I am learning to sleep with the window open
And let crickets crawl into my ears
The cars passing by are a lullaby
And star after star appears

Sometimes one streaks across the sky
Leaving space dust in its wake
I think of the the wishes that I've missed
On the nights I was not awake

Queen. ******* Queen. Brian May, Roger Taylor, and Adam Lambert? Christ, I couldn't believe it. It was going to be amazing. I had been listening to their music the whole eight hour car ride to Houston. One song that had been on repeat was the ballad "Love Of My Life". Every time I listened to that song, I cried. My love for you was so strong then, probably the strongest it had ever been. It reminded me of you. It was six o'clock by to the time we got to Houston. God, that ******* car ride was hell on my back, barely a month post-op. It was worth it. As we walked to the Toyota Center, I thought of you. I ached to have to with me, with your arm around my waist and mine around your neck. We made our way to our seats and patiently -- or not so patiently -- waited for that Q curtain to rise and for the music to spill from their legendary instruments. The curtain rose, the crowd went wild, and I felt my heart climb into my throat. Something's wrong. I looked around but everyone was cheering and singing along. I shrugged it off. That feeling continued for the next hour. The only time it subsided was towards the end of the show. Brian May walked onto the stage alone, his acoustic guitar in hand. He told the crowd that he "wasn't much a singer", but he would sing "Love Of My Life" for Freddie. As the first chords rang out, I sat down and I wept. Disgusting, silent sobs. Why? At the time, I thought it was for Freddie.
Later, I realized that it was for you.

Fields turn to concrete turns to buildings turn to cities turn to dust. Everything in this world is finite. **** or be killed. We are malignant cells multiplying and dividing, incurable, unstoppable. Where we go, death and destruction follow. They're right behind us, pushing to get ahead.

All we touch turns to stone, a grave marker for the earth. We are burying ourselves with it. Ashes and bones are the thrones of the new world. We don't learn from our mistakes, we build upon them.

There is a thirst that cannot be quenched, a hunger that cannot be satisfied. We devour everything in sight, but remain empty. If this is what it means to be human, I'd rather be the mud stuck on the bottom of a shoe, the trash blowing away with the wind, the roadkill abandoned on the side of a highway.

Shadows circle their captors without ever finding an exit. There isn't really a way out, but it's never stopped me from searching. I live under puddles of rainwater and in window reflections. Everything's backwards, so it makes more sense. Here time is slowed down and no one ever leaves. You never have to feel too much and not enough all at once. Your train of thought can be traced and you can always find your way back to the place you started. I don't know where I belong, if anywhere at all, but I have found a temporary home where I can rest my bones. I won't come up for air until I have to.

do not date a girl
who writes.
she will internalize
everything,
carve poems
into your eyelashes
instead of
kissing them,

she will analyze you,
calculate age
from the rings
your coffee cup
leaves
instead of refilling it.

she will memorize
the way your
lips curl around steam,
but not that you
take it
two sugars,
no cream.

she will read your
palm instead of
holding it
against her chest.

she will not
blink
when you leave,
because she is
already
romanticizing it.

You lifted my heart up and straightened its creases
Then you dropped it and it shattered into a million pieces
My mind keeps telling me to give it all up
But my heart says otherwise; it doesn't tell me to stop

I'm tired of wishing, I'm tired of waiting
But when I turn the radio on, a love song's playing
When I open my eyes, all I see is you
Why is giving up so hard to do?

They only know what you want them to. The rest stays hidden and locked away deep, like aging wine in a cellar. Sooner or later, the bottles will break and spill and the fumes will be too much for anyone to handle.