It is so hard
to watch you just now take interest in the things I tried to show you
And to wonder why you never listened
when I told you that the full moon cleanses a crystal if you'll let it
and how for your information my paintings aren't stupid
and they aren't for you even though you didn't say that out loud.
Oct 27, 2016
Oct 27, 2016 at 2:12 AM UTC
I've been keeping a journal of trips I wish you'd taken with me.
An album of photos you should have been in.
A list of nights I wish you'd spent in my passenger seat.
I've been collecting all of our favorite pieces of myself in a mason jar;
Fireflies to leave by your bedside so if you wake up in the middle of the night you won't feel alone.
I know too well the hourglass purgatory that is your absence;
Frighteningly similar to the sensation of waking up in empty darkness, unable to remember falling asleep.
Mar 28, 2016
Mar 28, 2016 at 12:45 AM UTC
We met when your best friend was in love with me.
You joked that you were falling in love with me, too.
I laughed.
Eventually, I fell back.
And we fell together, deeper and deeper into something we never did figure out.
Now, I am here wondering
when I will be able to stop wondering when you will come running,
arms open, to tell me
"It's you! It's always been you."
And I will laugh that it's always been you, too.
Except I won't be joking.
I wrote about the frozen water on the bay that last winter to convince myself
that you are not
the only thing
I write about,
and you're not really.
I just don't think the ice will melt unless you burn it with me this spring.
And sometimes I wake up empty
and wonder at what point in the night you got up and left,
the same way I used to.
And then I remember how long it's really been.
And I remain empty.
Some nights I don't sleep at all.
I wait for the sky to change.
I name the mornings after the times I missed you most
and the stars after the nights you decided to stay.
You always told me naming a part of the sky was foolish until I named one after you.
I take advantage of the catalysts.
I test how high I can stay and for how long.
There is so much happening in my mind that it's taken over my body.
And I am involuntarily running in circles.
My body must think that if it keeps moving,
it will eventually run into you.
I haven't eaten in days
because I can't find an appetite for anything but the way you tasted.
And avoiding "reality" is ironically easier when I'm awake for days,
Because I don't have to wake up to the sharp reminder that you're gone.
And that I miss you.
It's just a constant dull ache.
Missing you is driving all night to watch the sun come up but being too busy collecting sea shells you might have liked on the beach to look at the sky.
Missing you is wishing I had the guts to jump.
Every night it all comes down to missing you from the bottom of a bottle,
or the passenger seat of a strange boys car.
And every time I end up on a busy road,
I wonder how many other passengers are missing someone.
I wonder if before I learned to miss you,
people of the past could have ever imagined
that someone like you would buy an old snapshot of their child on a rocking horse from an antique shop,
in search of an imagined, falsified nostalgia.
And I wonder if the brain takes snapshots of what should be nostalgic,
thus leading to the invention of imagined memories.
When my most treasured memories are those imagined, how will I tell the difference?
The mornings we watched turn to light together (we never did),
The nights we spent without arguing (they never happened),
The time you told me you appreciated the way I saw the world (you never even opened your eyes).
And you used to tell me that searching for seashells and watching sunrises and collecting experiences that make me feel whole arent "real life".
And I'm dying to know what "real life" is because the one thing that is timeless is that the sun does rise.
And exists.
How much more real can we get?
But where's my credibility?
I believed in us.
And I was going to name this one after you, but I can't remember your name.
Mar 12, 2016
Mar 12, 2016 at 4:51 PM UTC
I'm not so active
I may not know how to live
and I don't exercise but I exercise my right
to keep this in my line of sight
at all times
and somehow my muscles are as sore as when they tear away
but only from the shivering
I've gotten done these past few days
I shake and shake
and my racing heart keeps pace
with the chattering of my teeth
as my entire being vibrates
from the inside out all except for my vocal chords
whom long to move with the rest of me
to let you know that you could leave here with the best of me
build your lifeboat and life vest in me
and we can sail together to the east
ignore reason
commit treason
while they're sinking,
we hold on tighter to this fleeting feeling
run around
until I burn myself to the ground
because it feels so good to burn
when you're always left this cold
and no exercise
can repair these severed ties
or even make me want to try
to find a stillness in my soul
to find my niche
to find a home
to focus on a mastery
when being fluent in one language
won't ever land you on the front page
no matter what it is you have to say
but I only know the language of the sleepless nights
in the dialect of "the fear of another wasted day"
and when I overhear comments
on my "newfound" accent
all I really hear is
"her words never mattered anyway"
but they'll remember with the Frost
that "Nothing gold can stay"
and misquote me
on my final day.
Mar 9, 2016
Mar 9, 2016 at 8:33 PM UTC
It’s a little ****** up,
every time I get into my car
my impulsive desire is to drive
to you, wherever you are.
That every time I pick up my phone,
my hands try to dial your number at the tone.
That every breath I take
my senses miss your scent
and every mistake I ever made
haunts me with our end.
Also,
It’s a little ****** up how much I still love you.
Feb 27, 2016
Feb 27, 2016 at 3:43 AM UTC
Roller Coaster
Sparrow
Paper Bag
Picture
Diver
Market
Elephant
Roller Coaster: This won't be the typical mention of a roller coaster, about the ups and downs. But rather the fear I felt on the line for the ride and the reassurance I was handed by my companion and how I wish to feel that safety in words again.
Sparrow: I carried a baby bird to healing 4 years ago with a broken wing. But today I was asked for help with another and I could not have cared any less. I don't know if that's because I've "come to my senses" or just lost hope in flight.
Paper Bag: sound of ripping paper in half pause This is what I really heard when you told me you're doing well, without me.
Picture: I never did know what I'd find to do with this picture of a house, that I found in a house, that used to be my house... I'll just use it to say "house", because "home" is a word I don't know what to do with.
Diver: You are a cliff diver.
You take that leap of faith.
Your safety fails you.
Your back up fails you.
Really close your eyes.
Grasp the horror.
The betrayal.
The eventual impact of landing.
Thanks, mom.
Market: Remember when we had to wash our hands after every trip to the super market to avoid germs? What did we do to avoid what really infected us? What did you teach me to keep this sickness from creeping into my chest and eating me alive from the inside out? No preventative measures were taken against the most terminal illness that I could have picked up in any market, in any lifetime. So this is me, begging for a cure, and for the medicine I seem to have missed too many doses of.
Elephant: So... How's that for an elephant in the room?
Feb 27, 2016
Feb 27, 2016 at 3:27 AM UTC
I can make no noise but the scratching of pen to paper now.
And when I try to display the pieces of my heart,
they only find their way up into my throat.
Next to whiskey burns to ease "hello"'s
and "goodbye"'s I've waited too long to give.
Next to the "no, thank you"'s that were ignored,
and the thrusts of strange men that I missed you during.
Next to the laughs I've faked
at jokes that reminded me that you never liked my sense of humor.
And next to the cracks in my voice,
when the song that made me miss you before you were gone came on the radio,
but I still sang along.
And I'm sorry that "stuck in my throat" isn't loud enough to tell you
that I'm sorry that I was never enough.
Feb 27, 2016
Feb 27, 2016 at 2:32 AM UTC
The cold kept us inside
the police declared a state of emergency
but for us it was a state of emergence
we filled our veins with alcohol to keep warm
and lit fires in each other for days
burning through what brought us together in the first place
we said our love would remain solid once the ice melted away
and ventured into the bright blinding blanket of white
feeling like we were even brighter
feeling lighter
but when the plows cleared our paths back home
I took another
and somehow ended up back in the cold
alone
so I lit a fire
poured myself a drink
found myself mixing liquor with blood in the sink
a makeshift blanket with every drop screaming back at me
DON'T YOU THINK?
DON'T YOU THINK?
DON'T YOU EVER ******* THINK?!
A carefully crafted cocktail of doubt and DNA down the drain like the melted storm
but I finally felt warm while alone
Emerging, raining,
Saying "I am fluid
and I am coming home"
Jan 24, 2016
Jan 24, 2016 at 6:53 PM UTC
I want to be close enough to hear the ringing in your ears, but if you heard the ringing in mine would you even pick up the phone?
Because your conscience is clear and as long as your secret can keep a secret, your eyes are too empty for anyone to tell.
But I know that to tell how someone is loving you've got to look into their "I"'s.
Ask them if snowflakes think they're falling or flying? The same way I've plummeted into you while I somehow imagined I was still the pilot.
Ask if the clouds aim to protect the earth from the light or the sun from the darkness on earth?
Because love isn't blind, love is a blindfold.
It's a blanket when you weren't cold, recognizing his tire in the road.
And I've never been good at lingual warfare,
but I have a feeling soon I'll be using my grey hairs
as a form of punctuation
in a fruitless explanation-to myself
that the way you touch me isn't a 'waist' of time.
And as long as you keep calling, I will answer to the ringing in my ears.
Jan 9, 2016
Jan 9, 2016 at 7:35 AM UTC
Junkyards are cemeteries too
they're just the ones no one brings flowers to
or visits after they've said goodbye
and they are filled to the brim
with forgotten wheels and empty bodies
and I am sick of these wheelbarrow operations
and the way the mice eyes sparkle
as they wait by the mailboxes
that don't even belong to them
for love letters from the cats that will never come
because when she said "I love you"
it was a junkyard kind of goodbye that she meant
Jan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 at 3:16 AM UTC