Keep drinking from that tap
Even when you grow wreak
Return still to take another gulp
Make yourself sick from it
But keep going back

Until it ******* kills you.

We are explosive.
Two sticks of dynamite waiting for the match.
Just one whisper of a spark and we'll go,
Dying to impersonate the stars
Like fireworks in the night.

Fire, you and I
But different, if you know where to look.

Flames of summer
You are wild and destructive,
Spreading yourself too thin
Like wildfires in the drought
Roaring challenges at the sun.
But in the cricket-filled cool nights,
Bringing comfort and memories to the young at heart
Taming yourself for a time beneath stars that bear my sign
Burning out in the darkness before sunrise
Ready to return at first spark.

Pyre of winter,
Tamed by the frost and wind
Leaning on hearths for strength
Keeping vigil in the long night
Raging against dark and dusk and death
Yearning for what was lost in the fall
Waiting for the rebirth of spring
Sending up grey prayers to stars that bear your sign

Fire, you and I.
Born to stars of flame
Raging, roaring, writhing
At the whim of the wind
Waiting
For the spark.

My left hand has resorted to pins and needles
Heels keep bouncing, won't stay down
Restless recklessness making my skin crawl
Like a live, exposed wire

I need to burn.

Razors and cigarettes, like magnets,
Calling my touch.
Like a sacred ritual,
I'd sacrifice myself for desire
Hopes and dreams be ******
I'd light that fire.

Let me burn.

I'd be the light on the coast,
Warning of the dangers below
Whispers in my sirensong
Beckoning you to harbor home
Sending up prayers in my smoke

Tie me to the pyre.
Strike the match.
Watch me burn.

Like a sunset
Nothing gold can stay.

I keep looking for evidence that you were here.
Proof that once you shared this bed.
Some something embodying our shared time.
What I do find leaves me lost.

Three and a half pairs of socks.
Steak seasoning.
Aluminum foil.
Diet orange soda.
Hot sauce.

And, if you count them,
Notes I left for you.

Sometimes it feels like I dreamt it all,
Just like I'm dreaming you'll read these poems,
The only notes I can leave for you now.
Find them, and maybe I won't be so lost anymore.
Find me.

You'll be sitting on a step
Some party raging behind you
And you'll be contemplating walking home,
Or finding that girl from earlier
The one who tangled her fingers in your hair while you kissed,
When it'll happen.
A girl, maybe 18,
Will plop down beside you,
Purposefully skin to skin,
and she'll smile.

She'll pretend she's more drunk than she is
And you'll want to protect her.
Like always.
People will be looking for you,
The life of every party now,
Inside the house
But you won't care.
This girl will tell you she's got to walk home,
And you'll take her hand,
And tell her to lead the way.
She'll lean over and kiss you,
Just like she planned she would,
Just long enough to give you the right idea.

You'll stand up together
Wobbling just a little
And she'll start walking
And you'll keep pace and a lookout.
She'll glance at you,
Hunger in her eyes
Waiting to feed off the attention you wrap yourself in,
Like an otter in seaweed.

You'll become very aware of the condoms in your pocket
You might think about how you need to buy another box
As she's the fifth girl this month to take you home

Hungry for the fame
Hungry for the attention
Hungry for the talent
But not hungry for the you inside.
And you'll know it,
I hope.

Stay safe out there, love.
I'll remember.

You're going to forget me this fall.

But I'll remember.

You're about to reach terminal velocity
With the biggest grin on your face
Symbolically giving your dad the ultimate *******.
The only way you know how,
Plummeting to the earth like a raindrop

I mean, after all,
You are the rain.

But there you go
No fear, no anxiety,
Just weightlessness
For a few seconds, maybe more
How should I know,
I've never jumped out of a plane before.

If I know you at all,
You'll be thinking of him the whole way down.
Wish I could be there.
You'll be truly happy, if only for a moment
Because I know,
This is the last way to feel close to him anymore,
To flirt with death,
To peek through the curtains to the underworld,
To try to catch a glimpse, or maybe a shiver,
An impression of his essence, his soul.

You might even judge yourself for humoring such whimsy.
But don't you remember,
Those who shun the whimsy of things
Will experience rigor mortis before death.
So flirt with death if you must.
Do every stupid thing,
But please promise to come back.

Fight.
Purgatory was never meant to be your home.
Escape.
Don't relent when the maze locks you in.
Fight of your demons, love,
In whatever ways you deem necessary.
Live.

Wander back
And flash me that tortured half-grin.

*What do I think of that?
I think it could make the world a better place.

You miss me.
At least, I think that's what this means.
That when our eyes meet in passing
And I can feel your melancholy from 20 feet away,
That when you confess you've been listening to mixes made just for you,
That when I had to leave and we embraced
It felt like clinging to a cliff-face,
That maybe it all meant that you missed me.

When you went looking for me at work,
When you squinted into the windows as you passed
Looking for me to be there
Were you thinking of me?
Were you missing me?

Tell me something,
When you're with her,
Do you think of me?
When you're kissing her neck in passionate moments,
Do I ever cross your mind?
When you're about to fall asleep at night,
Those moments before unconsciousness seeps into your skin,
Am I passing through your thoughts?

You miss me, maybe.
I can't quite tell for sure,
So I rely on hope.
But darling,
You beautiful, shattered, bittersweet soul,
I miss you to the depths,
So much sometimes that it steals my breath.

You are heaven-sent
Yet you always seem to forget.
Born in pain and agony,
Brought screaming into this world with regret.
And yet
You chose to let that define your life.

Blocking every shot that comes your way,
Until your find yourself at the bottom
Drowning like all your fake friends.
But it takes spine and guts to face yourself
To take action and change.

Will you brave those waters through still and storm?
Will you be more than just a verse in a song?

I can't help but wonder what I did
Uncertain, unknowing.
What made you stay
But the moment you were away,
You just kept on running.
What magic trick were my hands weaving
Behind my back, unseen, unfelt?
What did I do to make you stay,
Am I guilty of manipulation?
Because once you stepped out that door,
You were never coming back,
And yet,
Before you left,
Before you took those steps
You said it was difficult, painful
That you didn't want to.

So what made you stay?
And what's making you run away?

I am thinking of you sitting in a dark room with a drink in hand
Clenching your jaw like you do when you're trying to rein-in emotion

And I'm not there.
Even if I was, there is nothing I could do to take that pain away.
Not the guilt, self-hatred, or the anger.

And you'd just push me away anyways,
Holding me at arms length like you do
A constant wall in place between us.
Nothing for me to do.

I know you're sitting there,
Alone, no matter your surroundings
Thinking you should follow him
Asking yourself why you shouldn't just leave forever
Telling yourself it's all your fault.

You'll finish the night buried beneath the anguish and someone's body
Content for just a moment
Then sink back into the abyss you drown yourself in
Day in.
Day out.

You'll get up the next morning,
Alone, no matter your surroundings
With your braveface back in place
Disguised to the world.

But I'll know where you've been in your absence

**Because you tracked death on the carpet when you walked in.

Make your move.
Go ahead.

Forget about me,
Not that you don't already
Every time you walk out that door.

Bury your guilt,
Your pain, your hate, your love
Go ahead and bury it
In any girl who will take you to bed with her.

Forget about me,
About you
About us.
Take your onemancircus to the next destination.
Don't get help.
Don't fight those demons.
Let your fear and self-hatred rule you.

I guarantee they'll get you far.
But they might also **** you,
In one way or another.

Living on the precipice,
Dancing with the shark in your head
Induces the biggest rush, sure.
But when you trade emptiness for loneliness,
Friendship for lust,
Health for adrenaline,

You'll end up hanging from that precipice,
By your fingertips.
How long can you hold on?

She said, "Usually in my experience, Jon isn't ******* fine."

All that's left here are things you've forgotten.
Including me.

It's coming.
I know because I can feel it in my gut.
This sick sense of certainty cannot be wrong.
I can feel your decision
And the guilt that comes with it
Clawing it's way up my shins
Scratching the backs of my knees until they drip of sweat
Digging out all the hope,
Leaving its poison behind.

Nausea and numbness are all I know.
Not matter the jokes you try to make to lighten the atmosphere,
I am still lost in this dread
Where I'll be left wandering long after you leave me.

Showering won't wash away the way you made me feel.

And then I realized
Maybe you aren't worth the pain.

Maybe it's time.
Time to release you
Back into the shark infested waters you call home.
And maybe it's time for me to sever
The fishing line tangled around your heart,
What holds you here.

Perhaps it has been unfair of me
To keep you
In a world so out your element,
So restricting and staggered.
So unlike your fluid currents of freedom.
Solid ground is a prison.

I know what you've done for me,
The fear of asphyxiation that you've choked down
Just to stay by my side
Night in, night out
To see me smile.

But I want more now,
More than just night
More than just a smile.
But I know you can't.

Staying means holding your breath forever
Staying means suffocating
Staying means losing yourself
The end of all freedom.
Staying means losing you all the same.

So maybe
It is time to let you be free
to become just another shark
In those waters you call home.


But then I may not be able to breathe anymore.

It's dark here
Thick like velvet
Smothering, almost.

And you're not here.
Promises, fidelity broken
And here I am
Alone.

No you.
No us.
Just me.
And silence.

Leave without saying goodbye?
That is a capital offense, sir.

This is me,
Looking for you in a dimly lit bar
Only to find you
Forehead pressed to another nameless girl.
This is what love looks like to me.
To aid and abet,
To give you the freedom you crave
Which does not come with the restraints of commitment.

This is what love looks like to me.
Giving all that I possibly can
And trying not to take too much from you.
Letting you do and say what you like
Being your accomplice, your friend
And never judging you.

But you make it so difficult sometimes.
When you say that you'll look for me,
But instead you're dancing with another.
When you say you're excited to be with me,
Then you sleep next to someone else.
When you tell me you'd do anything for me,
But then you forget me and our plans
At the earliest convenience.

I love you.
I would and do give everything I can to you.
But this act, these consequences,
Your point of view.
It all has me skewed. Diluted. Drained.
Done.

And I'm not sure really where to go from here.

Before now,
I never thought you capable of such apathy.

And this is where the fairytale begins to fall apart.

Some things are better left unsaid.
Some secrets are better left untold.

It's the nasty, sticky, slimey truths that we bury
That come at us like serpents with our names on their tongues
The ones that reveal the true character of those we love
The ones that make our beloveds ugly in our eyes

What have we done?
Are there any bridges left that we haven't burned?
What have you done, love?

What Have You Done?

Remember when you first told me?
How you told me a story about a comic strip first,
Then you uttered the words through your teeth.
"I love you."
Do you remember the electricity of that moment?

I do.
I treasure the memory,
And the memories of all the times you told me after.
How we would laugh at its newness,
And the feelings that came with it.

I remember how those words could light up the dark,
Like the days when my mood turned stratus and murky.
You would stand close and whisper in my ear,
And still, we could laugh.

But now, when the night has come,
I remember how you say it less and less.
I remember you stopped laughing
That you don't seem mystified by it anymore,
And when I stand close and whisper in your ear,
You dimly mutter back,  "you too."

When all this is over,
I can say
That I remember
The beginning of the end.
And still,
I'll love you.

Sometimes I just wish you would miss me as well.

"You need to pull back."
You're right, maybe I do.

So many years of lies and cheating

I have to keep reminding myself,
You are not them, you are not them, you are not them.
You are not texting hookups behind my back,
You are not saying you love me to make me stay,
Nor are you with me out of pity, trying to fix me.

It's such a fine line sometimes, trust and naivety.
But I have to keep reminding myself,
You are true, and you are not them;
You would not do what they did,
Or say what they said.


They never tell you how hard it is to actually be happy once you've made it out of hell. It haunts you with every unexplained smile.

Feels like returning to the scene of a crime
The walls have seen horrors,
Lies unspeakable
It's like their laughing at me, in their stoic, white silence.
And that bed,
She's flat out staring me down.
There she lies,
Like a naked *******,
Daring me to call her shame.

But I cannot.
Instead I turn my back,
And jot down a few lines.

Now to put on that brave face.

The closer you get to her, the further away you become.

Ten words cannot express the full story.
You love her,
And it scares you.

Scares you into others' arms and legs
Scares you into silence
Scares you into distance
Scares you into over-thinking
Scares you into pushing her away

And it scares you
And it's scaring her.

And the pressure is on.
What comes next?

Words mean nothing
If they do not have the power to compel trust.

So when you recount what you said,
You're asking me to trust you twice as much.
First, that what you're telling me is true
Second, that what you told her is the truth,
That both things come from the same, honest place.

And trust,
              Trust came be a very,
                         Very scary thing.



I don't know if I'll always be able to make that jump.

Like dangling from a cliff edge
Is this love?

Slate, black and still.
It's for your protection
Imitate slate, cold, impersonal rock.
Don't let it show

The turmoil and chaos reining inside
The frantic thoughts,
The panicked breathing
Be still as glass on the surface
Like a rip tide, undetectable.

Take a deep breath,
And pretend.



                 I can't live like this anymore.

Still,
Still I find myself surprised at the neglegence of human decency.
How sticky with tar,
Oozing from their insides,
Dark, consuming, disgusting,
Revealing of the soul underneath.

It still gets me,
That people can get that. . . sick
On the inside.

You're sick,
Overridden with this illness,
This apathy and vindictive hatred.
It consumes you.
Soon, very soon,
There will be nothing left of you
But tar and ashes.

It's almost too much to hold in.
I scream out,
"Rest in pieces, you heinous *****!"

I'm telling you, still,
I find myself surprised at the neglegence of human decency.

It's hard to remember sometimes
That the world doesn't see you through rose tinted glasses like I do.
So when I encourage you to chase after your dreams,
I can't help but feel responsible
When they laugh at the way you run

Each new year brings the same question

             What comes next?

I always thought that the rain was yours
That she was calling to you as she fell from the sky
But I think now that I had it all wrong.
You are the rain.

You are satin, smooth, and sweet
You are turbulent, tortured and torrential
Darker, mysterious
I love listening to you as I fall asleep.

You make me feel safe,
Like I want to curl up in my bed,
Humming with warmth beneath the covers.

You are the rain.
Sometimes thunderous, sometimes twinkling
There is no sweeter song.
Bubbling, falling, dancing, tumbling, diving, pounding, anguished, and oh so sweet

You are the rain.

I wish you'd get here already
So I could concentrate

Continuous tides of connection,
Communication and touch between us,
And now silence.
Stillness.
Not a single tremor or ripple
Not even a whisper of wind.

Like the moments after a bomb drops,
you've left my ears ringing.
I don't know what I've done
To deserve this.
Silence.
Stillness.

No response.

I wonder if the birds in the sky
Truly do look down on us lowly beings.
All we can do is walk,
While they fly
Our skill levels are subpar,
Even as we learn to walk, to run and swim and...
We'll never be as good as them.
Do they know it?
Is it a conscious thought
That birds are superior
To us walkers on the ground.

Do they think about how boring it must be for us?
Do they think of us as lesser than them?

Even though it's true,
Like many things in life,
It would hurt worse to know
That they pride themselves on their superiority.

Some things, my dear,
Are worth dying for.
Especially happiness.

And the prospect
Of not having one's happiness
Pried from one's weak, aging fingers.

Sometimes,
It's better to die young.
I think.

They say I deserve better.
                  I can't say I agree.

I'm tossing pebbles into the dark
Please toss one back

Illuminate me.
Reach your fidgeting, fiery fingers
Into my lungs
Take hold of the hollow nighttime
That hides in my ribs
         Call it by name.

Look in my eyes
When you snap your fingers

And set me on fire.

Sometimes it is enough just to be near you
Within proximity of your smile and laugh
I am in silence,
But I know, somewhere nearby,
You're amidst all the noise,  
All the life
And it makes me feel just a little bit stronger.

The sun is shining
But it's still dark in my head.

"I can't wait"
You know what, love?
I call *******.

Breathe in sleep, my dear
For, waiting in the darkness,
Hopes and dreams await

Looking at you
I know
Broken things are still beautiful