A smile a day
Keeps the rain away,

But sometimes
I just want to get wet.

I can't stop finding
Her amber hair everywhere-
She's been gone years now.

And here's how I see it:

We lay hand in hand
Until the dam far, far away
Cracks,

Until the blades of grass
Tickling your nose
Wither,

Until the clouds above
Rain inky substance like
Oceans,

And when the sun shines
Memories mellow on
Wavering waves waving
Willows in the wind,

Up to our nostrils,
Your eyes like the moon
Straining to see those last
Blades of grass curl in on themselves,

Here's how I see it:

**We drown.

The frigid sigh of winter
Has all but passed,
But it is the rust behind my eyelids
And the slush in my head
That keeps my window open
And chills me so.

Maybe,
It’s not about finding
The light at the end of the tunnel,
Maybe,
The tunnel doesn’t even
End, and the light isn’t
The warm glow of a
Sun so high above,
But the dim illumination
From a floodlight, dusty,
And draped with cobwebs,
And maybe,
The floodlight isn’t there,
It’s shattered and its pieces
Bury into the skin of your
Bare feet as you step on them,
And continue to trek forward in
Darkness, towards the next light.
Maybe,
That’s a good thing.
You’re in a tunnel after all,
You can’t drown in blackness as
Easily as you can the sea.
Maybe,
The extra darkness
Makes the next floodlight
Brighter, and you’ll
Stop, and bathe in it a
While as your aching lings
Finally rest.
Maybe,
If you’re brave,
You’ll think you can
Live under the light,
Unaware that you’ll
Lose your knowledge
Of the darkness,
And when your light
Finally coughs,
And shudders
And dies,
You’ll get lost in the dark again,
Turned around,
Heading away from the new lights ahead.
Or maybe,
You prefer the shadows,
Carry a bat,
Or a golf club,
Or whatever blunt weapon
Catches your fancy,
And you smash each light
You pass,
Cutting the feet of all those
Behind.

Maybe,
There isn't a light at the end of the tunnel,
Just an endless string of floodlights,
Bright,
Shattered,
And lost.

The girl whose hair
Hung strung from
The crooked inner workings
Of her geared mind
Dusty, rusted, and unkempt
Against her most eager desires,
Bathed in the waves
Of the oblivion that surrounds us
During this night she absorbed
Into the fibers that nestle
Into the strings of her shirt,
Singing against the gentle flow
Of an evening breeze
Much cooler than that
Of one plagued by the day's sun,
And while the fire
Has been extinguished
And its flames dancing in licks
Have laid to sleep,
The moon has kissed her,
And she portrays the wisdom
She locks away behind a steel box,
Chained and covered with padlocks,
A glow never dim seeping
From beneath the lid.

The truth is, I’m not really sure who I am.  She told us to draw ourselves and then to draw our souls; so I drew my face scratched and uneven, just as I’ve always seen it, and frowned at the result both in the mirror and on the paper.  The only soul I’ve ever really known was the one that shone through the strokes of the keys I punched, the scrawling of ink on paper in mismatched arrays of awkward thoughts, disorientated and unorganized, shaded different spews of emotion and rearranged through the lens of ever last viewer’s eye.  Even so, this soul that is composed of words that defined me painted a picture vivid in its contrast, though blurry from both afar and close enough to squint, no details able to be made out.  These words that have wrapped around my soul rubbed raw from the time my skin first flinched at the cool March air cannot be deciphered by their author, though I know somehow that their letters flowing into one another say more than any curve of my face ever could.  These words are black and white, two extremes crafted in the pallet of the Universe’s toolshed, and perhaps that’s exactly what I am.  Black or white.  I’m dark and lost and scrounging for some rusting wall or tree branch to cling to as to ensure the shimmering waves, onyx and charcoal in their nature with the flow of blood in its spine, do not flood into my mouth at a rate in which is too quick to balance myself upon them, or, I’m white, drifting snow from a cloud scraping the vast expanse of brilliant blue gazing as a sky above all the world, pure, innocent, unscathed with the potential for creation in vibrancies yet unknown, or to be ripped to bits, scattered amongst piles of cream and autumn leaves drained of their color beneath months of shivering frost.  And so, perhaps any physical representation of my being would be all wrong, because that’s not what I am.  Myself, my soul, it resides in the murky depths of heights I’ve yet to discover, tethered endlessly and uncertain among the caverns of my inners, pink and mushy, stirred and ******, untouched from the harsh light of a world encased in brevity.

And I sit here once more,
Sun beginning to fade over the makeshift
Horizon of wooden plank fences and shingle
Roofs, glued to the homes with tar whose
Invading smell has long since passed.
On the shore I sit, a shore made of
Overgrown weeds whose leaves look no different
From the eruption of water that juts out
Of the center of the lake,
The ripples seeming to roll over themselves,
As if they are trampling over each other to
Reach me, and looking away from the metallic
Distraction in the center of this pool of wonders,
It's as if a river is to be flowing in place of the lake,
Lapping across rocks and echoing splash of ducks and
Geese dismounting their current of air,
Swiftly gliding along the filmy surface,
Like a mirror smeared with lubricant,
For the reflections this lake cast cannot
Easily be told apart.
Dark beckons the lights' full departure,
And with it the warm is swept solemnly from
The land, and my bare hands burn like the
Approaching summer's heat.
I thankfully clutch my leather coat against
Myself, and I gaze upon the lake, wishing
Its limited stretch could  further.
As I trace my eyes across its
Waves, a young woman in a pink sweat
Coughs roughly and spits in the water,
As if it's beauty must be destroyed along
With that miserable soul of hers.
The willow tree I sit under,
Oh how massive it seems, its coarse bark
Digging through my jacket and on the verge
Of penitrating my skin, but, it is worth it.
Its vines hang down wearily,
Like an old man, reaching to grasp the
Water, leaning so close, its reflection can
Be seen from shore, and its desperate vines,
Swaying in the wind ask me to come closer.
I shall not, of course, for it needs to
Grow on its own, and needs to rid of
Its reluctance if it ever wishes to achieve
Its reward.

This, somewhat reminds me of myself,
But, this is only yet another wonder,
Collection of thoughts,

From under the willow tree.

Amongst the stretches
Of chiseled sidewalk
Stuck with gum and bullet holes,

Waves of black water
Spilled over grass
Dangling in the pull
Of the moon's smirk.

Strung from strands
Of yarn not yet dyed
Hung a bench of sticks
And thorns and buds
With the potential to be
Pretty,

And with shoes cuffing
The ankles of skin
Pale as the shallow murk
Of the wavering sky,
Swinging with the steady
Beat of the croaks
And raspy whispers from
A hat covered head,

A splash of water,
Cool with the gentle peace
Of the final page
Of a book unwritten,
But open to any reader
Who dare choke on the waves themselves.

If angels were so graceful
As to whisper past my ear
          Even just once,

I imagine it'd sound
Much like your voice
          When you sing.

Curled up together
On your couch,
Our hands intertwined,
Our backs
Against the hollow hum
Of Halloween's breeze
Lingering through
Dancing drapes
With dizzy dips
Before the cracked-window audience,

And the sun playfully peaked
Over the graceful dying trees
That lined suburban streets,
Looming over pumpkin
Patterned leaves, basked in
The approaching gloom of
Dusk,

And while the night
Tied that present to this memory,
I remember the scruff of your
Auburn hair against my nose,
The bewitching draw of
Some vague fragrance
My addict lungs yearn to
Breath once more,

And now,
With each passing October,
Autumn leaves never seem more alluring.

She was the kind of girl
Worth dancing with
     In the middle of the living room
To the music
Of late night television.

She was the kind of girl
Who made the sky dizzy
     Whenever it looked down at her
Because she was
More vast than the sea.

She was the kind of girl
You wanted to kiss
     In each and every snow drift
Because her lips
Were warmer than any jacket.

She was the kind of girl
Who held you at night
     And whose arms lingered
Because when she was gone
You still felt her around you.

She was the kind of girl
People drag themselves
     From their beds and walk to work
Because they needed to care
For a necessity like her.

She was the kind of girl
Who made you trip over
     Words you wished were nearly as lovely as her,
Because she was the embodiment
Of all you ever wanted to say

To swoon the stars and put the moon in your back pocket.

Unsettling thoughts
Raise and swim much like
Misappropriated sand with
An anchor running through it
That never quite catches,
Despite the various mounds
Of sand and rock
Chiseled into the Earth
Using all its good form
And time that couldn't have been
Wasted anywhere better.

Did you know
That the waves of the ocean
Crash over themselves
In a shivering rush to marvel
At the glassy globes
Encased on either side
Of the bridge of your nose?

The house was flat,
But filled with
Shivering candles
Licking away the dark
That lingered like
Broken lovers
Kicking dented cans
Down the foggy road
Beneath an October moon

So warm in its
Lovely illusion.

The girl with hair pink as candy
Plays the violin in
The school bathroom
With a rusty bow,
And just before dawn in her bed
To calm her tempers
And soothe her demons to sleep,

For I suppose she figures
Between her and them,
One deserves to slumber
Peacefully.

The girl who tied
     Roses around her
     Tongue in hopes
To taste no evil
Bled to death
    With thorns
          In her teeth.

There seems to be
     A sea in me,

And my ribcage is beginning to leak.

He cocked his head, looked down at me curled up in his arms, vulnerable, I'd imagine he'd see me as, and parted his lips to let out a string of words tied to a sigh.

"What is your favorite memory?"  He spoke, the words dripping off his tongue and slipping down my face, creeping into my mouth, coating the insides of my lungs I no longer breathed from.

I wanted to say this one; The one where I bled to death in his arms, and I finally felt the sting of his tears he no longer had to hide.

I've always known
That I'd die in a car accident
Someway
Somehow,

And beneath the
Silent flicks of lightning
Stretching across
A plaster sealed sky,

The world stood still,
Molded out of clay
And gasping for air
Like a drizzled flower petal
Suspended in time,

For a moment so fleeting
It nearly escaped me,
I hoped some drunken
Speeding car
Would smash right into me,

For once not because of the
Complexity and dismemberment of it all,

But because I was okay with dying
In some moment where it all made sense.

11:11
He wished for her to be okay,
Her head buried in his shoulder,
Shaking them both with sobs that
Bounced off the walls and screamed
That he was doing it all wrong.

11:11
He wished for everyone to be okay,
His inbox filled with letters that
Formed words that told the stories
Of how no one was really ever okay, and
How he was doing it all wrong.

11:11
He wished for her to come back,
His eyes burning with the regret of
Not telling her how much he'd miss her, the sharp
Wind on this cheek as he stared at her grave
Reminded him on how he had done it all wrong.

11:11
He wished that he'd be okay,
Sudden realization that wishes are
Only that, the hollow hope like
The gorges in his skin to remind him
How he did everything wrong.

11:11
He hoped there wasn't nothing
After leaving this world of fake
Wishes, and lay his head in his pool of blood
On the bathroom floor, one last slit across his throat,
And he wished he didn't get this wrong.

Breath in,


Remind yourself that you are human.
You make mistakes.
You hurt people.
You will never be perfect.

Breath out,

Remember everyone is human.
We'll make mistakes.
We'll hurt each other.
We'll never be perfect.

I cannot help
But to cling
To the memories
Where I once was
Beautiful,

Reduced now
To cold food
In a cracking bowl,
Shivering
Without a blanket,

And typing
Into a text box
I secretly hope
Will delete
This awful thought.

They said your name on the announcements this morning, but you weren't around to hear it.  
They spoke it just like anyone else would, but the tone they had was all wrong.  
The curves in the letters of your name -much like the curves of your hourglass figure- did not drip off the announcer's tongue like they should have.  
They were summoned from the front of their brain rather than the inkiest depths of their heart.  
They said your name flat, grim and thin like dull graphite.  
They read you prayer, but I'm not quite sure what it contained, because the moment they spoke your name on the announcements this morning, the floor rushed up and up and up until the crack of my head met the vanilla scrubbed tile.  
The room blurred and the room buzzed and the announcer continued to talk in his unsharpened pencil rasp, and I hoped and hoped and hoped some more that they played our song at your burial.

The way she sat
Perfectly poised
Against the breeze
Of the world
And the tears of it
Melted my mind
And  made the hairs stand up
All over my arms.

While she may not be perfect,
She glows in all her attempts.

A dash of dust
Unwilling to settle
Coats the pink insides
Of my lungs
As the butterflies
In my stomach
Scream,
They want to get out and I don't know how to let them out anymore
Because I threw away the key
Thinking it was tarnished and needed polishing
But really the only thing
That could polish a rusty key
Is to keep it in the door,
The door I so foolish locked
And slammed shut
Without so much as saying goodbye.

And now here I sit,
Dazed and confused
By the flash of my fingers
No longer taunted by inhibitions,
Trying to scream the butterflies cries,
For their wings so same
Are cutting me up on the inside
Like no butterflies before.

I remember the smell,
Like old wood and
     Lake water
Somehow found itself
     Mixed into some sea
           Of sheets,

And I remember
Waking up,
     Entangled and drowning
In an ocean of
Unfamiliar bedspreads
As you climbed into
      The morning soaked
Bed with me.

Your skin soft
     And vanilla
          And brushing lightly
Against the hairs on my arm
     That you made stand up tall,
Kissing me awake
     As I pushed your auburn
         Strands of fire
         Hair whispering in a
         Tickle against my ear.

The way your hand
     Rested with possession on my chest
           And tapped some forgotten tune
As we waited
For afternoon to
     Beckon us downstairs,

The steady hum of
The shore catching
The waves of the
      Lake shimmering green
      In the summer heat
           At the wooden base
                Of our cabin outside.

And I remember
     Our collective shut of eyes,
Resting our foreheads together
     As our hands journeyed
          To reach one another's
          Beneath the home in the sheets
We wished to never leave.


That was two years
     And a love and a half ago,

So now I long
     For nothing more
Than these summer mornings
To wake up not so lonesome
                                                  anymore.

All the while, as I stare up and think and attempt to make something of the thoughts swimming in my head like fish who cannot see, and the mouth of the everything full of so much nothing that surrounds me spews back not a single hint, you, the girl whose hair is licked a charred brown from the crackling fire of passion swirling from your inners, you, the love of my life, all that may have been past and all after ones too, you are the anchor of my imagination, the stone to hold down my wonder, and keep it from floating off into the vastness of the loneliness that consumes everything that is not here, in your arms, against the soft breeze of your touch, and then I know that everything is well, and all the unspoken beauties of the Universe only mean for me to wrap around you in way of mind and soul and body and laughs we share beside a city without lights, five stories above the world and soaring ever higher.

Does the moon look at
Oceans and wonder if they
Sigh at sight with love?

I'm sitting here,
     Lost among the
Static shadows of
     A slumbering morning,

And while the world
     Blinks awake
I'm left wondering
     When my head
Will finally succumb
                              To sleep.

it's a late night drive
down a foggy street,
completely empty and
illuminated by the
soft glowing sign of an
underhead street light.  

neon juice
flows through your veins.  
the world
forgets how to spin.  
the trees
are still and
the engine roars.  

somewhere,
everything falls into place for someone.

5 years from now
None of this will matter,
For stories treading halls
Seemingly endless will
Evaporate and soak
Into walls, all the
Broken hearts and
Superstar athletes,
All the pretty faces
And "lasting" friendships
That never endured the
Winters of summer separation.
All the rumors and
Lies and achievements
And stories washing over
Every blank corner
We wade through today
Will turn to mist in
The air of tomorrow,
And none of this
Will even matter.

The boy who made
     A simple incision
     Above his heart
With the inky
Blade of a pen
Stuck a razor
          Inside,
And who moved his hand
     Like a blender
Lived to tell
The tale of
The girl down
     His block,
Who swore
     She'd be beautiful,

And laughed at
The misfortune of it all
As they crossed her arms
     And buried her when her
          Chest fell,
But didn't rise up quick enough again.

The fields were
Drenched in the
Silent static
That shimmered hesitantly
From a brew of clouds
Huddled up high.

And now, it seems,
I'm only here for the stars
And the moon that I hope
Can defrost my aching heart.

Her words tumbled
Like leaves binded
With silk and dipped
In milk, frosting at the
Lipstick-kissed rim as a train
Passes by, sloshing about
Metal sticks with red
Tipped points aimed to the sky
And moons forged from
Electrocution and
Flat carpet, sleek
And muffled beneath
The soles of tattered
Shoes, beings,
And the quiet drifts of
Snow that had
Nowhere else to whisper.

The war in my head
Rages, like: "De-Dun, De-Dun",
And I'm not winning

For all the words I've written,
I still feel as though I will die
Completely unexpressed.

I loved her
     In lots of little ways,

Like the way she paused
     A moment before looking up
When her name was called,

The way she could stare at you,
     Face as blank as a stone cold slate,
Until a hidden smirk creeped from nowhere.

Like the way her hair
Fell over her shoulders like
The Universe tossed a bit too much
     Eloquence into a creature with
Never enough awareness to realize it,

Like the way we bonded
Over rain and the night
     And concrete and gum
Stamped flat to busy sidewalks,

But she reminded me of flowers
And Christmas lights
     And bad hot chocolate tethered
To the memory of a withering town,

Because they were beautiful
     Just like her.

The curve of her jaw
Does not fit into
The palm of my hand
Like yours did.

Her house was always
Cold, like someone had broken
A window, and left.

Why is it
That just as my skin begins
To feel the coddling warmth
Of the emerging spring sunshine
That I long for rain?