Write the pages,
catch the leaves.
Listen with your ears
because your heart doesn't care.

Open your mouth, feel the shock, disbelieve the surprise.

Read, but don't get too lost.
Remember the words you don't understand.
Love the protagonist,
But remember he will die.

Pay the man, ******* with the man, smile at the man.

Hold her hand and look her in the eye.
It shows confidence.
It shows self-worth.
It hides the shadow.

Write the obituary, scrap together the pictures, decide on calling hours.

Don't forget the kiss.
Don't forget how euphoric her soul feels when it (tries to) touch yours.
Don't forget to breathe.
Don't forget to keep the mask on.

Awake, dress in black, hold back the tears.

Don't act surprised when she doesn't call.
Don't look twice if Spring is late.
Don't stutter if the publisher says "no".
Because it will happen.

Greet them, hug them, kiss them on the cheek.

It's okay if you like winter the best.
There's something so inviting about the barren branches.
It's okay if you keep the shades down in the summer.
The sun can't listen to your vivid nightmares.

Kneel for her, grasp her hand, pray for salvation.

I can remember when a cup of lemonade or hot cocoa
solved any possible conflict in the world.
I can remember when I would laugh
and actually mean it.

Say your goodbyes, listen to the dirge, drive in silence.

And what does this change mean for us?
I think as we draw further from this idyllic place,
we long for that final state;
we long to rest and feel no pain.

Dig, dig, dig.

Dig, dig, dig.

A person, a thing, a conversation.
A feeling, a cloud, a heartbreak.
Another day, another day, another day.
Do you remember the last day you felt rested?
Do you remember the last time you heard silence?


Silence.

I wasn't born ready
for a faulty diagnosis
or bare shoulders.

My hand was born unsteady-
sweating like a prisoner tortured,
and always forgetting left from right.

Just like you
I was placed here.

You with a broken spine,
an affinity to wine
or a love lost too soon.

For me,
it was less.

A spine mended,
some superstition suspended,
but wires that have never connected.

I don't know
if we'll ever be ready.
But that won't ever stop me
from attempting to keep my hand steady.

there are so many knives in my skin that I swear I might be sick.

I am not sick.

I am human.

I can't trust water by it's state of matter. Just because it can go down doesn't mean it's easy to swallow. If it echoes, then it's at least partially hollow. Don't try to start a conversation after everything when you still echo through canyons and mountain ranges.

All of the flames are far too warm to touch, but I need the light to see and to be okay.

------

*ignore my ugly and come back to me

a month is passing
while your tongue is losing grace.

When you stand in a cornfield,
you cannot see your sisters,
who lie on the other side,
enjoying the butter
and smiling.

Time is passing,
and closing my eyelids
does not erase your faces.

I haven't had enough to eat today,
or in weeks.

Keep looking,
keep tasting.

A month has passed.

While your faces lose grace,
I will tear the stitches
off of the straitjacket
you threw on the back porch.

--

I love you.
I am better off without you

.

Hello.
Really have you cared?
Spare it.
I'm waiting for my real conversation.
For my real moment to connect.
Because I haven't ever.
I haven't ever felt that,
that sweet euphoria of intimacy. Of
enlarged pupils.
And apathy towards sweat.
And birthmarks.
And gaps in teeth.
And oversized guts.

I have told you
That love is the first of the emotions,
And the last.
Whatever lies in between,
Is a fatal confusion.
It fills the space.
And whatever that means to you,
is.
And that's okay.
Because
We cannot be told what it is.
We must fight.
And we must bleed.
And we must lose sleep.

For the last, most true level of enchantment
is enlightenment.
Enlightenment is finding this love.
It's scratching and
it's clawing and
it's kissing and
it's miserable and
it's the best thing you'll ever know.

And if you don't know,
you will.

So despite all of my hollow hellos,
and yours,
You are not devoid.
You are just scratching.
You are just clawing.
You are just kissing.
You are just enduring the misery.
Because you are here.
And you will.

l(y)i(e)ng,
providing,
and comp-
romising (together).

It is a sweet scent of a drive with no windows.
It is a hint of the things you wish you could accurately reminisce without putting clouds over the whole scene, even where there was shade and everyone was comfortable.
It puts every thunderstorm into a purse and throws it across the room and further away from hearts because what else lies in that purse is nothing in comparison to the soul that bears it.

When you lose it,
it is a nosebleed
that cannot ever stop
pouring.

The apples tumble down the tree
We swim in the green sea.
That idyllic place
where the camera lens reflects
the sunlight against your eyes.
And doesn't predict our demise.
Or any little fights in between.
No arguments
about the shirt on your back
or the ***** you lack
or the picking up of the slack.
Who wants to hear that?
I want to be back on that picnic day.
No way.
No way anyone this perfect could love me.
No one so free.
No eyes as clear as the sea.
And that one time you pretended to be Ashley.
(How fun was that night?
You got us into bars,
played guitars,
and brought me to Mars?
****, what was in that?)
Don't ask me again,
why you think it isn't worth it.
The touch of her nose
some witty verbose
her hips like a rose
and that little way that she hiccups if she's had a little too much to drink and she starts to laugh really, really hard and it just kind of comes out and then you laugh harder and it just gets worse.
(I can't make this stuff up.)
I'd like to think of all of those things.
And I think you would too.
If love wasn't what we are fighting for,
then do we even have anything to lose?
Some green bills,
some overpriced pills,
a trophy for us today,
a sense of narcissism to stay.
So just try to love.
Because despite anything above,
We have this.
A dauntless, morning kiss.
a star upon which to wish,
a euphoria close to bliss.
Something to always miss.
And the pancakes at that place
and that look on your face.
Erase.
Erase anything else you need.
Trust me.
When you find her,
it won't matter.
You'll fight, and you'll tire,
there won't be any fuel for the fire.
But man,
those eyes that are clearer than the sea
are clearer than anything to me.

summer is for holding hands, not smacking skin that's already excessively bruised with metallic rubber bands.

they don't help me shake off the nausea when I look in the mirror when a page becomes an ocean and a kiss hurdles over death to help keep the torch from giving up, from bleeding out and from gasping oxygen one last time and then realizing there's nothing left in the tank.

the woman behind the mirror can see me; we operated on such dependency that I couldn't even see you on days where I needed you the most. i never felt her hand meet my hand, certainly not with desire, at least. i try to hide my scars in discretion, like on the inside of my cheek just past where my top lip meets my bottom lip on both sides, and behind my knees where the tendons connect the big bones.

but when hide and seek was the game, you didn't ever even care to look in the obvious places, like behind the curtains where my ***** white socks were visible from rooms away.

the inside of your cheeks are so beautiful: i think they always will be for as long as we co-exist with the stars that created us. i hardly ever dream, but when i do, i'm singing to you in every pitch i possibly can about our static buzzes, gravity reversals, funeral rehearsals, and only temperature change that scientists can't agree on, which seems to always correlate with my entrance or departure into all the rooms in which I could breathe the same air as you.

empathy should be a plateau to rest on, not a mountain to climb, and so the winter is warmer and the days are shorter.

i'm not holding hands with anyone until I can take back the canvas that you laminated my fingerprints on to when you ripped them away from me without ever asking to do so.

It's funny how the heart can
eat away at organs like
a starving, rabid dog.

Your corroded liver
and decaying lungs
are contagious under a false pretense,
my dear.

Your skin reveals
the true hue of that
which makes you be.

You bleed nothing
but grace.
You slow nothing
but a perpetually accelerating pace-

and the ability to slow time
is not an abundant quality.

For you, the world is shrouded,
and such a distorted vision
is nothing to relax about;
I want to see the heights of
towering playground equipment
in your eyes.

You deserve nothing less than
all of the water in lakes I have ever seen.

You deserve nothing less
than continents
encapsulating the altruism
of each
fragile,

timeless,

exhalation.

indigo and other new colors
are darker than scars to me,
but scars are not martyrs.

"I do not know.
I am sorry"."

I AM SORRY
THAT

while cold amplifies the ardent aura of
authentic hearts,
reflections aren't always viewed in light,
and retrospect fails to open the front door
to all of the curls in your hair that you never
straightened.

Nature is a force that beckons us to reconsider our northern destinations-
southbound state of minds deny
that suns are only one color.

Suns and hearts are
indigo scars
of past lives,
reminding me
of why I refuse to see
color in irises.

the ideas we forge are figments of our ideal reality,
flirting with pieces of firewood that haven't fallen victim to
slugs
and a winter too frigid to ensure development.
fireplaces are
visual, only
visceral in the right
heat.

why should we assume that the temperature will ensue the continuity of rivers? why should the dry creeks,
unseen but
unsipped
be simply sighted as resting grounds?

who ever claimed that sawed-off tree stumps or broken windows were casualties?

rhetoric is a vase made of steel and it doesn't give me any of the realities that i breathe in like
my sisters without water,
holding on to hope.

Concrete
(pause)
cracks,
lights,
DOUBT,
and applause(?).

How do winds take the place of air?
How can love overcome
omnipresent despair?

The record is broken,
but beautiful.

the anatomy of your enamel is a gregarious combination of sunshine and pouring sweat.
Queen Anne's Lace is lining Prom West like a gospel chorus,
and your violets are screaming an unheard passion.

my hideous self-deprecation is a mute, static television signal in your ever-glowing radius-
a presence growing slowly and humbly, yet erupting all at once like a plentiful vegetable garden-
tomato plants, rosemary, and your Grand Canyon-eyes of brightness in full bloom.

it is here where your adjectives become potent antihistamines,
where these action words are soft fingernails on my scalp,
where your histories write textbooks of moon cycles and tiger lilies.

your palms on my chest and lips on the soft spots,
your amber irises are the key to the city.

I will dance with this infinity-
with each crack in your palm and rose in your heart,
under these golden, Northern streetlights for
the rest of time.

--

when the cold leaves,
I expect you to return,
but why have you ripped the hood off of your jacket?
Why have you put frostbite in a bucket under the kitchen sink?
You know that I'll never look because mirrors don't erode.
Mirrors explode.

I know I've never seen a true reflection,
and crutches are only temporary.
but the bloom of an iris or two
or the chemicals behind your fingertips on my scalp
or that drugs that made us feel slightly north of worthless
meant more to me than
mountaintops mean to mountains.

Or than nothing meant to you.

Hypocrisy is worse than
when the seasons take too long to change or
when butane and razorblades
can't scar deep enough.

My bones tell me
that I am a magnet to nothing,
too.
I know that apathy seeps into my veins while I sleep
just like you.

I know that skin only peels off if you want skin to peel.

I know that days where the sun illuminates my bedsheets through the blinds will only heal if I can eliminate hindsight and look into the light with enough intent to illuminate, not to blind.

I know that I am trying.

What hurts the most
is that you are capable,
but with instability, my love,
our love can never be stable.

i'm always lost in these riptide battles of moral attrition,
they're ripping at the sinews,
at oxygen,
oxygen,
oxygen.

what a colorful faucet to pour into our broken pieces at waterfall pace-
and yet,
we harvest buried wells like vengeful widows-
we eat our own by closing our eyes and we let it erupt only in the lightest of shadows.

WE ARE GIANTS IN THE MOST MAGNIFICENT LANDSCAPE.
waning the barren night with cracked palms and open cabinets,
lighting matches to the sky-

finding light towards the meaning of ink on blind skin,
the fading crests of falling waves,
and the lining of hearts too terrified to belt the hymns of the broken days.

with cracking fingertips,
we will clasp the fleeting shore
with euphonious oceans of foliage in our periphery.

You will
neutralize.

You will
(              )
what I
am running
from.

Please,
for the sake
of


life


(            ),

leave.

Please,
give me
equilibrium.

()


(    )

I do not need anyone
to complete me.

i've fallen in love
enough times
to realize that there
are two hands
on the clock.

there are enough paths to travel
where hearts can

intersect

and where they can
separate.

it is never too late
to bring in the freezing
from the cold.

i will not
let storms
erode your bones.

the lava-blended departure of the sun is not metaphysics,
but a pinpoint target into human hearts,
both empirical and whimsical,
both light out of my ultraviolet perspective and the asphalt hurricanes of my cortex

~


bursting to the window,
it BUCKLED.

she battled the nimbostratus with 7.4 billion souls on her solar-flaring side;

I sat idly by, desperately attempting to cool my tea and fight the demons on my shoulder.
The battle was a chainsaw pitted against a watermelon,
a senseless,
lopsided conflict.

(is the deck stacked or
are my shoulders only temporarily
disfigured?)

despite cinder block extremities,
my skin is still more mesh than concrete;
these summer nights were meant for picket signs
and bare feet.

as to perceive image without light,
I swam against a salty, magnificent current.

i wish that someday i'll be a shelf full of items that can't be replaced and not just a dresser full of perfectly good socks that have never been worn.

there exists validation in shoulders to rest on, but there's muscle there that i just never wanted to work for, and i think that's why winter binds me like a vice.

i didn't ask for any of the plants or pretty girls but i am enjoying my time away from the sauna and the microscope accordingly.

why doesn't the wind from the swings give enough momentum for us to pick up our feet or
teach us the difference between anger and fear?

my face is always in the dirt, like a colorblind politician or like some self-loathing gardener with no sun-screen.  i bleed daily to ensure i will not bite off more than i can stuff into my pockets while brothers and sisters can't make eye contact and the astrophysicists are left to the shelters.

my eyeballs have poured out onto the cutting board like broken faucets and we rubberneck but
who's actually here to see the show?

the bulk of the evidence:
the dust bunnies in the largest eyelid-corners,
the aching deltoids of the early mornings,
the limbic system of deteriorated thread and fragile glass-
suggest a verdict of dancing with customer services and inhaling the fumes of the daily commute,

rather than opening up hearts like delicate, antique quilts.

the discrepancy is not an evident ideology-
it's pulling the plug,
or attempting conversations on transgender rights with dad -

nothing is certain.

thus,
my cellophane heart will backflip,
my shins will swing and splint like
dull firecrackers-

patting backs of mothers who will not see their sons again,
pushing change while kicking up the sharp rocks,
running marathons i will never finish
because
my heart,
a skeleton with a rusted cape,
screeches my least favorite record on an endless loop.

my words aimed down the scope as heated blankets feel more like frostbite when hurriedly fired.

what if benevolence is not an adequate source of heat when the power lines topple?

when these ideas run rampant, they are an uncontrollable current-
a social trend picking at gnarled vines of dead skin,
a pair of open eyelids constantly looking at the only two pictures of you still saved on the cloud-
the remnants of your sapphire eyelids cutting my brick femurs like passive ash.

what if my words immortalized your fluttering agility-
a glass universally unbreakable?
what if the punctuation composted your faith like fresh coffee grounds in a drought-stricken garden?

would you aim once more,
or would the circuit breaker gather dust?

What a florescent, evanescent adolescence.
If only I could see.

I fall,
and I am fleeting.

Here,
there is no escaping.

Clutches
of care and emotion.

I'm terrified of such a notion.

Brown-
there is brightness
in such darkness.

There are hymns
hopefully strung on tombstones.

There
is
light
where
there
is
nothing.

These words are nothing but
bits of string
arranged by
the level of warmth they provide.

Stagnant feelings may divide.
I will smile if she smiles,
and work tirelessly
all the while.

the space we each hold as the single brick missing from the tattered foundation is neither an enthusiastic lightbulb, nor a wounded elk, rotting to the sound of the birds.

it's my favorite portion of dinner,
the determined phone cords wrapped around my weightless ankles, and the child in my head skipping stones on a purple, moonlit lake

we are uncomfortably wet grand-masters of the sandpaper landscape,
making sense of that nameless, empty space.

I am dead.
Why does my heart insist on beating?