I’m Not the Boy by Matthew Milia

I'm not the boy that hurt you
But I might as well be
Eject you or insert you
The motion isn't healthy
I saw you on the weekend
Is there something you wanna tell me?

We'll get away for summer
Hang out on the Northline
I memorized your number
And the curvature of your spine
Bending in the water
Sending me a message stealthy

I'm not the boy who loved you
Who can say if I will?
I'm not the boy above you
Standing on the dusk hill
Vanishing in summer
Brandishing another beer

I'm not the boy beneath you
Squirming in your last ditch
I'm not the boy to teach you
Or sell you on a fast pitch
I'm just the boy that knows
The moment as it grows so near

What's the light?
You said it's Jupiter
We just might
Be getting stupider

When the stickiest answer
Is a Jolly Rancher
That's passed between mouths in the night
The lustful impending
Electrical ending
That's calmly intending to destroy
And I know that I'm not the boy

I'm not the boy to taste you
There's times I wish that I could
I'm not the boy to waste you
On something less than I should
I'm just the boy that knows
The moment as it grows so near

Appears on On the Northline

The Machines of Summer by Matthew Milia

The machines of summer loudly hiss the whereabouts
That all I care about has burnt away
So show me where to stare my eyes to figure out
Inside the burning furnace of the day

Did the heavy afternoon fall on your eyelid?
Did someone try to sell you a lie?
Did it seem as though he loved you more than I did?
When summer falls to pieces
And all that’s clear to me is
That it’s ok if you can’t tell me why

Appears on On the Northline

First Song for Lauren by Matthew Milia

Dangerously sizing
Everything too soon
Scorpio rising
Libra moon

Where her cosmic curtains bleed
The sunlight in the morning
The only star sign I need

Nothing will ever scare me
Like the chance of something good
When it seems like it’ll happen
There’s no reason that it should

But her karaoke tune
Is the sound inside my worry
It’s the lump inside my throat this afternoon

Forty days till I can settle down
And see you in the morning
Together in that same town
Where I used to wait for something that was good
And I’m scared to know that you’re the one that could

Appears on On the Northline

Bloomfield Marriott by Matthew Milia

Oh, the middle-age clock clicks
In fun size Snickers and antibiotics
Sister Margaret says you got my note

Did you remember to vote
This November?
Because your sore throat
Is the leading contender
For my favorite cage
The page I wish I wrote

And Catholic seniors from the all-male high school
In BMWs, bright blue, carpool past you
To the imperial light
Did you remember to write
Me an answer
About the night that the world turned faster
Than we ever knew
Ever knew it might?

And you always say we got a lot
A lot of nice life before us
But it’s feeling like there’s not
Any way
To make my way back in
And claim the spot
Looking out over the kingdom
From the Bloomfield Marriott
Looking down
On the ground I thought I knew

Spend your birthday in nervousness
At the Michigan Department of Human Services
Sister Margaret got your paperwork
It’s the perennial perk
And it's always slipping
By the time I woke up, all the icicles dripping
In some friendless year
As some endless fear emerged

Aw, but you always say we got a lot
A lot of nice life before us
But it’s feeling like there’s not
Any way
To make my way back in
And claim the spot
Looking out over the kingdom
From the Bloomfield Marriott
Looking down
On the ground I thought I knew

I’m the wedding DJ
In the budget banquet hall
And you’re my only friend

It’ll be ok
When Sister Margaret rights it all
Or it might be the end

Appears on On the Northline

In the Money by Matthew Milia

Anyway
Anyhow
If there weren't any yesterday
There's many now

Problems
And debt collectors in the grass
They slither to the motor of their
Rattle-shaking ass

Anytime
Anywhere
If there's any chance
The broken glance
Was truer than the stare

The faceless fucks
In pickup trucks outside your door
Or stuck between the Halloween
Costumes in the store

I'll find you standing there
If I'm ever in the money
Abruptly reappear on you that day

The memory's as clear
As the snow thaws when it's sunny
Or tears that tell me more than you could say

Anyone
Anybody
If there's anything that I could sing
That won't turn soft and bloody

Well, I heard you say that every day
Some power fades
But there's someplace where every trace still
Wickedly cascades

And I'll find you standing there
If I'm ever in the money
Sunlight on your hair and in your eyes
Achingly aware
Of all that's turned so runny
We'll chase it through the morning till it dries

If there's any way
If there's any how
If there's any way
Now

Appears on On the Northline

Clarkston Pasture by Matthew Milia

I’d rather wear another layer
I’d rather sit in my big coat
In my cold living room
And cultivate a sore throat

Than be the only person who
Is breathing in the furnace air
I think it’s safe to assume
I’d be the only person there

‘Cause company is not near
And nothing’s gonna bring it back
Not another cold beer
Not another night black

The blackness all around
Your young Milky Way
Swirling in the white sound
But wasn’t it just yesterday?

Your warm breath in my ear
When you’re the only person who
When everyone could disappear
I'd only wanna think of you

Clarkston pasture
Driving faster
Out past the last bachelor pad
My uncle had

You called me the master
Of petty sad-bastardism
But that day all in all was not so bad
That day all in all was not so bad

I’m wondering what you see
I’m wondering what you know
I wonder if you peep me
In the Christmas tree glow
The family is dwindling
And all your old furniture
Gather it as kindling
And try to raise the temperature

In your hometown starlight
Freezing in a parking lot
Cheering on a bar fight
But you know where it’s always hot

Clarkston pasture
Driving faster
Out past the last bachelor pad
My uncle had

You called me the master
Of petty sad-bastardism
But that day all in all was not so bad
That day all in all was not so bad

Appears on On the Northline

Mercury Sable by Matthew Milia

I can hear your nearing Mercury Sable
Growl beneath the tunnel as you make your way over
It rattles like a busted guitar cable
And promises ex-boyfriends made that got left over
Now it’s you and me and tea at the breakfast table
Nursing our amazement and a small hangover

Whatever came before
Your eyes in the morning
Has blurred into a boring little episode of nothing

When you ran into my landing
Jumped into my arms
No one told me love would hold me
Ever again, despite a life of constant false alarms
And all the neighbors saw me laughing so hysterically
All that I could do to keep from crying

And I’m sorry
I can’t make sense
Of something so completely
Intense

We walk toward the water
Where the freighters scrape the land
We pass the ancient motels
Where the folks pay by the hour-hand
Lots of strange concoctions popping up this spring
The garbage and the dandelions blossom like an offering
For you and me and the bad joke I just told
We laugh at all our dumb luck
And the house we say we’ll buy before we get too old
Where maybe our kids’ll pull pranks
For now we walk through Hubbard Farms
And kick discarded nitrous oxide whip-it tanks
That the joyride people suck down
To make the woken nightmare
Not feel like such a letdown
And they could hear your nearing Mercury Sable
Growl beneath the tunnel as you make your way over

When you ran into my landing
Jumped into my arms
No one told me love would hold me
Ever again, despite a life of constant false alarms
And all the neighbors saw me laughing so hysterically
All that I could do to keep from crying
And I’m sorry
I can’t make sense
Of something so completely
Intense

Appears on On the Northline

On the Northline by Matthew Milia

Syrup and saccharin
Don’t really factor in
When I’m with Catherine

On the Northline
Where 15 years after the high school braces lift
On the Northline
The tectonic molars and incisors start to shift
On the Northline
The municipal golf course is strewn in October leaves
On the Northline
The scratch-offs and night coughs are stolen by the nursing home thieves

On the Northline
The McDonald’s sign ain’t the only pending deal
On the Northline
On the Northline

You peel at the way you feel today
Till a 10-year-older version of you
Kneels in the dark ditch
And shows you what is real

Rotting inheritance
Plotting some errands with
Whatever your parents left

On the Northline
You had the physique of a youth travel soccer coach
On the Northline
Your hatchback was matte black and sleek in its nightly approach
On the Northline
There's a sense that the denseness of night is colliding with age
On the Northline
There's a sector of town that dissolves in a black hole of beige

On the Northline
There's this friend of mine
Who's just dying to make a deal
On the Northline
On the Northline

You peel at the way you feel today
Till a 10-year-older version of you
Kneels in the dark ditch
And shows you what is real

Appears on On the Northline

Magdalene (That’s Not Your Name) by Matthew Milia

The gift certificate that you gave me expired today
I was too tired to make it to the Meijer in White Lake anyway
It’s raining like Halloween
Like every Halloween since I turned 17

Do you know what I mean?
Magdalene

Yeah, I’m well aware that’s not your name
People love to share the details
But rarely share the blame
I’m sorry for what I became and what you’ve seen
Campari twice-spilt on the same computer screen
Now I’m nothing but a waste of your caffeine
I waste it all
Magdalene

Did you not hear
The desperate call?
The fog on the mirror
The scream in the hall
‘Cause everyone knew
And everyone saw
I thought it was you
I was glad I was wrong

The autumn girls keep asking why I’m overdressed
They offered me some medicine and I guess I acquiesced
But lately, this played-out scene
Feels vaguely like a broken Coke machine
And I’m stuck in-between
That place and
Magdalene

Appears on On the Northline

Everywhere but beside You by Matthew Milia

Summer’s sticky sickness
And one Jehovah’s Witness
Knocking at my sticky summer door
Just swishing beer
And wishing I weren’t still living here
With nowhere else I think I might like more

Guy in the alley
Screaming a finale
About some money that somebody owes
Well, I’ve been going a long time owing
A debt to someone I don’t even know

There wasn’t much to say the day I met you
Wasn’t much to do all summer long
But I could tell
From the moment it fell
Everywhere but beside you felt wrong

So hold a second
And tell me what you’ve reckoned
About the night that we spent on the floor
It’s gotten pretty quiet on the lonely-hearted diet
As I scavenge through the drive-thus evermore

Having slammed the cupboard
I hit the northern suburb
Where the cashiers at Home Depot know my name
I duplicate the house key
That you forgot to leave me
And every cashier last year felt the same

There wasn’t much to say the day I met you
Wasn’t much to do all summer long
But I could tell
From the moment it fell
Everywhere but beside you felt wrong

And after all the birthdays this fall
Everywhere but beside you will feel wrong

Appears on On the Northline

Swore I Had a Friend by Matthew Milia

I swore I had a friend
Who swore it’d never end
At the secret spot
Behind the Amoco lot
But by November 3rd
I learned a brand new word
For “nothing stays the same”
I rhymed it with her middle name
And by November 6
I was back to my old tricks
‘Cause that’s my birthday
I swore a friend

And school is back in session
At least I dreamed that it seemed like it was
And this was my last question
If the sacred stasis was the basis
For the places we thought we should be
But I swore I had a friend

Where Opdyke used to end
And the fast food signs just blend
Into the secret word
That only once occurred
On the long drive home
Past the Silverdome
Where anyone could see
The broken light in me
Where the daylight used to bend
I swore I had a friend

And school is back in session
At least I dreamed that it seemed like it was
And this was my last question
If the sacred stasis was the basis
For the places we thought we should be
But I swore I had a friend

Appears on On the Northline

Enter the Kingdom by Matthew Milia

Summer's begun
The drummers are hungry
The sound of the gun
On Livernois stung me
I wake in the afternoon
Napping in your cocoon, hon

The women around here
Poisoned by glamour
The sound in their ear
From some nine pound hammer
That falls from the thundercloud
I wonder if I'm allowed, dear

To break it away
And enter the kingdom
Remember the way
You luckily winged him
The hapless intruder
We kept every looter at bay

The night is that thief
It slices the screen door
It corrupts belief
That we'll ever restore
The majesty tasted
The metaphor wasted on me

The denseness of air
I see it so thickly
And what's stored in there
And flowing so slickly
The lungs of the lilacs
The tongues of the climax
Ensnare

The dumbness of death
The prenatal coma
Then your mother's breath
The awesome aroma
Of waking up welcome
The fatal diploma
To bear

In perfect July
Bulging and bending
The banquet is dry
And rapidly ending
The family scattered
And all that once mattered will die

I sleep in the bush
That separates the houses
I wake with a push
From random ex-spouses
That pace through the neighborhood
In case there's a way they could try

To break it away
And enter the kingdom
Remember the way
Remember it, darling

Appears on Enter the Kingdom

If You Can by Matthew Milia

I got replaced
Chapped lips on my wasted face
Now every vowel just drips into the night
But oh
Your lips used to catch my drips so tight
With delight

What's this I see?
The miracles of modernity that pool
I drive by my old school at night
Something stays behind to keep the light
So bright

And oh
You know I'd like to see you make it back
To that night of barely bluish black
I guess we'll see
Won't we?
Won't we see?
If you can

Appears on Enter the Kingdom

Nothing Is Working by Matthew Milia

Nothing is working
My galaxy was a fallacy after all
The phone calls
Have all but ceased
But at least I still hear

The dial-up modem
Still screeching and swollen
In my ear

All the while upholding
The viable slogan

That nothing is working
My galaxy was a palace to me
And that's all
The strip malls
The soccer games
Cocker spaniel names
I recall

Jennifer says
That whenever my hesitation
Is lurking
She doesn't care
She'll still be there
When nothing is working

Dysfunction
Is something
I love

Appears on Enter the Kingdom

Gauche by Matthew Milia

Here's a little kiss
For little miss gauche
Chatty and bratty and rather precocious
Gather up the inimitable neurosis
That you brag about

Measure my shoe size in the frozen snow track
When you rise, swallow your Prozac
And meet me at the diner when you stitch up the liner
Of your jacket where you tore the tag out

In this strange new age
We just got each other
Forget all the strange rage
Regarding all the strangers you let in
To meet your mother 

Here's a little icy free advice, see
Twenty-two-year-olds just never entice me
Well, maybe once or twice
But I always pay the price
For letting myself in

I'm always hibernating until the regrets flee
Salivating soon as somebody lets me
The girl that I was dating seldom ever upsets the
New situation

In this strange new age
We just got each other
Forget all the strange rage
Regarding all the strangers you let in
To meet your mother 

Here's a little kiss for little miss gauche
Here's a little kiss for little miss gauche

Here's a little slip
It's my approach
I'm chatty and bratty and rather precocious
I slather on the inimitable neurosis
Because I care about
You

Appears on Enter the Kingdom

Sarah Springtime by Matthew Milia

Our sacred neighborhoods
Now only nominally exist
Your dad's looking for work on Craigslist

So drink red wine with me
At the deserted megachurch
We'll play the broken rec room Sega like it's research

For the way things used to be
And our first taste of sin
One sweep of your breath
Pumps my adrenaline

Sarah Springtime
Is there a thing I'm
Qualified to say?
You mollified the way
That this life feels so ancient
But patient is the nascent little star
And so we are
Adjacent to the Sarah Springtime

Your one-dimensional boyfriend
Who's gotten kind of mean
Your mind's half hot lava
And half Dexedrine

Just four years ago
You grieved the four years before that
Four years from today you'll say
That you wish knew where it was at, that

Sarah Springtime
Is there a thing I'm
Qualified to say?
You mollified the way
That this life feels so dated
You know that I waited
In my prime
But now I'm
Slated for the Sarah Springtime

Sarah Springtime
Is there a thing I'm
Qualified to do?
It all relied on you
I still taste the lilacs
Even when the sky blacks out the blue
And I do
Still believe in Sarah Springtime

Appears on Enter the Kingdom

Gerunds by Matthew Milia

Holiday errands
The piling of gerunds
In the snow
Now that my parents
Really got no
Place to go
Even to cash a check
Flash a little hope card in the deck
Whoa

The sadder that we get
Puffing on your e-cigarette
The moment that we met
Keeps getting harder to regret

So here we are
In your car
Listening to
"Found Out About You"

But one last thing
One last little thing
Seems I'm always holding on
To one last thing

Did you ever get paid
Queen of the downgrade, honey pie
For all the beds you made?
Afraid to show the tears in your eye
No questioning why
Never short on supply

The store wasn't open
For your ibuprofen when I went
The morning was frozen
The salt didn't melt through my intent

So there we were
In a blur
Shouting through
"I'm sick of myself when I look at you"

So one last thing
One last little thing
Seems I'm always holding on
To one last thing

Holiday errands
The piling of gerunds
In the snow
Fuck total awareness
There's only one thing I should know

Appears on Enter the Kingdom

Visit Me by Matthew Milia

Everyone's home in sweatpants for the series finale of their discontinued fall prime times
Meredith's in Massachusetts with a colonial toothache and the leaves to rake are burning themselves so I'm
Home watching my dad watch the NFL alone
Wish I still had that eternal telephone
I'd call you

So come on down and visit me
My condition petitions so implicitly
I need you

I'm stuck inside each birthday gift that I ever got
Stuck inside the sounds they make when they shift and rot
Beneath you

I want living love and mental access denser
Than the motel continental breakfast cereal dispenser
I want those eyes you made at me
Those bedside globes
Those orbs

I want your spilt coffee burning my inner thighs
And the watermarks that measure my oscillating size when it dries
And absorbs

So come on down and visit me
My condition petitions so implicitly
I need you

I'm stuck inside the rhythm of your glottal stops
A bottle of codeine and green cough drops
I feed you

Everyone's home in sweatpants for the series finale of their discontinued childhood
I wound up in Providence as a second-rate dramatist
And I'd write the second act if I just could

So come on down and visit me
My condition petitions so implicitly
I need you

I wrote it on the notepad of the suggestion box
I'll breathe the desperation till
The kingdom unlocks
For me too

Appears on Enter the Kingdom

Positively Freaking by Matthew Milia

Sarah picks at her salad on the tennis court
Has a valid passport
Ready to go
I am sure

I watch 90s sitcoms at my dad's place
All the modern fads base
Themselves apropos
The obscure

At Office Max
Received your fax
You're coming home

Spring is always coming in a manner of speaking
Everything is numbing when it's not positively freaking
Positively freaking

I still hear the smack of saliva
From when he was alive the
Way my grandpa talked

Summer lives in back of the mind of
You when you were kind of
Drunk and sweetly blocked

The mascot died
And at his side
The grown man cried

Spring is always coming in a manner of speaking
Everything is numbing when I'm not positively freaking
Positively freaking

I am always coming in a manner of speaking
I remember something you were tacitly seeking with your eyes
We refuse to exit when our powers are peaking
Everything is numbing till we're so positively freaking
Positively freaking

Appears on Enter the Kingdom

Our Flowers Are Still Burning by Matthew Milia

In the sunken silhouette
Of your drunken pillow wet
From the teardrops that your sweet eyes
Are now churning

In the early morning light
On the curly fry you bite
That's left behind by deadbeats
Undiscerning

When the party is through
And the people you knew
Have all dissolved to day jobs
That they're spurning

If I fail in the end
Just to find me a friend
Beneath each flaming wreath
I've been upturning

I am soaking from the sun
I am joking with someone
I am hoping that our flowers are still burning

In the speckled melanin
That has freckled up your skin
A vivid new infinity I'm learning

In the markings of the rain
In a sparkling pattern plain
Bursting a refrain of hot returning

There's a flame on your tongue
And a name still so unsung
Among the shitty wages that we're earning

If our flowers appear
Still ablaze in a year
I won't fear that the poverty's concerning

I am soaking from the sun
I am joking with someone
I am hoping that our flowers are still burning

Appears on Enter the Kingdom