There is an uncomfortable ledge on the tip
of your tongue. It is the place where your
flimsy thoughts uneasily sway, and in these
debating moments of loosely hanging on,
you decide to spit or swallow. For you, it is
the worst place for words to stoop, and
sometimes your tongue just flicks them out
like cigarette buds and all you can do is look
down the ledge in disbelief. I catch the words
at the bottom, salvaging rusted-penny-like
sentences. If I pocket enough, I know I will
be able to give them worth. I will surely turn
uncertain stammers into something much more
amiable and toss myself up the sill; our anxious
balconies colliding and combining. I absorb
the last fretful words, out of your mouth,
and sip the apology slowly off your lips.

Cheap,
convenience
store coffee,
steaming
out of
a styrofoam
cup,
clacking
against the
walls. Just
as I sip
veteran brewed
mocha mud,
burnt,
I unerringly
gripe about
those late
library
fees; my pockets
are parched.

And I think growing up had more
to do with the struggle of validating
your pipe dreams and protecting your
worlds virginity, than it ever had
to do with transcending your naive mind.
It became difficult to hope for
something figmental, let alone comfortable,
so you accept reality as only concrete.
Perhaps that is why you began to
digress through third grade
crushes, because it was the closest
thing to impossibility but borderlined
on the edge enough to authenticity
and tangible reality that it was okay.
And that was when you definitely sensed it,

*that hundred to one feeling.

My jeans ripple strands of faded
ponds curling around criss crossed
legs. The arc of my back hanging
over college ruled notebook paper
and I am sitting in the nook under
the staircase because I do not like
explaining to people why I am

so
*******
awkward.

And I might still try to die but if I
do not, I do not care all the same.
The air in my mouth is slightly stale
and seeping through the crevice of
my lips, like a draft, but they purse
tighter and I could almost hear my
breath beating against the back of
my teeth. Yell at me and travel your
voice close enough to cling to my
disadvantaged self-esteem and far
enough to send postcards when I
think I have had enough of this place.
If you want to talk too, I guess that
would be okay except my thoughts
are louder than you, so let me please

monologue
your
ear.

You can tell me how disproportionate
our relationship is after you help me
salvage what is left of my rationality.

Threads of cotton
corkscrewing
through blankets,
blending flesh
with fabric.
Flicking rain
drops off the
surface
of window
panes,
penciling my
name over
your skin with
my teeth.
Tremoring fingers
tracing your
silhouette,
sensing your
rapture wrapped
in
apprehensive
heart beats,
hanging on the
fibers folding
over our
unstitched
bodies

Gods that
fall on
the
laps of
men.
Minds
that
incarserate
thoughts
and the
resemblance
of the
two.

I've sat and I've thought. I've found
purpose and I've lost it. The cigarette,
I sip it slowly and strongly, surely it
fills what is empty inside me. Ember
that sears, smolder, singe, a hope that
in the life of a cigarette, we burn out
but are absorbed by the air that
surrounds us, lifts us. If I close my eyes
I can dream and if I close my hands I
can grasp; two realities collide and the
nothing becomes something. We have
the memories, the stains, that politely
remind us of moments since.
Remembering what each breath felt
like, what each breath was for.

I think I remember the way I undressed my bed
and the letter placed on a pillow with words that read
        "There was not a hand free when there should have been,
          only a small smile spread for too thin"
I stared and stared at the folded paper note,
reading your names over again as I slipped on my coat
I walked towards the window and the floorboards creaked
with every step they groaned goodbye and my knees fell weak
The window cold and fogged, felt like a memory
My forehead pressed against the glass, felt like a friend to me
The naked trees swing their skinny branches through grey skies
and patches of brown grass and a rotting fence apologize
My reflection older and defined, drained and I hardly recognize
I twist around abruptly when I hear a light tap on the door,
turn the **** to reveal a woman of barely twenty four
And I follow her eyes to the middle of the room and I see,
a little girl laying on a throw rug looking up at me
I heard my mothers voice but her words were muffled
The girl stared and said little, her movements were subtle
I took a step back and held on tight to my breath
When the girl got up and followed the woman out, nothing was left
Just me a bare floor an empty bed and my voice that echoes
"At what age did I begin to let go?"

I keep aware of the dry crusted cup covering me, trapping me and my thirsty dreams, sealed, and the glass is the kind not clear not sure, what is on the other side. My palms fit flatly against the surface and my ear presses against the silence, searching for a tone deeper than my own shy scrawny voice. Because I talk in memories and in daydreams and my words are so muffled while passing by those purposely planned for now junkies. They toss their names into the air too urgently and I mistaken their desperate greetings for a sharp goodbye. Inside this cup I can see perfectly their whole lives ironically strict and guided. Their critical hard hearts that carefully ration its beats each day at a time, scared of losing their spontaneity; and I feel a certain kind of sarcastic love for those constant people that stumble and scatter their hopes and desires, spread thinly, threaded loosely. Their cups are cold and wet and they are jet black satisfied. My fingers curl into tight fists, white knuckles, knocking on the china glass, china cup. I only wish it would crack and collapse, puncture a hole to peer in through. Tiny cuts skim across my hands, the skin is breaking and the cup with its taunting fits of laughter, covets me completely. Bang bam deep boom, tap tap, crack, just crack, a small crack, to compensate for my suffocating reality.

I dip into the black scribbles in my mind
Jot it all down, scrawled out, erratically written
Bold, italicize, tangled, underline
My voice shatters in shambles, so I write because nobody listens
And the light behind your eyes flicker like candles
And my hands and head and heart stiffen
Your lips loosen and lift me, omnipotent like ***** and lithium
You wrap a string around my finger so I do not go missing
Because I fill from the inside with helium
The frame, feeling, flavor, follows me, lingers, always living