another sleepless night my red
eyes tired and tried
i let your words fall
over my body like ashes
dust to dust i have buried
the bodies of those i have
loved and carried their dirt
under my fingernails back home
three thousand moths will settle in
the brickwork because the light
was on we hold our hands
against the ceiling as we drive beneath
a train a superstition when you laugh
i see the shape
of your skull behind
your skin
Feb 15, 2018
Feb 15, 2018 at 4:07 AM UTC
I am an empty thing
hollowed out by time
devoid of your love
I am pulling you out by the roots
grabbing fistfuls of memories
burning away the dead flesh
cauterizing my broken skin
I will exterminate the spiders
making webs of all that you said
I will not be convinced again
not even by the phantom of you
that stayed when you left
Jul 28, 2014
Jul 28, 2014 at 5:52 AM UTC
There is a part of me that hopes
your insides ache with the last words I said to you
Regret is a powerful poison
I can't hope to control
But there is nothing left inside of me
That holds a memory of your touch
I have long since forgotten
Even which of your teeth are crooked
And you cannot bring me back
Not with thousand word pictures
Not even a post it note
I am long gone
And you can have your leash
Jun 25, 2014
Jun 25, 2014 at 3:25 AM UTC
This will be enough, this time
where the steps summoned storm fronts
like cat-calls
and half-assed apologies into the 3am
abyss.
This will prove the endlessness
of loneliness--
these the toads of your toes
as the tips of your tiny timid feet
kiss.
But I will tell you not to breathe
the heavy shouldered burden burned into your back
because you are more than empty
mason jars and grocery
lists.
And you will not breathe,
you will not breathe--
you will think only of breathing
but you will not breathe in
this.
Oct 3, 2013
Oct 3, 2013 at 6:20 AM UTC
"I love you"
should be a little more difficult to say.
There should be advanced language classes
revolving around complex sentence structure,
advanced clauses and arrangement,
complicated syntax,
so that
"I love you"
means more than loving anything else.
Ich liebe dich.
Te amo.
Je t'aime.
I love you.
Saying "I'm sorry" in German
is more difficult
than "I love you."
Why is it that in order to apologize for something,
I first have to learn about reflexive pronouns,
and reflexive verbs,
and that the same word for "the"
can also stand alone as the subject of the sentence?
Das tut mir Leid
is more grammatically complicated
than Ich liebe dich.
And yet one wonders why love
seems to have become so clichéd.
Sep 13, 2013
Sep 13, 2013 at 12:55 AM UTC
I'm sorry I couldn't be your everything.
I'm sorry I couldn't be everything
you needed.
But I can't be everybody's everything because
there would be nothing left
for me.
Aug 27, 2013
Aug 27, 2013 at 10:56 PM UTC
*He loves me for who I am, but so do you.
He makes me smile and laugh, but so do you.
He makes me feel safe and warm and chases all the nightmares away,
but so did you,
when you had the chance.
He’s got his problems, and so do you.
And when I left they got worse,
but so would his,
if I left…
And every night I stare at the spots on my ceiling
as I lie awake,
contemplating what the difference really is,
if I’m really happier now,
or if I just like to tell myself so.*
Jul 10, 2013
Jul 10, 2013 at 5:46 AM UTC
The pages on my heart
are empty
and the blood staining my soul
mirrors the countless stars—
Let’s make constellations
from my platelets.
As you push your way farther into the sheets
I will chase you down
in spite of my fear of small spaces
and of being enclosed in your eyelids—
I cannot stand to take myself away from you now
but it never existed,
this moment played on an endless loop in your head
repeating repeating
a lapse in consciousness—
You fall
but I can no longer
catch you.
Jun 6, 2013
Jun 6, 2013 at 10:58 AM UTC
5. A Manipulation of Thought
I like to think you will read this in a cluttered room,
with your hand on your chin
and a lamp on the table illuminating the soft white of the page.
I like to think you will smile as you read,
because you will think I am witty
or beautiful.
You will read this
in your personal place
quietly.
I like to think there is a picture frame
containing small pressed flowers
that make you think of yellowed wallpaper
or dreams.
There is a clock ticking somewhere to your left
and that is strange, because
how many clocks have hands anymore?
But you are a magician in your own right
you speak words that conjure death
in a small way.
My poetry remains in the ashes.
The words will dance across your eyelids
as you blink in the sunlight;
you emerge from your hermit shell
a momentary mirage in the heat waves off the pavement
they are words they are these words--
The delicate flowers--
and the sunlight.
Apr 18, 2013
Apr 18, 2013 at 6:15 PM UTC
2. Burning the Dollhouse as a Paper Lantern
You are meek, almost
humble, little bird.
Tell me, is that who you were designed to be?
Your mother leaves flowers at your door
like a tombstone
and she cries all the same.
Make them happy make them happy
I know there is a worm whispering in your ear
infecting the silver apple
there is a fingernail sliver of a moon tonight.
--He talks through headphones and broken binary
01001000 01000010... Hell I don't know what it means
they are switches like brain nervous endings
*they fire 01010000 01010100 01010011 01000100
at a thousand beats per second*
You are a paper doll you do not know how to exist
anymore. Light a candle you are beautiful in the flickering
send the flames licking the sky
a beacon to the one who loves
and leaves flowers at your shower door--
you are a fragrance divine
as your house goes up in flames around you
a watery grave your bathtub doesn't drain
but you were paper anyway.
The water was suicide enough.
Apr 17, 2013
Apr 17, 2013 at 9:40 PM UTC