i am air
and she is water.

leap
soar
drown
end.

she was wearing soft red lips
and blue eyes as deep as the ocean
and a shirt that read “THIS WILL DESTROY YOU”
and you should’ve known then but it was already too late
too late
too late
and you were already moving, already in motion
she made her darkness shine like gold.    

she was wrapped in silk and satin
that would have burned you if you tried to touch
and she was sitting by a window
waiting for you.
she wanted to keep her sadness close
and her vastness open.
she didn’t understand what it meant to be the moon
and you should’ve known then but it was already too late
and you were already moving.
she was a wolf, she said
and her knowledge could eat you
alive.
you, on the other hand
have always been a deer.

                        she spoke with a voice of lush and luxury
and wore her jacket over her shoulders
on the first day of spring.
her enigma was thrilling
and she scared you
almost to death
but not enough to make you leave.
she had hands of ice
and the breath of heartbreak.
she still remembered how to laugh
however cynical.
she was just as lost and dismembered as anyone else
but knew how to hide it
among sharpened knives
and glasses of red wine.
she loved the thought of drowning
but yearned to be saved
and asked you for help.
she let you in
but she was a self-proclaimed goddess
with secrets deeper
than your lungs.
she was water
and you have always been air
and you should’ve known then but it was already too late
and you were already moving.
the whole time you moved within one word
and that word carried you to places she never could:
chance.
she tried to warn you
she knew she couldn’t be the person you loved
yet somehow you still did
somehow you still did
(she) did still you, somehow
somehow you still did.
it was already too late
late too, already, was it?
it was already too late.
before you even met her
before you even saw her turn around in that coffee shop
before her smile
before her accent reached your ears
before your arms touched
before she read her writing to you
before she opened
before she placed her hand on your back
before you watched her walk away down the dark city street for the first and last time
before you met the body behind the screen, you did
you loved the words.

when i think of you
i feel life trapped.
when i think of you
i feel one hundred years of melancholy
lusting after the sun,
but being unable to look upwards
at it
because of how easily and effortlessly
it can burn a hole through the dark
that has become home.

when i think of you
the single time we met
i feel forgotten fields
the color of mint,
a body of love idling
left to rot,
lilies thrown in the dirt
because your hands have forgotten how to hold them,
the first page of a novel scanned
and then discarded,
like the obituary of an old friend
you could have called back
(but didn't).

but see, that's all just silly
because, truthfully, i know nothing (about you)
aside from your name;
aside from the ocean being too deep and wide and blue
to find comfort
or peace from the earth,
though the earth will not move
because she herself holds many fearless, crazed oceans
within her
that have yet to be named.

Learning from inside-out, crouched, how do I tie this double-knot?
Acoustic ambience bouncing around in the space between my ears
Creating songs the shape of you,
sea of sadness.
Melancholic temple,
where you have gone to worship all your life,
is burning to the ground in great, blundering flames.
Was it you
who nearly drowned
last June?
Was it you
who never
ever
let them
forget?

creative destruction
too beautiful to fault until ashes
(and even then all I want is a different ending or none at all).
silent sunrise that you can’t hear but you can feeeEEEEL
elsewhere.
the hum of existence and how you always danced around it
and coincidently it never lined up for me.
self is such a strange concept that sometimes I forget
and other times it consumes and I am    sorry  so    sorry.
what are you if you aren’t always discovering?
what is she when there is a cost?
what would she have been if rewind and stand outside to see truth
it’s like looking through a kaleidoscope
what is the magnitude?
axiom
this is called spring
and I’m through wasting it.

Save: to stop something from ending or failing, to keep something from being lost or wasted; to keep
To keep
To keep.

REMEMBER WHO YOU WANTED
TO BE?


THERE IS STILL TIME

what have i to do with these grips,
these squared, white knuckles
holding tight to handle bars?
what have i to do with these empty stares,
eyes void of truth?

these "fill-in-the-bubble, A B or C, music only reaches the ears" types of humans
attempting to tell me how to carry out my existence,
attempting to tell me the most efficient
practical
mindless ways to die?
attempting
to tell me
to show me
the most rewarding ways
to die.

what have i to do with these sculptors
who try and quantify the rain,
who try and evaporate
the sun?
what have i to do with these ideas of perfection, of what is best?
these assumptions of false fulfillment,
these preludes to orderly, institutionalized chaos
and contempt?
what have i to do with all of these cardboard boxes
which cannot differentiate between being filled
empty
open
closed
soft
rough
dry
loved?
what have i to do with those who cannot detect their own storms,
their own energy waiting to explode?
what have i to do with one shade of blue?
what have i to do with feet that cannot move,
knees that cannot bend?
what have i to do with white houses
black cars
trimmed bushes
a front porch?
what have i to do with stationary?
what have i to do with these wings
unless they are free to flutter?
what have i to do with structure
with corners
with average
with plain?
what have i to do with boredom
with settling
with insignificant breath?

what have i to do with waste?
what
have i
to do
with waste.

the parallels of she and her and you
and the era extinct.
the notes that linger on the rooftop
the shapes that she drew
the shapes that you colored in
the notes that were written
the notes that were written
and erased.


the absence is not new,
though rises like a dull sun in winter
in search of somewhere
less white.

very short reach very high climb
very all yours very not mine
very not wood very much pine
very too rust very dull shine
very not real
very fun time very time
very time
consuming
very narrow
as it is buried
very deep
inside your lips
and it tips and turns and crashes and
leave it on the table where it’s easy to find
you wouldn’t ever want to leave it behind
please
praise
the
feet
that
move
you
play the song that we know the words to
play the song that we know
we know
the song that plays us
we know.

IT WAS THE WAY YOU USED WORDS
YOUR BRILLIANCE LIT UP THE HOLES IN ME
AND BROUGHT ME TO NEW COUNTRIES
EVERYTHING BLUE IS A SHADE OF YOU
EVERYTHING ACOUSTIC IS AN ECHO OF YOU
YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN WHAT ITS LIKE TO HAVE A HOME AND IM SORRY
BUT ALL I WANTED
WAS TO REMIND YOU

there is a blackened land mass
lying between
the Atlantic
and Pacific
and it is not America.

you are a cathedral
I am woods.

the kind that are peaceful and inviting,
tall and knowing
from the outside
in the light.
once you step inside
and journey deeper,
it gets darker,
more consuming,
and you can feel
their isolation,
their severity,
their boundless
emptiness
that both fills itself
and eats itself.
only they are able to know their own expanse
and those that make it to the center
cannot be released.

your sanctuary,
it holds stained-glass windows
that let in tainted light,
turning everything
a shade
of rose.
pristine architecture
that stands against the sky,
challenging it--
all that is visible
when looking up at you
from the bottom of the hill.
inside,
there is a tenderness
that can be felt at certain angles,
a coldness
a sigh
that cannot be released.

expressive expression expresses itself
only ever in an ephemeral way
emulating evocation of endings and all they entail
which is never not more than what can be known
and always less than what is left living in the lake.
leaving all that had been learned
all that had been/on the verge of lust
and unspeakably, life.
when they tip-toe and twist away
trailing their tails, trying to tell us the opposite of
truth: time
that trusts the trap.
the opposite of what they bury
what is brought to brink.
miraculous masquerade molding itself into moons
many many many moons
that might.

clear minds see all
yet absorb nothing.
when the soul is floating,
there need not be confinement.
the sky opens up
its secrets spill out.
so many times we have followed the moon,
so many times we have led it
home.

the world is mad at itself
for not eating the last piece.

the earth is mad at itself
for putting its life
in the hands of humans.

the sky is mad at itself
for nothing.

i am mad at myself
for being greedy, scared, and careless,
but most of all
for being on the cusp.

Girl in early twenties with aura of messy heartbreak and contempt, reading book titled "revolutions" while she waits for one.
Cold coffee sits beside and grows colder and lonelier,
helping her get lost in the pages (but that's not really what she wants to be lost in).

Ice cubes in my pocket on the warmest afternoons
(No matter how many times they melt into my thigh)
2. Roses on your doorstep each evening,
Piling up until they completely obstruct the entrance to your apartment (kind-of-almost-maybe-love)
The kind that goes and goes
Growing out of your mouth.
The kind that is unsure what to name itself
Or in which land, on which surface, on which continent
It was born,
And why it is still living.
The kind that may not have ever existed in the daylight.

The one thing I have never been able to comprehend
Are endings.
How they have the most extraordinary timing
And are void of any and all emotion.
How their potential is drained,
How they could not possibly be believed in any less.
How they are the stage following internal damage,
Preceding external
And missing socks, I must have left my keys on the counter
(Kind-of-almost-maybe-lost)
is lying on the the side of the freeway.
How an ending's only intention is death
Or disappearance.

Somehow they manage to chase us down
In all-black
And abduct us.

The eulogy was short.
Some say they don't remember hearing it at all.

Did you look her in the eye?
Was your face inviting?
Did you play music,
Did it make everything seem bigger?
More important, substantial?
Or smaller, replaceable, humorous?
Did it make you forget who you were trying to be?
Did it make you forget what the shape of her lips looked like at dusk?
Did it make you forget that you never got to see what they looked like
At dawn
Or daybreak?

How much of yourself was missing?
How much of yourself is missing now?
Have you forgotten it all
Already?