Domino

There’s somebody that I’d like you to meet.
Somebody that I knew a long time ago but was killed
By a murder inside of a clock.
His name is Nick and he’s eleven years old, so sit right
Down and let me tell you about this boy. Let me tell you
About what three in the morning smells like in a small
Iowa town. Let me tell you how many sunflower seeds
You can eat in a summer, how many times you can play
A song over and over and over before it stops being
A soundtrack and starts affecting your breathing, your walk,
Your style.

I want to tell you about what kinds of dreams you can have
At two in the afternoon. What summer is like when you’re
Not worried about sweating through your clothes, when you’re
Not worried about what time lunch is, when you’re not worried
About your bills and your legacy.
When you’re not worried.

Before the tick-tick-tock of the second hand sped past the minute
Hand and zoomed past that hour hand like a space ship
On a one way trip to forever, there was a boy that was a pro wrestler,
A late night talk show host, a baseball player, a scholar and a shyster
Who got into a little too much trouble just to see if he could get out.
And he always did.

You might not have heard about his death in the papers, he wasn’t
Lost on some milk carton circulating the suburbs, he just disappeared
Like the late nights and the ice cream man.
One day—just gone.

His spirit survives to this day. He hides in between the hashes
On the clock. That split second before you hold the hand of a girl
You love, the minute you take that step away from home, and in
Blanket warm Wednesday’s in June when you hear lawnmowers
Humming over the sound of an afternoon baseball game.
Enough of these moments and he’ll live through us forever.

I write these words for you.
I write these words for you and every single person
you’ve ever been. That you’ll ever be.
I write these words for you.

There are a million things I’ve seen,
a million breaths I’ve breathed and I might
not have seen them all like I see them on this
cold day, but I know they’re there. In my chest,
near my heart, I feel them pumping in and out of my soul.

I write these words for you.
I write these words for the kids that I don’t have
yet. The kids I might never have—the kids that you
and I once were. The kids you may have.
I write these words for you.

I am a child full of wonder. Older than I
once was, but still full of all these fingerpaints
and lincoln logs. The dreams that won me Stanley cups and
the ones that broke me into sweats, that made my mother
rush into my room and put my head on her shoulder
and do the things that all mothers do until our hearts
are full of so much love and emotion they turn us
six years old. I write these words for you.

I once flipped through a yearbook from a school
I never went to, from a year that pre-dates my existance.
I saw smiling faces staring back at me like a hundred new
friends. These people I have never met, will never meet,
will never sit down and have a drink with. These people
with hearts full of love and hearts full of pain. These
people who have kids who dream of being princesses and who
on Christmas day light up like fireworks on the fourth of July,
beaming that same smile as their mothers and fathers who
I see on the page. I write these words for you.

And my Father who is a long lost friend. The man who lifted
me up as a child and made me so weightless and free that I
thought I was Superman. I am Superman. You are Superman.
There is nothing on this planet that can ever stop us from
flying. It is not his hands that made me fly, but his heart
his smile, my smile, the smile that we share, the smile of
those strangers in that book. The book that my Father’s
smile is forever captured, but never captive.
I write these words for you.

I’m going to show up at the party. I’m going to be
another smile in another photo. I’m going to hear that song
from my childhood—yeah, the one that I should be embarrassed
to know all the words to. And I’m going to dance.
I’m going to dance with anybody that has a smile that
reminds me of the strangers from that school, that looks
like I did when my Father held me high above his head and
we will fly together. We will transport into a time where we
are both smiling faces. She will smile and I will smile
and we will be free as flying children. My children,
your children, our children, our parents children.
I write these words for you.

Who’s that girl living my life?
A unique fashion, a posed stride
Through the crowd. Eyes shielded
Behind dark lenses move side to side.

Short, sharp breaths, under layers
Of diamonds. She can’t be the one
Who has stolen my world. A thief
Who has taken a one-way ticket,
Wrapping it tightly around her finger.

Who’s that girl, where’s she from?
A phoenix birthed from secrets.
A film negative of the reflection
In the mirror that shows such poise.

Pursed lips protect her words under
Store bought ideals. Prudent strides
From past to present. An unnecessary
Chapter in a story with no beginning,
A story with no end.

Grey scale backgrounds and afternoon
drizzles. Dreary Thursdays and sun soaked
Saturdays. You lead. You follow. You travel.
Rain, tears, spit, and spill. Absorbing
wear and tear with the rest of us. You persist.
Cracking and crumbling, busy and completely
alone. A true friend—you’re there for the journey.
The impossibly solemn summer nights, prayer
filled winter mornings. The arrival. The departure.

Touching our sole being, the root of our mission.
The beat of a thousand worrisome strangers,
escaping nowhere at one thousand rhythms
per second. Crowded chorus coming constantly.
Silence. Hollow breaths. Possibilities.
Change is constant. Stubborn the same. The only
difference is not the how or the who. It is not
the why or the when. It is simply you.
You are explored.

It goes beyond masked maple scent,
auburn sun streaks and shadows.
Lifetimes before posed smiles, fabricated
bright eyes and painted presence.

It’s one heartbeat, one moment
in a timeline of natural motion. Locked
gears in time, without breath, without hope.
Sterile and lifeless.

As the snow freezes on tounges
in mid-air. Thick sweaters warming
bodies frozen in space, in time. Magic
finds breath in the margin, in the memory.

Faces buried in a single second, younger
then than now, older then than never.
It remains a single second in a lifetime
of moments never captured.

One solitary blink, where all others roam freely.

Some secrets need to be kept
As buried treasures in a sea of guilt.
Message in a bottle not thrown to sea—
Buried, miles underneath the earth.
Decomposing.

Each thought like a time capsule,
To be sent to no one, to be opened never.
For each word spoken, a thousand thoughts
Forgotten, a million feelings aborted.
That’s dangerous to know.

There’s no safety in a kiss like this.
Faces pushing together before departure.
Those eyes, never so close, never
So bright. Going to imaginary places.
Unpredictable.

Kiss me.
Take that moment, recycle it. Reuse
What you can when the moment is right.
When the moment is wrong, do it still.
That’s dangerous to know.