Pocket full of Marlboros I don't know when you started smoking
But I do know
That you still know me
Here on this darkened street corner
You still see me
And it scares me
That I could have pressed so much of myself into your hands
And that you didn't let it go
Even though the back of your hand is all I know
And I know that you know me
But is that enough to bring us back to the people we used to be?
On that sacred hill or in your old house in the city
Apathy isn't pretty
But I'd like to try it on for size
Somewhere inside of me in the darkness cries for all that we once were
That smoke doesn't hide you it just blurs the sadness in your eyes
The weight in your sighs.
(I'm not angry anymore, I'm heart broken)

8am solo endless drives in
Purgatory
Will you remember me?
Will you still say say my say my name
Or have I disappeared into all these varying shades of 8am
Have I become the way I looked at him?
Will I fade here? Or will I reignite only to show you up
Turn up and burn up I know you never wanted me
Just wanted the person you imagined me to be
Now all I see is the white lines of this highway
Purgatory
Will you remember me?
Will this be
Forever?
8am fade out good so slow
I'm nobody's baby so nobody needs to know
My glass bloodwork and hazy brain
I know you don't see me the same
Purgatory.

And I still think about you sitting pretty in that skin ******* shirt
The one with the holes in it, reminiscent of the holes in my skin
Reveal my boiling blood work and fragile spine
Eyes glued to the floor wondering what it would be like to be called 'mine'
and you're there on the couch wrapped up in deep brown talking **** to the pretty girl next to you
And I'm over here on my own knowing better than to try to make a move
When you're already preoccupied with someone else
I know I'm better by myself
Now it's nearly two months out and I'm watching you on a tiny screen in my room
Long limbs draped artfully over a guitar feet dangling in the pool tattoos indistinguishable in the evening gloom
And I wonder what it's like in your world
I wonder what it's like in your head
If it's raining or snowing or if you're choking on what you should have said
So now I'm slightly intoxicated on my back in my sheets
Praying for some sign of rain or some subtle relief
From switch screen wanting I don't even want any of you
I don't know you I don't trust you I don't know what you do
I know an idea
better left by itself
Better left alone so I can be by myself
Not for anyone else
Just me in my own skin
And you're a casualty of my sober vivid mind
An empty grave I don't want to find
An ocean packed with a thousand words better left unsaid
A persistent reminder of the emptiness of my bed
And in my dreams I'll move closer to you
I'll take hold of your calloused hand
But as I wake I know I'll run far from you
Because I'll never belong to any man
And hey I could be the tattoo on your left arm
Wrapped tight around your bones
Hey I could be the ice in your glass
But you will never be my home
No I'd rather be alone

And still I am screaming from the base of my arteries "I gave all of me to you and you turned away"
Swollen and drunk on a Sunday I make my way to the foot of the cross and call out your name once more
I am a mess of American habits and self centered longing but still I long to be taken back into your living room and told that I am all that I was the day I opened myself to you
The day I washed your feet on your kitchen floor
Drunken and bruised laughing swearing that no matter how long I lived I would never ask for more
You made me pasta and ran your fingers through my hair
On days when my world bit at my ribs you reminded me that I was still there
In simple gestures of midnight snacks and open hands
I found you
I loved you
and I lost
And now I find myself at the foot of the cross
Spitting out your name like sour wine
See the holes in my hands
See the holes in my feet bore from your absence
See the slash in my side from which a river of black pours
Of all the ways I loved you and you never gave back
And now I lie broken and small in my sheets
Praying for some sign or relief that I am rid of you
That the nights we spent are gone
That your clothes are off my floor and my body still moves the way it did before you
Honest and fully free in the gentle morning
That no part of me longs for any part of you
That my hands are full
That my feet are guarded and my side safely stitched
That all of me
 is all I am
Instead of the lack,
Instead of the work of your hands.

For our father,
Who art in heaven
Never hallowed your name.
Though he let your kingdom come,
And your will be done,
He will restore my spirit.
On earth
As it is in heaven.
He will give me today my daily bread forgive my debts
Though I still have trouble forgiving you,  unholy debtor.
Though you lead me into temptation,
He has kept me safe from evil.
For yours,
Was never the kingdom,
The power,
Or the glory,
Forever and ever
Amen.

spitting blood nearly dead almost passed out in an open field
freshly wounded bug bit I'm still reeling from your open nails
I wish you could see me now
I wish you could see me now
running from intimacy like you learned to run from your truth
strung out on self reliance a product of my loveless youth
I wish you could see me now
I wish you could see me now
rolling in the wake of the end of my self induced apathy
finally processing the hurt from when you laughed at me
I wish you could see me now
I wish you could see me now

and do you hear me now? Screaming drunk off my anger on my phone in the parking lot
finally unleashing hell on you for everything you're not
and all that you pretended to be
all that you said to me
like some godless lover across the pillow in your bed
all your sentiments sounded so pretty coming from the hole in your head
well you never followed up
so let me follow through
left hook to your pastel pride
and a right hook to all I thought was true
Your love isn't perfect it's bruised
Your grace isn't saving it's used
as you used me to use him to break back through
here's to you

wiped out in the backseat crying like I thought it'd never end
bruising restless and breaking I know now you're not my friend
I wish you could see me now
I wish you could see me now
Brusing my fists and biding my time finally awake
I realized in your hands I had had all I could take
I wish you could see me now
I wish you could see me now
and if you could you'd see that I'm not happy, but I'm finally my own
you'd find that I am not a queen but I never need a throne
I wish you could see me now
I wish you could see me now

and do you hear me now? Screaming drunk off my anger on the phone in the parking lot
finally unleashing hell on you for everything you're not
and all that you pretended to be
all that you said to me
like some godless lover across the pillow in your bed
all your sentiments sounded so pretty coming from the hole in your head
well you never followed up
so let me follow through
left hook to your pastel pride
and a right hook to all I thought was true
Your love isn't perfect it's bruised
Your grace isn't saving it's used
as you used me to use him to break back through
here's to you

I can feel you laughing down my neck just like it was yesterday
I can feel those beige walls pressing in
Slow dancing on an open grave
Twisting the knife into my skin
           This isn't self harm this is processing
           This isn't nostalgia this is letting go.
Winter air wrapped in red so many layers I almost couldn't hear what you said
All draped in ice and grace  
The world isn't as small and snug as it used to be
The world is too near and is not gentle with me
I remember
The way it felt when you crossed the room
And I remember
How it felt to leave too soon
I am not my brothers keeper
And you are not the boy I thought I knew
But winter rises ominous and waking before me
and my hands are already turning blue
I'll hold you if I want to.

I was thin wristed and restless looking for another fist to bruise
Another wall to tumble down another coping mechanism to abuse
and there you sat dressed in black swearing on a filthy church pew
Talking of all the boys you almost loved and how all of me applied to all of you
Whirlwind summer whiplash stomach sick in my Sunday best
If the good Lord tries our patience then you were my final test
Raging lows to soaring heights I found heaven in the back of your hand
You stitched me up just to tear me apart no one can humble me like you can
An answer to prayer
A song unsung
The unspoken fear in the back of my lungs
A slight of hand
The long drive home
Another night in bed wishing I had left you alone

Late days weighted heads and moonlight
crossed fingers filthy feet and new wine
I'm in love with every part of this
talk it up tell me you got a lot to say
walk me home unsteady from the heavy day
You've got me in right your prize fighter fist
Old hymns bug bites and middle school
play it off while you fail to keep your cool
I don't know what to say
God's grass I'm reborn into a family
baptized in longing when you look at me
We're all formed from the same unholy clay

and I stay up and bleach away the excess emotion
stomach sick from this heady new ocean
of wanting your fingers on my spine
I sleep late and let the dust collect
a new mystery special, a new set of dots to connect
the weight of wanting to call you 'mine'
but all I say when you ask
is 'thanks for asking I slept fine'

Early days light linen and black coffee
bedheaded and bruisin you caught me
right at the base of my chest
jeff gordon god and all his parlor tricks
morning breath bravado I'm already sick
trying to keep these feelings in check
You're five hundred and seventeen miles away
and I'm seven months from finding the right words to say
that I'm happier in the cracks of your teeth
Common senses debates time and distance
enamored by your subtleties and fighter's stance
you almost negate my unbelief

and I stay up and bleach away the excess emotion
stomach sick from this heady new ocean
of wanting your fingers on my spine
I sleep late and let the dust collect
a new mystery special, a new set of dots to connect
the weight of wanting to call you 'mine'
but all I say when you ask
is 'thanks for asking I slept fine'

Bruised ribs I'm sleepless walking down this dusty road
Lost in thought over my dead weight but I just can't shoulder the load
And I tried to run it over my tight tongue in the bathroom
Singing quiet hymns to consol myself praying to god that now isn't too soon
And I see it in my eyes head on in the mirror
I can hear it in my constant questioning trying to understand why the path isn't clearer
But I'm no nearer to understanding than I am to touching my elbow with my tongue
I'm no closer to letting someone in than to embracing who I've become
And my need to run
And I'd like to see the light behind your bright eyes dancing on my skin
I'd like to risk the burn just to try and let you in
Warm arms and broad smile
Sit down and tell me to stay a while
I think I could pause for you
I think I could stop worrying about what I should do
Just staring into your kind eyes
Trying to figure out why that flame never dies
But here I am thin skined thing trying to protect my arteries
Laying alone broken in bed over how others seem to have responded to me
Like I've been sent out to sea on this twin bed in my sleep
Awakened in waves too caught off guard and timid to make that leap
So I'll sink my tired skeleton into the frame work of this mattress
And try to decompress my heavy head and restless mind
They say if you seek you'll find
And I'd like to find that light that lives behind your eyes inside my own skin
I'd like to risk the bruising and breaking just to try and let you in
Warm arms and broad smile
Sit down and tell me to stay a while
I think I could pause for you
I think I could stop worrying about what I should do
Just staring into your kind eyes
Trying to figure out why that flame never dies
But here I stand, Fire eyed girl that I am
spitting venom declaring I belong to no man
I am not who I used be and it's plain to see when I look at you
And think of all the damage I could do
Hoping that maybe some things aren't too good to be true
So if that's true,
And I'd like to see the light behind your bright eyes dancing on my skin
I'd like to risk the bruising just to try and let you in
Warm arms and broad smile
Sit down and tell me to stay a while
I think I could pause for you
I think I could stop worrying about what I should do
Just staring into your kind eyes
Trying to figure out why that flame never dies.

Quiet nights in my bed and family dinners all drive me deeper into myself
I spend my the majority of my time alone lost in Facebook memoirs and tributes to friends that never lasted through the storm
I am not sick in my heart I am trying to be well again
Trying to meet your gaze from across the room
To be able to accept your half assed companionship like any other functioning human who can summon up a smile to cover up the sparking of their discontent
But I can't hide it from you
And you know it as I watch you from across the room
That I am unwell with no intention of wishing you well
I gave that up last week
And this poem wasn't supposed to be about you but you are as much apart of me as the pen in my hand
A medium of my discontent
The serpent in my head
This wasn't meant to offend just meant to voice what I never said to you on that hill back in the depth of spring
And I can see it now
I can watch myself drunk breaking the glass against the wall on your wedding day
Cursing your name on the stage
It's a rocky road I'm on but lately I've been feeling my age
And 18 isn't kind
And even though we once breathed in tandem I'm not ashamed to tell you that I want everything you've got
Just to burn it before your eyes
Just to make up for all the white lies we've both said in common pleasantries
It isn't you it's me
Echos through the back of my mind
I am not fine
And you know it
The disaster in the cornor of the room aiming slowly gunning for you
What a joy it is to be the town drunk on your graduation day
You can leave this town but you're still bound to your age
And it isn't pretty but I've begun to embrace the abomination that I am
The screaming mess of crooked teeth no one can **** it up like I can
I don't need you
Except to write about when the quiet nights and family dinners threaten to strangle me
I am through with quiet complacency
Through with the regret breeding in me
In this there is no peace
In this I exist inside of me
Trapped within my skin
At least I'll never let you in.

I am here (at a party I don't like)
I am there (at the scene of the accident holding my own hand)
It doesnt matter what they say it will never feel like home
It doesn't matter what they say they won't stay
It doesn't matter how you feel you'll be over it in the next few years

And I walked through the fire and watched everything I held so tight burn
Warm hearts consumed by flame and that's how I learned
That the fire's been inside of me all along
That the fight has been what's been keeping me strong
Don't tell me I'm wrong
I know
I know
I know I'm right
And you do too.
And what did you expect from me? To quietly mold into the shape you liked best
To forfeit my destiny and roll over and sit back like the rest
I am not like those other girls before
I am not going to give myself up anymore
Not going to sit back shut up watch you dictate my place
I don't know what you wanted but I'm not just another pretty face
And it may not seem like some new reveltation but I am not some gentle flame
I am not some timid child waiting for you desperately to call my name
I don't wait for anything or anyone anymore
Is my spirit still gentle? Is my love still the same?
Is the change in me frightening? because I'm not the same
I'm not the same
I'm not the same
Let the flames wrap around my limbs and take you far away from me
Let fire consume all impurities and old scars until I am free
And I am free
Free
Free to be
Free from you and free from the fear of me
I was once blind but now I see,
I am who I need to be.

Existential doubt is cool or whatever but I know I'm not the first to freak out about breath
I know I'm not the first one to even wonder what the hell is death
I don't have to be the first
I just want to be the last thing on your mind
They say you've gotta learn to loose and to bind
And it's easy to bounce around these thoughts alone in my room
But every time I attempt to let someone in its always too soon
And I could write about the shape of existence or the tension of time and space
But I'm not getting any younger and I'm a too frightened to let any time go to waste
And I'm not sure what's left for me in this little town but I'm sure I'll figure it out in time
I'm not sure who I am anymore but I am doing my best to be fine
And I wonder where I'm going to be when I see you again
If I'll be stronger and wiser or if I'll have met my end
And even now I still think about the days spent on the edge of your knife
The nights alone the mornings crying the unwilling and unrelenting life
Falling leaves graveyard scenes I lost my mind on my 18th birthday
Confused and crying in the backseat I can still taste what I couldn't say
you never wanted me anyway
And Existential doubt is cool or something but I know I'm not the first to freak out about the need for breath
I know I'm not the first one to even wonder what the hell is death
I don't have to be the first
I just want to be the last thing on your mind
The last thing you see before you go blind
I know you'll follow me down just the same.
I just want a chance to look at you and sing what I never had a chance to say:
I never asked for you anyway.

And maybe it was just your short attention span that attracted me
The idea that if I could hold your attention for longer than five minutes
I could maybe hold it for five life times.

And everything inside me is connected
From the isolation to the need to be in constant contact with everyone I've ever loved or seen
And I don't know what all this change means
All I know is that something in me is different than it ever was before and the rate at which the change comes is staggering and I am drowning trying to understand these new tides within me
From that still small place i learned to find peace in on those endless drives home
To that raging waring firestorm brewing in the base of my ribs threatening to consume everything and everyone I once called good but have since fallen from my hopeful hands

And I can't be by myself
But I can't be with my old friends either
I can't see inside myself
But neither can anyone else

And all I am gets wrapped up into some great swirling question that hovers over me as I sleep
calling forth the dreams I pushed so far down inside of myself that I mistook them for muscle mass or grey matter
And they rise up one by one and take my tired form between their teeth and remind me of why I buried them in the first place
Every failure or failing of my systems systematic switch screen horror stories of the terrible creature I once was
And I don't make much sense anymore
But I don't know if I even want to try to understand
Disconnect of fact or fiction I am a swirling contradiction stuck in static addictions fighting each new wave of self in fear and trembling
and in fear and trembling I reach with timid hands to grasp the veil about the face of my spirit
Calling out the life in me and raising up the dead
So that I may see what it is that is truly taking place within my head.

And maybe our relationship was brittle at best but still I trusted anyway and gave you my weight
A naive show of faith in what you gave before I had even stopped to consider what our delicate frame could take
And I don't know if it was god or some old ghost but something brought me back after every single fall
So bruise by bruise I somehow in my blind eyed optimism convinced myself that you were worth it all
That somehow there was something cosmicly important in the way you entered and filled a room
But I let you into every part of me before I was ready to be known I let you in too fast and far too soon
So now I keep myself up at night picking at our past trying to find the places I fell through
And I think it's pretty telling that whenever i tried to open up you only heard what applied to you
And I couldn't hate you
I couldn't condemn you to hell
But I can't love you
And I can't wish you well
Some things have to burn out on their own
But I never learned to leave fire alone.

the church pew thrasher
I'm stuck somewhere between what they say and what they do
communion cups and inner church affairs
painted faces and sanctified stairs
and though I once was blind I now can never unsee
this place has been a heaven for the rivers of hell that abides in in me
and I crossed all of my fingers
knocked my white knuckles on those pews of holy wood
but I found all was lost that kept me young, kind, and good
I learned quick that things never turn out just like they should
and still I cling to hands raised and a few honest bars
the musing of the man on the microphone and my quiet life on mars
If there were any walls they met my fists
if there were any rough edges they all met my wrists
drunk on the blood of my saviors fallen from grace
unable to understand but still a need to see the savior's face
there is no other explanation
there is no other reason

and you,
you couldn't practice what you preach
you,
you couldn't seek what you couldn't reach
you told me to wait while you went on a head
you didn't die to yourself because you were already dead
I should have known
I should have known I should have known
but still I press on in spite of the hell I was shown
still I reach out for the hem of the throne
still
still.

and I'll never understand how much death I lived through
in a place that boasted life for the pure, holy and true
milk and honey met blood and abomination
innocent eyes and tiny hands lead to the greatest devastation
the betrayal of trust
the bread and the cup tarnished with rust
I'll never understand
but still I reach for the Hand

If there were any walls they met my fists
if there were any rough edges they all met my wrists
drunk on the blood of my saviors fallen from grace
unable to understand but still a want to see the savior's face
there is no other explanation
there is no other reason

and you,
you couldn't practice what you preach
you,
you couldn't seek what you couldn't reach
you told me to wait while you went on a head
you didn't die to yourself because you were already dead
I should have known
I should have known I should have known
but still I press on in spite of the hell I was shown
still I reach out for the hem of the throne
still
still.

So I sing to the kid in me that never grew up
the once who's still tripping under the weight of that cup
be still
be still
be still
it was never his will
be still
be still
be still
it isn't your fault, it isn't your crime
don't let it consume you
don't let it poison your mind
just
be still

and you,
you couldn't practice what you preach
you,
you couldn't seek what you couldn't reach
you told me to wait while you went on a head
you didn't die to yourself because you were already dead
I should have known
I should have known I should have known
but still I press on in spite of the hell I was shown
still I reach out for the hem of the throne
still
still.

You tattooed the small of my back every time you took the round about way of saying things
Through your body and through your hands
Calculating our distance and the ways in which we failed our fellow man
Be gentle with yourself
At least be kind to yourself if you can't be to me
Tan lines and sunken eyes
We sit inside the dried up river bed right where the water once ran
dark brown and green
Right where used to swim and play pretend till we could not move our limbs anymore
I told you then I'll tell you now I could never ask for more
Than to be gentle with you
Once more in muddy water
Tripping over stones and catfish
Bruising spines and tender minds
Time be gentle with me
My legs are unsteady and my heart is a bursting ****
Freeing pent up oceans, plant life and messes of men
Time Go easy on me
And you
Walk tender with me
Because you cant help but permeate my body and ink up my soul
In hairline fractures of your brilliance
In jagged cuts of your ignorance
I cannot separate your imprints from me
I cannot clean up these tracks even though I know you'll just leave
I know you're gonna leave
I know you have to leave
But you don't leave me alone
You're everywhere.

And still I wonder at the feet of some strange Phantom Other
of all the crucifixes and hymnals I misplaced over all the years
Hands unknowingly raised I found myself in the midst of an embrace I was so firmly braced against
I set myself also against you
But is it odd that I see it hovering over you too?
I hope you feel it too.
And all the mistakes I made I keep quiet in the back of my pocket
To use as reasoning against all the ways I could ever let someone close again
When all I want is for someone to burst in and tell me I was worth it all in the end
Self loathing embedded into me like some cultural progression of an unholy procession of higher self
But all I ever wanted was to be one with myself
Instead of hating my own skin
And still the holy ghost hangs over it all quietly watching and projecting pictures of all the people I'd come to love
Happy in their holy havens safe from everything I feared
Everything I feared that had been hiding in my skin
And the countless Sunday mornings I spent observing others fall out seem so distant now when I'm finding church in my bathroom alone
Safe from sanity safe from my darker self
In this is the only purity I will know
May I never be as the winter snow
And it's taken years for me to write in honesty of all the friends I've lost and of my personal heroes who have fallen
But it will take me many more to portray my 40 days of wandering in the house of the lord
Because 40 became 60 and 60 stretches on until I find my footing again
And know the Phantom Other as friend
And learn to let the light fully in
Because I know that you know that I am not too far gone
I'm just learning to move on.

Sometimes I like you best when you've got nothing to say
Dog tired, **** out of luck, in the tender hours of the new day
I like the way you stare at the ceiling thinking about God or some feeling
You left long ago in another room back when these days weren't soon
Well we'll see it soon
And I know it hasn't been easy but I'm still thankful for this
Between failing grades and modern crusades this is an ungodly kiss but it's the one we needed just the same
It's  the one we needed after 4 years of destructive games
and this is the happiest I've been in years
Don't bother wiping my tears
I just want to sprawl out on your bedroom floor
Cds and video games spread out all over I am breaking at the core
I just want to talk like we're still in the 10th grade
Young and hopeful full of **** back before the mess was made
Back before we made them
But we keep on making them just the same
And I confess I've never screamed my lungs out like that before
But the fact that I could call you at 1 am no strings attached never meant more
I'm still stuck there on your floor

How the wonder years go

Modern baseball in my passenger seat you didn't say a word
Because you knew I needed just to be and that I needed just to be heard
Still sore from the lessons I had to learn
Still recovering from the bridges I burned
You still listened
And I did too
And I love the early hours of the morning when there is nothing left to say
Because we've been talking for the past four years and I think it's time to call it a day
And even though we can't we might as well try to stay
Just
stay.
for a second at least.

And as existential doubt sets in,
I know that I couldn't want you
But I couldn't help the rush of rejection
And so I fell
A thousand times
Screaming drunk filthy
I swear you were the one
Until I sit alone with myself and I know what lies within
But I don't know what lies beyond
And my hollow eyes find yours across the church
You in your white dress or suit or whatever nightmare you picked out
Plastered perfection
I was not the one for you
Because currently eternity has been looking more and more like a graduation ceremony
And I watch as everyone I've ever loved or loathed makes their way across the stage as I am seated in the back
And it doesn't really sting
Until the curtain falls
And I hear congratulations
With a mouth full of hell and a head filled with wine I stumble out into the crowd
And I spill myself all over your gown
Church or school auditorium it's all the same now
It's all the same now
Let the curtain fall on this too as I say congratulations
Congratulations
Congratulations
I still feel the same.

And after long six years,
I'm still not sure if there's life on mars.
Maybe a life for someone else,
But not for me.

There isn't much left to say but,
I felt every part of this
from the hot nights spent with  friends hanging out the window on the interstate chasing feeling beyond cognizant thought
to the cold day in my back yard back when it all began when I realized for the first time that I was truly, and honestly alone and that nothing and no one could save me from the person I was becoming
no one, that is,
but me  
and some concept of God long forgotten with space and time.
and I see every fault so clearly
like my past is just a passage in my chemistry book with every misstep highlighted in different colors
one color for the effect it had on my existence

Yellow: to remind me that no matter how close to balanced I may come,
I will still feel the need to deconstruct every good thing I know
so I can understand the higher significance
and **** the magic and well being of everything I love.

Orange: for the bridges I burned
the relationships that if I had only been more gentle
or more caring
or more honest
or more careful
I could still have today.

Red: for the messes I made
to remind myself that no matter how much bleach I can pour on a stain
there will always be a slight discoloration.
doubt
trust issues
bad reputations
being held at arms length like one might hold a filthy child

I see every fault so clearly.

and I can move away
change my name
dye my hair
pierce my body
cut off my friends and family
turn the ******* page
but I will still be able to see the colors no matter how many pages I turn
all the yellows, oranges and reds bleeding through like some unholy sunset
staining my body and covering my eyes
So you can hear it in my voice.
So you can taste it on my tongue.
and there isn't much left to say anymore
I feel it all.

Rivers flow from my open mouth as I'm fallen back at your feet
Indigo and bruised I always come back to you
Sweaty and sick on a Thursday night
Wash me clean in dewy grass and light me up like the air planes in the night
The want will never end.
This want will never end.
And I've plastered up my body so that you cannot see the cracks
But I come spilling out anyway
Crucify me with your kind eyes
Resurrect my broken lungs
What a pretty thing to pity the girl who'd wash your feet
What a petty thing to want.

And there's breath in everything
From champagne glasses to the long ride home
Flying down some golden highway singing of all that is lost only to find that my hands are far from empty
And I am fully feeling again
Scraping the tapestry of the night with my bare hands through the open window
Skin tinted gold
Soul whit hot accentuated by street lights and lack of sleep
And it's over.
It's over and done
It's a short dash to that finish line and I can taste the blood in my mouth
Finally reconciled with the fire within me I am only just beginning
I am only just getting started
So before I finish
Let me just set to flame every lie I ever let under my skin
Let me purge my body of every misconception or deception I took into my ribs with quiet reserve and called my own
I may be young but I've grown since then
And I won't pretend to be any less than myself  
I won't pretend to be the quiet shell of a girl who couldnt take her eyes off the ground or raise her head to stand up straight
That girl is dead
She died,
Not peacefully
But in a forrest fire
A fire that ravaged the wilderness inside of her and lay her bones bare on the blackened earth.
So if you're looking for all that she was,
You won't find her here.
You'll only find the fire that tore her apart
And the breath,
The same breath that binds everything together,
Stitched safely in between her ribs.

and now we are here
starring at each other from across a table
a healthy divide between who I am
and everything you thought I should be
all the idealistic pictures you used to paint of the pronoun you exalted as the fantom:
'we'
all the messes we made and the even messier nights are on the table too,
I didn't forget one word.
and I know you didn't either.
and I might be sorry for talking **** and trashing the way you seemed to adopt every part of me
I might be sorry for making you cry that night I pulled away because I was breaking and you couldn't see outside of your own skin long enough to realize what your use of the weight of your skull and who's shoulder you carelessly used to prop it up for no reason at all was doing to me
what it did to me
I know what I did to you, just because I did something for me
I listened to you cry from the bunk bed below alone and tired in your forand now we are here
starring at each other from across a table
a healthy divide between who I am
and everything you thought I should be
all the idealistic pictures we used to paint of the plural pronoun you exalted as the fantom 'we'
all the messes we made and the even messier nights are on the table too
I didn't forget one word
and I know you didn't either
and I might be sorry for talking **** and trashing the way you seemed to adopt every part of me
I might be sorry for making you cry that night I pulled away because I was breaking and you couldn't see outside your own skin long enough to realize what your use of the weight of your skull and who's shoulder you carelessly used to prop it up for no reason at all was doing to me,
what it did to me
I know what I did to you just because I did something for me I listened to you cry from the bunk bed below alone and tired of trying to understand my ever changing disposition
And I too, was tired.
I was tired of you trying to keep me warm
I felt like **** but it ended up okay because you returned the favor two months later at my 18th birthday party
only I had a shoulder to cry on
and I should have seen it then but I didn't forgive you all those times I could have sworn I did
on my knees in the sanctuary begging a higher power to take the anger from me
I swore I never wanted to hate you but **** it maybe I did
fingers crossed dressed all white at the funeral
I always savored your spirals
but I'm moving on from that
and after three good ******* years of on and off behavioral tendencies
reevaluations and disconnects and fear of all that you saw in me
I'm not afraid anymore to say that there isn't any 'we'
at least not in the way you said it would be
and I don't want to pretend that I'm heartbroken over it
though I used to loose sleep at night
I don't want to pretend like there's still something here
moving on finally feels right
as we ******* over a couple cups of coffee I can see clearly that we are not the same and that we will never be
but you just keep on talking about your job and about the road trip that we'll never take and how good it feels for everything to be 'okay'
back in the old cycle of recycling the same five conversation topics trying to grasp at a singular old flame
a spark of the easy days
but all I can think about is how I've changed
I'm not the same
and the divide is clear
but here we are anyway.

And I pray that the only satin in my coffin
is the green the grass that creeps softly over manicured lawns and hidden wilderness alike
A monument for every day I've walked barefoot and filled with wonder at all that god's green earth encompasses
alive and trembling I have fallen in love with every breath of life from the tangles of ivy to the solitary stars
I move
along with all the horrors and beauties of this life
I breathe
with every fiber of my being
if only to grasp the weight of existence as felt in the simple wonders of this never ending now
so that even when my body protests and my soul lays fallow and barren within my aging vessel I might find peace in the fact that
with every breath I take
I add to the cosmic dance of creation
that I move too with the ancient patterns of the sun
with the birth and death of each coming day I lift my eyes to see all that can be within this endless circle of being
I lift my eyes to see the light
And when my time comes
I will cry up and over and I will breathe my last breath with everything that sings around me
and I will return to the void that I was born from
from dust and light and breath of another
I will return to the start and finish of it all
a place beyond time
a place beyond any need to be
and I finally
simply and purely
just
be.
and so I pray that on that day when my soul leaves my body that the only satin in my coffin is the grass I lay face down in on those rare, tender days when the weight and wonder of it all set in
and I recognized the beauty and terror of it all
we are all just swimming in it
we are all just rolling with the tides
and we must learn to breathe with it
into our up and overs for lifetimes to come.

Gold lines and the light in your smile
Humid nights and spring intentions I can honestly say that it's been a while
We used to drive around this city until all light was gone
But even after all,
the light never left
Even when I slammed the door and you broke my ribs and the night swallowed us both whole
Just when you thought the distance killed me and that I had lost my soul
The distance only maintained the surreal beauty of it all
The evenings on that hill watching the city light up and the sunlight flee
The evenings I showed you the inside of my chest and you showed me your scars
The evenings we were so high above the city and the smoke that I thought we might go back down
But even angels sometimes fall from heaven
Even Adam had to leave the garden
And so fall we did
Far from the radience of our finest nights
Far from the comfort of each others presence
Far from the freedom of our adolescent dreams of grandeur
But the light lingered on
And it will never be the same but
Maybe we'll live to see the garden again
Maybe we'll go back to that hill
Maybe we'll drive around the city again
Maybe we will
Maybe we will.

We dont wear pearls anymore
We don't frequent the same places or walk in the same circles
We don't
And I am letting my hair grow like the ivy on the walls of my childhood home
And you burned that blue spotted dress that you've finally out grown
There is no crime in this tenderness
This too, will change in time
But these days time is taking all of me
These days I write of my sisters as lovers sent out to sea
The darkness and the waves shroud their faces in the growing divide
I lean into this
Over cups of coffee and matching lips I talk to you like I don't still feel the weight of the ever approaching after
Because now
Feels safe
Because now
Is easy
Black and red and faded blue
I know you've got somewhere to be and I do too
But I don't want to leave because I don't know what comes after this
I don't
And there is no crime in that
Imperfect holy bond of the shared years in some sort of purgatory
We grow
And we rise again
Only to stumble back to each other when heartbreak comes knocking again
We grow
And we rise again
Only to find that we don't wear pearls anymore
We don't wear pearls anymore
We don't wear pearls
We don't
But we remember that we once did.

The feeling sings pleasent discourse between the lengths of my young ribs
Swelling and rising like the tides of the fear I had long forgotten since the blunders my youth
The need
The want
The longing to not be left lonely again.
And I'm spiraling in the wave of the aftermath of your touch
Running scared in the ivory forest hidden under layers of skin in the base of my chest
Screaming with the choirs of my blood that this will not do
This is never enough
This is all that rings out in the cathedral in me
As all I am lifts my hands to the light
And falls to the floor in fear and wonder at the weight of it all
The breath in your being
The swing in your step
All illuminates the war in me
The fight in my own body
Between instinct and reason
Between love and lust
Within this bag of blood there is no trust
And though my wings are clipped I will still fight to fly from this
From this inner turmoil over your teeth
I wanted them and I needed them but now I can barely see
Externally stable but internally battling a boiling sea:
This fear of you and this fear of me.
The feeling wages on.

Straddling white lines along the highway into town
I don't know what you're thinking about and I don't know where you are
But I know that some part of you waits silently for me
As I wait for you
And they talk of little soul mates like we've already met and I can't help thinking that I don't even know myself yet
Let alone know how to let someone know me
Leave me alone so I can just be.
I am a lantern just collecting light
I am a moth flying blindly in the night
I am a month or two left of routine
I am the face you've never seen
I am hungry for you
And I wait.

I don't talk about it much anymore but you know you broke my heart
Not because we were in love
Because we weren't
But I loved you anyway
Not romantically speaking but in the way that sisters lie together in the same bed
Or like brothers hold hands when they're small
Innocent
I was innocent and so were you
But things change and I have too
I'm not the same anymore as when you stuck the knife in my back
I'm not the same as the kid who didn't know how to react when you tore into me numb on the cabin floor
No I'm not the same but somehow after all these years you are
And you can't keep hoping that someone is gonna become more than themselves for forever
You can't stay up waiting for the same response you've been waiting for for the past two years
And I've been here for the past two years
Hands folded staring numbly at you and your changing personas
Yeah you can change your hair but you can't change your color
You can't change your heart
So yeah I hang back when you walk in
Yeah I leave early and I show up late
And yeah I've written you over a hundred poems trying to sort out the knife you left in my back
But I know better than to talk about it
I know better than to look you in the eye and expect you to honestly look back
I don't talk about it but you ******* broke my heart
And you didn't even try

I know that heaven will be a summer evening
And we'll be back ******* around on that hill overlooking the city
And all our past lives
Will be dust in the wind
And all that will matter is our hands in the grass
And the skyline before us
But now all we see is the war before us
The physical and the unseen
And we are being shipped off one by one to the battlefront
I wonder if when they cut your hair you will still think of me in the front seat of your car
I wonder if you will wish for me on some distant star
Or pray to some god to bring us back together as if fate hadn't been gunning for us at all
I wonder if when home is only a memory you will take the time to remember the streets we used to drive endlessly
up and down
And back and forth forcing time to talk in all honesty about our changes
I wonder if your change will change me
If we'll ever even meet again
If we'll ever even speak again
All in all, I know I will love you till the very end
Even if I only love the memory of the hopeless ******* you were swearing quietly in the church
Smile on your face like you had something to say
Hands in your pockets like you'd never go away
Heaven is a summer evening where we turn back time and it all gets reversed and we get to stay together in innocence for the rest of our eternity
In truth, I'm not sure every eternity would be enough to lie back and remember with you
Heaven is a place where I look at you and I tell you I love you and you feel it in full
Where every cancerous thought of destruction is removed from your body and you are free in spirit to be as I have seen you can be
Heaven is a place where you look into me
And I look into you
Honest
Open
And innocent.
And I have loved you for the duration of our never ending Now, but I hear the Fates call that our portion of time together is now Enough
And it hurts.
Because Enough will never be enough for me.
Because for me, Heaven is us
back ******* around on that hill overlooking the city
Heaven is your porch in the dead heat of summer
Heaven is almost burning down your father's field setting off fireworks on the fourth of July
Heaven, to put it simply,
isn't on earth yet
and it ******* hurts.
Goodbye ******* hurts when you have to turn the page from the most beauty you've ever see.
Goodbye ******* hurts when your friends tell you it'll all stay the same even when we're thousands of miles away and all you can do is smile and nod because you know,
You just know that it won't.
Goodbye
*******
Hurts.
And nothing makes it go away except surrender to our individual up and overs
Giving way to the void of 'what happens next' in the never ending Now
And I know that now.
So I will watch you ship off to fight your holy war and I will fight the war within me to fight the Change
Because the Change makes us whole
The Change makes us new.
The Change builds us into who we were meant to be in the darkened theater of life by tearing us down to our core
And your core is something terrible and wonderful to see indeed.
You were a beautiful mess of man
But you have greater things to do
And I do too
So for the goodbye for this never ending Now
I'll see you when we meet again.

This is the church of the crooked and fractured teeth
These are the hours slowed by lack of sleep
There is nothing underneath this breath
There is nothing but the body you left lying cold on the concrete
Isn't leaving sweet?
And I'm pouring out at 12am all the words I never said
Painting bottled affection to fog up your head
Hours without sleep lying in your bed
I loved this even then
Into the lazy hours
The nights when you picked flowers growing out from in between my ribs
Little light we sit and swig as I wash your feet
Intoxicated by the pleasant relief of you letting me down
I escape the room without sound only to write of nothing but you for weeks on end
And these nothings float up into the rafters and I wonder what comes after this absence of you
What I wouldn't do to tear back into you
Into the gaps of your teeth
I don't get the release anymore
I watch the moon move along my floor
As I Invision all the knots in my spine you whispered into
The black and the blue and the bruised
I'm not broken just used
But I still dream of you and how I would have abused the touch of your hands
I never belonged to another man but you
What's a girl to ******* do
But pour it back out again
And maybe you will
Maybe you will too
Maybe you will stay this time in my skin
Wonder what we might have been
If you would only descend again
The wanting never ends
And I am bruised cold over you
And for the way that we moved
And I can't hold up for much longer
The waves come back only stronger
And maybe for a little while
I'd let you come back around
And we'd tangle again a union of unholy sound
For this is the church of the crooked and fractured teeth
These are the hours slowed by lack of sleep
I don't get no release without my tongue in your cheek
I dunno it's just been one of those weeks
Just one of those weeks.

I spend my days moving slowly along the kitchen floor
Singing softly and sweetly of the love I've never known
And as my song rises to the rafters I pray that one day it might reach you and with long spindling fingers fill the cracks of your body with the feeling you've always known in the center of your soul
Down to that secret place where all knowing grows and I pray that it spirals along your spine and out through your velvet eyes as you cry for the honest days wasted and numb on a drunken night
I pray that you find through the atmosphere my lyrics and melodies and that even when we are miles away you might sing back to me
We may never meet but darling I feel you in the blades of grass that grow from between the ribs of the earth
I feel you in that secret place in my sternum in colors of green and gold
And as the days pass may sunlight touch your skin as it touches mine
Gentle and breaking
So tender it makes you cry
I pray that that sun will come and tear you apart
so that you may be free of your walls
So that your body is no longer night
So that we may both learn to blossom in whatever season may come
Through fire and through seawater
May the feeling refine us
And bind us
In the spirit that surpasses all new and old
So brother please hear this song through the cracks of your wall
Lover please come down off the ledge and find that we are still all that we said we were when we were swollen and small
That we are all that we hoped we'd be when we were naked and filthy in the garden alone
Our father was angry but we did not yet know ourselves and we did not yet know the mess to be made
We are messes made by the good intent of apathetic friends
But darling as I move in the doorway I can promise that this feeling never ends
I don't know you yet but I will find you and feel you through the wind in the trees
With the voice of the spirit rolling freely through me
Can't you see?
As I'm singing to you
Can't you feel?
After the damage is done and they say there is nothing left to do
I will come rolling and ringing through you
And the divide will be no more
Alone together at last
clean on the kitchen floor.

This is the holiest form of love I will ever know.

I don't know how
To tell you why
The days move slow
And so do I
Drawn out in your parlor
I am drunk off a memory
I am drink off the thought of putting my fist straight through your head
I can't forget any word of what you said
Honest open I showed you my world and you promised
You promised
But I'm the one you wanted to fill the void no I'm not the one you needed
I was your toy
And the date is set
The bed is made
Your heart is set
And I shouldn't have stayed this long
I'm just too busy picturing a 1000 forms of revenge
While you're too busy talking about the lines of your new dress
Spinning twirling the focus of the party
You talk over me and I sit complacently ready to tear you apart
You took root in my heart and walked away time after time after time
But the difference is that I'm big enough to recognize what fault is mine
So I'm seasick listening to the harrowing details of your relationship with god
All your devoted disciples sit at your feet so isn't it odd that
My fingernails are digging into the inside of my palms
Isnt it strange that
I'm acting like something is wrong
But as you continue to spit **** to all our mutual friends at somebody else's birthday party
I've decided that I will let you have no part of me
And so it's 2am and I'm coming clean in your doorway
I'm a mess of track marks and contraditctions but all I can say is
You're not my fix
No you're not my fix anymore
You're not my fix
I'm not your girl anymore
The date is set but I'm not coming around
No I'm not coming around anymore.

If I'm being honest
I'm tired of being a poet.
I'm tired of findig meaning in everything from the lines of the sky to the cracks in the side walk
I'm tired of using extended metaphors to explain how overwhelmed or angry or sad I am 
I'm tired of immortalizing the people I love or hate in half assed lines of poetry
For once I would like a good day just to be a good day or a bad day just to be a bad day
A landscape to hold no higher meaning than to magnify the glory of existence
For the people I know to hold no cosmic significance in the fabric of time
I would like to sit and be quiet
To write and be at peace
For the storm to pass over
And to find some relief
This is not a game for me this is how I breathe and I am tired of having to hold meaning in every crack and every crevice
My poetic nature has become a menice in my tired skin
I'm tired of letting the light in
But this isn't something you quit
This is something you breathe
This is something you are
This is something you need
Even if it doesn't make sense all the time
This is the one true thing I know that's mine
My sense of rhythm and my sense of rhyme
And it isn't easy all the time
Because these days life moves faster than I've even known
Faster than I can process what I've been shown
These days it's easy to feel the weight of all of my time spent alone
My mind isn't home
I'm chilled to the bone
These days I'm tired of being tired and tired of writing about how tired I am
Like I'm six feet under but I'm not yet dead
Using poetic devices to say what's already been said
I'm tired of playing this game
Imortalizing name after name
I still feel the same
Even though I still keep writing
So what I'm trying to say is that I need poetry like I need water but sometimes if you drink too fast or you drink too deep you feel like you're drowning
Out to sea in familiar surroundings
It's astounding how tiring being a poet can be.

I can almost taste you in the back of my throat
Like it or not you are in every word that I wrote.
And. I'm tangled up inbetween the place of wanting you and wanting the best for myself
But I don't know what's best for myself
Just do what's best for yourself
To hell with my mental health
So it's late nights early mornings deflecting warnings with half assed poetry
Most people I know trigger me in some sense of the word
But in case you haven't heard
They're saying I've lost my mind trying to find the love I used to know in myself
back when I knew myself skinny *** kid in the denim shirt
Beaming back at you before I got hurt
back before I learned that the parts that you can't see are the ones that teach you to be
The ideas that we could be inside of reality without fully hating ourselves
And me I just wanted to be something more than the walls I was born into
More than the **** I got into with the kids who turned me into the monster I have become
It's the people we know not the places we're from that define us
And I'm on that ultra light beam
Out singing with the whole ******* team about another man's god dream
The scheme that gleamed in their eyes so mean just trying to find they're own way
And what I'm trying to say is that I want you but I know that it could take me down
And I'm not about to drown in another wasted year
In another ocean of my own tears
This isn't coming out of fears it's coming from the place in me that knows that I was made for more
That I am more than another girl's page from her diary
That I am more than what the people are saying about me
That I am more than what I intend or intended to be
I was blind but now I see
And this is all of me
Ultra light beam
A god dream
Everything.
So yeah I can almost taste you in the back of my throat
And yeah I'm tangled up in that place but I ain't leaving a note
I'm standing up for me
And aI can almost taste you in the back of my throat
I'm tangled up inbetween the place of wanting you and wanting the best for myself
But I don't know what's best for myself
To hell with my mental health
So it's late nights early mornings deflecting warning signs with poetry
Most things I know trigger me in some sense of the word
But in case you haven't heard
They're saying I've lost my mind trying to find the love I used to know in myself back when I knew myself skinny *** kid in the denim shirt
Beaming back at you laughing before I got hurt back before I learned that the parts that you can't see are the ones that teach you to be
The ideas that we could be inside of reality without fully hating ourselves
And me I just wanted to be something more than the walls I was born into
More than the **** I got into with the kids who turned me into the monster I have become
It's the people we know not the places we're from that define us
And I'm on that ultra light beam
Out singing with the whole ******* team about another man's god dream
The scheme that gleamed in the eyes of the teen just trying to find her way
And what I'm trying to say is that I want you but I know that it could take me down
And I'm not about to drown in another wasted year
In another ocean of my own tears
This isn't coming out of my fears it's coming from the place in me that knows that I was made for more
That I am more than another girl's page from her diary
That I am more than what the people are saying about me
That I am more than what I intend or intended to be
I was blind but now I see
And this is all of me
Ultra light beam
A god dream
Everything.
So yeah I can almost taste you in the back of my throat
And yeah I'm tangled up in that place but I ain't leaving a note
I'm standing up for me
And all I want to be
And all that I want to be

We sit up late and talk **** and glass box confessionals
Of fallen men and angels and the space between our hands
And though we spit different brands of fire,
we still connect in between the flames,
In between our overgrown youth and the cracks in the fault lines of our teeth
Between our separate worlds we meet open and honest in your attic and seek to touch the places we previously could not  reach alone
And I am breathless in return
And you, fire eyed girl, speak in sonnets to the dark
You take the circles around your eyes and string them into free verse
Spilling free from the patterns in your blood
You fight within to take hold of the love that is all around you
Because it lives all around you
Love follows you like a dog nipping at your heels
Chasing you into the depths of your being where it fights you up in arms at the immensity and grandeur of it all
Love fights for you
And you'll let it win
And so we sit and talk up the last four years of hell like it was nothing
Though we both know it meant everything just the same
And on the drive home I'm overwhelmed by the lights
Overcome at the light within you
Tangled beautiful girl
I was called fire eyed too but yours is a different sort of flame
A different brand of light
And it burns bright in my memory on the way home.

Spoil me.
After all, I'm a vision wrapped in Writers block and winter storm warnings
falling apart on a Sunday night alone in my bathtub and I'm ready to be:
Yours.
If only for a week
Because the thought of you is killing me longing in a waltz tempo dancing across my winter skin
waiting for you to put your hand on my skin in the darkness on the fourth of July
Take me out of my head and into your arms
All tanned skin and light green eyes
Come on tear your teeth right through mine
Because I want you for this week and it's becoming hard to breathe in the absence of sanctuary in my body
After all,
It'll be cool till I disengage and retreat back into myself
It'll feel right until I can't look you in the eye or be by myself
But now I see you in pastel and in clean white and grey
The hand I sought to hold
The body I hungered to mold
The weight of the want
But I keep this inside of myself
Pin you up in poetry on my wall
I mean after all
this will only last until I cut it off
Until I cut myself off and box you away under my bed
Beautiful boy now a mere thought in my head
You will disappear because I will erase you
You will leave because I send you away
You will break because I bend you
This is all it can ever be
But for now it's gentle mid afternoon trips and cashmere shirts
Modern love notes and safety bricks
I'll reach for you if only to make you hurt because I'm afraid of myself
It doesn't make sense but for now it's how I know myself
And I know myself
So I build this up to let you go
I take the time and though you never know that I am fragile
So
be gentle with your hands
Bruise my skin and be my man
But I'll cut you off in the spring time and want you again in humidity
I am inconsistent and distant once you truly look inside of me
So please
If only for the week
If only for the car ride home
If only in the darkness of the movie theater
Spoil me.

There is a place in me that sleep cannot touch- a place in which I cannot breathe
I go to the same places, sing the same songs, make the same jokes and still I am expected to be full,
Bursting with light,
The ice in your drink.
But I'm okay
I promise I am
But I am trying to understand the great divide between nature and man
The chemicals in the boundaries that separate us when all I desperately need is to collide and combust
To exist within the boundaries I set
The order I ordain
To be able to breathe
As if every breath were the first
As if I could some how keep inside of me all of heaven and earth
As if I could be
As I am
To be in the present
Though presently I am losing my mind  
This all fades and breaks in time
And in time
I will return back to you
Retrace my steps go to the same places, sing the same songs, make the same jokes and this time I really will be full
Bursting with light
The ice in your glass.
But for now I am winter
and the ice that has cemented my lungs and that weighs down my eyes is all I can begin to feel
That and the place that sleep cannot touch- a place in which I cannot breathe.

Back on the loop past my old flame's house again
I sleep in and I show up late because I can't get you off my mind
Between failing friendships and endless gap years I feel like there isn't much of my heart left
But I'm still here
And I cry but I don't talk about it anymore. The people I love are a text message and 45 short miles away
But I'm too scared to cross the distance
Emotional or physical I'm too ******* scared to even ask for prayer
Singing out hymns to an estranged father imortalized in memories from last year and in the gruesome images depicted in stained glass windows,

Hallowed be this place in me.
Hallowed be the space in between my ribs.

 and my brother is a gospel singer to a basement full of people who are just as scared as I am
And He rides the crowd like Jesus walked on water
He lifts his hands caught in the same spirit that torments the angels and demons alike
And maybe god hears him screaming through the walls like I do
Maybe god cries too
But if he does he does a good job hiding it
And my parents are on the continent that I turned my back on a year ago.
I traded family dinners for a decomposing raft and tried my luck at the sea
Only crossing the water to drink wine and share the communion of post apocalyptic dreaming or political warfare we are so horrified and mesmerized by
The fellowship of the modern day saints,

Hallowed be this place in me.
Hallowed be the hole in my head.

Icehead baby don't you come to close to me
I'm friged baby I'm too far gone to see
And I've been dreaming about summer while I've been reading up on life in Antarctica
Cold tundras and odd communities I could work in maintanince for the price of living
Meanwhile I'm surviving my own tundra the endless night never gives way to sun for seasons on end
And my friends grow wings and fly into the sun
 a thousand variations of Icarus they're going to be dead and gone on while I'm still landlocked in concept
Or in orbit far in space
Wherever I am, I am distant
Living on the memories from years past
So I'm driving the endless loop past an old flame's house again
Connecting the dots between my ideas of dependency space and time
And I'm fine
In love with the seclusion of the towering trees
The security of a prolonged gap year
The warmth of the ice in my head
And as the roots of the divine cover my mouth and bloom in my lungs
I sigh and give into my year of hibernation.

Hallowed be this place in me
Hallowed be the expanse of this space.

The way you carry yourself is an art
Minimal clean and full of bravado
And as we walk through department store hell
I think I'm beginning to see you past first impression nausea
Past the want of my own skin
Last weekend came as fresh snow red wine and attitude
And though the roads were slick I couldn't keep my mind off of you
Grey green boy
Your scent lingers still even if you only stayed for an hour
I can feel you laughing in my ear light and warm
You quote song lyrics and smirk while the pastor drones on
I can feel you
even through the wall between our seats
I can feel you
And I wonder if you feel me too or if it's just another sort of sickness that comes with an overly romantic mind and a restless eye
Grey green boy I wanted you before you were mine
That is to say,
If you're ever mine
So for now you are art and I observe you
Through the museums of the millennial
Windows left open late at night
Longing is a mess.

We get along with each other so well in all our clothes
Why **** this thing up by taking them off?

It's easy as a poet to turn yourself into the flawed broken ideal you so readily romanticize at any given moment
You adapt generational buzzwords like
"Pale" or "thin" or "depressed" or "bipolar"
To make up for the places you feel dull or average
You long for someone to write about you like you write about your lovers or friends
So you set yourself up like a john green character
Beautiful
Distant
And empty
You spout tumblr religion and intellectual quotes
You become as paper thin as the characters from those novels our generation can't seem to get enough of
Predictable
Sad
Romanticized to the point of extinction
You survive on maybe three good quotes and self inflicted lack of sleep
In pursuit of becoming the lie you loved youve become the truth you hate
Millennial icon
The cycle continues with you.

If I could devour this whole city to keep you inside of me I would

It's not that the snow isn't beautiful
It's just that my mind is somewhere else.

Cold air and frosted branches only drive me deeper back into my own skin
As world sleeps I do too
Trying to cope with snow banks and the screeching halt of society
Frozen interstates and losses of power
Dependency on the structures of man
Fragility

So
it's not that the snow isn't beautiful
It's jus that my mind is somewhere else.

Strung out on the memory of summer
The way it felt to lie bare in the damp grass
Naked and open as they come
Spellbound by the nearness of everything I am trying to remember the heaviness of the humidity of that one night with those good kids
Trying to capture the feeling of the reeling of the gentle breath on my skin
Winter may last an eternity but heat changes everything
Light changes everything
And we are thankless in return
Sentiment
A pretty word for apathy

So
It's not that the snow isn't beautiful
It's just that I'm trying to find the words to tell you why I never tried to reach out
Why I left so early and why I showed up so late
I am trying to articulate exactly what I needed when you were right there next to me and I couldnt muster up the courage to say a single word
It's alright
I'm okay
It was beautiful
The heat
The light
the front seat of your car
The fullness of youth.
The grandeur of your version of life
It was beautiful but you and I both know that it wasnt substantial enough to survive
And they called me the romantic

So
The snow is beautiful
But so was last summer

And
It's difficult but
I want you to know that I don't take it for granted that
The light we chased is strong enough to divert me from the present beauty
I don't take you for granted
Even with all that's happened

So
The snow is beautiful
My mind is somewhere else
And you are still all that you were the day it all fell to pieces
Beautiful and ignorant
Naïve and well meaning
Frosted like the trees outside my window.

Dry heave quietly in the back room it feels like I've been coughing up blood for years
Warm house cold friends the noise is distant
Nothing lines up like it should and I can't find the pen in my own hand but I'm writing
But I'm surviving
I am learning how to live in the midst of my own hell
Fragmented relationships spit venom over cups of coffee collapse and repeat
Self defense class on Saturday and I didn't sleep for two days
Paranoid about anyone who could be out to hurt me including myself
And I do
Put myself down in my own head alone
Quiet chiding that I didn't have to let go of the love I used to know
I am a delicate soldier sitting out on the roof till the morning
Trying to get a feel for the light
Trying to get back somewhere in time when my own skin wasn't the battlefield
And my stronghold was my mind
This isn't easy but it's fine
I'm not yours and I'm not mine
Even if it doesn't make sense
(Which it never does)
I'm a walking paradox
Confliction even in the cracks of my skin
The optimistic realist.
The tired kid in the back of the room shaking with fear and wonder at the weight of the world.
What a beautiful thing to live
What a beautiful thing to be
Even when it comes in waves in the bathroom I am learning to hold it right and save
Every ******* bit of life around me
Take the bitter with the sweet and everything in between
I'm just in between the end and beginning
And I'm doing just fine.

Midnight blue stars descend on me tonight.
Clear intentions and dusty attitude I'm in love with the lines of my skin
Hesitant and bold,
I only wanted to own you.
I only wanted to be the ice in your drink.
New years afterthought of the rush of our voices together
The need to be more than just the girl next door
I wanted you, Bruising Smile, to keep in my bedroom for the nights when the stars don't fall
For the nights when my head is too heavy to hold
So I wanted you, Troubled Tongue, to hold in the center of my knowing
To know that I would be all you had to hold
To hold. And to be held.
And like the song says "I've written pages upon pages trying to rid you from my bones,"
And here's the proof: hundreds of pieces of poetry or pages from my journal all pointing back to you
And you haven't left me yet
But, the blush stays while my family bottles new wine on winter's eve
And don't you know you were all I wanted to believe could resonate within my tired form?
Scent like your mother's: safe and warm in your car.
I needed you to be the one but the longing went to far
The girl with the Tangled Teeth just wanted to believe you were hers.
Just wanted to believe you were mine.
It isn't easy wanting after a memory.

I loved you and I lost.

Quiet light in your old T-shirt
It isn't often that mornings make me this tender,
But here I am.
Constant contradiction of charisma and brine
Hooked on summer nights,
Humidity softens and sweat grounds us in the moment
Dark leaves and drunken hymns- I need the memories to remind myself that there were simple days.
Days when all that mattered was who had the lighter and who would start the first song off
I am braver now
(But that isn't saying much)
I still cower at the gentlest touch
Messes of men beneath my skin oil spills and construction sites all the walls I build to keep myself in
They weren't meant to keep you out,
Just to ensure that I didn't give it all before I was ready
But I don't think I am
Or will ever be for anyone
And are you thinking of me now? Wide eyed child running through the tangled woods
Tender open and naked
Innocence embodied in the humble request that I stay the night
We don't talk about that part of me anymore
We don't talk about those days anymore
We talk about tours and albums and lyrics and time
And it's good
Until it isn't fine
So here I lie in my grandmother's bed wondering where the hell it all went
Innocence
The simplicity of summer
The honesty of my skin
And if it all falls away
I'll figure out how to let quiet light back in.