Suddenly... Your idea of someone is shifted...irreparably, so it seems. At first. At the least. Maybe over time you'll forget, somewhat. That is to say, whatever disappearing moment may transition into a partial, fickle memory.
You will recall it, inconveniently, possibly with slight inconsistency, and they will claim, should you choose to mention it, some sort of factual discrepancy.
It may well hover, all the way to the end of your personal eternity, and it may go unnoticed, covered by each new epiphany, layering in thin, single coats to be reminiscently noticed as a shadow.
No matter how deep into someone's secrets you may go,
There is always more to know.
        
          There is always more to know.

2.23.2017

How many more beers until the moon looks full again
How many before I've made some friends
Combined, is it enough to make me whole, then?
I’ll keep drinking until I reach a dead end.

How many sips does to take to reach the truth
How many to bridge the distance between me and you.
If I sip long and hard, will it be easier to let loose?
I’ll keep sipping til it’s warm and I'm old news.

How many steps before I find the path I should be on?
How many before I know it’s the right one?
If I keep on stepping, will I find myself on the proper side of the sun?
I suppose I’ll keep stepping along.

How many sleepless hours until I've cracked the code?
How many split the difference between insane, and genius mode.
If I fake it til I make it,  when I've made it, how will I know?
I’ll only be up a few more minutes or so.




C.e.M.

My tongue flicks
Absent mindedly
Discovering and rediscovering
The new sensation
Of a missing tooth
Or a kernel of food
wedged in my gums
Or a ****** cheek
Bit ferociously while chewing.

In my same manor
My thoughts stroke
the idea of you,
Feeling for any new details
i may have missed
My first time
across your surface.

a mark, wrinkling
beneath your eye
a small  tattoo
above your elbow
a delicate crease
where your head
meets your neck.

Subtleties of self
are everything to me.
you hold your cigarette
between hits,
bent backwards between
thumb and *******
as if subconsciously,
you know
you’re damning yourself.

You hold your elbows
When you cross your arms
As though you are afraid,
Should you relax your grip
The contents of your chest
Will spill out before you
Like a toppled canister
Of produce remnants,
Juicy, sloppy, and sopping

But you speak quietly,
like a discarded bag
of shredded documents.
Rustling with partial importance
I try to piece together
your comments
almost as though your words
hang beneath the weight
of your breath
as an afterthought
of your exhalation.

I watch you
watch me,
calmly calculating
baiting conversations
with tactful insinuation
and later,

in deep rumination
they replay.
I select the moments
That fit the narrative
I've created,
rummaging through
until what I want
you to mean
is all I hear you say.

“I won't drink the tap water, its poison here”
and when she declared that,
I couldn't decipher if she meant here
as in Northside, or here as in America.

We ate sushi at 2am in the city
I was trying not to show my drunkenness
but I was stumbling into an accent
my grandparents carried with them

tucked in the backs of their mouths,
now peering out of mine.
testing the hydrogen
in the beer
in the back of my throat.

I need sleep,
I'm hungover
This poem can wait.

My mind seems to move itself,
spinning somewhat
while I remain stationed
to soft and tattered cushions

At times, not sure who's moving
Mind or body
like parking next to someone
who's leaving the lot

for a moment
you're caught in the standstill
Where nothing really stands,
Still.

I need sleep
My head feels fuzzy
This poems not great.

Its much later now,
the world seems
more capacious somehow
When my eyes are fully open.

The last of my confounding
half light musings
dissipate like tendrils,
mist in the rising sun  

and I, I am left behind
in the residue,
The hardened truth
that cannot move.

“This water is poison”
Her words echo through my day
and I wonder if this poison
will ever evaporate from our veins.

C.e.M. 12.15.2016

fingers to lips, I press tightly
Eyes close restfully
Inhaling deeply
familiar routine
missing something.

What I breathe
is not dirtied with soot
only frigid air
turned hot steam
near the back of my throat.

I miss the sensation,
Though not the flavor
And this partial craving
Is far easier to stave away
Far easier to keep nostalgia at bay.

1.15.2017

I was going to write
of infatuation.
instead,
I wrote of death.
I seem to be hovering
forever in between,
a partial combination
a fickle being.

I was going to write
how his eyes glint
when I catch them
unexpectedly peering at me.
Now, I can only imagine
the endlessness of eternity
leering at me evilly
Taunting  my carelessness.

I was going to reminisce
small jokes that soothe anxiousness.
Now, consumed
by the inevitable
sweeping me away into nothingness.

I was going to question
“does he dream of me as I do?”
Now I wonder
what my dreams will dissolve into.
Fleeting moments pass rapidly
Gaseous, unaccounted for and ghastly.

2/2/2017

...
                                                             ­          I search for reasons not to trust
like the maniac, the ******
picking at his skin,
convinced there is something living inside of him
crawling from vessel to vessel,
shattering synapses,
reforming patterns.

                                                      ­      All my personal relationships have failed
they say I expect too much
or I don't stay in touch.
.. . whatever it is,
I'm too much. and not enough.

9.13.2016