God's green earth runs full between us
Late nights spent sipping on new wine and dreaming of all the ways we capsized
I don't sleep in anymore
I just chase your memory down the hallway
And I memorize all the lines you were so proud of
Rolling off my tongue in admiration of your thin limbs and Forrest mind
It's a shame the cancer stars hung low over you
In a way I guess it made sense
Retreating to your best friend sleep less and **** up
It's a pretty thing to grow up
It's a pretty thing to love the moon girl after she leaves you to gather dust
It's a pretty thing to have given your all only to find you turned to dust
Right down to our devotion we are the same
Steeped in isolation and dead leaves we were born out of the same fabric
And though the wall runs through our hands it's still thin enough to hear you sing
And I save all your shimmering tunes in the hymnal under my bed to sing for a better day
And in a different way
I'll chase you down again.

And I think it's time to face facts
That I don't really want to meet anyone new.
I just want the friends I had back when who folds what what time are you coming if you're even coming at all
was all that ever mattered
I just want you.

Rapid fire heartbeats sitting pretty on your floor
desperate to disappear yet longing for you to look over my way
typical.
and i'm twisting into the rug dreaming of a way out of here
overflowing in the empty bathtub hopeless obsessed with the fears I don't yet know
grinding into the concrete my open back with flecks of gravel and a skin full of bruises
oh don't tell me what the news is
I just want to disappear into this
and I destroy my walls and build them up again about three times a week
unclear and dissatisfied
lifted by my own skin set your fire into me
my sister and my brother gone on the open road
I don't care if it hurts I still want you all the time
and I watch others climb into another's skin and I can't seem to find the bottom of my glass
floating on something else
I write what I feel and that's all I can offer
no one loved the ****** poet
they just watched her wasted in the corner of the room
sitting pretty spitting blood
sitting pretty spitting blood
sitting pretty spitting blood
let it all go now
I'm not what you wanted and I never will be
I'm not going to haunt you or leave you wanting don't you see
I will be gone when I leave
and I will dismantle every bone in my ******* body if I can't have you
because lord knows I can't handle another disappointment
spiraling clean into the drink
just like I watched her from my satellite
just like I watched her prove that she was it all along
just like I watched her watch herself move
well I tried for years to get her attention or to pin her down but she never settled
so I settled myself down deeper into the cracks of my kitchen floor
scared shitless running down her street
don't give me the pill just give me the beat
and I'll run it out
I'll move it out
but I don't think I can go without you
want to dismantle your body in my mouth
run my fingers through your lungs and bring you to life
I think I could do it
I think I could
and my friends don't know where I went
leaving early staying out late dripping black gold in solitude they say I'm cold in my attitude
but I don't even remember my old name
just the constant call of
TAKEMEHOMETAKEMEHOMETAKEMEHOME
from every passing stranger on the street
I'd be lying if I said I didn't love them all
every one with pink in their lungs and ice in their glasses
severed twins of the lover left unknown
I'll still be there in the morning drunk on your **** carpet screaming that I need you to feel
until I glance at the door
and she comes again
she comes in waves of soft pink and promises left along the sides of the road
and she moves like the girls in the videos to keep from what she knows
and she'll sink her teeth into me
I know she's not real but she bites at my ankles and claws at my lungs
she won't stop till she takes the very breath of life from me and leaves me to rot
but it isn't so much what she is as what she's not
she revels in it all
and brushes my hair before bed
and I think I can see just beyond the morning light
I think I can see just beyond her smile
and I know that this time is my time and I won't be back for a while
raise myself out of my weekday and loose my phone
drown the nightmares out learn to be alone
I think I could
I think I could do it
but for now I'll suffer
moth wing heartbeats sitting pretty on your floor
desperate to disappear yet longing for you to look over my way
typical.

too little too late I sat out watching the embers fall from your bedroom window
and I saw the green glass that falls now across your eyelids
veiling the light and keeping the shadows at bay
and in this
I have begun to realize that every self defense comes with its own side effects
as I watch you seem to not recognize your home
the empty streets bare the same resemblance to the love you used to accept
just let me fill the cracks in your concrete
and the holes in your gate
but we sit side by side not saying anything at all
watching the ash and counting the seconds
or at least I think you do
But whatever is left I will sit and smoke with you in the park
and I will be the slam of your car door as you leave

And even at night I still wonder if it could have been you
all those lightning bugs and stars we chased
Burnt fingers and summer nights alone
It meant something
Even if they're nearly memories now
And I don't think I'll be able to shake it:
The thought of you
Quiet and pressing like I used to wait for my mother's attention
I'm still strung up on bottled affection
Don't you come around me
We'll never be small again but I still live on your porch
Won't you invite me in?
Won't you finally let the light in?
And even though I know it would never work
I still talk about you to god and my friends
Still wonder after your wide eyed innocence and boyish gate
Still moon after blue lips and mud encrusted shoes
I still wonder about you
Memories of dinosaurs and changing leaves
Bath time and the scent of cigarettes drifting off your mothers hair
And as we grew so did the distance
Traded dinosaurs and race cars for new addresses and opposing forrests
Towering ideals of the oddity we call home
But even this can be bridged by melodies sung at tender hours of the night in your attic
Only we can say we spent the last breath of 2014 singing a madman's hymns
Only we can tangle as we do through fumbled melodies and timeless sentiments
And even still
I wonder if it could have been you

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.

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

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.

I'm filtering you through the crack of light that universally seeps through all hotel room doors at the tender hour of 3am.
That is to say,
this isn't a sonnet of love
Or an overly romanticized image of a 21st century youth,
This is realism
In that I am trying to process everything around me like it will disappear tomorrow
Sipping tepid cola watching the day fade through the trees
Losing track of time or when the hell I'm supposed to be anywhere
Because lately I've been going no where
Tracing my veins and driving in circles around your block
Trying to remind myself that though we live in an infinite universe,
And though we are all alone in our own skin
we're still connected through the cracks in the concrete and the curve of the earth.
And I think about all the river water I drank in trying to get to your shore
All the time I've waisted hanging just outside your door
And I know I tend to get stuck on the little things like the songs we sang or the arch of your foot
But I'm just trying to ******* process you so I don't have to spend one more night on my best friends couch staring at my skin wondering where all the time went,
Wondering if I had cleaned up a little better
then my mind wouldn't be so spent
So I'm staring into the light coming through the hotel door at 3am so I can filter you out of my chest and onto paper
So if I disappear tomorrow
I can know your memory for today.

You sit softly back into the faded couch
rain spills in dark blue slate against my forearms
Pale ivory lines of my skin align tenderly with your tangled teeth
You tell me that this is how we'll end
Dim and quiet icons of our generation wrapped in grey
But we laugh it off anyway
And I sing gods and monsters into your warm neck
Humble moments of my velvet intent
I lean into you
And the rain conceals the rest

I don't talk too loud when you're with me unless you **** me off
Running your **** mouth as usual about something I've said or done
But at the end of the day you're still my ride home
You're still my long sleeved skinny thighed glass tongued *******
Quick fade slow trip naked in the front yard
And though you were quick to slam the door
I still advocate for your movement: slight reckless and agile
But understand this:
Even in your leaving there is poetry
Even in your exit there is beauty
And no amount of it's profound meaning was lost on me: even when I'm open I need you.
So don't worry kid
even if you slow down or **** up I'll still be home to let you in
Yeah I'll let you in so we can ******* about existence or let the light out on our skin
You thawed sandwich bread on the patio
And I cleaned my bedroom floor
You talk it big and I'll never ask for more
And I know she broke your heart like she broke my heart running off with the wrong one once again
But if you drive me home I'll be your home and we can finally start to begin
Again
This is for sitting on our mother's floor
Again
This is for i40 and our weekly commute
Again
This is for the days we spent running only to run back home again
This is for love
And this is for you
And I'll love you, you skinny ******* until the fabric of the universe breaks beneath us
And I'll love you until you begin to love again
And after all this time
I Guess I need you.

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.

I don't know where it came from
Maybe it was the unusual warm air in November
Or maybe it was the need to be known
But at the mention of you
Or the faint glow of another window
I'm spiraling back into:
Blood drive river bank lace your fingers into my hips
Cold air nausea never even been kissed
But don't you know I want you more than ever
Don't you know I'd like to try?
But I'm only everyone's open arms
And you're their American icon
Strolling through winter wheat
Blond, strong and smirking at me
And I'm hiding in my skin
Insecure and inexperienced and I know exactly why
Petrified at the thought of another drive home alone
Tender at the thought of trusting
Be gentle with me
Only after I'm bruised deep blue
Walk home with me
Only after the lights are shot out and you've faded back to gray
I have no stomach to explain passion and no armor to field my family's questions
Just the burn of my chest under my thin jacket
And the warmth of your hand on my skin
And I met you at the blood drive and I let you under my skin
Deep red they bled me dry as I gave you all I had within
I'm alive but I'm weakened
And you put the color back in my cheeks
And you supported me all the way home
So maybe I spiraled into this
Maybe I'm still scared from the nights spent sleeping alone
But in the warm November air
I'll let you in
Spiraling again.

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.

I think I've always known that you were headed for the stars.
I saw it in your eyes when you were young on the front porch playing your junior acoustic guitar
heard it in your voice when you made your mother laugh at the party
felt it in your arms in every hello and goodbye hug when you held me close just like I always wanted.
so yeah,
I've always known about you and the stars
and I think maybe, you saw the same in me
I don't know.
it was just in the way you always begged me to sing with you even though I was shy and your parents were drunkenly laughing downstairs
it was just the way you always asked endless questions about my year
and everything in the way you listened,
stupid smile on your face like you couldn't believe I was in your house
or that I was looking at you,
or maybe it was the way that you were always challenging or pushing me to live a little
and yeah it was the stuff of kids
but in my mind the lighter you forced into my hand meant so much more than just the snap of firecrackers in the dark
meant more than just the prospects of burned fingertips and ash
or the way you always managed to get me up into some tree or on some rickety old swing even though I was so afraid of heights
and you knew you were the only one who could do that,
just like you always have.
Because maybe you knew that to get where I was gonna go that I needed someone to remind me
that sometimes you have to go beyond what you think you are capable of and do the thing that frightens you
I always admired that in you
and that maybe you saw me too
so yeah
maybe you knew about me and the stars
just like I knew about you
and we've seen the world of our youth together
through dinosaur days and saturday morning cartoons
our mutual love of laughter connected us and grew like ivy between us covering the spaces we had left uncharted by the innocence of youth
you wanted to be a comedian and I did too
only if I could make you laugh like that night by the fire
we were young and skinny and wild and oblivious to the true nature of things
and it was small but it was good
so yeah
I mean I've always been in awe of you
and after all these years on your front porch we've come so far
your mom gave up smoking and your dad is cancer free
your brother got a girlfriend and you bought a car
so you can drive
and drive
and drive
and drive away
leave the small town you've hated ever since you started school
so you can drive to find your dreams and some girl to take your heart away
and after all is said and done
when you've broken the charts
gotten your name in lights
and seen the world with a thousand scars running deep just under the sleeve of your shirt
you'll find yourself hung in the stars
just like I always knew
so yeah
I mean I've always hoped that once you were there in the stars
you might look around and find me there too
and its a roundabout way of saying things
and it's different for me too
but
there was this band that we listened to that one summer in your kitchen while our parents were laughing about some video in the next room
and in about every single song that this band wrote
there was this one sentiment that was echoed,
and that has been echoed throughout the modern world countless times to the point of abstraction or sickening obsession
but
the way it sounded that day in the kitchen with seemed really really great
like we were the first to pioneer this brave new school of thought
and that the simple lyrics were insightful and new
though I know you probably don't have any memory of this
but
I think I needed to just let you know


that
I think I've always known
(that you were headed for the stars)

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.

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.

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.

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.

The suburbs are growing all over the wilderness I used to watch pass by from the passener side
The glimmering dream of a generation reborn in the new frontier of romanticized  pop culture
The suburbs weren't made to live in
They were built to sing of and pine over like some lover changed with age
So in this new age
As the generation who swore to destroy them but now idly builds them back up again
We will stand tall in our lyrics
Dreaming of late night rides and sneaking out of our parents home
To distract ourselves to conceal the fact that we are all inherently alone
And I
In my young blood and bravado
Will put another brick into the walls.

For a second I remembered your scent
And I retreated inwards once more.
You don't simply leave you linger.

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.

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.

and it's taken me two years but I think I finally get it
it wasn't the forced laughter or the radio silence
it wasn't that every time I needed you, you never picked up your phone
too busy talking to God as usual
while I was screaming his ear off about you
you
and your white teeth and ambiguous intentions
you caught me numb on your kitchen floor
laughing in your old clothes when we're alone together praying that this time this side of you would stay
and for once you do
until there's someone new to impress or I just need to talk to someone at 1am
apathetic until something in the way of my being applies to you
and just like a kid you'll sit me down line our pieces up and try to convince me we're the same
you shoved the pieces that wouldn't quite fall into place under the couch and color coordinated and combined with no true knowledge of the picture
just like a little kid hell bent trying to please a parent
you tried to fit your life in mine but you never quite realized that I am not a puzzle and you are not a part of me
and it's taken me two years but I think I can let you go
I'm done driving to your house
I'm done watching you on social media intently trying to understand who you are and why the hell you do what you do
and it's been two whole years of passive aggressive talk contrasting quiet afternoons on your floor or blue nights spent driving around the city
it was below thirty but you let me roll my window down and so I could breathe the frigid air and tangle my wrists in the power lines
it all boils down to a simple statement:
you were there until you weren't
until it didn't revolve around you
you didn't want a friend you wanted an adventure like the pictures you pin on your wall
like the mindless **** you fill your head with to appear tragic and interesting
and I understood when you brought your new friends to my birthday
unannounced
uninvited
cold
and I saw pictures the next day of them in all of the places we used to frequent in the summer when I gave up on substance and just wanted someone to be with
and I know that the world belongs to everyone
but those nights belonged to us
quiet
secret
hot blue in a sea of navy and gold
like words whispered into a lover's shoulder
and when I saw the pictures I just kind of knew
that you never understood a ******* word of anything I said when I talked about how moments like these inevitability fall through or the cracks of existence or whatever
and you left early because they wanted to go and I smiled and said it was fine
you didn't get it
but I think I do now
it's only taken me a couple years or so.

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 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.

maybe it was the light reflecting off the water that made it all feel surreal
the long drive the slow dive
the weight of unspoken want
we shed our clothes and bore our skin out into the night air
and we told you not to look knowing full well that you would anyway
but anyway
here's another night spent in proximity to another life
secreted away in city lights and manufactured stars
you lifted me over the fence just to carry me until morning light
pale
open
blunt.
vulnerable in the dark water
flash junk imagery of your hands on my waist
gold and black and crystalline in the low light from the parking lot
your visual stimulation an ever present hum in the background of the moment
we broke in just to break out of routine
six of us small thin and brittle in exposure
connected by the weight of unspoken want
just don't leave it for too long
and I told you not to knowing that you would
you looked and I fell and they laughed knowing it was the slow burn all along
and I know that on the ride home you'll wait for glimpses of my figure illuminated by break lights
and that I'll search for your arms in the darkened car
but for now it's the light reflecting off the water
and your iconic longing
the type that sets a lover into eternity in photographs and sighs
thin wrists and thighs
this is the long drive and the slow dive
and six feet under isn't so scary in a swimming pool
dark blue and numbing the weight fades away only to resurface along the arch of my spine
reignited by your hands cautious and thin
and the waves tumble in
reckless son sick coughing up blood like I need this
nervous soul set alight in the waining darkness
you'll catch me before they catch us
and I'll be the first to confess
that it was the weight all along
exposed and half dressed faded in the wave pool
the long drive the slow dive
the weight of want in your arms.

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

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.

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.

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.