I let them hollow me out,
(I didn’t want the insides anymore)
They gutted my heart, mummified my soul—
(So I will not decay anymore)

I have sanitized
my humanity, and now
I am immune.
(It’s lovely not to feel anymore…)

Life as a shell
is an existence surprisingly pleasant
but I almost miss
that defective little mind of mine…
(But the memories do not hurt anymore)

There’s a strange feeling of soreness, though,
that aches where I used to have a soul—
phantom pains of discarded passion,
but thankfully I do not hunger
(I no longer have a stomach anymore)

In summertime I waited for you
Longing idly under August heat waves
I carried my disappointment through
Autumn, and kicked the leaves
that piled like clutter on the ground.
Sometimes I’d get a word from you,
A drizzle of rain in my life of drought—
But the water didn’t last long,
And all I had were puddles of you
That dried all too quickly.
In wintertime my soul would freeze
and the pain would numb away,
I’d curse the wind and count the days
Until Spring Salvation came my way.

My most persistent friends
have become six hours of jetlag
and the fading buzz of airline coffee--
as black and unforgiving as our red-eye flight,
as we wander German streets-- Füssen,
where the air is always crisp
and graceful, even awkwardly emerging
from an ugly winter.
Neuschwanstein castle sits mockingly
in the horizon-- the locals pass it by,
as I, some baffled foreigner
from Nowhere, Ohio,
where the streets bear gas stations
and the shameless scars
of recent construction (always
building, nothing built)
stand in disbelief.

Our thirst brings Jenny
and I to a Getränkeladen --
I sip on my first taste
of Apfelsaftschorle
as a roaring crowd
of local teens barge in,
with the violence of
a tornado we'd see in Xenia...
They speak in a crude,
indistinguishable slang
that Frau never could have
taught us
in room 322

Jenny hovers mindlessly
by the door-- contemplating
a bottle of Coca-Cola,
as the teenage stampede
shoves her off to the side--
fleeing out the door,
having bought nothing,
as the storekeeper sighs in disbelief.

They tore through
such a quaint little shop
with such an aimless recklessness,
one wouldn't think
a centuries-old castle
looms nonchalantly in the distance...

I was thirteen years old
and clueless--
Ben, who I believe is now
in juvie, and Ryan
stand on either side--
dumpy teenagers
in baggy clothes,
speaking in a crude,
brutal slang
that was invented in its usage.
We loitered every street
that would tolerate us,
in these exhausted Ohioan
suburbs, we tore through sidewalks
bearing unremarkable houses
in a sleepy neighborhood
with no grand castles nearby.

Our lazy strides, our ******
banter-- from Füssen, Germany,
to Who Cares, Ohio--
whether there's Neuschwanstein
or a Speedway to conquer,
there's never anything to do at home.

*So wie ist das Leben...

My most persistent friends
have become six hours of jetlag
and the fading buzz of airline coffee--
as black and unforgiving as our red-eye flight,
as we wander German streets-- Füssen,
where the air is always crisp
and graceful, even awkwardly emerging
from an ugly winter.
Neuschwanstein castle sits mockingly
in the horizon-- the locals pass it by,
as I, some baffled foreigner
from Nowhere, Ohio,
where the streets bear gas stations
and the shameless scars
of recent construction (always
building, nothing built)
stand in disbelief.

Our thirst brings Jenny
and I to a Getränkeladen --
I sip on my first taste
of Apfelsaftschorle
as a roaring crowd
of local teens barge in,
with the violence of
a tornado we'd see in Xenia...
They speak in a crude,
indistinguishable slang
that Frau never could have
taught us
in room 322

Jenny hovers mindlessly
by the door-- contemplating
a bottle of Coca-Cola,
as the teenage stampede
shoves her off to the side--
fleeing out the door,
having bought nothing,
as the storekeeper sighs in disbelief.

They tore through
such a quaint little shop
with such an aimless recklessness,
one wouldn't think
a centuries-old castle
looms nonchalantly in the distance...

I was thirteen years old
and clueless--
Ben, who I believe is now
in juvie, and Ryan
stand on either side--
dumpy teenagers
in baggy clothes,
speaking in a crude,
brutal slang
that was invented in its usage.
We loitered every street
that would tolerate us,
in these exhausted Ohioan
suburbs, we tore through sidewalks
bearing unremarkable houses
in a sleepy neighborhood
with no grand castles nearby.

Our lazy strides, our ******
banter-- from Füssen, Germany,
to Who Cares, Ohio--
whether there's Neuschwanstein
or a Speedway to conquer,
there's never anything to do at home.

*So wie ist das Leben...

Sing the anthem of the lonley people, maybe we could find
eachother within a barren labyrinth
forged within our minds...
Say what you want, I still mutter your name
on these restless, silent nights, as I think I've forgotten your face...

It's a useless endeavor, to cure this void--
Born with a hole in my heart, I've stared like a ragged child
into vast and uncertain a universe
that will never hear my name, hopelessly trying
to learn its ways...

It's people like you and I, my friend, why seven billion isn't enough.
I've wandered to every corner, searched every stoic face
for an exception.
It's a loneliness that is incurable-- one that stares longingly out of windows,
stands silently in roaring crowds, sighs wistfully in empty rooms,
and weeps bitterly onto old bedsheets, watching and waiting as the world rushes by.

I kept your birthday
written in my calendar—
in a vague hope that by January,
we’d be able to speak again.
The naked skeletons of trees
bear the white virginal blossoms
of awakening springtime,
yet if you stared serenely
into the wind, you could still feel traces
of a bitter winter’s frost.

I try to search your eyes by
bashful glances, you withdraw
at every opportunity we could possible see
a trace of humanity within eachother.

You keep me well confined
within your silent tomb—freezing
away any warm-blooded soul
that dares to approach you.
Woman of ice, maiden of
annihilation— shrinking
into some faint white sliver,
waning into the vast night sky
of oppressive black.
Spring has come
for the rest of us, but
the ice never melted for you.
And If I weren’t certain,
you would only resist the light,
I would have tried to revive you.

The newborn leaves, the hopeful
blossoms—to you they are worthless;
your heart as bitter, and fatally
naïve, as the bleak winds of January,
your convictions as stubborn as permafrost.

I was an idle child, hiding silently
behind old curtains, concealing my gaze
to the rain-dampened street
that beckoned me beyond the window.

There was an unquenchable thirst, a burning,
Irrepressible drive, which had followed me
Whispering down the nape of my neck,
Provoking me, summoning me
To the uncertain depths
Of the flower-bearing forest.

It has followed me well into the age
Where the fancies of childhood
Are replaced
By *****, drunken nights—
hunting, scavenging, like some id-ridden
savage, for the fleeting taste of adventure
that was suppressed  with painful gratuity
as we grounded our souls, and our longings
into the confines of the world.