my blood cells are
volts of electricity
supercharged
each time the sun comes out

my eyes are too sensitive
for anything brighter than
a mile-deep cave

i regret not getting those fancy
sunglass lens when i last
refreshed my prescription

everything is too much right now
and i really want to take a nap

my card is the fool
i think
i never really got into stuff like that
but this feels right

conversations with me trail off
minutes long at most
million things left unsaid
because i'm really really
terrible at articulating my thoughts

if i could i would give you the sun
but i can't
so this song will have to suffice
for now

and i hope soon i can make your day
because when you smile
the sun gets a little bit brighter
and time slows down a little bit
and talking gets a little easier
and my feet feel a little bit lighter

i know you're a socialite
and i'm a socialite for you
i think three's a crowd
to be absolutely honest

the rain on my brow is a shield
before which wind wakes whirls of dirt
and dust catches on my well-worn shoes,
soles sliced by the pedals on my bicycle,
sharpened instead of dulled by two generations of use

the arches above my head are the ribs of an umbrella
but drops cut at an angle as if the notion of striking
the ground before kissing my skin is simply too
much to consider

so under this canopy four years has stretched
into six hundred, the crash of minutes slipping away
muted by the wolves in my brain and until this pathway is
finished with me i will never know peace

when i was smaller i was very aware of how
a better, older me would look back
and look down
with malice and shame and see
what a pitiful creature. i. was.

at the time i was the sole object
of my own derision, a grim facsimile
of a human boy, and as i aged myself
in my mind i grew bigger and stronger
and meaner and more beautiful
and i. feared. him.

if i were to meet the boy i was four years
ago he would hate me, sweating under a
black balaclava, laces tied thrice to avoid
getting caught in the gears on his bike, helmet
on his belt, utterly ready. to. run.

i am glad i am not him anymore and
he. knows. it.

i built a hair trigger **** switch
on our union without really
meaning to

i'm too careful
or terrified
depending on my mood

i'm sorry you have to deal
with my mood swings and
my lingering depression

i can't stop reminding you that
the sun brings out the best in me
and that if we are just a little more
patient everything will be better

i'm done waiting

i need the summer now

approval or disapproval
whispered yet louder
than an ocean in my ears

i realize i've shut my eyes
lips brush skin
pupils as the night sky
hands are lazy but
keen

silver hair
parted mouth
captivating

i'm in a good mood now
so my hopes of writing a poem
tonight are dashed

i'm a mess of contradictions
and i'm lost inside my head
so i write all my afflictions
for i know why i'm not dead

because i know there is tomorrow
and light just past the clouds
now i will lay down in my sorrow
deaf from my thoughts so loud

my feet are on backward and i think i'm dying
baby, hold me

i'm landing in my sunnystep and my brain is like
thunder music, a beat only a child can drum to

eyes squinted i'm overwhelmed, an anxiety attack
only my mother could sniff out
honey i'm too in denial to tell

i got ******* work to do

but my mind won't let me go
won't let me walk
talk

baby, hold me
lift me from my sunnystep
make me slow down

i look at you and hear guitars strumming in my head
a thousand at once, you know, rising up like the
crashing of atlantic waves

violent, silver, dark as blood but not the right color
at all, they don't care what you think

but they can tell what you're feeling so when the
storm recedes and the sea grows suddenly calm,
you are forced to look it in the eye and
say that you're okay

i will be on the sand and i will
know that you are not

eyes cast down we find safety and solace in the dark
where no prying souls live to tell our secrets to the world
and i know you better than god -
i can read your every breath as a song
each hitch a lyric

i hate this power
but you ought to know i have it

you do not feel for me
but the thought is enough

you are beautiful beyond compare
as the types of sunrises and sunsets
you cannot tell apart

you are the moon as it kisses the sea
and i am jealous in each moment your
lips are not on mine

flawed to the bone i have never felt so
deeply for a closer friend

i love the fun we have, virgo

i see those good students with books on their knee
and i think to myself i wish that could be me
but my mind is so scattered pure thought is a lie
these dark nights make me feel i could hang up and die
for i see no near dawn when i'll lift up my head
without cursing the stars for not keeping me dead

like all your **** as if you are the one
i can hear in your heart and your mind that you're done
i want you to see me like more than dead weight
boy nothing on my end but leftover faith

we died just after the start of march
and the sun was rising
spring was born

i found beauty in loss
i'm still in your heart and
you in mine

i'm ashamed to say i feel weakness
when you cross my mind but i
wouldn't have it any other way

outstanding odds know no bounds -
they dance and uproot the trees in
my mind, they tear up my boots as
i pass by

losing skin and muscle until i am
merely bone they sing and scream
to me, making beautiful songs from
the lyrics in my head

a more foolish me would
change his definition of happiness
to trick himself into loving you

full offense but
i will never fit in
i will never be valued
by who i want to be

on two feet i run
and go nowhere

i spend breath and
get none back

and if it must be said
i am over it

we will ride the red surf
oil for blood
stories in souls untold

i wait years for you to leave me and
i'm blown away when you finally do
because my idiot mind cannot
see the past and act upon it

i should have never gotten into this mess
i want to say
but i know i'd be lying

because i loved it
and now i miss it

you are a tapestry and when i touch you my fingers come away
dripping with thick oil

each night i see your finest threads turn to ropes of gasoline;
you are a spark away from going up in flames

i want to drop a match

i want to see you burn

i set out to make a book of love and understanding
where we walk roads rife with wildflowers and
hike mountains with streams of meltwater

but here i find myself breathing in stormclouds
and i feel my lungs cloy with thick dust

clay and rust will replace the blood in my veins

atrophy of the mind

i want to be free of this, the constant fatigue,
the emotions overflowing as water from
a ***

i didn't mean to go this way when i saw the
fork in the road

like a river rushing crushing stones beneath our feet
we will burst from the soil green vines tangling
leaves spreading petals drinking in the light of our
mother the sun above she watches over us primal
raw loving our tribe will never die

we will never die

we are buried but we are seeds of flame of locked
potential and our oppressors are the key

we will open at their command and we will
consume them

the rumble of autos on our town's biggest thoroughfare
will never come close to the static roar that emanates
from those few centimeters between your ears

i can't hear your thoughts but their volume is deafening
and the evidence of their shouts shows in the strain in
your eyes

i've never really found washed-out irises beautiful before
but in their emptiness i see the fossils of a voice

nothing quite like forty days of rain to give the mind some time to think
or a million years of blistering heat to boil us down to our bones,
so we may see who we are below the nonsense

below the buffers we've built, the feelings we've buried -

are we pure, deep down?
how will we know?
how will we find our inborn truths and
the quirks that make us who we are?

the skies are our saviors
and in their sheen we find eyes
watching our every shift and step
and in their star-spotted skin are
the memories of the ancestors we left behind

for when the light goes out and when
the heat leaves our bones we will
know this is the beginning of the end

No love for the poor
No mercy for the dying
Our only hope is to steal from
the opulent and send their
souls up flying

I burned myself today
when the metal bit on my
lighter touched my skin

I didn't let the light go
out because I love the
way the flame dances
despite the pain

I watch the fire for its beauty
and my eyes drink it in,
I hope it never stops

All it takes is a slip of the thumb
to ***** out the warmth

We were never good at talking things out,
tongues like switchblades

Never good at figuring ourselves out,
wills carved in evergreens

Your wide eyes never knew me
and your hands never touched my skin,
I know it needs to be this way so I
can get out of your mind

Will you lay with me
under trees so blue and skies so pink?

Our skin will be warm and the
wind will be sweet, and in our
hearts we'll know time is a fallacy

I could lose my way in your eyes,
so please let me let myself start
thinking in color and become full
of love again

I watch the hours slide by
waiting for the flames to die
and I reflect on the meaning of
potential

I am a moth and you're a light
and restraint is my mind's only fight
because these feelings for you are
torrential

Each time you look at me
I see eyes that have never
met mine

Each time you speak I watch
lips move that have never
tasted mine

Each time you walk I see muscles
tense that I have never felt roll
in days past

Your eyes say we never kissed and
I can only agree

To cause a man as much pain as possible
without quickly killing him, drive a plastic
knife into his gut and twist the handle so
the blade splits evenly, distributing shards of
polymer that will ache each time he moves

I'd rather be drunk in your arms
depending on someone beside myself
for once

I want soft lights and sweet water on
my lips, red from kissing yours, eyes
half-shut with relief

I see gentle dreams indistinguishable
from reality, my hands on your skin,
fingers loose and muscles lax

Uniform march searching for our mark,
pens in hand we seek to be unique

Speeches of futility and grace could not
hold us down as well as our own ambitions --

I saw a photograph in my mind the
other day, and we were in it before
a fountain, and the sky was like snow --

Black blood poured from your eyes and
water from mine, and the only things
moving were our hearts and our minds

(Your fingers are a chisel and my
skin is marble gray)

Let's plunge into delirium
lost in our own suffering
bathed in blood and oil,
I want to lose any illusion
of purity

Of soul and body I want
you to consume me,
and I you but only this
skin-deep terror holds us back

You feared you would tear us apart
like you did last year and I told you
that I would never let that happen again

Three months until the truth of my
powerlessness came to light, and my
only option was to let you drift away

And when our eyes meet I feel not even
the common affection shared between friends,
and when I speak to you your head turns as if
we had never before this moment met

I am a pursuant who runs and goes nowhere,
and though my legs grow strong and my lungs
learn to feel pain I feel guilty for letting myself
spend so much time on you

I know not to regret past decisions because they
made me who I am, and there's not a single thing
I regret about you, I just can't help but tell you that

It hurts how we let this die so quietly

I am a piece of pottery and the
Earth is my wheel as it revolves around the sun
and those who speak to me dig their fingers into
my skin, shaping me into something new

Each jump of the second hand on my watch
is a chance to die or live more fully, another
chance to more perfectly realize what
choice I have in the matter

The love I feel for myself is constant; it is the
coast and the emotions I feel for those around me
must ebb and flow so life can spring forth as blood
from a tear

My God is the belief that in a year's time everything
will be better, and my Devil is the sinking fear of the
opposite

Growing high like ivy,
not easily removed,
many years in the making,
the love I feel for you is taut
and unbreakable

Snow makes midnight look timeless
You make me feel weightless
These days don't end like they used to

I feel time drag on and night fades to day
and the morning glow is indistinguishable
from the light that leaks from behind your eyes

You've convinced yourself that you're a monster and
while you might be as beautiful as the snow I know
you're nowhere near as cold

Nobody seems to care and I begin to wonder
if it's because I pretend I was never hurt

I told him how easy he would be for me to
cut out of my life; he's dating my ex, the
one who cheated on me and tells me he was
right in doing so

I told him how easy it would be for me to
cut him out of my life because he does nothing
but whine about his feelings and tell
unfunny jokes

I gave her everything and she did nothing but
tell me I'm wrong, tell me the boy I'm with now is
trash and I was only able to bring up the mirror
and show her own hypocrisy

Never mind, none of you deserve me, so I'll embrace my
feelings now and go to that place I've been avoiding for
as long as I can remember

A place called comfort

I'm hurt incredibly
Indelibly
Permanent ink on my skin
your sins won't easily
be forgotten because you
injured me and I left
you because I knew
something was wrong and
twelve months later I'm
finally discovering what
exactly that was

You loved me but I know
you never loved him;
I know he bored beneath your skin
and made a home in the warmth
because he has none for himself

He told you to push me away and
though I couldn't hear his words
I saw the effect they had on you

I hate you for ******* him when I
was still loving you, taking advantage of
the distance to fulfill the wants of the body
while milking me for the needs of the heart

You hurt me and
I want to hurt you

You're too fragile for that

You're wasting my time

paranoid fear
shadows dark
hastened escape

I don't know who you are
I don't know what I want

No matter how far I am
how built-in my ego has to be
how much of myself I've
surrendered

I will always let my guard down
and assume I'm unique, assume
that I matter

I'm only worth anything to myself and
life is better, safer, when I keep that in
mind because I'm not special

I believe I am
meant to be alone

Fancy wear.
Got guts like the rest of us,
perfect skin. If eyes are the windows
to the soul then yours must have
been gouged out ages ago

I feel I know when

Because bones remember
everything and you're not doing
much to hide it.

Eyes like headlights over every rise of the road

You were a sound I'd never heard before;
loud where others stayed quiet

Now I'm remembering what I fell for, why
I let you crawl inside my heart, and who I
left buried beneath my skin

This isn't you. I wish it was.

Tag my posts with LGBT
so you know I'm gay,
but if you knew me better you'd
know it anyway

I love you like the trees love the sun,
like the whales love the sea,
like my heart drives me toward
thought and feeling before logic

Far away, you defy impulse,
and when you arrived in the dead
of night my heart was quick and
you were quicker to grin than I
when I saw your face

I remember the way your eyes stuck to the
walls because you were overcome by their
conversation, and the sound swelled up
and I knew what you were feeling

And I wanted nothing more than to walk
with you by the river so we could catch a bit
of quiet but I knew that was impossible

The world has a course and I'd best let it be,
roll with the punches, so maybe I'll see you again
before time steals you away

I'll keep these words inside,
prompted by the fear that
you'll see not me but rather
the trees at my back, and
the forest will greet you, and
that my arrogance will come to
light and I'll get nothing
I was hoping for

I can't tell you what I feel because
we're not that close

I can't tell you what I fear but
maybe my taste in music can do
the talking instead

I don't know
if I want to know
what words you've held
inside for me, or
if I want to know if there's
anything there for me
at all