i suffer through
these last cold nights-
winter's final stand.
she stretches her icy fingers
toward the trees,
the wind blows
as they bid her farewell.
"you have no power here."

when what you have believed is love
for your entire life
is really a sickness,
an addiction.
lover, heart breaker, life taker, ruiner.

there are no white horses.
his armor doesn't shine.

"take a picture before i paint over her. she is beautiful, she was everything. i miss her. last night i dreamt of her tracing my scars. she said she'd never leave and that i'd always stay."
(converge)

i have weathered the longest of winters and i am tired.

siphon the blood from my weathered heart.
encased in muscle and bone
it pulses loudly through your words
so loud that all you speak are dreams.

no one is fighting for you
from up above in the great big
empty sky.
the shield is yours to hold.
the weight is yours to bear.
guard the walls you've built
from bones and mud
and when flowers bloom
but never stay
spring will still find a way.

i have loved you in silence.
laying my hands on you in a quiet place.
my fingers tracing over your wrists.

maybe this is who i am.
never filled up. never whole.

being pulled in every direction. pushing back but getting nowhere.
the thought of you comes softly now. like an old friend, a lover that i never loved.
one kiss spanning across five years. melting down and taking residence in every part of me.
who i was when i let go, in that moment - i am not her.
i am not wild like her. i do not let the winds command my heart.
instead, i am me. waiting, watching.
"how we get older, how we forget about each other."
only i can't.

how does it feel
when someone loves every
little
piece
of you?
even the broken parts.

i think about
your eyes and lips
your hands and shoulder blades
i think about your bones
that grew so tall
to hold you up, to keep me here
and i'm mesmerized
beneath the stars spinning in your sky.

sleepy hollow's ophelia
sliding down easy into that dark water
living in light is easy but
loving in hell is hard.
you hold the devil's eyes,
bind his hands behind his back.
righteous queen of night
your whispers shake apart
the entire universe inside of me.

the feeling you get
when the high becomes low.
like someone is stealing the air from your lungs
and your chest caves in.
no love, no hope.

where is my resurrection?

i will never forget you.
the blazing hot first summer in that house.
lying awake crying in the kitchen floor at 2am.
i held your hands but it wasn't enough
i wanted to fix your broken years.

place your stones inside of my eyes.
so that i can feel.
green from the ferns that grow outside of my window
yellow from the sun that never shows her face
bark from the trees, and blue from the sea.

dear apollo,

i cannot keep you. there is no one else. you were born from fire and ash. your bones pulled from the cool earth and set aflame. the tides formed your irises.
the sun spills in through the window. the glow of morning falls upon your face. i trace the freckles on your shoulder. your eyes flutter to welcome a new day. you say goodbye with a smile and i know this is the last time.

here it comes again.
the old familiar
the darkest night.

all those girls with the long red hair don't mean a thing.
i see behind their painted faces.
he may fall but i won't.

my earthly goddess. hold me even when i cannot reach you.
remember who you really are. who you were to me. the longest day in december. midnight eyes and worlds colliding. exploding into stars that i captured and kept for years.
i'm still holding on.

i have searched through ashes
of lovers long burned
i have reopened boxes
that time forgot.

the day you stood by the road
with stones in your hands
december, maybe
tucked between two mountains
branches bare and snow falling
your eyes as blue as the sea.

i felt so much then. so much that it all feels empty now.
the cavern inside me covered up by darkness,
the
long
black
night.
loving you was my only trophy. the real blazing, burning hot as the sun kind of love. wasting away in bed all day just to touch you.

i can't reach you now.

the dark swallows me up
rips away pieces until i am nothing.

love death as if he were the most beautiful creature
stone shaped eyes stained blue and lips like sand.
his starlit body washing up on the shore.

love him as if he will never return.

a robin came to bring spring but i stole her away.
i kept her locked inside of a cage with one small hole
and every day i sang to her.
the songs were all about you,
young and new and sweet as nectarines.

we both breathed the same air but i sneezed at her affections.

one day i laid her soft by the open window
winter's breeze fading into something new
the light caught her eyes,
and i wept as she crawled back into her cage.

i look at you and realize i may never sleep again.
tell my mother that i loved her,
and not to cry over spilled milk. tell her that i was
born again. i left the world with glass in my feet
and they'll pay my ferry to the other side.
blue eyes guide me home, no,
they keep me captive.
i loved you before i was old enough to remember how to breathe,
four lungs and sixty four teeth,
we were the same but now we're not.

the lord won't forget about you. she watches you hanging laundry,
pieces of your silver hair littering the grass.

your wings as black as a night sky without stars.
the sea kept safe, formed inside of your eyes.
you have been reborn many times.

who will you lift from the depths of hell this time?

you watch and you wait, pulled in every direction
your heart strings tied in knots and torn apart.

I am not ashamed.
I have survived the long, slow torment,
the only hell that is real,
the one that hijacks your mind,
steals away every thing that you love
and magnifies all of your fears innumerably.
I will not lie or hide myself away to appease you.
But instead, while you are judging me, too afraid to acknowledge your own darkness
I will have the courage to try again tomorrow.

some days my devils sit on my back
griping my shoulders and using my brain as their steering wheel
"what can you destroy today? what will you ruin today?"
they speak so loudly until i can hear nothing else.

how can my glass ever be half full when my brain keeps making me pour all the liquid out?

the demons are real.
and they're back again.
who will help me hide this time?

if i never left my bed again
could they still find me there
could i pull the covers over my head
close my eyes tight
and sleep
to escape them

would they still make me feel like this

there is a quiet space at the season's end
a path i've stumbled down
time and time again.
i sit silent among the trees
i learn about living and dying
as their golden leaves fall down toward me.

pulled down by those same old fears.
neck deep, regret keeps you there-
just enough air left to breathe and remember.

he never dreams anymore. the thought of sleep
swirling around, brushing against his skin.
the image of a life before this burned upon his eyes.

he whispers as the sky falls dark.
"god, please let me drown."

the vessel.
your wings scorched upon the ground.
fallen, your ship pulled under,
into blackened seas, salt rich waters.
you lie on the shore. bound to a place that you can
never return.
grace hanging from your neck.
eyes glowing like starlight flowers.
you see the days pass. every one, numbered-
bathed in blood and light.
blink and an entire century is gone.

i have loved you as long as the night.
until the moon fell and grazed your lips.
break my body and take me with you.
let me lie beside you,
bones shaped by the waves,
sand formed into my knees.

forever watching the skies, sweet cassiel.

please remind me how your branches fall. let me catch their leaves. keep them warm before the chill of winter sets in.
i will photograph your eyes. please don't let me stay numb.

"how we get older, how we forget about each other."

i hollowed out your bones. drained the blood from your veins. you were my best kept secret. hid you away inside of this glass house. between four walls where the sun couldn't reach your eyes.
hello, beautiful. winter is coming and you're going to a place where summer can't save you. the years fly by and i can't forget your name. the stain left behind by what we once were. what we can never be again. sometimes i hear your voice and feel nothing but

sometimes i see your face and it changes everything.
how many times you've killed me. how many times you've saved me.
and i know my heart can't lie down there. nothing can stay.

in black and white dreams
you are the gold.
you are the light, the sun, the moon.
the everlasting flame.

angel, you are.

the earth was blue and you were gold
stone and sun, breathing in the same sky
i have always loved you.

the whole wide world opened up
the first time you smiled,
the first time you ever made me laugh
and you became everything.

who were we then?

"i remember december."

in the forest
my heart hangs heavy away from you
the light pushing it toward all four corners
of the earth
your hands reach out
but it hangs, motionless

who am i to say that this will end?

the pause between words
before they leave your lips
the moment you could have chosen
to do the right thing, but you didn't.

i could paint pictures for you
until all of my paint is dry
adding water until the colors are gone.

i can slowly become nothing.
a piece of a story. the piece that is forgotten
as the book goes along.

when i lie down beside you
blankets become that
same
old
fear.
a divide so wide between us
a space that cannot be filled
your eyes wander but i'm still here.

throw it all away. where are your hands. i ruined you and now i will pay for everything.
your heart was lost. mine was young. worried about never changing. always being last and never first. if i could bleed out onto you i would.
if
if
if
if
that kills me and you.

all of the parts of her that i can never be
my karma. sealed fate. i did this to myself. planted seeds i couldn't dig up. you say you love me but

things will never be the same now. five years rewound. fingers chasing after the old me. grasping in the dark for who i was before you. and you. and you.

"now i cannot lie in that bed."

the season has passed.
winter's long pause lifted from your lips.
i loved you more then than i ever will.
your sun-starved skin, milk glass arms
shimmering like stars in morning's first light.

remember when you kissed me like there was no one else?

you are summer's longest day.
apollo, the light is yours and you are mine.

lay your body down on the
sun
soaked
ground
and love me again.

love me so long until i have forgotten
the slow passage of winter.

your freckled eyes and stone shaped mouth.
perfect as rocks brushed by the waves.
young apollo.
you are summer shaped in winter's throat.
the fruit that seeds but never blooms.
a secret best kept.

kept tangled in your hair
bathed in spring's first light.

your lips are like the gods.
storm born. raging. your eyes created from the longest of winters.
filled with heat that
no
mortal
man
could ever keep. it bellows down inside of you. beckoning, swollen
up with flies from last nights ****.

this world gives you nothing.

your braided sandal curls
black as your eyes on a
cold december morning.

peacemaker. promise keeper.
a weight lifted.
you cannot save everyone.

we loved so much
until we were all gods
an extension of everything
bleeding out over seasons
over years that cannot be covered.
the way summer lit up your eyes
in the late afternoon
you were born from gold and
there you'll lay for the last time.
i loved you more than anything.

the trees were greenest the day you left.
i can't speak for you,
sometimes i can't speak at all.

eight floors up, i'm thinking of you again.

we are all flesh and love and bone. my head hurts from thinking about the past.
who I was isn't who I am but I get mixed up when I think about us.
the amount of blood I've seen spilled over you would pour out over the mountains where we first met. filling valleys. washing over me and mixing with my own.
I can't forget because you still laugh the same. your eyes carry that same burden. pain you've bore your whole life long.
I heard someone say:
"there are all kinds of love but never the same love twice."

I believe them.

you are talking and i hear nothing
except flowers missing spring
buried deep beneath winter
burdened so heavy with purpose
but no way of showing.

i have retraced steps
to when you were golden
glowing at the back door
and i was april
standing open wide,
waiting at the storm door to let you in.

your laugh is like a familiar song.
i know the words but can't sing them without you.

you were tall and brave
and everything that i wanted.

funny how the weather makes you remember things.

you ripped me limb from limb
but i will carry you inside of me until i die.

when you are gone from me
i miss you as i miss the sun
setting too soon on a winter day
when you leave
and i am alone
i miss you as i miss the spring
and wonder if you will return

i collect
pieces of you to be remind me
that even when my bones
are racked with cold
you will return
and we will laugh
and touch lips
until i forget
that the sun ever sets.

on this,
the coldest day on the east coast
i have stolen sunlight
to keep tucked away
to replace the aching in my bones.

the morning falls on her
like feathers pulled from my back
soft light and shadows frame her face
i cover her eyes to let her sleep-
she is unaware of me
but
i love her just the same.