these, these,
                                                                                                                      knock
this stranger's words on my screen
                                                                                                                       knock
reminding me of me
                                                                                                                        knock

In my stomach, a sinking
                                                                                                                                         slow
In my chest heavy. Shoulders
                                                                                                                           solid
want to crunch into each other
                                                                                        want to erase
Helpless sad
                                                                                                                   pain from
leans bone into back
                                                                                            your words
back-bent behind birds and beeches
                                                                                                             I found
Dreaming for seasons, I
                                                                                                              the sun
miss the sun
                                                                                          speak
silent
                                                                                       please
miss the days I numbed myself while it was cloudy
                                                                                                   I'll drown
even with a good chance of clearing up before noon, I
                                                                                                          in your words
don't remember any of them
                                                                                   remembering
The flavor of my thoughts
                                                                                       not
was lost



What do you say to the corpse that is lying in your grave?
                                                                                                                            caustic
You learn to accept that you're still here.
                                                                                                                              golden
You look yourself in the mirror and decide each day that you'll
                                                                                                                  stay      constant
shake love out of your living limbs
                                                                                            sorrow
into the earth
                                                                                      love
with each step.
                                                                                                is like
Step.
                                                                                                                   DANCING
You become grateful for the beat.
                                                                                                                move with me
Beat.
                               &

I write because I care and I'm often afraid
So here's to the start of an honest relationship.
Because it would be nice to have someone write you a poem. Nice, but not necessary.
Here's to freedom, independence, and breaking the rules.
Here's to loneliness, and getting through it.
Here's to learning constantly.
Today I'd like to write myself a poem.

I want to tell myself that the way my eyes glinted in the sunlight today was like fresh daffodils bursting straight out of the winter cold
that my smiles were contagious, soft, timeless, and beautiful
that my footsteps caressed the ground with all the bliss of triumphant, free happiness and well-wishing,
that brightness spread in my wake,
that I glowed.
that I made a difference.
that everything up to this point led to a fractured-but-still-beautiful-for-it picture
that every single one of my ideals is beautiful, that my yearning for the world to feel loved is seeping out my pores,
that someone cried joy to remember that people connect
that words leaped out of the page and helped someone connect

Hon, you're great how you are.
You're most beautiful when you're happy.
I like you better when you're laughing.
When you're in a bad mood, you're kind of whiny...
But thank God you're not perfect.
And thank God you don't pretend to be.
And life is hard, but it's better that way. So keep walking.
You know yourself better than you think you do.


These words could be whispered, or written, or sung
whatever helps you listen
alone never are you..you are never alone..never..are...never..alone.. ever
You are never alone.



Written May 3

holed inside, cornered, focused
paper pops into my eyes
lines on lines

headphones in, beats in time

turn my head:
windows
and grays
and rains
//contrast with fake-warm lighting:

is the most beautiful awakening


.


((I'd love to go dance in the
rain, will you join me? Stare straight up
and get that freshly-drizzled feeling
in my fingertips and
weight my eyelids
closed, happily--
motions: feet moving of
their own accord
            stomp
                      in
                         puddles
                   laughing
            into
      childhood memories --
I'd love to bring you back
with me))


a happy interlude
cues:
plug out
remember there's a whole world out there
grin
plug in

*******, you *******
******* for being ****** up and not being able to be fixed
and not being able to fix yourself
******* for representing all the unhealthy relationships in my life
(read: ALL the relationships in my life)
******* for your two-facedness, for the things that were ****** up then,
for the things that are ****** up now and for
you pretending that it isn’t this way
pretending to be holding the truth
be speaking the truth
be slurring the truth
you are unknowing of the truth
I am not knowing of what’s true
and good,
but you are not it.

So leave, leave, leave, and take her with you,
and pretend as if you have me in your heart
but forget me. Please don’t speak to me.
And don’t cry to me.

And at some point, eat. And at some point, sleep.
Between the meaningless bouts of *******, *******, *******,
and pretending to be finding the things
you find meaningful
You haven’t thought about them in a while, have you

I’m angry at you and I’m angrier at myself
But at least I’m proud of myself
Because whatever hurts me now makes me grow
I can handle being alone and learn independence, and it will
be my weapon against you and everyone like you.

I don’t love you. I don’t know what that kind of love is and I hope to not find it for a while.

It's like this
If you live in a world where people
have always kept their heads down,
they will tell you that the sky is made of asphalt
you will think that they are being pessimistic,
but they know nothing different.


I must get away from these people
This place has the kind of gravity that pulls
you into a disease
I seem to be the only one who's noticed

Running on thunder,
how I loved you.
Even in your blueness
and in the quiet,
I wanted to touch your
soft blonde self, you
were so soft you were
bound to blow away
in the wind so
soft I could melt
at the knees and stay
on the ground with
my heart ahead of
my thoughts,

dreamer.
I'm still sighing
on the lightning,
unfazed even in
your lemon-yellow
love. Sunshine to
see a drifter fall
so perfectly.
You were always
going to be something
rain-like, drizzled
into my memories,
beautiful crystal
clear eyes, silent
somewhere, ghost of
your voice on my
grass-green heart.
Best wishes.

Let me explain.

I blend in with the crowd once you chop me into pieces.
Sometimes I'm tough, but you can pound it out of me.
Sometimes I'm mushy and I get tossed in the trash.
Sometimes I'm tasteless.
Sometimes I'm tastelessly prepared
or tastelessly presented.

I've been both fatty and lean.
I've been through thick and thin only to be chewed up
and sometimes spit out
and sometimes digested.

And I can't be fed to the vegetarians
because the people that look closer
might see the signs of suffering

Let's talk about the wind
No, the wind
I mean how it feels to feel your soul come and go like that
Look at me, aren't eyes amazing?
Wind on the water of your eyes,
and your hair is a flock of birds

I'm sure there is a pattern,
especially when I see you like this
dumbfounded
in my mind
I am a genius
and you are interested...

Goosebumps on that side of my body only,
and insides shiver with the rippling wind,
inverted shock wounds
chalk on my windblown ideas
stock humans
walking around all the time, cut and dry culture,
I want to learn to paint and I want you to be there.
I want you to be the Titanic
and admit that you are fragile
be ready to go when the iceberg meets you, there


Wind on the ocean
I want to sink,
because the ocean is more powerful than peaceful
and I am fragile

Look, I just want to be childish and sunshine
running through underpasses playing with paper planes
dragging you into the snow because
life is something to celebrate

A long time ago
I found myself there, with you
me being me
you being you
The cold night warmed my rusty insides
It wasn't so bad

But the world wasn't all that, love
We can't stay so sheltered forever
This last storm rocked a city cold-
colder than can be considered warm, I mean-
and while I want to read your words and remember your breath and bones
and fall into you I'd really just be
falling
nothing romanticized about it.
No one wants to leave all of their solid ground forever.
some of it, yes, but not all of it.

I've always been an all-or-nothing kind of person, in some ways
but life is about letting parts of yourself go
so you can grow
and I can grow

We're just two plants, you and I
not in the same pea pod, or even the same planter
but we both miss summer's glow and are jealous that our neighbors are sprouting flowers.

And at the end of it all, we'll both be fine.

As if anger is never enough when it comes to me fleetingly, sparingly,
sweetly if you'd believe it,
I'd taste it and spew it back out into rainbows that land in thorns surrounding you
I want to hurt you, I want to be alone

My whole life I've been trying to help people
I've been trying to help and draining myself
I'm used to the kind of air that leeches off of me,
the kind of folks that leech off of me,
the state of being of shame, for the ways I can't keep myself alive

And I try and stop trying, live and keep dying
moving and stopping
If I open my eyes near you I become too repulsed to keep rhythm
If I listen to you I sink faster into the places where I can't feel

But with you before I've felt the sky in a million flavors
And I've cried in a million colors
And now, I have a million ways to say that I'm confused.
But I'm done.

I wonder if you feel beautiful in your skin
as I sit in the lamplight, covering mine
watching limbs of strangers and friends
and feeling insignificant,
yet too large for comfort,
too large to be looked at,
too large to be looked past,
please.
Inside this small talk, I am screaming
inside myself
pleading with the world for a chance to start over,
please
just a chance to be normal
just a chance to be beautiful
please,
I just want to be a person worth loving

My plea hits the front of my mouth,
I choke it down, let it coil and drop.
Leaden and heavy.

...

The night drags, laughter presses on my silent lips
Drunken song fills the air
and I'm weighted by my own sharpness

I hope tonight that the devil finds me in my sleep.
I need to think about things.

Dark and beautiful.
Mesmerizing, the sounds of the earth that catch you sooner.
The bugs that sing to the night because air can't be taken from them.

My brow is furrowed. I don't know why. I'm not even thinking.
The emptiness is present
which doesn't seem possible.

The emptiness is present.

Bugs are crawling up my legs. Bugs are crawling in my ears.
The night is singing.
I'd like to live with the trees tonight. I'd like to grieve
and give solemn peace to the air
with the trees tonight.
I'd breathe every breath of my soul to the trees tonight.
And for once, I'd ask the clouds to completely cover the stars
as a sort of silent reverence for the ever-beating passion reverberating
through the silently clasped hands
of me, and the trees, tonight.

after you touched me
my confidence lasted
a full day

softly...
your hand was warm

it was just a brush by, really

and it wasn't even a soft spot

just exposed.


I want to mix with you still
leave cool spots on your cheeks
softly...
drip down your legs.

the air would be yellow sun around our heads

Laughing fear away, away
Words can't feel nor can they sway
Preaching orders to blind reporters
"Stay, don't stay, and never
ever pray"

Depravity and gravity, stolid,
You can't pretend these things aren't solid,
An idea is an idea
was an idea
was once a thought
and then forgot.

Sometimes...
The world closes you into its arms and you get freaked out.
You always wanted that feeling of being held... but it isn't worth losing your sight...

Sometimes things are dark.
One wonders, while they watch
another blindly ***** at air,
what one might find if they
adjusted.

Sometimes the air is black,
black like behind your eyesockets,
filling your lungs like the tar you swore to never touch-
so deep it seems to seep from your very pores,
seep..... and harden.
So much for flying, there goes your monstrous visions of
avoidance
You are the statue, frozen, groping blindly at nothing for eternity
(not that you would have necessarily moved very far)



Still, though, your tears stain the pictures of people you miss. To you the world is boundless, but you seem to see it differently than all of them...

Still, though, MY tears stain your pictures. To me the world is boundless, but I seem to see it differently than all of you...

I'm trying to be honest
I can't be satisfied by the words
All I have are swirling thoughts,
a comforting memory,
and a path I'd like to travel that became blocked off too soon
because I pushed down a tree in pursuit of something different
something different
something more

The moon speaks to me on these nights,
I want music, movies, the stars
I really want people
but anything that will bring the tears
will work something special
something more

Cracking inside me, I can't tell you
how broken I feel
for lack of words and courage
and for who has ears these days
and I am small,
in an intersection of swirling paths called the universe,
a thick, luscious ribbon of everything beautiful covered in chicken wire and mulch
it smells like earth, tastes like something that can't be digested,
but I swallow it anyway
goes down rough,
but feels something right
something different
something more

lump in my stomach, I know the acid is there working some kind of miracle

three thousand miles and one hundred twenty seven hours ago (approximately), I felt happy

Spinning, spinning something new, I guess. But the pace is set, and you're either in or a failure.

Stepping softly makes the grass breathe
easier, I imagine

I like to touch the trees as I pass by,
the bark leaving a tingle on my fingers
I like to imagine that in my fingerprint a small spot of warmth
is absorbed into the heart of the tree
I intend for the tree to understand I mean
"Thank you"

I whisper when I'm by myself.
I imagine the wind to be full of words
of soft-spoken wanderers,
content with the slowness of
deeply breathing the world in.

I do
feel the break of your
most true, shining, unreserved smile
coming over the horizon


No one can hold bitterness inside the
lines of their face forever
lined with memories and broken memories
and truth-be-held-for-fear-to-see
and broken backs for fear to be
and the haunting of eternity
and waking up, refuse to be
standing up, your tears are free
your soul is free

your determination
sparked at dawn revealed
to run from this damnation
hard
fast
harder
waking up your eyes without a stretch
seeing for the first time the ones that knew you best
all along inside your beaten heart repressed
now walk inside the lines of appreciation
and outside the lines of classic creation

were those moments that you spoke of once
a child
a voice
a call
here suddenly aside the spot you left behind
with nowhere to hide
nowhere to hide
you don't want to
hide

you're here for the ride.
Your face shines of joy.
The wall was inside but before
you died behind it
you said "Yes" for the first time in years

You don't need to hide, there's still brightness
inside where you left it, still held
for release with your tears


And I feel the break of contagious happiness
and my most true, shining, unreserved smile
coming over the horizon.

I can't express myself quite right in this endless glaring light
of judgment
stirring sweat beads, clenching to hold my calm, failing?
I am trying to not be afraid of the fingers relentlessly tapping
and all of you with animal faces
we are running backwards in a painting on display
I haven't blinked in so long but I think it's okay
because I'm underwater.

I awoke from near-slumber to smile
about the color of your eyes, how
the sunlight makes them dance into a
slow stream of warm honey-
reflecting mine into pools
reflecting mine as they wander to arms
that embrace

You watched my eyes wander
and called me wanderer as I danced in circles
around you, away, returned to you
standing as shelter with
arms that embrace

Free, my skin laughs to touch yours
Melt, the sky into pools around us
Cry, heavy burdens released to your shoulder
and burrowing into your arms
that embrace me
You, the boy that once chased me
Me, the girl going crazy
Us, two caged birds set free

I fall back asleep to the thought of your heartbeat...

I can feel your fingers from miles away
I can close my eyes and feel close breaths in memory
and tingle as if closing the space of centimeters

In my daydreams we collide in an instant
In the nighttime my eyes are dripping,
your lips on my forehead

I feel heartbeats in my steps,
I feel spaces in between everything-
too large, but not empty enough to be an escape

In lust I can express my sadness
In knowing eyes that understand too well
In the motion of waves, and salt water

Let's move together and hold each other's sadness
In the space that once contained love
In the space where two children continue to grow up

In old friends that don't take moments like these for granted
In old souls that are frustrated with the woes of adolescence
In an answer to a question that was never asked

In heartbeats sensed from less-than-centimeters away
and spaces filled in
and tongues locking fiercely, then softly, we'll part.

And the wind will sigh and we will take it for what it is:
exactly what we needed.
I'll see you when we've found ourselves.

music roared in my ears
the light blinded me
ahead
dust was rising
it clouded the air like smoke
the dust blinded me
the road, and the sun, and the music,
and the dust
it tasted like freedom


and
for a moment in between
all the things
there was a beautiful silence

long, long fingers
I want to touch the screen and meet you where you can't feel me prodding,
can't feel me remembering
or read into my thoughts

I don't even know the implications of my thoughts,
if you are the shape in the clouds,
or you are the shape of my feelings,
or I'm stuck in the clouds and have no ground.
The feelings are there, but I'm thinking too hard
too hard to speak
but it was also that way then, in the night,
easier to touch your fingers than to look you in the eye
easier to talk about the clouds than about the feelings
Somehow I think the comfort of touch bypasses the fear of rejection, given its time


I wonder what you think of time and space

but maybe your ability to not think about everything is what makes you beautiful to me

Paradise walking,
tremors in a suitcase waiting,
unattended outside your locked doors.

Preachers talking,
pathways in the nighttime fading,
silence mirrored in your crimson floors.

Creatures gaping,
twilight in the trees and
burns and pleas and seeing
separate pieces
Crying on your
starlit sandy beaches as the
night collapses, dawn surpasses
pillows made of ashes
Sunlight burns your broken
body hiding in the sand
and jagged lashes
pictures fastened
memories fashioned

Soap cleanses broken lenses
Wounds heal and people deal.

In all honesty, I've loved you since I first knew you.
I love you in the ways I don't know how to love
and in the places I don't know how to look for
I love you in the ways it hurts to communicate
and the places eyes are most powerful
and colors, the colors you paint behind you
and wings - I was searching, you showed me roots
and that growth stems from groundedness
and that circles are everywhere

I want to be in a circle with you
It's a sort of unformed dream, where I imagine
I might not need to be constantly moving

I love you just looking at you
eyes soft and
something hidden
we don't need to speak
I just want to kiss you

They say the sun also rises
because it does
and it's a pretty thought to
cling to when shadow falls
light sparks blacken
down abysmal lanes
of dying forget-me-nots
and daisies, daisies

They say challenges make you stronger
because they do
but only if you catch a break,
because a weight will only crush
your hollowing bones to
powder and ash
and you'll be swept
away before you
even say
wait

I had to shout before I blew away
and I still could only hear static
but through my dripping heavy
shadow-clouded vision
I saw a ray of sunlight
rising, and others too,
and each with a face and
a voice and something
tangible

I'm beginning to feel your fingers,
all of you,
holding my body that's so
ready to burst
and my brain that's so
ready to
give in

Maybe in my mind people were burying me,
when in reality I was burying myself,
and all these people were trying to keep me alive

Funny how it works like that

sigh at the forecast
there's enough grey in my head
to water my plants

it drips out my ears
colorless moments and tears
in writing and rants

you call it water
i call it away and it's
gone like forgiveness

but i think this true
i guess i like rain because
i can't hear my breaths

the days you wish you could skip filled with
feelings you want to numb away from or even worse actually
manage to
fill yourself with the numbness of ignoring sunlight
and not noticing touch
and not enjoying the soft things
the gentle things
the faint outlines of day smeared with shadows
and caffeine-soaked eyelids -
I can't tell the difference between open and closed
I can't remember the reasons for doing
keep moving, keep going
prioritize staying awake and bypassing
the things that conjure smiles and
the smiles
and the things that cause inquiry
and inquiry is seeking life?
bypassing life
taking steps without feeling the ground is
breathing without tasting oxygen
is being a robot

crash into sleep like a wave that overtakes you
like admitting you have no strength
or nothing left to give but a headprint into a pillow

I always somehow missed your passing silhouette
but I saw your eyes cry thunder,
saw your sweetly shivering pen-scratching-paper
in the cold streetlight

I never thought I could feel so disconnected
                                                                I was wrong.
                                                                ­For that and for other things. I

meant to share things. With you, with anyone I
           meant to do things that are worthwhile I
                         meant to find the things worth living for I
                                      meant to grasp the hands of the world tightly and never let go
I didn't want to be swayed,
and I'm swinging at the whim of drifting cobwebs


I found myself on the concrete again, tonight, throwing questions at the sky
The parts of myself worth keeping are atrophying, I thought
So I thought some more.


EVERYONE deserves love. I'm tired of scratching the snow waiting for an answer. I want the world to change. And it's not me, it's the rules that broke me. It's the rules that bent me into un
                     rec
og
niz                able
shapes.

So then Why, I asked. One word. Crumbled as the cold set in, and I cried in the moonlight.

That was when I thought of you and the things left unanswered. Mostly I use you as a way to think about myself. When I was with you, I stopped asking questions, I think.
I need to learn how to be alone. I need to learn how to be with people and not stop being. I'm raging so freely lately that I'm dreaming again of you and of the times I kissed you and the times I should have, but mostly of the time I left you...
No regrets, hon, no matter how much it hurts.


So.
Here, again. Alone, again. The apathy is back.
Sun on my back, moon on my back, cracks
in my skin. You win.

My tree is just too cold
Gas is too expensive so I
can't run to the open road.
Reality hurts
My voice wants to be heard
My eyes are lonely too...
It hurts so much to be excluded
not knowing where to aim my sadness
or whether to call myself "isolated"
or "isolating"
I'm trying to say "help"
but no one understands my language
I am a different species
perhaps
is that why nobody talks to me?
I don't want pity
I ache for a moment
of connection and caring
and not-worrying-just-being
but nobody
wants to
connect.

I'm in the space between
wanting to cry from sadness,
and wanting to cry because
no one would care if I cried,
and wanting to cry because
no one would even look anyway.

Cruel laughter is in my mirror
and in my pool of memories
frozen over.

It's been so long since I've
felt so much at once
and wasted so much time
in so little space
and thought so much about
fire and music
and hid so much in
math and words
and wanted so badly
to have someone to share it all with.

The storm is brewing and it's peaceful in here
There are laughs to be heard, somewhere
and it's peaceful in here
When the wind hits, it's contained
shelved books turn to tatters in my brain

musicals lyricals questioned insane
was the girl who slid down the mountain and landed in shame
at the foot of the grave of the days that made gains
at the back of her head, memories plated in fox fires and red
cheeks
creeps
cheap - you gotta be to survive, sometimes,
right? Freak?

Strum, I'll strum my fingers numb
or teach myself how
Now
The window is breaking under the pressure
A million pieces of my heart are plastered on the walls,
on the floor, in my calls
lost to the no ones I shouted to

Pillows
Things to grasp onto
Holes to tip-toe-topple into
What have you got to lose?
said the girl in the straightjacket whose
shards of hair flew past your periphery
like diamonds shattering in the moonlight

out of sight
out of sight
what is sight?
I heard a shriek-

stricken sighs
eyes
eyes
i's

Stop predicting bad things.
Blink.
Step forward or you'll sink.

The air is around us
The air is surrounding you, you're alone
The world is around me, am I home?
openness - vast, deep, incomprehensible
swallowed my stencils and connected
my pencils to paper and then

opening my mind to the stars
'thank you' spoken softly
unguided but for the shadows cast
on the ground by the clouds

ghouls glittered in the moonlight and
drifted into the cedars

I am a runaway train
loose and accelerating
cascading down into oblivion
metallic scraping breaking twist and
I meld with the ground from the sky
no brakes to stop me now
no brain to feel regret, no soul
I am manufactured, fake
a product
I never had a heart to begin with.

Is this freedom?
Breaking away from my steel track
cutting a new path into the earth
leaving plastic bodies broken in my wake
They have no brain to feel regret, no soul
they were manufactured, fake
a product
They never had a heart to begin with.

I dream of nature pure
a soul unfractured
the fall of the factory
alas
the system only lusts
for efficiency, obedience,
uniformity
we are machines
ignorant of natural law.

All we know is fresh-baked plastic
served through metal bars with a smile
the system only lusts
there is no
love.

The sun drips into the horizon and blurs,
always does like that, the last rays foggy and golden,
always goes when you don't want it to go, you know?

when the air spirals shivers down your spine and you
wonder why you are so lonely,
when the world is so alive

leads to hyper-    
active hyper-                                        
dependant
carbo-
fffffffFFFFIIIIiiiiIIIIIZZzzzzzZ
                             zzzzlleeee     pOP
               aggggaachugggggggaaaNGGGulp.
-nated
people
who fin
d
it hard to face the
sugarless silence

The words are locked inside me
always pouring out behind me,
you know how it is
trying to pick apart the pieces,
and put them together correctly
the psyche begs to be unraveled
thread by painstaking thread
days when the needle is dull,
and there are no words
and all there is
are words

I'm back in the fast lane,
I didn't want to do it
but I did, furious yet proud

Now all I want is the music, I want the tears,
the face of the drum
is bruising my hands

wanting to see myself hardening
calloused fingers, calloused mind
trying to feel from the inside out
sand myself down and raw and red
writing on the walls, remind myself that I
am black and wrinkled up inside,
not a speck of sunshine about it

if only as a reminder to look up,
and be inspired
because there is this thing about people,
they take the black bits
and plant a garden

crow in the field.
wide skin exposure; long exposure of the moon,
white crow in the room,
pecks asbestos off the ceiling.
soft and crumbles and
lands on the
tile

steps on the asbestos on the tile

Hush... tremble.
Would you choose sound or touch?
Along with old colors flying
comes a familiar rush -
a face, a fight, a crutch.
You leaned too far into the
backs of your supporters - is there
no word but which comes from
blind reporters?
You're clutching cold into your fingers -
wait, wait, wait and count to
three - there's always more than
you can think-of-when-the-
situation-starts-to-sink-just-out-of-
reach

Y­our grasp is slipping, questions ripping
away unanswered
Let go, let go, let go the countless
moments-that-you'd-like-to-claim-
are-yours-without-the­-shame
of unopened doors

There's no one to blame.
You've flown off course-
There is no course, there is only
finding the rest of the pieces -
There always will be a mess
and some creases -
however long your reach is -

At the end of it all, the moments
you remember are the ones
spent looking away from your feet.

Breathe in, breathe out, look up, repeat.

Come
Let your contents drip out and mix with the paint-water
and clogged gutters and spit
come put your feet up before the flood

of times when the wind blew through
the curtains of your heavens
and song-sounded rain-washed
hard hats rusting like ravens' calls

rushed the rivers through your rocks
of granite and quartz and obsidian
and gold, under your fingernails
flaked and speckled the clouds

for shocks, the lightning stole your thoughts
the wind battered your brains
and tore your notes into colors
your keyboards and tablets and text-
message-rants with a time delay

flew off into the hurricane

To those who like
(you could say I'm fishing
to see who's)
reading between
(paying attention to
the meaning of)
the lines

There is no
.
to this poem

In all my life I never tried to
.
out the wisdom I didn't know

I re
ac
(hed)
ted
the wrong way a few
x

I still do at
x
but I care about *s
and try not to care about #s

I pay attention to i's
both of them

One day someone will find me in the
lab
r
(nth degree - the lengths I'd go to to hide and wish to be found)

I think that's the
.

I can see your eyes
trying to hide behind glasses you surmise
no tendency to free nor fear to be

I waited as an outline
watching curtains fall to further shadow
making out a hunched figure -
shaded but clear as the note
you purposefully wrote illegibly-
Look at me!

You walked away bent and kept
your curtain nailed to your head-
and I gloriously alight instead.

I'm outside the glass box, watching you
You don't want pity, sweetie, but I pity you
I remember the days of leaving all to blue
Showing skin for want of love
Miming moments seen
on TV
on screens
in scenes
You'd give all to be seen

Walking with a stilt two paces behind sober,
shivers bared to the air and the eyes of adorers
You tug lightly for a kiss and he succumbs
before maintaining the gait
You've only put yourself out as bait
to be eaten by looks
This love that you're seeking can't be pulled in with hooks
and ***
and sadness

You're see-through
He pities you too

Too many eyes are looking at the painting of
yesterday me and can't even
acknowledge me anymore and so
I learned to hide behind it
and walk around with it hanging over
my face
and it's nice not seeing anyway.

Too many souls are buried under the landfill
where a city once stood
where a tree once grew from
tears of creatures and people
and where children laughed a long
long time ago
forgotten under a
rotten smell

Even love is useless if we all refuse to use it.
does that mean we don't deserve to feel ?
No one wants to think about karma and
a kindness that we lack and the depths
of the twisted psychology of greed
taking over instead of basic need.

Too many lives are wasted,
too many stories copied and pasted
and bodies walking without brains
in a dark and menacing place
that leaves no trace of the
hearts left beating in the rains.

Poetry?
Yes, it's a place I like to hide in
Bury deep within myself so that when it's dark,
I have words

I have
I have to
I have to face the world
I have to face my fears
I have to face my hate
and the subjects of it
I have to leave when I want to stay
won't you follow..
I'm so hollow
sometimes
can't

the break between breaths
sharp blades of grass.
the sad softness that leaves an itch
leaves you itching when you go inside
the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach telling you to turn back
back..
your back is turned, don't look back
you've lost your perspective
wher
e
is

you're
so
sharp
I'd like to
think about
looking through the stars and back,
for someone one day.
I'd like
t
  o
look in
to the sun one day I'd like to sh
ow my sunshin
e too one day

I thought my dreams fell, one day
I thought I found a deep chasm inside myself that could never be filled
with broken glass everywhere
broken shards, dug into my feet
If the blood couldn't fill the void what
if love


The br
eak between gasps
is free for filling now

When I think about the things I did to you, it's like I've died and woken up at the same time
like crying for the first time, it's been so long since I've felt anything but this when your face catches me by surprise
like remembering a solemn moment of fingers slipping off the tablecloth without touching,
signifying nothing or so you (and even more so I) thought

once

many times

like realizing rain after you've been soaked through three layers of clothes, and having thoughts free of scorn even though it might be just like the rest of them to call tears a downpour.....
.......
So dramatic, and oh, the irony of every statement I could think of
like magnets, we seem to cause problems when we get too close
although you don't seem to notice anymore

See what I see:
the trees clinging to these orbs of light
like spiderweb shadows cast by the moon
fingers once clasped, bent now to reflect
an eternal grasp
the instant illusion of age,
of near-death

the confrontation of another kind of cold,
the distant past and future
the distance between here and the horizon

Mental snapshot taken with shivers,
the tree follows me in whispers as my shadow shortens,
zipping my skin up to hide my heartbeat,
lock it away tightly,
walk into my footsteps
and the nighttime
swallows
the reasoned stillness
.
.
My recent stillness,
I notice,
reflects back at me in the
puddles left behind the storm
and the remnants of light flicker

like stars

hearts
beat
the rhythm
of
my feet

fading into the black and soft
and safety in the age-old breath of trees

But who am I??
yelled into the sky silence


If I could
I would
take a snapshot of the falling leaves, swept with the gust,
sideways through postcards
above rooftops
settling softly, caught between the fingers of children on a playground
another picture of leaves scattered on the ground ahead of you before you leave home
scattered on the ground beneath you as you thumb through memories,
take the hand of a loved one,
and run singing into the night
the leaves danced with you in the night

The sky is black, gray, blue, and all shades of the thoughts that I've been unsuccessfully forcing away from myself
The clouds are heavy with melancholy
It makes me think of sweat
so badly wants to
drippppp and disappear, repeat
Buildings set in stone
Buildings are stone
brick, red, sandy, dust, chalk,
my skin is drier than it's been in years

If you look carefully you can just make out
the fabric of gold stretched thin and weaving through the air
I always wanted to believe we were all connected


Somewhere there is a desert full of air
and lonesome happily a cactus sings into the air

Every new song sounds differently depending on your perspective
I always wanted to be open to new perspectives
I was told to educate myself, and write every day,
and always always be kind
I see it in reflections when people aren't looking
Water muffles your bad intentions and everyone
looks good upside down, in ripples, with nameless lights
You eyes were alight the night I wanted to find you for the first time
You could tell -
and you ran

The night followed you
I watched you in the moon for months, and I cried into the thunder
The lightning shakes me with empowerment still
always
still always - the air is constantly moving, those pieces of gold
are like strands of hair trying to find lovers


I'll wait through the rain til my bones make contact with gold
I'll wait for shocks, I need to wake up and not feel alone
You haven't answered me yet

CRASH

and the room is so small, so
terribly small and uncomfortable until
you remember you haven't stepped
over your front mat, you're stuck
on a door step that's glaring down at you from your feet.

and you're screaming without opening your mouth,
because the only way you know how to express
is to paint your words on your forehead
and jump through stained-glass windows.

and the night doesn't end, sunlight is a dream,
the glare on your screen is from the city lights
swallowing the sky.

Zombie
sleep on the sofa
with eyes open
wake to walk to wander without want or will
stare into nothingness
think without thought
act without care or conscience
forget

the numbness swallows the pain
there is no fear of fire
or even blackness
we only fear feeling

Time is where we
aim our hateful fists
and weighted tears
for rain slowed into mists
our fingers are
icicles

Slow down and see
the face beneath your head
and a pair of watching eyes
next to the heart left in your bed
and Cry! - for distance
separate chests rise
and time, slow chime
Two hearts and a beat, repeat

Fairness, none
until, undone
a child stands screaming
to be heard
Tired! - from years of screaming
and not being heard.
found.

Two children, we can laugh
and fall asleep and meet
where distance and time
are forgotten
awful things, rotten
things, forgotten.