I am panicking.

I am patching up and desperately traveling back to a distant recollection of a foggy memory. I am feverishly writing everything. Time is passing “us” by so quickly. I talk to the walls and pretend it’s you. I listen to old songs and think of things you used to. I stare at your things and will them to move.

There is such a stillness around me.

An awareness that most things we occupy our space with are lifeless. I often feel hollow. There is one thing that I drill into my head each morning that my feet hit the floor — you aren’t here anymore. I focus heavily on dates and times even though I realize time is leaving you behind.

i am chewing my nails to the bone.

bound to the routine of growing old.

inject me with every insecurity
deny me my foresight
scoop my eye sockets dry
with silver spoons from childhood plight
turn the corners of my mouth upward with pins
in stifling approvable of your apathy
rip my teeth from root so i cannot express
grief and wild unrest
burn me of my tongue
make it so i struggle to say your name
twist and mangle my wrists
bend my fingers back
(one, two, three)
listen to the splintering bone
the intoxicating frailty
listen like your favorite song
the fading circulation in hi-fi stereo (on repeat)
bend my back for you
turn away as my spine snaps
under weight from mild neglect
unravel my nerves
string them like a guitar
play me a discord
cut me open with sharp words
and leave me exposed
slide my discs
until i’m weak in the knees
string me up by my ankles
and sever my feet to gain inches on me
peel back my skin
bind my veins
tether them to floor boards and ideas of leaving me
watch as the desperation seeps from me
tangle my hair and pull it back
like weighty curtains from my skull cap
crack me open
unspool my brains
re-wire my circuitry
introduce color then reverse it back
blow your breath into my ear
let it circle and suffocate me
will me not to feel
it will only complicate me
pull the desperation from the air
my fixed, heavy rain cloud
drape me with uncertainty
cover me in soot and paint me a burden
set me on fire
leave a thought
let it continue to escape me
you dot your “i’s” with crippling intensity
dripping in heartfelt symphonies
my velveteen,
you are a looming aftertaste
a foundation
a voracious hunger
to set roots deep within bone

I want glamour.
I want edge.
I need f(r)iction.
Periodic glances.
Poison. Setting.
A dark/darker/darkest of romances.
Intoxicating. Sinking. Sinking. Slow now.
Plucking stars.
In the shadows. Cruel hesitation.
Collections.
Twi(sting).
Plug me in. Bring me down.
Saccharine.

i see what i want to see.
often, it's you embracing me.
an infinite loop of ecstasy.
then i wake up from the dream.

reality sounds to me like:
"i miss you."
"i wonder if you miss me."

black coffee
6 a.m.
old garages
tomato sandwiches
toy planes still in the plastic

Margaritaville on casette tape
Sunday's are car dealership days
tabasco sauce on every dish
two-bite pinchers when we were kids  
every boy's name is Mitch

I flinch. / It is '99 now.

I am eight years old.
The wind blows.
A dog barks.
I try not to fall apart.

While you, you look through me.

I am away. / You won't ask where I've gone.

I am seeking your approval.
I can feel you in my lungs.
You are reaching for the doorway.
I am cleaning out your wounds.

While you, you look through me.

I am not on Earth. / I am looking down.

You are tangled in my thoughts.
I am trying to speak out.
Only I, continue to ***** my finger.
Your golden, thorny crown.

While you, you look through me.

I am here now. / It is dark.

I whisper.
I am overdue.
You are sleeping still.
While I am watching you.

I know you are a vision.
A melody of hues.
But I cannot compete.
As I am, dripping, grey, floating decay.

This is a love letter to the greatest man I have ever known.

You were my first love. The way a young girl adores her father  — you were that for me (and so much more).  From you I learned a quiet, confident love one that attributes words to only carrying half the weight that actions do. You spoiled me with your youthful spirit. If ever I, "Chief Two Ponytails," needed to boss someone around in my play kitchen; you were always there to lovingly accept my misguided culinary decisions to serve you mud pies and plastic fruit.

There is no one who loved me more wholly.

As I grew, you grew with me teaching me endless generosity and to never get too tangled up in the details because as is all too real — life is fleeting. You were my constant and now the only time I get to spend with you is in my head. I see you in everything — the changing of the leaves, the color of red velvet cake, and toy airplanes. I was angry at time for pushing me further from you and angry at the world for spinning in your absence. I wished I could fill a balloon with your breath so that I could float away in hopes of being closer to you.

But, even in death, you have taught me the greatest lesson — that love transcends time, things mend and where you were my sunshine, you are now my stars.

I will forever strive to be a reflection of your gentle heart.
I love you like wildfire.

The weight from all this sadness is breaking my jaw.

I listen to your old voicemails before I go to sleep because I want to remember the way your voice sounded when you loved me. I keep having these dreams about you that cut deeper than anything because even in moments that I’m not aware — you’re still there. I hate you and I love you and I hate you but hate is just a repressed form of love. I often get so wrapped up in the thought of you that I think I might’ve made you up. You seem so intangible — like a blur of a memory. I think, too often and too much about "us" and what that even means to me. I think I'm probably a chore for you. Something that you entertain because you feel a responsibility for or maybe you pity me so you answer my calls. This hurts worse then if you were to not answer at all. I wonder why I feel so debilitatingly in love with this person who seemingly feels nothing at all and if there’s a switch that I can turn it off with. I wish I felt numb like you. I wish I could go one second without obsessing over the thought of you. I wish every time I heard the doorbell ring I didn’t get a rush of nervous energy at the thought that it could be you or when I look out the window I wasn’t desparately trying to picture the way your car looked in front of my house. I wish I wasn't clinging to a time when your name brought me immeasurable joy or trying to remember the way the light hit your face or the way your arms felt around my waist. I wish I wasn't always searching for you in everything like a lost child — searching for you in places I know you'll never be. I wish I didn't panic at the thought of losing memories or the way you smell or the face you make when you concentrate. I wish the urge to see you and to call you didn't feel like something I'm not supposed to need. And I wish my heart didn’t leap out of my chest anytime I wondered about who’s getting the affection that I desperately miss. Most of all, I wish I just felt okay even if for a day.

Every 23rd I listen to the last voicemail you left me. And I'll sit and recount each moment until you're burned into my memory. But it never gets any easier, in fact, it only gets harder to breathe.

When you reach for me, all I feel is distance.
The distance from A. to B.
The latitude of longing.
The loose strands.
When you reach for me all I feel is stranded.
Stranded on an island in your head.

I once was a boy,
clad in clover.

Tangled in red,
stricken with slumber.

I once was a boy,
embellished in blue.

Laced in white,
carved with sovereign.

As opulence my reassurance,
I only wish.

I wish,
I was dead.

Cancer is a quiet pain.
A fog that clings to innocent beings.
Consuming with unapologetic haste.
There's a sadness in your eyes.  
It gives my world such weight.
How do I hush this helplessness?
It gives the air such infinite stillness.
I am choking on this illness.
I am losing sleep.
I am eating to feel less hollow.
I am thinking to feel less brim.
I want to fight your battles.
I want to hold your hand.
I will not lose you to this.
You're my sunlight.
My deepest heart and the greatest man.

All I've been is alone.
Alone in my head.
Paranoid that others will take notice.
Paranoid and angry at death.
All I feel is sadness.
Sadness and dread for things that once brought me happiness.

I am the lone leaf blowing in the wind with no recollection of where it's going or where its been.

The hills are back in droves.
There are lilacs in your eyes.
It is winter.
I am yours, you are mine.

I count to ten.
You breathe me in.
I feel void.
So I, begin the count again.

Gravity counteracts me in a way I can't explain —
It's like driving through a haze
Or trying to catch rain

the rifle versus the latter
existential counterparts
exhuming
i held your head up
when you were alone

I am twenty-three and I crave serendipity. I crave the inability to allow minor things to define me. I crave early morning coffee, in-depth conversations, and productivity. I want to create, mold, make, then re-shape my circuitry. I want clarity when it's cloudy and unity when I'm lonely. I want to be sixteen shades of blue in a room of maroon. I want to be curious and cultured. I want no beginning nor end, only middle ground — a wallflower with a wildflower's spirit infinitely abloom. I want to be silly and sappy. Witty and wishful. I want to write saccharine sentiments on mirrors in cheap lipstick and surround myself with inspiring oddities. I want scavenger hunts, a marathon of documentaries, a collection of melancholy melodies, and crisp hikes through forests talking with the trees. I want fog in the dead of night and your warmth till first morning's light.

I am twenty-four (soon to be) and I want to be unafraid.

i haven't heard you laugh in weeks;
is just the same song with a different beat

Hollow hues —
I am hate.
Of hollow gold,
Of blooming fate.

Think me idle,
Dress me vain.
Soiled hands
Soon to reign.

Your favorite coffee cup still sits on the counter untouched.

i bite my nails to the bone
and when i bleed it reminds me that i am home
in a vessel made of stardust and controlled chaos
i am a tangled thought
a misrepresentation of misplaced passion
a piece of paper with an inkblot
made to diagnose a series of theories
about the distinction between them and us

She is walking behind him.

The house on fire.