The first time my town saw the sky it sucker-punched us in the throat, left us breathless, said, I'm gonna keep you awake some nights without touching you. You'll make it up, the pain, you always do.
Buddy WakefieldWe were never tragedies. We were emergencies. You go ahead, call 9-1-1. Tell them I'm havin' a fantastic time.
Buddy WakefieldI choose to politely ask myself to step aside if I am in my own way. If I do not get out of my way, I choose to call a friend who will have me removed.
Buddy WakefieldYou can call me an angry ghost when I'm gone, or laugh into my disposition. But my mom will still see me as her wide-eyed wanderer out behind the garage inventing ways to fend off dog attacks that will probably never happen.
Buddy WakefieldBut I still show up for gentleman practice in the company of lead dancers, hoping their grace will get stuck in my shoes.
Buddy WakefieldKnowing me is easy. You can still twist your hair and feel silly. Look up the word tacky and have a salad. But when we're together you pull bread apart with your fingers into bites sometimes so small I gotta remind you, Peach, it is okay to be hungry.
Buddy WakefieldIf you've never been rocked back by the presence of purpose this poem is too soon for you. Return to your mediocrity, plug it into an amplifier and rethink yourself.
Buddy WakefieldThere was a typewriter buried alive in that horse, the one I road to get out of the flood.
Buddy WakefieldI should have told You before talking in terms of Forever that any given day wears me out and works me sour, that there are nights when the sky is so clear I stand obnoxious underneath it begging for the stars to shoot at me just so I can feel at Home.
Buddy WakefieldPretend – inside your skin – you've got a friend, who's willing to give you everything you ever wanted in exchange for all you've ever been.
Buddy WakefieldEverybody knows that smiling is for little girls, the gays and certain kinds of fish who are smiling by accident.
Buddy WakefieldIf I didn't have so much of this life all wrong I would have gotten it right by now.
Buddy WakefieldStop congregating in the valley just because an echo sounds good when it agrees with itself.
Buddy WakefieldI am standing like shoe polish on an overstocked shelf hoping that one day someone will pick me to make things better.
Buddy Wakefield...all these kids you can't seem to make sense of would stop holding you so far off the edge of your seats if you'd start holding yourselves to the promises you make. We know you're not perfect, because we're not. And I know I'm not perfect, but I believe I was meant to be.
Buddy WakefieldJordan tattoos the words "forgive me" in thick black letters down the inside of his arm so that when he looks at his wrist he will remember not to hate himself so much. What he keeps forgetting is that there is life after survival.
Buddy WakefieldIf we were created in God’s image, then when God was a child he smushed fire ants with his fingertips and avoided tough questions.
Buddy WakefieldEven good hearts know how to turn bad touch and genocide into clichés just to make room for more comfort.
Buddy WakefieldI'm ready to kill something. I'll probably only get as far as my brain cells, but I am going to kill them.
Buddy Wakefield