you just left
and for a while
i curled up on the couch
onto the exact cushion
where we had just left our mark
and i cried
quiet hiccupy sobs
and then  
after a bit
i sat right up
and wiped my eyes
and glazed over for a bit
staring at the putty blue adhesive stains
from the posters we hung up
that fell
hung up
and fell
and then i started cleaning
stacked the wine bottles back on the shelf
put the guitar back in its case and the ashes in the can
picked up the ******* and socks and sweaters
that were thrown away carelessly onto the floor
when passion took hold
before we crawled naked under the sheets
under the little white lights
under the hanging paperclips and old ballet shoes
and twisted our limbs round one another
which shook with every second longer our eyes looked into the other
and you said
You are an angel.
You probably won't tell me though, because you're not allowed.
But that's okay, I know.
and i,
slightly above you
with your head in my hands
looked at the four freckles sprinkled upon your arm
and watched the veins in your wrist pulse each time you squeezed my thigh
and brushed through your wild hair with my fingers
that went down to the scar near your right eye
-the bluest of eyes-
and i,
i knew i would be holding you in my arms like this forever
and it made my nose tingle and breath grow deep
so i knew tears were next
but i let them come
and we sat there
together
for a long while
you and i on the couch
but you just left
and i am still
curled up on the couch.

Stuck my hand in a jar of jewels
And the rock I grabbed looked a lot like you
Cut my skin but the blood wouldn’t show
Forgot to breathe
Before I cried

Cold sand like the secret you told
When we climbed over rocks to kiss the waves
Lost the light but caught up with the moon
Just in time
To make it home

Felt your breath beat the drum of my ear
Too close to cry
I told you so
I thought I told you so

I found your eyelash on my pillowcase
I could use the wish

I don’t want to be here anymore
I will see you on the road
Things are best left unmade

you rock me
like the wind on an old sailboat
and i'm thrown off my balance
tilting from one toe to the other
tenuously tightroping above a terrible tide
with a smile plastered on my fragile face
so you don't know
that i'm hurting inside
that i'm dying inside
and my words never seem to amount
to anything at all
you hear them
and you answer
but do you really mean what you say?
would you really run away?
with me?
well,
i'm still here
and you're still
there
way over
there
and i miss you
but you rock me
and i don't know if i'll make it
to the end of december

i have a lot
on my mind
nowadays
well,
everyday
for as long as i can
remember
and no matter how hard
i press
my temples
the beatbeatbeat
never goes away
and i
drown
in the same ocean i dared
dip my little toes in
as a child
with sun-swept blonde hair
and a feathered fairy skirt
that would soon
shrink
and shred
just like the happiness
inside my head.

He told me
people are like
long
dark
hallways.  
You flicker on the lights
and wobble around
but you have to just keep
going forward.

The train barreled along, passing through the shore of some forgotten beach full of untouched nature and long lost secrets of love.  
There was a humble sort of beauty to it, like a treasure hidden in the sheets – a child’s tiny first lost tooth, or the shy underwear from the first night with a first love, or the crinkled letter your grandma keeps under her pillowcase to remind her how much your grandpa loved her.  
It was marshy, the sunken skin of the ocean left a perfect mixture of land and sea at the bottom of your feet and on the reflecting canvas of your pupils.  
An old shirtless man with a great white beard and blue pocketed shorts stood in the far left of the abyss, hunched over and sifting through the mysterious marsh mixture, stirring the sand spell with a broken white shell.  
The train snuck past the scene but my eyes followed that man until he became a piece of my past and my soon-to-be yesterday
Every part of me longed to be beside him, feeling that cold shock of pumping blood from Earth’s surface.  
Forgetting for a while that my feet were strung to this place, tied only by the knot of some strange force that belonged to a universe I didn’t really know and wasn’t really sure what I was doing in
To instead just smell the air and feel the breeze and thank every particle that danced around my lost bones that I could do just that.
Too bad the train I’m on doesn’t make a stop there.

I sat on a stoop
and smoked my last cigarette
and thought of making love with you
as the wind played dancing games
with the night’s forgotten litter.

My hands fumble to find the switch
A change from light to dark
To drown my trembling imperfections out in a numbing abyss
A blinding black blur that calls the demons out from under the bed skirt
Where they’ve been playing with dust and fraying my trust and squeezing my brain and pressing my pain
And laughing
Oh how they laugh at me
With their pointy teeth slapping the air that denies my breath
I beg them to leave
Let me sleep! I say.
But they tickle my ear with their fiery tongues  
And jump like a bounce house on top of my lungs
My body keels over and I pull my chest close
Prepare to deflect the next daunting dose
My hands clutch crush and my knuckles weep white
A basket of bones by my skin’s sorry sight
That hangs like a wet carpet outside to dry
Old and forgotten by a golden goodbye
But the sun forgot how to simmer and shine
And the air carries a vapor heavy with signs
That point down to the ground but I know there is more
They call me to a place that is far past the floor
Yes darkness drums dream demons for in it all I see
Is my soul’s own inferno forever beckoning me

Hipsters with hats to hide their ordinary minds
Young men in button-down shirts spouting political prophecies to prove a point
Too cut and dry to see there’s more to it all than a dot at the end of a line.
Because lines are endless and so is time
But they wouldn’t know because their grand silver watches pull their puppet strings
So they run just to hide from their tick-tocking pride
A pocket of bombs to blow up their lies
And just as they’re reaching their cubicle crate
White Rabbit runs by them to tell them they’re late

His eyes
Pressed into her with the pull of polarity
A haunting indication of an impossibility too beautiful to protest
He looks
With a longing he has hidden deep in his sock drawer
So no one can tell him he’s wrong or irrational
A locket only to be worn round his pulsating mind’s mannequin
But she wears on her sleeve what he’s trying to leave
And dressed like a nightingale
In feathers so free
Her eyes with a fire that waves like the sea
Closer they crawl
Past night’s shadowed humans getting drunk off doubt and betting on beauty
Past the scratches on stools once straddled by sorrow
And Isolation, his lover
Who lost her last words somewhere under the covers
That they shook out in morning
To shake off the mourning
But the streets crave a sweep
For the ashes are thick and catch on their tongue
Reminding the runaways to stop feeling young
And as they both draw so near
With the friction of fear
And the whip of a wish
And a harsh hit of hope
For the call of a kiss
Her hairs stand on stilts at the nape of her neck
An impatient frenzy that’s waiting on deck
But the lights left her lonely
A bubble-bruised brain
And he left her only
The promise of pain
As he grabbed another hand and rushed out the door
She smiled a sadness that left her lips sore
And gathered her hollows
And the last of her trust
And took to the streets with the ashes and dust

Had a one-night stand with Euphoria
Didn’t hear from him again
But I kept his shirt as a reminder
That when my heart beats quick
It’ll race like a rocket
Straight to the moon
But just as soon
It simmers and slows
So I catch it and lock it
But the trusty trees and foamy seas
Passing strangers who share the breeze
Carbon-copied my cage’s keys
And I don’t know how
And I don’t know when
But it won’t be long
Til I catch it again

Happiness is something pure,
She says, furrowing her brow
Steadily sweeping the stardust from the bottom of her shoes
Bones like blades bursting through her milky translucent skin as if to scream
“Hello world, I’m here! Look at me.”
They clank and clutter the confines of her cage
A gentle burn to quench her thirst
The girl with the crescent moon tear

Friday night and her feet move slow
Trying to decide which direction to go
Looks to the sky then down to her hands
That fold into fists as she quietly stands
And sleep will be lonely
Her heart a strange tick
In darkness she dances
And breaks her last wick
Now nothing is lit and no one can see
Her sad secret shadow drag through the street
But morning will come
And on a day bright and clear
You’ll see her, the girl with the crescent moon tear

You’ve got the lighter bags
Satchels of shame you slung over your shoulder
Then walked on
Well I’m far behind with weights of a different kind
And a suitcase of sorrow
And a duffel of doubt
And I’ve lost the words I long to shout
My mouth moves slow and mad
I’ve lost the legs that ache for adventure
And the skip inside that I once had
So I slip myself into one long lag
One sad song, one harsh drag
A caterpillar cocoon’s bundle of doom
Wrapped in a heart soon to break BOOM
Then I’ll be fine cause I’ll be gone
And you’ll wipe your head with your sighing palm
But thank the constellations
For the biting revelation
We’re just one eroding equation
Of empty elation and pretty persuasion
And my bags of demons shall remain
Under my eyes in a dark blue stain
And your bags of troubles will still remain light
Tossed over your shoulder in the cool of the night

Took years to grow the wings that clothed your back
Soared through the sky with your mind gone black
But they came for you quick in their metal machine
With razors and blades to trim away your dreams
Told you to free-fall and not to look down
But humans don’t listen when words leave them bound
Down down down you rolled through space
An inferno below reaching out for your face
Paradise laughed watching from her television set
Purgatory grimaced at the loss of his bet
Nobody cared and nobody rushed
To pick up your bones that hit with a hush

He lies on his grey rug
Beats beating down the drumming dim drum of his heart’s racing thump
And visions of sugarplums become glowing green orbs
On his floor where he flew to light-years above
In a space where they fight with sabers and swords
That ignite only words with such terrifying blows
And he whines along to the morgueish melody below
He screams out the lyrics to prove he knows so
The tap of her foot to the beat of the bass
Makes love to the hairs stemming stars off his arm
But she doesn’t love him so he crawls to his bed
Left her to love the crispy carpet instead

Worn-through pillowcases holding tales of adventure
Dreams that came and went
Tears from your old lovers’ eyes
A trail of insomnia-ridden restlessness
A trickle of medicine left a sickeningly sweet smell of sleeping sickness remedy
On that night there wasn’t enough for both you and me.
And as purple faded into brown, our fingers anticipated another turn of the page
Dawn burnt your fibers, the sunlight faded your colors grey
Withdrawn and featherless, there’s only time to dream of flight
Outlying eyelash left forgotten
Briskly bent bristle, broken by beauty
You were strong, you held on for long
But oh, you were fragile.
Now the hollows of this room are your only friends
Darkness comes in waves but you will bathe again
It always ends with the sneaking creep of the ticking clock that trickles in around half-past the past.

These bright city lights cradle me like a spoon.
I am scooped up and I can’t stop
and I’m spinning round but I won’t come down
because I know deep in my soul that I have a goal
to soar
and sing
and float above all of these drones and roaches,
dark alleyway loneliness,
greed and lust thrown up in a dusty stall of debauchery and shame.
No, for myself I will make a name.

I just hope I’ll still be there underneath it all.

One day we’ll make it to the moon
Maybe we’ll run into each other at the gas station
on some stationary star.
And I’ll say
Remember me?
And you’ll just drive away.
Into the galaxy
Into the clouds
Into the snow
Into the crowds
And I’ll lie down
And wonder why it is a girl so full of love
won’t let any in.
And we’ll begin
Again
As we always do
Because smoke follows beauty
A girl’s mother told her so
So go and go and go
I won’t be far behind
As I silently tip-toe
Across drunken nights of vacant kisses
Girls all painted pretty, boys hanging in the back
Can you tell me when I’ll get my mind back?
Actually, no.  Please keep it.  
It’s safer with your spirit.
Me? I’ll just burn out with the weather.
What a good excuse not to be together.  
But I will hold you forever.
In a secret compartment
I bought for my heart.
Come visit and stay on a Sunday afternoon.
Maybe on that day we make it to the moon.

I’ve got angels in my bed tonight
And although the streets won’t keep me warm
I know they will remain beside me
To rock me from the dark seas of grief
and mountains of wonder
And together down Destiny’s tunnels we’ll plunder
Like laundry down a chute
All forgotten and worn
But when we break to the other side
We’ll surely be reborn
And we will storm
With rebellious writing
And electric blue hair
And all of the worry
And all of the care
Don’t tell me you’re different
When we share the same core
We both beat unsteady
And our mother’s both bore.
Tell me,
next time you look across the oxygen and see hundreds of little lights flickering dim
Will you feel me there with you?
Or will I just float past your wind.
You never know,
Each solitary soul
Might just be your one ticket home.

My mind beats out of time
Somewhere along the line
My clock just died
With every tick of joy
And tock of fear
My heartstrings gone haywire
Intentions unclear
Like a car spiraling circles
I just couldn’t steer clear
And a tick and a tock
And baboom and baboom
Flying like light waves
I transcend to the moon
And ooooh
I am home.
But what is home
But another unknown
Can I find it in my art?
Does it reside in my heart?
Is it numbers? Is it time?
Is it the wrinkles in my skin?
Does it end when all else newly begins?
Can I find it in sleep?
In that chilling unwind
When all is unspoken
And but a wrinkle in time?
Or does it harvest in fear and the thrill of regret
My mind screaming no
My chest pounding yes
I digress.
When you sleep I read novels found in the crevices of your dreams
That project to me softly on white sheets with stitched seams
What keeps you so frighteningly still?
Ah, the hypnosis of sleep.
Each night as the rays descend
It pulls around the bend
And you to pretend to amend to all you have lent
But stormy and dark, yet stark-sickly sweet
It commands you to weaken and bend to your knees
Now, if you please,
Tell me why all that I see
Is so overpoweringly harder to be
How can I take all that is there
And bottle it to save for all to share
Because each light I gather
Has an equally beautiful match
That flickers and flares for all eyes to catch
Open them wide!
Exist while you’re here!
And however far you are
I will always be near
Well I guess I found home,
At least for tonight
In the lost souls surrounding me.
And your arms holding me tight.