I WAS AT THIS PARTY IN WEST OMAHA WHILE I WAS IN COLLEGE AND I REMEMBER THINKING THAT THIS IS WHAT COLLEGE IS LIKE

a door is
meaningless without walls
a door is
only a door when it can be opened
and walls are only used to make our universe
more cozy
on one hand
i am freezing
on the other hand
it is more than likely the same temp
unless you have one hand
in the oven
or on the sun
or is the devil
or your arms are miles long experiencing different climates

i wrote this poem
about blowing smoke
out of my brain

my brain is for digesting
or my brain thinks it knows what love is
or gets sad when love stops being
what it thought love was

and then there is the me laughing
and there is the me who knows things
and there is the me who wishes he was still
a little boy in a small town throwing rocks
in the alley at cans and things that sound like cans

and i want to be so rich
and i want to see the entire universe
and i want to scoop out my skull like rainbow sherbert

one
color
at
a time

and without these glasses
my eyes wont slowly get worse
and without these glasses
i wont break my glasses
and without these glasses
nobody could ever call me four eyes

and if they did

i would not understand why

anyone would ever
want to hurt
me

so i hide in a closet
or just shut doors in my brain
turn off all the lights
and it gets cold
or warm
who knows

i shave my beard sometimes
i remember the first time
i shaved my beard
i went out into the living room
to see if my dad
would
notice

LISTEN:

i shout
or i am shouting
in distant galaxy far from every heavened spirit
can you hear
my falling
in the forest

i look like an aging human
so lost in my own voice
to forget that i am about to die

time is
ahead of us

who cares if your husband is honest
YOU ARE NOT YOUR HUSBAND

but one day
everything will unlove
and the walls will fall down
or be built
or think about an axe chopping wood
for the rest of time
like
there are all these
trees
that exist

and i am trying to understand
nothing
and when there is no more me
there will be no party
there will be no walls
no heat
no freezing
no doors
no gates
no pits
no fire
no gold

i am a noise
i am a whimper
i am a gust of wind
i am the no wind
still as an actors chest
when they are acting
dead
for the funeral

like kevin coster
in the BIG CHILL.