My dream catchers
Must be defective,

    I still see you every night.

And I'll forever affirm
There is no greater beauty
     Than the heavy silence
That accompanies the stagnant hymn
     Of a humble snowfall,
Bright against the murmuring
     Hum of a shadowy winter's night,

The world spinning slow,
     Frosty and quiet,
     Encased in white.

Only when I see
     Nothing but trees
           For miles
And hear
     Nothing but wind
           For hours
Will I understand
      The things I run from.

I keep telling myself
I'm happy,

But I can't stop
Catching myself wishing
For something more than stability.

The fields were
Drenched in the
Silent static
That shimmered hesitantly
From a brew of clouds
Huddled up high.

Slowly,
Ever so slowly,
I am seeing
Glimmering shards of myself
Creep back into the
Beat of my heart and
The cadence of my words.

What if, beyond the great unknown of death,
there is nothing
but fragments of memories
flickering into place
like a flame just ignited,
memories of all the good times,
all the first kisses
and starry nights,
family gatherings
and the wind dancing through autumn leaves,
all the moments that filled your heart,
and all of those that shattered it just the same,
all the stupid fights
and good jokes
and fruitful meals,
all the common day sights
reframed in to odd familiar beauty
when juxtaposed against an eternal scarcity,
all the long drives,
anxious waits,
and books you never quite did get around to reading,
all the long nights
and early mornings,
all the conversations you'll never forget,
and all the passing words you wish you hadn't,
to each season of your life,
each phase, each desire, every dream,
all the people that molded you,
even the ones that linger in foggy memories now,
what if, when the heart is weak and the body
begins to wither,
when your bones succumb to
to the gravity of existence,
what if this is all there is,
blurring in some melancholic haze,
forever reverberating
against the weightless expanse
of the void always yearning?

it was when
i realized that
the glint of silver
resting itself
like withered hands
on worn wooded counters
in the corner of my eyes
still hopeful,

it was then
that i realized it
glimmered from
the key to my freedom,
strung around my neck
within my reach but
beyond my sight

and all i had to do
was yearn for it
and open my eyes to the truth that always was.

So it's gotten to this point,
     Where I'm refreshing each page
And checking my phone
     Every
          Two
               Minutes
In hope
     Someone,
          Anyone,
Will find me interesting again.

Her house was always
Cold, like someone had broken
A window, and left.

I know I said
I swore I wouldn't do anything
For you today,
But I figure this isn't breaking
Any sort of promise
(Pinkie related or not),
So I hope it's fine
If I call you mine
And ask:
"Will you be my Valentine?"

And so we lay
On warm carpets
And smooth tile floors,
Safe from the grasp
Of the spirits of the stars
And the beauty of unpredictability,
And we call it "stable"
To keep ourselves from
Creeping towards insanity.

In the flames of my own hell,
     I have learned to mistake the fire's burn

For comforting warmth.

Tonight,
All I wanted to do
Was to stand in the center
Of my old high school football field
Lingering loudly in the shadows
Beyond my home,

And stare at the sky,
And scream,
Just ******* scream,

Because I am drowning
In my memories
And the flood
Needs to go somewhere.

Like a daisy
Rising curious from the charcoal ash
Of a forest fire scorch

Through all the anguish and doubt,
As broad as a still summer sky
Comes clarity.

So here's to all the arsonists of the world,
Lest the beauty of metamorphism
Succumb to stagnation
And turn to rot.

Ernest Hemingway once said:
"Write hard and clear about what hurts",
And I have neither written hard
Nor clear
About the ache eating my heart
Or the ink in my throat,

Because you see,
It was so much more than losing you.

I lost the stars I drew on my ceiling
Above my bed,
Where we had laid in a sea of sheets
And a chasm of pillows,
Because it was both raining and noon
But you wanted to see the stars
So I made them for you.

I lost Gilbert Park,
Where we would sit in the dark of the night
Listening to songs we didn't understand
But ones that made us feel,
And your pale hand clasped mine
As though the rain would sweep our car away.

I lost the family dinners,
All the inside jokes
Between distant relatives
And your brother who always looked up to me
And your little cousin who never could say my name right
But it was so funny that eventually
The entire family began to say it wrong on purpose,
Even years later when he said it correctly.

And I lost the little things too,
Like knowing exactly which floor board
Would squeak in your house,
And how your dad would decorate
The entire lawn for every holiday,
Even for the ones people would forget about otherwise.

And I remember how when we'd walk
Hand in hand,
Our steps would maintain a perfect rhythm,
In sync the entire time

And I lost so much more than words could ever say
And I just want to slam my hands on my keyboard
And wish away the pain
And **** why don't the words pour like they used to,

It's all sticky and my veins feel clotted
With frustration and heat
And the sky has cracked
And my walls are crumbling
And everything is dizzy and it's hard to stand
Because I used you as my crutch
But now I have to remember how to walk alone
In a world where I have to pretend
You don't exist
Because time heals all wounds
But why can't time go any ******* faster?

The girl whose hair
Hung strung from
The crooked inner workings
Of her geared mind
Dusty, rusted, and unkempt
Against her most eager desires,
Bathed in the waves
Of the oblivion that surrounds us
During this night she absorbed
Into the fibers that nestle
Into the strings of her shirt,
Singing against the gentle flow
Of an evening breeze
Much cooler than that
Of one plagued by the day's sun,
And while the fire
Has been extinguished
And its flames dancing in licks
Have laid to sleep,
The moon has kissed her,
And she portrays the wisdom
She locks away behind a steel box,
Chained and covered with padlocks,
A glow never dim seeping
From beneath the lid.

It was last night,
To feel your cracked hand
Resting gently in my own,
The hum of your voice
Tied down an octave
Lower with a deary,
Flowery rasp escaping
The curve of your lips
So soft in the occasional
Murmur of streets lights
Winking past our speeding car,
The way your head
Fell cocked to the side,
Nuzzled in the knitted fibers
Of some patterned scarf
Draped around your neck,
It was last night
As I felt your fingers
Intertwine with my own
That I felt at home
In a world that spins
So fast,
So without worry,
Now, as do I.

5 years from now
None of this will matter,
For stories treading halls
Seemingly endless will
Evaporate and soak
Into walls, all the
Broken hearts and
Superstar athletes,
All the pretty faces
And "lasting" friendships
That never endured the
Winters of summer separation.
All the rumors and
Lies and achievements
And stories washing over
Every blank corner
We wade through today
Will turn to mist in
The air of tomorrow,
And none of this
Will even matter.

If I could freeze time,
Cease it's pass like the flow
Of a frosted over brook,
I'd find solace in the
Radiant warm of your embrace,

And I'd squeeze your hand
Tightly enough to feel
Our hearts beat against
Each other in the pulse
Of the veins of our fingers,

And we'd stare to the nighttime heavens,
It's inky blackness only rivaled
By the sleek straight of
Your hair I so adore
To tangle my hands in,

And the night sky would be
Spattered with illuminating dots
Burning silently in their stillness
Somewhere in the infinity
Of the cosmos,

And though they be
Millions, billions, trillions
Of miles away,
I look to your eyes
Shimmering in the basking moon,
And find an infinity
All our own,
Bundled up beside me
In the brisk hum of an unmoving night.

Breath in,


Remind yourself that you are human.
You make mistakes.
You hurt people.
You will never be perfect.

Breath out,

Remember everyone is human.
We'll make mistakes.
We'll hurt each other.
We'll never be perfect.

You live in the
Autumn wind,
Whispering hints of
An approaching winter
Both among the trees
And among my ribs,

And I'm left chilled
Without the warmth
Of your hand in mine,

And much like the grass
Speckled across the ground
Cold and a tiresome gray,
My chest freezes over.

And here comes the flood.

If her smile was snow,
     Then her eyes were the sky,
For I found myself
     Losing my thoughts
          In the ink of her iris,

And beautiful music
Played over her voice,
But I'm not entirely sure
Whether it was the twist
     Of the song
Or the curves of her words
     That enchanted me more.

If angels were so graceful
As to whisper past my ear
          Even just once,

I imagine it'd sound
Much like your voice
          When you sing.

I just woke up
in the beginning of the evening

And suddenly became aware
that before this moment I was not aware.

And everything I did
and everything I said
I did without control,

And it feels as though today was lie,
this week was a sham,
this year has been false,
and my life is slipping away

Because I feel myself sinking in again
and I feel my fingers drifting away from my mind,
and it's starting again
and oh God please help me
I want to live
I want to live
I want to live


But here I go, down the muddy hole again.

The truth is, I’m not really sure who I am.  She told us to draw ourselves and then to draw our souls; so I drew my face scratched and uneven, just as I’ve always seen it, and frowned at the result both in the mirror and on the paper.  The only soul I’ve ever really known was the one that shone through the strokes of the keys I punched, the scrawling of ink on paper in mismatched arrays of awkward thoughts, disorientated and unorganized, shaded different spews of emotion and rearranged through the lens of ever last viewer’s eye.  Even so, this soul that is composed of words that defined me painted a picture vivid in its contrast, though blurry from both afar and close enough to squint, no details able to be made out.  These words that have wrapped around my soul rubbed raw from the time my skin first flinched at the cool March air cannot be deciphered by their author, though I know somehow that their letters flowing into one another say more than any curve of my face ever could.  These words are black and white, two extremes crafted in the pallet of the Universe’s toolshed, and perhaps that’s exactly what I am.  Black or white.  I’m dark and lost and scrounging for some rusting wall or tree branch to cling to as to ensure the shimmering waves, onyx and charcoal in their nature with the flow of blood in its spine, do not flood into my mouth at a rate in which is too quick to balance myself upon them, or, I’m white, drifting snow from a cloud scraping the vast expanse of brilliant blue gazing as a sky above all the world, pure, innocent, unscathed with the potential for creation in vibrancies yet unknown, or to be ripped to bits, scattered amongst piles of cream and autumn leaves drained of their color beneath months of shivering frost.  And so, perhaps any physical representation of my being would be all wrong, because that’s not what I am.  Myself, my soul, it resides in the murky depths of heights I’ve yet to discover, tethered endlessly and uncertain among the caverns of my inners, pink and mushy, stirred and ******, untouched from the harsh light of a world encased in brevity.

Okay so,
I told myself
I'd write a poem
Or something
About this because
Writing always helps
Right?

So here goes:

You came to me
In a dream last night
(Again.  God, please just leave me alone)
And asked me if
I thought of you
Often.

And I tilted my head
And smiled some
Crippled cracked grin
And my chest filled up
With warm water
And I was drowning
From the inside out
As I burbled and sputtered
Through the choking waves:

"There has not
Been a day where
I have not
Thought of you
Since we met."

And I *******
Hate myself
Because I stumbled
Over my words
I was sure would
Spill out poetic,
Or at least better
Sounding than that,
And I wanted to
Impress you someway
Somehow
Even though the last time
I saw you
You told me you couldn't believe
You fell for my stupid poetry
The first time around,

And I *******
Hate myself
Because now
My dreams are speaking
More truth
Than I can willingly
Admit to awake.

I'm imprisoned
     Behind this static
          Screeching,
Echoing its sick
Reverberations inside my head
     But disguising itself
     As muck
Both in the expulsion
     Of my tongue
And the frantic scripture
     Of my pen working fruitlessly.

i find you
in the quiet
corners of my days
and remind myself
to again try oh so hard
    to lose you among the busy
    and all of the work
once more

All too often
I'm tempted
To fall off the face of the Earth

If not only to see
If I'd leave a mark.

I caught the scent
Of rot
On my breath today,

I think something deep
Inside me
Died recently

And is withering away.

The best thing about a
Smile is its ability to mask
All the crinkling eyes
Brimming with salt and
The scratches along my arms,
Desperately trying to carve
My skin into an array
Of something finally beautiful,
Desperately trying to clip the
Nails of the monster
You buried into my chest
Alone and without a match,

But it still seems to burn anyways.

If the world
Stood still,
Stuck at 3am,

I'd be content
So long as
You were awake with me.

Amongst the stretches
Of chiseled sidewalk
Stuck with gum and bullet holes,

Waves of black water
Spilled over grass
Dangling in the pull
Of the moon's smirk.

Strung from strands
Of yarn not yet dyed
Hung a bench of sticks
And thorns and buds
With the potential to be
Pretty,

And with shoes cuffing
The ankles of skin
Pale as the shallow murk
Of the wavering sky,
Swinging with the steady
Beat of the croaks
And raspy whispers from
A hat covered head,

A splash of water,
Cool with the gentle peace
Of the final page
Of a book unwritten,
But open to any reader
Who dare choke on the waves themselves.

I loved her
     In lots of little ways,

Like the way she paused
     A moment before looking up
When her name was called,

The way she could stare at you,
     Face as blank as a stone cold slate,
Until a hidden smirk creeped from nowhere.

Like the way her hair
Fell over her shoulders like
The Universe tossed a bit too much
     Eloquence into a creature with
Never enough awareness to realize it,

Like the way we bonded
Over rain and the night
     And concrete and gum
Stamped flat to busy sidewalks,

But she reminded me of flowers
And Christmas lights
     And bad hot chocolate tethered
To the memory of a withering town,

Because they were beautiful
     Just like her.

What more can we seek
     Than to lose ourselves in beauty,

Entangle ourselves in creation?

And fall backwards,
     Arms crossed,
          And eyes closed,
With the trust that
     The Universe will send
     Some curious cloud
          To catch our
          Wandering spirits,
     Our inquiring minds,
     Our sleepless eyes
     And our hopeful breaths,
     Encapsulated surrenders
     And hazed, lost sighs.

Nothing good
Ever lasts forever,
Because everything good
Gets lost eventually,
And everything forever
Will succumb to the fading
Of never good enough.

I suppose these must be
     My heartfelt lyrics
Trying to dance to the tune
     Of your animal spirits,

Because I checked out
     Our astral chart
And it told me we were
     Idea for love.

I so often
Convince my thoughts
That I lose my soul
Among the unknowing
And empty, drifting space
Of whatever it means
To be alive
Because I like the
"Adventure" of it,

But only here,
In the murmuring
Hum of a bedside
Lamp glowing against
The ache of
So-late-it's-early,

Only now,
From behind the safety of
My flimsy bedsheets
Covered in lint
Will I admit

I don't know what I'm doing.

And I'm t͢e͢r͢r͢i͢f͢i͢e͢d͢
     I'm doing it all wrong.

With her hair
     Like the midnight Sky
And her eyes
     Gray as the hanging Moon

She told me I was bright like the Sun
     And I wished to create
A solar system together,
     Without any space between our orbits.

The lilac
Is the flower of first love,

And while you sleep in my arms
Someone else holds

My bouquet of lilacs.

Recently, it seems,
I drive my little blue car,
With more miles on its transmission
Than it has left to safely travel,
And I turn my music up loud,

Loud enough to shake the frame
Of my little blue car,
Competing against the wind
That taps my door
In suppressed shivers,
Pushing and pushing,
Trying to run me off the road,

Loud enough to where it is solid,
A single mass of volume and sound
Slithering down my throat
With each raspy breath I pull in,
Like the One-A-Day vitamins
I keep "forgetting" to take,

Loud enough to remind the birds,
The ones that lagged behind
And forgot to fly south this winter
To shoot off the creaking pine branches
Drenched in the sweat of melting snow,

And it's those things,
The pine needles socializing with the whispering wind,
The shimmer of glossy hazard when my headlights reflect off the pavement,
The rust of chain-link fences scrapping into Spring,
These are the things that rationalize the beat of my music
In my little blue car
Speeding along without purpose.

I put myself back in that place,
Beyond the veil of that fall-turning-to-winter night
Clentched together in the backseat of my Honda,
The air was foggy with anticipation
As the delicate murmurs of gentle songs
Hummed, and I breathed in the scent of your hair
As my nose rest against the top of your head,
And your eyes reflected off mine,
A halo of fractured light from
The street lamp outside
Graced the silhouette of your lullaby face,

A stern wind shook the car
But were forever still
In each other's arms,

Warmed by the years
We dreamed of
Together.