your mind is a forest, and i
want to carve my initials
onto every tree

you've always reminded me of alcohol;
the way you are sweet,
yet you still make the cuts in my mouth burn.

you are the smell of cigarette smoke,
to a rebel teen with asthma.

I haven't written you a poem in a while.

your indecision gives me indigestion.

I don't need you, I want you.
I want your skin close to mine
and your lips interlocked with mine.

yes, these are all things you need to hear.

I am scared of the "l word"
but we both know that's what this is.

I'm too scared of redundancy
to write your name.

maybe I need you.

"Life's not fair" you used to say.
I told you that life isn't fair for anyone which is what makes it fair for everyone.
I wondered if my words had reached you, if you saw anything past the horizon, why you read so many books.
I wanted you to go outside and play, to cause some trouble, to kiss a boy or two. Instead you locked yourself inside a world of solitude where your only friends were the characters of the tales you weaved in your head as you read.
You had tossed away many of my expectations, my hopes, of fathering a girl. You gave me no boys to intimidate, possibly to scare away. I never once had to wait for you past midnight, after hearing you sneak away. How I yearned to help you pick out your dress for each or one of your school dances. I would see you draped in a black scarlet silk, shoulders and back exposed enough to tease any young mans heart, yet only slightly. Mid back would suffice. The dress would hover inches away from your ankles, and this is where my influence may have been involved for I never once saw you wear high heels, anywhere, to my joy. I wouldn't have apposed ***, but I'd let you know just what your mother went through having you. I'd tell you how she smiled before she died, exhausted, saying without speaking a word, it was worth it. But only when you're ready. I wanted to explain condoms, embarrass you with a banana, but these things somehow you already knew.
I don't blame you for being you, my dear, no. I just always had an image in my head, that you erased and redrew. I've grown up believing every experience is a lesson, every person a teacher, and every star another reason to love. How I loved watching you grow, even though I always wished for you to experience, something, more. I'm sorry I wasn't the father I had imagined I'd be. I just, had never experienced such loss. Your mother, without realizing it until she was gone, was my life. I adored her beyond reason. You look just like your mother as you read. When I would pass your room, seeing you in the crook of your window reading whatever book you were reading, it was as if I were looking back in time. Another gift you gave me without ever knowing it.
I hadn't meant to be so silent, so distant. Is that how you learned to keep to yourself, was it so easy not to laugh? You were always quiet as a baby. I can't remember what your cries sounded like, they were few to never in between. Perhaps we taught each other, yet your eyes were always filled with age. How you knew without knowing, scarred me. You frightened me child. I felt but a boy in your presence.
A worthless father, I know, intimidated by his own child.
But how I have always loved you, how I love you still.
How I wish I could tell you, just once, before you left me like your mother.
Do the dead listen when the living speak?
Is it worth hearing the cries of an old man broken once too many times?
Darling, tell your mother hi for me, tell your mother, I'm sorry.

It was dark and you were doing summersaults
As the church bells rang out in the park
And your dress was tangled under your feet
The circuitry of your emotional shadow was lurking in the backdrop
Like a less important family member in a customary photo
The dark was a haze covering us like coffins
With your hopes and aspirations buried in them like ground water

I hope you will remember someday this happened
And it will come back like a prodigal at his wits end
Embedded in your drawstrings
Like sound waves in a pitch bend

419

We grow accustomed to the Dark—
When light is put away—
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye—

A Moment—We uncertain step
For newness of the night—
Then—fit our Vision to the Dark—
And meet the Road—*****—

And so of larger—Darkness—
Those Evenings of the Brain—
When not a Moon disclose a sign—
Or Star—come out—within—

The Bravest—***** a little—
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead—
But as they learn to see—

Either the Darkness alters—
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight—
And Life steps almost straight.

Palms unite, a huddled crowd
And thumbs convene, as lips

A language native to the hands
This meeting of the fingertips

One by one (like stars) aligned
A congress of the quietest kind

For eyes it will unfold, unwind
Unheard, and yet, the word, defined

I have been inside my head for the past few days. Human contact has not taken me out of it like it typically would. My eyes have sunk deeper into my skull because of the lack of sleep, the more insomnia medication I take the less I sleep and I would think it would be the opposite. Perhaps it's the meals I've been missing, or maybe it's the people I've been missing, but either way I think my eyes have gone looking for something to fill this empty chest. If my heart is there, then I can't feel it beating and that's a terrifying thing to experience. They say the body's natural calming system is to listen to itself breathe and understand that oxygen is entering your lungs and you are alive. But I find that to be a rather uncomforting system. I have never wanted to be alive so why should my lungs working bring me any sense of equanimity.
I spent half the drive home swerving last minute out of the way of light poles because i kept remembering that i wanted my sister to have the car when im dead and my parents shouldnt have to pay to fix it. I have ****** up my life immensely and i cannot fix it nor restore it to its natural order. I am left with broken pieces and i cant tell if its of others or just myself so i'll settle for both and apologize to everyone. I have cleaned my entire room 6 times. I have painted my nails. I have a nice dress picked out. All that is left is calculating the amount of pills i need to take to greet my friends in heaven. If there is one. I sure hope there is not a hell because i never did well in the heat. I think i know why suicide is a sin, because life and death is the only thing God can control and by killing myself i am beating him at his own game.