Brennan Bestwick reads and writes in a house on a windy hill in Kansas.  He’s never met a president, but he’s handled a lot of coins, which is close to meeting a few of them and touching their face a lot more than you should a dignitary (or anyone).  He lives with his unemployed cat, Purrcy, who still hasn’t bothered to learn English despite living in this country for the past 9 years.

Four Poems (November 20, 2011. Issue 33.)

To the girl I met in the elevator at work

When you asked if I wanted to ride along, I didn’t mean to say “sure,”
it just left my mouth a bit quicker than “hell yes,” in a rare moment
of normalcy I’m unaccustomed to. Don’t expect it if we speak again.
I’m not wired that way. 

If I give you a smile, nod, and look at my feet too much,
it just means “Nice to see you again. How’s your day?”

My awkward’s just Morse code for an abundance of mean well.

You don’t know my tendency to overthink things, or the fact
that a few times I told myself your “Have a great day,” was
just your way of telling me I looked like shirtless Fight Club
Brad Pitt and made you smile as warmly as YouTube 
videos of puppies wrestling with kittens wrestling with babies, 
until they all fall asleep in a cute pile of cuddle clumps.

It’s probably for the best that you don’t. I have a habit
of filing all my optimism under imagination.

Sometimes I take the long route to bathroom because it passes
your office. We don’t speak, but we exchange grins and it
lasts me the day. When this happens, things aren’t so bad.

This is not a love letter. It’s a note of appreciation.
An Employee of the Month certificate, redeemable at any
closing elevator door, should you need it held.

You look like a girl who thanks the waiter for the check
and means every word of it. I’ve thought the same of others
based on more and been mistaken, but I still believe I see
that same light emit from people every day, in the darkest
hallways, based on nothing more than hope, upturned lips,
and eyes with a bit of sun in ‘em. I pray I always do.

I know all your kindness is likely just cordial politeness,
but that’s all I need some days. I’m a simple man.
Don’t stop smiling for anyone. The world has no quota
for heartwarming, so give us all you got.

And promise me you’ll never take the stairs, 
I’ll be waiting for you should our paths cross again,
the door open, no need for anymore strangers.

Theater

I have a habit of remembering every day I spent with you,
from the grocery store parking lots to the late night movies, 
and I have an even worse habit of retelling the stories
behind each one of these days when I’m in your company,
from every word we spoke to that crinkle that formed 
on the bridge of your nose when you laughed.
I even think of our taste test of red plums and white nectarines,
outside the Westside Market and take those results into
consideration each time my produce drawer’s empty.
The nights you said goodbye to me on your toes just to be tall
enough to wrap your arms around my neck were the times
I felt bigger than all the shadows that danced beneath us
in the daylight, their legs too tired to chase us past sunset.
With your head pressed against me, you always said you heard
my heart beat, louder than any you’d heard before. You said maybe
it was just bigger or beat a bit harder, but what I didn’t tell you
is that my heart’s so large because it houses a theater, and if you
listened long enough you’d hear yourself listening to my heartbeat
again and again and if you could peek past the curtains of my ribs
you would see your nose crinkle while you laughed as the sticky juice
of fresh plums covered my hands outside the Westside Market,
and if you did all of this long enough, you would understand why 
I can never stop talking about every day you were excited to see me.

Waiting

Your smile is still the prettiest I’ve ever seen,
like the postcard of a sunset soaked in ocean wave
on a gas station rack next to Mt. Rushmores
and world record holding balls of twine,
it’s a blown glass lighthouse off the coast of Maine,
and when you visit, it’s still nice to hear 
you say you’re happy to see me, 
but in your eyes all I see is the back end of a U-Haul,

though you’re so far gone you can no longer
look in the rearview mirror and see me standing in the street, 
I’m still here waving. I never stopped. 

The neighbors think I’m just batting bees away from my face,
they hand me cans of bug spray and plant insect repelling tiki torches
next to my feet, taking turns lighting them each night. They say, 
“if you don’t bother them, they don’t bother you.” 
I tell’em I don’t know any better, neither of us talking
about the same thing.

I tell’em I hope any bees that come ‘round stay long enough
for honey to come out my nose, cause maybe if I were
a bit sweeter I wouldn’t still be here, waiting.

Faith

When I told you I’d stopped praying every night, 
I didn’t mean I’d stopped believing in God. 
I had only lost faith in being certain of anything I can’t
touch with my hands, and even that rule has exceptions.

Some nights keep me awake not knowing why
I’m here or what I’m to do with this body 
in such a strange world. I say “you’re welcome”
after “thank you” and “you too” after
“have a nice day,” I’m sure I’m meant 
to do that much, at least. 

I used to work for my hopeful run-ins with God,
sitting like a bus stop bench, opening doors and windows,
climbing cell phone towers so nothing could block my reception.
I had my letters addressed to post office waiting lines,
but he’d never swing by. He doesn’t use the front door,
has no concern for RSVPs.

Now, I find my faith in quiet places, the shade beneath cedars,
the first flash of sunrise through the windshield of morning
commutes, the space smaller than fingers can close when
measuring the gap between stars in the night sky.

In these moments, we walk, shoulder to shoulder, 
footprint the ground like a sandbox on the moon, 
trace “hello’s” in it for stargazers. It’s a comfort 
in everything happening, whether it be God, Allah, 
Buddha, or best wishes. It’s a faith in turning points
and constants. I can’t always find it and I struggle
to know who or what to name it, but it’s always there.

I can’t run my fingers through dusk, but I still feel 
that baked sky honey stick to every one of my knuckles
and paint my good intentions with it, all from an evening
spent watching the sun drop beneath the horizon.

I have more doubts than I can plot on a map, but I still
keep moving, wherever all of this is taking me. I’ve believed
in children book fables, white lies, endless winters, 
and “I love you’s,” watched them all expose their fallacies,
and learned my lesson in not apologizing for either one of us.

My faith is in big hearts getting bigger, not forgetting
those hectic hives we can’t hush beneath our chests. 

God bless ‘em.