with each of them I had endless conversations
that dragged into the night;
there was always common ground
and so many feelings were put to words
in those nights

and with you.
with you I have silence
I have the gentle touch of a hand
as we drink coffee and watch the sunset
from your house on the hilltop

with you I have smiles and lazy afternoons
when we lie next to each other
as I melt to the beat of your heart

with you I have the silent "I love you"
that doesn't need to be said to know it's there,
right there behind every touch

with you I have silence
*and it is the most beautiful sound I have ever heard

Don't you remember when the embers of the fire we burned
Tended to lend their distended heat to our dismembered concerns
About guilt the in the darkness past the attractive flames
That we built a stark distraction reactive to the shame
Of the past and the last active claim of aghast blame
For tame transgressions with vast, intercessive aims
It's not a game
I make no claim
to understand the rules of an impressive refrain on expressing pain
I've always been **** at making real appealing fires
So I gave it to you to take your ideals and desires
And make something that burned brighter and higher
Than anything our nights could ever really earn or require
But the wind had called a favour in
And winter walled that labour in
And so flames buffered and suffered
Fluttering, stuttered, they were scuppered
The ashes of our confidence now paper thin
Unreliable light will let the darkness in
It offers the undesirable, heartless spin
On this starless night we're tiring in
We can build it back up but the conditions are tough
In the build up to an admission that enough is enough
We always could give up and freeze to death still kissing in the underbrush
With Failure's frost seizing our last wistful breaths
and Hope's ghost leaving us to a listless Death
Heavy with regrets gasping a dismissed homesick song
I'm not ready for that yet, let's risk throwing another stick on
I want the heat and the light to cheat on the night
To melt the meat from my cheeks and let my heart ignite
So tonight let's reach a heat to set the past alight

Loneliness.
What is it?
It is a concept we so rarely describe in detail.
We've made up a specific word for it-
Three little syllables-
Just so that we can say it and be done with it,
And escape the contemplation.
But I know my own loneliness cannot be captured,
Cannot be encompassed,
By merely the word.
What is loneliness?
It comes in all shapes and sizes,
A space,
A lack,
That can be big or small,
Sudden or excruciatingly slow,
Sharp or fuzzy at the edges.
Hell,
It can even be comforting.
What is it about loneliness that is so insidious?
Harder to rid yourself of than fear
Or anger
Or even such tricky, barbed things as doubt
Or hope,
That stick.
Loneliness doesn't stick.
It seeps.
Steeps.
You stew in it.
It is beginning to occur to me that I don't believe,
Once one realizes loneliness for the first time,
That one is ever truly rid of it again,
Even for a second.
I think it is a permanence that we as a race refuse to acknowledge most of the time.
Some forms of lonely are fairly benign-
The little tingle on the edges of you, when you are home alone and the house is silent,
And for no apparent reason at all-
No sadness, no fear, no thought that is particularly unpleasant that you must drown out-
You nonetheless feel the compulsion to switch on the television
Even if you won't watch,
Just to break the stillness with a human voice besides your own.
Then there are the darker types, the truly ensnaring ones,
The lonelinesses born of the memory of times when,
Perhaps, you were less lonely,
Or even thought that you had flushed the feeling from your soul entirely.
Loneliness is an otherness,
An alien thing that lives in your heart,
That makes you question whether there is anyone out there who would have you
If they knew
What was on the inside.
There is the type of loneliness that creeps up on you and follows nipping at your heels like a shadow on the pavement as you move through your day,
Reminding you, whispering in your ear that here you felt less alone, and there, and that those places are full now,
Of emptiness,
Because those times have passed and not had the courtesy to clean up their cobwebs-
Memories linger in certain little spots, and collect like dust little pockets of loneliness that grab you all of a sudden,
The way forgotten spiderwebs stick in your hair as you move through an old house.
This type is jarring, disturbing, and
Afterwards I always feel the desperate need to wash away the feeling,
Scrub myself down.
There is the breed of loneliness that is a bit more genteel,
And curls cold at your feet like a well trained dog,
Formal and subtle, but constant,
Watching.
This is the sort that makes you feel just somewhat hunted,
When you try to sit in silence by a fire at night in your living room
And find that you must read a book to drive the stillness from your head.
There is the truly hollow kind,
The kind that has no courtesy whatsoever,
And actually slithers into you, inhabiting your heart and stomach and bones
As you try to fall asleep
With ice.
It is this kind that, if it is strong enough
(and you are weak enough)
For it to remain until morning
Forbids even the smallest human touch-
Every gesture of tenderness from another person
Makes this loneliness increase,
Every embrace, every handshake, every accidental contact of skin
Becomes unbearable,
And the afflicted shies away,
Perpetuating a cycle of vicious disconnection.
They all leave a little something cold, even when they recede,
In the core of you, that won't be dislodged no matter what you try.
Loneliness,
Like a cancer,
Can only be considered in remission,
And never truly cured.
For when given room to prosper even for the space of a second it expands and swallows up your thoughts
Until they whither with frostbite.
I suppose I shouldn't be shocked-
As humans we live side by side, arms linked with
Most of the things that will eventually **** us,
What's one more, cozying up inside our skulls,
Inside our hearts?
We have a partnership-
An entirely human concept-
With all that destroys us.
And so we live with out loneliness, like a second shadow.
What is loneliness?
I am still unsure.
I can only describe what loneliness does,
Not what it is.
*I think that maybe to understand it
Would be to die of it.

Solitude is the strength of separation.
The separation of self, from others, from all.
Within the crowds and between loneliness,
Solitude is power personified.

Solitude walks the streets in indifference,
Passerby’s smile or stare, no care.
The vacuum of isolation’s stronghold,
Breathes confidence, exhales ticking time.

Solitude is the mask of many,
And the face of few.

Solitude is the liar’s crutch,
And the King’s crown.

Be wary of Solitude, its power is profound.

I had this notion of wanting
to be more like oldself–
not more like myself, because myself
has become too sad and too hurt;
I remember oldself being so much more.
But where does one look for one's oldself?
It's not like I just hanged it out to dry
or hung it up on the wall next to a poster.
No, oldself has been scattered and beaten,
tossed along the path of nostalgia.
Bits of oldself linger among
sketchpads and sneakers, SEGA
and Lego sets and Star Wars.
It's back there with s'mores and scouts
and bonfires and books and
the belief that the big, blue world
was a place where dreams came true.
Oldself thinks that optimism
is the only option, myself makes a
note to self: that matter mostly
isn't true, as a matter of fact.
I can't always see oldself, it's buried
beneath six feet of dirt, gossip and rumors;
there's tons of stress and anxiety weighing
on its chest, dressed in a halcyon suit.
Oldself never used to worry
like myself does so often nowadays
but he also couldn't sing like myself can.
He had a wilder imagination than
myself could ever conceptualize,
yet I've exceeded so many of the dreams
that oldself had for my future self.
I often think to myself: what would
Oldself think if Oldself met myself?
And although I may not have turned out
exactly how Oldself envisioned myself,

I've grown and learned from Oldself
and now I'm proud of myself– a place
that my old self never thought I would be.

I painted my wrists black and blue hoping the colors indicated the underlying emotions locked up in 4 chambers spewing blood and oxygen throughout my body  
The dotted lines told a story of so much loss, you wouldn’t believe it unless you were there.
Sometimes the blade found its way, creating an opening with rich, wine-like blood oozing from a scratch and sometimes I had a hard time holding back but I always did because I never want to exist in a world that does not contain you.
Sometimes my insides burn up and I don’t know how to extinguish the flames that eat me alive, leaving nothing but char.
Sometimes the flowers growing around my lungs threaten to suffocate me and I can’t help but continue to water them because I don’t want anything else to wither and decay.
Sometimes your words drip like honey and I allow my tongue to lick every letter because I am head over heels for the sweetness that is you.
Sometimes my legs walk me to the finish line but my thoughts take me back to the starting point because nothing ever makes sense and there are multiple of options for why something might be the way it is, and all I want is for you to hold me.
Sometimes I’m feeling blue and black, while other times I’m the rest of the colors imbedded in a rainbow. I blow in full force blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, making you wish that I remain a sustainable part of your life.
I painted my wrists black and blue and reminded myself that my worst nightmares are nothing but that; nightmares.
I am the stars and I’m a field of roses swaying with the wind and I might flow against your sea but I’m asking you to caress my petals and be cautious of my thorns; as sharp and pure as I look, poison still seeps beneath my smooth, marked skin, and I am not aware of the damages my broken heart might ever create.