Not having any

Eating off plastic Rubbermaid lids
and drinking wine straight from the bottle,
using a cardboard box as an ironing board
and making cake pans out of tin foil,
using the one dishtowel until it refuses to absorb -
yeah, you might call it classy,
you might call it cheap
you might call it so pathetic
it makes you want to weep -
but me, I call it being a student,
I call it being a bachelor,
I call it knowing what your priorities are
when so much hangs in the balance of dollars
and nothing comes without a hefty tag -
just depends on how bad you want it,
depends on how mean you're willing to live,
depends on what you can make do and what won't do
the lines between the happy medium and the miserable few.

Is it wrong to kinda like being away from family
during the Christmas season?
It means less presents, less cooking, less pressure
to put on the show of "hey I'm getting by"
while guiltily taking gifts you know are worth
so much more than those brownies you baked the other day -
it doesn't hurt, once in a while, to be away,
to not have to say, "I'm doing OK"
or "school is great!" while knowing that they will never have it straight
what exactly you do, or are getting through.

That's alright, I'm not bitter or saying I mind
that I cringe every time I go grocery shopping -
it's honestly not that bad, I have it good, really,
look at all those who can't afford Christmas -
I just wish it would be the end of assuming
the financial plight of university students;
we're the rich ones, we're the ones who get to see
the end of a four-year's worked-off-ass degree -
while some will barely be able to scrape food off their plate
eating grain by grain the hard-earned gain of true poverty.

And I Said

So now calling on the phone is the OK thing to do
when I've barely gotten used to being happy in my skin alone
and you said that she misses me, that's right, I know she does,
and I said I miss her too, and it's true, I really do,
but what about this getting around the idea of missing
when it could be me and you trying to say the same thing too?

I liked hearing your voice, it reminded me of drinking tea at a glass table,
while pasta cooks in a metal pot large enough to fit your head,
and when it's OK to think of the future as endless doubts, end on end;
it still feels that way, I guess, but now I get to have those conversations in my head,
and try to give people the feeling that I am alright with not knowing when I go to bed.

And you told me I'd do well, as you always said I would,
I laughed at your stories - I've never said this, but you tell them well -
but, for the moment of silence that drops into the midst of familiar talk,
I was suddenly reminded of where this can - or cannot - go,
silences that, once, would be filled with "I wish I could see you" -
now a speechless hole in an already-wounded story.

I dislike liking you, I hate loving you, I wish it would stop.

Home

I wonder if those who know home
as a place will ever know the full meaning
of the word.

Houses, I've had many -
tile floors or carpets,
air conditioning or heaters,
duvets or body pillows -
all just material things shed
with each move,
which is why I've gotten so good
at ridding myself of excess.

Nothing follows me
if I don't want it to.

I came to think that home
was as changeable as seasons or years,
that the world in itself could be a home,
that anywhere is a home and will be a home
so long as I lived in it.

Now I know better;
because even without a house to call home,
homesickness, that little annoying tug
of longing on the heart
is real.

It took me awhile to know,
twenty-or-so years to see
that home is not a place.
Home is a space of feeling cared for,
loved, and smiled at,
it's the two-second warmth of hugs
and the just-so calling of your name,
it's the table where there will be a chair for you,
it's the two-minute goodbye that stretches to ten
because you just need every extra second,
and the promise that distance will not brush away
fondness or thought in the well-wished space
between people.

And so I have hoped to build homes
in the hearts of those who will give me space,
just a little room, all I ask,
where I will always be welcome.

Licorice

The roundish licorice,
blue pink purple
the ones covered in sprinkles.

Dad let me have them,
he preferred the squares.

I'm not sure why I bought the bag
when I know all I want
are the blue pink purple ones
covered in sprinkles.

No one's here
to have the squares.

I would tell Dad,
but I don't want him to know
that the squares remind me of him
way back when, so long ago.

Winter trail hike

White on white on white
and pindrops of liquid ice
pummeling gently the crimsoned cheek pillows
while breath, a mist-ical haze of dreamy perfection
rushes out in a flood of carbon dioxide and effort,
one more step, one more step, one last step.

As far as the ear can hear
the pitched whistle of mountain air
and the full stops of bubbled silence,
keeping at bay all else but the taps
of blood knocking on four-door heart
ready for cruise control:
step into footprint, footprints in footprints.

As after hours flurry along, around,
bobbing pricks of light in a caterpillar line
near the promise of chopsticked icicle fingers
warmed by miniature flames as they bring tea
to the breaking point of one hundred degrees,
while minus ten swirls thin tendrils into the door cracks,
begging to let winter in.