Tonight, months later, I lay here accompanied with only
The leisurely winds teaching my cigarette smoke to dance
And a rage as present as the hole your father put into your playroom wall when you were five.
Did you mean a word of it?
The night we spent together on a stranger's front porch
Because their car wasn't in the driveway
It was you, me, and that bottle of whiskey you'd stolen from your mother's liquor cabinet.
You were tracing the lines of my palms
Whispering promises into them
Until intoxication brought us slurred words and sleepy eyes.
Since that night I've wondered if mountains would choke
On the echoes of me screaming your mangled promises into them or
If the trees would suddenly blush in shades of gold and red; a temporary Autumn.
I never knew how it felt to drown until you left me choking on the sound of your name.

I asked you to paint me a picture,
So with lines of watercolor calligraphy,
You showed me your father's broken glass beer bottles.
I asked you to paint for me, something tragic,
So you painted those bottles, sealed,
With messages inside.
I asked you to paint for me, something beautiful,
So you painted the bottles, along with their messages,
Sent sea bound and somber.

10 weeks since I last saw you
9 since we've spoken
8 since I moved away
7 was my lucky number but once
6 weeks passed I lost hope in reconnecting
5 nights in a row now I've spent laying awake until
4am wishing I could go back
3 months ago and fix everything between the
2 of us if only fate would allow us
1 more chance at mending the broken past

There is a reason why you drink so much coffee;
I can see right through your veneer
But I suppose everyone's lips would curl while being handed a mug of caffeinated bliss
If they, too, were kept awake by the abrasive screams of regret.
Your presence feels like the first time I was unnoticed and passed by the ice cream truck as a child.
We used to lose ourselves in conversation
But Time has burdened us,
And She continues to drag us further apart.
Do you still feel it?
Or was it hopelessly unrequited?
That night our lips first became familiar with each other's
I couldn't tell the difference between what was happening
And the first time I watched the sun rise.
Now I am undecided if you are a  breath of fresh air or secondhand smoke
But I don't want to talk unless I can relive those days
When I was unable to distinguish between your voice and Sunday morning church bells

You confessed to me your past and present burdens then let every inch of pain drip out of the ocean that is your mind and I thought about how much easier it would be to have been bedridden for four years before being forced to run a mile on command than it would have been to live the times you spoke of. I cried a whole night and since then never understood why we are deceived by what the foolish would recognize as the 'good' in this abject world. If I could create sentences that would steal the torment from your eyes I would commit to writing a thousand novels, all in calligraphy, so I could die if only assured you would never cease to smile.

Fallacious words and
Temperate attention
Still I am a moth who never learns
To stay away from the baneful light.                       Time is dragging us
Your justifications cannot                                           further and further
Substitute reasoning.                                                       ­     apart.
Countless times
You've intoxicated me                                                    I am drowning
With our effortless chemistry.                                            in your
I feel like I am burning                                                endless deception
But I am in no position
To claim physical pain.
So feed me more synthetic flattery,            We seem to be parallel lines,
If I had to choose between                                     the only constant
An honest lover and a dreamy liar,                we are capable of holding
I'd pick you again and again.

I am tired of this pervasive madness
I am not so sure one can sense it
Although it bursts through my meridians
As it is now
It is our ineluctable destiny
And I have grown to be so familiar with
Your temperate attention

I dare you
To think that I would not tear down
Your mother's curtains
And spit on her jewelry
While you are weeping at her grave
But I knew god ****** well
That somber room was no place to call 'home'
If my trembling hands could speak
They would tell me I am
Estranged.