dear little me,
you’re taught that if a boy is mean to you, he likes you. you watch all these movies and read all these books about jerks and scumbags who fall for good girls and subsequently ‘act right’ for them, and only them. you think this will happen to you. please don’t date the ‘bad’ boys.

no, the boy of your dreams is a suburban drummer with hair the color of the earth, and the kind of laugh that makes you smile, even if you’re trying as hard as you can to be mad at him (which you never really are).

you listen to him. everything he has to say, you listen. even if you heard it all before, you listen, because nothing makes you happier than the sound of his voice when he’s talking about something that interests him, or how his day went, or something that made him laugh. and he listens to you. everything you say, no matter how dumb it is, or how much you stumble over your words, or ramble on about things that aren’t very interesting, he listens, and he doesn’t think you’re stupid, and he doesn’t think you’re annoying, and he never ignores you. ever.

he introduces you to his parents on valentine’s day, and doesn’t make you feel like you owe him anything. he buys you that bear you hinted at wanting the week before, which you end up sleeping with every night, and aren’t even ashamed to admit.

he naps with you, which you’ve always dreamed of doing with a boyfriend, because, let’s face it: you’re boring, and you sleep more than a sloth. he’s a heavy sleeper, which makes you laugh, and you poke him or rest your head on his chest or whisper things to or about him while he sleeps because he won’t know about it anyway.

he gets you out of the house. even though all you ever want to do is lie in bed and sleep, or watch netflix and drive yourself insane from isolating yourself so much, he gets you out of the house. he gets you interested in things you convinced yourself a long time ago not to try. he shows you things you never had the energy to look for.

sometimes, you’ll find yourself scared, because your anxiety woke you up and told you that he doesn’t like you anymore, or that you’re annoying him, or that he’s leaving, and you ask him, almost every day, ‘do you still like me’, and he never seems bothered by this, even though you swear he is, and he always says ‘yes’, and you always smile and you'll find life a little less heavy.

even if, for one reason or another, the two of you don’t last forever, know that this is one of the happiest times of your life, and that you were okay, which is all the two of us ever wanted. you’ll still date those boys who hurt your feelings and make you feel small.

you and i both know that you can’t resist the temptation to see if the books and movies are true, though, and you’ll end up sad. you’ll ***** up. you’ll mistreat the people who care about you, and you’ll hate yourself, for a little while, but, the boy of your dreams will be there. he always was. that’s the boy you give your time and attention to; that’s the boy you choose: the boy who saw you at your lowest, and still chose you.

sincerely,
bigger you

and we asked you for help
and you laughed at the candor
and we dropped dead like flies.

****** t-shirts falling from
clothing lines as clothing pins
litter the floor of the morgue

and parents pick out caskets
ten sizes too small, for dead
babies and children of the

night, the ones who had been hanging
from street lights and shooting stars,
who asked for help in the form

of loud music, slow dancing,
painting in dark colors, tying
red balloons to doorknobs,

and leaving home without layers.
these children, they’re wearing t-shirts
in late december and you’re

wondering why they’re shivering.
in the mean time, you turn your cheek
and lift the zipper of your fur coats.

My friends all think I'm crazy because I stand in the middle of the street and talk to a God that doesn't exist while high-fiving the windshields of passing school buses. I stopped taking my medication again because guilt taste a lot better than artificial happiness, and I stopped wearing that cross you bought me for my eight birthday because it contradicted the sense of uselessness I received for my twelfth. Life seems a lot less precious when you're talking to your parents in the TV room of a psychiatric unit and look them in the eyes while they tell me not to cry and say that 'pain is only temporary'. All I do is write letters to a man on the moon about the time I realized how hard and easy it is to die. Send me to therapy and make me take pills. I'll smile, but I'll always remember how to tie a noose

Zinc is needed to help support the body's immune system, as well as encourage human growth, meaning that without it, defenses and growth are stunted

I met a boy named Zinc
correction
I met a man named Zinc
correction
I met a man who called himself 'Z' even though his parents still called him 'boy' and named him Zinc, because Neon
was too flamboyant and Iron was too tasteless, and who on earth names their kid 'Oxygen', right?

ANYWAY:

It's worth noting that Z liked everyone, meaning A-X, and I was left wondering why he seemed to like girls who waved with the backs of their hands and not the palms, and why the only time he spoke to me was if I wouldn't leave him alone, and why it's obvious to those around him that lights are flashing in the eyes of 'why'-
correction
-'Y'-
correction
-ME when he noticed the stars I stole from the night in an attempt to spell his name out for the Gods but he was too busy hoping to catch the attention of the Devil and I hope she breaks his heart so he knows what it's like to wake up feeling empty because you gave your all to a person with a gambling problem, and I...
...don't make sense anymore.

ALRIGHT

I met a man who called himself 'Z' even though his parents still called him 'boy' and named him Zinc, and he didn't like the chain around my neck, but he let me wear it because it reminded him of hope, which he had lost when he was young, but had vicariously experienced through me. Just kidding.
Her.
Capital 'H', lowercase '-er', silent 'she's not going to love you like I will'...

I LIED

he doesn't know I wear a cross (or used to) because he's too busy falling in love with the fact that she's got daggers in her eyes and she knows how to dance to all his favorite songs, while I only know the lyrics to them all, and maybe she won't break his heart but she sure as hell won't be gentle with it either because girls like me write about girls like her and girls like her burn books about boys like him.

I'm not sure what this poem is about. Or why it is the way it is. That's a lie.
I know, but I can't say I want to anymore...

TO BE CONTINUED...

TO: THE BOY WITH STARS IN HIS EYES
FROM: THE GIRL WITH SHAKING HANDS

4:01AM
I WENT TO BED AT NINE, AND I’VE BEEN UP SINCE TWO. I HAD THAT DREAM AGAIN, THE ONE I NEVER TELL YOU ABOUT. YOU’RE LEAVING. YOU’RE NOT EVEN HERE, BUT YOU’RE LEAVING ME AGAIN. YOU’VE REALIZED THAT YOU DON’T LOVE ME (OR THAT YOU NEVER DID) AND YOU’RE WALKING OUT A DOOR THAT I’VE NEVER SEEN BUT HAVE GROWN TO FEAR.
4:03AM
I WISH I WAS BRAVE, LIKE YOU. BUT I’M NOT. I’M VERY SCARED AND VERY SMALL, AND I’D LIKE NOTHING MORE THAN TO BE ABLE TO HOLD YOUR HAND, EVEN IF ONLY FOR A MOMENT.
4:06AM
THERE’S NOT A **** STAR IN THE SKY TONIGHT, AND I FIGURE IT’S BECAUSE THEY’RE ALL IN YOUR EYES. I LIKE TO IMAGINE THAT WHEN THINGS GET TOUGH, AND THE NIGHT JUST SEEMS LIKE IT’S BLEEDING BLACK, THAT THE UNIVERSE IS HIDING IN THE BACKS OF YOUR EYES.
4:07AM
I HOPE YOU’LL SING TO ME ONE DAY. I LIKE THE SOUND OF YOUR VOICE.
4:12AM
I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY. ONE OF US NEEDS TO BE. I LIKE TO THINK YOU’RE SMILING. WHENEVER I THINK OF YOU, THERE’S A SMILE ON YOUR FACE. NO MATTER WHAT YOU’RE DOING. WALKING DOWN THE STREET? SMILING. PLAYING YOUR GUITAR? SMILING. IN THAT DREAM, YOU’RE SMILING TOO. THAT’S THE SCARY PART. YOU’VE GOT A PRETTY SMILE, EVEN WHEN YOU’RE BREAKING MY HEART.
4:13AM
THE LIGHTS IN THIS CITY ARE TOO BRIGHT, YOU KNOW. THAT’S WHY I CAN’T SEE YOU. THAT’S WHY YOU AREN’T HERE. I CAN’T SEE THE STARS IN YOUR EYES BECAUSE THE CITY WON’T LET THAT HAPPEN. YOU’RE TOO FAR AWAY, AND YOU’RE TOO DISTANT FOR ME TO GLANCE UP AT YOU WHEN I’D LIKE TO. I CAN’T HEAR YOU.
4:14AM
LOVE IS A CAGE MATCH. THE LAST ONE STANDING WINS. I JUST THOUGHT OF THAT. I JUST THOUGHT OF YOU. I HOPE YOU’RE ALRIGHT. I LOVE YOU.
4:15AM
I’M TIRED. I’M GOING TO BED. HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD NIGHT. PLEASE DON’T FORGET ME IN YOUR SLEEP.
4:27AM
I CAN’T SLEEP. I CAN’T THINK. I CAN’T ANYTHING. I’M TYPING LIKE A PUPPET RIGHT NOW. I DON’T KNOW WHERE THESE WORDS ARE COMING FROM, BUT ALL I CAN SAY IS THAT I LOVE YOU, AND MY HANDS ARE SHAKING, AND THINGS ARE HARD, BUT I’M HOLDING ON FOR YOU.
4:29AM
I JUST WANT YOU HERE. YOU WOULDN’T HAVE TO TALK OR ANYTHING. I’D JUST WANT YOU TO LAY HERE BESIDE ME. SLEEPING WITH THE STARS. THAT’D BE SOMETHING, WOULDN’T IT? A GIRL CAN DREAM, CAN’T SHE?
4:32AM
SOMETIMES, I START TO THINK ABOUT YOU, AND I START TO CRY. I’M SORRY I’M ****** UP IN ALL THE WRONG WAYS, AND I’M SORRY I’M TOO FAR AWAY TO SHOW YOU HOW MUCH I’VE MISSED YOU.
4:34AM
DO YOU THINK WE’LL EVER REALLY BE IN LOVE? ARE WE ALREADY? HAVE WE EVER BEEN? WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN? IT’S BEEN RAINING A LOT MORE THAN USUAL THIS SUMMER.
4:40AM
*I LOVE YOU. I HOPE YOU LOVE ME TOO. IF NOT, THEN I GUESS I’LL STILL KEEP LOVING YOU.
THAT’S ALL I’M GOOD AT, FOR THE TIME BEING. SITTING UP AT NIGHT, WATCHING THE STARS, CRYING FOR NO REASON, AND WISHING FOR YOU.

sound and noise-
two chapters of the same book.
Sound: the quiet ripening of music notes over wind, or the fluttering of bird and butterfly wings.
Noise: the static between radio stations, gun fire, weeping.

There would be no such thing as the overlooked if there wasn't anything highlighted, and so I would not be writing about our neglect of sadness unless there were such a thing as happiness.

young love and youth and destruction and dreams are all noise, all left in the shadows of their more bright, elder predecessors.

And we mistaken noise for sound more often than not, which makes the ability to hear a blessing and a curse.

For we mistaken a teen's cries as a sign of teen angst, or a mother's book of rules as a restriction of our lives, and the noise we think is being produced is the music of our lives. Sound isn't beautiful, sound is real. Noise is heard, sound, you feel.

So before you go labeling something as noise, remember what is missing: noise implies that everyone can hear, but no one is listening.

I knew my father fell out of love with my mother when his jawline began to tighten, and his eyes stopped looking at her, and started looking through her.

A nervous man, he kept to himself on quiet evenings, and not even an affectionate touch could quite wake him from his emotional purgatory; he was a prisoner of his own heart.

I knew my mother fell out of love when she stopped talking about the sky. Never did she point out the broad spectrum of colors that blanketed the canvas sheet dividing the space between earth and heaven.

A once thoughtful woman, my mother took on a very realistic lifestyle, and began extinguishing the fire that burned in her heart. Now she was cold, and now she was dark, and now the sky, once blue and dreamy, was nothing more than a blackened nightmare.

I've never been in love before, but I will pay close attention to my future lovers jawline. I will color him in with the colors of the sky, and I will cover him in kisses made of day dreams and fairy tales.

I've never been in love before, but I know it never lasts.
At least, not while we're imagining a life we'll never have.

Clouded skies were once green with guilt as they looked on at a love never intended to happen (let alone last). I scrawl secrets onto the backs of my hands and wave, barefaced, to strangers, who have only seen me through the eye-holes of cardboard masks...
I never wanted to be seen.
Yet, your eyes saw the unforeseable, and my heart and soul were spread out over sheer table tops. You examined them with tender, knowledgeable pupils, glazed with beckoning fright. You did not find your happy ending in my book of sad truths. I ceased to be of any value to you, and, since I was not the rare, antique you thought you saw wallowing in a windowshop corner, eventually, you couldn't see me...

i'm not pushing the shift key
because there's nothing left to capitalize
tantalizing thrones of angry kings
their names synonymous with imperialize

i hate you, and you hate me
one of us is lying, and i won't admit it's me
'cause you're everything i wanted
but you're nothing that I need

hollowed bones and quiet whispers
fill what's left of this tired skin
lonely lovers with lost lives stand in line
and await their goodbyes

so as i smash the space key and i silently brood
i hate the way your eyes flicker, the way you say my name
you claim that nothing is wrong between us
but your expression remains the same

i'm not afraid to tell you i hate you,
i'm afraid of what will proceed
the tyrannizing looks of saints and sinners
all believing i have, indeed, gone insane

I move from closet to closet, and fit my arms
into shirts too big for me. I silently wiggle into
acid stained jeans. I lie. We’re too good
at wearing other peoples’ clothes, a fact you
told me in late autumn when I asked to borrow your
coat. Oh, how I wish you told me earlier that you
were afraid of the cold, how I would've gave
you the very jacket I had stolen. But you liked
the way my clothes fit, and you liked the way
your hands slipped into my pockets, and you told me
that there was nothing more to life than the fraying
of fabric or the ripping of jeans. And so, when you
left, and you didn't say I love you, I figured it
was because my clothes stopped fitting you.

S
  o when I die, burry me inside the deepest of graves
  farther than six-feet-under, because if I’m that close
  I won’t behave. I’m too close to him, through the earth
  I feel his sins, and they keep me alive until
T
  omorrow. When the quiet life subsides, there’s no blue
  left in the sky, and the life we thought we lived was just
  a happy little lie. **** affection, I don’t need it, all my
  lies will supercede it, and I don’t need some therapist
O
  ver-analyzing my thoughts, because I’m already dead.
  Love was just a word we made up to feel better about
  the holes in our shoes and the ones in our hearts, and
  maybe I’m not over him, but I’m over the thought of him
R
  eaching out and grabbing my hands, he’s a boy, not
  a man, and he’s too afraid to whisper ‘I love you, too’
  because he’s too busy trying on a new pair of running
  shoes, and I know he won’t ever love me, even though
G
  od and him both tell me to wait and see, and I know he
  won’t stay, even though he swears he’s anchored to me
  and I know when the sun sets, he’ll be nowhere to be found
  just burry me at least seven feet under the ground, ‘cause the
E*
  arth will love me more than him, and the frigid temperatures
  will remind me where I am, and the sun will bleed down promises
  (not so empty this time), and my corpse will be the breeding
ground for new life. I don’t love him, but I’m glad he killed me…

I always wanted to be a flower.
Now I get to be a whole bed of them.

In the event I burst
into flames, let me burn

Thoughts: they careen through my head like
cars in the midst of rush hour. I search for
one car in particular. My head is the foundation

of an unconstructed civilization, and I find myself
to be a tourist in the depths of my own mind. I
know all too well how easy it is for others to get lost

in the enigmatic chaos that is my head but I won’t
lose you. I am nothing, compared to the blinding lights
and insistent, blaring sounds, all warring for your attention.

I wander the streets with the sad, distant thought
that maybe I’ll glance up and find your headlights
slicing through the grey overcast. I’d even settle

for the looming red glow of your pretty, quiet
tail lights. But I know you’re long gone and your
lights are long out. The sad and beautiful part about

my mind is that I’m trapped here. And I believe I’d
still be searching for you, even if I didn’t want to. I’m
am a slave to my own thoughts, I am in love

with my mind’s creations. And while I’m well aware that
you are but a figment of my infinite imagination, I will do
everything I can to continue to believe in you.

I am merely a second of time, while you’re the hours
the days and the weeks; I am only for a moment and
you seem like an eternity. The people I pass on the street

know something I don’t - everyone seems to have
figured out how to live with their demons, while mine
like to play keep-away with my sanity. They look a lot like

you. Everytime you cross my mind it sounds a lot like
contorting metal and the shrieks of pedestrians. I suppose
we’ve got a lot in common with a car crash.

You are above me, for the simple fact that you are not me.
I am but a lonely piano player, who resides in the corners
of restaurants and blackened old hearts. You, with

glimmering eyes, and mischievous lips, dance barefoot
against the earth, the arches of your feet covered in free-verse.
I do not approach you; you are above me.

And here is something you may have overlooked
One room’s floor is another room’s
ceiling, and while you sway and dance and live and wander

you are inevitably doing so on my dreams. Burdened and breathless,
I sit and watch you move, up in the stars and the night and the
glow of the moon.

I look up and i see Heaven, you look down and you
see Hell. And as you bow your head to pray, just remember,
you are above me.

I was not informed that when you fall in love,
you’re supposed to shout ‘This Means War’
at the top of your lungs, and dare the world
to catch up with the soles of your feet. You

ran across plains and through valleys, the
soles of your shoes worn out from stomping
out tiny fires, all started by your temper. I was not

informed that you were permitted to burn down
and pillage villages with your careless acts of
lust. I've learned that the world is not exactly round
however it's magical in the sence that it’s got a

way of putting you right back in the spot you were
trying to escape from. I saw fighter jets and
missiles in your eyes, and felt bombs in your pulse.
I loved you, though. Your lips were the only thing left

of you. But even they swore and spewed anger. I
was not informed that when you fall in love, your
heart is supposed to die. You struck fear in the depth
of my soul...but I forgot:  ‘all is fair in love and war’.

I lost my mind whilst
trying to find my heart

I am not suicidal.
But life has lost all meaning.
While I may not go looking
for Death's hands,
if He found me,
and wrapped his fingers around mine
I think I just might
fall
     in
          love.

In my spare time, I put out his fires, and I cut
the bottoms of my feet on broken glass while
traversing across the muggy, jagged scape of his mind.

He calls my name between pulls of cigarettes and the
striking of cheap matches, and it's worth noting that I never liked
my name much until I heard the fires scream it.

I'd stand at his side and watch the flames cause his heart to implode,
and I'd fidget with his *****, shaking fingers while I listened to him
whisper something about 'I love yous'

A man's art is a reflection of self. I take note of this,
while I watch the flames dance and swing in the browns of his eyes
and warm the cavern that, moments before, had been a heart.

I remember the little men
in big boots. The ones who sat
at the edge of roof tops in a city called
Loneliness, and cut their teeth while chewing jagged glass and angry truths.
They parachuted down to earth
and hit their heads on desperation.
Hollowed out hearts with tree trunks
serving as legs, they marched
across the stratosphere until their existences neared zero. Nothing
more to disappearing than popping
some pills, falling asleep, and dreaming
that the whole world had gone mad.
The interesting part is when you wake up
and you can still hear the echo of
unfilled boots.

In the event I drink liquids fit for automobiles and devour
the taught warm light of a match, I hope you know that
I won't say sorry for all the hardships I put you through.

I won't say sorry for the way I stormed through doors
and plowed through hearts. I won't say sorry for the way
I told you yes when I really meant no. I won't say sorry

for the time I cried over spilled milk and shrieked over
stained sheets. I won't say sorry for leaving you without
even so much as a formal goodbye, other than this one

which was scrawled on the back of an unused napkin in
the middle of a crowded Starbucks down in the city, this
being the first time I've been in either place. I won't say

sorry. Not to you, not to anyone. As for now, I bid thee
fairwell, from one poetry lover to another. I won't say sorry.
For I've already managed to blurt it out seven times.

I.
I am confined behind the walls of my very own life.
The echoing of cluttered freight trains and the laughter
of invisible clowns fill what's left of my conscience, and

the voices of old God's and hushed Devil's are my only form
of a lullaby. I'm not crazy, I'm just conscious of the overlooked.

II.
I can feel snakes when there are none. Consider this a sixth sense.
Literature clattered in the back of my throat and the top of my head,
I tried to explain this to my lover, who became increasingly

bothered by the fact that all I knew was Shakespeare, and all I spoke
of was Caesar, and the stars...to which we are underlings.

III.
A threat, they consider me. 'Not to others, but yourself.'
Fools, all of them. I was not granted a gift to have it locked away
and drowned at sea. Listen! Act! Forewarnings are scarce, and if

the Gods and the Devils have chosen me to speak, then I shall speak.
My only question: why didn't they choose someone to listen? To understand?

Naive, I was not. I grew up
on tattered books and nihilistic ideals
while the other children read
books about stuffed bears and trees.

They warned me about the addicts:
The fiends with black capes and red eyes,
the ones who wander the night, searching
for new corners and new highs.

They warned me about the *** offenders:
The neighborhood sweethearts with soft eyes
and cold hands, who are more often than not,
but not restricted to the body, of middle-aged men.

They warned me about the murderers:
The ones with ice for pupils and books of spells.
Who drank smoke and whose hearts reside
in the far off corner somewhere in east hell.

These are the people my parents forgot to warn me about:
The lovers with a knack for spoon feeding me lies, whose
wings were black and who were blessed
with golden eyes.

They didn't warn me about the pretty boys.
About the ones who cup your heart
in their hands, and play around with it like putty.
Somehow, they forgot to mention that part.

But, then again, you can't teach a child about heartache,
and the only way a child will know what you mean when you
tell them that the stove is hot is if they burn themselves
on the warm, steel door that is life.

Swords!
I believe I own one. It's small in size
but great in strength. And harm? That may be
the only thing it has granted me. As it grazes
against the backs of my teeth and cuts
at the necks of old lovers, I am not sure
whether I am grateful for this tool.
Wielding all this power, is it a blessing or a curse?
But what am I saying? What do I know?
All I've got is a tongue.

I turned back every clock in this stupid house,
but that didn't help. You were still there, with every
second that passed. I realized, now, that I've forgotten

one. The one that takes refuge behind lines of bloodied,
bruised ribs, as well as the one that kills me. Not to mention,
the one that's responsible for my being alive. It doesn't keep

the right time, for it still thinks you're slipping secrets into my drinks
and spreading me across sheets like rose pedals. I turned back every
clock except the one in my chest, and it just won't stop ticking.

I tried to explain the concept of stars
to a three-year-old, who couldn’t quite fathom
why we loved what we did.

He held onto his stuffed rabbit and asked
‘what are those lights in the sky’, with wide eyes
and a genuine interest in human nature.

I explained to him that they were stars, and
when he asked what that meant, I said
‘they’re just ***** of gas, light, and hope’

and these vast spheres of gas and light
and hope, govern us. Tyrannize our tiny
existence with their somewhat larger indulgence.

How we worship supernovas and eclipses, how
we wish on things that merely embellish the moon;
that glow. How we loved to watch things, and pretend

that they were of some sort of importance. We could
spend whole nights lying on our backs with lovers
watching still shots of the void. Figments of imagination.

I tried to explain the concept of stars
to a three-year-old, who couldn’t quite fathom
why we loved what we did.

And unfortunately, neither could I.

I tried to smudge your name out of the
playbill of my life, but I couldn't. Somehow,
I'd convinced everyone around me, and even myself,
at some points, that you were nothing but a mere what-if

in my life of absolutes, and I didn't miss you.
Of course, day in and day out, words and lines for unwritten poems
would submerge my thoughts deep in murky, unfiltered tubs of
darkness, and I'd find myself haunted by your existence.

I tried to get over you, but I'm a poet, and the fact
of the matter is that poets don't get over much of anything. So
I'm sorry for this facade that I've so grudgingly constructed,
but I've never been too good at saying goodbye...

..or sorry, for that matter.

I have a question, love: Did you, when learning of my absence,
search for me? Did you look right there, in the air,
between the clouds and the sky - find me floating, filling your lungs?
Did you feel me pulsing through your veins, warming your bones

and caressing your spine? Did you look in the dusty corners of rooms
and cracks in trampled sidewalks? Did you ****** the covers and sheets
from your cold, stiff mattress, finding the pea that bothered your pretty
little head? Did you, for a second search for me?*

“Oh, but dear, I didn’t have to take a moment to question the taste
of the air or the warmth of my blood. I did not peak behind corners, nor
over any walls. I did not wonder what restricted me from sleep. For I knew-
you were there; I knew it was you. Tell me, lovely: what’s the point

in asking a question, when the answer I already knew? That all this pain,
and all this great sorrow was merely caused by you."

I forgot your name, in the
process of trying to remember.
It danced and spun on the tip of my tongue, then
fell to the floor, shattering into fragments of blue,
guilt stained glass. You, with
wide eyes and a firm frown, watched and cringed
at the sight of this, and I was left attempting
to remember the name of the girl of my dreams while
she stormed out of my life in those pretty six inch
heels. It wasn’t until you were gone that I remembered
everything, except how to forget you.

These rain drops won't leave me alone. It's not
the clouds that torment me, it's the ******* rain.
The rain drops like to see me miserable, and
the clouds are just their chauffer

I still love the rain, though.
I still love you, though.

Remember how you said that
only God will judge us
and when I told you my secrets,
you left?* I do.

Blood-stained sheets of paper littered the floor, like
the mind of a depressed author. And you picked one up, looked
me in the eyes and said this is a dead man's idea of good-bye,

where you got them, I didn't know, but I listened
to the way your voice softened as you read and sang and
wallowed. I'm sorry it had to come to this you read, I just

don't think I belong here anymore. There's this empty
hole in my chest where I loved you once before. And baby,
don't cry, you did everything you could, but sometimes

everything just isn't enough. You never said who the author was
and I think that meant a lot. I remember the night you serenaded
me with lines from suicide notes, and I remember how it was not until
the end that I realized it had been yours.

When she recieved her first 'A', and hung it on
the frigde, they called her Alexandria, and
they chanted the name with pride.

When she tried on make-up for the first time, and asked
her father how she looked, he simply nodded and said
you look beautiful, Alexandria, though she knew he was lying.

When she saw her first naked boy, at a party out in province,
she questioned whether to stay or go. All he had to do was call
her Alex, and her mind was fully made up.

When she smoked her first cigarette after going to bed with
that boy she'd met moments prior, everyone called her Lexi,
whispering it between moans and drags from cheap cigarettes.

Now, on most evenings, outside the local bar, she stands on the
corner, pacing back and forth, and asks herself if that test still hangs
on the fridge, and what they'd call her now...

She told me she loved me, and I knew
this was a lie. But sometimes, in the time
between dusk and dawn, when I'm lonely
and tired of chain smoking by candle light,
I pretend
she was telling the truth. And she's not
going anywhere. She's stuck in the spaces
between worlds and words, lying naked at the ends
of galaxies and sentences. She's whispering words against
the back of my neck, where they remain
tattoo and brisk. More importantly, she's telling me
she loves me. But she isn't real, and moreover,
neither is her love. But still, when I'm lonely
I pretend.

But who will remain
to fill the spaces
between my fingers?

Please, don’t be shy- join us for the baptism and the requiem of both destruction
and creation. Bring flowers to both their graves; bring flowers to both their births.

Teeth corroded with a lust for madness, you smile, though tears
stream down your *****, thin cheeks. Trees, burdened with ripening
despair surround you, their tenants long gone and their leaves long shed.
All searching for life; all fearing their deaths.

There is an immense amount of beauty in the burning of an old
house, of old pictures and blurred memories. As this occurs, a paradox is formed, from the striking of a match,
to the collapse of a foundation, to the blackened snowfall of ash.
The creation of destruction, the destruction of creation. A flaming catalyst fluttering

downward through the muggy autumn air, a blazing, kamikaze
butterfly plummeting down toward earth. Drop one into a pool of regret,
which, unbeknownst to the world, is flammable. Let it lick and devour its prey;
let it paint the land red. And as you allow flakes of tarnished life to blanket

the ground, and the shoulders of your shirt, the divine intervention that is
creation is underway, and in the midst of destroying, you have created. Space!
What entity is responsible for such indescribable beauty. How wonderful it is
to look out and see nothing, all the while seeing everything. What a magic

it is, to see life growing within that very nothingness.
But, do not fear the fraying of man’s existence. Marvel at your creation.

Liberation of death! Confinement of life!
Insanity can be one sad, beautiful thing.

Whisper to me 'I love
you' regardless of its truth.