some days, when the pain is bigger than before, when it manifests itself into a coyote hunting down the prancing memories of the good days, chasing the sunset,
it's these days I ask myself if it was truly worth it?
is it better to have loved & lost; to have lived and died, than to be a spec of dust on the wind, washing the sky in colours undetectable.
we painted the clouds in rosy hues,
& loving you was like painting a canvas in every shade of red from every berry in every forest.
but when the paint dried & oxidized, & roses looked muddy like they had been stepped on out in the rain,
it was days like that I felt it was not worth it.
being shackled to the ground, sprouting from the soil and instant destruction,
this love was so young, so pure, so new and senseless,
yet agony awakened as your spirit drifted away from these leaves & thorns,
& I am just a small rosebud begging to blossom but you keep picking petals, playing a game of "I love her, I love her not"
how does this flower bloom if every day she fades back into the ground, trampled by the crash of timber from the shaky earthquake of your voice.
cowering in the corners from the thunder your voice emits, from the high heavens.
so holy you seem with your voice so high, so above and beyond the trees my petals could never reach.
& yet so terribly close you feel, how your voice carries on the wind, howling from dawn to dusk.
so I understand now why it hurts so much.
how you were once all of nature, but the forest burnt to the ground, ashes to ashes,
we, the remains of nature, scattered across the earth.
you're love was so short, a glimpse of light, a lunar eclipse,
& the forgetting is so long, a year of April showers, a mourning period where flowers don't grow, flash floods in my eyes & around every corner.
forgetting is all to difficult, but I'll take it.
I'll take the rain any day, to have felt your light if only for a fraction of a moment;
if only to have it vanish like the wind.

how come everyone talks about their demons like they're their best friend ?
I mean I go everywhere with mine, don't get me wrong, but it's not like i invited them.
sometimes I turn a corner and there's a sign about Victoria secret lingerie and then in a glass window of a Barnes n noble I see one of my demons pointing at the flaws I wear so pathetically on my skin. I try to laugh it off, like when your friend tells an offensive joke but they're your friend so you try your best to find the humour in it.
but now I'm just laughing at myself and there's nothing funny about carpooling around people who hate you.

statistically,
I will die of a very old age, enveloped in the warm covers, my now oblivious tomb, with my hands grasping for a year my mind ran to in its final moments,
that year would be yours,
I named it after you because you seemed to stain every sunday morning with your tears caused by our laughter, the evenings ring silver bells of your warm embrace,
I named it after you because each Monday, as I rose out of that same comforting coffin, and fell into your arms like the wings of an owl carrying me to a higher limb, singing me songs like a mocking bird to make strange voices sound relatively close,
I named it after you because Tuesday's were the days you held my heart to a microphone, you let the world hear me fall deeper and deeper in love with you,
I named it after you because every Wednesday you brought me postcards from the places you visited in my mind, the places I long since forgot in my travels, the places where you planted daisies at every truck stop
I named it after you because Thursday's couldn't be anyone else, not with the karaoke nights and discos, you barged into each door with every intention of making me dance and sing until I felt beautiful,
I named it after you because Friday's were the only days in the week where you let me take you somewhere, where I held your face between my hands and gazed into your eyes, searching for the routes to take to get closer to you
I named it after you, because every Saturday, we walked to a garden, or down a city street, or through art museums, or down river streams, just moving, moving further from the places we've been, our pinkies intertwined, stumbling on each other's feet drunk from the ecstasy of our lovers deep embrace,
I named it after you, because every day you littered these moments with memories I swore I would never forget,
so when the new year bells rang,
and you were miles away,
and I was thinking you were a drop of perfect in such an imperfect place,
and all I wanted was just one taste,
you were taking buses to get to a new mind to conquer

I should have listened to you say, "I shouldn't start the new year with you, if I can't be there by your side to finish it"

the moon tonight has never been brighter and never will be, so you soak in its almost dim light afraid you'll get a sunburn
do you hear what you are thinking?
the girl inside of me loves to dance with insomnia but her ankles have gotten weak and now insomnia just feels like a never ending cycle, one you may relate to this moon she knows too well.
the tides don't brush against the current in a sweeping motion, they don't pull back the sand and drag you down with it.
even the moon is tired of hearing your cries.
the waves come crashing from the sky but you just feel rain
and how were you able to make the day go away?
are you really restless of has your inner clock changed its mind?
maybe this girl inside of me stares at the stars like they're gods eyes because she has no one else to turn to.  
would it **** you, or better yet, would you wake up, if I told you that you make the sun look like the moon, but that the sun will
never be the moon?
you dance on through the night and wait for day to break so that you can too.
little girl you can't keep dreaming about monsters in math class, they live in your head.
you survived so much this far and now you've decided to let it all destroy you like a delayed reaction.
how do you deal with loneliness?
someone once told you to never fall asleep upset so you don't.
do you not crawl under the covers because you know solitude is your body pillow and that you don't sleep to distract from the fact that there is no one on the other half of this bed.
are you asleep or are you awake?
are you burning daylight or does it burn you?
to the the little girl whose mind doesn't turn off when I lay down at night,
who still paces around my head and whose footsteps keep me awake,
it doesn't hurt to sleep in the middle of the bed.

it's a terrible feeling
when you pace back and forth down a street with no lamplights
the cars on the highways aren't moving or stuck in traffic
they levitate home as its 8:30
and it's time for quiet
it's time for peace
however I hear the music erupting from the radios
"A mans been shot"
and the world goes silent
"A black mans been shot"
and for 3 minutes I hear pens and needles hitting the curb of the road
the homeless man accompanying my transparent presence whispers the words
"it's only a game of cat and mouse"
and
"no one is dead. no one is alive."
and
"what are we truly when we're running from both?"
and the clock starts to tick
but no longer for him
and my eyes stare at a locked phone screen that displays the numbers
the last few digits
all his life succumbed to 8:30
how precious a moment
how raw is history at a time such as
the streets are still quiet
now the radios play a quiet melody something like
"he was only a ****"
maybe even
"he was holding a gun"
perhaps
"his life wasn't worth it"
and it's upsetting knowing things are going to end
that you have to watch them grind to a stop and can't change it
because from birth all your life ever was
was a break peddle slowly bringing you to a crash you could only anticipate
you pulled all the right cards, took every class, and pushed down on that break
but you're the one that died
"A mans been shot"
it's 8:31
"A black mans been shot"
it's starting to rain
the droplets cover skyscrapers that reached a higher peak in their life then you ever would
it's starting to rain again
this time the clouds are my eyes
and the shock has passed
I see a cat hide in a box in an alley
the homeless man stays put and let's the water fill his mouth
everyone and everything is cold
the paper from today with the headline "America the Land of the Free"
makes my stomach twist
the black ink bleeds down the paper till the words are undetectable
till the memory of life fades and it's moments like these where I slip into a waking coma where my body moves further past buildings but my minds stopped working when the news smashed into the forefront of my brain
the yellow lights in windows turn off
everyone's going to sleep
it's 8:32
in one minute the noise will emit from bars and night clubs like a parade to commemorate life
"It could have been us so we must celebrate"
but it wasn't going to be us
we haven't been preparing ourself for this moment
we weren't born in handcuffs
the night lights will soon begin
and the city will come alive "once more"
only to break at the sound of another tragedy
but the arrows pointing me to tired neighborhoods tell me I'm where I'm suppose to be
funny how the blood still stains the street even with the rain
how the bullet left a dent on the sidewalk where he looked up at the stars
I lay down on that very sidewalk
I look at the stars
I remember there are none and close my eyes to envision a world filled with stars
it's 8:33
"A black mans been shot.
In other news...
we're all still alive."

I never liked that butterfly feeling.
all I ever pictured inside my intestines were blind moths, battering around my insides which made me nauseous.
I never wanted to have that feeling after the first time I did.
I felt *****. and sorry. and stupid even.
I don't think that's how all first crushes work.
I think that butterflies rest in cocoons inside children's stomachs until one day someone wakes the sleeping insect and the flight begins.
I think that moths were always inside of me, that they buzz around and knock on the lining of my body till I ache with despair.
I think that you weren't spring rolling in, you weren't here to open up a cocoon that was never there.
I think you were an unexpected light source;
sunshine on a day where there was 100% chance of rain.
I think that when the lights reach the moths that rested inside my stomach and mind and chest, it caused them to go wild and swarm around dramatically, just like the first time.
my entire body is a deserted island that's always expecting a hurricane.
any sign of nature hides behind brain cells and blood vessels and waits for the rain to stop.
but when the rain stops, and the moths that inhabit this body come out to dance,
I shut them down.
I turn away from the light, I pull out my darkest clouds and find shelter in the fog.
I didn't want to stop the rain, I knew I would miss splashing in the puddles.
but then you appeared, peaking from behind the clouds,
and nothing could stop nature.