I knew this girl once.
I won't say we were friends
Because we weren't.
I should say, she knew me.
A girl knew me once.
And I was too afraid
Too young
Too angry
To know her back.
So we pretended for a while
And then we stopped.
She stopped seeing me
Just as I started seeing her
Just as I started knowing
Just as I started being.
Time dragged me
And I tried to be blind
I tried to stop seeing
And just when I thought
I was ready
To never see again
She appeared
And drew my hands from my eyes
And looked at me for a long time.
We saw each other as we always were
As we always are
And then we turned our backs
And walked apart.
I screamed
And realized
I would never be blind again.

There is a greatness in your form
The way you carry yourself around
Like you're the beginning
And the end
Of every sentence.
There is a cruelty in your eyes
And how they cut me down
Around every corner
And under all the moons and suns
We've seen together.
There is a kindness to your body
Like it has covered all it's bruises
And learned from its mistake
Of trusting you with it.
And there is ****** on your lips
When they join with mine
And I feel my life ending
With every untaken breath.

I stand above my bed
And examine the damage.
Blankets this way and that
Pillows all over
Sheets tangled up around themselves.
Proof of something that
Only hours ago
Left this place empty.
I take in the rubble
And breathe deeply.
I lower myself down to those
Tangled sheets
And backwards bedspreads
And fill my lungs with you.
I pull them up around me
And close my eyes
And wish for this place to be
The same kind of battleground
Again tomorrow.

I walk the world with thoughts of you
In every place I go
Your voice is on the winter wind
Your footprints in the snow
And every tool I try to use to scrape you from my mind
Cuts your name onto my tongue
And beats me till I'm blind
I layed my head upon your knees and breathed the air you breathed
I cut myself when you were cut to know just how you bleed
Now as I walk this empty earth with nothing but a face
To breathe me and to bleed me
Until I leave this place

I returned to the place
where I use to escape
from the pedestrian affairs
of life in suburbia.

Many nights spent
collapsed on the pavement
swapping humdrum stories
of teenage angst.

It was the end of a road
just north of town
with nothing but swampland
in two directions.

Far enough away
from the sprawl of the city
to understand quiet
without getting lost.

An abundance of stars
made us feel insignificant
and the freedom of isolation
gave us confidence and strength.

It was balanced and beautiful
like we were, back then,
just the right amount
of elation and confusion.

So then it was silly, I guess
for me to expect
that a place like that
would still be the same.

It's a strip mall now,
sleek and amalgamated
and the unkempt sawgrass
replaced with pigmented mulch.