Catholics
Believe
They're characters in a book
God is writing

And that the ending
Is predetermined
And inherently pure
If they follow the script

What they don't realize
However
Is that God is a **** author
Smoking cigarettes
Over a blank page

That their book will end
Far before the plot
Thins
Because he can't finish
Anything
He started

Because you wasted
Everything He supposedly gave you
On your knees
For a piece of
Saltless
Bread

It can not fill
Your holiness

It can not fill
The space you've cleared
For Him

There are people who crave intimacy
To be truly ****
And allow another person to glance inside their soul and judge the crude decor of every hour leading up to that moment
because they've a vacant space to rent

God knows they worry
They've arranged the room wrong
Take pride in that the dishes are never *****
The bed never slept in
With only one place to sit

Then there are people like me
Who crave emptiness
Because the room is far too crowded
Futons full of drunken lovers who put their Cigarettes out on the walls
Never asking if it's okay to stay
So I ******* hate them

I think I crave the empty people
Because they come inside
Never close the door
With a box of my old shoes under their arm
Wave to me
Never say thank you
And wipe their feet before they leave

(b.r.o.)

I put on my dads coat
every time I leave to smoke
because between a long exhale
and his cologne
I remember in lucidity
one of the last times I saw him.

It was four in the morning
I was drunk on whiskey and alone
yet again,
not that he was surprised
or angered
by my antics.

As always
he was halfway
down the driveway
by the time
my phone rang.

"Do you have a cigarette on you?"

I was silent awhile
until I nodded,
shyly obliged,
and removed the last one from my pocket
which I gladly sacrificed.

He laughed and shook his head
his small fire illuminating the thick fog
around us
and his sunken eyes
exhausted from a day of work
that had drained us both.

My vision blurring
in and out of focus
fleeting street lights displayed
an abundance of nose marks
his favorite dog
left on the window.

I saw my fathers familiar hand
reach out
offering me a drag
which I silently accepted,
and I'm glad I did.

As the smoke cleared
I half-smiled to myself,
because if I could see us now
things would be different.

I unknowingly accepted
a share of the last gift
I would give.

I'm glad
I killed a piece of me
with him.

I'm glad
he still has it
wherever he is.

I awoke in a cold sweat with blood in my mouth but not on my hands.

It was worth it.

I hope to god your tongue swells too,
before I cough up a scarlet apology on my knees
at your feet
and your favorite pair of shoes
about how you pushed me away,
and everything is a gradient of the same blue
I swear I have seen
somewhere before

What the **** do you want me to say for myself?
That it was my fault for not fighting the current you sent for me?

Regardless:
You know darling,
your eyes change when you cry.
That familiar sapphire
so painfully beautiful
and I carry the blame.
Your happiness is more important to me than mine.
(b.r.o.)

I'm a book bound from all angles
I change with the moon
I've sold my soul to the sun
so when all is consumed
I will feel nothing
I will thrive in the aftershock
where I know only
stillness
at the hands of a clock
If you think you have won,
then you've already lost
when you're ready
to pay interest
on the borrowing cost
when you're forced to give back
what you never owned
when this figment called time
steals your hallowed out bones,

You will know where to find me.
I want nothing to do with this body.

(b.r.o.)

I lost my dad yesterday and every day for the rest of my life.
When you feel like your book is ending, I swear to you it isn’t. There is so much more. There is always another page, and another moment of sunlight to show you that it doesn’t have to be dark any more than half of the time. You have more to learn and more to teach than you could ever comprehend. You are a symphony composed of infinite possibilities. You are so ******* important. Don’t you dare cut it short. Live the hell out of it. Come to a screeching halt from full speed with no what ifs attached to your conscience. It’s already only a blip in the timeline of all that has been or will be. Make it count.

(b.r.o.)

All the hope that I have left
is still ******* in you

(b.r.o.)