prickly vibes climb the ceiling
of the attic you weep
in,
      the comforts of your worn-out bed;
                                                        stained blood-red.

it's awfully cold
for a typically sluggish winter
day-,
             by-day you still don't learn;
                                                  of no return.

staring at the mirror you see
it is not sadness you suffer from
but,
        a full-blown catastrophe;
                                         permanent detainee.

you sob for weeks but no-one hears
the screams dance off walls and doors
begging,
             for mercy or an escape;
                                          man-in-cape.

y­ou've done nothing but lead
a dull life and now you wait
distressed,
            with empty hopes for a rescue;
                                                     past overdue.

it's hard to say what went wrong
and easier to say what went right
despite,
            you dying and all;
                                  *poor soul.

hold you like a wake
hold you like a funeral
rolling in your sleep, mourning on your part
good night tonight, kiss you good
bad night as well

wake up, bad knight
back to screaming, wrong or right
break a switch, unfix
get your fix, learn your tricks
i wish magic could fix us too

instead i crack open a ringing nightmare
dragging me in ear and hair


hold me like a martyr hold me everywhere
fold me like i'm dying for you
   don't you see i'm dying with you?

but good times never last

run my mouth, break my cast
run my secrets, like i ask
bathwater never tasted or felt so blue
i'm going crazy! because of you!

i hate to love! i hate you too!
hold you, feel you, learn you, heavy
i'm going heavy
drowning in rain, drowning
in lightness

darkness without option for brightness
hug me till i'm good and dead
till i forget what's now in my head

and i wish you would come for me! like i come for you!
like i do for you! like i am to you! but i'm nothing to you!
and you're nothing to me! and you're dead to me! and i'm dead to me!

and no one is ever sorry! everyone is always swearing to be clean
you're not clean! there's blood on me, there's blood on you
past is past but future's gone too
and i'm sorry about this although not specifically about you
i've gone into myself
as refuge now

if ignorance is bliss then call me ignorant if
reality is false then just call me

spiral days running around more spiral days
we sit crosslegged, barefoot in that circle to
carefree blaze and look to each other to
find our own happy place
lost in that intensity haze
all of us so good in our blissful laze

don't start counting these numbered summer days

cause we're still basking in the sun
we're still holding onto our gun
we still don't need no one
in our blissful laze, in those spiral days,
yeah we're still clinging to our
shading ways, those pretty shading
ways we used to count the lemon streaks
in each other's hair
to fight the summer sun against the spring's in heated compare

those pretty shading ways i got a call and a compliment in
and if this was a door then yes i'm gonna go in

good, they're finally meeting
that squint in your eyes is agreeing to the greeting
yes say aye to aye, eye to eye, eyes to eyes
God, it's lovely, yes, it's a lovely surprise

and you look so hard at me before you finally say
i love the way i love the way
your eyes droop
like a palm that could form a fruit

you're weird, you know
yes i know, yes i know

don't you worry you say
i love the shimmer i love the glow

and your eyes are perfect mirrors
color pouring    all the sourness clear if there was any
all the sweetness clear if there was any
all the bitterness clear if there was any
and when i looked at you back with that face you knew what i knew
and so thank you

softer you said
softer softer softer.
you can't be so hard
you don't have to be so hard.
not on yourself
not on me
not on this

and you say
i know you're clinging with your life to that victim card
and you can and you should
and i can't and won't stop you

but we rage together, on that lifesunk mission forever
i promised that much to you and i swear again that we always will.
i can't keep pretending there ever was another person for
who i'd ****
what hole are we trying this time to fill

here we stare out at that big volcano we nicknamed little hill

and in all those ragers i hear you speak
the same thing again

so here i am saying back to you
   softly      i promise you we'll stop before we break him
here hold my hand i'll say it louder
i promise you we might still live happy without him

and as we lay in my bed
you'd suggested instead
that we rage, rage, rage hard together
against the sorry night
and i'm begging you please fix that broken light
cause i'm a victim of all these stolen nights
in this bed where sleep couldn't cross me even if i had it in me to try
        cause here i lay here i lie
to remember
that this is far too close to where i felt it begin

here you suggested
to fight against the happy time
to hang in the stars
to stare at the new moon
and fly with it back

and i convince you to sway with me
and i convince you to stay with me
and the dance is all ours
and so is the world

and we made it rhyme
every single time
till the love we had for crowds was clear
till they screamed at us    we want you here
all over again till all appointments fell in stacks
hung them over ***** dish racks
here they were screaming for us
turning their backs

we want you back
we want you back

so all the time
all the time, every time
we stand the test
if coming together was trying, then we were trying to stand the test.
and i wonder if all this oblivion would finally put me to rest

would i finally be able to admit
who i'd love better at my best

I think too much
you said that, right?
I think too much, I feel too much
I am too much?
is it the excessive pull,
or the half-hearted tug
that starts to bug you first?

is it all the push, baby? is it
all the push?
cause i know when you ask me
plain and simple
it comes out tangled and wrong

so you say // what do you want
well, i want fair and square
but then i want to
spin you in circles
to learn my way around

you pull tighter to my hand
closeness. dizzy. closeness here closeness now. i miss it.
do YOU miss it.

God I miss it I miss you
I miss this

then you say I'm making you dizzy
always keeping that knife close around
but you hold me in those moments like i want you to.

he said:
you are the type to turn to an empty crowd  and scream
         you are my people.
look them in the eye you would and
scream YOU are my people.
and i just wonder, man, do you see people there? in the emptiness? what do you see that makes you say those things?
or is the emptiness your people. do you see people.

it's long before he asks again
please baby do you
do you
do you
do you

YES my God. YES
yes yes yes YES i see people.
in people i see the empty.
and in the empty i see people.
and here i have to turn to them to tell them
when they most feel like they don't belong
that they are my people. and with me in my
soul they are always home. and though i am weak
and i can't carry the world i can
carry these people.

help me
   fix me
make me small

fit me
   close me
in a knee-tight ball

kick me
   punch me
till i'm pink

slap me
   throw me
i might shrink

hug me
   love me
   scare the bad

cure me
   **** me
end the sad

weigh me
    measure me
tell me a lie

either way
    i'm going to die

at times I want to thank paper
for her good listening skills
and other days
i want to tear her up
for letting me talk like this

your hands are over my face
you say
        your baby face is your saving grace.
and yours can shine. here you are. my favorite star.
asking me can you see, baby, and if you do, near or far.
near or far? doesn't matter. where i am and where you are- whether here, whether far.
whether it be whether it was
or if it will ever be again
when? i don't know whether to say now or then. now or then?
here all the spoil of the nighttime dim comes true
and all the ruin of the daylight is a form of truth too
when i plan on short notice to look at you
here you wonder strongly about the night
here you feel a bit about the day
you turn to ask me to put the lights out and tell you i'm okay
but if that was our issue, would it ever sit long enough in chairs to stain
cause here i ask heaven explain
heaven please explain
that hurt is a face that hurt is a name
and whether it was or whether it be in this case love
your hands are over my baby face
and i really cannot see

He takes my hand, gives me
a reassuring glance that I don't
feel I need. I need him, and I have
him and I don't need this. This is a waste.
A waste because I don't see him, he is never
here. Here, right now is the desert. The desert,
because it has not rained in an eternity. An eternity,
yes. Yes, it hasn't rained a year. A year, or maybe it just
feels like a year. A year, it could have been. Could have been,
but even if it was and even if it wasn't, I still don't know why he
is wasting it. It doesn't come too much, he knows that. That it doesn't
come as quick as I need it to, as often as I feel it should, as easy as I would
like it to. To come. Come and stay for good, not like this. This, coming, going,
indefinite waiting periods. Periods of no rain and periods of no love and periods
without him and periods with him and periods where my heart beats incessantly and
periods when the rain will not stop striking the pavement-- in floods, I float all my weight
on a dwindling river I call my sweetest home. Home, away from this desert, home a place for good.

If I had the ocean, so vast and blue,
Or if I had the sky, I’d give it to you,
But all I had was a smile,
Petty and meek,
So you got hooked while I was barely a week,
I was innocent and small,
And you risked it all,
For a man you barely knew,
How could you?
But even I have to admit,
That if you ever decided to quit,
I’d still laugh at all your jokes,
We’d never trust any blokes,
And you’d still be a perfect mother to me.
You probably don’t know me,
You probably don’t care,
But I want you to know,
That I have red hair.

I don't know what we like to imagine but
I like to imagine that we like to imagine
that nothing ever happened before
the writer put pen to paper, that
the world held still for him, that the world
laid down for him, that the world
raised her arms in open welcome and teeming grace:
here lay your head here i'll hold your face

i didn't think you'd be serious about never being able
to look me in the face again.
i mean i'm not mad. just look at me. i'm not mad
i'm not mad i'm not mad
i'm sad but i'm not mad

but i am. i am so mad. i am frustrated
and everything is so clear to me right now.

why are you mad?

i don't know why it took as long as it did for me to ***** this up.
but the point isn't why
it took so long but that i did ***** it up.

but you realize i did too, don't you?

i don't care what you did.
that's on you.
but what's on me, you can either hate me for or leave.

so then why are you mad?
i don't hate you.
all i wanted to do after you told me was to hold you.
isn't that what you wanted too?

stop it. again with the guilt tripping
why do you always want me to be the selfish one.
why do you make me  mistreat you? just to get some peace?
just to feel earth? just to hold onto something better in my head
i have to break something real like you?
why? why do you want me to play bad guy?
i'm mad at you. for
making me feel worse than i am by
not making me feel worse at all.
just drop it. drop me. drop the feelings.
i said i don't want you here, so stop looking at me
like i'm going to give you a punchline to that. this isn't a joke.
this is real. this happened. and what's happening is happening.
so stop looking at me like i'm going to tell you it isn't.

i said please. baby.
i'm not looking at you
any sort of way. i'm looking at you like you are.
why do you hate yourself so much.
why do you hate me so much.
just because you hate you doesn't mean i have to hate you too.

you know what i did.
so leave.
leave me for it.

but you didn't do it. you want me to think you did.
i'm not dumb.

and he said
either way i would've done it
so what does it matter?

please look at me.

i don't want to see myself

i want to see you.

i can't see you
i only see the me in you.
and i don't know why you bothered
putting so much of the better me in you
because the worse me is all i'll ever be
and you won't ever get to
be happy.
not with me.

i said if you lied to me now. i'd believe you

he said
*i really don't want you to

I look behind me and I speed up my pace.
I look forward but I’m staring into space.
To both my sides: Friends, I see.
But in a moment, it’s just me.
I look around, it’s a lovely place.
The pursuit of happiness is a game of chase.
I dance and play.
To some’s dismay.
The day’s gone.
Sun’s shone.
I’m fast asleep.
Succumbed to slumber, counting sheep.

could you let me have a thought can you let me have a think
in time for when
your next comment takes me to
the brink
of newly oldened short story chapter
that relentless horizon
continuing like they say it will
but always going with a promise
to break off in unforeseeable ending.

here i am on this dawning chapter and i wish i had the certainty to call it ending
because here on this edge all that i see is that
all my life principles
and rules are breaking and bending

here i am on this dawning chapter in awe
of all the system so quickly gone to dust
in awe of all the people for whom i've lost all trust
in awe of all the sorry looks i got that led me to this edge
and encouraged me to stay.
away
from the truth
i am happier, think
away
is where i don't have to hear anything you say.

so let me grow, let me grow, let me grow
further apart till you finally know
that i don't have to know
how pathetic i'm being
how much more truth you're seeing

because this is the only truth
i'll ever reconcile
and i'm going to stay on this edge
a while.

things in our blood things in our skin
poor vein's discarded oxygen
here you are superficial, artificial
on the surface creep
but the rumor's that you also come in deep

full disclosure:
1) i don't know whether coincidences are real or not.

2) bad timing, i badly want to call it that.
ultimately it comes down to not really knowing whether it is or it isn't and what this is... is really just a whole series of what-ifs no one ever prepared me to answer. the truth is that i don't know if i'd have only figured out what was going on later or if it was going to happen this year no matter what i did. but i tried my best, i hope every version of me in the future believes the person writing this right now that i did what i thought i could to stop what i felt was about to happen, happening. i had a weird feeling this entire year about what was happening to me. i know i saw it coming. anyways i should be sorry and, i'm not going to lie, i am, even though sometimes i am reminded by good people that it isn't my fault. that might be true. but i am still sorry. even my dream me gives me **** for it.

3) this is the most ironic thing to happen so far, but i think i say that every year. at least i do, in my head. i kept saying what's gone is gone and what's going, should. but i won't pull it back or push it to go like i used to. what's happening is happening, mantra or no mantra, i am not reducible.

4) i've been weak and i've been strong, left and right and wrong. and let me be honest that this year has been fire in my veins and let me be truthful that i had people beneath me to put out some flames. i realize somehow that this isn't the worst river i've drowned or will ever drown in and that isn't even close to being the hottest hell i've escaped from. it is tiring to think it could be worse and terrifying to think it could be better before i see the thermostat turning itself up again. before all that i love burns again.

5) conflict. they teach you about it in literature. there's different types and somehow i've made myself familiar with them all. some people egg me on, they like that i'm a fighter and they think i can fight bad things away for them. someone told me that i was their guardian moon and i got so high off the idea that i could be something like that for someone one day. and to be told that i already was sent me onto that higher plane. i know i'm not holy or divine but i can do something like that and i know God would call it worship.

6) sooner or later people piece together that a fighter's struggle goes both ways, that someone like me could turn on them at any moment. that sounds very spontaneous and unplanned and i don't want to deny that i am. yes i am unplanned but i swear also that i am always on standby. and i can feel the explosions going off inside me a million times over, but i am helpless to stopping it. and before i know it i am set off and before i know it people are hurt. i wish i could warn people i was about to blow up. but i also wish people could warn me they plan to push me to.

7) i can't help but serve the worst part of me the best part of me. does that make sense? you get what i'm saying? the worst part of me literally feeds on the best part of me. and guess what. the best part of me is a faulted one! she is BLIND, she is LIGHT and she is straight up DELUDED. she gives herself way too much credit. she told me she could save all of us but she's wrong. don't take her word for anything. she'd have you believe the sun is out in the dead of the night.

I know you write at night, say you'll have time to wither in the morning. funny how you fight yourself when all your body wants is rest and surrender.
Is it really a battle when both sides come from the same?

How crazy that your body just wants you to be okay and you can’t even bring yourself to listen. How crazy that I tried so hard to be your pillow and you wouldn’t lay down next to me.

and how many mornings did I watch you sleep through?

how many nights did you spend in the dark cracking knuckles and biting the wood off pencils?

how many times do i have to give in to you before you let me in?
how many times do i write about you only to write about him?

how many times does the subject change from one to the other and i’ll argue with you about him when we’re looking at one another?

how many times will it hurt before it all feels the same? how many times will this stop feeling like new burn and pain?

i hate looking at you that way
like it's useless. like the situation you're in is useless
like the things you're doing to keep it together are useless
like the things you're doing to get out are useless.
but when i watch you scrub until your fingers are rough
and i see what you've been trying to clean
it really does feel useless

you kept talking about mountains.
and I died wondering
how you could climb so high—
and still not come for me

we are praying
by the day

we are hoping
to find the way

in a crowd
we are lost
open your mouth
speak your thoughts

in this world
you are judged
for many things
but
your beauty
has no amount
if the words
stuck in your mouth
on the very tip of your tongue
in the essence of air you breath out don't
make their way
around.

heavy paper won't float in the wind
or drown in the water
or give me papercuts like
thin paper does

i have never put my trust in a thing as much as i did my moleskin. her heavy paper called me to come clean and divulge within.

heavy paper looks me in the eye and swears to listen
heavy paper's blankness glistens

and won't i hurt her less tonight? give her less truth? give her less feeling? more imagination too?

heaviness, she's more like sturdiness, she doesn't crumple under my weight
she doesn't mind at all
that i don't know how to start a blank slate

she keeps me in her. my stories, my fears, my secrets.
i owe her all my gratitude.

but sometimes
the more she knows the more i remember the more
i need to tear her up to forget

i wish i fought you
harder
i wish i fought you
smarter
i wish i fought you i wish
i fought you i wish
i said things that carried us away
to the battlefield it felt like we were already on

if you were interested,
I'd say I was too.
looking outward
      finding  eyes that didn't shy away
back at me
the strongest feeling there ever was the
strongest challenge you ever were
eyes brown, earthy murky
        sometimes fiery, but icey too
I see, I see too
eyelids heavy  heavy feelings taking over the light
               and it was always something i wanted to know;
What the Day Owes the Night

we watched the sky as it grew
blue again blue is always gonna remind me of you
never another day in the grey. you promised to chase every storm away
       put your palms against mine, that's how we did it first
put your palms against mine. that's how we did it first

now i look at everything like it's you
but everything looks back at me and
it's screaming me me me
and i was so deluded to think i could escape myself through another person

I am not scared of you leaving.
I'm scared of you not coming back.
I hold my breath till my lungs feel like they're on fire
when you tell me goodbye.

some days I pretend carry no change in them
I pretend in the twenty four hours elapsed, nothing consequential has happened

I pretend that my recovery is unthreatened,
I pretend therapy will work
I pretend nothing inside me has broken
(at least, not beyond repair)

other days, willingly or unwillingly, I remember
change change change
comes back to me like a fire from the past
feeling hotter than it might've back then
here i am drawing it back from what i feared it would feel like
and never really let myself feel
so how am i to know it would've hurt like this back then?
only a guess i suppose
but I go with it, embrace it
reflection is a memory and I think about her once I see her all day
can't bear to look at any new one, the one I might call myself today
the one I need to recognize as myself
but can't bring myself to

here's a confession for no ears, about the bad years
about the longing that so strongly defines my days

i suffocate every few days, lose myself every few hours
then decide to keep going.

this, at least in theory, is a nice thought.
a year ago i never thought to believe i had it in me to live any sort of life, have any kind of continuity.

the latter is still true. i still don't know how to keep going in a straight line. my best friend tells me healing is not linear. so i've embraced it

learned to go up and down and be okay with it

She said: wait. what are you apologizing for.
I said I'm sorry for the words
and they're never enough to tell you
about the things that I never meant to happen
She cuts me off: everything means too little
to me right now.
I said again let me say I'm sorry for the words
She puts her hand on mine
she said I understand
but if you don't go now
I will.

I have written about this before. About you.
About you leaving. About you leaving without me.
About you leaving without me and forgetting. About me.
Leaving without me and forgetting me.
I have written this before.

Look past
this is the farm we drink up

old country charm coming into your eyes are you rubbing out
light from them are you rubbing out
dreams from them

and all the color still forgives
come back when you choose to see them again

cause here the mechanical story
rubs the gears together till
they're good and churn

faster

‪SHE GOES AHEAD, TELLS ME SHE DOESNT HATE ME SO I STAND THERE KNEES BUCKLING WISHING I COULD SOMEHOW FACT CHECK EVERY WORD SHE SAYS‬

‪SHE GOES AHEAD AND BRUSHES THE ‬SOLITUDE RIGHT OUT OF MY CHEST HERE SHE IS BREATHING WORDS INTO MY EAR TELLING ME WHAT SOUNDS LIKE MY SLOW REVIVAL.

I AM FILLED WITH IT AND FOR ONCE THE IT BEARS NO GRINCH TO MY HEART'S FLIGHT
DOESNT PROMISE ME AN END TO PAIN BUT PROMISES ME AN END WITHOUT PAIN

SHE GOES AHEAD AND TELLS ME I CAN SEE HER AGAIN AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE IN THE BOOK OF ALL THE STORIES I USED TO TELL MYSELF

SWEAR TO ME I AM PRAYING FOR ME
I AM PRAYING FOR YOU SHE IS BELTING
PANTING
CAPPING ALL THE MORE

I MAKE EYE CONTACT SHE TAKES MY HAND AND LEADS ME TO THE MIDDLE GROUND SHE SAYS HERE THERE ARE NO FIGHTERS HERE THERE IS NO WAR

I FEEL HER STEPS IN MY OWN

HERE I AM GROWN
A PLANT WITH HER WATER, A TREE WITH HER ROOTS

days i have delayed
i've been under the shade
    for i cannot bear to speak
                                 to you.

ambiguous blots of ink
forming dangerous thoughts to think-
    will surely be reason for death
                                        for me.

who am i again(?)
just a girl with a pen-
    and words that can only cushion my fall
                                                            my crash.

conspiracy, i cause
propaganda, they pose
                                               posters, they stick
                                                                                and poems, i smack

find me in the corner
sipping my bitter capp
dreaming of paper
and ink
and y
         o
            u

I don't always know how to be there for you
I look at you
I wonder where to start

How to begin comforting?
When to begin holding?
Where to begin speaking at all?

This is when my silence begins to feel less like understanding and more like dread
Like a steaming whistle from the boiling thoughts in my head

I try to remember words said before
Only to realize if they had worked
We would not be here again

I scratch the words into my skin
etching in everything about this moment
and i don't cry while doing this
because i trust it to last

he takes the pen out of my hands
this feels like a jolt of bad electricity
my circuit is broken
i have too much signal in me

he said what are you doing
stop

i say  stop
i want to remember this exactly as it is
i want to remember this forever
i'll go back to this
all the time

he says then be here
be here now
be here with me

your brain will do the rest

i said you could never understand
i could never remember this as it is
by morning
something will feel off
and the reel you think i have of this moment
will be so tangled
it no longer plays

he is getting mad
i can tell
i go back to the signal my circuitry
wants me to not break
i go back to etching

i can feel him sighing

i raise my fist i want to hit him
i roll up my sleeve as far as it goes
19 days ago i'd etched that i loved him

and so i don't

gripping times they were;
when they held me in the palm of the hour
i felt time wave me over
as i planned to pass it by.

we surfed here
      surfed to
and from
and away
like our seconds were endless
and certainly independent of day

to please myself i try to remember time in my palm than me in its.
cause its clutch sure killed me first in my wits
but i always feel that fake shell i have around this
construct crack little by little
when the staleness of my illusion starts to go brittle.

as i sleep soft nights away and outlive the hard days
dwelling on a stack of banal chores
too convinced as it is that humans are a face and life its pores

too desperate to be filled? wishing to be killed? (made for it, too.)
to cut off time, which so readily breaks.
to give more of it up, which the universe so readily takes.
till we cut it off till we reach the end of more
till we finally stop waking up from this forever chore

when we let these days go we do pretending they're wholly ours
and when we let seconds go we do pretending they're holy hours;
you give me a minute back of my time... sometimes sixty, too.
with every two seasons you say spring forward
with every two seasons you say fall backwards

is it what i know to be partial devour
when zones don't change the seconds but they change the hour

    then we stand ourselves only as we fill ourselves to the brink, till false fulfillment come
in the color of root in the color of frond
in the color of favored relationship and forced-on bond
when the grey colored it all a different picture
when we combined optimism with realism in strange hazy mixture
when we drunk till numbness permeated bone
when we drunk till white noise recaptured all pitch and tone
till the fastest hour passed till the
slowest hour swallowed
and till we fell deep into this
aging hollow

the things i'll keep and the things i won't
and the things i'll bury and the things i'll hold
and   the things you see and the things you don't
and the things you wonder and the things you know

the worry you hide and the fear you show
the way things bite      the way life blows
to an  away and beyond
horizon-binding     no more zone to hold my roots to
blowing me far into unknowing
      away and beyond

     the furthest   away and beyond
but my name means near
          so what is here in the away
what is here in the beyond
is my new here

my name means near so
that's what i try to make

when life pushes me again

that's what i try to make

fold far into half the distance. fold far into half.
grieve less. grieve less. i tell myself what
i need and it's to grieve less.

all my comfort is  untold
unfold this concept of near till the space between your fingers says i trust you and the space between your thumb and index is how i don't
i thought i could freeze myself into this
      but instead i'm unfolding
harder now. unfolding all of it
all of my weapons on the table
there it is again that
familiar nothing and you
can't escape this and i can't
stop this
this is the space between your thumb and index but four times bigger again. coming back over again
to make sure it's harder.
to make sure it's harder to go back

being born again
every night
   his hands laced through
to the ends of mine
                    he's

being born again
         asking me what happens every night
       if it happens every  night
yes, every night
you're gone every night

i love you
but you've gone every night
          
he's being born again
and i'm sinking into dreampools of him telling me everything is fine
he says:
you're alright
he says:
we're alright

he says bury your face in mine
        bury your worries, it's fine
he says        i can't hold you forever
      but right now please can you please
let's just forget about stupid time

and again and again and again
i hold him like a summer love that bleeds and cracks
    and scabs

being born again
looking at each other trying not to cry
                            and here i am drowning
in thinking in feeling
oh how i wish i could hurt the night
how i wish i could hurt the night
        and how i wish i could hurt the morning

all of it in all its lying sunny glory
taking me and giving me a sick sad sob story

being born again
he's whispering
'tell me about your night'
being born again
'tell me about your night'
being born again

tonight there's only knuckles
tonight there's only jaws locking
before fights

but we'll never get to the fight
because i know you more every night
and you'll slip away again like you do every night

are you sure we're alright?
he says:
it's alright,
you're alright

then he's gone again
like every night

then he's born again
back again
with me again

he's asking
every night?
i'm trying to breathe—

yes.

every night.

I looked back at her
it feels tight in my chest it feels
tight in my head

sing to me blue cry to me red
isn't it nicer when we look into not ahead
isn't it nicer when
we hold on instead

or so I said?

before I stretch and hit a hardrock bed
while trying to get that sweet familiarity
in-between
my fingers again

fingers that oughta brush lightly  (but they screech instead)

the nails I have, man, they're thick
and I claw and I claw until I'm sick
of all the hot day cold night fights
who's going to kiss me pretty on the ugly nights
who's gonna help me get high when i'm afraid of heights



I don't want to do this, please
remind me  that I don't

she said you do.
I won't lie, not to me, not to you
and I don't lie (I've never
lied), I've always tried
but I've never lied.
(and that was a lie too)

but she said if we open up any further this
truth is gonna push us black and blue

she said if we open up any further
one of us isn't staying
and it's probably you

and she took a breath and the air was tight again
and i knew for once what she was saying was true

that's the thing on the tip of my tongue
in a heart i felt nothing

but i had some dawns in me already
breaking truth

that else is not always else
and my self was not always myself
and i trust this and i need this truth

and if it's called selfishness
then i admit it to be
i swear it to be
because a heart where there is nothing else
only comes about for me

an end, i reach, came finally
all that was amind
was mine.

the biggest fog, cloudiest bog
aggregated aggravation
wish i could go around and change the notation

never MIND the abject self-criticality
i mind it the most when you mess with my practicality

cause i'm sick of this big big fog that i carry in me.
you wanna carry this for me?
i carry it for no reason but
an old commitment i used to have for interreality

and this isn't really my reality
this is your reality

so we play, and when we do, we play across the line
and when we cross your faults, they become mine
but like always
i'll take them
it's fine

forgetting i'm already sick of the weather
forgetting i don't know how to make it better
forgetting it forgetting it

filled of others
I'M FILLED with others
of what else?

you say else never was the anti-me
but i fought inner wars to have it reconciled in me

well, in any case,
your else, i used to make it mine

but here i fulfill my own. disown disown disown

cause i've laid no ties to this weaky throne
nor to the cloudy ****** weather i'm gonna have
overthrown

belonging to all these people i asked to leave me alone
by the way, they never left me alone
till i finally left me alone

honey i'm home
honey honey
i'm home
i'm more than skin i'm more than bone
but i'm not you
i'm my own


i keep thinking
if only i had known

if only i had known

I thought all this time that understanding was currency and it would
buy me reciprocity, it would buy me good faith
so i gave and gave till i deflated like a balloon
going from full and heavy to nightmarishly empty so quick and so soon
you know me well, so treat me well!
but you don't, you don't. my hell and your hell spell a hell of a hell. you know it and you wish you didn't
so it is now a bigger injustice, i can't lay blame on ignorance, you know it now
a truth interchangeable with yours! i'm hurting! i'm hurting!

you're a part of the fire now!
that can only mean i am a part of yours.

so you got it all along and it didn't save me.

grab tug grab
i'm telling you over and over i have
this memorized

hey means play
applause at pause
cop means stop

she's here, light. came to pick me up in
gliding synchrony, follow me into melody
     sinking symphony of dangerous dreams and i'm done here after
     i confess that i went into dark rooms looking for her light

here, light. i wish i was holding her in my arms
cause this emotional toll is gonna break the bank
all the redemption come to speak
as world turned black to straining bleak

all i see is    an angel without wings
holding me   closer than ever before    
saying i'm sorry i     don't want you to feel this anymore
and it makes me cry harder
cause she's whispering vows to me under her breath
promising nothing like this is ever going to take me away
   but it will

and even then, my fall doesn't come from being let go

here. holds you closer  still
     till you know the colors
in the colors of her eyes

she brushes my hair from my face and says
          everything about you is just so soft
but times are tough for the dreamers
     and nothing can be replaced

twelve years of this. i said twelve years of this
why were you here all along
    don't you remember how it was before
don't you remember when it started
      she said i'm so sorry
i'm so sorry

                 i love her, i love her
but why is she still here
and who sent her to be my angel?
      the best friend that would spin herself into the same oblivion
just to sit against the wall with me    heavy, sunken all confused
she asked me if i was crying i said i've been dying
to prove to you that i'm trying

just trying to fill my lungs with enough air to ask her
why she still loves me    when i'm like this

but she knows i won't say
    cause i was part of the night and she was part of the day
and even though she owed me nothing  beyond what she's said and done
she still held me and
told me: baby bell i know from time to time    
  i'll hear your chime

and your crying doesn't annoy me. and you whisper cause you're delicate
and you are sensitive to the world. i can hear how deep you breathe. you are alive.
      don't tell me you're dead. don't tell me you can't feel it anymore. when it's too quiet i still hear it
when it's too quiet i still feel you being sad
        and i don't care.
i don't care if you're loud. always.
i don't care. even if you were
            just a bell tolling at 3am or 5.
even if you were. even as you are. always.
i am proud.
you are mine and you are safe and for everything you're sorry for,
     i'm not.

you call yourself the starriest gazer
sharpest blade on a razor

pull apart skin pull apart

faster

the starriest gazer, sharper taser

come apart faster now

sit on the grass
this afternoon- minds lazing
this afternoon- cows grazing
all gnawing on thought
all knowing of thought

but can you really know

and does this grass ever regrow

here i hear of home
here i hear of home and it is a twisted old melody
   humming back at me
who's humming back at me

in this deep-seated parental regard
will you look at me like i'm smart
about to take a scholarship from juillard

for the instrument of pulling apart
for the compositions of tearing heart
for the rendition of dizzy art

here.
yes, show me here
I'll show you.
show me the crash coming now
coming fast now
God, it's coming faster now
would you look at that
would I?
can it be
it already was.
then why do you need it shown now?
why wouldn't I need it shown now? I crashed from the front
and I never saw it from the back.
I crashed in the back and never looked front.
I crashed in the side and kept it all in.
where did it begin?
you can't see? honestly?
honestly.*
in in in in in

Tell me it doesn't mean anything
that I'm still cleaning up an act from years ago
that I'm still healing from wounds
that I got catching fire.
He was fire-safe, he never told me
      wanted to see what I'd do for him
wanted to see if I'd burn.
Baby, I'm sorry
I'm sorry if I let you think I wasn't the kind
to do anything for you. Yes, this is my fault
Yes, oh my God, yes, I'm so sorry
Why are you crying, baby?
Baby?
Baby?
I didn't think you'd do it
I didn't think you'd do it

today it is love that i have redrafted
today it is a feeling that i have re-envisioned
and let myself for the first time to feel and fill

today it is slowly filling inkwells, going backwards somehow
to refill, to have voice once more

today it is being enveloped, today it is being postmarked
today it is being posted
and let so gently go

when i felt it change it
turned over to look at me  one last time
    the stars gave out their last summer sugar light
kissed both of us sweet good night. sweet good fall.
sweet good winter. till the very next spring
hear the leaves crinkle
then here the leaves grow
in the distance
i heard the dying croon
of our favorite old moon.