Nice to meet you, San Francisco.

In the course of a month you called the Salvation Army 3 times to pick up my things.

I couldn't give you the couches. I stored them with an easel and two paintings and California King bed in a facility off of Fairmount Ave. Pushed upward in a 10 x 10 room aligned with other 10 X 10 rooms storing possessions people no longer had room for but had $80 dollar a month to spend on the hope or fear that the items represented. You hardly let me cry you gave me a job putting out fires if I typed quickly enough and stuffed me, hungry, into a U-Haul.
In my initial loneliness you taught me lessons in autonomy and peace of mind. You forced me to stand naked in front of the mirror and you wrapped bandages on my broken bones.

You kept me warm inside of the cold and awake with nothing but my thoughts across the street in a church I never stepped inside of.
(maybe my sins were enough to burn it down and I've done enough damage coming here)

You fed me vegetables and surprisingly I didn't mind.

You took me to the Mission and gave me burritos next door to sweaty dance floors and South American banks and Liquor Store poets.

You took my cigarettes and I would hide in your Tenderloin asking a friend for just one toke isn't this place notorious for a fix?

You dressed me in pseudo reality and offered me a view of the Bay bridge from an office window.

You introduced me to that boy on the 31 that I never really spoke more than 31 words to 'cept of course the endless conversations I've had with him in my head about the books we were each reading.

You listened when I told you I was starting over but walking a different way now. You listened and you held me hand.

The arms of your buildings remind me to stand up straight that the adventure is happening even as I wait and you've found a place for me at least today.

You've got airplanes to and from missing and being missed. You bring me my heart to play tourist. You send me people that make me feel like its Christmas eve full of lights.

You graffiti poetry on sidewalks like,
"Its okay to cry here"

you've only been good to me, so good to me
and I fallen in love with you and everything you let me be.

you are the poet

my shoulders pull back

i look you in the eyes,

take a drag and look away

my thighs want to betray me

but still i hold them still

i am afraid of you

you are the poet

somewhere in this room laughter (yours?)

innocent as a boy

kind and soft

i want to break you,

rock you,

take you to your knees

you are the poet

i've read you

and loved each brutal word

but i knew,

there was something in you i despised

something i despised

you are the poet

far too easy to believe

because of course - you are sincere

you are sincere with everything you do

more than most, more than most

and just as quickly

a lie

you are the poet (stay back)

i'll search these pages if i need you,

you lay there like a mattress

left out on the street

blood stained

cut open

and i'mmm jusss- so f u c k i n g tired

you are the poet

watchful, wary, careful of me

your gentle bravado

with what looks like,

an erect tail between your legs

you'll stay away

keep a distance

you are the poet

we are timid

we are beasts

in my eyes

you see

everything pure and good

everything horrible and grotesque

you are the poet

you see YOU

and i am afraid of you

so selfishly hungry - so easily bored

and i know, that should we come for each other

only one of us will be left to write of it

and you are the poet.