To the girl with natural sex hair,
on your front porch
there, on the stairs
my two feet
two feet
in the air.

And I swear
I find myself in that
sometimes green
sometimes brown-eyed
stare.

She likes pina coladas
and repressed pain,
laced with years of silent sacrifice
worn into the letters
of her name.

I’ve sipped stories from her lips
and caught her tears in my hand,
but they’re so full of holes
like those in my uttered
words of hope,
but she smiles and that’s…
great
considering the home
she’s going home to
and the man
she’ll have to face:
beer-scented words spat
like a SLAP to the face.

I trace
every line in her face
and the sorrow in her skin so thick
I can taste
the tainted years.
Eyes like hers are too pretty to waste with tears.

I tell her she’s beautiful
cuz I know she forgets it.
Wrap her in displays of affection
cuz I know she never gets it.

You can’t tell from lookin’ at her,
but it’s not easy being poor.
You learn to treasure little things:
a locked door,
a soft spot on the floor.

Mommy doesn’t get paid to
sleep all day,
at least not alone
midnight wakin’ up
thin walls shaken up
with
mommy’s moans.
Must be hard living in a house with
five other people
and feeling
so
damn
alone.

We lay on our backs and count
imaginary stars
trading memories like
baseball cards:
her bruised arm for
one of my scars

It’s worth it when I’m
less like a boy
and more like a bank
collecting her two cents
for each piece of past I take.

It’s worth it cuz
she’s never told anyone that
she’s never told anyone that before.
Cuz’
she’s never known that someone could
hold someone like that before.
And when I do,
I speak the truth
and I make I tell her
she deserves
so
much
more.

Down the street
from the music store,
theres a white house
with creaky floors
and doors
and if you look closely, you’ll see me.
Me and the girl with
natural sex hair
me and my girl
there
on the stairs.

She casts her worries to the wind
and wraps me in her sometimes green
sometimes brown-eyed stare.
With her hands in mine,
our two feet
two feet
off the ground,
that’s an awful
long
way down.