LIKE MATH

I said to her “how can you leave me when you know I love you?”

She replied, “Love, what do you know of love,

I need a man who can prove that he loves me,

No better yet, I need a man who can put into words how he loves me”

I said, “words, what are words when I love you like math”

She said, “Like math, is that how you think you love me,

You love me like….”

 

I said I love you like math,

Infinite and exact.

So you cannot subtract from my attraction

Or reduce into fractions with your actions

Infinitesimal as the decimal to my point

 

For I am the equation to your quotients

The sensation of my devotion

Is the calculation to your notions

Exponential are my solutions

To the differential of your delusions

Confusions between love and sex

Too complex to divide or multiply

For I am just an X looking for an answer to Y

 

Why is this division your decision

Why is the subtraction your action

Why was my formula rejected

When my love was geometric 

Like a line without a finish without a start

That you cannot define, diminish

or dare to break apart

Perfect as a circle

Trapped inside your trapezoidal truth

If love is your problem than this is my proof.

A Toast

 

 

A Toast

To the jocks of my high school

who made life cruel for a young fool who was un-cool

cause he rocked a skateboard instead of barstool

This one's for you

 

To the girls I'd meet

Who'd call me sweet but I couldn't compete

With the beating heart of a million wasted brain cells

Wasting well on the tasteless smell of an ageless spell

that swelled in the hell of a frat-house misdemeanor

To the seniors who drank their way between her

Her legs were spread as she begged and plead

to the keg that led to his head filled with suds

and the bed filled with blood and tears

for years she'd remember what never meant to happen

 

To my friends

Whose unprovoked jokes about the coke I ordered

must've been watered down

might have been funny the first four rounds

they poured down money but it caught a frown

when the ride I'd later provide brought little pride

while inside I tried to hide

my feelings of bitter neglect and rejection

instead of considered respect and reflection

that my coke might have saved their lives

 

 

To my friends little sister

a teenager whose parents raised her and peers trained her

to steer clear of danger was unprepared

when the drunken uncle who used to change her

was no stranger

but a molester who undressed her, pressed his chest against her

in a quest for physical sensations that his despicable intoxication

would consider a mutually hospitable situation

another drunken perverted "relationship"

 

To my mother 

who put up with none other than my father 

who never bothered to be a role model or a mere man

with a bottle or a beer can in each hand

over a fifteen year span

Damn, how her tears ran as she demand that he quit or she'd split

but understand that it didn't mean shit when she'd admit

that my brother and I were the reason why

she'd dry her eyes and give that son of a bitch

one more try

 

To the former Mrs. Anderson

who didn't understand what it meant to be a wife

with a life of fidelity while she's telling me 

that she needs her freedom

But she'd still meet him

that before she was drinking, she'd abhor the stinking smell

of sex, scotch and saliva on her dress

but as an ex-wife survivor I guess that in ten years

people just grow further apart from each other

But I've been here, and I don't know how much further my heart can endeavor

to sit and accept the people I love get wasted

so to quit I reject that which I've never tasted

 

And lastly, to my father

who rose from a grave of enslave inebriation

who rescued his soul from the hold of a cold intoxication

whose salvation from the bowels of the depths 

with the power to accept two vowels and twelve steps

and I'm proud he's allowed himself to admit his limitations

and I've vowed to commit myself to refitting our relationship

but as he lives with regret for what he did to his family

I try to forgive and forget what he did to my family

so I'm sorry that I can't always look you in the eyes

when I tell you I love you Dad

I'm sorry that sometimes I only have one arm to hug you Dad

But I'm not sorry for the merit of my convictions

cause I'm scared to death that I'll inherit your addictions

but you're my father and I love you

so don't give up on me or feel defeated

and you don't have to bother living up to be 

what you've already exceeded

 

But now if they ask me why I'm not out there partying or drinking

I can answer them without hardly even thinking

I find my decision to be a financial and emotional solution

My mind and my vision are more substantial than my social inclusions

I am clean true and free, and I am a twenty eight year survivor

and between you and me... I am not your designated driver.

On Seventh Avenue,

 

 

On Seventh Avenue,

Every Saturday Night we would race our bikes

From the stop sign to the fence

And back to the finish line on tenth

Where there’d be a kid, seated at the cross street

He’d be checking who cheated by watching your feet

And if you needed, you could stay out all night

If you didn’t run home to eat

I mean life... life was sweet

 

On Seventh Avenue

We raced our bikes shooting stars

We were invincible to cars

And even the handlebars couldn’t hold us

Our parents had told us to be cautious when crossing the crosswalk

But we didn’t listen.

No one ever got hurt on seven.

We watched our innocence melt into rainbows

Like ice cream in the summer,

Like sweat dripping on the street

Like the treads of tires worn from breaking with your feet.

Like our dreams were just puddles that would steam

From the heat of the sun

And if our chain ever broke, Hell

We’d just get up and run

 

But on Seventh Avenue,

I’d have to wake up early every Sunday

It was the one day I wanted to sleep

But I was keeping people waiting for their Sunday edition

But deep down I was wishing I could ride my bike past your door

This morning like every other morning before

But this time when I’d throw the paper on your lawn

You’d be gone.

 

But every morning you would still be there

In your bathrobe, your black shades and your bloody hair

And you would just stare

 

In your left hand, the two seventy five for a weeks worth of news

On your right arm, the truth you survived

Peaked through bandage covered bruise

Covered arm, covered stomach

Covered a daughter that was unexpected

As for that two dollars and couple quarters I never collected

Maybe I was just too scared to knock on your door

Or maybe I had compared what we both could afford.

 

 

Ya see, 2.75

That was a phone call to a family member and freedom

2.75 was bus fair to anywhere so you can meet em

2.75 was a gallon of gas and a bedspread to burn it.

2.75 was a photo album of all the things he’d done to earn it

I mean Two seventy five

It was a chance you’d stay alive

 

On Seventh Avenue,

We’d invented our own definition of domestic terrorism

We perpetuated our innocence by just turning up our television

And after all was done and said, and all was said and done

Of all the things I never said, I wish I had told you to run.

 

I mean run

Run like it’s collection day and change is how you make a living

Run because it’s easier forgetting than it will ever be forgiving

Run because orders are just walls to your prison

Run so that your daughter won’t have to learn how mommy was made to listen

Run like your chain just broke but you’re still in the lead

Run so that your feet start to blister before your wrists ever bleed

Run like you can see the finish line and this time you’re gonna win it

Run so that I don’t have to deliver tomorrow’s headline

With your name in it

Run like someone just held a gun to your head…

Or instead

 

Just wait till he sleeps and burn the bed

 

Because one way or another

They say all roads lead to heaven

Just don’t take seven