Caught up in the fever you gave me,


I'm no good at playing it cool,



Maybe you could teach me?

In 350 weeks I went through alot of pain, had an uncountable number of dream like days. Went through moving and losing my mom, being fired, losing my dog and many childhood friends.
  In so many ways the pain I've faced these passed 8 weeks hasn't been something totally unfamiliar, its not as though I've never met the anxieties im dealing with now. But for some reason they are so scary, they seem so big. It took me a second to realize that the reason why is because before I knew I didn't have to face those moments alone. I always had backup.
   Its not that I think I'll never have backup again, its not that at all. And I know ill be just fine without it for now. Its scary to feel so alone after 350 weeks of having each other's backs. 8 weeks from now I'll feel much differently im sure, and 8 weeks from then things will be much different, I can't imagine 350 weeks from now. With any luck, well see each other around by then, cheers.

I moved back home to my hometown this year.

I hadn't realized how long it had been since I could look at the night sky and see the stars so clearly.

Somewhere in there thats the metaphor isn't it, that it took me coming home to navigate these dark times in my life with the clarity I need.

Its been raining for days,

The clouds seem spiteful,

Like they've held it in for too long,

And now they're lashing out,

Seething,

Bursting,

The ground around me,

Oversaturated into a swampy muck,

Each step I take,

Leaves the mud gasping in my footprints.

We used to agree,

We were probably lovers in past lives,

Who knew we would make that a reality

The time will come when it will all make sense, and the picture will be clearer.
Till then sit tight, breathe deep and keep your  limbs inside the ride.

The hot days of summer drone on like the cicadas at dusk,
The cool nights trickle bye,
Each moment,
Sweet like honeysuckle nectar,
every minute we trudge through,
Good enough to die for.

How easily I swell and deflate,
Like the paper bag you breathe in when you start to hyperventilate,

From your touch I catch fire,
From your glance I freeze over,

I should've tried harder,
To keep my composure.

You prepared us a bowl of the tender juicy flesh,

Wet to the touch and the warmest orange hue,

I've always enjoyed cantaloupe, even as a kid it was a favorite of mine.

We agreed this was one of the best either of us had ever had and ate each morsel.

Each chunk melting in my mouth as if willingly being eaten.

The way id willingly melt in your mouth if it was your wish,

I'll never look at cantaloupe the same.

Do you still chase sunsets like we used to?
Do they hit the same?
Or did truly everything get old?

Lately I prefer the sunrise, and the clean slate they offer.
They feel full of the calm I crave so starvingly.
So full of beauty, so full of potential for good things.

I will do my best to tread lightly,

Except when you don't want me to.

I will try to handle you with care,

If you do the same.


I will do my best to keep my balance,

And not lean too far in.

Unless you're leaning too,

Then I'll meet you halfway;



I promise.

I remember when I first felt the warmth of your brain;
The illuminating light that came from those pulsing electric tendrils of grey matter and the utter comfortability I felt when yours collided with mine and tiny nuclear bombs went off all over my skin leaving me with goosebumps everytime you spoke.
As we lay in fates womb,
Before we were aborted,
I couldnt help but know I wasnt worthy.
I still am not,
Alas,
This is a different life anyway, for a different person.

My mind dresses you in the colors of fall and my heart smiles at the image.
Your dark hair falling down over a rusty orange sweater and the olive skin on your hands peeking out from the sleeves.
I often wonder if maybe I read the whole thing wrong.
That you were as into me as I was into you.
But the night we lay there,
And I lay in awe,
Literally prone to your beauty,
And I built up the gaul to bring my lips to yours and yours sat still,
I felt the wronger.
I felt as though I was treading waters you hadnt mapped,
That this wasnt in your itinerary.
So I backed off,
Shock turned to sorrow,
Sorrow was slain by shame and shame fell to sourness and I stamped out most all the flames around us.
But I kept one and will keep it always,
It burns forever a still image of you,
Smiling, looking up at the night sky,
Random nameless decrepit buildings all around us and a spotlight of warmth and connection and humanity in the middle of it all.

In a meadow, capped with canyons on either end,
There Is a spot in a field where the grass stays short for me. A pact between us that each night in my dreams I will read to the meadow, and it in turn stays short and soft for me to rest my head and wake. This place,
Where the day and night see eye to eye through the canyons as the sun and moon trade places,
And a quiet brook babbles to the silvery fish within it fictional stories of adventurers and dragons and tyrannical governments and even a species of fish known to fly,
is the only place that I can be alone.
It's covered in the sweet smell of honey and patchouli during the day, filled with the sounds of bees and wind chimes the trees grew themselves. At night is almost silent, except for the crickets, and the occasional owl, and my melodramatic voice as I read to the tentative flowers blossomed and budded all around me, every creature in earshot paying full attention. There are trees here that love to provide, provided you provide them with a riddle or two. Ive never brought anyone here, to the place where I can be alone. But strangley I want you here,
And thats dangerous.

"Can I at least hug you?"
The question crawled from her throat in a scratchy and pitiful way.
For a split second I realized she was starting to cry.
"If you want, sure"
She wrapped her little arms around me and I left mine at my side. We had had a final farewell hug more than once before this one.
I was always distraught. My world was collapsing. This time when she pulled the rug from under my feet, my world really did collapse. I cried like a child taking his first confused breath, at the top of my lungs and so full of fear and confusion.
  I cried and hurt so much that when this hug finally came, I had hardened over. I couldn't be soft for her anymore She had broken that.
    Her arms dropped from my side and she stepped back, looked at me, silently.
    "Anything else?" I asked.
    "...I don't think so"
    "OK well best of luck in everything you do, see ya around."
And then I turned, walked away, got in my car and drove down the street. I didn't look back at her gate. I drove home, cried some more and probably drank, because I don't remember.
    This is a form of farewell too. You've thrown me aside and its not fair to myself to still have you as a subconscious muse. This will be the last time I write about you in a long long time. If you happen to see this, know that there was nothing I wanted more than for that embrace to last an eternity.
    So there it is, so long, see ya around.

How you started so brightly,
With visions of delusional grandeur,

How the path seemed only to lead up,
Into the hills,

It seemed easy to get lost in those ups and downs,
The moon hung like a silver dollar at the end of the path,
Forever and always,

Before we knew it the coast had claimed us,

Swept from our foothold in the hills we clung to each other tightly,
As each tidal wave crested our mouths and our eyes stung with the anger of the ocean,


Our lungs burning to breathe,

You broke from my grasp,
At first I would scramble to regain it,

Soon to realize it was your will,
And it could not be undone,

I bobbed lonely and sunbaked on the open sea for countless days,

I had all the time I needed to think the thoughts I always pushed away,

As I lay baking,

How dark, and quietly you ended,
Not many to bear witness,

How long and cold your warm summers were,
To look back on after wiping the lenses clear.

Cold stella Artois

Triggers warm thoughts of your face,

How was your cats day?

Your cat, she missed me,

You though, clearly much less so,

Good to see you both.

Its a type of magic really,

The way your gaze could hold me like a straight jacket.

Those clever marbles,

The piercing, calm blue of a winter morning sky.

What have they seen?

Id sit and listen to you tell me till you decided you were done,

Id lap up every bit of your story you offered me,

And never have my fill.

The pile of black paper butterflies in the center of the table grew ever larger,

Seeming some sort of monument to the night.

By the end it was a wave, big enough to send me rolling,

But I'll find my footing and I'll keep moving forward.

Its wild to think that, some years back, a large amount of days and hours ago, a version of me that understood even less about the world than he does now, left his house for the last time.

I barely remember that summer, there had a been a scary storm right before Katrina that we half assed evacuated for but it ended up missing us. I was starting 3rd grade and had just learned the word "mathematician". I don't remember what my classroom looked like but I do remember the agendas and journals they gave us that I only got to use for about 2 weeks. They were white with doodled children all over the top, and said "Westwego Elementary 3rd grade".
I remember feeling like I was finally a big kid at school. My classrooms were finally upstairs with the big kids and the world was so big and bright, and we were so curious all we wanted to do was see it all. Like there was a projector sat between us and the coolest thing we had ever seen and all we could do was try to see passed the light.
     I Don't remember leaving, I remember driving, I remember going back for the last time to get our stuff from the house. I remember starting over and joining a new school with 200 other kids from my city. I remember living at my aunts house with most of my family. I remember wondering about my old friends and how they were. I remember one time we were at Walmart and I was buying halo 2 and my neighbor/best friend from back home just happened to be there too, completely out of the blue. The first time I had seen them since the storm at all.

I haven't seen them since, and its been 16 years. I hope they're fine. I drive by that old house pretty often and I never cease to wonder if the kids living in it now are ok. If they live a life anything like my life was in that house. If they have a trampoline in the backyard or if they sometimes walk too far down the street alone and get in trouble.

Its crazy how life happens. There's no plotting the course. There's no hedging your bets. You can only weather the storm.

I hate you so much.

I hate you I swear I hate you.

I hate you for your double standards and your venomous outbursts,

I hate you for the way that you made me feel so whole,

I hate you for your dark curls and your subtle lisp,

I hate you for the days you made my life a movie,

For the days you made my life feel small and unimportant,

For the pedestal I drug around for you,

For your soft skin and loving eyes,

I hate you for the way everyone likes you effortlessly,

I hate you for how you left me,

I hate you.

I hate you so much it hurts me.

I hate you so much for making me hate you.

I hate you for the days I cried at the thought of us as old people, still by each others side,

I hate you for the days you made me feel so special,

I hate you for every beautiful second of those 7 years.

I hate you and I hope that you're living well, sleeping well, eating well. I hope you're loved. I know you are.

Somehow we did it,
We carved out a day, a few moments where it felt like nothing mattered except us, at least to me.
Like time wasn't running out and we weren't 25 year olds and the only thing of any importance was what the other had to say next, at least to me.
Laying in your bed we felt like two grains of sand brought together as they were squeezed through the eye of an hourglass, at least to me.
I don't know how we did it but God I would give anything to do it again.

Another gentle let down that feels like a meteor crashing into the earth,

All because I continue to let myself get so excited, and so hopeless.

Like leaning into the curves on a rollercoaster.

This year of my life has provided me a bountiful lemon harvest,

My friends and I have gathered the fruit dutifully for the passed few months

I'm proud of the lemonade we've made of them.

From here on out Lemonade will always remind me of these days, scorching hot and full of struggle.

The sweet sensation of quenching your thirst with the fruits of your strife.

Whatever they say about loving stuff and letting it go is wildly subjective and skewed into the letting-goers' favor.
      
      When someone's love and the love you have for them is your world, and they simply let you go, how can you ever come back?

Still I agree though, with what they say about living and loving. Life will have hard times regardless, so fill the other times with love. It will always be better to have lived and loved than to not have, no matter how vulnerable it leaves you each and every time.

There's light at the end of the tunnel.

After all this time in the dark, my mind might be playing tricks on me.

The golden glow that, even from this distance seems so warm and clean,

could very well be a mirage.

Real or fake it's beautiful,

And im running as fast as I can in that direction.

See you on the other side.

I tried to write about you,
And I couldn't.

As much as I thought of you,
No words came to mind.

I sat for a moment,
Mind as blank as the page before me.

I tried to force it,
Tried to reach and scrape for it.

In the end,
I was grasping at air.

The result,
Is Something im not proud of,

And a story,
With no hero, villain, or moral.

I don't have to make her into a poem,

Without a need for assistance,

She carries herself like Poes finest work,

Like a pristine Brontë.

She might be the life art imitates,

She is the tip of the flame,

At the tip of the match.

I think of you less now, if you could believe that.

I still see you in poetry and in music and in art and the little habits I learned from you, and in food and in snails,

The list goes on but it really does happen less often now, and when it does im much less confused. Much more capable.

When this was all very fresh a friend of mine told me a day would come where, there wouldn't be the same pain anymore. Like an old bruise fading from a deep purple to a sickly yellow. Still tender and ugly, but dull and familiar.
    And that the dulling of that pain, the yellowing of that bruise as it heals comes with its own painful realization. The realization that we've grown so far apart from each other I don't even hurt for you anymore. At least not the same.

Most people have had a moment where they are just living their life, and then suddenly their nose picks up on something and they are brought back in time. You walk into a restaurant and a smell takes you back to being a child on Christmas morning in your grandmas kitchen. Maybe you go to a new friends house and their hand soap brings you back to moments that you haven't thought of in years.
    This is such a strong phenomenon that most people can give you an example of, and it's very interesting. Scientists believe that this is such, because the parts of the brain related to memory, and emotional memories specifically, are directly connected to the parts that decipher our olfactory senses. These associative memories are often very vivid and visceral, because the connections are so strong and direct within the brain.
   I have burned every candle we bought together down to the end, partially because I want to forget you, and partially because I'd do anything to be taken back in time to the way things were for just a second.
  Its actually been weeks since I threw the last one out. If you're wondering, it didn't work. I wasn't brought back to better times. But as the last breath of life burned from the wick in the cinnamon apple candle you loved, I smiled.
   Its time for me to buy new candles, and I am so excited.

I wonder what it is to you, just a way to pass the time?

Its a perfect daydream for me.


You lay there asleep, golden in the morning light that was pouring through your windows.

You seemed so Perfect in that moment. I never wanted to look away.

However this goes you should know you've given me peace in ways I could never express.

I sit,
anxious and tense as a squeezed spring.
Nervously checking my phone awaiting that buzz.
As the minutes tick bye my chest is ratchet strapped a tad bit tighter.
I've been on paths like this before, in similar forests, and the deja vu feeling im experiencing is giving me PTSD.

I'll remind myself to keep my head on tight.

To dot my "i"s and cross my "t"s,

To watch my step and mind my manners.

To take it all in.

To ride the wave from crest to crash,

To breathe deep and laugh loud,

To hold me close and have my back.

In my past my fears have gotten the best of me on occasion, but I swear I would face all my fears for you, if you gave me the chance.

And just like that,

almost as if on cue,

The sun is out, shining bright,

The storm clouds, for now,

Are tucked safely into the wings,

Of someone else's scene,

In someone else's play.

Everything changed for me in the spring.

It was 4 months of the most painful growth I've known. I lay in beds of clovers, and flowers, they embraced me warmly like new friends.

Then the summer came, it was hot and rainy and my sweat burned my eyes. The blood from my hands was a deep red, the proof I was still so alive.

Now we've entered the fall, the mornings are crisp and the skys are clear. It hasn't rained in weeks and my hair has grown so long.
My sleepy eyes are open wide,  ready to accept the beauty of winter.

Its been a year,

and what a year its been.

thinking back on it all, its a dream really.

The skies were clear, the clouds rolled bye slow,

aside from some squalls barely visible from shore,

the sea was calm.

Everything changed for me in the spring.

It was 4 months of the most painful growth I've ever known,

during the brief moments of reprieve Id lay in beds of clovers, the flowers and grass embracing me like old friends.

Then the summer came,
it was hot, and rainy, and the sweat burned my eyes,

The cicadas screamed into the evening as they felt the sun for the fist time all year.

I fell hard and let myself rest. The blood from my hands ran a deep red, a reminder I was only human and the proof I was still so alive.

Jolting awake in the quiet fall mornings felt like the end of a loud heavy metal song.
The sudden and sharp juxtoposition was an unexpected but welcomed moment of quiet.

those sunrises were, crisp and the clouds were nowhere to be found. as the temperatures dropped The world turned an odd cheap sepia hue, like one of those tacky old timey photos you get on a family vacation to tennessee.

Winter seemed to clear away the clutter of it all.

What was so seemingly right and seemingly wrong, crystallized over night, politely frozen in time for me to take careful note of.

The voices of people  I love swarmed my ears as the holidays rolled bye.

what a year its been,

my hair has grown so long,

my smile lines have grown deep,

I can hear the wind picking up outside,

my eyes are open wide,

facing forward, ready for the show,

as the storm rages on.

The other day I read an article about how climate scientists were recording a heat wave in Eastern Antarctica unlike anything we've seen before.  The article mentioned certain regions being 50-90 degrees hotter than usual.
Accross the world, Vladimir Putin initiates a "special military operation" wherein he invades Ukraine, and begins killing innocent civilians. The west is on eggshells as to how they should respond. The tension is thick, and the world is watching.
The Amazon burned for almost 9 months straight in 2020, 72,000 Square miles of Australian bushland was scorched by wildfires in 2020, California has seen record amounts of homes destroyed in its own wildfire seasons the past few years.
Amidst it all Harry styles drops his new hit single "as it was" and destroys spotify records. Will Smith is slapping chris rock for a woman who doesn't love him at the oscars. Betty white died, Bob Saget died, DMX died. Kimye split up. Rhianna gets pregnant.
  All of this is happening around us, the world is quite literally falling apart. And there's an image of humanity that I honestly love in my head. Which is us sitting on the edge of it all, playing our favorite songs, watching the end play out. Its beautiful to think that even as the flames lap at our toes, well probably find something to sing about.

Healing has turned out to be such a long and painful process,

Like pulling out a hundred tiny splinters,

The immense relief you feel as they slide from your skin after a moment of struggle,

The occasional mark left behind,

The hundreds more you'll discover hiding in your hands,

As you drag them along the walls through your days.

There are still so many strings attaching me to my old life,

I've been writhing and struggling to create enough distance that they finally snap.

Every day there are handful of things, some of them are habits I perpetuate,

That send me straight back down those darkest of mental corridors.

I do everything I can to widen the gap,
But like a piece of gum under a shoe,

The strings just stretch on through the stress.
And leave messes where I walk.