Sometimes I just want to be
Who you want me to be
Because that person seems happy
Or at least content

Not shifting
constantly
And it's hard to admit that these flaws,
Though not contagious,
might be deadly
The surface tension is amazing
I can barely keep it in
and therefore
Am afraid to be touched

But if you left me,
Like all the other half-empty glasses
That had hoped you'd take the time to
see what was inside,

If I don't mind telling you a few
Of the secrets,
because I need to make room
For other things,

I am hungry for the empty spaces
There's no way to eliminate who you really are inside

Beauty,
like chaos,
needs no reason to occur
It simply takes shape
Like watching you sleep
That not-quite smile,
In brutal silence,

The involuntary
loneliness
of insomnia

Unable to accompany you
in your dreams
And I know you could never love me like this
You are trapped outside the empty glass
And it hurts
to think of you
any other way

We cut our teeth on these uncertainties
And when the blood dried, and the smoke cleared
One of us was a little stronger, though none the wiser
And selected to continue, jaws forward aimed at the weakening sun
Who would travel across the world to leave you, but you chase,
Motivated by starvation

Wild and with eyes that lack remorse,
A totem of the darkness and the things you swore
Would never see the light of day

You know
time can be so painful, as she sticks into you,
passes through
Reduces you into nothing but your ghost and corpses
You become
The children you’re so desperate to teach a lesson
by leaving

I want to be big
I wanted to be so much bigger
But these are your mistakes
And mine is not the right to take them
I can only hurt, the way you hurt when you make these decisions

I will make myself a fire in a hearth,
Roaring in my place, and never venturing
Knowing how dangerous I have been, and could be
How sometimes hope ends up in ashes
But I'll be here
Because when you fall you’ll need a place to land

The blood dries and the smoke clears
And much to our surprise
You and I are both still here.

We were flying down the turnpike
Taillights trailed behind us
The residue of our wings
We were angels then, out of our minds
Drunk on youth and envy
They called us troubled, but we were
Proud of our lives
We were turning into stories for our grandchildren

I remember
No one would admit it, but I wasn't supposed to be there
But all the laughter orbiting the car kept me safe
Though I was always in my head
The quiet one, that's what they call the old souls
Million miles away
They were ready to take over
They would end suffering with their naive ideals of a better place
Have the tired and ancient ones offer them the world
So they could rule it, destroy it, make it fitting for their royalty
And I took notes
Nice to have the memory of feeling invincible
If not angry
And afraid to sleep
More afraid to admit it
Because those dreams I had were always ending
Presenting me with daylight and ***** dishes
And the cold floors of strangers.

Someone told me
Spiders are a good omen
This morning
A little brown spider
Nervous

Hurried across my wall
So this will end well
In spite of everything

And I know you like the barefoot sound of thunder
That any minute now will be dancing through the gutters I think of you
Now an old man in a city somewhere
How you’d never come with me
Never trap nature behind a windowpane
The trees are the backs of naked ghosts
Receding into doorways of mountain shadows

Somehow the trail you thought
Would take you to a safe haven
Led you down the street
To some bar and quiet routines
With a glass in your hand and an ear for
Jazz thunder
You know all the greats,
The booms and beats of different clouds
How every shade of grey is a melody

And how in the city
The puddles shine and the sky is paved
So turning the world upside down
Would change nothing.

Over the past few miles of my life
I’ve been dropping friends
Like breadcrumbs
In case I ever had to
Find my way back
To when I was still happy.

There are no goodbyes
Only transitions
To our more distant positions
Multiplying sunrises by sunsets.
We became straight edged puzzle pieces
That slid apart no matter
How close we tried to be.

In the quietest rooms
We could be holding hands
But maybe it’s better
To just keep to ourselves.
And without you here
No one can remind me
This is a heartbeat
Not a time bomb
And these reds and blues inside me
Surely can’t be wires
Needing to be cut.

This is breathing
This is the tempo to the requiem
Because goodbyes don’t say ‘follow me’
And this is a heartbeat
This is a time bomb

I need to know
If you go
and I explode
Who will wipe me from the walls?

You had my attention
Like so many other things you took without permission
You talked about how strange it was
That sunrise is often wasted on the sinners
People sick with themselves, tortured by shortcomings
But how beautiful it must be, to get in bed with the sun
While the rest of us resort to being held by the moon
Too comfortable with the middle ground not marked by failure,
Because no attempts at freedom had been made,
And it was sort of startling to find out
You were ready to make amends

I had always figured
We left our mistakes for dead
Never thought you visited the graves I'd been tending to
Thought the ghosts were left to the mercy of the wind

This room is like a shrine to our last fights
Still unwashed and littered with misery after misery
The drinks we took like they made us holy
The things it was no one's turn to clean
The words we thought we didn't mean,
But were destined to be repeated

I snuck out last night
Cheated on my future with past mistakes
And even though it hurt
It was good to see them all again, knowing
Our arguments gave the neighbors something to talk about in the morning

You wonder how she'd love you.

In the ways I never could,
In ways too clumsy and honest, just like you,
Parts of myself I let die early on
In favor of thicker skin

That silhouette in your eye betrays you
But I've learned not to ask
What you're thinking about
Those glances just beyond me
Because were you to pry
Into all these boarded tunnels,
You'd find her buried in me a thousand times
Murdered by my suffering

I wonder if you know, you've never been forgiven
But
Love is a magic trick
Trivial to those who understand how it works
But many of us
Are enraptured by the performance

I wonder how she'd love you
If you'd make her feel less lonely
Because she'd pry the nails off
Let you into the attic of her past lives
Your fingers could pull handfuls of her pain
Out of future gardens

Places in my soul
I'd never let you touch
Where I buried my bodies
Where I planted beautiful things
And cultivated this
Still
       rising
Not quite
a phoenix
Or a shooting star
The thing that admits it is ugly
Because ugly is appreciated for what it is
In a way that beauty never could be

There are a million ways
To begin an apology
But nothing is as honest
As admitting
“I ****** up."

Now I’m sleeping on a twin bed
Unable to move on without you
A fist in my mouth
So I can't say I'm sorry
Without breaking my teeth.

You had a raccoon’s grip
On this relationship
And you held on
Even though it killed you
But I’m a practiced martyr
Trained in your guilty pleasures

You called me at 2 in the morning
To say I love you
So please don't hurt yourself tonight
And please
******* eat something
So we go
Every time I'm losing it
You're losing me

You asked if this would be the day
You’d finally have the strength to walk away
If this would be the day
I’d leave my room.

And you're staring at me
I woke up screaming
I can't hear myself but I see you moving
Like something's wrong
With your hands on my shoulders and whispering
I wish I could be your skin
So I could let you feel sunlight
And protect you from yourself
I will wear all of your misery
So you can see what it's doing to me.

I've got your concern wrapped around me
A 2 AM Tourniquet
Then you left
And I am sleeping on a twin bed
With no room for apologies
Or for you
To sleep beside me.