I tend to sit awake
and dream
of what could be.
could have been.

I can't stay still
around him,
but he lets me choose.

"don't make me choose."

I need him
on grey, dewy mornings
on humid nights crouched in the back
of my scope of reason.

he tells me everything.
he never shrouds himself
but he isn't proud of his pain.

the nettles sticking to the pelt,
two bodies melt
as they meet
in the middle.

what a lovely cup
of lemonade.
I wish it was mine.

I wish the boy with the argyle socks
had the sense in him
not to follow me.

I wish I had the courage
to be the compass.

dear friend,
I can hear you
listening.
through the static
your voice carries
to the other side.

and you're falling apart,
one Saturday at a time
I can feel it
your heart in my hands
so ******, so frightened.
it's beating hysterically.
thump.
thump.

knowing you is
all that I can ask.
contentment arises
from your company
as I tell myself
what to think.

we're happy here.
no identification,
no forest fires,
just snaking vines
and sun-streaked regret.
it's quiet.

I only wanted to know you
as I had within a dream,
I woke up with wet eyes.
I woke up terrified,
I awoke in grief.
you will never die
in the places you hide.

living in the gold sunlight.
living in darkness.
living in the belly of the beast.
I know you.
I need you.

friend,
take care.
you say you need me
on your journey,
across the water
across the sand,
and I'll go with you.
it's better that way.

there you go,
sweeping over the unknown
and envisioning yourself
in the promised land.

you have not chosen this,
you did not build these walls,
or maybe you did.

as the lead spirals
you count your blessings
you pray it's over soon
and you don't even believe in God.

maybe your journey
doesn't end at the pier.
they found a boy dead off the coast,
so close,
right off that pier.
his family stopped looking.

but you have something,
a delusion and a lengthy curse,
a vision you should not possess
and it's dying with your growing rationality.

don't you wish you were like
everybody else?

you don't hear the waves anymore.
you're a mile from the shore
but it's too loud now.
it feels like a desert,
and you're dying of thirst.

we climb to the summit
just as the sky bursts,
a midday coronation
and we begin orbit.
no one can touch us here
clouds spinning above our heads
like a mobile hanging over a crib;

these children are so soft
these children are so scared.

miles away from war and pain
yet a soldier returns home today.
a soldier rests.
and the lazy spark
like a film I've never seen
mistakes in turning towards,
turning away.
creases in the folds.

kneading your thoughts
shoving them into desk drawers
frantically, so you can find them
later.
this moment, you save for the sky.

do not fall asleep.

fall asleep.
the wind runs its cool palms
over me, gently, gently
and I'm shivering.
then, everything in reverse.

(you are small,
you are gigantic,
you are not the universe
like they tell you, but a particle,
less than a particle,
important only to minuscule bodies
on a tiny, faithless planet.)

there's going to be time.
every minute is ours to blow to pieces
every moving landscape
leaves us with another place
to call home,
maybe.
another place to point to on a map
and say "we've been there"
another place to fall asleep
on your shoulder,
another place to leave behind.

there's a drought, maybe
and it finally rains.

we were thirsty and thick-headed
and relishing in dry fields of wheat
running through the weeds
and burning our skin
on the rough edges.

all the rough edges.

dear stranger,
I knew you in the trees,
in dissonance,
in the lights in the dark street
as you view them
through a rain-streaked bus window.

it's rained here before.
we have turned out all right.

a long time ago,
I wrote something under my skin.
beneath the layer you've touched,
beneath the parts that burned.

I wrote:
"you are to be art for people to look at,
the kind that people admire quietly,
not the sad kind,
not the kind that makes people think."
and I haven't forgotten it.

I fail to remember
that you're real sometimes,
that anything is real.
pull me back into the circle.

every light is the sun.
every sun is another lamppost.
you are the light.

the city burns at night.
I see the glare of the flames on your face
and the world is still.
the rain is nothing to worry about.

is it a demographic feeling,
is it worldwide?
am I alone?

and my nightly delusions are all going to waste,
they're rusting and greying
with the realization
that I'm out of time.

the things I thought
lines from songs and little papers
crumpled up in your fist.
gone.

the yellow of an old day,
a new day,
one without anticipation.

you are going to die alone.
take your advice from a poem
and set it out like you're
dressing the table for dinner.

chains are made to be broken.
lives are made to be changed.
it doesn't matter what you think,
these things are false.

nothing is made to be anything.

hope is false as well
and we borrow mountains
to hide ourselves behind.

living in the shadow
of a decision you can't make.
there,
that's your problem.

winter is over.

welcome to the city.
time moves differently here,
you can feel your bones shifting.
that Harmony is elusive
and gone in a flash
but Tedium overstays his welcome,
bringing with him
the lovely child, Ennui.
a plain face,
a plain heart too,
the same as the rest of us.

I want to die.
not really, maybe,
it's more of an occurrence,
a spark in the mind of a lonely wedge
of sour flesh.
please don't worry about me.
nothing is wrong
or right, I suppose,
it's just the consciousness
that comes from being with
my friend Monotony.

I know what's out there.
I know that there are things
worth living for, wonderful things
but they aren't happening to me, are they?
I have to keep my feet planted
as the planet turns.
this dead city,
I've seen it all before.
it's nothing new,
it's nothing new,
I spend every day
in a dirt-filled hole
while they shovel more
onto me.

welcome to the city.
everyone leaves here
eventually.
I don't want to die,
or at least, I don't think.
but when bones crack like sticks
in a muddy pool of blood below
and we're all scratching at the door,
(or maybe it's just me),
it's hard to think
that it's worth it.
I don't want to die,
but occasionally
it seems
like the best option.