to the ghosts of days that she can never get back. the seasons speak volumes while you lie still in your bed with blankets stuffed into your ears. the part of her you loved is dead. for the widower, there is nothing but the cold, dark night.

i can never be
what i could be
when i can't look at me
without wanting to tear my skin off.

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.

i wish fall had never left-
when it goes it takes everything.
thirty two candles for thirty two years
will i ever see the third.
if i go now it will be on my own terms.
find this and remember that i loved you-
and know that you always tried.

the cold wind calls my name and i am tired now
lay me out with flowers
and dream of the children we could have had.

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.

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

this world still needs you,
every
last
drop.
the dreams you dream while the sun still shines
the bits of string that get tangled in your hair
your awkward smile when someone says you're beautiful.
every thing that i remember and the ones that i can't,
the things that i don't know now that we're older.

don't give up.

The inevitable end
A life lived but not well enough
A love not bright enough
A girl not strong enough

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.

the ground shrouded in white. the trees bare. the sun hidden.
i pleaded for Persephone to return.

the breaking heart
the dreadful night
i know what's next and that winter
will never really leave.
i lie here, wrapped up
this blanket fused into my bones
can i ever escape?

you said to endure every ******* season
every word you ever spoke split my skull in two
can you see it now? the part of me i can't change?
i bleed out but feel nothing.

i break
and slowly fall
your fingers resting, silent
playing piano on my bones
who am i to wish for anything more
than this.
love born of strife and regret.
the days have taken their toll.

the winter sits heavier now
stealing breaths that summer gave
we were too young, too soon
i took what i could not keep.

i watched you burning but did nothing.
rain fell around you and i captured it all
leaving you to turn to ash.

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

angel, you are.

i can never break free of those i loved too much
for far too long.
i can finally forget you with my dying breath.

can you be my sun on a cold, grey friday morning.

can you tell me that living means something.

i don't feel like writing anything good.

i just feel tired and sad.

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.

i'm scared and don't know what is real.

i think of her.
when the night is long
and the house is cold.
i think of the warmth in her eyes
and the light that i took,
the piece that i kept. the piece that i burned.
the fire
that i lost myself in
the dying breath
the wish to try again.
to do better next time.

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.

you are the blood of everyone i have ever loved. my eyes cut you open until it all spills out and covers me. my teeth on my hands and i can taste everything. the first day we met and the first time you kissed me.  you talk until my face doesn't exist. you talk until i mean nothing. i forget. i forgive. i become so small that you cannot hear my voice. i speak but the words are softened, covered by broken things. my bones break through my throat and every part of me fall out across the floor--
pieces that have no place
that have no home
i crawl across the floor and reach for you
but you are gone.

your lips leak from shadows
too cold to bear your name
the trees hide you away from me
miles away and i mean nothing
every word burns like wildfire

can't the sky let me forget?

my heart, lungs, hands
have served me well for thirty two years.
and i will not watch my empire crumble
all because you were sad.

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.

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.

a lack of color-
days drawn over crossed out words
sunsets and full moons
do you really believe that i have forgotten anything.

a mind that you cannot rest in.
swirling hands and tangled hair.
if you told me that men were the devil i would believe you.

let me lie face up
hands toward the sky
let the water flow over me
through me, until i am nothing

how did you ever break what was already broken.

to the wrongs i can't right
this is us - what we were, what we are
"and we won't be breathing in that same sun again"
the far off now is too far
the rain came but never left
two halves
the whole piece is missing.

i close my eyes but still see everything.

the feeling of knowing
where my footsteps have been
my mind retraces every step
until i feel nothing but the cold, the dark
the miserable memory of your face.

there are roads i never drive down for a reason.

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."

the black night steals you away
and keeps you like leaves clinging to life
on an october morning.
your eyes, heavy and blue.
i trace the lines on your face from
last night's celebration.

you said
maybe i drink too much or not enough.
afterall,
there is no second course
in the art of forgetting.

I met a man once who told me that the soul is split into three parts.

the first, the beauty you carry on your face and in your flesh. eyes as blue as a cloudless winter. every freckled shoulder, every broken bone. the look on your face when you know you're finally home. that crooked smile, running arms outstretched toward the river. dancing in the rain.

the second, the voice with which to sing. every word spoken in love. the lies you tell. the regret stuck in your throat. and then screaming out to stay, when it's the last second of the last day.

the third, the season that brings you in.
how the sun falls on your face and that shiver from the bitter cold. the piece you can't control. the heart pumping blood. the brain's wires crossed. the longing for death. the infatuation with living, breathing. your fate to feel, to love, to hate, to fear.
life's arms open to receive you and death waits to keep you.

our lives, a series of events. it is as if two small apples had fallen from the same tree.
and there they lie, their guts spilled out onto the lawn. birds making holes to take what is left
before winter comes and goes again.

and what is,
what has been and what could be
mean nothing.


i held your hand like it was my last day on earth. but you'd never have known. walking through the forest,
the trails winding and branches breaking around us, i felt content for a fraction of a second.
the sun's beams like a halo above you. every freckle on your shoulder knowing it's place, it's purpose.
and here was i, standing lowly in your presence.
all of the times i had tripped over my own two feet
or my words, every time i had been late for the train,
the time i ruined your sweaters in the wash, or
the many hours i'd spent writing books i never finished
when i could have spent the time with you,

the light painted over me, and your eyes saw something clean.



hurrying along on the street, rain falling into the spaces between your legs
and rainboots.
once we made it inside, i realized
i had held the umbrella only a half an inch too far from you and your ear was cold and wet.
but you never said a word.



everyone says i cannot freeze you there like that in my mind. that the bad must outweigh the good.
that you must be a demon who was sent disguised as clouds and lovely things. but if you were then it stuck.
and whoever sent you did a **** good job.
everyone says that i need to go back to the day i first saw you and stop there
and just
remember
the times before i knew you.
but your words are too strong to forget and every time i walk by the flower stand on the street
i see your favorite colors and i see the crown that you made and
placed in your hair the day that we were both so sure we wanted this.
this, together.


my brain splits you up into all of these pieces and i can't gather
the ones that have been spread by the summer's breeze, or the ocean's waves
or the ones carried away on the wings of night's fireflies.
if i could only capture them all
like a still life photograph stuck in a jar
maybe i could come unstuck from you
and piece you together in an entirely new fashion,
painting you like the devil that you are
(or must be).


even just this morning i made a point to be on time for the train
because i knew that you would be so proud.
and like some unspoken prayer or a letter written but never sent
i wished so long and hopelessly that you could know.
but the day is over now and you won't
you won't leave the note on my door that i've longed to read
you won't call. you won't ask a friend how i've been.
so i've bought these brushes and pens and paints and ink
to try so hard to draw what i could never see

as i stand here looking at the last picture i have left of you
i hear these words so clear in my head
"take a picture before i paint over her. she is beautiful, she was everything."

and i wish that i could but i can't. because you're not here and my hands are too broken
to fix the old camera i used to photograph you standing in the rosebush by the lake,
thorns in your knees and red petals in your hair.

how does something i love so completely
flood my heart
full of absolute and perfect happiness
and break it in two
in the same breath?

the road less traveled is the longest one.
the waters i swim are the deepest.
but if my blistered feet keep walking
and i keep my head just above the waves
i'll find what i always knew to be true
and trash the ideas of practicality

i put your heart back together
with god's golden hands
the moon's bluest light
i gave you fire to place inside your bones
to keep you when the winter comes to steal you away

you were wild, girl
don't let this **** you.
you have been ripped limb from limb
seams split so far that you can't find
where they end and you begin

i watched the world spin around you
you held up every constellation with ease
but then you grew tired.
i stood beside you and stretched out my arms
i reached and reached,
my hands lost inside the oceans

what i regret the most-
i didn't help you hold it up.

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.

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.

when I think of who you wanted and how it isn’t me
or maybe it was then but not now
not ever again. yellow dresses and cardigans.
flowers growing from my eyes. deep green November water washed against the snow.
I don’t remember who I was.
hands trace over memories that don’t feel like mine. summers spent in the sun without failing.
when I look at me I see nothing. blank, black
cold. maybe I don’t want to remember.
not anymore.

you carry the world, don't you? can't i lift you up just this once?

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

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

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.

dance together in a black and white world
where stars scorch the sky when we make love
your bony fingers weaved through my hair
your name held on my tongue.

i loved you all those years ago
like the winter loved the spring

i held your hands, heavier then,
braver then.
your eyes told stories i couldn't breathe in
for fear that the cold would never go.

you were
the calm before the storm unseen
the window never noticed
the lights shut off in time to hide
and what i knew i didn't need.

Tired -
of things that break
of waves so big they swallow everything
muscles and bones and guts
hair and blood and teeth

things that break and stay broken.

i met a girl
she loved the smell of salt and earth and summer rain
she was blind. but only to her own mind. the inner workings.
what kept ticking and what had stopped. she couldn't fix the bad parts.
tried replacing them with flowers and broken shells.
maybe if they could fit just right. just maybe.

one day she fell while walking along the beach
looking for the perfect piece
but quickly sprang to her feet,
she swept the sand from her hair and sun from her eyes
minutes passed before she noticed the blood on her knees
she sat quietly on the shore
and watched the stream run down her leg and into the water
as the waves carried her blood out to sea
her thoughts spiraled
"how can i ever fix this?"
a man walked by and offered his hand but she shook her head
and said nothing.


everything you feel
like great big drops of blood
pooling up until they run
pouring out and getting lost
swept away until they're forgotten.
the salt water stings like every time
you said "i hate you." and "why can't i change?"


i never came here to change her. you have to believe that if you don't believe anything.

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.

ten years
you stole and you lied.
it's too late.
winter came and i never called.
what do you remember.
you were never real.

to stand
in your arms
long and slender
reaching toward the sky
the sun glowing on your skin
the memories i carry
made long before the wildfire
destroyed it all.

you thought i chose him but i had no choice at all.
in my heart, i never forgot
you and i in your bed for the first time.
the way the hair fell down to your chin
hiding those blue eyes.
that townhouse. the silk necklace you made for me.
kissing at parties. holding hands in your car.

frozen forever just like that in my mind.

my only crime;
loving what i couldn't have and having what i couldn't love.
never the same love twice. never like you.

i will never smell your hair again,
never touch my legs to yours.
i try so hard to remember
your laugh, your sweet voice
singing the songs we loved
listening and wondering
if we could ever be good enough
but
you always were.

oh, Apollo,

here i'll stay, standing straight and tall
arms out-stretched, reaching,
watching the day break over the mountains,
the moon arise from the sea at night,
and when the rain comes, it falls cold upon my face
and collects in my hands until it spills out upon my feet.

you lay your hands upon me.
your eyes burn right through my bones.
but every new day
you harness what you cannot keep,
gold. forever gold.
hold the reins as if they were my arms,
until, rain soaked, your hands slip away
and you fall,
writhing and wishing
for prayers unheard.

still i'll stay just the way you left me
until the earth washes from beneath me,
and i fall and rot away.

i bet you don't write anymore.
and if you do i'll never read it.
i was sick and sad and i ruined everything.
you'd be surprised at what i still remember.

i romanticize who you were and where i've been.
god knows love sure as hell isn't what we thought it was.
for too long, i was young and stupid.
back when your hands were still in my hair.
i swept everything beneath the rug, for years it sits, hidden,
soaking into the floor.
when i speak of you now, "an old lover, a friend"
those pieces of december have long slipped from my hands.

your eyes were so god ****** beautiful
and i was a beast and a *****.
you were my eve, but i took the apple and gave it to the snake.

be careful what you wish for.
white painted over sunflowers
summer is gone and the devils are close
i can feel their hands
reaching, pushing tiny pieces of
fear
in through my ears

let spring come,
but i worry i will not rise this time.

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."