We drink.
To loosen up.
To have a good time.
To leave the world behind for awhile
And regret the leaving later.
But people say the most honest things when they are drunk.
So I never get drunk.
Not anymore.
Maybe because I am not an honest person.
Maybe because I do not want to say honest things.
Maybe the world I want to leave behind
Would become far more real if I acknowledged it in inebriation.
And so I stay sober.
To keep the truth to myself.

Except with you.
I cannot hide my honest feelings from you.
Maybe because I don't want to.
Maybe because love is more potent than alcohol
In this situation.
Because I feel perpetually drunk with you.
Because my words could never be
Anything but honest
In your presence.
And so you know everything.
Because you know that,
In spite of my sobriety,
I am drunk on you.
And I hope that in the wake of my infinite drunkenness,
The unimaginably honest love I have for you
Does not leave the aching regret
Of slow sobering.

She is a master of words.
She uses them wisely.
She uses them haphazardly.
She uses them to plant seeds
to grow flowers of either beauty or poison
Or both, with equal feverishness.
She uses them quietly.
She uses them loudly.
She uses them build beautiful ideas
of either Paradise or Babylon
with no regard of passions but her own.
She uses them infrequently.
She uses them continuously.
She creates a symphony
of either joy or sorrow for the audience to feel
and she merely watches the catastrophe from afar,
And walks away.

I am silence.
Not the peaceful, comfortable kind of silence.
I am neither pleasant nor amicable.

I am silence.
The kind that deafens and absorbs you.
I am screaming obscenities.

I am silence.
Filled with secrets and unhappiness.
I am begging to be forgotten.

I am silence.
Fragile and tenuous like the thread we are hanging by.
I am hoping to finally be broken.

The moments we have
Are counted and cruel.
They never leave enough
Room for the words to come out.
Words that beg to be spilled
From my overcrowded mind
And into the vastness of
Your understanding.
I know you know
What I mean.
I never have to ask,
You always just know.
But time is cruel.
And fate is cruel.
And the moments we spend
are merely messengers.
Reminding us that sometimes,
The best things in our lives
Are only allowed in moments
When no one is watching.
We are only allowed to take pleasure
Where no one can see.
And we can only speak of it
In hushed tones,
In the darkened corners
Of the most secreted spaces
In our not quite broken,
But not altogether whole,
Hearts.

What if all I had needed was for you to ask me to stay?
What if you knew I only ever wanted you?
What if my heart breaks with every backward step you take?
What did you mean, then, when you said forever and family?
Why would you draw me in that way, if only to crush me so suddenly?
What if you had given us a chance?
What if you hadn't run away?
What if I could stand to be within a mile's short reach of you now?
What if I had the stomach to stay?
What if I could stop my feet from running away from or towards you?
What if I could only stand still and breathe?
What if I believed that you don't want me to disappear?
What do you have to say?
What if I turn to vacant misty memory, anyway?

He stood outside while the rain soaked through his clothes and into his bones. He didn't even seem to notice the water tearing his eyes and dripping from his ears. Still as stone, he waited with patience. Like it was nothing to just wait. Like the rain didn't matter. From the look on his face, it might rain for days, weeks even, before he would notice the state he was in. Even then, it would not matter to him. He could be patient. Great discipline had taught him to weather any circumstance, that eventually the reward would come. So, he stood, statuesque and perfect, even if he was a mess. He'd held flowers once, but they had long since been discarded. Somewhere. For all he knew, he had dropped them next to himself years ago and was now standing in the flower garden which had sprung from them. A mere lawn ornament. Still he stood.
And then the door opened. He realized he had forgotten to knock, when a shocked and beautifully scarred face met his stony, dampened, perfectly patient gaze. She stepped out into the rain. Like it wasn't even falling. Maybe she had caused its seizure, because the closer she came, the warmer he felt. She was the answer to a question he didn't even think to ask when he'd met her. And there she was, as close as she'd been in months. Suddenly everything would be alright. Life made sense again.
She stopped just before him, the most beautiful creature in his world, and stared up at him.
"I had given up hope that you would ever darken my doorstep again, but I knew it was you. You didn't even knock and I knew you were there. Why? Why now, after all this time?"
All he could do was stare for a moment. Lost in her eyes. Eyes that told stories no writer could possibly dream up. It had been so long since he'd heard her voice. It was music. The grandest symphony ever written. It nearly brought him to tears.
"How could I stay away? I tried to ignore it. I tried to shut it out. I tried a thousand ways to forget, but the truth is, I know you. I've always known you. And from the day we met, I've loved you. How could I just forget that?"
She grinned and dazzled him, then stood on tiptoes and kissed him with all the heat, and all the passion, and every fiber in her being. The kind of kiss that made them both dizzy and weak.
"Come inside. Out of the rain."

Some days,
it's not even worth the scream
escaping the throat
so choked with
frustrated and unspoken words,
to find ears
so clogged with
unrealistic demands
that came from mouths
that should be full of feet
for being the catalyst
to eyes
so filled with anger and tears.
All the while
wringing hands
with more to do
than can ever get done,
trying to soothe
a heart
which perches perilously
on the edge of enraged and extinct.
Oh, how I long for sleep.

Into the depths
The darkest of places.
The darkest of hours.
The sun refuses to rise,
for the night has been unkind.
This vile city is washed
in film and filthy street light.
The sun is ashamed
to illuminate the darkest of corners,
the most resilient of sins.
It would, for self-pity,
leave us to fend for ourselves
against the endless,
dawnless - night
with nothing more than
seedy streetlight to guide us,
and no more common sense than
that which we can find in
our complete naivete,
to defend ourselves with.
And so we are forgotten.
And we roam so blindly,
and so embittered towards the sun,
that is shall fear to ever
break bread with the empty night,
which is now our existence, again.
We are the shadows.

She is a whisper.
She is the night.
She is something,
truly, to behold.
And in that whisper,
she is nothing.
A delicate breeze
carrying the most familiar of scents.
She lingers for awhile,
makes you wish and long
to hold her forever,
and then she is gone.
She is beauty
in its rarest and truest of forms.
For she is fleeting.
The secret of her charm
is that, too soon, she is gone.
If you were to scratch her surface
to see what lies beneath,
something strange you would find.
She beautifully broken,
Shattered symmetry inside.

If I were to tell you two things
One truth. One lie.
If they were both equally possible
and impossible.
How would you know which I have revealed,
and what I still hide?
If you were a smart man,
you would not seek your answers from my eyes.
Long ago I taught them the importance
of the secrets I hide.
No, they would not betray me.
Though revealing they may be,
my secrets they keep safely.
You would not listen to the tone of my voice.
Because I am an actor on this stage,
every lilt, every giggle
has been rehearsed for this play.
You would need to find some other way
to try and confound me.
Don't expect it to be easy.
I am not a book to be read.
Don't think I will tell you how to see me.
After all, what kind of fun would that be?

I saw you there.
The glowing embers at the end of your cigarette
gave you away.
All I could see was your shape.
Pierced by your eyes, glittering,
as you caught me, mid-stare.
All you were was smoke
and vacant mystery.
And then you were gone.
You vanished into the night.
I was your last drag
off a dying cigarette.
We were hot and deadly.
We burned everything in our path.
We set buildings in flames,
and burnt bridges that can never be rebuilt.
I was your last exhalation of smoke
into the cool night air.
But you left me something to remember you by.
You gave me your cancer.
You lit me up fast
and got me addicted.
And now I am nothing but ash.

I keep tearing open my own old wounds.
Maybe I like the pain.
Maybe we both do.
I can't stop trying to convince myself that I'll never be good enough.
I won't give myself a break.
He won't save me from my own hell.
He has his own to deal with.
To put me through.
I feel less and less important by the day.
I'm the pretty petal on the breeze.
Worth a moment's pause to wonder over,
but not worth more than the passing thought.
No matter how I try,
I've never felt important.
There's always something better.
The pain reminds me not to let my head float away in the clouds.
Happiness is for someone else.
Someone more deserving than me.
So don't get used to the feeling.
It was never supposed to be mine anyway.
That's not my place in life.
I'm the stepping stone from despair to daylight,
but never to be taken on the journey.
I'm worth only leaving behind in search of better things.
Better love, better people.
I'm the shadow that reminds you of the light awaiting.
Go in search of the brightness,
the sunshine,
the air worth breathing.
I am only quiet reflection.
I live in the in between place.
I think this may be where all of us, who should not have lived,
go to dwell.
No real purpose.
I was never supposed to be here anyway.
And so I fade.
With time, they all forget.
I was not meant to be remembered, anyway.
Certainly not to be kept.

In the twilight of harsh day
The melancholy sinks into silence.
The chill, the grey.
Neither dark nor light.
We cast no shadows,
Leave no marks.
Our secrets are as safe
As our silhouettes that are,
For now, unseen.
The flame we wish to start
Only smolders,
Not yet ready to brighten
Our darkened corners
Our guarded eyes.
We are free, for moments,
To feel our sharpest memories.
To bleed in peace.
In the twilight,
Our pain is safe.

You won't read about it in the papers,
You'll only feel it in your head.
Tonight's one of those nights,
And I'm dreaming about dying again.