Half empty glasses
are on the table
in the living room.
Materialistic proof
that I never finish
what I start.

You think you're clever
but I read you like
the prettiest little poem.
Red hair flickering the
edges of paper like
matchsticks.

Timing is everything
is what they say,
but they've never met us.
Passing each other
on the highways and interstates
that connect our hearts together
like tiny spiderwebs.
Like shackles.

Your name never fails to appear.
On little LCD screens. On the back
of my eyelids where I trace the letters
as if they belonged to me.

My heart claws its way up my throat
like the way I claw at my scalp.
My face. My hair. Everytime
my phone lights up,
your name never fails to appear.

I have this idea of you.
Tattooed and beautiful.
Sarcastic and witty,
with a silver tongue
that tastes better than
the richest chocolate.

against my face and ears.
Forever pummeling the
inflections across my jaw
like a teacher who is overworked
and underloved.

I'm clinging to hope
like I'm clinging
to hospital bed sheets.
Scared. frustrated. Tired.

Counting the naps,
beautiful demonstrations
of death.

Counting the kisses
pouring off your lips
like ballots on election day.

everybody is ******
in the head except for me.

and this drought has
lasted long enough
for the crops to wither
and my stomach to swell.

or Redheads.
Crimson Irish curls
that cling to curves
like my lips cling to
your name.
Natural.

Dawn is breaking
and the symphony
is as silent
as our conversations.

The levee broke
just like our backs
when the world
came crashing
down around
our feet.

I've become quite
the actor.
Going through the motions
of the days I have to endure
without you like I'm on autopilot.
or drugs.

This is the sixth day
in a row you haven't
slept and you can
still taste the cigarette
on her breath. On your breath.

This is the first night
you no longer scream
into your pillow
words that you scribbled
across your stitched tongue
when she was still yours.

craves attention
from all like the
***** of Babylon
and every girl
who never knew
her father.

I used to think your eyes
could save my life,
in the middle of Summer.
But the days are shortening
and growing colder like your
eyes and tone when you
talk about things about love
and current events.

It's 4:17 A.M. and the
alcohol is wearing off.
I feel you creeping
back through my veins
like poison.
Bulging veins, busted
blood vessels. Eyes red
with guilt and hope
that they'll see that
******* car round the corner
and stop in front of my house
Blonde locks out of the driver's
seat like the prettiest little promise.
Prettiest. little. Promise.

The alcohol is burning
a fire through my veins
that makes every love
you ever showed me
microscopic in comparison.
Minuscule and disproportionate.

Words are trickling
out of this fountain
pen that are not my own.
Plagiaristic. Echoey.

Your words forming
on my lips and fingers.
Your art, my life.
How I yearn to make
my voice the one
that is heard.

Instead it chokes
like Casey at the Bat.
It splinters like
the spreading chestnut tree.
Where I should have never
kissed you and you
never should have kissed me.

She's moving to the big city.
Leaving this Podunk town
behind in a blaze of smoke,
sarcasm, short steps.
Accomplishments.

She's dancing away
from this town
with the grace of
grandmothers and women
long since past. Past
the cracked sidewalks
and brick streets, down
the highway. Out of here.
Out of here.

Shelly says nothing
ever really turns out
just the way we expect.

She's right. Nothing
turns out just
the way we expect
like secret hand-holding
in backyard trees.

Or the way maps
become our enemy.
That impossible geography
that separates two halves
like the years lost in
a flurry of blows
and caresses.

This is the day I forget the sound of your voice.
For it no longer echoes in my ears, in my fingers,
in my tongue. These endless digits fallen instantaneously
numb like a local anesthetic or winter basement nights
alone in the dark.

This is the day I forget the sound of your voice.
It's melodic tones and overtures, the way it wraps
around words like my hands around your curves.

This is the day I forget the sound of your voice.
And how I fed on it like the word of God.

This is the day I forget the sound of your voice.

I'm feline in my approach
slender-sleek and silent
footsteps like ghosts
on stairwells and whispers
in your ears.

I have nine lives
and I've wasted them
all stalking you
through concrete
jungles and labyrinthian
words and feelings.

"One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way."
-Vincent van Gogh in a letter to his younger brother Theo van Gogh in July of 1880"

I've taken the straight razor
to my ear like a third-rate
van Gogh.

Impressionism bleeding
into Expressionism.

Mania trickling into
an unmitigated need
to find the beauty
and grace he only
found with a paintbrush.

Blood clinging to the
horse hair bristles
like the blood splattered
in the margins of every
page I've ever filled.
Each line and brush
stroke choking out
a futile cry for help
as the wheat fields burn
and the sunflowers wither.

And you can't honestly
expect me to bite
my ******* tongue
until the blood soaks my
shirt. I'm tired of being
the ******* pawn
in your ******* game
of chess. I'm tired of
being sacrificed and
thrown to the side.
I'm sick and *******
tired of your game

These are the words
you wish you'd spoke
out loud when she
shoved her tongue
in your mouth.

Guttural screams
that force the veins
to the surface of
that porcelain skin.
Cast to be broken
in my arms like
every single note
that pours out of that
******* busted stereo.

And since you're not by my side
the pages remain as blank as my stare.

Wish I knew
just what it felt
like to have
everything
figured out
just
the
way
you do.

But my ideas fragment
and my sentences crumble
like secrets whispered
in the basement dark.

I miss you like the desert misses the rain
Dry and cracking underneath the sun
that we both share.

I miss you like an alcoholic misses a drink
cold and refreshing in that dive
where we first met.

I miss you like a cactus misses a hug
Prickly and worn with arms outstretched
waiting for you to come home

I see you do the things
you do with a hidden grace
that burns the ineptitude
from my limbs like a match,
smoldering underneath
my lips like a whispered word.
Chasing pride and happiness
through my veins like a shot
of whiskey. Warm, embracing.
Fire scarring the fields of
neuroses from my mind.

I want to be the one
who holds your hand
all the time.
I want to be the one
who gets to call
you mine.

There's a grin
cracking across
your face like a burglar
into a safe. Swift
sure sentiment
that envelopes
your face.
Fingertips sliding
slowly down
my
open palm
clenching
close enough
to keep me
content.

I find myself
scribbling little
words onto paper
trying to find a way
to explain my thoughts
and idiosyncrasies
to you. The way I look
at you, and the way
I take your hands into
mine as they clench
the gearshift, just to be close
to you.

One doctor with a yellow number
Two pencil, writes notes on a paper clipped in a
Three-ring binder, scribble, scribble, scribble.
Four white walls suffocate me black.

Your legs are draped over mine,
eyes closed, smile slung
across your lips like the
make-up across your eyes,
chosen as carefully
as a ****** victim.

My fingers slide up
the side of your leg:
soft and smooth
like the words that
come out of my mouth
and pass into your ears.

Your breathing slows
to a pace comparable
to my own, and with
one arm wrapped
around your sleeping
frame, the other composing
lines on a laptop,
I know that I have found
my Aolde.

Your fingers run through my hair
like dull daggers, sending a tingling
sensation through my neck, like
an electric charge, giving me
vigor and life.

You wrap your arms
around me like the prettiest
Iron Maiden, clinging as tightly
as lost children, as the morning
tide.

You watch me with eyes
of wanderlust and fear
like an out of work
actress, starving
for a chance to show
the world and me,
exactly what you're worth.

You were never my muse,
Despite the effort you put forth
you made pages fall blank.



Your sirensong passes
through my ears and delves
into my soul like a flight of Furies,
corrupting, estranging, smashing
me against the cliff side.

Wrap your arms around me,
and notice me noticing you.
Smile at the cheesy things
that fumble out of my mouth,
pure and unintentional.

Measure me
against the ones
who came before,
like a child against
the wall, chalk
dusting my hair
like hesitation.

What are you looking
for, little scrapper?

Behind these eyes
and words lies a
man you can't defeat.
His language beguiles
and deceives, like
the Opposer, and you
carry no flaming sword.

Army Men exploded into
green plastic pieces
on the dull, gray
comforter that made
up the battlefield.
Rubberbands flying
back and forth
through the air
like so many bombshells.

Days that I long
to fall back on,
where super heroes
had crooked teeth,
hunched backs,
and tattered t-shirts.

I'm smoking cigarettes
to the filiters, inhaling
carcinogens and rat poison
and urea like oxygen,
while you're dancing,
dancing around words
and the bedroom floor.

Heather, will you come back home?
I'm tired of being alone like
a drunk on Christmas morning.
Mourning Ground Zero
where the bomb went off,
and the crater still stands,
a scar on the earth and in my
mind to remind me that the
past is permanent.
It's permanent.

I can't keep my eyes off
your legs in that black
dress that you wear
with hidden elegance
that appears on the edges
of your smile. Faint. Shining.

As your lips tremble
underneath my touch
I know I've been
blind before this
moment.

How can
one so delicate
and pretty, oh
so pretty, destroy
herself with each
and every glance
in broken mirrors
and shattered
glass.

You're playing
on the phonograph
in my basement.
On repeat and shuffle,
scrambling back and forth
across memories, conversation
pieces like an orchestra
tying together my heart
with yours with
each vibration
across the needle.

"You smoke too many cigarettes"
she claims with the sun beating
on her face like her father
Drunk and heavy-handed.
"I'm worried about your health"
Her hand clutching my hand
like the Moon to the Earth,
altering tides and currents
thoughts and memories.
Occupying every conceivable
second of every single day.

You crash lips like I crash cars.
You smile smiles that make me want to die.
You make me want to live.
You make me want to try.
You.
You.

You laugh, you cry.
I lie, I lie.
You love me.
You hate me.

I'm weak. I can't do this.
I'm weak. I'm not a man.
I'm a boy.
I.
I.

We're stupid. We're cute.
We're perfect. We're life.
We.
We.

Mister Frost, you're not the only
one who has been acquainted
with Night.
Her soft shadows, and
enveloping, luscious curves.

Robert, you're not the only
one who walked through rain
and back in rain.
It's cold blanket, and
comforting, familiar taste.

Miss Palmer, you're not the only
one who has been acquainted
with the Darkness of the Day.
His harsh light, and
blinding, searing smiles.

Robert,
Amanda,
it is a terrifying sight, because
we are living the same way.

Sometimes you might find me,
in a back alley, throwing up my guts,
in explosions, of green and orange.

Sometimes you might find me,
in a rundown apartment, with a ceiling fan
that arcs crookedly, hitting the ceiling in
explosions of drywall and poverty

Sometimes you might find me,
in a sunny park, scribbling lines in a
worn, tattered notebook,
in explosions, of ink and passion

Sometimes you might find me,
outlined in chalk, battered, bruised, ******
in explosions of red and abuse.

Sometimes you might find me,
standing beside you, walking with
and guiding you in explosions of
anger
and
I told you so's.

Your heart beats in a parasitic pattern
Clinging and stealing whatever
and whoever you **** well please.

You took me in like a matriarch
takes in a poor orphan
***** and hungry off the boulevard.
Well just know baby girl, every night
I pray for the crops to fail and your
stomach to swell.

You took me in like a mother
takes in a curious toddler
sticky and fragile strapped in the car
seat. Well just know baby girl, every night
I pray for your breaks to go out and your
seat belt to break.

I've got a face for black eyes,
and I'm sick and tired of your *******
lies.
Sweetly slipping off the forked tongue
you hide so elegantly behind your
pearly
white
smile