We are nothing but lovers
of the night and her soft kisses.
The burning in our throat
is nothing but an ode to stars.
It is easy to forget
the empty when you
fill it with temporary burdens
that are borrowed from the day.
It would seem that one
can fall in love with a certain
kind of pain which reminds
that we too are human.
How could we not
when her kisses are softer
then any long forgotten
lover that once held our name.
Still day comes again
for the empty to return the burdens
and our lover to go away
waiting for night once again.

November sits dying
as I write of a summer love
long since faded away.


As I form with my words
of a time long since passed
autumn blends into winter.


My new affection sits waiting
as I scribe words of courage
yet November sits dying.


The frost gently grasp my body
as I wonder if I am worthy of the
redemption this love could bring.


Yet what do I know of love
so I let you love another
as November sits dying.

When I was nine years old
The stars were countable,
I kissed each one with the
tip of my finger, not for long,
but just enough to know
they were still there.

By thirteen my cheeks turned
red everytime she held
my hand like it was something
worthy of possessing.
Somedays I still remember
the pain of her letting go.

At sixteen, I found God in the
very same place I left him,
somewhere between the place
I was going, to the place
I already been, maybe that
was enough to save me.

I am now almost twenty years old
and my fingers no longer count stars
and my hands have forgotten
how to hold another and
on the good days, God is still here,
on the bad I listen quietly.

For the most part, though,
I have left those things behind,
not because I no longer want them,
but because right now I am trying
to stay alive and I am afraid
I can no longer do both.

Night was always best.
In the darkness we were one.
In light, separate.

Because you are human
and she is beautiful in the same
way the ocean is beautiful when
it gives birth every morning to the sun,
you will want to save her.

Build an altar out of your body,
prepare yourself for sacrifice,
you learnt long ago it is better
to paint with your blood then hers,
this is what it means to love.

Though she will not christen the lamb,
this too will be a miracle, for you
know not how else to love
other than by cutting pieces away from
yourself and handing them over.

Do not mistake this practice for barbaric
It is truly the only way to love,
But know some are not worth the blood,
so bandage the glistening wound,
and let her go like the ocean does to the sun.

If the moon was to fall in
love with the sun
who would fault the moon?

Would it not be blasphemy
for the riverbed not
to grow attached to the water.

And what I know of love,
I have learnt from
wind which caress tree tops.

It is the natural order,
to fall in love with the very
thing one cannot have.

What else would explain the divide
of night and day, the ever
flowing river, and silent wind.

Yet even with this knowledge
my heart still beats like a war drums
when I see your illuminated name.

The other day someone asked me
why I never asked that pretty girl out.

And I wish there was a simple answer
that could rest my soul,
but the reality is I don’t know how
to do this love thing anymore.

The truth is there is an empty
inside of me that some days
can swallow me whole and
how could anyone love that?

She is so beautiful and pure
everything one could possible
want, yet I am twisted and
broken in the most unholy ways.

So I never asked her out,
not for the fear of the
sting rejection may bring
but for the fear of loving.

Just last night I prayed for
a conclusion to these midnight
fantasies which have haunted
me ever since the day you left.

Maybe it was for the simple
fear of wanting, but more
likely it is for the fear of
once again losing.

There is a weariness here
not seen by the naked eye
that is fueled by the hope
which midnight dreams bring.

Yet when my prayers were
not heard, I instead wrote
you a poem using simple
words meant only for explanation.

Perhaps that could have been
the answer to my late night prayers,
but it was never delivered,
I was never that brave.

In April poems tend to pile
in counter-action to snow melting.
They grow like leafs
in ever direction.

What shame it would be
to hide spring gems
so submit your poems
to our magazine.

submit: thethingswewrotesubmission@gmail.com

Let free your muses
from iron shackles
and submit your poems
to feed the jackals.

It is noble,
It is just,
to release your words
into the cosmic dust.

And who knows
perhaps you will be famous
for sending your poem,
and reach once more to greatness

Thethingswewrotesubmission@gmail.com

Pride was our weakness
before the skies caught fire
now our pride is ash.

I no longer want to feel like a bottom of a whiskey bottle
like the last sip of regret before my head hits the table.
This story I wish was a happy one but I know longer
know how to write the happy ones.

I have seen both heaven and hell, but of the worse I say neither.
The worst is the empty room, my own purgatory.
Here there is no joy, no pain just  an endless forever
and I have seen forever and I seen never.

The promise of tomorrow has became the threat of today.
Today is the abysses of which my toes stand upon the edge
Creeping ever closer to the final descent,
the leap into darkness, in pursuit of peace.

I have always been accused
of being a quiet man,
but within I am always
the loudest in the room.

The masses name me loner
or the shy boy in the corner,
he who prefers to stay alone.

But alone is a pleasure
I have never known.
Instead I sit with my
one and only lover.

She who awakes me
in the morning and
places me to bed at night.

When you see me sitting alone
know I am not alone
and know the quiet man
is not always what he seems.

At the exact moment night kiss me goodbye,
on the edge of a dying summer
I found hope at the tip of a pencil
that glided across line paper.

I wouldn’t call it the bottom
of Pandora’s box, but
for the first since I could remember
my heart started to beat again.

Not like a herd of racing horses
like they way poets fall in love,
but rather more like a leaky faucet
that has brought an end to this drought.

I ask don’t confuse this revelation
with a permanent conclusion.
It just a promise against odds
that recovery can be found in these words.

The sun rises up
on the endless red skyline
with a song of hope.

I tried to write your resurrection
with a string of adverbs.
Tried to call breathe
back into your empty lungs with my words.

Some nights I will whisper
your name over and over again
as though the very act of repetition
will call you back.

I have learnt now,
that the walls of your casket
are just too strong to pierce
with similes and poetry.

Last night I cleared the desk.
Laid down the pen,
closed the thesaurus
and shelved the dictionary.

I said goodbye last night.
I shut off the light,
closed the door,
and walked away.

Someday maybe
I’ll write a letter to the moon,
just to say I too
know how it feels to chase the sun.
How I too know what it means to hope
that someday this brokenness will be enough.

And someday maybe
I’ll have daughters with their mother's smile
And they will know I built this house for them,
They will know I already love them
Because even now I am waiting by the shore
for the ship that will bring their mother.

And someday maybe
Those girls will have brothers
who will dream of long forgotten chivalry,
I pray I can teach them that much,
I pray they carry not my burdens,
even so I will leave them my poems.

And someday maybe
I will die like Jacob,
surrounded by this noble house we built.
With the hope of heaven,
With the hope their love will be enough to redeem,
with the hope of once again waiting for them with the moon.

Do you ever feel like maybe
there is something more to this
then half empty whiskey glasses
and empty hearts that can never be filled.

That maybe every morning when
the sun pulls itself out of bed, it is
not for waking us up too, but rather
beckoning us forward to live the life we were meant to.

What if the morning call was not
telling us to check our phones and
update our facebooks, but to whisper
our lovers name over and over again in their ear until they awake.

What if we were made for something
more than these mundane affections.
What if we were made for passion,
for adventure, for anything but this.

When I was a child, I always thought
I would burn like the brightest of flames,
but now the brightest part of my day
is when I close my eyes to end it.

When I was little, like all kids
I was afraid of the monster that
Lived under the bed.

Now that I am older
I am still afraid of monsters,
But now they don’t live under the bed.

My monster live in me.
Me who feeds the beast
Who screams at two in the morning.

Humans don’t make good cages,
Our bones are just too weak
To hold up against this burden.

I know because most days, when dawn
Awakes to kiss the horizon,
I am still at war to keep the beast within.

So when people ask me about the scars,
The ones that litter my wrist, my thighs, my back,
What am I suppose to say, but casualties of war.

Because this is the greatest battle
I have ever known:
The Battle of Monster in my Head.

The end of the long night
rest closely upon us
and who will be the
first to finally speak goodnight?

We knew this moment would come
you can only dig so deep
before you hit rock and
to our woe it is not gold.

There is no sin in walking
to the edge, but we would be
fools to jump off now.
To kiss the knife that cuts.

So would it be better to
walk alone into the night
or burn what remains?
For either I fear damnation.

They say the light that burns the brightest
is the first to burn out.
Would it be better, to not be the finest,
but rather be the last about?

One which leads to the longest flame
which burns against the night.
For surely it is no shame
in being the last of the lights.

Which rage on in the dark
to alight the endless sky
For it only takes a spark
To past along the light to defy.

The endless reach of night
which always roams about.
Though even the brights flames
is doomed to burn out.

In the end you will not remember summer coming.
Still she will appear in a May breeze
As if you asked her to, as if she could save you.
Though you know all too well how this story ends.

She asked about the scars winter left,
Wanting to place together a story to makes sense
Of the coldness that still has not been warmed by her winds.
Yet some secrets aren’t meant to escape the hearth.

You will not know how to love them both,
So you will choose winter again, at least the cold doesn’t leave.
And summer will not understand, she will hate you for this,
And because you are a fool you will let her.

The reaper always comes for his dues
I know this to be true,
he stole my heavenly muse!

On my knees I begged him not, yet he refused.
No matter my threats he never withdrew.
The reaper always comes for his dues.

Never once have I been more bemused
when the reapers came through,
he stole my heavenly muse!

I was half asleep, just taking a snooze
then he appeared right in front of my view!
The reaper always comes for his dues.

He looked at me and my muse, like he was trying to choose.
His hands reached out, to grab my muse, then he flew!
He stole my heavenly muse!

Out my window they cruised,
I, with shame, never pursued.
The reaper always comes for his dues.
He stole my heavenly muse!

I wonder if God can forgive us?
Not for our sins, but rather
for all the words we didn’t say,
and all the ones we did.

It was February and the moon
was as full as your heart and
almost as bright as your eyes
when you said “I love you.”

I like a fool echoed it back.
Maybe because it was
so cold outside and you
were the first fire I ever known.

But what did I know of love?
Two weeks later, buried underneath
layers of blankets lost in the moment
I thought perhaps this is what love taste like.

Somehow I thought we could learn to
make our bodies stick together,
like a well packed snowball,
but cold and fire do not go together.

No matter how hard I tired
this body never could stick.
Still I played the part like a soldier's
who since forgotten what he was fighting for.

It was April when the deception
faded away with the last winter’s snow.
Still I could not learn how to love,
so you left, taking the only love I have ever felt.

Now it is July and I bask in the summer sun,
pray to be forgiven for not knowing how to open up.
Praying to be given another chance
at the thing the poets called love.

When the white bird flies,

the sky catches on fire.

Then the fire bleeds to the village

and the village burns.



Do not be mistaken,

this is how you catch the bad guys.

We must catch the bad guys.

Don’t you know?



When the white bird flies,

she purifies in flame.

Replaces evil with ash

and ash cannot stop the oil flow.



But wait, there was a mistake.

backspace, backspace.

Control alt delete.

It is too late, the sky already burns.



And when the sky burns,

so does the village.

These were children,

Where were the bad guys?



When the white bird fails

It flies a thousand homes to its mother.

“We will try again, tomorrow,” she says

and then she turns the screen black.



Still the village burns

and children become orphans,

but the oils keeps flowing,

it always keeps flowing.

This poem is for all the words that were never spoken
The ones that got caught half way up the throat
almost to their destination, but swallowed back down again.
The ones that die on the tongue, leaving only the bad taste of regret.

This is for all those who were afraid to say those words.
The would be lovers who never found the courage to speak their hearts desire.
The preacher who has lost his faith and to the sinner who found his.

This is for the 1 am street walkers who fell in love with shadows.
For their empty pockets and full hearts.
And all their unanswered prayers to gods that don’t know their names.

This right here, is for all the moments that we spent together
and all the moments that died before their time.
This is a kiss goodbye or maybe even a kiss hello.

This is for all the people who ever wanted to die before their time
and for all the ones who keep on struggling.
I know the pain that nights brings.

This is for me, me who is all of this things.
And for you, my midnight warrior,
who taught me that there is hope in tomorrow.

This poem is not a eulogy, but rather a resurrection,
for all of us who go too far and love the wrong people.
This is not our tombstone, but our declaration.

I was told to call this body home.
To walk barefooted through my veins
like they were red painted hallways
and to find a place to lay this head.

Still others say this body is a temple.
But what type of temple is not filled
with the faithful signing heavenly praise.
This body would be an empty church.

Now I don’t know much about God,
but I do know enough to say that
he wouldn’t visit this chapel.
These bones no longer know how worship.

If this body be not a home or a temple
then what is left but a prison.
A prison made of flesh to keep in
the last of a dying soul.

Do not call this love unholy
or unrequited
or even a phantom ship.

It was given freely
without reservation
without contemplation.

I built it in the quiet hours
before dawn while the
world still slept.

Still it was not enough
for someone who confuses
me as a simple chimera.

Yet I do not know how else
to live but to wait
in the widow watch.

I cannot say if the ship
will come into port,
yet still I hope it does.

I hope one day this love
can find a home here,
I cannot image it anywhere else.

Today I decided to forgive myself
for everythings I am not,
for everything I am.

I have lived this lie
for so long I have forgotten
the person who lays behind it.

Tonight, I will pile every ounce of regret,
every pound of hate in the back yard.
Then like a conquered city, I will set it ablaze.

This conflagration will be a
symbol of my self revolution
against everything that says “You can’t”.

Today, for the first time in, a long time
I will say “I can” over and over
till I start to believe it.

I thought that the end would be poetic,
like our favorite novels that end so cleanly.

I thought it would end with a period
or exclamation point, even just a question mark.

Instead I was left with a simple,
unpunctuated sentence, that was cut off.

I now know that happy endings
are supposed to stay in favorite books.

Life is more complex than
perfectly squared endings in neat boxes.

Life ends in the middle of a verse-

We were junkies who fell in love with moonlight
praise the heavens under street lights,
found God in the corner of graffiti covered alleyway.

We were  cracked in all the right places,
but never mistaken the shattered lines
for being broken, this is just how we made art.

Once, at two in the morning we found
the meaning of life scribbled on the back
crumpled up bar napkin filled completely with hearts.

And I swear that was the second most beautiful
thing I have ever seen. Of course the first being
they way this town burnt when we left it.

If in my right hand
I held the gilded world,
And if my left laid empty
I wonder what you would take.

And if someday, If this
love could not be divided,
I wonder if it would
Carry us to heaven.

Though I am not Icarus,
I will not promise heaven
But maybe I can promise
The wanting left hand.

And the eaves weep like eyes
that have forgotten that behind
all those clouds still sits the sun,
what a burden to bear.

Though how similar are we to eaves:
do we not weep, do we not forget.
I for one have tasted that dish,
served by sorrow, flamed by hate.

How great is the burden to live,
when the sun itself has been forgotten,
what is recovery when the birds no longer
sing of the songs the poets named hope?

And of hope, I no little.
For most days it rains more than not,
but do I dare to name it a crucible?
Has it yet gotten that hot?

I wonder if maybe some things are
better made to be left behind,
if sometimes we are ******
to suffer to save those we love.

Sing of grey morning
And her long wooden fingers
Which pry gently against
The shaky pilgrim’s hand.

For dust has gathered on
The tomb. Once white marble,
Now faded, waiting to consume
Another pretty little lover.

And the preacher speaks of hell,
But there are still children
Swaying in the vineyard
And flowers next to sidewalks.

While just yesterday
Death was something to envy,
But this morning the sun did rise,
And the willows smiled.

Have you ever seen
the earth give birth
to a new day at the
bottom of a whiskey bottle.

Well neither have I,
but I once stayed up all night
in an attempt to count the stars
and bring order to chaos.

In that moment,
head against grass against ground
I knew what it means to rest,
to be at peace for the first time.

Like all things that night it too
died along with peace and stars,
but sometimes in the right moments.
I can look up and feel at home.

What does this heart know of love,
besides the stories which poets preach.
What hope does this darkness have
of ever knowing the light brought by dawn.

It started with a smile, causing a spark to catch
in the wet kindle that turned to fuel. The fuel
then engulfed the pyre for all the dead
which have claim a home inside of me.

And as this conflagration grew, a strange
affection grew with it. As your smile became
more frequent a new connection started
to form, one all too familiar, yet slightly different.

Now this once controlled fire begun to
burn with an unfamiliar passion. For the first
time, I understood possession, with you
dancing in my head on replay.

With a heat so strong how could I not
want to extinguish the flames which lapped
against my hands? Though no matter
what was attempted, the fire burnt on.

I try to keep it hidden, the desire,
but it has become something more
than desire. It has become that which
this heart knows nothing about.

The cruelest prison
is inside the indifferent
lover who could never
be enough to free us.

And with you for the
first time I understood the
longing for heaven.

The sun may die still
but I have no fear to love
inside the darkness.

I no longer want to fight
against the pulsing dark.
I no longer want to flee
toward the membrance of warmth.

We use to be so happy
in our Sunday clothes.
We use to rejoice in the
pinpoint reflection of sun light.

Now ties become synonymous
to the hangman's noose.
Now sun only reminds us
of the things we left behind.

We weren’t made to be happy
the rose taught me this.
We weren’t made to thrive
you taught me this.

You wait for her name to flash on your screen
like it is enough to save you.
But the truth is she is gone  now,
and you no longer want to be saved.

It is funny how sometimes
blood is just blood.
There is nothing poetic
about crimson on bedsheets
at three in the morning.

Hands unsteady like
elm trees before a summer storm
grasp for that which is no longer there.
How quickly than do bottles turn to hands
when recovery can only be found in forgetting.

I have learnt there is no glory
in trying to resurrect the very
thing which I, myself killed.
Maybe sorrow is something
some of us have to carry.

Though lately it has become harder
to carry that which is mine to carry.
So now I wonder if I were to let it go,
would they notice?
Would it matter?

To say that I hate her
would be to suggest that
there is a version of this story
where I can still sleep with the lights off,
there is something strangely familiar
about the glow of fluorescent lights at 2 in the morning.

It is also to say that her letters no longer
gather dust in the boxes underneath my bed.
That there isn’t a picture of her still between the tired
pages of the old family bible I no longer read.
I have never been good at forgetting
the walls after dusk still remember her name.

Maybe it is because I once loved her,
Or maybe it is because I still do
Like the way Daedalus still
loved the warmth of the sun
even after it took away his everything;
I too still sometimes smile at the bringer of death.

Though this is not to say I still don’t
try to fill what the gods have named unfillable.
It is not to say I no longer believe in magic,
it is just  to say that I am tired
of trying to summon what is not coming back,
I am tired of hating me more than her.

I went high in mountains
Calling god from the peaks
Screaming to the void
Yet I heard nothing but wind.

I went to the temple
Praying on my knees
Seeking him in alter
Trying to find his name.

In the city I sought
Our lord in the face of
The beggar who knows
him better than me.

But when I found him
He dwelled not in temples
Or mountains tops
But only within me.

If you asked me what I want,
What words I keep locked
Away in this dark chasm
I would not tell you.

Not because I value these
Secrets which are held
In the deepest parts
Of this shattered soul.

No, I hide because I don’t know
How to share this in a
Way that would not cut
All who held it.

The only thing worse than
Desire is desire which
Has no place to go,
The kind which eats inward.

I carry the weight alone
For how could I share
What might crush you
Just as much as me.

We, people like us,
the night children,
midnight dreamers,
star catchers.

Us who have tattooed
love upon our arms
then wear long sleeves
to cover it up.  

We have pulled back the veil
and dare to look behind.
Shined light upon the darkness
only to see our reflection.

Those who have stood
upon the edge,
daring the wind to push them over
I name you brother.

And you, who has been kissed
by the fire and yet
does not allow it to consume
you shall be called sister.

For we were made
for this moment.
And my God, we
are going to be great.

I don’t know much about war,
and I know even less about love.
Though, I do know enough, to know
that love shouldn’t feel like a war.

Yet somehow I have always felt
like a soldiers behind the battle lines
drawn in the sand by Gods
who don’t know my name.

The other day someone asked me
“How come you don’t love yourself.”
To which I replied “How can you love
the greatest enemy you have ever known?”

Maybe people like me weren’t meant for this.
I learnt the best way to protect yourself
from  broken hearts is to let yours go, and
I have let that piece of me go a long time ago.

I don’t know much about war,
and I know even less about love.
Though I know that some games
shouldn’t be played, the cost is too high.

What is depression?
I hear them ask as if they
are a simple congregation
replying on replay to the pastor.

Depression is not sadness,
it is important to understand this now.
It is not a cloudy Sunday or
the earthquake that knocks you down
after your first heartbreak.

She does not just visit on the
weekend or on the bad days.
No, when she comes she makes
a home inside of you.

Together you go to every meal,
every classes, and every party
like the most beautiful couple
and she is a jealous lover.
How could she not be?

Now remember back that
depression is not sadness,
rather an endless empty.
a numbing vacuum.

And after awhile you
no longer fight her loving
embrace and start to hug back.
It is now time to make things serious,
to go to the next level.

You leave the others behind,
it is best if is only just the two of you
for how can they understand
when you stop talking for days.

They will call you distant,
wondering why you chose
to sit alone at meals
and no longer call back.

But above all as much
as you hate her you
will also lover her
because if she leaves too,
only the empty will remain.

Who now will call forth
the flowers from the grave,
the dancing willows,
the fallen sweet maple.

Who now will name
the smiling ruins
which once were held together
by strong hands of forgotten men.

Who now remembers
the taste of summer
so deep into a winter
which taught us to love the dark.

Who now can still speak of
the clattering secrets
whispered to the winds
that can no longer hug the sails.

Who now dares to say
that these time were better
and more holy than the
days waiting to consume us whole.

Who now wishes
to share the simplicity
of the storybook endings
where nobility still strongly reigns.