There's this feeling simply like your life is some production,
a film, an aesthetically pleasing seduction;
you feel the music swallow up the room.

You feel like the center of gravity.
Well known, vital, radiant even.
You become omniscient.
A caretaker, the director of this scene.

Here. There. Somewhere in between.
You know this is your moment.
Your decision. Your life. Speeding by.
One reel at a time.

And by God. You're actually happy with it.

In all honesty, I'm lying.
Truth is, there's someone else;
but I'll never tell.

The real captor of my heart, a theft at the age of twelve,
and darling, I never knew it, belonged to an older pallid fellow.
An artist. a musician, and really quite mellow,
his heart a trophy, that I happily shelve.

Tall and thin, with the most beautiful grin,
he's got bright blue eyes and slight brown curls,
that reels me right around the world,
faintly looking out and wholly looking in.

With a bit of cracked charisma, a split spirit,
I've not always known both sides, but I know it,
I'm learning,  day by day,
and I shall not, nor must I fear it.

Our eyes met years ago,
leaves crackling as we walked a long charcoal road;
We knew we'd sadly end upon the same pavement.

How we ever came to know each other,
between your family and my mother,
it became so painful, and difficult to see,
that we were never meant to be.

But we played hard and fast with the rules,
used each other as tools we were foolish,
so young and naive there's no where to turn,
we only wanted company while we watched the world burn.

Please understand we knew not what we did,
every feeling and touch, in the darkness we hid,
bound by a level we thought we could comprehend,
but we were wrong, our hearts just couldn't bend.

Love flourished and faded between us,
time and again, but only  I could see;
to him, ignorance was bliss.

"You just don't get me anymore."
I could speak only from the shore,
the only place I could find my voice,
to contemplate my final choice.

"What do you mean?" you ask in a tizzy,
"You have no time for me. You're just too busy."
worry-lines scratched across his forehead,
I well up inside, without him, I'll soon be dead.

A divide is taking place within,
between my body and my soul,
I can hear the mutilating of muscle tissue,
the soft twisting of my veins until they burst.

The grinding of my bones together,
sounds of a classroom of students writing frantically,  
so touch that pen to your paper and scrape down everything,
that you can remember that ever happened between us.

Ink will drip down the pages,
of my scribble, and you're beautiful calligraphy,
the ink under your skin, in your arms and ankles,
screaming, wishing they could leave.

Just like me.

The harsh sound of ink, the black and blue,
falling out now, drastically scoring the pages of your memory,
as time ticks down and it's time to turn in the essay,
the piece of work that's your life.

I want to tie you to a melody,
to the bridge of the next song I write,
for you to live on in the notes and words,
that kill me every night.

I want to carve you in a tree,
hope that's where you end up when you die,
feel the agony you caused me,
imprinted on your chest in your new life.

I want to sew you to a mattress,
so I might finally learn to rest in peace,
as long as it's not mine I'll dream,
that you are sheep and I am fleece.

Truth be told, I don't want you alive.

I'll butcher your song,
and chop down your tree,
I'll burn your mattress,
jubilant as can be.

I'll take your hand,
any day, any way you are,
your red or white on my lips,
in laughter or in sorrow,
I beg for your tipsiness,

your warmth down my throat
a twist off, a pop off, top me off, friend.

Make my eyes glassy,
make things disappear,
make it harder to see,
make it harder to hear,
the harder the liquor,

the older the wine, for your taste and your feeling,
in these difficult times, you're divine.

I know this isn't it,
not even close to what you wanted,
this is open-heart surgery,
but there is no heart to fix.

My body's gone cold and numb,
you and me are finally dead,
and once something dies,
you can't make it live.

Please give up good friend,
on how near and far we've been,
Please slow up my friend,
you've never been close at all.

The shadow on the ground in the alley around back,
the only heartbeat in the silence in my room,
the voice, active in my sleep.

Always there for me,
breathing, seeing, tasting life,
but never feeling.

Dearest lonesome.
You are my only friend.

Lie back.
Arm out.
Tight fist.
Deep breath.

The needle plunges in and nausea hits,
the pull is draining me,
painting me a pallid white,
the afterglow of morning beauty vanishes.

Vial after vial,
when is she going to stop?

Never.

The diagnosis is here,
I now stand only to fall.

A breath of air came to me,
as I gasp awake,
in heartache.

My deepest and fondest memories
are being brought back by these dreams,
where I remember days where everything is,
how everything seems.

Where you were you,
and I was me,
where nothing mattered in between.

Breathe.

I used to be your old Phoebe,
like your sister or friend.

Mr. Venson used to tell us to unify and simplify,
so that's just what we did.  

As time went on, I became someone more,
more like your Sally Hayes.
Someone you loved,
but suddenly hate.

Whatever happened in room 1222?
Or what would have happened if you had given me a buzz?

But through and through,
you drifted beyond hate,
in solemn memory,
leaving me to be your Jane Gallagher.

A distant memory, someone you longed to see,
but could never bring yourself to call.

And after all these years,
you've always been my Holden Caulfield.

Outer.

She is as pale as the night after an autumn rain.
Hair burgundy, as sleek as wine being poured over her shoulders.
Eyes of hazel, mysteriously falling past every passerby,
they look through you, but never at you, and mostly at the floor.

Inner.

She is an oxymoron, a contradiction, a paradox of sorts.
Her mind, simplicity and complexity entwined.
As bitter as she is sweet, and never but sometimes a neutral,
it is difficult to desire clarity, however effortless reaching for obscurity.

Over.

Her hand placed lightly on the cold glass,
she smiled into her reflection, smugly.
She threw her hands into the mirror,
shredding her image into hundreds of pieces.

Contented by madness.
Who knew?

You were making your rounds through the park of our past,
you stealing through the woods with no hesitation.

Shallow, you reminisced of what we once had, what you wanted again,
obsessed with refining the mess you had made years ago.

You flailed in the silence that was your last breath reaching the concrete,
you slipped just at the outskirts of your destination.

I watched you in squalor, motionless from the swing set.
Skull inevitably cracked, you bled your words onto the pavement.

You now sleep forever in a puddle of all the words I wish you would have said.

She is lying in ecstasy,
through her teeth to his face,
eyes at his, only aching for him to call her out.

She is calm and reposed,
reeling in the rush of his conviction,
she sharpens her tongue on his of steel.

She is writhing in the downpour of rain,
as he cries out against her malicious intent,
her body of cellophane is losing it's layers.

She retracts the truth from herself,
syringes cleansing her oh-so honest blood,
as a transfusion of ignoble thinner restores her.  

Her contacts swallow her soul,
Her make up hides a monster,
He can see right through her.

He chooses to look away.

Madness morphs into her mediocre mind,
malice melds into her  many medications.

A master of methodical know-how and mathematics,
mental beyond malfunction and the mysteries of murder,

A mirror and matches fill her meticulously packed bag,
Meth, her only friend, marks the minutes going by.

Marry me, she mumbled.

May we know as much as Maxine.