In the absence of love,
feeling heartily whole
in the cavernous loss
I make home of the hole
fill the space with the grace
and the feelings of feeling the loss.
Breathtaking the space between fingers,
enfolding in empty
artistic creation in jagged lungs
no longer breathing Them in.
How lovely to be loved,
but all the more in the lonely
to see both sides and survive
standing and shaking
and to love art all the more,
to grow in understanding
I'm understanding.
Left shaking,
still standing.

I  used to put the feelings in jars,
wrapping them with corresponding ribbons depending on the day
and lining them oh so neatly onto the shelves that line my cortex and home.
Never to say I wasn’t organized in one way,
while others cracked and flew apart in every which direction
hubris was a cheerful  hand to hold as I glided in and swept up the mess,
loaning out jars and advice like cookies.
The back of the head always tells the truth,
I had always known that the shelves were uneven and cheap,
the jars themselves feeble in constitution just like their buyer
and the ribbons were only for display and the whole system functionally flawed.
She is gone;
when the earth became somehow heavier in the loss,
the shelves cracked and crumbled,
the shelves loosened and lay askew,
the shelves were never mine to assume.
The jars came down in a fury,
the force sending shards in every direction and into every part of my brain,
shrieking from the direct hit yet continuing to plead ignorance to the whole **** system.
She is gone;
feelings used to make sense but now nothing does,
nothing is how is feels
nothing is what I wanted to happen
and something is Here,
Something was always waiting,
Something has toppled my jars and shelves
and left me alone on this earth to clean it all up
while She has joined the Universe and now can only be reached
in pictures we took on better days
and the dreams that keep me awake.
Something has come,
Something may have gone,
but Something has also changed me.
Without the jars I feel more free,
without the jars I am open
maybe it was the jars all along
that have always made me feel broken.

Justifiably empty as they leave,
and they do
frequent and few.
There was white I wore in photographs,
when I was careless, unaware of this
now even that has faded too.
Accepting contentment
takes root in place of resentment,
there is beauty in accepting the inevitable

i have not felt my hands
for a long, long while
the snow slaps my face
then gives a tender smile.
this seasonal depression
will linger in my lungs
long after the sun returns
to leave my hands no longer numb

I can see the flaws etched into this withered heart
along with a name you carved.
When I was small I would watch with ideas,’
and it grew within me
reaching out to stretch at the sun
they grow under the skin
ideas,
ideas of love and loss of which I was one.
Now I dream in parkways,
landscapes spreading out behind the lids of tired eyes
I only feel halfway
if I ever stopped,
I may die oh,
staring down this life like the barrel of a gun
yet I can only wonder
if you always knew me best,
watched me become old while I was still young

Whispers you’re no good for me
In the corners of my mind
Everytime i come back we fit so perfectly
But i’ve wasted too much time,
Stuck in orbit around you
The gravity around here
Just isn’t meant for a pair of two.

Every Time I crash back down
I run back into you.
Seasons change,
They rearrange,
Somehow we never do.
Frustrating, you’re intoxicating,
Shape up or ship out,
Just figure your **** out.

My love it rises with the sun
in bursts of brilliant color
it softly sings in breathless words
the praises of another.
My love is wild like the woods
and full of life and wonder
Through every day, through distance so dim
I know we are made stronger.
My love is never hurtful,
or only to myself
when a love so grand, so beautiful,
wasted with someone else.
My love it gives
until nothing remains
My love is a thunderstorm,
and darling, you are the rain.

Sacred Spaces,
where we met
Anxiety in places
that i left.
I am no longer afraid
of the emptiness.

Building altars
just to burn them all down
looking for a sign of divine intervention,
consume and surround
and I’d offer any sacrifice
except for Myself...
maybe i’m still learning
how to love and be loved
With this heart of stone,
These fragile lungs
Cannot survive on air alone.

Different faces
stare back from the ones I should know
I am aimless
I wander into your life with the full intent to go
I am a ghost
in this life I once knew.
I fill myself with others
and purge my head of you.

no one can sleep on a broken heart,
the pieces will pop your lungs
and flood your chest with regret.
no one stays up just to watch the stars,
they stay up to find themselves in the sky
(self centered *******, every one).
maybe i’m just too good at being bad,
But good is hard to find and far away
bad at love and here to stay.

Door slamming shut on us, my love
it’s time for bed I think and
Oh, my love, I’ve grown so cold to you
I’m sorry you broke my heart again.

We were driving in your car last night
the air it wasn’t right between us
Oh, I took a photograph of you
My love, in that light, in that light
things just seemed alright.
Time is running out I fear
this lullaby I wrote for you
to fall asleep to
is winding down, it seems unfair.

Oh, my love I’ve grown accustomed to
the light of loving you
and Oh, my love I think my heart’s in two
but I know I’d still give both pieces to you.

Smoke it fills my lungs with black and dust
I just close my eyes and trust
Because if you held the matches,
I would still  believe I set myself on fire.

Oh, my love I died again last night
it all caved in and while I cried
you came inside, you made it alright, alright alright.
And Oh my love, if you hurt me everytime
I’d run right back, rewrite each line
Because my love I love you so
Even when my heart has broke.

Every war i’ve fought,
entirely in my head.
If you had asked me 3 years ago,
By now i thought I would be dead.

My stomach fought me to shrink
through starvation and humiliation,
I only cried out
in a warrior’s retaliation.
My body kept on going
when my brain had given up
and the desperation spread to my skin
in the form of bruises and cuts.
Sleep stopped it’s spell,
replaced by my fears in the night
where they held me in their blankets,
yet I still screamed out for a fight.
Memories of years that passed
pretending they had power,
still I know they will fade away,
new ones taking their place each hour.
There are battles that take place,
they are part of me
and I have come back different,
I’ve accepted I am complete.

It’s the moment before
that last drop of rain
that you never thought you’d live to see come down.
It’s the feeling before
your whole life rearranged
when you didn’t even recognize the change.
When suddenly you have become strange
and at a loss for words
even when the script is open to your cue.
Every time there is a place
where you would rather be
and your sunset smile has turned flimsy
on your paper face.
The one’s you love
have worn you like a glove
now tossed aside and astride the thoughts
that by god this isn’t the life you wanted.
It’s only a feeling of course
you whisper as you realize
all your eternal sparkled summers had an end.
It’s a feeling you’re sure
the feeling of a string
separated from thoughts,
Lost.
This is the feeling of unravelling.

In that moment
a thousand poems fill my lips
Suddenly
I am too shy to speak;
Blue eyes and sunshine have become
the only words I could ever need.
I have come to know
The earth is not a cold, dead thing,
I no longer want to be afraid.
I get the sense that I forgot,
somewhere in between bruising
what beauty is truly built from.
Built from scarring skin,
reminding me constantly;
Love is not a weapon
Love is not hurt
Love is not to use against,
or harm,
or wreckage
but Love is a choice.
Every day,
To forgo the safety of feeling just okay,
step onto the edge of emotions
with a hand on your back
and trust that They will be steady,
They will be kind,
They will stay.

i opened my lungs
to inhale the solstice
as i slipped into my summer skin,
full of freckles and bruises
and a sadness that always rises with the new summer sun.
my smile turned upwards
like the now cloudless sky
sunburned feet move with quiet life and I,
I try to fit in
with my new summer skin
thoroughly unconvinced
it will fit until Autumn comes again.

As for the moonlight,
I confess I barely noticed
there’s a light that’s in your eyes
and i cling to it to be safe.
I know the world keeps turning
only to remind us we are all obsolete
but in this moment, darling,
all i care about is one thing.

I long to tell you everything,
my words are dull and fumbling
so take my hand instead and teach me
to dance to our hearts beating.
I know I’m cliche, naive to say
I swear by God we were meant to find one another
So i shut my mouth, now show me how
To fall into feeling and not recover.

i think i know the answer,
but i'm too afraid to ask
i'll replay the memories
and pray that they don't last.
shifting moods
that left me bruised,
now i feel callused and cracked,
suppressed stitches from years ago
that I forgot I had,
creeps up my throat and into now
to choke me with the past.

i want to hit my head against the wall
until these things fall away,
so i can sweep them under the rug
where they can comfortably stay.
haunted by a possibility,
in love with what life could have been
i shouldn't run away anymore,
though i've tried everything

Toxic people fill my mind
it' s all too much to breathe
their noiseless talking fills the air
and pollutes all that i see.
I planted rosemary in my mind
to replenish and release,
weeds came around and choked them out
along with positivity
I am small in my mind,
so much smaller than before
I tried to close my house from them
but they broke down my door.
The world is full of beauty, I think
I read it in a book
But voices whisper I am wrong,
Maybe I have been wrong all along.
Is goodness really all within,
And if so can it be taken?
I don’t want them to take my soul,
My heart is there’s for breaking.

I remember the way the ocean was deep
Like I recalled a dream.
I remembered the way the wind kissed my cheek
And I felt everything.
I remembered the grass between my toes
And crying with the rain.
I think I remember missing someone,
But I forgot it all again.
I remembered flashing colors
Like pictures on the wall
I remembered painting pictures
And throwing out them all
I remember so many things
I’d rather just forget
I remember forgetting things
I wish i could have kept.

I can’t remember what we blamed;
Fate, or time
Or you and me,
Or he or she
Your anger,
My pride
The fact that you would never
see my side.
Was it you or me
That started this flame
And tried to make that it hadn’t even started,
Never saw it
Ignoring our own charred hands
And broken faces
That looked back accusingly
Through mirrors long since cracked
Reminding us of everything
we thought we could forget.

Ship in the harbor, I’m leaving today
the sails are set,
I don’t know yet
where it’s going to stay.
Across the crystal water, I’m leaving today
the only place I know I’m going
is that I’m going away.

All the people at the station living out their day
I go to  wander and pray,
I wonder if any of them
have felt this same way.
When my trains pulls from the station I’m going away
Far from all the things I’ve known,
I need to get away.
When I’m gone
will it make a difference?
If I don’t come back
would you remember me?

Speakers at the airport calling meaningless names
I don’t care if it’s mine,
to me they’re all the same.
Pain grows smaller with runway lines, to the sky we take
flying today,
just to get away.

If I flew too high,
would you look to the sky for me?
If the ship went down,
would you look to the sea?

New city every day, finally I am away
I don’t speak the language,
I have nothing to say.
Life can be good whe you get away,
replaced with the longing
to find somewhere to stay.

November night so cold it shook our bones
Our friends out in the grass, singing new age songs
You kept talking about the stars;
I couldn’t stop staring at your eyes.
Who needs lights when the moon was so bright,
Even the insects felt something in the air that night.
In the light, it’s funny how far it seemed
When you sat by me on the couch
We watched a movie that made you laugh,
But all i could think was how close you were to me.
I was left behind to clear my mind,
I had no space for dreams
How could i dream when the only thing running through my head
Was your laugh, the grass, and the stars?
Now November ends but my heart was left in it,
my heart, your laugh, and the stars.

Frustration;
Something i haven’t found yet that continues to call.
Anxiety;
Walking up endless stairs that only shake when I move and only allow me to fall.
Desperation;
Let’s not sit around and pretend I’m not as sad as you all can’t care to think.
Peace;
The moment I realized there was nothing more I could do but hang halfway off the brink.
Restoration;
Skin tinged with spots and colors carefully healing as normal and new.
Exhaustion;
The sound as the tree finally falls in the forest everyone forgot they knew

This song hasn’t been worth picking up in 42 days,
and I’m giving in.
I’ve lived in my head all my life,
I had feared all my words had run dry.
But I felt in my mind
That all I tried to repress
Only comes back to me in waves,
And now i’m drowning and depressed.
So i’m opening up
And feeling, emotions are misleading.
I rioted for so long
I forgot my own name
This is a peaceful protest,
Indirect, i confess,
I sincerely miss disinterest.