your arms
wrapped around me
were replaced
by loneliness.

i feel now that i am not wanted,
but rather here,
a disturbance in the calmness
of your peaceful atmosphere.

my passions
have become your annoyances,
every word i speak
makes your eyes roll.

i've started to wonder
if it's you or i that's changed.

i feel like winter,
cold and unwanted;
sometimes like spring,
tremendous rainfall
on flowers that will never bloom.

i don't feel close to anyone anymore,
i feel like a quiet noise amongst ambience,
waiting to be heard.
but not everybody can hear.

how many times do i have to try
before you realize
you don't want me?
why am i teaching you a lesson
when you so badly
believe you're teaching me one?

and lastly,
who are you?
is it you that's changed?

you used to love me.
you used to take me as i was.
you used to treat me like summer mornings.
you used to be happy around me.
you used to appreciate everything.

you used to.
but now you don't.

and as spring turns to summer
and the flowers die out,
i hope you dwell on the buds
that never blossomed
for after all,
it is your ignorance
and my loneliness
that kills all life.

the ticking clock
has become my lullaby.
your voice is but a distant memory;
the beginnings of a nightmare,
trapped between
tick,
tock,
tick,
tock,
tick,
tock,
tick—

i don't know you,
as you are a stranger.

your arm brushed against mine
when you passed me by,
and i watched you carry yourself
with confidence i hadn't seen before.

your face is blurry,
but our nights spent embedded
in flame fragments and warmth
are crystal clear.

i can't remember your voice
but the way you made me feel
is imprinted in my mind
the way footprints line seashores.

the waves run up the shore
and i'm standing there,
waiting for them to catch me.
they catch everyone at some point.

i hear a voice,
and i cannot tell its owner,
but i can feel the traces of your words
sinking deeper into my core,
and the water fails to wash them away.

as i turn around, i match a face to the voice,
but i can't see anything but the fragments
of the fire that once burned
within these four walls.

and as you brushed past me,
i felt your arm and its warmth,
and your eyes met mine,
and your confidence fell.

and i knew it was you,
as we are now strangers
with memories.

it was a love like a summer morning,
the breeze coming through the windows,
the sunlight drowning out the darkness,
and laughter
coming from the most beautiful woman
he had ever known.
it was things like these
that he yearned to write about.
each page was dated july 2011
and her name was written
by feeble hands,
blue smudges every third letter.
she wanted to feel alive,
and he wanted to plant flowers
in places she thought had died.
he wanted to forget her and remember her
and he didn't know which was more painful.
the shade of her hair no longer existed
in his scattered mind.
her voice sometimes traveled highways
and met him at intersections
and bid him a safe drive,
but he couldn't recognize it.
he was disconnected from her
and he couldn't change that.
he sat under a blanket of stars,
while she lay under a bed of soil.
and everything he wanted to write about
was lying six foot under,
trapped in a mahogany box.
it was this love like a summer morning
that flowed from pen to paper,
and let flowers grow around her body.
because after all, she wanted to feel alive,
and the least he could do
was let her live through the fibers
of his tattered notebook
titled, ‘things to forget’.

i keep writing your name
and finding meaning in the letters.
every time i talk to you,
it feels like i'm talking to myself.
perhaps this is why i feel the presence
of a thousand people
when i am alone.

you don't mean anything to me
but i find meaning in you.
i see the bad side
over the good side
and i can't tell you
i love you
without cutting away the ribbon
that once held those words together.

you were once a mirror,
i saw parts of me in you,
but now you are an empty mirror,
i see my reflection
because you are no longer there.

this would be an excerpt
from a book i will never write
and i could read it aloud
and dissect it for you to feel,
but again, i will be talking to myself.
i have always been there for myself.
and every day, you remind me of that.

i guess this is to say
that i am done playing games
and finding meaning
in the way you ignore me
as i tell you my passions
and the lack of concern in your face
as i tell you i'm worried.

i am worried
that being alone and being lonely
are not two different things,
that i have been alone
for one year, seven months, and twenty-two days.

today would be six-hundred days
that i have known you,
or rather, six-hundred days
that i have wasted,
trying to be important to someone
who was blind to nothing but significance.

six-hundred days,
and it took me to realize that
you are an excerpt
from a book
that i will never write,
a page that i will rip out and throw away,
the scene that didn't make the cut.

the person i have no time for
is taking up my time now,
as i write with expansive vocabulary
about the pain you have caused me
and the time i have wasted.

and as i sit alone
in your presence,
i write this
but you will never read it,
nor will you ever hear it
come out of my mouth
because you never listened,
nor are you listening now.

If I'm being honest
I'm tired of being a poet.
I'm tired of findig meaning in everything from the lines of the sky to the cracks in the side walk
I'm tired of using extended metaphors to explain how overwhelmed or angry or sad I am 
I'm tired of immortalizing the people I love or hate in half assed lines of poetry
For once I would like a good day just to be a good day or a bad day just to be a bad day
A landscape to hold no higher meaning than to magnify the glory of existence
For the people I know to hold no cosmic significance in the fabric of time
I would like to sit and be quiet
To write and be at peace
For the storm to pass over
And to find some relief
This is not a game for me this is how I breathe and I am tired of having to hold meaning in every crack and every crevice
My poetic nature has become a menice in my tired skin
I'm tired of letting the light in
But this isn't something you quit
This is something you breathe
This is something you are
This is something you need
Even if it doesn't make sense all the time
This is the one true thing I know that's mine
My sense of rhythm and my sense of rhyme
And it isn't easy all the time
Because these days life moves faster than I've even known
Faster than I can process what I've been shown
These days it's easy to feel the weight of all of my time spent alone
My mind isn't home
I'm chilled to the bone
These days I'm tired of being tired and tired of writing about how tired I am
Like I'm six feet under but I'm not yet dead
Using poetic devices to say what's already been said
I'm tired of playing this game
Imortalizing name after name
I still feel the same
Even though I still keep writing
So what I'm trying to say is that I need poetry like I need water but sometimes if you drink too fast or you drink too deep you feel like you're drowning
Out to sea in familiar surroundings
It's astounding how tiring being a poet can be.

i watched the earth
consume the sun,
a rampant fire blazing within.
the sky turned orange
and pink and peach and purple
and everything in between,
it was like an explosion had gone off
and left the beauty and dust behind,

i eyed the green trees
become dark silhouettes,
painting themselves
against the backdrop of opalescence.
smoke coming from chimneys
took on a dark grey shade
and outlines of houses and rooftops
began to separate the gravel from the welkin.

i adored the sky ablaze
and watched it scorch and blacken
with rage.
it was everything and nothing,
and as angry as it was, it felt peaceful.
and at once, the sky was dead,
and small fragments
of the previous blaze dotted the dark coat above.

it was as if to say,
the world is sleeping,
but our problems are not,
for though the sky is dark
and no longer ablaze,
stars still coat the interstice
to remind us of what is unfinished.