And now, it seems,
I'm only here for the stars
And the moon that I hope
Can defrost my aching heart.

What is good
When everything that seems so right
Feels like it's anything but?

Forest birds
Sing me to sleep
So I can escape this awful nightmare.

The burnt out fibers
Of my stretched and stained heart
Have just become taut,

Like sparks behind my eyes
And electricity at my fingers,

The world flickers into place
Like a Polaroid winking into existence,

My breaths may be shallow
But I can breath again,
And though my lungs may be rusty,
The air is clean,
The leaves are crisp,
And Winter may have just begun

But I'm feeling warmer already.

The holes in my lungs,
They peer around like beady eyes
Searching for some glimmer of light,

The air that flowed through them
Used to whistle when I breathed,
But now all they do is creak,

Clotted and dead,
Black and rotting,
I'm drowning from the inside out

11:11
He wished for her to be okay,
Her head buried in his shoulder,
Shaking them both with sobs that
Bounced off the walls and screamed
That he was doing it all wrong.

11:11
He wished for everyone to be okay,
His inbox filled with letters that
Formed words that told the stories
Of how no one was really ever okay, and
How he was doing it all wrong.

11:11
He wished for her to come back,
His eyes burning with the regret of
Not telling her how much he'd miss her, the sharp
Wind on this cheek as he stared at her grave
Reminded him on how he had done it all wrong.

11:11
He wished that he'd be okay,
Sudden realization that wishes are
Only that, the hollow hope like
The gorges in his skin to remind him
How he did everything wrong.

11:11
He hoped there wasn't nothing
After leaving this world of fake
Wishes, and lay his head in his pool of blood
On the bathroom floor, one last slit across his throat,
And he wished he didn't get this wrong.

Last week I told you
That I was drowning
Thinking that you'd jump in after me,

But to my surprise,
And by the way you cried, your surprise too,
You held my head under the water,
Just below the inky waves.

It was cold and muddy
And I choked on it too,
My eyes were burning
And my whole body shook
And I grasped for your hair
To try and pull myself up
But you cut it with a quick jagged slash,
And pushed me down deeper.

And soon my eyes began to hollow
And my lungs forgot to struggle
And I swear,
Through the water I saw your velvet lips part
And let out a final thought
Haphazardly tied to a sigh,

Because when I tried to tell you that I still loved you
You just let us drown.

I never knew
I was drowning
Until I took a breath of you
And saw colors again
For the very first time.

For all the words I've written,
I still feel as though I will die
Completely unexpressed.

I woke up today
With the overwhelming feeling
That I was alive,

That my skin could feel
Cold and warmth,
That my heart could feel
Joy and pain,

And I stood in the shower
And let the water wash over me,
Wondering if all of my troubles
Were self constructed,

And what was keeping me back
From feeling connected to reality,
Like a leaf to a branch,
A tree to the crust of the Earth,

Like light from the sun
That's always guaranteed.

Never more have I wished
     For paper thin walls

Plaster white only rivaled
     By your porcelain pale skin

If not only to serve
     As some grand, seeing canvas,

Littered with words of our
     Half drunken slurs

And cozy expressions of love
     In a night yearning to stretch longer,

For if those walls could tell the tales
     Of our exploits through and through,

I'd trace them up, cut them out,
     And frame my adoration for you.

Lately,
I've had you on my mind
Like an old song
You've rediscovered the beauty in,
And you've been occupying
The rooms in my head
For once without a chance
Of vacancy.

I'm sitting here,
     Lost among the
Static shadows of
     A slumbering morning,

And while the world
     Blinks awake
I'm left wondering
     When my head
Will finally succumb
                              To sleep.

It's so much more
Than the daffodil sunrise
Exhaling puffed purple trails of smokey
Cotton ball clouds
Reflected across the stitches
Of your hazel-green iris
That captures my attention so,
And refuses to return
My breath you've stolen.

Here I am again;
The sky has opened
And I'm ready to see past these cloudy days,

I'm doing this for me,
Just me this time
Because if I don't my feet might get caught again,

And I don't think I can stand drowning anymore.

Autumn,
Where the sky dulls
And the grass quivers,

Where the ground stiffens
And the birds abandon their treetop posts
That scratch the sky like brittle fingers,

Where the clouds huddle together
To soak up the distant sun
And the where wind whispers against my skin,

Where the world starts to die,
Life falls back into me,
And the char in my lungs chips away,

And the leaves on the ground
Pad the pavement
With a crunch that breaks the monotony of these dry days,

And I'm home,
In the wake of the color before the white,
The warmth before the decay,

Falling forwards again into a rhythm
Of something old,
But entirely brand new.

You lit a fire in me,
And I know,
That's a really stupid way of saying it,

But nothing compares
To the way that you've melted
The ice that's frozen my insides,

A mushy pink slushie,
Unsure of where I begin
And the frost ends,

And I used to hear it
Every
Single
*******
Day,
Slushing and slurping
And flowing between the bones of my ribcage

Like an ocean of organs
That wanted nothing more than be to warm again,

But now I'm on fire,
And I can feel everything dripping,
Solidifying back into place,

And I swear to god,
Today I felt my heart beat again.

My body is frozen,
     My ribs are icicles
Threatening to pierce
     My hollow shell
Made from whisper-thin skin,

And it may be
     The dead of summer,
But I need warmth.

Oh,
     Won't someone light
          A fire in me?

It's the drone
Of some forgotten tune
Bubbling up static from
A radio station you've never heard of,
Lack luster in comparison
To the glow of their voice
When they'd murmur the
Curves and valleys of song
And sway their hips
In sync with the rhythm
In the early blush
Of the mid-morning sun
Soaking the kitchen whole,

The run in with a smell
That only half encapsulated
The fire in their hair
And the spirit in their heart,
Nuzzled warm against the
Breathless rasp of winter,
Somehow seeming to weave itself
Into all of your clothes,
No matter how many times you washed them,
But it was okay
Because you didn't mind
Always having them close to you,

The upturned stretch
Of a stranger's lips
As they hand you your coffee
And for a moment so quick
You hardly catch it wink into existence,
You see their face again,
And hold up the line,
Now shifting with impatience,
Because you forgot that
Your feet weren't cemented
To the ground,

And it's things such as these
That for a fraction so small
You might just miss it,

They exist in your world again.

And here's how I see it:

We lay hand in hand
Until the dam far, far away
Cracks,

Until the blades of grass
Tickling your nose
Wither,

Until the clouds above
Rain inky substance like
Oceans,

And when the sun shines
Memories mellow on
Wavering waves waving
Willows in the wind,

Up to our nostrils,
Your eyes like the moon
Straining to see those last
Blades of grass curl in on themselves,

Here's how I see it:

**We drown.

My car has been making
     Strange, clunky sounds,

So I turn up the music
     Until the bass smothers the concern.

I can't stop finding
Her amber hair everywhere-
She's been gone years now.

Your skin is a pastel melody,
Though you enrich my days
With a rhythm that is
Anything but monochromatic,

Your eyes a steadfast housing
For waves of gray-blue, green speckled swirls akin
To a summer storm just before dusk,
Thunderous like your will,
Raining refreshment like your essence,

Your curved pose carved in
In loops of my mind
You're always seemingly tangled in,
About where we will go to eat
This weekend, and
How many hours we will lay
Huddled up like hibernating cubs
In a nest we've built from blankets,

Winters no longer soaked with solace,
But now with the eager chance
To shut ourselves in,
If not only to enjoy the eternal company
Of two beings who love being with each other.

Now forever doesn't seem so nearly long
When I'm tripping over days
And sliding through the weeks
With you,

You make the cold days seem
Too brief in their presence,
And every day a little bit warmer
Than the last.

If my flesh could sing,
It'd bellow, it yearn in endless echo
For the familiar comfort
Of your fingers gracing over me
On a lazy Sunday morning
With nothing better to do
But enjoy one another,

For no longer am I
A man standing lonesome against the
Stiff gust of the present moment,
But a being who is only a
Malformed morph of skin and bones
Without the extension of myself,
The inner of my core,
The hue of all my colors,

The movement behind my dancing,
The alleviation to all my sorrows,
You,
For now, and for as long as I am me,
You,
For tomorrow, from yesterday, and all the years we dream,
You,
For as long as time tells and suns set,
You.

I'll sit here,
Encased in the night
Before the sun of my screen,
And look over my shoulder
Every now and again
Because I can't stop now,

I'll write another
******* love poem
Like it means something to me
Like these words spilling
Like broken glasses
Soaking this mangle of a poem
Can actually say anything about how I feel.

I could absolutely alliterate
And methodically metaphor
Like a truck stuck in mud
But you see
That's all I'll ever be,
Just stuck in this muddled mind of mine,

Grasping at the ghost of us
That does not exist in any
Tangible reality,
And so I'll write another
******* love poem,
And someone will swoon
And clap their hands together
And tell me how lucky you are
To have someone like me,

When in the scheme of things,
It's not how I feel.

It's not even close to how I feel
Because how I feel
Cannot be articulated through some
Random array of 26 letters,
26 effortless, meaningless symbols
Slapped together without caution,
Stitched together with some form
Of a string of tears I cannot cry
Because the real me is trapped inside you see,

He's trapped up there,
Locked in a rusty cage with
Nothing to read
And nothing to sing
And nothing lovely to smell
When that rotted core of a sun
Beams over whatever fleshy horizon
Exists up there,
You see I'm not sure how to say it
Without making this some
God forsaken love poem
That's just like all the others,

But I'm trapped up here,
And only you
Give me hope
That I'll ever get down in one thinking piece.

Beneath the milky grin
Of a smoldering shimmer
Cast lost among the
Unwavering yearn of
The night time sky,

We stood with our
Dusty shoes clamped together,
Our arms folded inward
And our heads too heavy to lift,

And we made our
Light fuzzy wish on
Dandelion puffs picked
Before the morning's dew,

"All of the wishes
You've ever made before
Meant nothing,"
I'd say,

"In order to make this one
Mean everything."

An angel fish
Lost deep
     Beneath the waves.

All the pieces
     Of myself
I never quite
     Understood,

Indescribable
     To those who've never seen
The colors of a night
      Never long enough.

If the
Morning sunshine
     Could speak.

More brilliant
     Than a library,
More pure
     Than a spring.

Like fire
     If the flames
Could burn
     Themselves.

The top
     Of a Ferris wheel
In the fleeting breeze
     Of the setting summer sun.

Even though
      It's been years,
Whenever I see fireworks
     I think of you.

We all like to think
     Our lives as though they're
           Stories,

And ourselves to be
     The hero, grand and shining
          In some tale yet to be written,

An underdog,
     Burdened with the weight of the world,
          Waiting for that lucky break,

But sometimes our final act
    Never resolves to an exciting conclusion,
         Because no one is guaranteed anything more
              Than the role of a background character

In someone else's saga,
     Prose proposed entirely devoid
          Of our own happy endings.

Grass roots
     Hear my whisper
And feel my touch
     Skirting soft
           As I trace my hand along
                  The moon kissed curls,

And when a blade
     Catches the round of my finger,
Please,
      Please don't let go.

Curled up together
On your couch,
Our hands intertwined,
Our backs
Against the hollow hum
Of Halloween's breeze
Lingering through
Dancing drapes
With dizzy dips
Before the cracked-window audience,

And the sun playfully peaked
Over the graceful dying trees
That lined suburban streets,
Looming over pumpkin
Patterned leaves, basked in
The approaching gloom of
Dusk,

And while the night
Tied that present to this memory,
I remember the scruff of your
Auburn hair against my nose,
The bewitching draw of
Some vague fragrance
My addict lungs yearn to
Breath once more,

And now,
With each passing October,
Autumn leaves never seem more alluring.

I had a dream
A little while back,

But it's been gnawing
And aching
And beating itself
Against my swimming (drowning) head,

Because in this dream
We were fighting
     (Like usual)
And I told you to
     "Be worse"
So I could stop missing you,
And time could remember
How to tick again

And you looked me in my eyes,
Through my eyes
And you screamed,
You told me you were trying your best.

Sometimes,
    When I'm grasping
          For something to say,

I lay on my back
And stare carefully
     At the dizzy dance
Of the ceiling fan's motion,

And think of all the other times
      I longed for the sky to
            Crack,
      The ground to shake,
      The leaves to tell me
             Their secrets,

All the times I yearned
For something,
      Anything,
To come crashing in a
      Passionate heat
      Into my life again.

I'm still straining
     To see the vibrancy
Of colors painting reality,

But at least I've
     Caught my breath
And found my sound.

I dreamt of you last night,
     smiling sweet like the sun
          with a surface cool to the touch,
Your chest rising against mine
     with a spark of
            never-close-enough,
And your chest falling
     as you exhaled flower petals
          and spring days
               right after it's rained,

And when I awoke
      in my stone-cold
            casket of a bed,
Even after pulling over
     Another blanket (twice as thick),

I shivered.

The girl with hair pink as candy
Plays the violin in
The school bathroom
With a rusty bow,
And just before dawn in her bed
To calm her tempers
And soothe her demons to sleep,

For I suppose she figures
Between her and them,
One deserves to slumber
Peacefully.

He cocked his head, looked down at me curled up in his arms, vulnerable, I'd imagine he'd see me as, and parted his lips to let out a string of words tied to a sigh.

"What is your favorite memory?"  He spoke, the words dripping off his tongue and slipping down my face, creeping into my mouth, coating the insides of my lungs I no longer breathed from.

I wanted to say this one; The one where I bled to death in his arms, and I finally felt the sting of his tears he no longer had to hide.

I cannot help
But to cling
To the memories
Where I once was
Beautiful,

Reduced now
To cold food
In a cracking bowl,
Shivering
Without a blanket,

And typing
Into a text box
I secretly hope
Will delete
This awful thought.

I wish to bury
     my toes like roots
     in the soil,

Breath in the crisp
     summer soaked air,
Ringing out a day's worth
     of yawning afternoon sun,

And fall back into
     the sleepless nights
That drifted into days
     that didn't matter.

When I'm with you
I forgot doing dishes
Is even a chore.