It's been storming since I got back
Raining enough to turn streets to rivers
And the air
Like trying to breathe in cotton *****
All sound muffled by water coating every surface
It's like sitting under one of those weighted blankets
And I'm grateful, I think
Because while I'm not one for physical affection,
I feel wrapped in a prolonged embrace

It is when the night comes
And the temperature dips
And the air does not feel so heavy anymore
That I realize just how empty this bed is.
Your half, cold and so shriekingly strikingly void
Threatens to swallow me up like a black hole
Throwing me into nothingness

And sometimes I let it
Let the buzzing numbness wash over my chest
Relief from lungs squeezing out every bit of air
Like my sorrow is a cloth to be wrung out
Yes. Absence is preferable.
But not yours.

But maybe I'll get lucky,
And the clouds will hold vigil
And the rain will still sing
And the sky will continue to fall
Until you come home again.

It's fading, I can feel it
Like those moments when the day passes
from twilight into the dark
It is undeniable that night is settling in.

And I'm uncertain what my responsibilities are
Am I to stand watch,
Hold your vigil until the sun rises once more?
Or is this more like an omen,
A warning of the darkness to come?

All I know is the hourglass
And nothing can stop her sands.
Should I be clogging her drains with my bare hands?
Or is it time I simply lay back
And dream of the weight to come?

No answers can be found here,
There are only darkness and sand.

I wonder
Is the earth simply insecure?
Beneath twenty or so miles of dirt and dust
Some places harder than others,
She buries her brilliance.
Her effervescent truth hidden away.

Underneath it all,
She really is a star,
Hot as her sun's surface.
Capable of wonders
And destruction.

breathing breaths
into beautiful bodies
hands that hinder passage
into hidden places
sacred to those
only enough.
toes and fingertips trembling
at the tickling terror
in those beautiful broken bodies
and love like lilies lying
lies across your lips
open ears earning no trust
in eyes too blind
to notice the pattern

Everywhere.
Cracks in the brick pavers
Branches in the trees
Water stains on discarded cigarette butts
All resembling lovers mid-embrace.

Dizzy spells,
Deep breaths,
Strained muscles,
Respite.

Gritty acceleration of my car
Climbing wrung after wrung
Descending and reaccending staircases

Today
Has me thinking of you
Everywhere

I don't know how you hold this flame
How you can cradle it without singeing
Your fingertips tickle my skin
Calluses rising and falling,
Rough and smooth
Like your passion
Makes my knees weak
And sparks fears of the unknown
Of trails blazed on my very flesh
Of innocence stolen and mangled
Of mines set like switches, triggers

But still you hold my flame.
And though you mistake this fear,
Think it is one of your creation,
Still you cradle.
You don't deserve this.
I don't deserve you.

You were the first
And the first man
To tell me you loved me.
But I wasn't the first
For you

And I know
This doesn't make it any less true,
But your love scares me
Because affection you give
Is more flighty than the birds themselves.

Delicate, it is the birdsong.
And I cannot tell sometimes
If it is your song I hear
Or the memories replaying in my mind.

It is the doubt I bear like a cancer
That poisons my mind with fear
And unanswered 'I love you's
I keep my distance now.

I keep my heart safer
No more stumbling about in the woods,
Scraping up open palms
And the heart I so carelessly carried on my sleeve
Searching desperately for you
And your song.

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?

He told me
When we stumbled to the end of our path
And parted ways
That he would have written for me
Had I asked
And while I reject the concept
Of having to ask for forced dedications,
I still wonder
What he would have written.

Funny how just the mention of your name still makes my blood race and breath quicken.

It feels like a calm before the storm.
Avoiding the red flag triggers
Like trap doors leading to the underworld
Or a rabbit hole that only leads to
Me in the fetal position
Begging the universe to bring you back.
Instead of wandering this *****-trapped  wasteland,
Searching for the road out,
I'm clinging to the dirt,
Refusing to get up.
It is quiet like this,
Nothing scary to stumble on,
And no gaping holes to tumble down,
Just me, and the dirt
Solid, grounding, still.

I can breathe here,
But I know I cannot stay
Staying means starving
Staying means giving up a future
Staying means stagnance.
I cannot stay.

So it really is the calm before the storm
Because I feel fine now,
In the quiet aftermath,
But soon I'll have to get up
Navigate this minefield of memories,
Sadness, longing, and grief
If I want to see the sun rise.
And I will.

I once said it about you,
Now I say it for me
Here comes the sun.

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

Held, warm, breathe it in
Sleeping on the forest floor
Waking up with you

Hey Mom?
I miss you.
Like a lot.
I miss dancing in the kitchen
To Madonna and Meatloaf.
I remember singing under the paper lantern
From the dollar store.
You bought it just for me.
I miss your strong, muscular embrace
And your scent of cloves and earl grey and earth.
I miss your long, silky hair
Just like mine.
I cut it all off last week.

Some days,
I just wish I could talk to you,
Talk to you about what hurts
But you hurt.
Just to remember hurts.
You're gone.

Hey Mom?
If you're still in there,
Beneath all the alcohol-infused blood
At the bottom of the cavity in your soul maybe,
Could you peek out from behind the curtain?
If only for a moment.
Could you give me some signal
Some kind of hope
That beneath it all
My mother is still here
On this earth
That she isn't lost to me forever.
That the woman who cherished me in her lap
Swaying me back and forth while I cried
From bad dreams or heartache
The woman who taped up my broken arm
And taught me how to make the best spaghetti
My mommy,
Who taught me to sing with beauty
And shared her green thumb secrets.
Please.
Please.
Don't be lost to me entirely.
Please come back.

Hey Mom?

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.

I cannot escape you.
Though I run until my thighs quiver,
Fatigue sinking in like a sickness,
I cannot outrun the breeze of your breath
Nor the snapping of your teeth at my heels.
Slick with sweat that smells of iron
Like blood
But still I run.

And I will keep running until you pounce
Baring my throat to the night
Singing to the moon of your triumph
And claim my heart with your teeth.

I cannot escape you.

You are that feeling of weightlessness
Right before I fall asleep
A cloudy, comforting sensation
Like when Mom used to tuck the covers around me
That high, yet drunk, and let me see how long I can hold on to this
Kind of feeling

Heavy eyelids and haze
Surrounded by a halo of bliss
Glowing. Luminescent.
Every exhale floating higher
Melatonin overload

No fear of what dreams may come.
Weightless.
Promise to grab my string before I blow away?

I stretch my hand out
Red with warm, healing heat
Burning up from my gut
Supercharged by my longing heart

You're just within reach
Let me touch you.

Here.
Quietly, then all at once
Her voices and touches arise.
Smiling bright as smooth sunshine,
I lift up my nose to the breeze.

Childhood hides among the brambles
Laughter peeks from under each stone
The trail hums with life.
Walking, gliding through the brush
Playing peek-a-boo with the path,
I embrace Her like an old lover and teacher,
For it was here
In the shade of figs and acorns
That I learned I could soar.

Here.
Where beetles mate and ants labor
Where crackle-leaves dissolve and the soil exhales warmth
Where field mice scurry and fledglings learn to fly.

Even on another continent,
Her caress is familiar.
It is the one of thorn bushes and wildflowers and weeds.
It is the stumble-over-stones
And the ear-tickling-buzz of the bees.

Here.
I know I am Home.

She's a deep breathe of happiness
Or at the very least
She's not sticky with the muck of sadness

I can see it now.
Why you needed them
Your light in the darkness that was my life
Your life vest in my treacherous waters

Baby, I'm the shark.
And the sad fact is
I may be made of fire
But I am no beacon of hope, light, and laughter

It doesn't make you a bad person
To not want to burn for me
Like I burn for you
This is what love looks like for me

But I am certain,
If you ask,
They'll see my shade of grey
and not just your black and white.

I release the smoke in the night,
Not the blackness itself
Think on that, if you will think on me at all.
In the mean time
Know that I finally understand
Why you needed all of them.

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

You say that you are the rock
And you dare not ask me
To be your eternal bearer up the mountain,
That you are a burden
Meant to be left behind.
You tell me you are the moss,
That you cannot be the cactus I once claimed,
And I should let you roll on
Alone.

But don't you know who you are?
Who we are?
You are more than rock,
You are stardust, realized.
We are the exploding, near-eternal fires that light the night
And paint the sky
We are constellations chasing head over tail
Around this globe
Always a horizon line out of reach.
You are the flames of summer,
Offspring to Prometheus,
The King of Wands,
Sacrificing your lungs in an ancient ritual
Of flames that bear your name.
We are born from fire
Our very strength forged in the pyre.

You are no succulent,
Though your heart may masquerade as one sometimes.
You are stealing after the sun,
The first sign of life in a rocky wasteland,
You come with the lichen,
And you cling to existence like a cliff edge.
Allowed to thrive,
You are soft and yielding,
Laying yourself down for the comfort of others.
Seemingly simple, but within,
You turn the very stone into life.

A curse and burden, you are not.
You are the rightful heir of fire
To stars that sing your name.
You may seem to drown in the wasteland,
Surrounded by endless void
But, love, don't you know what those lungs can do?
Breathing life into stone,
Come alive.

Someday, maybe at 35 (or 25),
You may no longer need Sisyphus.
What then?

I find my thoughts of you hiding out in the shower
They float effortlessly on air, peaceful
But the moment I turn on the water,
And sit,
They attack,
Descending upon me mercilessly.
I pull my knees up for protection,
Curl myself up like a fetus
All to no avail.

*You’re sitting across from me
As I try to avoid the scorching hot water
You lean in, unflinching to the heat
And say to me, “You’re beautiful.”

I waited.
You never showed,
I'll bet you never will.

I know why now
How just the mention of her name
Makes my skin bubble up and run away
How seeing her face makes my belly button turn into a black hole
How the very thought of her makes me want to crawl under my bed and cower

She is the memory of that day
The day that you came home to tell me
Of your adventures between several women's legs
How it ended with you tangled up drunk with her
How she possessed you, probably better than I ever could,
While I waited for you to come home.

She is the moment I realized I couldn't be with you anymore
She is me throwing myself into a wall
Screaming in agony because words could not express
She is the raw wound still seeping in my chest
She is me collapsed on the floor in my living room
She is you looking over me, helpless and panic in your eyes
She is the moments I never want to recall
Yet there she goes,
Flaunting her existence down the street

She is what I lack.
She is the possession of what I'll never have.
She is admired by the people I crave to know.
She is who my childhood dreamt I'd become.
She is a choice you can make over and over  and over again.

She is insecurity manifested.

And I
Am only me.

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.

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.

Sometimes, you just know
And you don't want it confirmed.

And still,
You are interwoven,
Ingrained into my very thoughts.

We like to say that stillness comes with night
That on hot summer evenings we can hear God breathe
But I disagree.

Summer nights, beautiful as they come,
Are filled with crickets, cicadas, birds of prey, and the sound of growing
They smell of burnt marshmallows and laughter
Bursting with life,
Loud and exuberant.
No, summer nights are not still.

It is in winter,
When death and slumber rule the woods,
Where even our breath is muffled by the cold,
Frozen into puffs of clouds.
The night does not sing as summer,
Cicadas and crickets and owls and coyotes
Calling out in the heat.
No.
Silence basks in moonlight on a bed of leaves
That tucked the summer away in their fall.

It is here that we find the still in the night
The quiet so deep we must look inward for sound
Heartbeats and whispers of breath,
Memories filling our inner ear,
Unable to keep the quiet.
But when calmed,
When frozen still by the cold,
You can hear it,
The throbbing in the dirt,
The heartbeat of the earth,
The subtle zephyrs through naked trees
The breath of gods.

Here,
We find the still in the night.

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.

He told me he loved me once
I still do.

It could have been just like any other day.
Sad, at times, numb at others.
Instead, any hope of making sense
Just walked out that door behind you.

Today is two years ago,
Sitting on the end of my dorm bed
Today is you standing in front of me,
Just got back from a party.
The lamp is on behind you,
And you're smiling down at me,
Glowing.
Today is you looking me in the eyes,
Then looking away to ask,
"Hey Evie, are you my girlfriend?"
Today is my reply,
"I don't know. Do you want me to be?"

Today it makes sense
Because your answer isn't "yes" anymore
And my reply isn't "okay, then yes, I'm your girlfriend."
Somewhere that changed forever.
Somewhere I lost, and fate laughed, and you left
And it's all over.

Most days it's manageable
Especially now that The Silence
Has come to a tentative close.
But just as every addict knows,
once your highs get higher
Your lows get lower.

Days like today
And nights like last night
Remind me what it's like at the bottom,
What it's like after you've fallen.

Hope,
That glowing beam that some cling to
Is instead my punishment,
A pillory I'm chained to
Locked in
Keeping me in the same place,
Hoping.

Some days are more manageable than others.

Funny, what the human mind does to protect itself.

He was broken, as I was
And I thought I could fix him.
No
I thought I could be a solution.

I wanted to be the answer
That the universe whispered in response
To his nights alone in drunken tears.
Wanted to be the perfect fit
To the gaping hole in his chest.

But I was not prepared.
I gave up my heart and soul
before I really knew what that meant.
I gave him my mind and my will;
Everything, anything he wanted that I could give
I gave
I let him take all that he wanted from me
Let him run my soul dry,
and what was left,
What he didn't want
I threw away.

I was too young,
Too naive to understand
The gravity of my choices.
That is,
Until he told me
that it wasn't enough
I wasn't enough.
I was not freedom.
Commitment is not a freedom
And he didn't want any part of it.

So there I was, left with only pieces
of myself.
Not enough left to put back together
To make a whole.
Just a hole.
Empty and lost.

I was in love with him,
and to be fair,
He loved me, too.
Not for who I was,
But for who I became for him.
When he tired of that,
He found someone new to sate his interest.
And failed to mention the change.
Coward.

It's so fuzzy now.
Hazy, even.
Like looking through a ***** windshield at twilight.
I can't even remember a twinge of that love.
Not even a pinprick of the agony.
The holes in my soul don't ache anymore,
Not for him.

Funny, what the human mind does to protect itself.

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.

My love for you
Cannot be contained
By ten words

I see it now
The truth to those drunken words
Words well meaning,
Words of fear and self-loathing
Words of hope and love and longing
Words of promises to keep and goals set
Words that turn to dust when dried out
Words that mean nothing,
Like the dust bunnies under your couch
Just. Words.

Just like your words today,
Telling me you asked someone else on a date.
While I was sitting
Just five feet away.

There you are
Gracing your usual corner
With smoke and a smirk to match.
You are not looking at me,
And I smile, because for once
I know something you don't know.
My one secret, clasped like a golden nugget in my palms
Is but a grain of sand to your multitudes.

Looking down, something amuses you
And you take another drag.
Once again I find myself pining
To pick up a habit that burns my lungs, too.
Again, yearning
To be the cancer you kiss,
That you think of when your mind wanders and your hands ache,
To be carried like treasure in your flannel's pocket,
To be caressed between your calloused fingers.
I would burn for you, too.

But then you look more aware,
No longer lost to ineffable thoughts that are solely your own,
And I jolt back
Not wanting my moment to disturb yours.
I shouldn't be here,
Loving you from afar
Reveling in the way you lift your cigarette
Up to your hypnotizing mouth.
I should be nowhere, and nothing.

But I'm already gone,
Windblown.
And you pay no mind
As the leaves shuffle by your toes in the breeze.

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.

He carries his sadness on his shoulders
Little white lines
Hidden beneath his sleeves

Man, whoever said 'long distance is hard'
Has to be on the royal court of understatements.
It's not hard, it's sitting on the ledge of possible,
Looking out onto the abyss of impossibility.
It's being the one left behind,
Hoping their heart doesn't set up roots where their feet have.
It's being the one who left,
Learning to balance the old life with your new one.

Long distance is paranoia at war with trust.
It's hearing your partner's fingers tap tap tap
On the phone screen,
And wondering what messages this 'nobody' is receiving.
It's having unbalanced days stretched out over hundreds of miles
And hoping they miss you, too.

Long distance is making your dog sleep in their spot
Because that's your version of a warm body.
Long distance is sending them off with love
And hoping it's enough to bring them home safe.
Or bring them home at all.

It's as old as war, adventure, itchy feet,
And I will cling to its age like a prayer
Whispering to it at night in my dog-warmed bed
Asking for the power to not starve off of
10 minute phone calls and 'thank you's.

Because he will always be worth it

"You disgust me," she says.
Yeah, I know. Me, too.

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.

There are secrets buried in the freckles on your elbow.
Stories, memories, dreams
All interwoven with epithelial cells and sunlight.

When I first realized I loved you
I found myself captivated by essence of star you carried in your skin
Like Sirius, embodied.
But now that my eyes have adjusted to your brilliance,
I instead ponder the depths of the tales each freckle could tell.
You are endless, intricate, effervescent man, you
Are your own night sky of constellations.

Tell me a story?

You're going to meet no resistance
When you decide you're ready
Once you've made it clear that you're looking
They'll be jumping in your way to catch your attention
"Over here! Over here!" They'll cry,
Begging for a moment of your fancy.

I already know,
Don't you?
You'll have no trouble
Putting on the other shoe.

As the caterpillar sheds its skin
And digests itself

So too must I.

I keep tripping on brambles
Scratching my exposed shins,
Ripping at my shoelaces,
Yet somehow I keep upright.
Leaving my well-beaten path behind,
I had forgotten how difficult
Striking out anew always is.

I know I cannot return to the
Comfortable, clear, circular, cyclical path
I'd been wearing down for years.
Looking behind me,
I'm not sure I could even find the way back.
A path that lead only to itself,
But ****, how I miss those views.

My ribs clench at the memories
The smells, the warmth, the ease
But it grew crowded,
No longer a private reverie
No.
I mourn the loss of sacred space.

I keep stumbling, tripping, fumbling forward
Brought back again to this moment.
It's time to cover new ground,
Whether I want to or not.