every now and then my pen runs dry.
i forget how to swallow the words of others, as if any thought can be truly organic.
why isn’t there a farmer’s market for ingenuity?
how much to buy a phrase that could finally satisfy me,
a phrase that would finally make me stop after years and years of
nomadic poetry tried to string together meaningless events into a story
that actually made sense?

every now and then,
my pen runs
dry.
i spit all of my words out in search of answers to
questions i shouldn’t ask.
i was parched.
i have so long been parched.

one day
i will set my pen down
and one day
i will look up to the sky in this desert of my own creation
and i will stop trying to put the pieces together
( there are none that fit)
i will close my eyes
and let the rain fall.

i've never known what to do with myself.
i carried my heart away in the storms you raised
and i called myself your son, but only in name;
but, oh, what a name.
fear, fear in the eyes of men until they see me
a mere boy
a child, playing at games he knows nothing of,
like he had a choice,
and two brothers to hide
secrets he pretended not to know.
and he never knew what to with himself, because it never mattered:
everything was already decided long before the day he was born,
on the day where
the house was empty, and nothing had yet begun.
he set everything in motion.
i became a catalyst for a game i played from behind the scenes,
and let the main characters take the stage.

you always belonged in that light;
i'll make sure you never see otherwise.

i am not irredeemable.
there are permanent marks on people i've known,
left by the wars they fought against me;
i have done more wrong than i can ever remember,
     or begin to repair.
there are people for whom i'm a monster,
and i know the validity of that claim --
but i am not irredeemable.
does the sky ruin itself with storms?
does the earth make itself unholy with every quake and eruption?
i have struck with lightning,
           and been struck in return
but i am not all magma and thunderheads.
i am clear skies and gentle showers; i am
calm tides, and soft grass.
i am not irredeemable.

how time changes things.
i used to believe that the old saying about how
time heals all wounds
was a lie;
it turns out, i just didn't have the patience
for recovery.
i was running in circles in my own mind,
pretending
that i had no other choice.
how frustrating that the light was always in reach, but
time heals all wounds
even for me.

i still don't know what happened.
i wonder if you even remember us; we were friends, we were close.
then we weren't.
is it weird to still think about it? is it weird that it still hurts?
we deserved some kind of answer.
i don't think i'll ever be okay until i have one
i don't care what it is; we deserved something, at the very least.
what happened?

the dust settles on me -
two bottles, broken
drop me in the ocean with no anchor
because my sins will weigh me down
i never felt too comfortable in my own skin, and i have
you to thank for that.
i’ll shed it all off, anyway, in the morning light;
i’ll be a snake,
and when i slither out of what’s left of the old me
i’ll be secret, and i’ll be safe, and
i won’t be heard from again.

i don’t know the things that i like.
i know what he likes
and i know what
he doesn’t.
what about me?

am i you?
am i you, or am i me, or
is it somewhere in between?
when you’re with me, it’s like we’re complete
things feel like they’re as should be
so am i you, or am i me?

i thought about it.
that’s what makes this the worst, i think;
i thought about it --
-- and then i did it anyway.

i know recovery isn’t a straight line.
i know recovery is ups and downs, your own
mountain range of
improvement.
sometimes you slide.

i know.
but is it still backsliding if you thought about it?
because i did.
and then i did it anyway.

your hair looks like dirt,
she said.
i laid in her lap like it was the most natural thing in the world, and for me
it was
i didnt love her.
i was never under the illusion of loving her, just
the idea
that maybe i could love her
that maybe she could love me

he walks around with her heart in a glass, doesnt even notice
when it rattles and threatens to
break

i would want to agonize over the
mistakes
that i made
But the truth is,
thinking about them is like walking on eggshells

it hasn't been long enough for the ache to fade
for the memory of how innocent and comforting it all was
you were there when i lost myself and at the end when i was
right there all along,
you smiled and told me it was okay.

the thread unravels.
i curl up in a blanket that doesnt fit this mattress
fall asleep in the middle of the day
when i cant in the middle of the night

when i go missing, the moon doesn't go out
gemini still shines even though
one of its own
is lost

through streetlights and

curved words forming around soft lips

tell me i was wrong.
tell me the people who've given up on me
decided i was too much effort
or a mistake;
people who promised me things
that now
seem light years away.

tell me i was wrong;
you don't know the years that followed
and you don't know the things that happened,
because you left.

tell me i was wrong.
i don't care.
but tell me something;
don't just leave it empty.
you owe me more than that.

i dont think you know how much i lost for you.
through halls and streets and night beats,
through wireless connections and the realization
of pencil in a high school year book.

the words won't come.
i see the pictures, hear the conversations;
think of first semester exams and games we played
and the promises you made me break

manipulation;
you and the air and the mattress we shared
witches in the background as i throw up for you again.

for autumn's leaves have fallen much too soon
and i, without my eyes to see the clear
brilliance of the sun, the stars, and moon
can still make out what the heavens brought near

the warmth of heaven's gift i feel fornenst
i hear the sound true emotion does bring
my heart, it breaks through its final defense
and on the ice first does this new love sing

what spell's been wrought to bring me to my knees?
what magic has your presence on me cast
to turn me from my abhorrence of he
to lover's gaze which alienates the past

And sooner would I cast myself to flame
Then dare confess when you won't feel the same.

i found him
fumbling through childhood memories and sawdust
i saw him and his brothers
perched like crows on the wires
theres nothing about you on there
fitting.
why would you want someone to know who you were?
who were you, really
the boy who prayed on others or the man in the truck
or no one at all?

the bile in my throat turns to dust
as i die at the memory
of being in your
arms once
again.

my stomach tightens with your grip on my wrists
thousands of years but i still remember it.

i dont know when that gate was put up
but i remember when we were small enough to slide through that doorway
on our hands and knees
under blankets, pretending that couldnt see
my blanket was thrown out without choice
but you still keep yours close.

i dont remember how the floor felt when it was clean,
or what exactly the space behind the couch looked like without the pool table's frame and no christmas tree
logic tells me
that table didnt always block the fireplace,
but i dont remember it any other way.

we used to slide down those stairs on our *****
but that wide step in the corner was where i liked to sit
and that window by my door, where i learned
we can see rain.

why weren't we allowed in the back yard?
we didn't we want to go into the back yard?

so many nights spent sleeping on that couch
i know it couldn't have been my entire childhood but when did i
ever
sleep in that bed?

they trimmed back the hedges and painted our house.
everything is clean and respectable
and detestable.

we were on the roof once, or was that a dream?
high as the sun in the sky, but it was night and the moon
in your eyes when you smiled
we couldn't name a single one of those **** constellations,
then or now
but i remember your laugh like i heard it not two minutes ago.
i never know when i'll see you again.
i wonder if it's okay with you?

food, ***, and cigarettes
i swam through the grease and  your smile cut me to the
bone
and you handed me a light
is that right?
we never talked before
and now we never will again.

this feels like you, to me.
barefoot on the street with wind and nothing else in your hair
and a smile
on your face
trying to hold a phone and unwrap a starburst at the same time
you feel so much like you
you look almost happy
and so
i am.

dark bedrooms where people lay their coats during a holiday party
i sat on the bed
away from all of the noise;
even at 8, dinner parties were far from my thing

i dont remember much
the taste of my mother's mixed drinks on his breath and
the warmth of his hand on my thigh
what else?
what else?

my hands, tangled in your hair,
brush back the years of insecurities so i can finally
see your eyes.

i noticed you breathe easier when it's just you and me
where no one else can see you or get to you or
hurt you

you were a small and broken thing,
curled up on my floor with a
painted smile
that always melts when you face the warmth
of someone who actually loves you.

i often think about your head in my lap,
gesturing at the ceiling
laughs on the edges of both of our mouths
content for a brief moment just to be

i often think about you coming in to my room at night
mouth twisted with hurt or with anger or with both
eating cookies and talking **** about people and doing all i can until
i bring that smile back

i will never understand what you saw in me
but
i know for sure you saw all the things i didn't want you to
and loved me for it anyway.

thank you.

kiss me in between the thighs, coyote with the bedroom eyes
three years have come and gone and i can still hear the stars
with all your sighs
your fingers woven in with mine, a tapestry too perfect to
complete and so
we pull away, and several times,
to watch the strings begin
to fray
and then again we patch them up
we bring them to, we sew it shut
the work of art that's ours alone to witness and to call our
own
the things i never wanted or the things i wanted just too much that
slip
finally from my mouth to yours, and slip from touch to touch
my neck is warm where teeth have been
god
when can i be with you again?
my thoughts don't coalesce anymore the pattern's disappeared
but your face i see, your mouth i taste, and in my mind its your voice i hear

so please
just
kiss me in between the thighs, coyote with the bedroom eyes
three years have come and gone but i can still hear stars
in all your sighs.

he's not you.
part of me knows that all of me knows that
but still
sometimes i think about it.
when you're gone, i think about it
but
i always come to the same conclusion:
he's not you.

the warmth in my face hasn't left in
over an hour.
i wonder -
     is this safe ?

the realization hits.
all of the pictures that i drew of him
of me
of us
the pile that grows day by day
the way i treat only those i hold in the highest esteem

you are my default
and with the sad knowledge of the truth
i draw your face again.

it's uncomfortable.
i don't have room for him and her and him and me
i can't be anything more than i am
it
scares me
but i know
i remember
i can't
this
can't be happening

press your lips to
mine
we walk with our fingers laced enough, already
would it be so hard to sit on this bridge
watch the creek move slowly
and us move steady?

i woke up with the memory of softness in your eyes
and though i speak to you now it still feels like
goodbye

it's not enough.

i'm tired but i push my nose to the grindstone
someone told me that's how
exfoliation works.

when i look into the bowl of cranberry grape juice and i see
no future
i guess i always knew i would amount to nothing.

some day, i'll see your face and
it won't be revulsion that bubbles out of my mouth.

someday, i'll see your face and
it won't be hatred banging against my skull.

someday, i'll see your face and
it won't be brokenness that i feel.

someday, i'll see your face and
nothing will happen.

school
i put pen to a page put fingers to keys and stretch my limbs
gotta get ready to run
for once i look back and think
this isn't cowardice
the words of my father bounce off of my second skin,
wasp-proof and kissing-safe
the realization that I could buy cigarettes and never smoke them
just because I can
i keep thinking about so many strings attached to me  attached to the words
eighteen
and then i think about
cutting them one by one
i am who i am
and i am nobody unless i want to be.

last night i slept with him.

it wasn't intimate -
    at least, not in the way one might expect.
it wasn't skin against skin,
    the way some think it should be.
it wasn't soft conversation -
     (why am i the little spoon? because you're short as ****, that's why)
it wasn't kisses slipped between drowsiness.

last night i slept with him.

i didn't know he would be there;
as we crawled into bed, i settled down beside him
a familiar feeling
that i had forgotten.
brushing back hair, kissing the top of his head
all things brought back from long ago.

you know i missed you so much
but i didn't until i woke up the next morning

i heard you were abducted by aliens
that they took you up and dissected you
in your sleep

i wonder what secrets they found in the cavities of your body that
i never could?
i wonder if they found the place where you hold your happiness,
because i never could.

i heard you were abducted by aliens, late one night
that they took you up and dissected you
in my dreams

Laughter
Who’s laughing? Who would laugh at the irony that I used to wake up in the middle of the night
terrified
having dreamt of losing you
of being left
by you

Survivor’s guilt burns more than you thought
it’s a tribute to their skill that they made you feel like the villain
even as you kept puking up daisies

it’s dark
three people sit on a couch, watching the movie
displayed on the tv.
once again, no dvd player is necessary, or even
available.
to your credit, you saw much more this year, though you said
much less;
you’re all over inconsistent in your
accidental traditions.
laughter bubbling up inside of you, to spill out in anxious words and phrases and breaths too fast too shallow and

three people sit on a couch.
you’ve whispered under your breath the words you said loudly last year
the shame curled inside you
wound up
a music box you wish you could rip out because you hated it then and you hate it now only
you couldn’t say anything and that hasn’t changed and

three people sit on a couch.
are they even paying attention?
are you?
why is it only in the dark you know what day it is and why you’ve been crying all day and

it’s dark
two people lay on a couch, and the feeling rushes in
reminders
of something  that happened too fast, too public, too
out of your control
impossible to refuse --
-- after all, you wanted it, right?

no
you knew that was wrong
so why did they tell you they didn’t want it
after pushing you down and forcing their hands into places they shouldn’t have been
why did they tell you they didn’t want it
and then go right back to doing it all
again

you're crying over your keyboard.
is it because you know you're dying that you're crying
or that
you're leaving people behind that won't even notice you're gone?

but you're wrong, you know. he'll notice.
he always does.

hello again
it doesn't matter how many wigs you put on; you're still the same
underneath.

Saturday was Halloween, and a year ago to the day you were
pressed into a couch with hands places you didn't want them

You're a wreck of lines and characters and you wanted to throw up, and
you lied
and said you were done

We keep coming back to this subject.
Do you really think anyone would believe you?
It isn't ****** abuse if you don't stop it
if you can't force the sound out of your mouth
if you keep pushing it down because this is supposed to be right
right ?
this is what people always talk about

isn't it?

how long can i last
at this rate
my seams will burst before too long
one week
two weeks
who knows?

the only thing honesty ever did was upset people
curl up into the fetal position and pretend you weren't thinking of their lips
didn't want to lean into them
and wrap your arms around their neck
and kiss them
of course you didn't

star eyes
heart eyes
sitting on someone's lap, legs shaking
it's dark

don't cry

i hate him.

i have never spoken to him, but i hate him.

who is he to show up out of nowhere, when i’ve been here longer?

i don’t know what to feel.

jealousy? irritation?

he admires me

what a joke i am.

did you take your medicine this morning?
we noticed you haven't come out of your room all day. yes, the appointment is the 29th.

you didn't write down the homework. what homework?
you can't turn it in now.

if i help myself, i might lose you

you're a talented writer, i saw that from early on
but as a reader, it's impossible to like the narrator
he's sort of an immature ****
...yes?

the sound of an entry plug fills your senses
lcl
the primordial ooze
hair should be floating but nothing changes
nothing at all
did they really think this through?

dissociating
is an interesting thing
do you realize
that these lines dont make sense

don’t you keep your secrets well? like i did
five years and counting and i was kneeling on your floor
chapped lips and oily thoughts of the summer breathing in your hunting eyes
i’ll tell them if you don’t
and i was far too young to realize that the only thing wrong was you
i grabbed at any chance to be acknowledged,
accustomed to my solitary confinement with the friends i had to make
on my own
that could never talk back to me
so i was fond of your attention
i owed it to you for talking to me, didn’t i
things i could barely comprehend
the meaning of
look at me
not enough
too slow
i think i hear them
hide under the covers
it’s okay
i’ll tell them if you don’t
dont you want to have a baby? we could right now thats a lie
encouragement
lying
pleading
   on your behalf
it wasnt just me, but she didnt live there
and the only person i ever told was a
repeat offender.

you let your fingers do the talking
with your hips ground down unsystematically destroying
that which your mouth could not
in the darkness, door open, silent night and the american horror,
you let yourself show
i never told a soul, not even
myself
that i looked into your eyes and i saw something only
hell
could have described to the maker
frozen
churning
mind blank
body of wax melting
your hands shaping your legs locking you’re falling you push you know it’s wrong you fall
vomiting
again

refracted light
in a place where light hardly touches, and you graze the floor
distaste
at the layers of dust you’ve let grow over the years
who did this? who was the one
who let the snow melt and the spring come and the summer fade
over and over
who was the one
who let the furniture grow restless with disuse and the shadows
lonely
and the skeletal remains of the dreams you played in your mind
and the streets in your home, worn thin with no travellers
going nowhere
now that you have gone

sun rusted light settles
on the
pale
moon
and your eyes closed for the first time
and mine opened
and i saw everything you had dreamed during the interim
and your ghost
carried on

i miss the feeling i would get when i looked at you under the hazy glow
of a streetlamp
and the darkness of those suburban streets would wrap us together

i miss the feeling i would get when our hands would brush in the warm
air
and our thighs would graze as we sat on the steps of that playground

i miss the silence of the night and the silence of the day when you were still asleep and i would climb the internet to be a part of you

i miss that softness of our lips brushing the first time, and the jealousy
that encompassed me and made me feel like my chest was
caving in

i miss the nervous feeling when i saw you the first time after so long and how nothing had changed and everything had and your hand was still in mine

and of all things
i miss the feeling of being in love with you

as simple
in death
as he was in life; one column posts
and the stark white of his soul
brevity became him, and every dust stirred by his breath
could count itself
lucky.