I wish for you at 9 pm when the bars begin to swell
My voice is hoarse from the cigarettes and wishing at the well
I find you there at midnight by the metro station and Liberty Bell
My legs are strong from sprinting from Bethlehem to hell

I taste you in the morning when you have not come to keep
My lips so sore from kissing company in my sleep
I leave you in the afternoon when you wander but do not seek
My heart is breathless from chasing you down these empty streets

You touch me in the sunrise as daylight falls across this room
Your lips are weak from biting in the cover of the moon
You betray me in the evening, for the evening begins too soon
Your hands are wrecked from calculating the days until we are doomed

You adore me in the city’s spring your smile open wide
Your arms are stretched out beckoning across the horizon and skyline
You waste your honesty as autumn sullies the joy of the 8th avenue line
Your eyes are heavy with insomnia as surely as this pain is mine

I called for you in the dark hours of the early morning that echoed endlessly
My cheeks were flushed in blush and the anxiousness of eternity
I met you at the boulder behind the stone wall where we once shared insanity
My lungs could breathe little but smoke and uncertainty

You met your Juliet that month somewhere in the chill and dark
Your mind was at ease from pursuit if only life was such a simple arc
You drifted upon the waves of confusion for a time while we made each other art
Your stomach hurt from the flowers you ate in the Eden of the park

I awoke you from your slumber to all that exists in the break of war
My ears were picking up radio waves from the allies at the shore
I took you back to the pillow you craved, though it was a different chore
My veins were amplified by ******* and love is such a bore

I waited for you in August, spread across your linen sheets
Our eyes are locked on the calendar counting the days to our defeat
I betrayed my post in October too offender now to do ought but retreat
Our whispers never ventured past the barricade we built in our release

We vanished as January bathed the world in frost and splendor
Our songs were over played and our words lacked the potency of forever
We wrote letters unsent in scribbled ink that would always remain returned to the sender
Our handwriting had been illegible since September

We spared one another the grace of good-byes and false promises
Our teeth were sharpened for fresh bars and unknown kisses
We would wander sometimes through the haunts where we used to feel delicious
Our memories aching with the scent of a memory that will never miss us

Keep you cigarettes and your bike rides and your middle shelf whiskey
But keep it all to under covers
Hide it up in your designer pillow case
Before you hurt someone else

Oh keep your nightmares and melodies that resonate all through the dark
Keep your silence and your wonder
Wrap it up silk and ribbon laced
Before you break someone’s heart

Keep your stars and fresh laundry, keep your ***** bathroom sink
Keep your bright eyes and your mystery
Encase it inside your hard drive
Because you’re kiss is tattoo ink

Keep your smirks and your ashes, keep your whispers, and your linens and skin
Keep your hallowed muddied hallways, and your misty charcoal eyes
But lock your coveted front door
Let no one within or inside

Keep your photographs and heirlooms, keep your laughter to yourself
Keep your banter and your video games
In safe or in a dungeon
Just make sure they ruin no one’s health

Keep your Prozac and your cauldron, keep your fingertips at bay
Keep your snores and your embrace
Somewhere that’s simple and alone
Or you’ll ****** another Juliet this way

Keep your promises of grandeur, and your sidewalks full of lust
Keep your fire escapes and lonely places
Out of reach
Or all who touch will turn to dust

Keep your valor keep your pseudo-wisdom, put it with your white t-shirts
Keep your childhood and weaponry
Underground safe and sound
Before someone else gets hurt

Keep your lips and teeth and syllables; keep your bookcase safe and strong
Keep your nothingness, keep your beauty
Hide it all behind a mask
Or another lover will have to sing this song

The blur of the subway reflection inspired me to
Inspired me to, to believe in
The crimson blood that flowed within you
You and your hollow valentines card veins

The bite of the winter wisps of wind asked me to
Asked me to, to remember if
Your embrace was the dagger sugar coated blue
The first icicles to fall in January’s pain

The drip and dance of the winter medication forced me to
Forced me to, to make love against
The memories that held me close within the heart’s decadent hue
I never asked for his real name

The salt and citrus that embraced the tequila motivated me to
Motivated me to, to waste tears upon
Your deep violet royalty and my role as the ingenue
I only wished to offer you a red paper crane

The pallor of my skin introduced me to
Introduced me to, to the truth
And nothing but the truth, so help me God, I cooed
Drive me somewhere beautiful, a place I cannot blame

The final echo of your weary voice released me to
Released me to, to an apocalyptic city
The street was reduced to a cemetery so I choose the avenue
The four horsemen galloped in the sanctuary of the bus lane

The loneliness of restless half-hearted dreaming lead me to
Lead me to, to a crystal forgotten river
It stretched through the city and the city’s shoes
Winding in and out like a vagrant gone insane

A switching staircase indebted me to
Indebted me, to the essence of humanity
It explained all is made so that it can be broken through
No river shall ever flow without rain

The bright of the afternoon convinced me to
Convinced me to, to stand before the mirror
Bright eyes and shaking lips sparkled wet with diamond dew
She blamed cupid’s arrow for it was surely improperly aimed

A lover, half asleep and half in dreams, insisted me to
Insisted me to, to scream until I collapse
It was the only sound I could honestly make to begin anew
He promised without shame

The blare of the harsh siren in the night awoke me to
Awoke me to, to a dream I once believed
The vivid coloration and forms were an artistic witch’s brew
I’ve been to love, so I’ve been to war and I shall never be the same

You wished to erase the chalkboard misery
That belongs to those who suffer from the plague of infatuation
I vanished inside the finest of city wineries
I did not die, I’m the moonshine that has evaporated

You walk on the road thus far taken
I watch you leave from coast to lighthouse
Your direction reveals our adoration forsaken
But I’m just lipstick, a vision, and an unbuttoned blouse

Against the ocean salt
Against the sand of time
Against the Victorian waltz
Against all prose or rhyme
I am just a beat your heart once jumped
Across the equator line
You are nothing more than a hero lost
With the emptiness of a lover’s crime

I drank my poison quietly in the recesses of reality
Spinning ever spiritedly
Into
The solemn silence of my sanctuary

We spent the night dissolved in words: the hours were only rain drops
Pounding ever persistently
Against
The rip tide of the clock’s cruel countdown

I braved the path of honesty and the road of mischief in my turn
Vacillating ever vividly
Between
The intersection of fragile concepts defining good and evil

Heartbeats falter in the ever present glow of
The moonlight that touches
The heartbeat in the glitter of the snow
I  faded, waiting in the heart of our park
The lake was breathless
Silence in the ever present dark
Frost-covered winter daises

I wrote a poem for you that you wished not to read
I crossed seas for you that your dark irises wished not to see
I wept water you would be happy to drain
If only for the promise of
My autumn was finished with its agony of rain
Your heart was empty enough
Desiring only a confident touch
I know so little of love

I needed you dearly once, the chasm of your chest
Inhaling against Eden, north, south, east, west
I loved you once nearly, the frown of your eyes in June
Narrowing against the heart of the harvest love in the twisted moon

I sense the scent of your body by the seaside
I wrote you a goodbye that you ignored to resume where you reside
I left a flower by the bed we used to occupy in affection
I wish I wasn’t aware I’ll remain the petal that came undone

And now I write postcards in my mind from my new window pane
And you walk along our streets as thought I never had a name
We crossed off a future but burned the past
The evening was aware the night would never outlast
The burn of the new dawn

It was vicious in the shadows, no dream catchers to polish your shine
It was lonely in the corners of love
It’s beautiful when we combine
I know it’s been months now, but your face is still enough

The tears have ceased to flow wearing your badge of honor
The sleepless nights are stripped with other knights
The days are now sanded and softer
There’s a street bar named desire and its sign is glowing bright

But I’d turn my future inside out to be in your arms if you inquired
I’d burn my fortress to the ground
I’d watch while it expired
For without you, it’s always lost not found

I dreamt of you last night
confusing left and north from south and right
And it dawned on me then as this summer ends
Perhaps. It was all a game of house and pretend

But no -I know the valor of
Sacrificing your sacred defenses in the name of love
And you were the knight I knew you to be
A gift of bar crawls, museum miles and memory

Those sheets,those walls, that room we held captive
All in the name of romance as our captain
That ship you fled- a deserter or sorts
But there will be no Calvary or death by sword

I know you remain a face in plastic frame
A scar on my knee and a free wandering name
You swear you're still here
But this word falls deaf on one ear
Quite a bold assumption to swear
Not knowing the if night sky is clear

Walk briskly my sweet there is only defeat
In the crosses we bear & the poison we reap
I sit in tragic new affection drowned in nostalgic recollection
By the corner where you vowed that in love there is no protection

In herald square you'll find me there
Still musing our despair and contemplating the burden we share
Of all the tidings of love and no kiss to spare

I'm right where you left me but I've travelled so far
I'm no longer the waif you kissed love drunk by the  bar
I'm no longer a wish - so ignore my star

Breathe lightly, good sir it would do you well
To remember that earth is both heaven and hell
And the only things you know are the stories others tell

You intellect is both vast in it's expanse
And short in it's relevance

It wasn't either of us who broke such a vow
The honor of love should never have been allowed
To a girl with such ideals and a man on the clouds

But it's sweet in it's way - you still saved the day
That night in Madison square when my soul ran away
But to save a heart in a park just to throw it away?
What kindness is this? It's only a delay

When you cried sitting on my bedside
Assuring me that  our love had both lived and died
You don't know what I had compromised
To break and to wait as our harmony committed suicide

So take it now and wear it proud
You found your love in a violent crowd
And adored her once  in sidewalks and sun
Now she writes poetry wondering whom has won
This race to be the people we took oaths to become

It's all all-right- a swift flight
From Florida to the northern fight
In all those words we exchanged and misheard
I do recall we both feared this world
Of petty change and unsaved gain
A treacherous sea with no hope to tame
iPods and screaming along the 6 train
No doubt the results of pubs, psychology and *******

So I'll conclude this pain, this rant, this reign
We created infamy but never fame
And all the ashes
Baby,
They look the same

It's sad even still that our happiness took Ill
And none of our efforts, our hopes or our will
Could reassign the crystal ball to something more beautiful

Goodbyes are slow and forever vague
I won't say it was all in vain
Only that Cupid
should be ashamed

A sugar crush, a stroke of luck
I'll be in Tennessee when you vowed to give love up
And you'll find in all due languid time
That roses are red and so is wine
And I'll hold your hand as you hold mine
A dawn, a spring, a summers eve
Blossom so blue even in between
The skies of dusk and other's lawns & grasses far too green
What life, what joy, a simple task
All my heart needs is to make yours laugh
And I hate these words- cliche and undisturbed
There's no romantic pain you see in thrills and breeze
It's not like we don't believe in hope
It's that it always demands such note
yes, yes my dear we hear your fear
The gods have no interested in
The doubts and dreams of souls who sin
who glean nothing from what they've sought
You're free you see if you'd like to be but if you're brave there is a battle to be fought
What fields and rivers we cross to discover
The lands of promise and the eager gaze of another
I'm sorry I'll need one more cigarette
To inspire me to recove and not to forget
Hearts are potentially true and romance has not been slain yet

-takashi

Why do you always know what to say
And never when to say it?
Why do you always reassure
When nothing is amiss?

Why do you always pave my way
When my path is perfect
Miles of clear pasture
But never when I’m lost in the abyss?

Why do you always warm my blood in the sun
When my skin is golden bronze
And leave me to freeze on new years eve
When the world is winter?

Why do you protect me from the kind hearts of loved ones
And never from  others who wish me harm?
Shielded from the wind but not the rain I believe
That burn you ignite is bitter

Spring's suggested sentimentality was cruel to you and lost on me
In black hospital beds and unlock doors
trading hallmark cards and rain soaked words

To brokers and lovers of lifetimes past
ionized coins and abandoned churches of ash

I was lost and found and blind except for what I could see
Darkness blankets over apathy

The ocean's mirth was kind to some
but also acidic to it's sun
it erodes you understand- the flesh and the sand
How beautiful that sport called demise can achieve
Such vicious assaults on halcyon seas

I'm not adrift in your departure, I don't request your gaze any longer
What an anomaly to requited memory
That gold is not golden and air is not free

Goodbye, goodbye, farewell, my doll
The world continues to spin afterall

Waiting
For you on wires I’m walking
Tightrope and your throat is
Dropping
You’re arbitrarily clocking
Seconds between hearts
Throbbing
Arrive sweetly we’re embracing
Ace of spades in my pocket
Promising
I won’t die tonight im tracing
The lines of your face and
Waiting