BONFIRE ENGINE YEAR

On the last day of December your knuckles
rolled across my threshold
like the heels of five tribesmen
kneading the dirt around a fire. 
I invited you in
with no wristwatch on my wrist to watch
I entered this one night stand off
with you;
bonfire engineer. 
Your smile got caught
in the savory jam of telling the truth.
You lent me your ear
and your sugar
and we made sweet the small talk
while your encouragement of these very words
spread through the hallows of my dusk
to the brisk self-deprecating tips of my nights.

You built a tree house in my chest.
We climbed inside
whenever we thought the sky was falling.
Remember? All the UFOs?
Turned out to be tire swings and chandeliers
and a purpose carved from the same wood
we knocked on in effort not to jinx ourselves.
You said, "I think you meant porpoise.”
I said, “Same speed, whatever,
hang your hat, take off your coat, stay a while.
Let's take a meteor shower
and allow this breeze to spring
through all the branches we climbed to get here.”

Our, dare I say, love
was a bachelor pad with mismatched wine glasses.
We drank our weight in flood warnings.
We drank our Last Supper
when you fulfilled your own prophecy by carrying me
across puddles you must’ve thought would shrink me
into something wicked
small.
Giver of the piggyback.
Tender of the bar.
Fighter of the firefight.
You came into my life, ignited
like lightning deciding where it shines and splits and strikes—
match made in a bonfire pit.

We met in a rainstorm.

I pushed my teeth into the air
and said taste
this sermon
was punctual enough to arrive
with all of its deities in order.
We’re both smart enough to recognize
today was an abnormally good succession of faces
not looking away for distractions.
I showed up
pensive and growling
at the way my hair
sometimes makes it look like I'm trying to flee the scene
but I'm not
I'm trying to grow into it.

Don’t mistake my hibernation for laziness
there’s a difference between too fast and to fast.
We haven’t even made it past the formalities
and I’m already wondering
how many weeks of winter I'll endure
to prove to you that I
can dig myself out from under all your avalanches
and still find the strength
to astonish you with the weight of my existence.

I've been here before.
I know your type.

I know the remarkable resilience of your touch
and the persuasion of your holidays. 
I know how long you'll last.
I know the cadence of your calendar
is the most attended twelve-step program
I know
if I press my presence into your pregnant pauses
then you will initiate responses and invent yourself
in picturesque night sky dotted with the empathy of infinity,
you will unveil yourself in skyline, in breeze, in raindrop.
In your fall.
In your spring.
You will punctuate your promises
with euphoric upswings—
changes in season
that leave men like me
dancing in the rain for rest
like we’ve seen a ghost.

Still I resolve.
On the last day of December
I give into the idea. 
At midnight all the carriages reset and we start anew.
Blank page. 
Fold over. 
Cold turkey.
I quit.

The old aphorism says that the definition of insanity
is doing the same thing over and over and over again
and expecting a different result.
By default then, I am insane. 
And tired.
And I have not yet learned
the difference between exasperation and in
spiration

until your scent
traveled through me like vapor rub
citrus tango
melon-Cali-flower
with hints of cold November rain
when you broke the pulse of thirty-four muscles
and said,
"This ends badly."

I know you have yet to stand still
long enough to recognize your own stability
so the idea of falling
for me
seems scary
as I show no signs of security
just honesty
when I quote John Burroughs,
leap and the net will appear.

Don't you ever
just want to be the first train wreck
that becomes the metaphor for everything similar thereafter
just once I want to be coming in hot around the bend
with no desire to slow down
I want the want to jump the tracks
I want the want to skid
headfirst
downhill
tumbling
and broken
laughing at all my mistakes
not counting them
or comparing
but knowing I have come to value myself
as a depreciating asset
that might be worth less
but never worthless.

I
have fully redeemed
all of my empty promises

and I have learned
that sometimes
we must hold on
in order to let go.

So tonight
I pushed my mouth into the air
and said breathe
it's too early to think about tomorrow.
 

1/29/2015 - 2/12/2015