something is broken inside of me, and
I know it is broken and I know it is cracked
but I don't know what broke it
so I don't know how to get back
glue my pieces back together and walk on a clear track
because lost is the way and confused is the path.

A common thread runs through us... connecting our spirits... our lives.
This thread is difficult to see for some... impossible to see for others... and neglected by many.
What a shame it is to feel so disconnected... so lonely... when we share this thread among us.

She couldn’t believe she could breathe underwater for 43,829 minutes. Especially with all the constipated looks of sympathy.

Poor girl stuck in a box, they thought as they tapped the glass.

Some days she would float, barely moving, unresistant to the small currents that swayed her whichever way. Others she nestled away, trying to find something the temperature of blood to bury her face into.

But most days she acted normal. When they watched, she swam.

It wasn’t until she was alone that she removed the ceramic vase from where it sat and wedged it into her armpit, her arm wrapped around its base.

Ah, yes. The vase that once held flowers with promises of decay. She rocked it and rubbed her face against its glossy exterior. She ate fettuccini alfredo with it. She watched “Gone with the Wind” and “It’s a “Wonderful Life” with it. She sang Beatles classics to it.

But on the 43,829th minute, the vase slipped from her cold and slimy palms, shattering on the hardwood floor like an exhausted piece of coral.

She retrieved the broom, swept and took a seat next to the broken pile.

When she looked at her naked feet, she realized she hadn’t groomed them in a month. And with that, she hand-peeled her long and yellowed toe nails, flicked them into a dust pan full of ashes, looked up at the water stain on the ceiling and said, “here’s looking at you, kid.”

and here i am again
at the intersection
of pedestrian language
& old wives tales
swallowing gum
like 7 year memories
opening umbrellas inside
cause i can't seem get away
from all of this rain
i ******* with my left hand
cause i was told
back in highschool that
"it feels like someone else is doing it"
it gets me wondering
about the difference between
losing you and finding out
that some one else found you
or my sleep
or lack thereof
its starting to tear me apart
i keep having this dream
where you are in
an unfamiliar body of water
trying to wash my poetry
off of your hands
or the one where
something happens in my chest
every time you sit
on someone else's bed
i'm tired of feeling like something you've misplaced
but don't have the heart
to look for anymore
tired of you saying my name
like you're trying to bury it
i'm tired of wondering
if you can tell the difference
between the absence
of my voice & silence
the other day
i almost started sobbing
at work when a woman
asked me about
our equipment
i was explaining how
things come apart
and almost mentioned your name
it made me think
of how you used to say
things like "what would you do
if i showed up on your doorstep
one day?" now, i haunt
the windows in my house
i don't leave for weeks at a time
i sit on the porch like the dog
you didn't shoot behind the shed
the one that refuses to die
until you come home again
i told somebody once, that
you didn't even know
what my voicemail sounded like
i wonder if they thought
it was because you
are so important that i never
let it ring that many times
before picking up
or if you dont know
what it sounds like
because you've never called
you can't be the ****** weapon
and the search party
i'm tired of all the seats
to the ferris wheel in my chest
being empty
tired of your voice
being the one i look for
in abandoned places
that one sound i beg
to bounce back
down vacant hallways
i just seem to stand there
in all of that quiet
like someone looking for a mistake
on an eviction notice
so i guess the hardest part
isn't letting go
it's forgetting
you ever had a grip
in the first place
and since you've been gone
i wonder if when
you pushed yourself away from me
you used your left hand
so it felt like someone else did it

I wanted to write a poem about flowers, so that's what I did.
It was short, expressed how I feel, and cut like glass.
I showed my father "Flowers" and he thought it was mediocre.
And I said, "No, "Mediocre" is the poem where I talk about dying,
and I'm trying to stay alive, so I wrote about flowers."

Flowers strangling soil plots with their roots, with their existence.
And to hurt something you love with your existence is a terrible feeling.

You fell in love with me.

I just hope you jumped.
Not slipped.