I was the sparkle in your eye;
Now you're the dull ache in my heart.

The world could not contain us both, I guess.

Look at this fool
Who writes of not knowing love
And yet here she stands
Heart in her throat

She fears it's temporary;
Litter skipping across asphalt
On a windy day

How it's always been

Look at this girl's farce
As she claims "Not I!
My head is too filled with
Numbers and ruined paint
And things much too cumbersome
To carry such a heavy load!"

But oh, oh that face is
Something special

Look how it ruins her even now
And how blind it is
To her stumble

Whatever it is

She feels her pulse in her
Very fingers
Just wondering what it is

Look at this silly young thing
Always blind sided
When she's made up her mind

There is a hunger I can't quench,
An addiction I can't subside.
An itch that burns under my skin
And I've tried scratching it.
I've tried.

I want that pretty silver tongue
To match pretty porcelain hands
Hovering over ink wells
And candle stands
But I can't have that.
I can't salvage
From the depths of my mind
A poem to wrap around words like
"Gossamer",
"Murmurous",
"Erstwhile".

Art is a circle
But I am a line with crumbling architecture,
My thoughts linear and grit;
My prose stuffed with an hour-long process
Of charm and wit.

I write these words to feed you;
Please you;
Fill you with the sense of understanding
That I can't come to.
My art is a lie with a rainbow
And I stand smiling in an empty room,
A vacant audience in a ghost of a show.

I write because I need you.
I write because I want to dance for you.
I write because I want to seem wise.
But all that it amounts to
Is a high that always dies
And a candle that burns out
Far too quickly.

This is not a cry.
This is not goodbye.
This is me.
And I hope, for me,
That this is enough to satisfy.

Forsaken soul
Taking root in a land thought barren
Or hostile
Or uninhabitable

Where the water is poison

The air toxic

Will your vines slip through the cracks,
Dandelion?
Will you be the ****
That blossoms in the summer
And leaves yellow stains on
The palms of our hands?

Will we cut your roots down?

Will we shut out the sun?

Do we shake the earth with cloven hooves
And break the stone?

Maybe you'll **** the water supply dry

Or maybe you'll just **** the poison out

In
Life, I
Always just
Seemed to notice
Patterns and
Minute
Things.
Things like
The left turn
Blinker in a
Movie scene;
Sometimes
The
Very
Slight shift of
Symmetry in
Someone's face;
Straight lines
And
Even
Syllables.
And it's so hard
To keep track
Of it
All.

Words of deep love and longing
Are lost on me, today.
I've no whimsy to feed my prose,
No form of coherency in my head.

I'll write for the sake of writing.

Rustling trees swelled with song birds
Are mere echoes of a life outside
To me.
I feel like I'm suspended in zero gravity -
My face tingles,
My head is sluggish
Like a hangover without the nausea.

We've got potholes in our hearts
And the construction's lasted for months
So we just fill them all with sand and
Call it a day.
Integrated into a system
That's forgotten the welfare
Of the human soul.

There's a trickle of sunlight
And it's getting warmer.
Summer's blossoming and
I can't stand it.
The beautiful solace of winter
Melts away with my silence,
While summer months boil blood
And chaos chokes the air.

These words I write are read
Aloud in tremulous whispers -
The only proof that they're real.
Recited every night
When I lay my head down
And wonder about the difference
Between what is evil
And what is just a misled notion
Of Righteousness.

And everything else in between.

Rocking, rocking
Back and forth like the conversation
Muttered between plumes of
Cigarette smoke.

"They owe me twenty three hundred,
The hotels and motels -
Eight in all."

He's said it about eight times.
Eight in all.

"And the surveillance systems
In the rooms.
The guy in the FBI lobby
Was talking. Said things.
Better have my money
'Cause it's messed up to
Take a man's money like that."

I nod, agree.
It's all I can do.

He's talked about some officer,
The white female down at
Cherry Street Mission.

He talks about the white male
And the black male
How they pass out cigarettes
And one's a mean *******
Who kicks people while they're
Trying to sleep.

I wonder who else has kicked him
While he's been down.

He's checking the clock again,
Doing the math -
Takes about an hour to walk
To get to the kitchens.
Good to get there early to
Get a bite to eat.

"'Cause man, they owe me
Twenty three hundred dollars
For the hotels and motels -
Eight in all."

Nine times, now.

"You get what I'm saying, though?
Isn't it messed up?"

Isn't everything?

Let him *** another smoke,
He's down on his luck
Though the FBI's got nothing
To do with it.

I've seen glimpses of coherency
Here and there.
Mentioned a brother who
Couldn't give a ****.
Mentioned working in a
Restaurant once.

But all the while he's rocking
And losing himself again in
His head and the imaginations
Of ****** plots and FBI contracts.

I wonder what his last name is.
I wonder if he remembers what
His last name is.

"And the guy in the FBI lobby
Said they'd scrap up an extra grand
For the trouble.
Just takes time.
Don't you think that's messed up, though?
Don't you think that's ****** up?"

*Do I ever.

There's a sting in my chest.
There's stiffness in my limbs.
There's a grimace on my face
I can't wipe clean.

How did you think this
Was going to happen,
Silly girl?
All it was, was a
Summer breeze.
Just like litter,
After all.

Please understand that
This sorrow is bitter
Yet brief,
And I will shake off
These idyllic whimsies
And fruitless endeavors
In search of a life
More savory in its rewards;
Shake off the numbness
In my fingertips to
Burrow them deep in the
Earth so that they draw
Energy to the very marrow
Of my bones.

For there is still
So much to learn
And so much to see
That fickle lapses
Of romance have no
Room to interfere.

And I will not be deterred.

Your hands are probably cold
Holding that "Anything Helps" sign

At least I hope it's the chill shaking them

Sitting at this glaring red light watching you;
Waiting while this red light is judging me,
Condemning me as I squander time
Sizing up the hunch of your posture
And the vacancy of your expression

Thank god you didn't look at me
I couldn't have taken it

And as the light turned green, I realized
That the shower waiting for me at home
Couldn't possibly clean the grime I accumulated
Just by driving away.

Wrestling with this hourglass
Trying to bring back
All the times that we fought
And all the times I lost
With you

There's a lifetime of moments
We still had to share
But the dust of your bones
Settled before the dust
In your veins had a chance

These days I've lost all sense
Of what's worth it

I haven't listened to music
In a month.

I've never known a darkness like hers.
Not really.

You went in a hail storm
And I don't know if that's poetic
Or just the crescendo of what
Your life led up to.

You always were chaos incarnate.

A gun with a hairline trigger.

The only blank left in the barrel
Is the one taking space in my head
Since you left.
I never knew how many facets
There were to grief.
I don't think they make numbers that
Big.

There's a pinprick of nothingness
In the world
And most people pass it by-
But some eyes, they haven't
Let it out of their sight.

I have grey hairs you'll never see.

She told me it was nothingness.

The anger on my tongue died later
Than you,
But so help me,
Give me one more day to relive it
And maybe I won't feel so empty.

Just one more.

Please.

It's been three hundred and sixty five days,
Twelve hours,
And eight minutes,
And all I've been able to do is try
To wrap my head around the fact
That it's been that long since you've been
Gone.

For months my world was surrounded by
Pictures of you,
Videos of you,
People talking and talking
And talking
About how they felt about you.

I was always talked over.

The gust has died down
But I'm still not over it.
"Take a step forward,"
But there's a fence
And I've never been
A good climber.
Remember the tree
Behind your trailer?

Three hundred and sixty five days,
Twelve hours,
And twenty two minutes.
There's a white box here
That I'm itching to write in
With all the anger and the regret
That's constricting my chest,
But the words escape me.
These are hollow.
These are ghosts.

Guess I've gotten too good
At keeping it in.

Called you selfish the
Last time we spoke.
Hell, you hung up on me
On Christmas.
But there hasn't been a day
Where I don't see a child
Smile up at their daddy
And my eyes don't glance away.

Three hundred and sixty five days,
Twelve hours,
And twenty nine minutes.,
And I'm still as sorry as I was
The first second I knew.

You once said that home was wherever you make it

I found my home in the comfort of our secret language
And the way you knew when I needed to run
And the way I knew the meaning behind every syllable
In your music

I remembered your birthday
You forgot mine
But that's alright

Our relationship has been stretched hamstrings
Since you've been gone,
And these songs are the hollow boneyard
I fumble through

Melodies
Strings of smoke
Slipping through my hands

You're missing Christmas

I'm missing your life

Sometimes I wonder if you remember the brother stars
And the trees
And the whales we sang about in the kitchen
And the mulberry pen ink

Sometimes I wonder if you remember me
As the shore you greeted each morning
When you rolled in

If the whisper of these words
Ever carry through the wind
And reach you
Please take this and know
That the shore will still be there
When your wave washes in

I will still be here
Singing

The world cries
For the mother, who works
And works,
And had dreams
That did not involve
Cement walls,
Cement floors,
Cement ceilings,
Torn muscles,
And numbness in
Her hands.

Those beautiful,
Calloused hands.

There's a guy out there
With no home
Or family to claim,
But he'll rob her
For all she's worth
If it means to damper
The hunger and
Shakes.

He knows a "doctor"
That'll take care of him
So long as his palm's greased
And the supply is good.
Sure, it's not love,
But after his dose
It won't matter.

The guy would mourn
If he died;
Not for him, but for
The loss in demand.
Hard to make a buck
Around here, nowadays.
Guess you have to do
What you can to
Survive.

The door in my mind
Has been locked for a very long time;
Probably from the smoke drifting
From the alter I've built to my misgivings

There are tally marks on my stomach
Counting how many times I just stopped
Caring,
And I feel my chest turn to stone
With every breath.

Sometimes I wonder what the fear
Of a storm at sea feels like,
And if it's anything similar
To the paralysis I feel when
Someone is screaming.

There are days when I wish
I could speak in color.

When a shiver goes down my spine,
I wonder what you're saying about
Me.

Maybe life was just an accident God made
When playing with dolls

Sometimes I wish everything made sense,
And that my mind wasn't so faceted
And tangled like string
But maybe Everything is a jigsaw puzzle
With missing pieces.

Maybe we're not supposed to understand.

Or maybe there's not anything we're supposed
To do.
Maybe life is screaming and color and a storm
At sea.

Maybe God is still playing with dolls.

Advertising loneliness
Highway hypnosis
Always staring at this white ceiling
I can't paint

Aspirin doesn't take away the ache in my soul
That spreads to my mind
That spreads to my words
That stain my fingertips
And seizes my ankles

-------------------------

27 times I've been reminded that
These bones aren't going to hold me forever
And these feet will forget how to run
But I told myself they never found a need to
Instead simulating a universe
Where they had power

--------------------------

There's a cruel joke in there somewhere
That playing House as kids
Didn't include a guide on how
To reach that threshold in the first place.
Learning that hands were made to be used
When cooking
And compromise was the cornerstone of love
When cleaning

-------------------

Madame Salamander
With her small, speckled spots
Spread smoothly over her
Skin, similar to the sun.
Tiny toes tip tapping long treks
Through tough terrain.

Madame Salamander
Grand and glamorous, great gales
Of green-eyed ganders give her
Gosh awful grabs as gifts, gabbing
Gleefully of gross gourds.

Madame Salamander
Feel her filmy eyes on her
Flat facade furrow into a feverish
Gaze as her words fan further
And farther whilst she fabulates.

Madame Salamander*
Let her linger on her long legend
Of little lizards lipping to large
Lions and licked away from
Their lovely lives as lizards.

My life is slipping past without me realizing it. Moments are passing with a blink of an eye.

I am writing because I will never remember when I wrote this. I will not remember what I had for breakfast, what book I read, or where I went out to eat. I will never remember what colors the sunset was composed of, what song was stuck in my head. All that I will have of this day is this piece of writing - this one thought. And even then, this will be erased eventually, and I will forget everything I wrote.

I will forget everything.

And on these strings, I write a symphony of Eskimos,
Of love
Of regret,
Of sisters,
Of mothers,
Of happiness,
Of the unknown.
I write a ballad of rhymes, almost-rhymes
And nonsensical *******.
I spill a little of my soul
Drop by drop
Into a song that no one will fully understand.
Not even I understand these things.

But they just seep out of me like sweat from a pore.

You didn't know I saw you
Watching my train rumble away

A perfect stranger
Arms draped through the barred gate
When everyone behind you
Heaved lumber in indifference

I saw you curious
And I wonder if it lingered
When we disappeared

You see, every time an
Opportunity leaves me,
It leaves me violently
Like a bullet
And it scars,
Torments

Then I'm left with purple prose,
Nostalgia,
And bitterness over what
Might have been

I've always thought I loved storms;
Where the rain beats against my window,
Wind wailing, thunder rumbling,
Lightning painting streaks
Across the sky.
There's nothing like standing underneath
The angry clouds
And letting the cold rain
Wash all of your sins away.

I've always thought I was in love
With the sky;
The way it surprises me every day
In its spectrum of
Resplendent colors and soft greys.
Personified in my adoration
As maybe God himself,
If God even exists.
To this day, I'm not so sure,
But I know the sky and that's
Enough.

But as I wonder about these things,
These forces of nature,
I wonder about the circumstances
Surrounding my experiences with them.
I remember that, in the midst of storms,
I always have a home to run into
And a towel waiting for me to dry me off.
I remember that while the sky is
Ever changing,
It always remains there.

So maybe what I've always loved,
What I've always longed for,
Is comfort.

Is... stability.

Three little plastic tubes
Lined along the kitchen counter,
Orange and glaring
Against the floral paper
On the wall.

Since when did you need three?

You open your pill bottles
When everyone's left the room
So not to remind them
Of your mortality.

Your daughter leaves the room
Because she knows
And she can't handle seeing you
As anything but
Strong.

The guilt gnaws.
The fear builds.
The air's getting thinner
As the thoughts grind
In your head.

Pop
Swig
Get it over with
And get on with the day.

It's a dance I've forgotten the steps to
An equation, a misplaced formula
A melody with lost lyrics

Forgiving myself is as easy
As putting my hand on a hot skillet

Loving myself might as well be
Rocket science

------------

Bitter are the memories
That marr my skin
In unwanted scars
And paint my prose
In purple flowers

Give me an IV
Of rain-soaked November nights
Or dry heat against my skin
And fresh earth between my toes
Or the feeling of a hand
On my shoulder

I must never lose sight of myself
Lest my heart churns thoughts
Into poison
And everyone into a villain.

When I am old
And crows feet tickle the corners of my eyes
And silver parts the waters of my hair

When my knees crack like thunder
And my ankles somehow know it's going to rain

When my mind starts to slip
Like a camera out of focus
Or maybe like the water damaged photographs
In the attic

When I am ancient and beautiful
In the sunset years of my existence,
I hope to have achieved a life
Where I didn't fear walking through a war
For some semblance of peace.

There are still nights
Where the frequency in my head
Pierces the silence,
And every face I thumb through
Looks like yours.

Your ghost breathes heavy
In this house
And you still manage to
Be the center of every conversation.

Part of me hated that about you.

There's something inside that says
Remembering the fire and the snow
Is both betrayal and therapy;
You were not,
In any sense of the word,
Perfect.
But the blood dried on your face
Once ran in your veins
And your heart beat with
How fiercely you fought
Against the world.

In retrospect, you were my
Biggest muse.

Part of me loved that about you.

Time ticks on and I'm standing still.

Motions of normality circle around
And I'm standing still.
There's a set of stairs right here.
An elevator.
An escalator.

There's a hole right behind me.
There's a rickety slide and a ladder climbing down.

And all the while everything circles
Round.
Round and round and round and round.

But I'm only standing still.