I stand above my bed
And examine the damage.
Blankets this way and that
Pillows all over
Sheets tangled up around themselves.
Proof of something that
Only hours ago
Left this place empty.
I take in the rubble
And breathe deeply.
I lower myself down to those
Tangled sheets
And backwards bedspreads
And fill my lungs with you.
I pull them up around me
And close my eyes
And wish for this place to be
The same kind of battleground
Again tomorrow.

I walk the world with thoughts of you
In every place I go
Your voice is on the winter wind
Your footprints in the snow
And every tool I try to use to scrape you from my mind
Cuts your name onto my tongue
And beats me till I'm blind
I layed my head upon your knees and breathed the air you breathed
I cut myself when you were cut to know just how you bleed
Now as I walk this empty earth with nothing but a face
To breathe me and to bleed me
Until I leave this place

Someone once asked me
If I was afraid of dying.
I said yes.
What else is there to be afraid of
Besides that?
Now, looking at you
Your breath against my neck
Your eyes searching my face
Your smell soaking into my sheets
I realize I answered like a child.
If I am asked that question again
I think I will answer
that I am afraid of one thing
That one day
Your eyes will close
Your head will turn
and I will lose you
To someone
Who isn't me.

Well I saw her on the stairs by the sea
I didn't know her and she didn't know me
lips on lips and no eyes for the thirst
Hands on hands and heaven on earth

and i knew better
well i knew better
and i should have let her
fall down
fall down
fall down

years passed by and they tore down the stairs
walls found doors then tables and chairs
you couldn't see out and you couldn't see in
and we wore our smiles like a second skin

and i loved her
and i loved her
but i was hurt
my love
my love

Then I sat all alone by the sea
i knew her but she didn't know me
it was a sunday when we said
that's alright it wasn't even worth it
it wasn't even worth it
it wasn't even worth it
no no
and i and i know
i and i know
i know
oooh i know
and now i know
and i know
and i let it show

We're still there on a raft in the sea
i couldn't see land and you couldn't see me

I knew this girl once.
I won't say we were friends
Because we weren't.
I should say, she knew me.
A girl knew me once.
And I was too afraid
Too young
Too angry
To know her back.
So we pretended for a while
And then we stopped.
She stopped seeing me
Just as I started seeing her
Just as I started knowing
Just as I started being.
Time dragged me
And I tried to be blind
I tried to stop seeing
And just when I thought
I was ready
To never see again
She appeared
And drew my hands from my eyes
And looked at me for a long time.
We saw each other as we always were
As we always are
And then we turned our backs
And walked apart.
I screamed
And realized
I would never be blind again.

It's like sparring with a lumberjack
a tell tale sign you're lost
A party trick , a baseball bat
and loving what you've got
a sparrow rests- an open chest
a gunshot wound for hire
tempted to forget that love
will force you through the fire
thirty nine and feeling fine
and hating what you have
kisses in the moonlight
and ignoring how it stabs
open eyes of baby blue
have been lying all this time
dreaming dreams sustained by you
it still feels like a crime.
Headlights hollow open vast
and scream a shallow tune
baby birds they fly too fast
and are taken by the moon.
Pacing blankets made of smiles
and fairies in her hair
name tags and red ceiling tiles
dying, trying not to stare.
She's beautiful as sunshine
and sweet as summer heat
and standing by the roadside
she sells her rotten meat.
There's plenty love in all the world
for sirens of her kind
and your body's steady pull of heat
tempts her to leave us all behind
we're hanging from a telephone pole
at the end of steady stream
and seeing glass is on the floor
cutting up our dreams
This plane is falling into bits
for the rich ones to enjoy
i wonder when they'll figure out
that earth is not a toy.
porky's in the dining hall
playing Rhapsody and Blue
on a washboard and a bathroom stall
I'm entering on cue.
You can scream and yell and call me names
Curse words aren't that bad
My life is one big mess of loud
you're not supposed to make me mad.

I wait, untouched.
The polished road beneath my feet
vibrates with anticipation.
I look into the pitch black cave
And see the lantern burn
Brighter and brighter.
It burrows through the darkness
With a familiar fury.
With the desperation of a child,
I lean over the stripe and
Contemplate myself.
One misstep,
One careless bump,
And my fate would be decided.  
The ground shakes under me
And the underground wind sweeps my body back
I am pushed once again onto mortal soil,
And am afraid of myself.

We are the children of electricity.
I run an idle finger down your loveliness
And feel only sparks.
They flicker in ecstasy against my hands,
And for the millionth time I force myself away
Terrified it's too much.
So much light inside of you,
My greed is overwhelming.
These shocks I have to harness for my own.
They can only be mine.
For I have no electricity of my own,
And rely on you for the light
To move through the dark days ahead.

I remember us in bed
the most.
I think about the heat
the burn
the bites and bruises.
I think about the loss of breath
The heaving chests
The white bright lights
and rest.
But more than the fire
I think about the silence
and the way you would put your ear to my chest
and count my heartbeats.
I remember your breath on my neck
your arm around my waist
and all the nothing that was said
and cut me with its loveliness.
I remember us in bed
and try to forget the fire.

Breaking up is hard to do
Especially when it hits you
Like the hot wet palm of a hand
That literally everything you own that is even remotely practical
Doesn't actually belong to you.
You never realize how utterly useless a toaster oven is
Until you have to use it instead of a microwave.
I mean, yeah, I was in love and now I'm not, which is pretty emotional.
My entire life is different and I have to completely reassess who I am-
But honestly- I'm a lot more concerned about how I'm going to heat up my alphaghetti
In a ******* toaster oven.

Sometimes I sit alone and stare at the sky.
and I wonder how anyone could ever feel big
when we are all so painfully small.
and they know nothing of what is shared
between shimmer and darkness in the big blue nothing.
I wonder how I could ever feel important again
under a mass of uncharted forever
that is holding up so much of my life.
because forever is a long time
when you have so much to lose.
and so much to prove.
and there are worlds between my eyes and the sky
that have been starved of light for so long
where they were meant to be forgotten
but never were.
Worlds when we drank too much *****
on that beach with no name.
and everything always went terribly wrong.
Worlds where love never wins.
where love is always lost.
These worlds where we forgot how old we were
and acted how we wanted, and didn't care who we hurt
or why.
Where we chased moonbeams onto cheap plastic siding
and left everyone behind for nothing in particular.
Worlds with glamour and softness
with cruelty and train tracks
Worlds that make it easy to feel what you feel
and be what you are
and know what you know.
Only to find that these worlds are not to last.
and it is such a part of everything
that love and worlds and faces and names
must be lost.
So in the end, when things are lost,
I stare at the sky,
where my worlds have gone.
I walk amongst the fire they set
in the limbo I'm trapped in now.
and hold out my hands to catch the heat
before it burns what I have left.

My love can fly
From coast to coast
Over oceans
And fields
And outstretched arms.
It whistles through the air
And finds you-
Lovely and wandering.
It whispers all my wildest wants
And darkest truths
And leaves a mark that cannot fade.
My love can fly
And cover the world
And hold you when I can't.

There is a greatness in your form
The way you carry yourself around
Like you're the beginning
And the end
Of every sentence.
There is a cruelty in your eyes
And how they cut me down
Around every corner
And under all the moons and suns
We've seen together.
There is a kindness to your body
Like it has covered all it's bruises
And learned from its mistake
Of trusting you with it.
And there is ****** on your lips
When they join with mine
And I feel my life ending
With every untaken breath.

4 strong hands and 20 toes
2 Blue eyes and 1 cute nose
13 brown and golden hairs
6 toenail clippings on the stairs
15 kisses in the dark
1 oddly shaped burlesque birthmark
365 days of love
13 times push came to shove
3 white sweaters that turned pink
19 whiskers in the sink
8 hushed moments under stars
one too many you-shaped scars.

Every breath of mine is false.
It is taken from somewhere else
and put inside me
by some unseen force.
My life is not my own.
My blood is pumped
but not by me.
My eyes are opened and closed
but not my me.
My feet move back and forth
but not by me.
Everyone is fooling me.
They know my tragic story.
They know my secret.
That I belong to others
and not myself.
That I am a slave to someone else.
I am a tool used to love.
I am a toy that was played with
too much.
I am scratched and bent
and I know it.
I have been abused
and before I can escape
my arms and legs are bound
and I become once again
a slave to no one.

You’re going to find yourself alone.
You will be in a hospital room
Or in the backseat of a car
Or on a park bench
And you will have decided you’re alone.
You will have convinced yourself
That there isn’t anyone in the world
You can trust.
Not her,
not him,
not the clothes on your back,
not the air in your lungs.
You will have made yourself alone.
Again.
And you will pay for it with the same currency
As before.
With the same realization
Of emptiness
As always.
And you will stand up
And declare war on yourself
For the way you have been treated
By no one.

I reach out in my sleep.
I claw at the wall behind my head.
I cry out, wounded.
I toss from left to right.
I reach out in my sleep.
For someone far away.
The skin I haven't touched
For a life I cannot know.
I reach out in my sleep.
To a dreamworld full of no.
It's red and black.
For blood and death.
I reach out in my sleep.
In search of something white.
For hands that fist and rest.
For your mouth on top of mine.
I reach out in my sleep.
Hoping to find you there.

You were wearing that old sweatshirt
You know the one?
With the holes and the bleach stains?
You're were looking at me with those big blue eyes
And I was taken prisoner
You trapped me under that sweater
Under your skin
Under your eyelashes
And I was set free again
Into a new world
Where no one wears that sweater
Like you do.

I had a dream before I met you
that all the world was out to get you
and I knew, even then, I wouldn't let you
fall.
I tried to dream in sunny color
but it turned out all grey and sad
i tried so hard i though i'd drive myself
mad.
I've been living a cinderella story
the kind where you're not what you are
until you are what you were
the whole time.
So now i'm pumpkin orange again
baking in the sun for everyone to see
no more dresses, pretty tresses
not for me
i'm not the girl with the pretty ball-gown
i'm the one at the front of the line
i'm the one that's always out of time
and lets things pass her by.
I'm the one with the ripped, tight jeans
and doesn't know in-between
and can never be un-seen
the visible girl.
so i started with a rhyme and ended with a reason
and now i'll fall, my favorite season
and now i'll fall back where I was.
Where i have been
the whole time.

claws and jaws that set their song
are open, loud and do no wrong
and *** and drugs and rocks and rolls
and circumstantial dancing poles
are all of no great consequence
in the face of endless circumstance
when beggars, pleaders take their chance
to lace their shoes and start to dance

Perfect faces lie and cheat
to make their loss into defeat
a poor man's song is no one's thrill
and honest people learn to ****
the eye of love is gouged out raw
by frozen winters yet to thaw
and siren's music looses tune
in sharps and flats under the moon

So try and love me when I'm wrong
it's harder when the road is long
we're stuck inside a goldfish tank
with no one left for us to thank
so please be kind to artist's minds
and try to hard to cross our lines
between your temper and your sighs
and free the world of senseless lies

It's in the greenhouse growing ***
we're senseless with the things we've got
and honest work for honest pay
is swept away with yesterday
hide your lover in the brush
you can always look but never touch
a hard truth born from Ferris wheels
and the easy listening way you feel

So tell me when you're on your own
if love is all the same alone
and holding hands with air itself
is worth those trophies on your shelf
so miss me while I'm gone, my friend
this deal was always meant to end
think me pretty, tarnished gold.
It's easier.
Or so I'm told.

you are the sensation of falling
you are hunger pangs
you are the knot in my muscles
you are a wound that will not heal
you are a scab, itching to be picked off
you are a life of your own
you are an eyelash in my eye
you are everything and nothing
you are a fingernail, cut too short
you are wind before a storm
you are the thunder
you are my greatest success
and my fondest regret
you are raindrops on a sunny day
you are my act one, two and three
you are my hero, my leading lady
and my villain
you are my pen on paper
you are my blood in the sink
you are my foot, tap tap
you are the air in my lungs
you are responsible for me
you are.

I'd love to take you with me
wherever I may go
through days of hot white summer
and hours of ice cold snow
but as i walk along here
i face the need to show
I cannot take you with me
wherever I may go

You're a long word I can't pronounce.
I don't understand you.
You are a chemical pattern.
Just when I think you aren't.
It turns out you always were.
Every time.
You are a bottle of something strong.
You burn on the way down.
I would say that you're water.
But you're not.
You're a serum.
You're a cure.
But you're a sickness no one knows about.
But I don't have it like they do.
My strain is something new to you.
You are burned into my DNA.
I couldn't help but love you.
Which is the saddest story
that I know.

There are feathers in your step
and sunshine in your smile
inside your freezing baby blues
I see my life in piles
of dust and ash and compost heaps
and endless worls of no
guilt beyond the guilty ones
and looks as cold as snow
It's sad inside those seas of blue
beyond the world I know
I'm lonely loving inside you
and what was high is low
I'm staring at the sky so blue
the clouds all blend in one
I'm coming to your dead rescue
I'm bringing back your gun.
I'm reaching out and touching skin
fingers laced between
hands behind the backs of him
ripping back the dream
my thumbs are in your beltloops
awake i'm waiting for the day
curled around you in the morning
keeping 9 to 5 at bay
goosebumps grace my fingertips
your breath is in my hands
a sound so much like heaven
i'm not strong enought to stand
tomorrow is so far away
from what we have to do
but have a little patience
i'm still trying to swallow you.

Picture this
a glass of red wine on a white table
it spills
it's thrilling, spilling it.
it's a whirl and swirl of forbidden happiness
a shocking jolt
running up your arms and into your head
the wine is spilled
it's trickling down the table legs and onto your toes
no turning back now
you're the guilty one
it's a beautiful, terrifying glory
breaking the sequence
spilling the wine
making a mess
not cleaning it up
just leaving with your sticky red toes out the front door
onto the asphalt
down the street
and away from the mess you will have to clean up when you go home.
It's tingling in the back of your throat that you wanted to do it
and you did it
and now it's done
and it was worth the sticky toes
the stained table
and the wine you didn't get to drink

I fight sleep tonight.

I imagine

What it would feel like

To curve into you.

To feel you press against me

And into me

And through me.

I think it would be like

Jumping off a bridge.

Pain is in the plan

But so is the water

And it's warm

And worth the sting.

I dream of being under darkness with you.

Eyes that flutter open

And brush your cheeks.

Kissing your skin goodnight.

Professing desire to your face.

To your eyes specifically.

Your eyes.

Something I am too selfish to describe.

I trace them every night

On the backs of my eyelids.

So I never forget the way they fall on me.

I imagine you in my dreams tonight

And sleep comes like a gun.

I loved you across lakes
Through clouds
over earths
and seas
and days
and nights
I loved you through my pain
under shadows
over yes
and no
and please
I loved you more than me
and it hurt
every day
a little more
than the one before
And when I did not have to love you
across water
and dreams
and tears
I could not love you at all.

My heart is where you are.
Should I ask for it back?
Should I be so unkind?
You have, for so long now, needed it.
I don't think I have the stomach
To see you weep over it's loss.
You cared for it,
Nursed it back to health.
You held it to your heaving breast.
And I know, because it is mine,
You cherish it above all things.
So I will let you grasp it,
For a few moments longer.
To stroke it with the care
You abandoned
When you broke it.
But then, my darling,
I must have it back.
We are too old now to be fools
Who lend their hearts to strangers.

Eyes meet
Hands touch
Breathing heavy
Pressure drops
Eyes meet
Eyes part
Bodies meet
Hands find
Eyes meet
Skins touch
Hands find
Breathing heavy
Eyes part
Lips move
Mind changes
Contained apology
Pressure rises
Blood boils
Lips starve
Fingers find
Hands slap
Mind races
Throats scream
Shatter
Crash
No
Yes
Uncontained apology
Whispered forgiveness
Skins part
Lips close
Bodies dress
Sun goes down

The entire time I was sitting on the couch
across from you
the whole time your cat was plotting on how to best take my face off
As your mouth moved like a motor and you told me all your stories
I wanted to grab your ankles and yank you to me
in the worst way
and kiss you with everything I have to give
and see who dies first.
But that is a dream I never had and a fire that never burned
and ignoring it
is the delightfully tragic ending to an almost dream.

Somewhere between
Portland street
and the edge of the water
I lost my mind.
I was walking slowly
scuffing my feet
dragging my boots
over the sweaty concrete.
My head was down
and I didn't see you
brushing passed me
reaching into me
and thieving.
I caught my breath
on the side of the road
face in the dirt
Soul peeled back
******
and bruised
and banished.
Somewhere between
Portland street
and the edge of the water
I lost my mind.
And found you.

Give me, to start, a love that blows through me
A love that lights candles
A love that burns bright
Then give me a love that is adult and wise
A love that will teach me
A love that leaves scars
But to end things I wish for a love that moves mountains
A love that sets fires
A love that surounds.

I looked for you at night

you strayed far from my sight

I looked for you in sunshine

but sunshine was too bright

I looked for you in darkness

I looked for you by light

I looked for days and months and years

and couldn’t put it right.

There is a tension in the air lately

I find it nice to breathe in

Like magnetic dust

that pulls me further from the past

and takes me somewhere dark

It leads me back to you

Every day and every night

in every corner of the world.

I am filled with a liquid heat

that caresses my bones

and threatens to break them

if they do not comply.

It strikes my veins and fills my heart

with fear I can’t express.

It chokes my words

It freezes my eyes closed

and I’m at your mercy.

There is a tension in the air lately

Like static shocks

That sting in a beautiful way.

I'm looking at you.
And i'm dreaming.
You're looking back.
Your skin is on mine.
Your eyes are on mine.
Your hands are on me.
I'm looking at you.
And i'm loving.
You're looking down.
Your skin is soft.
Your eyes are crystal.
Your hands are gentle.
I'm looking at you.
And i'm knowing.
You're looking away.
Your skin is your own.
Your eyes don't know me.
Your hands haven't touched me.
I'm looking at you.
But you're not looking back.
and I look away.

Today began.
I answered and something changed.
I felt powerless. I felt my arms fill with metal.
I wanted to shoot the messenger.
I wanted to make it stop.
But I couldn't bring myself to.
I loved it.
The ***** beside my lungs.
The rise and fall, the breaking bones
at every breath.
The fist of nails racking down my spine.
That's what you are.
That's you.
You're every pain have ever had.
And every dream.
And every pleasant thing.
I knew, from today's beginning
you were meant to be part of me.
You were meant to be taught by me.
You were meant for me.
I have need for no one.
then there was you, making me.
grabbing me from the inside, moving me.
Back and forth.
forward and back.
We exist for such pulls.
Like the tides.
I would have known you, good and bad.
I would have loved you until everything stopped.
I will.
I do.
So now I drag my steel filled limbs
through forests
past trees
over rocks and roots and roads
in the hope that one day
you will take pity on me
and shoot me,
as the messenger.

the ink is blotted on the page
the sides are crumpled up with rage
this devastating residue
is all because of me and you

i'm fixed into a grinding state
of perfect words that come too late
and hunger turned to guilt and shame
and causing feelings with no name

the mystery left to solve is mine
and the writing only fades with time
so shake your head and give a sigh
but save your anger for goodbye

since you left my skin is bare
and clean and soft and without hair
existence isn't ***** now
like it was before your bow

you'll find me where my heart is at
beside the oriental mat
rocking back and forth some say
as if i'm fighting time's decay

it remains, as always, in your hands
time is slipping like the sands
come back to time and space and love
you'll find that life is like a glove.

"You think you know someone..."
I never thought I knew you.
I always knew I did.
There was never a flicker of doubt.
Only confidence.
And cold, hard, stone
with our names written in it.
I shadowed you.
I was a spirit attached to you
living off of your light
your brightness.
Never quite as brilliant
as it's master.
I trailed along behind you
and forgot
I once had a light, too.
I once had spirits.
I was once too much to bear
for someone I loved.
I once broke hearts.
I was once flesh and blood
before you
The one I knew
So in these hours that pass now
between you and I
So far apart in spirit
I revel in my own light
and realize it was you
who didn't know me.

I am a fool, if there has ever been one.
I am an actor.
A slave to a net of lies that makes my world bearable.
You were the first lie.
You were my best lie.
The one I told myself enough, and believed
in the end.
when it counted.
The selfish prince, imprisoned in a beastly form.
How different is that from me?
But I am not trapped by a sorceress's designs.
I am trapped by myself.
I am trapped inside of myself without you.
I wake, empty and cold, and my prison doesn't allow me to see
You are
My first love.
You are
A never ending wall of needles pricking at my back
A turn, I take. A street, I cross.
If only to escape.
The risk is letting you catch up with me.
The risk is knowing that I wasn't strong enough to let you go
Or pick you up when you fell
To break free of my prison and see you.
I never saw you as I should.
I never saw you because I could only see myself.
I wasn't strong enough to understand
everyone is human but myself.
Everyone feels except myself.
you drag a knife across my heart when you say my name
when you tell me what I am.
What i'm not.
But the real pain is knowing that from every pore, you sweat my truth
the knife that cuts my net.
And with that fear eating at my heart
I bleed from every needle's grave, and say your name
and beg my captor free me at last.

Byron, Byron, Shelley, Poe
Hate the way your poems go
heated highways prove as slow
in dizzy dusty ashen snow.
Biting, Biting, burning you
the face of all I know as true
punctured perfect don't and do
I'm dizzy without thoughts of you.

she's pretty as a picture
with sunshine in her hair
I'm not ashamed to notice
that you're trying not to stare
it stings a little in my cheeks
the way you look today
pale and lost and incomplete
caught up inside a fray
it was meant to be my consequence
my cross and brunt to bear
but you jumped into my picture frame
and I was too dead to care
there's nothing left to shield us now
to protect us while it can
we don't have the magic now
cos when it came, we ran.
I'm sorry that my life has been
the twister in the rain
my big mouth and my confidence
has caused us so much pain
I'm punching down the bathroom door
I'm begging you to see
barbed wire isn't half as bad
as what you got with me
but you're staring into faces
I'm scared to understand
and you're taking me to places
that aren't even on land
worlds beyond the drunken sun
and skies beyond the light
pavement we have yet to touch
where days has not met night
so I'm cutting you away from me
I love you though, I swear.
I need to save you one last time
while I'm alive to care.

There are seven thousand people
that would fit me like you do
but the downside of that option is
those people just aren't you

and no matter how i turn my head
the answer stays the same
you're the best thing for my habitat
you're the plus side of my fame

when im alone inside my head
and swimming in my dreams
your face is what im floating on
and its drowning out the screams

Your eyes are what im looking for
what ive been missing for so long
something sweet and easy
couldn't be so hot and wrong

my pen is shaking with the thought
of air where you would be
the color red is leaking on
what was once the thought of me

you're far away inside my head
i'm reaching, clutching black
this isn't dreamworld's gaming board
and i can't take it back

theres nothing where my heart would be
i you had left it nice and whole
i would be the wreckless kind of free
a fleeting thought of what you stole

im scared of what this world is like
with no one left to hold
since when is love and lies and heat
worth more their weigth in gold?

its simple if you're looking
and its easy if you do
but ive gotten good at hurting
the things that look like you

everywhere there is a sign of you still left behind
a thought, another memory leaving footprints in my mind
and when i turn, a laugh, a cry, a whisper in my ear
a cruel and chilling wind blows down the things we want to hear

I'm feeling down into my brain to find my life undone
I'm trying to paste it back again and lose what i have won
there are pieces here and pieces there on shelves and on the floor
you say you'll help, i turn and sweep my dreams up out the door

there are threads under my pillow, twisting turning thoughts of you
there are stickers on the mantelpiece shining like they're new
there are windows in my eyes today, they are frosted with your breath
no matter where I'm going the destination's always death

i try to light some candles just to brighten up this place
i wonder why i bother with such dark cold empty space
I toss and turn and cry and burn and fill my head with lies
you would think the master knows the look of just one more disguise

closing eyes and angry sighs are worth not much in gold
and so today i pray that i'll forget you when i'm old
but as we sit and watch and wait for something to go wrong
i think of all those times we howled the lyrics to our song

so in the sky, I'm seeing now the planets of our past
they orbit always left and right and are much too good to last
and the symbols and the signals that you leave at my front door
will matter just as much now as they did to me before

at the end of all the things we love, when they're burning to the ground
I'll remember the here and now and think happiness we found
and now that is has burned all up and everything is gone
the only thing that's left for me is to sit and wait for dawn

if i were but a freckle on your cheek
an eyelash atop great waves of your boiling tears
if I were but a speck of dust resting on a hair just below your perfect lip
i would die knowing that life itself was nothing
my heart, a wasted wounded ***** of passion, could stop beating.
The air could choke out from my lungs and leave me.
The blood the beats in my throat when your hand brushes mine
could drain from a slow and shallow pore in my back
and i would leave a trail of myself as i followed blindly after the moment
when i knew i loved you more than everything.
and in knowing for that beautiful moment
a crack in the ruins of so little time that is given to us
I was a part of you.
I became your heartbeat.
I shared the air you breathe.
I felt your blood in the place of mine.
and in knowing I was a part of you for an instant
one second in a mass of hours
the first leaf that falls in a forest before the winter ****.
Your miracle was at my fingertips but for a moment.
and I knew that if you asked it of me, the world would be yours.
because i shared you for that moment
my body was no longer my own
and every vein in my body was tied in lovely knots around your soft wrists
and around your perfect ankles.
A person could live a lifetime and never know
a miracle like you.

I love you like singing the same song
On the road to everywhere
With the windows open.  
I love you like a wave that leaves the shore
Knowing so well that it will be back
Again soon.
I love you like a fresh set of sheets
And smooth skin
And a cool breeze.
I love you like raindrops
Steaming on the summer pavement.
I love you like hands on hands
On hips
On lips
And a breath caught in a throat.
I love you in the same direction
I was pointed
When I found you
And my compass is never wrong.

A slammed door
cuts the world between us.
A shout, a moan of useless
frustration
barreling into the darkness.
The universe is calling
our souls apart.
But we are not ready,
and cannot hear it's cries.
A long silence,
a haze grows around me,
and I wonder if my voice is gone
or waiting for a question to answer.
The air is thick in here,
and hot.
Suddenly, I am filled with fear
and feel as if i'm falling.
The door slides open,
and you leak out into the stale air.
The cold floor under my back
warms under your hands.
Face to face,
you say my name
and we use our lips
to mend the world
again.

There is a streetlight
Outside my window.
It shudders and shakes
And makes the world
As bright as it can
For as long as it can
Before dying
A thousand times a minute.
It cannot decide to shine
Or go dark
Or leave this place behind.
It clings to the importance
Of its flickering life
Across the darkest part of the world.
As if the intermittences
Of its appointment
Will save a life
Or move a mountain
Or light the way.
It gives itself over and over
For an empty street
In a wasteland
Without a soul to behold
It’s glorious sacrifices.
If I had a say in this
Or anything at all
I would whisper to the dying light
And lower it gently down
Into the darkness with me.
I would show it what is left
Of my own shudders
And we could both sleep
Knowing we are not as alone
As we were before.
Leaving the blue-black street
To the moon
And the stars
Or whoever is left
With some light to spare.



Cape Dorset
2018

The road was darkest between streetlights.
Patches of mystery carved into the sharp, blue night.
A glow, a house, a chance, a kiss.
A scattered bolt of static on my wrist.
Grass and past under our feet
And only the air between us.
A long, deep breath is all I have to remember it.
I stole that night into my lungs and cleared the glorious path.
The long blue night, the glow, the light.
One
Breath
At
A
Time.

The bomb drops
And it's quiet in here.
The silence has a heartbeat.
I can feel your breath
From where you stand
Too far to touch.
And I choke out your name.
The syllables tumble through the air
And reach you
Somehow.
You walk barefoot across the broken glass,
Hinges blown off doors
And crawl into me.
The bomb dropped,
And you've come to remind me
I'm still alive.

I could not have prepared for this.
I could not have packed a bag
And stashed it under my bed
In anticipation
Of running away with this idea.
I could not have planned this out.
To fall
And feel
And bleed
By every word.
I could not have seen this coming.
I could not have been waiting
for a relapse.
Or some kind of sign
That I'm here
And so are you
And you can see me.
I could not have prepared
For me to all come back at once.