I have to write a paper
But I want to write a poem about you

Of course, I’ve procrastinated
On both of my tasks

It is the night before this
Deadline

Yet I still can’t come to see you
As a distraction

So I will type out
The rungs of this term paper

Queue up letter by letter
Of my passing grade

Drag my feet from thesis
To conclusion

Paying my price of admission
With time

Until I’m so close
I get hit by your flashing lights

Blue and round
Putting any barker to shame

I see them through downpour of
Pressure

And winds of
Insomnia

Knowing I’ll get there,
Get to

The Ultimate
Attraction

You left
a white lighter
on your coffee table

so that when
we'd go back
to collect your things

from a crime scene
we had been to
countless times,

we'd know that
you died
thinking yourself

a King of Rock and Roll.

But really
you were
the prince

heir to
all the love
dad had to give,

bestowed upon
year after year
with the kind of too much faith

that only
parents
can give.

You heard
their lessons
about the world

being your oyster

but never payed
attention
to how to care

for
your
people.

You were
always
about the show,

You'd give all
the glitz
and glamour

off of your very own crown

thinking that
if love didn't sparkle
people wouldn't know it was

there.

But then
someone gave you
purple-hazed glasses

and suddenly
the world was
love in your pupils,

they flooded
your irises
with a shine

to which no amount of
family jewels
could compare.

Your eyes
had seen
radiance

and all you had
to go back to
was flaw

you saw
a life
that was hard

and surprisingly heavy
for being so
empty,

And you just
kept chasing
the smooth blues

that would never hurt your ears

or play you
the old song
of wasted potential.

Even as you wandered
popping and
repopping your ears,

our love was
dull to your
rock and roll lifestyle.

I know how much
you missed how it
was before

you got discovered by it,

eager and seething
to sink its hooks
into another good one.

Instead of
writing your own
song,

you faded
into the old
one.

And now,
I've lost word and
lyric,

melody is
ash
in my pen

because the music
wasn't in me,
dude,

it was in you.

And now the record
keeps playing
through the air,

but none
of us
want to hear it.

When you went,
you left us with
a ****** white lighter

and you took the music with you.

We sit down
At the Bar

You remark on
My posture

We order
Your favorite

Jack and
Coke

We sling
Them back

Double Shots
Burning my belly

Your eyes fill
With disbelief

I can see
The photographs flash

In front of
You

School Pictures
Prom Photos

Graduation
Shots

All Stacked up
Underneath this very

Bar-
Stool

My eyes roll
Away from sentimentality

Laughing it
Off


I order
Two more

I can hear you
Tell me to

Slow
Down

As if
Recorded into

A Broken
Record

Even now
I’m still

Your Baby
Sister

As My
Vision Doubles

Your Smile
Remains

As One

Though
your voice

Seems to grow
Faint

My throat begins
To burn

Feeling myself
Crying out

Over a space
Much more vast

Than the distance
Between

Our two
Barstools

Before I misplace
Myself Completely

You
Catch me

Your other Half
Your little twin

I will
Not be

Doubled
Over

We are
Celebrating

This
Birthday

As I blink
To see you

Through
My blear

I see you
Preparing

To
go

Mirroring my moves
To put me at ease

But your
Cheeks

Have lost
Dimension

Your color
No longer

Changes in
The light

You pull your
Hands away

Not wanting to
Make me

Cold

Insisting I’m
Warm

My clammy
Palms

Push
Forward

Just in
Time

To
Catch

That
Paper

Wafting
Down

I ****** it
Up

Staring at
Your smile

That always
Did

Photograph
Well

Flipping it
Over

I tried to
Remember

When you had
Signed

This photo
You could never

Have known
About

I refuse
The answer

Wary of the lies
You will believe  

When you
Split drinks

With A Memory.

I was not
The planet
Closest to you

No
Not even a planet

I was
A Moon,

Only
Close enough
To have been touched
By your light

You see,
As a moon
You live your life
Half in
Darkness

So you know
A super nova
When you’ve met one

The problem is
The stars that
Shine the brightest
Are the very same ones
That burn out
too soon

And now
Our atmosphere
Feels the emptiness

And we hope
That space
could create
A time warp ,

Another dimension

Where we could
Stay with you

Feel your brightness
Forever.

Please,
Starlight,

Know you were in so
Many celestial Orbits,

And we feel
Colder,
At our cores,
Without you,

Our vision
Has darkened.

You,
A constellation,
All on your own,

We have only
Your stardust memories
To hold

When our tears
Shoot like
Comets
Down our
Faces,

Thank you
For the wishes,
Starlight.

I hope to
Catch your
Light
In another sky
One day.

Truth is the word
That we’ve always
embroidered
Onto my pillow

But instead
It’s that I’ve never had
Enough knowhow
To sew my

Secrets anywhere
Except the
Soft, pin-cushiony
Pink of my lips

It is always you
With truth shears in
The hand you’re always
Extending

That sets them
Free
To fly and
Find light

Your work on
Our tapestry
With little fingers
And quiet tenderness

That many
Will never
Feel

Your vision
Of our bigger picture
Unravels before me

Making more sense
With Every stitch

When I leave my
Heart
In places so
Cold

You help me
Pull strings
To drag me back
To myself

You remind me
That my fabric is
Fragile and
Precious,

But never to fear
Cutting away
What no longer
Fits

Being Raggedy Ann
Always comes with
Its share
Of loose threads

And I’m forever
Thankful

That you
Tie them,
Hands un-judging

In knots
As intricate
And beautiful
As your soul.

I was red wine,
You were blueberry.

I was robust and full-bodied
Maybe the only one
As unpredictably
rich as you

And much worse
At concealing it

We joined in
Meals where we only
Discussed
What we were hungry for.

But in our starvation
We confused eachother

For food
And we tore
Ourselves
Apart

Imagine Breakfast
Lunch, and Dinner

Smiling across
at you
From the other side of
Your pillow

Because we
Weren’t after sustenance

It was never your taste
That satisfied
but still I had been licking
The salt off of your skin

Somehow, I was the one
That felt raw in the morning

But we were new to
The institution
Munchies were to be
Expected

But our empty calories
Created blockages around my heart

Only the basic needs
Slipped through
Reminding me of
The hunger I was stifling

We boiled over
And looked elsewhere for feed

You had broken
Your diet lifestyle
Not seeing how
Emaciated it had made you

You indulged yourself
On the richness of being filled

And you threw it up
Silently in the bathroom
Flushing away
The burning

So no one
Would ever know

But I saw the color
Return to your cheeks
As we set our table
For the meal we would

Never eat.

I used to scratch my arms so much
that I would bleed,

Incidentally, when I'm feeling small
my arms get really itchy.

But I just crossed an ocean
on a jet-plane that fit

hundreds of me's.
And I didn't feel small.

I saw monuments that you
can see from space,

I walked over cobblestones
of the eternal city,

seeing the span of time
outstretch through my every day,

I ate food that
traveled millennia to arrive in my stomach,

And I didn't feel small.
Contrarily,

I felt the tiber plowing through
my wine-colored waterways,

My shoulders adapted their posture
to the lean of the Singelgracht,

I stared Vesuvius in the eye,
standing upon its ashen stillborn city.

Yet the itch never
came. Flying back

To my little pond, I wondered
If there would be enough room to

Fit the new me.
And step by step,

I tip-toed back to the bed
I thought had been left

Untouched in my absence.
But when I laid my head down,

I turned into Alice,
Drowning in my sheets,

They had gone back to my pillows,
And invited a stranger in,

Stretching out my space to where
Only they could fill it just right.

And now I’m small enough to see
Bed bugs, nibbling their way up

And down my shrunken arms.
I ponder over the possibilities

Of charms being mixed in with
Grapes, aged with cheese,

Deliciously tricking me into
Believing all of this was good

For a growing girl.
As I call up to the giants

Who used to be my height,
I recognize they can only hear me

Via echoes, a subdued volume
Of my former cries.

Only being as small as a pest,
Can I see how the molecules of

Matter really do shift,
A best friend can

Neither be created
nor destroyed,

Only moved about, shifted
From one sleep-mate

To another.
I sit with the bed bugs

I do not itch anymore,
I am the itch.

She took my voice and split it in half
Found the the closest body and laid my
Template over someone else's chords,

So now,

When I roar laughter at good timing
She is fed only half of her fill

She looks away quickly
She turns away hungry

The bare pads
of her toes
thumped

across
the photo-faded
tiles

Fingertips
outstretched
at full attention

Precious enough
to catch
the kiss

only
mama's lips
could gift

She walked
away
slowly

taking
great
care

exhibiting
to all who
didn't know

the only thing
she knew to
treasure

The rise and fall of our music seemed to synthesize into the light of the room. Our voices seemed to grow inside of us, padded with memories and laughter, growing full with the alcoholic nourishment, until all at once, it would bubble over into a crescendo. It was sharp and soft, harsh and tender, filling our ears with colors we had forgotten to remember in the corpse of the last few days. The staccato bite of reality brought the symphonies down to piano sobs that lulled the night into its dream. The room had a haze, golden in its familiarity, but the tune on the books was not quite right, the time signature gone. The rhythm was unsure; even the conductor pacing wildly about, looking up only to hear the echo of a waltz he once danced to in jubilee, with the promise of a life ahead. The music was now faded, on a greyscale, just like the wedding album. Only he could hear the melodies that had pulled him beyond the brink of love, under the threshold of its great fortissimi. He was content to have it play as the score to his remaining years, muffled and muddled, refusing to rest in his harmonious love affair. Unfamiliar with his own melody, his voice was shy, shaking, and broken. The audience sat, waiting to hear the sounds that could come from the maestro, straining in a beg to hear hope.

I’ve heard you talk about people from your past. I’ve seen your eyes stare off into traffic, never even blinking as their hollow names march out of your mouth. I’ve felt a cold air blow through the distance between you and them, the blood in your heart no longer pumps into their severed arteries. The skin of that part of you has gone grey in pallor. Your memories are stiff in rigor mortis, no longer pumping with thoughts of tomorrow. Instead of laying those memories to bed for another day, you bury them in their graves, only allowing them to become unearthed when someone wants to ***** their hands to find something to grab on to, something to plant themselves in.

I wish I would have known then
That I was digging my own
Place of Unrest.

I walked into our chapel
shoulders back,
head high,
dignified.

No Catholic shame
forced my eyes
to the mosaic aisle

Trodden Over
by my Sandaled feet,

It was a feast day,
praising God
with our laughter
and shared
beneficence.

We joined
in joyful prayer,
receiving each other's
sacrament
with the reverence
of saints

but just as I sang
the psalms the loudest
there came
an unholy silence,

Believing I was being
tempted,
I fell to my knees,
contemplated
your wonder

waiting for your return
to your
prodigal lover;

squandering our
sacred time,
not counting the blessings of
our moments of grace.

I hung upon
my silent cross,
weeping into my
wine-soaked rag

Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani  

Descending into
Despair,

Waiting for
an Easter
that I swore
had been prophesized,

Even upon your
high holy
return,

you seemed resurrected,
and yet I not saved.

I felt like Moses
on his day of death
beholding
the promised land
covenanted by
souls

and yet
remaining in
this desert
thirsty for
the wellspring
that seemed to be sitting
behind your eyes,
the water that would
quench
my forever thirst.

Despite the ache
in my dried mouth,
I'd find
the will
to stand upon my feet,
tired of relying on
a charitable heart's
sympathies
as my means of
living.

But I found
that I was
praying for
too much
from you

and I fell upon
my knees again,

wondering if
humility is meant
to leave you feeling
this broken.

And so begins the litany
of sacrifices

wondering

if you are my
love made flesh
why it is I who is

scourged,
stripped of dignity,
nailed to a cross
that I had brought here
myself

Mumbling words out
to a silent heart
that I know
hears me.

Thinking that surely
our death
will meet me soon.

But by
the clever grace of
the devil

I continue,
finding life
that should have
diminished
at two o' clock.

Is Hannukah
not
supposed to be
a celebration?

Because while burning
in this modest
Menorah lifestyle,

sacred
and
devout.

I find faith
in you

and have been shepherded
to no redemption,

but only the
salty pillars
of one who trusts
in gods
created by another God.

And upon this realization,
I rush to confession,
knowing my worship
of false idols
is not over.

As I remember
our love
as beautiful
and mighty,

I'm forced
also to remember
that
Lucifer, too,
fell when things were at
perfection.

Try as I might,
I must turn my face away,

with the hope
that something
greater

truly does await
for one
who loved paradise,
body and soul,

with the finality
of resurrection.

There was a tale of three.

A he, a she, and a me.

He had eyes,
Projector screens,
Reflecting the films you play in your head.

She, a Hollywood queen,
Hair as gold as her heart,
A sucker for romance,
Caught by his flashbulb smile.

Me, the screenwriter,
Knowing the business enough
To recognize the mechanics
Behind the greatest actor
In the world.

Award winning half truths
That I could swear were written by me
Find their other halves
Written in starlight
Shooting from the mouth of he,

The lifetime achievement of
She
Limited to their happily ever after.

Me, playing back over footage
Replaying the scene unfolding between them,
Trying to hear a romantic score,

But rather being bored
By the actor's lazy gestures,
Me, being deafened by the silence
Of this pantomime.

She, while skilled at book work,
Had simply been miscast
By he, who had not yet planned his end scene.

There is a temptation within Me,
To write myself into her part,
But I know,
This show is not about me.

She was not the wrong actress,
Just simply playing a part
Diverting from action.

She froze the plot,
So they existed as pictures,
Perfect in pixels,
Worth a thousand words,

Only no one would ever speak them,
Potential untapped.

I gaze at the screen,
Drifting to sleep in boredom

Being woken at any sign
of the screen going
Dark,

Only to have their starlight,
Lull me back
Into the writer's dream.

Stop looking at yourself
as half of
an incomplete puzzle,

you are
your
own
*******
work of art,

indivisible,
and non depreciable.

When they asked if
We had gotten back together
I stuttered,
Unsure if I wanted to say
"I wish,"
Or
"Never Again,"

Do not stay with anyone
who makes you feel like
anything less than a
cataclysm
of the most beautiful
natural disasters
to ever occur.

As I wince to inhale
I wonder if
I've lost the taste for your smokes
or if I've lost the taste for you.

They say grieving is different for everyone,
But they can never truthfully explain how.

It was not until my south star exploded
That I could understand how many constellations would be ruined

Like the godmother who would forever spend Saint Patrick's day drinking in memory of both nephew and mother;

Like the little brother who was forced to become the oldest;

Like the uncle who shuddered at seeing his own son's demise too clearly;

Like the step-mother who would hate herself for being right all along;

Like the friend who would cut up his life with the same murderous knife;

Like the father now blinded from the absence of the son's light;

And like the sister who was forced to break the promise of future reconciliation.

None of them could understand how the planets had aligned this way,

And none of them could find their former orbit,

But rather, would follow the path of the star dust left behind

Flinching at it as if it were glass,

Embracing the sting

Because it is all that is left

Of the brightest star in their sky.

I always wonder if all the hours I've spent wanting to be you,

You have spent wanting to be me;

And as soon as the thought rushes to my pupils, my vision is blurred with tears,

How could that be, that the most magnificent person in the world could want to be anyone but herself?

But then the photo focuses and I can see the bigger picture:

This is what the world does.

Summer time comes and it's time for a swim,
Dipping my toe gingerly in
When your laugh yanks me off my solid ground.
"Stay in the shallow end," I tell myself, remembering our last trip to the pool.
"Dare not to breathe when he pulls you under,
tasting so much like air as he pulls you close,"
Treading water to stay afloat,
Remembering all that lay at your floor,
A Glimmering Treasure Trove
That will too easily become a home.
Surely, I'll get swimmer's heart,
An achey ringing,
In the center of my chest,
The antidote, found in the eyes of
One who could drain the pool
Without Notice.

Empty eyes
Scan the room
For a solvent

To dissolve
The boarding sadness
Feeling at home in my truth

Hiding behind honest lips
Despair coats
My throat

Tricking me into believing
That it’s going down
Like water

Voices chanting
In bonds
Made by weakened spirits

Shot
Shot
Shot,

I take.

Chuuug
Guuulp
Sluuug,

I fade.

Eyes wander,
Looking in my skull,
For a brain

Before Answering
a knock
at my lips

Peck
Peck
Smooch.

The blur
Drags us
Away

My eyes
Disillusioned with romance
Scan the room

Hollowly thankful
No one heard my
Signal

Wondering
If he can taste
How raw

My voice has become.

As I see your texts flash across my scene,
I notice how those letters
don’t look like they’re holding up your world.
They don’t look like they’re trapped on a single page of a hometown small atlas,
far away from any oceans.
As the first leashed fish I’ve ever seen,
I can see you tearing at your shrinking collar,
never having needed claws before.
Finding yourself belly up,
Accustomed to suffocating
On behalf of the guppies running from
Their own sharks.
I wonder if they know that they put their blood on you,
Making you smell like a prime target
For demons and sharks alike.
Hoping if you swim this way
And that
You’ll create a whirlpool,
Big enough, small enough,
Enough,
In your longer than expected attention span,
Hoping that the funnel might drag away their sharks,
But now you find it was not the demons,
But they who didn’t know how to swim,
And you
Struggling to teach what is innate to you,
Finding you’ve made your own endless funnel,
Drowning in the water that taught you to breathe.

My points aren’t touching ground.
Plucked up by a spine
Holding my pages together
When the library is going up in smoke
Paper doesn’t need to breathe
It just needs to be the channel
The background of the universe
Bleeding itself into reality

She listened to music that sung out her vacancy,
Allowing only those chords to be felt,
Keeping the emptiness
To ensure the sacredness of
Her ritual.

She wears a sterling silver lie on her finger,

A Christmas gift, unintentionally leading her into Fraud,
months after the wrapping paper had been torn away.

Never gifted with piano fingers, hers pulsated with words waiting to pour through her pen

Having passed faith tests with flying colors,  she looked at the rounded Christ less crucifix, Jesus replaced with fashionable jewels,

She believed it was a medal for coming out alive and in faith

Little did she know that the test was a mere three months away

Not unfamiliar with temptation,

She knew her weakness,

Knowing herself only to be human,

Seeing the ins and outs of her fragility,

Still pushing onward into hope,

Bordering on the suburban developed atheism, but always landing on the grassy faith.

But as one who was too old to be young forever, there was one whose failure

Would drag her out to the desert littered in nihilism.

She feared how at home she felt there,

Seeing her reflections not in any oasis, but in the land that once held such promise

But had been drained of breath and water

The dry ground being undistinguishable from her feet,

too tired to keep going, too broken to stay,

Ignoring that lone piece of metal, glaring from her fingers,

Being covered in the dried and drained land,

Hiding away the lie that was stuck to her,

Fingers swollen with the untapped sap,

Too thickened with sorrow to be drained easily,

Growing into her skin, scarring over,

Ingrown faith, digging itself under her skin,

Unavoidable metal in a desert so bleak,

A Medal that brought prior pride

Now a blood clot in vain of surviving.

When people say “rekindle an old flame,”
I find it very misleading.
That flowery wording
Makes it sound so
Musical
So Promising

What it really is
Is that *** lighter
That you sparked
And resparked
And swore wasn’t empty
Before leaving in your pocket
Sometime ago.

When you found it,
you lit up,
Friction flicked that
Wheel
And watched that
Flame dance once more,
Enough to ignite one more
Toxic thought

Getting you high from the
Smoke
Clouding the past
Leaving you
Staggered
When your fingers
Bleed
Begging for
Fire

And you crack it open,
Look for what’s more
Not even smelling
Butane

Just smelling
Nothing.

It’s empty.

This Year
When your tear-filled eyes
are looking for
someone to fall in love with,

Make sure you look in the mirror.

I’m a cliché.
I’m a walking broken piece of glass,
insisting my glimmer is different
than all of the other fissures of society.
I seem to think there is something romantic
about living like I hate myself.
I am not only comfortable with being unhealthy,
I welcome it with kisses and perfume.

Living in the style of a Shakespearian play,
we are all tragedies,
Perhaps with a comedy thrown in the middle.

You and I,
We’ve been the
Lovers
In this
Divine Comedy
Far Longer than
Romeo or Juliet
Could bear to wait.

Yes, we have abandoned
The Unities of
Time
Place
And Action

So harshly,
That even we
Have grown into
A bored audience;

Searching out
Our Comedic Ending

But we’ve never really been
Good at timing.  

We’ve made our
Repeated Exits.

Always coming back
A Cue
Too early
Or
A Line
Too late.

Each time
Twisting words
And Actions
Trying to make
Each other fit back into
Our Plot.
But what if we are the truest
Star Crossed Lovers

As our plays don’t even
Have the same
Title?

It has always been
“To be with eachother
or
To Not be with eachother”

And I really, really don’t want
To end like Hamlet.

But the fault seems to be
In the stars,
As each of our
Actions
Seems to seek
More and more
For a resolution

That neither
Our
Stage Directions
Nor
Lines
Seem to offer.

We round ourselves out
With table work
And character development

But with each interaction
We find that we are
Static, together.  

It seems as if
We were a rough draft,
Left unfinished.

So we stand on this
Threshold,
Clinging to another possible
Classic.
But dissolving into the oblivion
That all
Unfinished works of Art
must face.

We are less than a tragedy,
As our deaths are silent
And no one will ever weep at our tale,
Simply because it will never have been told.

At my brink of oblivion,
I want you to know
Our story should be a history,
Simply a reflection
On the fact
That we were
Not fiction.

Lower than
King Henry
And
King Charles,

But Still,
Real
Like
A Golden Crown
For which we did not ****,
But simply pleaded
To no avail.

I just don’t know how to be alone.
All I find comfort in seems to be that too clear liquid
that smells
too much like rubbing alcohol,
but tastes
like relief in a bottle.
It burns down my throat
but it feels like a heaven
I didn’t have to die to get to.
It’s peace in a place of chaos.
A pool in the midst of summer’s fire.

We knew it wasn’t over
Because our eyes
Always found
Eachother’s
Before they hid
In the cinderblock
Across the room.

I hate Alcohol

The burn down my throat
The immediate feeling of impending *****
The way it makes my face all rosy

I hate Cigarettes

The taste of the tar filming my lungs
The heat at the back of my mouth
The cough that stays longer then the flame’s invitation

I hate You

The weeks of silence during your antisocial comas
The love proclamations left unsaid
The line that you’ve so carefully scalded  between us


It’s 9:27 PM on a night that feels like Fire

I am Drunk already
I am Chain Smoking your brand of cigarettes
I am Praying for anything at all from you

I hate that.

You'll never say
"I love you"
Just like
I'll never say
"I'm Happy."

Because our words are bullets
And
Neither of us
Can handle
The recoil

What if
Our lives
Aren't
Bulletproof

These thoughts
Will rip through
Their centers

Exploding
Outward
Downward

Shattering our Foundations

Making us fragile

And we will fall.

Our best hope
Being that the wind
Blows us
Into each other

Standing

Ambivalent
From
Death

But the winds
Are breaths
Of
Our demons

And they
Only
Breath for destruction

They are
Dragons of Warfare

So we sit
In our
Ceasefire

Wondering
How long
We can
Hold down
The fort

Treading on
Unmarked territory

We try
To watch
For ***** traps,
But they lay on
Places most beautiful

And I can't help
But aid the
Enemy,

Revealing
The chinks
In my armour
As I attempt
To nuzzle my way
Into yours.

But it is in
The dead of night
That your enemies
Come,

Monsters
Filter your dreams
To darken
Even the
Lightest peace.

Your demons know
How to
Push you
Past
Where you thought
You could go
To a place
That looks
Too much
Like a haven.

They can
Turn your
Own words
On you

And make you
Feel like
you are on
A suicide mission

Their voices
Whisper
So clearly

"What am I even fighting for?"

And suddenly
No cause
Seems worthy enough

And you
Lay down your arms
Because

This is not your first time at war.

You know these trenches.

You feel the shrapnel
Ringing out
Through your bones

And in these
last moments
Of
Utter Defeat

You think
To yourself
How you would
Give
your
life

To go back
And
Release the Trigger

Because
How could
This fight
Be worth
The limbs
And
Hearts
You've broken?

So I stand
Before you

At
full attention
Swallowing
My bullets.

I
Am
Not
Scared
Of
War,

But yours
Is a casualty
I cannot dismiss.

And though
I believe myself
A Revolutionary

I am
Choosing
To
Pick my battles,

Which proves
To be
My civil war

Defying myself
For my
Adopted Cause.

Before,
I could not decide
If I was
A lover
Or
A soldier

And now
I've found
You've
made
me
Both

A paradox
Similar enough
To

I'm not happy
Like
You don't love me

You are both suffocating.
He finds his air in the space that he’s not getting,
You find it in the words that he's not saying,
You both turn blue.

You are both unhappy.
His face makes that burden lighter,
Your face is just another one on the pile.
You both see the meaning in the word “crush”

You are both looking for an escape.
To him, you are a cage,
To you, he is the key,
You both are trapped.

Both eyes stand open,
His are mahogany with rims of gold and flecks of amber,
Yours are brown,
Neither of you are color-blind.

You both share the same humor,
Your laughter is loud and carries,
His laughter is music and dances,
Both of your stomachs hurt.

You both sit silently,
He enjoys the quiet,
You enjoy his presence,
Neither of you speaks.

Quantum physics scares the **** out of me
Well it’s not really just quantum physics
It’s everything that stands in between its letters
It’s both the solutions and the questions that frighten me most
I was 12 when I first had a panic attack about eternity
I was in the shower, writing thoughts in steam
When all of a sudden
I was suffocating on forever
And showered with thoughts of before time
The all around terrifying notion of timelessness
Caused shivers that felt like our heater had gone out again
Tears rushed down my face
Faster than the speed of light
Not that I knew what it was
But it felt like lightening filled my body
From that moment,
I learned my truest fear of unanswerable questions
As I grew and grew wary
I took less showers in hopes
I wouldn’t find my fears
Swirling in around my ankles
Clogging up the drain
Lingering there
As the only thing that I could
Never wash off of me,
Never flush away

As time moved on with
A sureness I could never have
I floated amongst the thoughts of
Others so as not to drown in my own
But as night comes
So others rest
And as others rest
The Fearful attempt to count sheep
But even the sheep begin to wonder
About the unfathomable
And before I know it
I’m screaming into my pillow
Blaming the sheep for my restless nights
Insisting I’m not crazy
Insisting that wool blankets are the problem
Picking problems to bring me to now
Problems that make the present
Matter more to this masochistic brain
Than the questions that I should never have asked

Unanswerable, I’d repeat
I’d resolve
I’d allow myself to toy the word around,
Flick it around in my mouth,
As if to keep it too busy to ask more,
But also to make the original questions taste so sweet
That I never wanted them to leave my mouth
So I swallowed them
As if to indulge my taste buds just a little longer
But they sat in my stomach like seeds
With time they grew up my throat,
Watered with theological and scientific discussions alike
The first time I was told that my questions, could have a solution,
My stomach lurched into my throat
Now was the time
The questions were uprooting, ready to grow out in this world
But my jaw was taut
And refused to let others be haunted
So the vines
With no where else to go
Moved with intention
Past my mouth,
Behind my eyes
Into my brain
It had taken over
I became my questions
Rooted in the pit of my stomach
Paralyzed by the pain of
Wooden rigidity
Each move dictated by the unbending will
Of an oak tree caged by iron
Questions acting as a fungus
Rotting out happiness,
Killing the mind
That had formed the seed in the first place
I was immobile in my fear and
Planted in my questions
Unwilling to explore
And so the tree stayed
And I saw the world through
Shaded light
Always careful not to climb
Too far up
Too far in
Thankful for the fact
That not many aspire to
Plant seeds
Let alone
Climb trees

By the time I first saw you
Many rings had formed
You were passing through crowds
Like you walk through forests
Letting things be
What they were
And
Watching people act as they may
Imagine my intrigue
As I saw the callous on your hands
Smelled sap on your breath
I felt a friendly fear
In your eyes
But your hands
Did not look pained
Only worn
Still with care
Only when you spoke
Did I feel the logic in your branches
The whips of your leaves that
I had refused to grow
You were questions fully blossomed
You had leaves made of
Wormholes
And
Budding flowers of dark matter
And as I drew my trunk back,
Insisting I was allergic
I got lost in your bark
I found possibilities
Buried amongst your ridges
I soon found a taste so sweet,
It brought shame on my appeasing mantra
Without control
Like forces of nature tend to be
I grew into you
Yet still,
It was not the color of your leaves
Nor the feel of your vines that took me
It was your ability to blossom
Your permission of exploration
The blossoms, though pleasing to the eye,
Grew through your watering and sunlight

As if by some evolutionary revelation,
I turned my face upward
And found the warmth of the sun
Didn’t have to burn me
I opened my body up
And felt a comfort in the waters that
I had once felt would drown me.
The budding flowers I had let wilt
For so long
Arose from my branches,
Now growing toward the stars
With a few more rings
Of sunlight and starlight,
You’re much better at blooming than I,
But with questions now being watered,
My trunk grows with possibility
I may never grow to such great heights
Or fully know the universe beyond
But I do know, that no matter
The truth
If the wormholes
And multiverses
Are as real as
The Redwoods
And
Cherry Blossoms
I’m infinitely pleased
That I’m in this universe,
Sharing starlight,
And questions,
With you.

Today I went on a treasure hunt.
Not in search of one-eyed *****
Or
A new life for myself,
But rather
The old one.
Not for the sake of nostalgia
Was my search,
But for a poem.
The words of someone else
That you thoroughly believed
Carried your heart
Into my own ears.
But I was deaf back then.
Before I developed my selective hearing,
Insisting on my revelation miracle.
Until I
Limited my ears
Only to hear
Your lamentations and tongue-lashings;
Before I chose to
Blind myself
To the
Kindness
Hidden behind your fear.
In our prehistory,
You sent me
A piece of your heart,
Still sopping with heartbreak
Beating with rejection.
You sent me
Someone else’s poem
And now I wonder,
If you knew
You were planting a seed
That when watered,
With months of silence and
Countless looks that passed right through,
Would grow into a beanstalk
That I would climb
To reach back into
Our
Brothers Grimm Love Affair.
With no happy ending in sight
I stepped higher,
Knowing what turmoil I had left
Above.
I awaited the curses we cast
And the wishes we wasted
And I was poised for war;
With my armor coated,
Repellent of
Sarcasm and aggression,
I marched back to look at our battlefield
Ready as any warrior.
I was not ready, though, for memories
That looked as appealing
As Prince Charming,
With the face of
A queen.
No, my love
We did not have a
Happily ever after
But, our
Once upon a time
Wasn't half so wretched.
We were the
Fairytale in reverse.
Meeting at the ball,
In all our glory.
Leaving breadcrumbs
Back to the life that was familiar;
The ones that we didn't realize
We were running away from.
But at the ball,
Looking more beautiful
Than any princess in all of the land,
I met you
On your throne,
Refusing to Rise
In all your queen-like splendor,
Hearing from my
Little bird
That you would request
My presence.
I, your humble maiden,
Approached with
The caution of
A girl who only had
One shoe,
Breaking under the weight of memory.
And while you
Were offering me riches,
I was playing
Goldilocks,
Trying to find the home
That was just right
To rest my heart.
Little did I know
That I had bumped into Rumpelstiltskin,
Thinking he was gold
Luring me away
With me thinking
My heart was sold.
Only now
After I found
That gold weighs
Far too heavy
On someone
Who's only just grown wings
Is it that I find the moral of this story.
And so,
As I gaze at you,
With your now fair maiden
I say a solemn
“Thank you”,
For sending
Your love letter
In another's handwriting,
Because,
Although I never struck it rich,
I realize that the treasure was not in the
Happily ever after,
After all,
But all the magic
In Between.

Part of me will never forgive myself
for not following through on the promise I made to you

But another part
knows that you wanted me too
Forced me to

Part of my brain was already on the way to the store
to get cupcake making supplies

when the other part of me,
remembered that you don’t have a sweet tooth

Unless the cupcake was laced with misery,
there was no way you would sink your teeth into it

I wonder why you had wanted confetti cake
when all you know is grey

I wonder if you were hoping that I could bake some color
back into your throat

so that your own voice
mattered to you again

I convince myself that things are better this way
but it is like wishing on a cake the day after your birthday

Forced and futile
though appreciating the sentiments.

I would have given you the universe baked deep
inside of the cupcakes that were my proof that I could be worthy

To tell someone you love them,
You must first gather the words.
You must search through the weeds in your brain,
Until you find just a few flowers,
That are the right colors to fit your sentiments.
Once you have plucked the love stained roses,
You must shave off the thorns that remain attached,
Standing as barriers between your words,
And the soft flesh of their ears.
By the time you have arranged this bouquet of a phrase,
Into and order that is lovely enough to give,
You will be forced to notice that you are bleeding.
And now, you might turn around to search for a bandage,
Realizing that you have given yourself all the care that you can.
Now, you will fear that the blood on your flowers has poisoned them,
And made them unworthy of offering.
But before you have time to realize,
Your heart has taken control in an attempt to keep pumping,
And spatter the floral crime scene into midair.
You will sit and stare at the evidence of your frailty,
When you see a garden blossoming before you.
And the petals will fall from their lips, as they open their mouths
To swallow the words you have bestowed upon them.
And the next time their mouth opens,
Out will pour violets that are colored with bruises.
You will taste the richness of purple as the scent of springtime shows you
The seeds of your words growing into a world
That was well worth the Briar ******.
Somehow, you will find in your garden,
Lilies and Sunflowers,
Tulips and Hydrangeas,
And some you had no way of knowing.
And then you will realize,
That you alone could make Roses,
And they alone, Violets,
But as your stems intertwined,
You made something that goes beyond
Gardens
Or Forests.
You created a season that
Goes beyond Springtime.
Your meager rosebloods
Have flowered into
A New world,
The only world,
Where the harvest is fuller with every kiss,
And sweeter with every caress.
This world will call for care,
And be in need of upkeep,
But you will always find more seeds to plant,
And more room to grow.
Because although this world has
Been watered with Blood
and Planted with bruises,
It will grow far beyond damage,
and fill you with the spirit of the very first rose,
And remind you,
What each petal meant.

Thank you for validating
the debilitating fear
I had of losing you.

At least I know I'm not crazy.

Or at least I know I wasn't.

Yesterday was your birthday

All day, my hands weighed me down

With the itch to text you to wish you a good day
With the need to grip a steering wheel, navigating me to your house
With the idleness feeling sinful as I wasn’t baking you confetti cake
With the feeling of being misplaced against anything that wasn’t your skin

To keep my hands busy I piled memory into a grinder
And
Ground
Ground
Ground

Turned the parts as if I was winding up a music box
Because this sound was full
In comparison to
The pit of my stomach that was still waiting to
Share your birthday cupcakes with you

When the flashbacks filtered into my brain
The high was pulled lower still
By the weight of my hands
So that all I could do was cross them
And pray a prayer worth all of the birthday gifts I’ve ever given

“Please, God, on this day make him forget himself.

Please, God, let him find a sweet tooth for things other than the melancholic poison he puts in his coffee

Please, God, let him not remember the time when he broke open too wide and let me slip out of him

Please, God, allow him to feel something, on this birthday, even if it’s just his birthday candle blisters

Please, God, give him his heart back, as it is buried in the past that I was never gifted to know

Please, God, let me not weigh him down with a guilt seed that would root him to a chapter in his life that he wishes he could rewrite

Please, God, let me stop dreaming of him.
I know what it means when I dream of someone.
I know it’s your way of wordlessly telling me I’m being thought of.
Do not let him think of me.


Please, God, fill the parts of him that his worker’s hands have carved out of himself so cleanly.

Visit the wounds that sit in his posture
Will his veins to carry his soul back to his heart

Remind him that his sadness is his own special brew
That he continues to sip at his leisure

Help him understand that feeling lonely
Comes from his own brain that remembers isolation better than love

Please, God, give him
A better year.
A good year.
A year when his time won’t be stolen by someone so insignificant
That he has to translate her words into the language of gibberish,
Until they mean nothing at all anymore.

Please, let him find someone.
Please, let that person captivate him.
Please, let that person know him.
Please, let that person sit in bed with him and feel their good fortune in their bones.
Please, let that person see the moon in his fingertips and realize that they can control the tides, if he wants them too.
Please, let him smile at this person, in ways that would be ugly in pictures, but beautiful in my memory.

Please, God, let that person be HIM.

Please, God, if you won’t cut the ribbon to the start of his new life, at least give him the scissors.

He will say “No, Thank you.”
He will say he does not need your help, because he knows the power of his paint brush,
and that he is too busy washing color out of his brushes to take hold of the harsh metal,
And then he will make confetti of your offer.
He will shred every pleasant thought that comes his way.
He will cut himself open and gaze at every beautiful thing, insisting he sees the wonder.
He will not see the wonder.
He will say he understands the things that live inside himself.
But he will turn their volume down
And tune deeply into the metallic music of sorrowful hollowness
He will go to extreme efforts to ignore the starting line that sits just outside of his comfort zone.

But, God, Please,
Send the trees to trip him
Make the animals chase him
Let him
Throw tantrums that are disguised as the silent treatment

But wrap him up in his ribbon, so that the only way he can move
Is forward.
Remind him that the scissors are always in his hand,
And he needs to learn that
They need not destroy.

Make the clouds rain on his new life,
And remind him that he has a knack for watercolors.

Lure him with oils
Guide him with spraypaint

This Year, show him the paint that
Will reteach color to him.

This year, let him understand that colors are bright,
But not the enemy.

Let him not fear red from the times that he bled,
Let him not cast away yellow, because the sun got in his eyes,
Let him not hate blue, because he almost drowned.

Build in him a reservoir for happiness, that could sustain him through this life that has already been too tragic.

God, on his birthday, please indulge these heavy hands so that they may not cross the fingers for his return,

Because God, it was not I who was born today,
And it was not me who was stiffed on birthday cake.

And though this prayer is selfish,
It is the only thing I can give him,
That he cannot refuse.”

And as I looked down to see my clasped hands, I couldn’t help remember
When one of them was yours.

And for my final birthday wish to you ,
I hoped that only your sleep
Could be relieved of the white knuckle tensions of restlessness

So that you may sleep, and know the peace that I felt,
When I slept next to you.



Happy Birthday,
I miss you.
Happy Birthday,
I’m sorry.
Happy Birthday,
This is selfish,
But Happy Birthday,
So were you.

Don't worry about making excuses,
I've already done it for you.

I hate the taste of American Spirits
But my lips crave the taste of you.

I started smoking when you left me
Swore I would stop when it stopped hurting
2 Years Later,
I inhale
as I realize the only thing that stopped hurting
is the burn in my lungs.

I know you loved me because
You taught me the solace in solitude
Acting as a protector from
The parts of you that were
Waiting under your skin
To leave me broken

You broke me open like an egg
Ate my affections for breakfast
Threw the shell in the trash
No more use to you anymore

She looked in the mirror
And saw flecks of his broken soul inside herself

I tell myself it will be okay
As I sit in my room
Clutching my hair at the root
Quivering uncontrollably
Feeling the loneliness run over my skin
Knowing once I break through
The world will stop being monsters
That wear your memory like a Tombstone
Howling at the moon like a cat in heat
I understand what withdrawal feels like
Except my drug is quitting me