I put on a brave face.
I laugh.
I smile.
Hold everything in tight.

You love me?
With all of your chambers?
Yeah, right.
I wonder what mask you will wear tonight.

Thoughts of you fill my head as Hozier and his melodies fill the air.

Maybe one day this music won't remind me of us.

Maybe one day the screen of my phone will not be tainted by the residue of your words.

One day, the spot where my head hits the pillow will be clear of the impression of you, and I will wake up refreshed.

The fog will be gone.

You were a drug.

Narcotics
seeped into my veins with the mention of you.

Opiates
flooded my system with every whisper from your lips

Amphetamines
when your fingers brushed my skin

Ecstasy
when I tasted you

I was addicted.
Now I'm sober.

A human can sometimes be a boat,
Our purpose, to keep a soul afloat.

They poke a hole, defiance in their blood,
Causing in you a rush of emotions, a Perpetual flood.

Never again, you say once more,
Watching yourself walk out the door.

Two ears, two eyes
A nose
A mouth
A chin

Billions of combinations,
Not always showing what's within.

More than a face,
your soul shines through.
You're too busy to notice,
being so utterly you.

So mark my words, in your special way,
You will see your own beauty one wonderful day.

I miss you. I miss you so. ****. much.

I miss you with every step and breath I take.
But no.
I miss you more than that. So much more.

I miss your fingers entwined with mine, your thumb doodling patterns across my knuckles.

I miss your voice, the inflection and emphasis of your carefully chosen words, hearing you laugh when I laugh.

I miss your breath tickling my neck at 2 AM, and waking you at 3. Kisses, love, and challenges to follow.

I miss once-in-a-while 4 AM kitchen dances. Aaliyah serenading our modest rendezvous.

We believed it was the perfect time for a dance. Not quite morning, not quite night. But for us, it was just right. The essential in-between moment of blurred clarity.

I miss our blurred clarity.

Our oxymoron.

I was blindsided,
Hit in the back.
A ruthless attack.

Your adoration vanquished me.
It relinquished me,
from the agony of my dreams.

People we will never meet,
Faces we will never see.
Unbeknownst to us,
Wandering aimlessly.

I aspire to awaken hearts

I want the souls encompassing me to flourish.

To dance and sing and create a rhythm.

So when their spirits fly through those Pearly Gates, the fluttering of their wings will create a melody so sweet, even Van Morrison says it sounds free.

I need to let you go.
I'm asking myself how.

I have never left you.
How could I leave now?

I will love you always.
Now go on and take a bow.

If I were a doctor
with the finest education,
Zeppelin on vinyl
would be my only prescription.

Photographs sure carry a weight, don't they? The black and white and sepia tones speak with a voice that has known sorrow.

They tell the story of fifteen minutes between small talk and bad news.
      Of a motorcycle, a truck, and a bottle.

They inform wary viewers of a Saturday funeral.
       Only six sunsets after a Saturday marriage.

They advise a newlywed widow to let go, to open her heart to love once more.
        Although they know she can now only live in fifteen minute increments.

"But maybe," they say, "she will never take 900 seconds for granted again."

A shooting star lit up the sky tonight.

It reminded me of you.

The cold nostalgia that followed shook me to the bone.

I could see your smile as clear as day and hear your voice as sharp as the night's wind.

The seemingly insignificant celestial body took away my breath and stopped my heart.

A flash of light brought you back to me, and I was reminded, if only for a fraction of a second, of the weight I still carry.

The weight of the promises.

The immensity of you.

But as the meteor passes, I remember the unanswered questions.
The silence.

And the nostalgia turns warm.

Oh, baby, don't feel bad.
You're all I've ever had,
All I will ever need.
From my depths I have been freed.

Fall asleep with me to the sound of rain under a mass of blankets.
Feel my heart beat.
Press your lips to my forehead.
Pull me closer.
Wrap your bones around my sorrow.

It's not difficult, dear.
Just slip under the covers,
and let me love you until your sadness escapes through the open window
above our bed.

I am young.
I have plenty of life left to live.
They why, when I wake up every day,
do I feel it coming to an end?

The band is playing so loud
I can barely hear myself think.
I've been stagnant so long,
this place is starting to reek.

My dangling feet tell the story
of many a bar stool night.
I order the counter to dismiss my banter,
I insist with all my might.

The bar doesn't listen,
neither does its tender.
Their unsettling ears pry,
Relentless until my surrender.

Promise me that when we're old
When we have nothing left to gain
You will knead my tired muscles
To ease the aching pain.

I might as well write your words on my skin in ink.
I assume it will hurt less than this tattoo you have left infecting my heart.

In a dream, unable to awake,
An insidious haze threatening to overtake.

Foreign invaders infesting the brain,
Corrupting the blood coursing through veins

The descent into madness
Maliciously surpasses

Disintegrating sanity.

Wearing my heart on my sleeve,
came at a cost it seems.
I let you love me.
I let you destroy me.
Until I fell upon my knees.

-a.r.r.

My heart is ruined.
      Aching.
A stomach at 4 AM.
      Regurgitating.
The pain is unbearable.
      Excruciating.

Float.
Float away with me.
Take my shaking hand and steady me.

Drift.
Drift away with me.
Take my trembling waist and lead me.

Steady me and lead me
through this world's structured madness.

My feet need to leave this pavement.
My ankles are turning to stone.

My toes crave the clouds.

When I die,
write me a lullaby.
Sing me to sleep,
with a breathtaking melody.

When I am ready to fly,
let me go and do not cry.
Just let me flutter my wings to the beat
of your awe-inspiring harmony.

So, when I die,
please write me a lullaby.
Play it aloud, gently,
then everyone will have known the sound of me.

Trees shed leaves
We shed clothes.

November winds yearn for stark branches.
I desire bare skin.

Darkness unfolds.
Eyes never waver.

The cold brings a chill.
You make me shiver.

Flimsy hands honor our night.

Rusty,
aged,
perfectly insistent.

Circumstances
kissed his voice.

Leave what you promised.

Forgive me,
I can't ever remember your name.
Although your existence brings me comfort
on slushy days
when the winter sky is grey.
Walking your roads,
boots crunch gravel,
securing the smell that long ago
seeped through your wood,
into my sole.

You are the razor's glistening edge.
Slits across fingertips.
Yes, there will be bloodshed.
Blood from tips to wrists dripping and spilling from my veins.
It is not poetic.
So I'll clean up my own mess.
No nerves left to damage with the memory of you hardened, turned to stone,
stored in nails and soft hairs.
Locked away. No key in sight.
I have tried to unfurl these fists,
only to fumble around with the essence, the innocence, of lovers after.
These hands are cracked, wrinkled,
disintegrating.
Their untold stories turned to dust.
My palms no longer hold signs of a future.
They can do nothing.
Paralyzed by your pride.
Paralyzed by your edge.
Glistening.
A razor's edge.

Welcome to my web, baby.
Better get comfortable.
I'll spin you,
Ensnare you in my thread.
Until you are nothing but juice in my core.

-a.r.r.

The door slammed
knocking a few transparent tears
off of its hinges.

The door has slammed
before.
But tonight...
Tonight was different.

That soft, lingering rattle
kept with it
the deep, consuming ache
of those,
once again,

left behind.

Here I sit,
bare in my being.

Bleeding, grieving..

Patiently awaiting
the return
of what's missing.

Touch awake the
disturbing
nights.

Her outgrown,
innocent
masquerade:






                   faded.

"Come alive..." he urged.

Those whispered words ached in my heart
night after night. I could never seem
to make sense of the request,
and he could never see that he was
the only thing keeping me strung together.
To him, I was miles away from
the look in his eyes. Except he refused to
reach out for me, and I was incapable
of crawling back on my own.

You and me,
entangling entropy.

Organizing chaos.
Initiating an incessant onslaught of bittersweet loss.

There it was,
written so plainly
on your delicate face.

I could see it in your eyes,
wide eyes, intent on driving me mad.

I could see it everywhere,
in lips slightly parted, and
in ragged breaths never fully taking shape.

But above all else,
I could see it in your eyes.

Orbs deep brown,
dripping,
shifting,
over every curve of me.

Months had passed,
but there it was,
that heartbroken, blind desire
alive, again.

Living and breathing
in those deep,
brown,
eyes.

This night is you.
Radiant.

Your eyes,
under this moon
and these stars,
brighter
than the sun
on its warmest day.

This night is us.

Our fingers
intertwined
tell the moon a story
of how to fill
the empty space between.

This night is me.

My heart pounding
as all the little stars
gather together
in my stomach
while you run your fingers
down my arm.

Time continues,
but we are here,
now,

Effulgent

shining brilliantly forth
into our night.

You are initials in the sand
under a warm June sky

Living and breathing

Eluding
the ocean
that tries to wash you away.