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

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.

"There are fixed points through time where things must always stay the way they are." - The Doctor in "Cold Blood" (2010)

"You're my fixed point."
She claims, face hidden
by geography and hands
that cover tear-brimmed eyes
like a spacesuit.
All self-contained and protected.
All exoskeleton and isolation.

They were just talking about you
right before you turned the corner.
Whispered words, hushed hurried huffy
little things. Like pinpricks on the back
of your neck.

Or worse. Maybe they weren't talking
about you. Nobody is talking about you.
Nobody FEELS the way you FEEL things.
All capital letters and **** and vinegar.
You are alone in your intellect and alone
in your
FEELINGS.

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 conjure you in my dreams.
Grecian Goddess that you are
arms and legs lined with colors
that bleed out of your tattoos
like the prettiest pieces of heaven.

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

She doesn't read poetry.
Everything pretty I've ever
wrote for her has remained
unread like junk mail.

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.

You are a rummage sale
jigsaw puzzle. Pieces missing.
Colors faded and edges frayed
exactly like the edges of our smiles
as they crack through the masks
we wear. Faces half concealed
like the Halloween party
where Red seeped through
and made me feel again.

I was gonna give up smoking
when that clock struck midnight.
Rash and unhindered.
But the smoke in my lungs
tastes just the way I remember
you and it echoes the promise
I made a year previously,
when the clock struck midnight
and I vowed to always be by your side.

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'm sorry if this seems long-winded but everything I write is short
because I'm not used to speaking without you cutting me off mid-sentence and I must get these weights off my chest before they crush my lungs
like the pressure that surrounds me as if I'm a deep sea diver
and you are the ocean. I used to liken you to things like that.
The ocean, the color blue, famous women that have courted my heart
from their places in the history books:
Jeanne d'Arc, Bonnie Parker, Amelia Earhart.
But the wars you wages in my name were lost and my name could never rally the troops like God's.
And the banks we robbed never satiated your expensive taste when everything I could offer you was more brass than gold
and for that I am sorry.
I never wanted you to get lost in the ocean. Your plane crashing somewhere in the vicinity of Howland Island where you sent out your last cry for help
and it choked for life in the static of my busted ******* stereo.
I know that this is coming out in pieces and my stream of consciousness
lacks the stillness that Nature tries to instill like a watchful mother
but I can't help the way all of these words and sentences keep bringing
you back to life and I know now that I will never stop
because what can Nature tell me about the way your lips moved
when you whispered my name.

I'll grab a glass
and you can slip
into something a
little
more
comfortable.

Stealing kisses in the
backseat of the
taxi like a burglar
in the night.
Never knowing that
I know just
what your actress
looks like.

Headlights dim and
horns honk like
mice in the walls.
We step on the curb
and throw some cash
at the driver,
my hand placed on
your shoulder and you're
laughing. I smile a smile
that makes your skin crawl
but you're not exactly sure
why.

So, I'll grab a glass
and you can slip
into something a
little
more
comfortable.

So, I'll slip something
into your glass to
make you a
little
more
comfortable
and cold.

I locked myself out of the apartment,
so I find myself sitting in the stairwell.
The same place you left me days ago.
Weeks ago.
Months ago.
The air is a little warmer but it still bites
wintry and frigid like your teeth on my neck
when you were biting back the screams I made you
scream.

I quit pills the day you left me
on the stairwell.
"Not by choice." I hear you say
in my ear, in my phone, in my dreams.

I quit crying about you that day too.
By choice.
But your name is my favorite drug.
Not just the sound of it,
the way each syllable hits my veins
like whiskey fire, but the ritual of it.
The way it feels rolling across my tongue.

All of time is happening at once.
I am forever sharing that awkward first car ride.
Knees bumping in the dark.

All of time is happening at once.
I am still sitting on that couch
stealing glances at tattooed covered arms
from across the room, wanting them wrapped
around the small of my back.

All of time is happening at once.
I am forever at the tip of your tongue
Syllables echoing like the Big Bang.

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

The funny thing about memories
is that when you find an effective
tool to blot them out, say a bottle,
A bottle of whiskey, a bottle of Valiums
a bottle of white out, they adapt and
change like some Darwinian monster
come to fill your mind and heart
to the brim with ink like longing.

I steal pieces of your
character like a teenager
steals music from the Internet.
A victimless crime. "Just
trying it out, I'll buy it,
if I like it." Sliding it
into my ears and straight
into my brain. I turn the
idiosyncrasies that belong to
you and you alone, into joint
property whether you want to
or not.

There was a story I read to you
from the internet about a man
who paid his dead girlfriend's phone bill
for months after her untimely demise
just to hear the sound of her voice.

You asked me if I'd do that if I were in his place and you were gone.

You're gone now.
And I'm still calling.

Your car confirms your existence.
When I see it stopped at the gas station
I wonder if there are new hands pumping
your gas, opening your door.
Making that laugh ring out in the night.
Tracing hidden messages on your back
with fingertips and lips.

Follow the clues
to my apartment
door, and turn the
handle. I'm here waiting
like a terminally ill patient
just biding my time.

Turn the handle
show yourself in
you've only got this one
shot to show yourself in
to my heart.

Follow the clues
I'm still here waiting
I'm always waiting
on you, on you, on you.
Make a decision, call your
friends, tell them how much
I ******* mean to you.

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.

She's the kind of girl that laughs at her own jokes.
Not in the way where you are left thinking
she is the center of her own universe
but in a way that makes her the center of yours.

Sometimes I catch myself wondering
if you still want to be a doctor.
If you're still stuffing change into
that dollar store doctor's set,
the clatter of quarters on plastic
that used to make me smile like
a woman with child.
Sometimes, I catch myself wondering
Only sometimes though.

We could love like
Johnny and June
if I could just walk
the ******* line.

We could love like
Bonnie and Clyde
if I could just rob
a bank with a smile.

We could love like
Romeo and Juliet
if I could just ****
myself with a vial.

We could love like
Edward and Bella
if I could just live
forever and still care.

We could love like
Samson and Delilah
if I could just pull
the columns down.

We could love like
Zooey and Ben
if I could just write
a song that showed you.

Birds are chirping,
and the ground is wet
with rain and tears that
were not wept. The sky,
overcast with the fleeing
of the lightning storm
that passed through
like a warm knife through
butter. Carving a path
nothing it touched
remains the same.

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.

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.

I'm just an unlabeled mix CD.
Slightly scratched at the edges,
worn with the labors of love
and the empty rooms with the
twangs and bass of my soul
resonating off the wood panel walls
like they were midnight cathedral halls.

It's like a smile at a funeral.
Soft and insecure,
cradling.
Unsure if you're fit to go on,
but too polite to suggest
such weakness.

You use your wit and your guile
like a mask at the dance.
Gliding in and out of the
crowd with a grace and imperfection
that is fitting to the inconsistency
of your character.

Someone's mirroring your
movement like a doppelganger
dark and fierce,
step by step,
arm to arm
heart to heart.

It's like a smile at a funeral.
Soft and insecure,
cradling.
Unsure if you're fit to go on,
but too polite to suggest
such weakness.

Tattered at the edges like
a library book
or a garage sale jigsaw puzzle.
Jagged and frayed, yellowed at the
edges.

With a hidden elegance,
like piles of ***** laundry,
or a composition book
with doodles and lyrics
scrawled in the margins like
so many hopes and
dreams.

And a soft anguish
like dusty guitar strings
or a coffee table
with scratches and stains
etched in the legs like
so many hopes and
dreams.

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.

Words that you cling to
just like the way I want
to cling to you. My hand
pressed in your hand
as you squeeze
unwanted comfort
from my fingers like
an IV. My thoughts
and feelings pumping
through your veins
repairing wounds
you never thought
would be healed.

I'm tired of giving away
Pieces of myself like
Free samples.

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.

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.

Enthralling. Captivating.
These are the words you
spoke under your breath
just loud enough for me
to hear. For you to hear.
I find myself clinging
to your words like
a child to a blanket,
warm, comfortable.
A barrier that I slip around
my skin the way your fingers
trace my side, my thighs, my fingers.
Words chosen as carefully as all
the boys broken at the bottom
of your toy chest. I still long
to hear you say those four
little words again.
"You're more than that."

They say if you believe in something
enough, it'll happen.
I believe in nothing, and it happens
every single day.

I can't always let it be
forgotten like a flower is
forgotten. Withering in a
vase on a kitchen table
next to the finest china
and silverware.

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

Nothing I could
ever write would
capture the way
you make me feel
when you're not even trying.

So lay me down
in the coffin beneath
the sea, that's exactly
where I want to be.
Salt water building pressure
on the wood like the pressure
that you put me under each
and every day. Let the wood
splinter like so many lost lovers
and friends and let the water
fill my lungs and ears, bubbles
exploding from my mouth like
the arguments we use to have
to the backdrop of silverware
falling on linoleum. Let it fill my
body with **** and vinegar and
let the light that you cherished
so much fade away from my eyes
like headlights in the distance.

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.

I made you something for Christmas.
Nothing that could ever satiate your
expensive taste. More brass than gold.
A little worn, a little old just
like my apologies and all of those
"I miss you"s.

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

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.

Yeah, I'm fixed like a
pair of glasses haphazardly
stitched together with Scotch tape.

Fixed like a pothole
with a traffic cone placed
over-top, consistently treating the
symptoms and never treating
the cause.

And fixed like a hole
in the drywall
with a poster thumtacked
crookedly in place.

Fixed like your face
in front of a camera
and fixed like your face in
front of
me.

1) The sky is the color of cracked television screens and in your sleep you're mouthing silent screams that sound like needles on vinyl.

2) I'm scared you've done lasting damage. I'm scared I was a monster before I even knew you.

3) The moon is just a paper plate and the stars are all LiteBrites.

4) Pictures of girls that are prettier than you, cigarette burned around the edges.

5) Betraying myself with every line I write. But my old heart beats like your knuckles on my ribs. Like your teeth on my lips.

6) Romeo and Juliet except the Capulets are pill heads and Romeo is an orphan.

7) I'm getting pretty good at not controlling my moods. It's the only thing that makes me feel like the passenger seat of your mustang did.

8) The alcohol burns but only half as bright as you do in my heart where you sculpt horrible ice sculptures with cigarette butts and bics.

9) So now smoke is all I breathe, gasping deeply at the chemicals that help me purge you from my system like a sickness.