Lately it's been so cold here.
Really, REALLY cold.
So cold fingers go white and waxen,
And icicles shake hands with snow banks,
As old friends do in grocery stores.
How can time go by when we stay still?
Progress is not a form of knowledge.
So stop with your talk of intelligence.
It's too cold here to say you're smart.

Well I suppose it's not really cold here…
It's cold there.
For I am the carrier of almost warmth,
And duct taped pupils.
I am the one sitting on the windowsill with the telephone in hand,
Tracing windows on the fog laced panes
That makes you yearn so deeply.

The cold doesn't touch me.
The cold doesn't possess me like it does you.
Because it's not cold here,
It's cold there,
And you can't deny it.

For I am awake
And I see what you were up to,
I am not happy when you listen.

I will pretend I am happy
Because smiling carries the luxury of acceptance.
I like being excepted.
Acceptance…
It brings warmth.

Chest rising, falling, waves of life ripple within that hollow chest you hold.
Your t-shirt is cotton. 1000 little fibres, like heaven to the backs of my hands as
I gently trace the contours of your ribcage, hiding those bones that are so fragile against
The blue-grey clouds of mattress we found on the street

Do you know pain?
With your eyes shut, the worries imprinted on your skin fade away.
You look so peaceful, chest rising. Falling.
The moonlight carves your features feather light.
Still you softly let air circulate through your lungs..that angel of oxygen is so kind to you.
You toss and turn in your sleep, while the tendrils of your hair speak of harder times.
You breathe so smoothly.. how long have you been afraid of the dark?

Those blankets form mountains on dust laden floorboards, without footprints for friends.

Thrashing through these storms that enter the cavities of your skull.
Breathe in, breathe out. Chest rise, chest fall.
The stars are reminders of the black, open your eyes to let them shine.
Disrupted now, my animal saviour with the toothpick legs.
You run on instincts when you are blinded.
Where are you going with those pretty little lungs of yours?

Birch bark flesh, you peel your cover off with sweat beaded finger tips,
Are you tired of that mask now?
Coca cola honey dripping from your pores, you have a funny way of cleaning up, darling.
You are a mess in an aluminum disguise, slathered in the paint of raw.
Your chest rises and falls, and the night breathes it's way into you.
Calm now.. coming to a perfect still.

A mannequin of glass, you once hurt so badly.
But mornings are for new beginnings, so it is only the night that taunts you now.

And now you breathe.
You breathe, you breathe, you breathe and you fall.

From the havens of petrified tree limbs and tell-tale fractures, the sun watched us rise. In the confines of our new throws and puddled clothes we wounded contradiction with a vehement swagger, stealing baby steps from story books and transforming them into bridges.

-----------------
With pink calla bells young in hand, he assured her that war paint could be beautiful.
(She denied this vigorously, however repetition seems to have a way of getting to a person)
Stripped petal free for the birds; barren, a fairy dressed within recreance,
In his benevolent stead she found her cage a masterpiece.

An apple a day can't keep the doctor at bay despite the slander you have heard,
When you've cascaded amidst yourself
Hope can only dwindle down the contours of the hourglass.
He uncovered the core of her with a wave of his hands,
Vital sunshine, dissolving the shadows that the analgesics could never slacken.

What a pair they were!
Carved from the sweetest bones and set in immutable concrete,
Written in intricacy: a double faced language set for the lips of two, and two alone.
He said she was perfection in the finest and she said he surpassed,
Tangled in the webs cast by green leaves and stump corpses, night stumbled upon the two.

[Yet a pair apropos in match are sure to handle the slips and shades cast in grey with ease,
Confidence must by upheld by excellence to count on morning faithfully returning to your side]

It's called a lack of respect for the ones who deserve,
Bitter sweet flavor of the blood within your mouth,
The clash of dirt on your rotting teeth,
You're so willing,
You're so willing.

Crooked finger bones and red patterns
Are not the ticket out-
So get off your knees and clean the hell up!

For I now see that you're all wasting away.
Did you expect me to be the one to pull ahead?

She's got her hands in her eye sockets
And love between her teeth...

Deadbeat floorboard
Screaming to come alive.
You're a wasteland in a sea of Utopia,
Thriving on salted lacerations.
He's got his feet on the ground
And hopes that are up a little too high...

Pressed against the wall
To watch the ghosts march on by
1,000 screaming soldiers
And a closet door sealed shut...

You're a desert in an ocean of bustle,
Living off of see urchins...

What happens when monsters below mattresses
Are calling out your name?

Trembling under stapled eyelids.
You are not the same,
You are not the same...

My fingers trace the softest of sensations, gentle fogs tinted in poison ivy
I can't help but think of the times you bring  me back,
I was misconstrued but the smell of your clothing always wakes me up again

I called it choking on the sweetest of intoxications,
You call it breathing, living, and I cannot agree more with that
The walls twist with an agony we turned away from,
Smothered in admiration, bruised in the spin of need

Nature caressed my skin and told me that I bleed black,
Disbelief was obscured until you brought me back,
You always have a way of doing that, carving your own path
It's amazing that you let me walk down it with you

Your skin is like metal washed in rain, but always oh so tender
The highest tower couldn't keep the struggle away from you
I always try my best to be the shield to keep you from the cold
Your heart beats like a drum, a double manned marching band that I can hold within my fingers

She had eyes like cracked walnuts and was destined for the split-in-two
She redefined 'figure' and made us second guess our white washed demands
Blood coated her esophagus like sand does to bare limbs, lying in erosion
This girl started out so flawless and I just wanted her to take the million thanks I have for her,
Though it's been oh so long since our last converse
With expert hands in contrive that shaped me into being
You fractured all appendages and made me into the rag doll Marionette the audience forgets in seconds.
Who knew I'd play the heroine?
Bathed in make-shift abuse
I walked out the door
To the rest of my life...

In accordance with almost everyone, there are martyr ice crystals encrusting themselves around the stills of my parted lips, cutting like fibre glass and staining in silence
(As if they've ever cared at all).
The blue, it has begun to creep across my cheeks in a rush, letting my eyelids rest in a salted fury.

I've grown tired of worldly visions and contriving plans to save treason from contradiction and they now say it's time to push the stop button. Simplicity caught in the threads of a sequence - let's just add another scuff to our clean slate, shall we?

According to the honeysuckle lip lock you're playing on, I don't deserve to clutch the pink mass of flesh that is stuck between my striving jaws, so I should just gnash my teeth just like I'm getting paid to screech like a wild animal and chew it off in that ****** fashion I've developed from years and years of grovelling on monolithic stretches of asphalt
(Hidden beneath the feet of statues).
After all, my skin is cream without mar and the crimson tides that would spill from this cavity-ridden pothole would contrast my charade in the most lovely of manners.

But then again there are the extra ones left over, like you for example.

You press your face to cold glass and tell me that you'll always listen intently, and I just hope that your actions won't flatten you out. You fasten the phone to your ear and tell me that you'll always be here unchanging.. But I whisper so quietly and yell so loudly I'm afraid someday you'll hang up without looking back. You glance into my eyes like I'm sacred, and tell me that you'll always have something to say to make nothing else significant but the textures falling from your vocal chords... But you know what you've gotten yourself into.

In accordance to your belief my mouth is wildfire through a dead forest and I should open it up a little more to get rid of the rot in its way. Without us thes fertile soils won't birth the parking lot grasses for us to run through like nobody's business, and I've always loved losing my breath. When we get there you say that we'll watch terra cotta and french rose invade our cheekbones in the most complimentary of styles, and then you'll  fold promises like origami and force them into the vices of my fists
(As I pound my hands into the walls to try to tame my screaming emotions)
But cherish them I do, and I favour you just the same.

They say tiny water particles clustered in suspension are no place to hang up my brain stem for the evening, however you and I think otherwise and I have this funny little quirk that happens to involve listening to everything
(You have to think).

You've stationed yourself by the side of the road,
Convinced that maybe the billows of exhaust
That are streaming by will make the smiling faces
That are drifting passed you a little less real,
Or maybe even get you a little more intoxicated.
(You secretly hope for the latter,
After all it might be better than ribbon noose
You are considering to later on wrap around your neck.)

... The dinner table is set and ready,
But your hard work is in the process of being torn down.
You shut your eyes and expand your lungs to the breaking point
And avoid centering in on the fact that you're in the middle of an
Endless, ****** war zone.
(The scrape of metal on teeth is hard to bear
When you're the only one who has butter-soft words
Rotting on your tongue and slithering  down your
Collapsing esophagus –
Perhaps a noose won't be necessary
This time around)

You started out chasing butterflies with strawberry baskets in hand,
So insignificant in their own right.
Barefoot splashing in the tides of winding creeks,
Taking shortcuts to steppingstones.
Your dreams were as big as the clouds you never even took the time to gaze upon.
With eyes sparkling in the midday sun,
A child-like ferocity held deep within your core shown through your every step...
The signs always pointed you down the right paths,
Safe and sound from the world asunder.
Sunlight framed your face in a perfect eclipse,
While you called for your nature's shames to grace your flesh.
The untrodden breath should have screamed  "Aposematism" in your favor–  instead it whispered luxury.
You had Pine needles jutting from your vellum heels as I watched you wander away;
Precariously denying the flush of red they had while they hung their heads to let you pass...
Irresolute on how to perceive dead ends:
You, gnarled and bleached by the lap of oak
You scrambled over boulders and crevices
Only to find collapse was nothing but your suitor in black,
Caressing your lechery in a labyrinth thicket.
Peach scraped patellas and a taste for champagne,
You should have seen right through that lush disguise.

...From day one you where laced in the notations of prima donna,
With your sticks and stones and ivory bones;
The only song left to resound drip memories of your
Hand-crushed wings.

Varieties of 365 opposite weaving through your hair like the snakes of later gorgon
Extracting pain from lesions cauterized,
The time has caught up with me but not with you,
I understand
Pushing further results in the win but you tied the white flag around your polar throat,
Waltzed into places I loved with high hopes;
Now knowledge feels like a house with the guts bled out,
Walls and veins a front yard masterpiece
You said I wasn't allowed,
So now I say you're not allowed,
And now You may never be fully in again
(That goes to show just what I know,
I seclude my thoughts by choice
And you look so alien, alien, alien)

You know I'm loving every moment of this,
The minute hand slows and screams,
As I see the birth of my dreams rising before my eyes.
They spill their candies across the floor,
We opened hearts and opened doors.
Let the light spill through the cracks--
But only we can feel the warmth this brings.
Ripping chords and verses from these pages,
We dance as if tomorrow isn't right around the corner;
And the world shines as it becomes our stage.

You tremble chassis with calamities bit behind your folds of brain matter,
At first you were picnic checkered in alarming shades of ruby and paper.
What you tried to say told me that your breathing is altered by the gentle rotations of my train track mind,
Condemning you to what you define so strongly as  "Beautiful"
--I must be blind.
You manifested in cocoons I'd tucked away in mental crevices,
Redundant,  you trace enamel with soft flickers.
You removed the formaldehyde from my collapsing veins.
Declivitous,  you let your lips part and seep through the stains of former mistakes.
"Preservation is for lonely:  never staying, never going.
But growing is for two...
So thank you for waiting so patiently."

The words I have for you don't quite match up to the expected doses:
I see the sickness on your cheeks and the paint peeling from your lungs..
One hundred thousand syllables scattered across one hundred thousand paths your own,
And no one could match that; you best be in the know of how I'm sorry for the lack of hours passed..
These crooked lines of sound spilling from my mouth never say quite enough..
Words can never measure up to the truths behind the 'thank yous' and the 'there will be one day's,
But a variety of years have sped on by, and awe lingers as I hope to never see your back
(It's not like you to crave this with longing slithering through the cracks of your ribcage,
I have hands already held, so just breathe)
I fulfill promises with expectations soaring,
But I've always been the one who steps off the roof...