you know the place
where the sea glass turns into
deceitful scraps of plastic,
the children pick up rusted nails
instead of smooth driftwood,
and the waves that used to sing
now sound resentful and angry.
we all know that place,
and for some reason,
we can't keep away.

reflections of fireworks perform tired symphonies in your eyes
before fading out loudly into visible static.
is this the state that you find yourself in often?
[closed umbrellas in the pouring rain
and open eyes in the silent darkness of the subways.]
words tumble from your mouth like fragile acrobats,
and jars filled to the brim with yesterday
line the shelves in your room.

the candlelight sends no shadows dancing
across the tablecloth like in years past.
deceit drips slowly from your swollen lips.
you pause periodically to wipe it away
with the silk napkin draped delicately across your lap.
it lingers there though,
staining your mouth a most brilliant color,
indescribable but for the fact
that when seen it feels as though
a knife slices swiftly through my heart
like it does the tender veal on your plate.

his bloodshot eyes reflect nothing but a desire
to quench a thirst, one that I don't understand
and probably never will.
love is always followed by a question mark.
it's much like the times that he,
stumbling on the pile of excuses left
haphazardly near the door,
poured his reasons into tall glasses,
and dipped the rims in salt.
tonight will the moon break in half,
sending its shards into his smile again?
it gleams there, the magic that is made every night.
stars melt and are blended, and we drink.
but it is so empty, this hydration.
as full of magic as his eyes are, as his smile is,
they are both filled in equal amounts with pain.
and I can't help but feel as though I am
a mere waitress to his desires, asking if he wants that
on the rocks or straight up.
and if love came served in a shotglass,
he'd be all over that.

so tell me what the stars told you
that night that you were preoccupied.
it seems our souls overlapped somehow
and now we've been intensified.
maybe it was one of those nights we exchanged insecurities
(and tried to get each other to stay)
through saliva and needles
because telephone wires were too cliche.

you sang your song in the dead of the night that thursday.
and each note that flew from your mouth was a moth,
dying and gasping for breath in its last struggling moments.
and as the pale moonlight shone down upon you like shards of glass,
I could see right through you
[you're so thin-skinned]
to your innermost thoughts.
and I expected beauty or wisdom or hope or all of these,
but I saw nothing and wondered
how the moths that flew from your mouth were so beautiful,
and how the cold tears that you cried could express so much
if there is nothing inside.
where is it then, your soul?
does it come from some un-nameable source?
how sad that you are not the creator of those beautiful moths,
but merely the one who birthed them,
only for them to die in the still air of that thursday.

layers of dead skin accumulate,
and all of the people walk slowly in fear they will shed themselves.
the new skin underneath is just so sensitive to the touch.
who wants to feel?

it's that feeling where
you hold your breath all week,
expecting to be able to exhale in the car
and draw smiley faces in the fog.
but instead,
you roll your window down
and breathe out into the cold air,
and realize,
you're alone.

he said, "I think the town has stopped breathing."
but we had breathed enough that night to make up for it anyway.
it's nights like these that make me wonder
if the stars mean anything at all.
and I wanted to brush the eyelash off his face,
but I left it there.
it was not my wish to make.