maybe I'm a little angry

Your eyes light up
when you tell me
about where you're going to go
that I can't possibly
hold it against you
even though
I don't want you to
But maybe I'm a little angry
that you're leaving me
but I never told you it mattered
You're putting on your uniform
strapping on radio and pistol
I say good luck, not what I wished
I had thought to say
before you leave and walk away
You're taking a little piece of me with you
and never even knew

know this

A drunk text at one a.m.

Too little too late to meet again

Still we say see you soon, not goodbye

Never was gonna be another try

Note and picture left at your door

Can’t say it doesn’t matter anymore

It always did and you needed to know

At least had to say it before I go

You were always a for now, not forever

There are lives out there for us that are better

But I can’t live with what I can’t say

Regret is so much harder, anyway

Who knows, maybe we’ll meet again

Who can say where, if ever, and when

Life’s crazy and hard but it goes on

And we’ll never understand it til we’re gone

But you should know you mattered to me

The way you laugh, work, play, and bleed

It’s not enough and never will be

Stay here for a minute and, damn it, tell me

Tell me I mattered to you, even just for a while

I don’t care if you mean it, go ahead—lie

4 a.m., your last text came in

Said sorry I didn’t get to see you again

My flight’s coming in and there’s no time left

When I get back, you’ll be long gone, I suspect

But before we say goodbye, see you soon, whatever

I’ll whisper this because I can’t hang on forever

You were never mine, I get it, I know

But if I never told you so,

Believe me when I tell you this:

Whatever the time, whatever the distance,

Of all the different lives we lead,

You were always my favorite dream

I never knew

I never knew

why you always go

running at midnight

with your music loud

over your footsteps

slapping the pavement

to drown out the sound

And how you would drive

hundreds of miles

for a buddy

you barely know

I never knew

why she loves you

and you sometimes love her

but not enough to say

for good

I never knew

when I found you that night

too many drinks in

to remember the sight

of me standing at your door

And the words running

along your chest

the stories

you never said

I never knew why

you never say that you care

but turned around in the dark

to pull me through

I never knew why

I can’t tell you that it matters

that you matter to me

because you will laugh

and maybe take

another step back

to keep your distance

like you always do

And I never knew why

you did that

until I saw these words

painted on your wall:

Fallujah will forever

be a part of you

And all of a sudden

I knew

don't say you don't care

you can lie to me
all you want
tell me anything you think
I want to hear
you can say it matters
when it doesn't
you can say you like it
when you don't
you can say you hate it
when you don't
you can say you will
when you won't
you can say it's over
when it isn't
you can say it'll happen
when it won't
you can say you'll do it
when you won't
you can say you won't do it
when you will
you can say you need it
when you don't
you can say you want it
when you don't

you can say to go ahead
when you know I won't

you can lie to me
all you want
but don't say
you don't care
because when I catch you
looking at me that way
I don't believe you

Beautiful The Way

Standing here with me

I think that you are beautiful

I want time to stop

For just a moment

Long enough to catch my breath

So I can always remember you

Exactly as you are right now

You are beautiful

Is it strange to say that

About a man?

Well, you are beautiful

Beautiful the way

Rockets bursting across the sky

Over Fallujah are beautiful

Showers of heat and light and color

Lighting the faces of the whole platoon

Beautiful the way

Red is beautiful

Running as a bloody river

From the kisses of death on skin

My God, you are beautiful

Beautiful the way

Holes dug in earth are beautiful

To find a little peace on earth

From incoming fire

That never seems to end

Beautiful the way

Reunions are beautiful

When you clasp loved ones so tight

You forget to let them breathe

You are beautiful

Beautiful the way

Tattoos are beautiful

Etched across your skin

Both stories and scars

Words and faces and the Corps

Inked all over your body

You are so damn beautiful

Beautiful the way

Memories are beautiful

Phantoms are beautiful

When they come to haunt you

With a fury night and day

And finally just at night

Beautiful the way

Loyalty is beautiful

The kind that means you would kill

For your battle buddies

Here or across the ocean

Beautiful the way

Smiles for distant things

Others will never see are beautiful

And silence when you don’t fill the space

With stories too dark to share

You are heart-breakingly beautiful

Beautiful the way

Opening up about hard-lived days

And carrying all this with you is beautiful

Absolutely

Utterly

Wrenchingly

Beautiful

If I Could Build a Bridge

I'm awake in the darkness
by what I can't seem to mend
Words echoing back
the way we had to end
Pain is a patient homemaker
And I cannot pretend
I don't remember you
Oh and now you are gone my friend
If I could build a bridge
over the ocean and spend
the days to walk over the rend
I would cross it by will
and bring you back home again

That One Letter

Trembling fingers dial grimy numbers on a pay phone that has seen countless hands the same way before. Cradle to ear, tongue licks lips chapped with dozens of spent words. Angry words, bitter words, curses, pleas, and assurances. Hand runs through tangled hair only just pulled back into a braid, a let's-get-to-work kind of style.
Hands hesitate at first over the smudged numbers, pressed only from memory and not from sight. Fingers want to dial that Old Familiar number and fall into deep reassurances and dark memories that have wrapped around her tightly before.
But not this time.
Comfortable and Nice drove her around in old cars and went to pleasant movies and on long hikes. There was always something Comfortable and Nice in the cold beers and late-night movie marathons. And then she always had Support when things fell apart into too many pieces and she cut her hands trying to put them together again. Support always had bandages and gentle kisses on palms to take away the sting.
But battered thoughts stumbled into Fleeting Glances and swept her off her feet in moments stolen and unreal. Looming, always thoughts of leaving and knowing that she would never really know. Still, glancing back Old Familiar had a way of stealing new moments and she let down her hair because that was how it was.
She never expected to leave Old Familiar and fall into dark tattooed arms. Arms that beckoned and lips that promised to keep her warm at night for a while. It happened right after she tied off her braid and picked up her backpack, packed with resolve and an ipod of rock music that keeps her going when she runs. Heart hurt a little but was too jaded to cry about it.
Wooed by words Beautiful and Sexy and Capable, maps veer off in different directions when compass still points ever North. She always loved dark and dancing eyes.
Now braid is loose and tangled, hanging down her back like a defeated banner of war. Hand presses over face as ringing echoes in her ears, tenuous connection to the only one that remains.
She wants Daring Adventure she has only known over airwaves and penned phrases and who is now worlds away from her. He told her to keep in touch. And somewhere out in the wide world is that one letter she never knew if he received. And now he's left and she has only a few lines dashed hurriedly on a page to trace to him, like a line of string in a dark cave. She knows words will stack up in an empty mailbox forever, even if he does find his way home. Adventure is still and always will be eluding her, like trying to catch a moth in hands with no net.
Line cuts out with no connection and phone is back in cradle. Phone spits back unspent coins like mockery in her face and scarred and calloused hand slips them back in pocket.
Head against dirty pane of phone booth, she sighs. Head knows she shouldn't be surprised but heart can't fight it. Hope has a way of spearing into jaded thoughts like a dagger to flesh. A dangerous and painful feeling that sometimes can't get a foothold and fails again. But always reappears. She knows it will return again when the Next One comes around. Always she tries to push them away but finds painted lips agreeing to try again. Even if just to share warm comfort in hot mugs of coffee for a few hours.
Stepping out of the phone booth, arms wrapped tightly around her, eyes raise up to crying sky. And she thinks that somewhere out there or up there is Daring Adventure. Just maybe not the one she always imagined. And maybe not yet. But it will come. And it will be hers.