of words,

Nor are pants the only habitat of fire.

Indeed, I can feel my whole face burning

As I exert all of my strength

Endeavoring to smile like I mean it

In an attempt to laugh like I used to,

Testing the depths of my depression

and failing.

Why I Write, Part x+220: Maunder

My fingers maunder over keys

Or pen and page, which'er I please,

On pathless paths, in time's due course,

'Tween dusty, distant metaphors,

Or, if lonely lusts irony, then I bring together,

With whapping and womping, my horsehide and leather.

I suspect my doctor'd think it best

To give my restlessness a rest.

Awkward Situation IV: Recipes for Mixing Metaphors

My pen bleeds, and in lieu of pain

Cries that all the world's a page.

So, most unplagued by inspiration,

Instead, I'm sickened with frustration,

Which, having youth dilute with age,

Grasps at substitutes for rage.

To be paralyzed by punctuation

Makes an awkward situation.

Words Fail Him

I am the writer whose words fail him,
Socially illiterate in many situations.
I would give you a handful of mine,
But they always slip through my fingers
To dissolve in a volume of wasted time,
and I seem to have been born without a filter.

13 inches – Superior design – full grain leather

I do not, as the rule, use the word “love,”

But in this case, a cow gave its life

(and did not save its hide),

Several strangers in the Philippines gave their time,

and an unlikely row of sewing machines

Gave needles and whirrs and an overworked wheeze,

and now, when we play rough, you sound like perfection.

You're just (in)animate enough for a connection.

Thin Red Line, Pt. 2

There is a thin red line

Between being dead and alive,

Although that line has to be thicker

If the direction isn't right.

Thin Red Line, Pt. 1

There is no thin red line between love and hate.

There would have to be a canyon, not a groove.

Well, actually, there's two,

Because friendship is the undersea vent

Between silence and agreement,

and enmity is the vast, dry expanse

Between unreasonable and indifferent.

A Pack of Pretty Lies

They told me I would never be the same,
and I don't think this is what they meant,
Because most days, I forget how to be different.

They told me that this would get easier,
But it only takes longer to recognize
When I look at something, and see her.

They told me that time heals all wounds,
But I don't think I've gotten any better.
It's just that no one plays our song anymore.

I Am Bender. Please Insert Girder.

Science is slowly sliding to the conclusion

That free will is nothing more than an illusion,

and I suppose that I might agree with them.

Every time I kind of want to do something against my nature,

My brain goes into vapor-lock, and I just kinda sit there.

After about the first twenty minutes,

It starts to get slightly less hilarious.