The Perfect Ending

I want the last line of this poem to open every window in this joint. I want it to roll up everybody's sleeves and reveal all of your tatoos. 

I want the last line to make you cold.

Make you feel something. Make you wonder for the rest of the night. For the rest of your life. 

I want the last line of this poem to make you fall in love with me. 

I've spent all summer thinking about what it will be. I thought about WRITING IT IN ALL CAPS. Writing it in a different font. Writing it in blood. I thought about writing it in Latin to see who would bother translating it. "Sed mutata sententia."

I thought about putting it in a bottle and throwing it into the ocean. Or shooting it up into space. Or writing it on a 300-foot banner and flying it across the wasatch front on a Saturday afternoon. 

I just want you to see it. 

I want the last line to be something you've never seen before. I want it to be new, creative, innovative. It should cut edges and burn boundaries. 

But I want your heart to recognize it. That long lost love. That girl who grew up across the street. A sort of cardiac deja vu. 

I want your heart to come up to my heart after the show and be like, "Hey. Um. So, uh, I was wondering if you wanted to, uh, um. I don't know. Never mind."

I want the last line to make you jealous.

I want you to Google it because you think I stole it. 

I want it to be so beautiful that it belongs in a different poem. 

It could be your last meal request. It could be my last will and testament. I want it to feel like the last line either of you will ever hear. 

I want the last line to harden your brain and make your heart soggy. I want your arteries to look like water balloons after I turn up the faucet full blast. 

I want it to kill everyone in this room. 

I want the last line to be a loaded handgun on a coffee table. A bottle of poison in an unlocked cabinet. The plug that your wife wants to leave in, but I hold it in my hand. 

Someone call the paramedics, please, because this poem is about to end. 

Call the audience's next of kin, get their loved ones on the phone and break the bad news. Order the floral arrangements and cue up the sad music. Notify the 5 o'clock news, because there's about to be a massacre. 

"Not another mass killing," they'll say. "They were all so young," they'll say. "What is wrong with this country?" #prayforenliten

The media will debate whether or not to talk about me. On one hand, they'll want to focus on all of you: the victims. But they'll definitely want to know how I could do something like this. And I guess this is the answer:

I just wanted to bring language back from the dead.

I wanted the last line of this poem to break your heart. 

The kind of heartbreak that makes you write your own poem. 

Too Old

I'm too old to be here.

I'm too old to be writing such angsty poetry about love and heartbreak and sadness. 

I should be turning a wrench and watching the news and sharing all my political beliefs on Facebook. 

I'm too old to be laughing at farts. 

I'm too old to be wearing basketball shorts when we go out to dinner. Too old to be shaving my head and growing a beard just to be different. 

I'm too old to be afraid of the dark, and afraid of engaging in small talk with the neighbors. 

I should be laughing with my teeth and offering firm handshakes and asking people about their families.

I'm too old to be stealing pens from waitresses just because they're Pilot G-2's and I really like Pilot G-2's. Although she did forget my second refill and she overcharged us by $2.

I'm too old to be listening to Drake. Too old to be dancing in front of the mirror. 

Too old for the heartbreak. Too old for the love. Too old for the sadness. 

I'm too old to roll my eyes when my mom won't get off the phone. 

I'm too old to do whatever it takes to avoid tying my shoes. 

I'm too old to be on Twitter. Follow me @WritersParis

I should be writing letters and answering the phone when people call and wearing socks with sandals. 

I'm too old for dreams. Too old to be real. Too old to tell the truth. 

I should be like the rest of them. Just punch my time card, laugh at the boss's jokes, and quit wondering what the hell I'm going to be when I grow up. 

I've already grown up. 

I've passed the age of first kisses and late night phone calls and my wife would never let me drive a motorcycle even if I wanted to.

I can't start smoking cigarettes now.

Imagine

When I was seventeen,

my mother said to me

"Don't stop imagining. The day that you do is the day that you die."

-Youth Lagoon

In my imagination:

I still think I'm the most important man on the planet. 

I'm taller in my mind than I am in the mirror. 

Sometimes I imagine other people watching my life like it was a movie. Why they don't change the channel, I have no idea. 

I think spiders are out to get me. 

I think there's a spider behind me right now. 

MIrrors are somehow scarier in the dark. 

In my imagination:

When I exhale, all the bad energy leaves my body. Same thing happens when I pee. 

Everyone at the pool is obsessed with what I look like with my shirt off. They sit around and laugh and have little conversations about me. 

Every blog post ever written was written about me. 

In my imagination:

Love is real. 

My parents like me more than my sister. 

The neighbors are having more fun than we are. 

Our hearts are bigger than our whole bodies. They hold everyone we love and all the places we've been, they're full of everything we ever wanted to be and all the good things that have happened to us and the bad things too. 

In my imagination I'm fast. 

All the guys I play basketball with on Tuesday and Wednesday nights want me to keep shooting. 

The moon is real. It's not just for poets and astronauts. It's for welders and school teachers. One day a bunch of us will live there and they'll even have stop lights.

In my imagination dead people go to their own funerals. 

I have eyes in the back of my head and I can see everyone talking about me. 

Everyone has more money and boats and square footage and iPhones and trucks than I have. 

Nobody poops. My wife doesn't poop and my parents don't poop and the President of the United States doesn't poop in the White House and Tom Hanks doesn't poop and Beyonce definitely does not poop. 

In my imagination our shadows still exist in the shade.

There's a booger in my nose and my zipper's down and there's something in my teeth and my breath is horrible and I have B.O. and sweat pits and everything else you can think of. 

I look intelligent and pensive when I bite my nails, not like a crackhead looking for a fix. 

That loud boom was an attack. 

It only rains when I wash my car. 

Everything I say is funny. 

All my dreams are interesting to other people. 

My fantasy football team is interesting to other people.

In my imagination all my moles are getting bigger. 

In my imagination we will live forever. 

In my imagination bad things will only happen to other people. 

I can understand things I can't hold in my hand. 

Silence

I turned 35 a few hours ago, so excuse me if I clear my throat too much. The fridge won't stop running and that's the way it is with me somehow.

Yeah, sure, I feel old. I remember being a teenager and being 24 and turning 16 and almost being 30 and yesterday. But imagine how my mom feels today. 

I keep thinking I'm going to have it all figured out tomorrow. If you play something for 35 years, you're supposed to be an expert, right? Well, I'm staying up all night looking for cheat codes. I'm plugging my headphones into my chest and this is all I hear: Noise.

There's soft music playing in three chambers of my heart. But that fourth chamber is full of fight music. The beat just dropped and everyone's losing their mind. This music controls me.

I can't fall asleep without listening to it, I can't write, I can't drive, I can't mow the lawn, do the dishes, get a cavity filled, walk through the grocery store, stand in an elevator, I can't dance. I can't go to funerals or weddings or have a conversation about anything. I can't think without listening to it. 

I must be afraid of silence. After a joke. After a poem. After a prayer.

Can I get an Amen? Hallelujah? I've earned enough courtesy laughs to open a museum. 

So turn up the music. Turn it up while you work and lose yourself in it. Because even though I'm 35, I'm still a work in progress. We all are. Until the day we stop running. 

Summertime Sadness

There's something magical about sitting in your backyard on a Sunday afternoon the moment church is about to begin. 

It's like walking out of class early. 

It's like calling in sick to work on a Monday morning. 

It's like walking around barefoot on the carpet after you've been wearing roller skates for two hours. 

My name is Kyle Nelson and I'm 100% human. I have 206 bones, 9 scars, and a heart that's way too close to my chest. I stay up too late and swear too much and I don't check the oil in my car as often as I should. 

I'm scared to go on the roof of my house. 

And here I am. Alone in my backyard. While my kids are wrecking the house and my wife is reading. While my neighbor is hocking loogies in his backyard and everyone else is driving to church. While my dad is watching TV in his dark, dirty house and my mom is making bread in her nice, clean one, listening to country music with her new husband. While my brother is in jail and my friends only exist on Facebook. While the world is reeling from shootings, accidents, earthquakes, and war. I sit in my backyard alone. 

And I'm just trying to capture it all. 

Before the clouds get too low and all we can see is white. Before we fall asleep and forget everything that happened today. The birds are making noise and I can't tell if it's a song or a cry for help. My neighbor hocking up phlegm says everything in my heart right now. 

Lana Del Rey is the one who told me about this sadness. This sadness in the middle of the summer, when everything is supposed to be fireworks and popsicles and suntans. But my heart is sunburned and drinking this Aloe Vera is starting to make me sick. 

Shit. 

I have nothing to be depressed about. I'm heathy and tan and married and free and tall and rich and poor and humble and tired and lazy and worried and I'm drinking a Pepsi right now. I'm turning 35 in a few days and maybe that's really what it all comes down to. 

I can feel Obama and Mitt in my veins and I wonder how long it can go on like this. My feet are numb and tingly and the birds are starting to make nests in my hair. I looked between the houses and saw the mountains for the first time. I finally realized that my trees are the biggest in the neighborhood and if I climbed them I could see the whole world from my backyard. 

But I'm afraid of heights. 

Besides, those branches could never hold me. 

the day i discovered fire

and the whole world was asleep when the fire started.

here, in my heart. here, in my journal. here, on my blog. here, in the middle of the night when nobody was even listening. not my wife, my students, my twitter followers, my daughter. nobody. 

the fire was burning before any of them. 

they woke up and only saw the smoke. they coughed and cried and stared and roasted marshmallows. but my eyes were the only eyes that burned. my hair was the only hair that smelled of smoke. and the ashes on my hands. you could never see the ashes on my hands.

but no, you've been there for it all, you said. you bought the matches, you subscribed to the newspaper, you even have a little ash on your hands. you tried to tell me that you were the one who discovered fire. 

but you didn't discover fire. i did. 

i found it burning inside my chest when i was a little boy. before my parents split up and before the dog bit me. i tried to show everyone i knew, but it was too bright. i tried to tell them about it, but it was too loud. i tried to get them to feel it, but it was too hot. it was always too hot.

i've been melting people since the 80's. and i ain't about to stop now. 

Shopping List

• Pepsi (12-pack)
• Water (Arrowhead)
• Cinnamon Toast Crunch (2-pack from Costco)
• Patience
• More time with my kids (at parks)
• Time away from my kids (at the movies)
• White bread
• Stand-up comedy on Netflix
• An iPhone I can afford (*doesn't exist)
• Sunshine (but I'm in the shade)
• Something to do (meaningful)
• Nothing to do
• Paperbacks
• Feelings of peace (in my heart and stomach and fibers)
• A new pen (G2 or better)
• A fannypack
• Retweets (and favorites, I guess)
• A haircut (fresh and clean)
• Laughter
• A made bed (soft sheets and not too many pillows)
• Peace and quiet
• A writing contest (submissions in one month)
• Ambition
• Desire
• Yearning
• Hope
• Danger
• A game 7 in the NBA Finals
• Respect (find out what it means to me)
• Blog comments
• Hot dogs (and buns, duh)
• More Pepsi (just in case)
• Popsicles
• Root Beer for Root Beer Freezes
• Plain White T-Shirt (XL)
• New socks (Black)
• Old books from the D.I.
• An oil change
• A metaphorical oil change
• Time to read Harry Potter with my kids (we're on the first one)
• Love
• Rice Krispie Treats (homemade)
• Cafe Rio Dressing
• A good interest rate on my student loans
• A conversation with my dad
• Milk (1%)

letters about lifeguards

I don't know exactly why I got into this. But I'm into this. And I'm afraid there's no getting out. 

I carry a whistle in my fanny pack. Along with sunscreen and Gatorade. Sometimes there's candy. Sometimes there's not. I've been burned too many times and I'm sure Cancer or some other disease is just waiting around the corner. 

It's not just a job, it's a career. It's a lifestyle. 

My mom went to a fortune teller when I was 13 years old. The fortune teller told her that I would pull a drowning boy from water and that I would spend the rest of my life trying to save people. This meant I was supposed to become a paramedic or a lifeguard. I became a teacher.

Fortune tellers don't lie. 

No matter what you choose to do with your life, it probably won't go how you plan. That's the way the game works. Lawyers got into it to find the truth, but they're too busy looking for technicalities. Doctors got into it to heal people, but they're too busy checking insurance cards. Police Officers got into it for the chase, but they're too busy filling out paperwork. 

Which leaves Lifeguards and Teachers. We work opposite seasons, but we have more in common than you think. 

We both got into it for the kids. For the water. For the summers. Parents relied on us and children ignored us. We made less than we should've, but everyone thought we had it easy. Every summer added another five years to our faces. 

We both had big plans. We got into it for the right reasons. It was noble. It was inspiring. But we spent more time blowing our whistles, telling kids to stop running than we ever did diving in and saving people. 

We'll spend the next offseason wondering if we're doing what we're supposed to. We'll tell ourselves that something else will come up, but it never will. 

Then some random Thursday, a girl with short blonde hair will thank us, and we'll decide to do it all over again. 

Sometimes it rains in summer and sometimes it never stops raining

Happiness is boring.

I know it's the goal. It's what we think about every night before we go to sleep. It's why God put us here and it's why most of us go to school. 

But who here knows what she really looks like? 

We know she has soft curls and bright eyes. We know she needs a song before she goes to sleep and we know her favorite drink. We love her because she laughs at all our jokes and misses us when we go on business trips. We feel like we've known her forever and we have old love letters to prove it. 

But she's gonna cheat on you, bro. Believe me. And that shit's gonna hurt. 

Which means you're going to have to make a decision this Tuesday afternoon and almost every Tuesday afternoon for the rest of your life. You'll have a picture of her on your desk, but she won't answer the phone when you call. 

Pictures of Us

I think I fell in love with her yearbook photo first. 

So that can't be real love, right? Yearbook photos don't talk to you, they don't laugh at your jokes, they don't fill your contact case with contact solution sometimes, they don't cook you breakfast, they don't take care of you, and they definitely don't kiss back. 

I'm looking for an iTunes playlist to explain all of this. 

We are never as young as we look in old photographs. We are never as old as we feel in the morning. We are never as happy as we pretend we are and we are never as depressed as we are with the blinds closed. 

Our grandparents will die and we'll go through their old love letters and try to piece it all together. The dust will cloud the whole story, but it was never really about them anyway. It was always about us. We read our older sisters' diaries looking for our name. We read blogs looking for ourselves. We go through photographs ignoring sunsets and beautiful animals, because we just want to see pictures of us.

The emotional piano music plays in the background of our lives, but only when we listen for it. I am a hopeless romantic who is full of hope. But I wonder what song I'd be singing right now if we never ended up together. 

It was 1997 yesterday and it's 1997 today and I hope that will be 1997 forever. 

The Big Question

I swear, most of you already graduated, so I guess I'm just a little confused. 

You realize you're not getting a grade for this, right? 

This #summerblogs series wasn't really advertised. It started as an afterthought, and now 50 people have signed up. I'm just trying to figure it out. Everyone is everywhere, and sometimes that just freaks me out a little. I don't go to Seven Peaks anymore because the lines are too long (but really, I'm tired of you seeing me with my shirt off). 

This is me hoping the bridge we're all on doesn't collapse. 

Today is the first day of summer vacation, according to my 8-year-old. Saturday and Sunday were just the weekend. And now it all begins. You writers were all gung-ho about writing and the optimist in me was inspired. 

But if you really knew me, you'd know that I'm not an optimist. My prediction: at least 15 more people sign up by the first day of summer, but then half of you sputter out by the end. 

Because the old men told it like this: Paris was rainier and lonelier than you expected. Right now, the sun is out and the cafes are playing your favorite song and the waiters are bringing your refills before you even ask for them. But all that will change tomorrow. And you're left wondering if you're writing for yourself or for the comments. 

Which is really the question on all of our minds. On all of our lips. In all of our hearts. 

I still don't know the answer. 

SpongeBrooke SwearPants

The truth is, my daughter said her first F-word today.

I laughed. My wife gasped. If that doesn't sum up our family, I don't know what does. 

I feel like I need to explain. My daughter is 4. She doesn't go around dropping F-bombs. That's not how we raised her. (But she cries when her brother takes her football and she farts all the time, and that's not how we raised her either.) We were watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off. (It's PG-13, and none of our kids are 13 yet. I know, stop judging.) And Edward Rooney was walking around the house and called Ferris a little effer. 

And my daughter is a sponge. 

Just for the record, I'm not really counting today's bomb. My daughter had no idea what she said. One day she'll slam the door and put her hands in her head and really say it. 

My wife will gasp. 

I just hope I don't laugh.