the days that are toughest
man
they're tough
with loneliness
that seeps between
my sordid grasp
lays upon the dirt
squeals with pain
hurt and disgust
disdain

i never think
about the next tough day
because they come
one right after
the other
bleeding
smearing together like
the lovely
canvases artists cry upon

loneliness wasn't
pretty to me
until the day you left
because the sky
had been blue
the night was
calm
and you were still
so so
heartbreakingly beautiful
to me with
your terrified eyes
and frightened mouth

the days get tougher
and sometimes better
but mostly
just more
and more grey
they blur
and swim in front of me
passive
tame and calm

you never knew
just how
much someone
could love you
until she
held your hand
kissed your frightened
mouth
closed your
terrified eyes
for you every
night
   *and i learned that sometimes loneliness is the best someone deserves

2.22.14*
Darling, where are you when I need you most?
My heart is breaking.
I don't know what I'm feeling anymore, maybe nothing.
I've missed you for the past month and a half.
It's killing me inside to not talk to you.
I've said this all before, I know.

You said you wanted someone who cared for you and who loved you.
Have you already forgotten about me?
Wasn't I anything?
Did you actually love me, darling>
Or was a step along the way, a test ride, a pre to a post?

I tried so **** hard for you, darling, I tried.
I wanted to to make you happy so I tried to smile even though I couldn't.
I tried to tell you everything but I couldn't because you would be unhappy with me.
I was terrified of losing you.
Petrified to be exact.
You were my rope, my tether quickly fraying.
Please hold me down again.

I'm sad, once more.
So sad it physically pains me to say your name.
God's telling me to suffer for the wrongs I did you.
You never believed in God, I remember.
Do you now?

I want to know how you're doing even as I try to forget you.
One of these nights I want to call you and hear you say hello before quickly hanging up.
I want to ask how you sister is doing or if you've gotten a dog yet.
I want to know whether or not you've made songs yet or if your dad has his you lately.
I want to know if you miss me or us.
Have you found someone else to "fill" the empty spot in your heart?
Are you well?
Do you miss me?

You should see all the poems I've written about you.
People say it's beautiful how pained I sound, but they don't ask who did it to me, who caused the pain.
Not many people do, now that I look back on it.
When you broke up with me everybody sided with you because they didn't think you'd be capable of causing this much hurt.
You're too humble, too giving, to...nice.
I guess I'm alone in my standings.

2.23.14*
My dear, what have you done to us?
I though we could be friends, but I guess not.
I wanted to go on adventures and I wanted to talk about things that no one else could get out of you.
I wanted to go exploring with you in the deep woods and listen to music with you.

Do you see how much I miss you?
Can you see in the curve of my mouth how sad I am?
Can you see in the droop of my eyes how deadened I am?
You've condemned me to sadness, darling.
My nights are long enough to count the billions of stars in the cast blue-black sky.
You were my entire world.

I look at your blog almost every day to see how you are faring..
It must be bad for you but to me it's nothing.
Do the words carry even an ounce of what you feel?
Even the posts on mine aren't deep enough to hold my soul.
It seems like the pictures only outline what I feel while yours sum everything up.

Are you that shallow?

2.24.14*
Today we didn't talk.
We never do, though.
I kept glancing at you because something seemed different.
Are you friends with Marina again?
What about Gillian?
You have a whole array to choose from.
I was just one in the deck of cards you hold.

I made eye contact with you on accident in the hallway.
I smiled real quick but I could feel that it didn't reach my eyes.
Did you notice?

I don't fully blame you  for not paying attention to me.
I'm not even a **** in a flower garden.
I'm a dust particle really.
There are far more wondrous orbs to behold out in the cast gallery of time an space.

Remember the day late in the afternoon when I bared myself to you?
I remember.
You did it before I could even stop you.
But I didn't feel completely wrong because I loved you, I think.
I let you see me in ways no one had seen me before.

My feelings were in your hands from day one, I want you to know.
Everything I had was yours the moment I confessed love.
I never told you that Josh helped me get you to say that you loved me.
Did you mean it?
Or were you in love with the idea of being in love?

I think I love you.
But we are only teenagers, dear.
We can't possibly know the meaning of the word.
Do you know the true definition?
Because not even the dictionary does.
I think I was in love with your hair or your ice blue eyes.
I loved your laugh, the slow tentative kind that would interrupt you when you spoke.

Your personality was a bit grey, though.
I can only imagine how bad I was.

3.23.14*
Remember the evenings when we sat on your trampoline and listened to music that belonged in movies?
What could you have possibly thought of me in those moments that I opened up?
Did you actually still love me or did you think me a fool?
I thought you belonged with the sky on those evenings that the sun set in a pool of gold, because you were perfect enough.
I thought that the line of your nose and the curve of your jaw was perfect.
I suppose I still do.

It's like you died, darling.
That's how I feel.
I can't even talk to you anymore because you'd never answer.
I can't ask you how your sister is doing or how you and Joshua are in your friendship.
And you won't ask me how I'm doing because why would you all of the sudden care?
It's funny because you never really asked how I was doing, at least I can't ever remember a time.
Did you ever really care?
Was that entire six months a lie?
God, did I fork over my heart for only to gain a sense of heartache?
Please, I need to know.

Every time I think of never talking to you again my soul tightens and so do my eyes.
Or maybe they droop.
Can you tell?
Even as I am sitting here writing this all, pouring out my feelings my heart still forgives you for not replying to me.
For hating me. .
And I hate how I can't hate you, couldn't even bring myself anywhere near.
I hate the way you look at me with wide eyes, suspicious deer eyes, like I'm going to explode into a million pieces at your feet, like I'm going to beg for you back.
As if you're good enough for that.

Did Marina not feel like me?
You ditched her rather quickly, I have to say.
That was a **** move on your part.
Who's your new conquest?
Your new unsuspecting victim?
Jessica maybe?
Ir Gilly again?
They all think you're a lake, glassy and smooth.
But they don't get the shallow part.
You don't have layers, you don't even have leagues.
So how did I fall into your 2000 league deep eyes?
I must not have known how to swim. .

It's nearly 1 in the morning and the ***** in my veins is blurring my fingers into fins.
I can't think straight, is that normal after 3 months of heartbreak?
My lungs feel too full, like an over-blown balloon but my esophagus can't get enough air in.
Isn't there a potion to make these feelings go away?

Have you thought of me lately?
I hope you haven't because I heard that thinking about each other means that things are going to become difficult again.

My 16th birthday is coming up and I can't decide whether or not to invite you to the hellhole called my "sweet sixteen" (whatever that's supposed to mean.)
Because we haven't talked in 3 months and I think I'd miss you too much to not stare at your face from across the fire pit.
I'd isolate myself in the branches of the trees so that I could be calm enough to sleep.

Everytime we make eye contact my eyes go soft and droopy and yours tighten with every beat of your heart.
Are you emotions ******* around the back of your tongue because I haven't heard a peep from between your God given teeth since the day we died.

Tis only 7 o'clock and life already has me down
With the solemn tick tocks of the clock
And the feeling of time passing
The only consolation that tomorrow might actually
Get
Here
The vague sense of not belonging is plaguing me
Once again
But I can't seem to shake it
No
Not this time
The wind howling my name outside my window
Knocking it's icy fists on the panes
Tryin' to get in and shake my
Bones till they rattle in their sockets
So I huddle under the covers of my bed
And
Hope
Nothing comes in
Because it's
7 o'clock
And life has already beaten me down

I dunno what it is about the night
But it carries a certain chemical
That makes you high and drunk
All at once
And I dunno what it is about the moon
But it carries a certain posture
That says
Love me
I dunno what it is about the stars
But they carry a certain voice
That lilts
Wish on me
I dunno what it is about you
But it carries a certain drug
That causes brain damage in the part of your head
That helps with memory
And you would think that it would take away the remembering part


*But it doesn't

A child
Has it's small hands wrapped around the throat of the world
The clouds are at it's beck and call, serving up dripping ice cream cones
and kittens playing with yarn
High up in the sky
And the wind is there to serve, to cool a sweaty face or push a small red kite
Ever higher

We are at the mercy of the storm after we lift our fingers from the gasping
Esophagus of a dying sun
Our lives will wither our bones will crumble
Because of all the rain crashing through them
Like the excess water running through the storm gutters

And we can't prevent the stars from burning out but by God we feel like
we could save an entire galaxy from the certain death of time
Just like I can see the suns dying in yours yet new ones are igniting
And flaming
And fueling
To bring this internal shine that lifts the hearts of angels
Of angels



Please
Bring your hands to your ears and cover them with your palms
Do not listen to the voices of thousands, child
For we are one people and you are one person
One atom amongst this mass of writhing bodies
Writhing DNA

Talk strong stand stronger
Because sometimes the wind will try and knock you over
Try and shake your hollow bones
Your steel bones
Your transparent frame
It will shake your roots and pull at your hair and tear your confidence

But be firm. Be soft and hard and small and large
Be everything you want others to be.

When these nights smother me
My past comes back in rivulets
Down my back, neck, through my hair like snakes and twine

I should be happy, no? Content, satisfied, full.
Never.

I've always questioned why my eyes get heavy when I plead them to look alive
And I've always wondered why my shoulders bear the weight of the past Millenium when I ask them to keep the present good company

I have an inherent gloom
And I suppose it's about time I come to make its acquaintance.

a day is not a day without yawns early in the morning and hushings late at night.
not a day without a nervous laugh, an anxious frown, a skip and jump from the heart.

a night is not a night without a a drifting off at the brush of the late hours and a jolt awake at 3 am
not a night without a reaching and tugging, a discovering of loneliness in the folds of comforters.

What kind of love is it?
In which one comes away from it
Feeling as though they just wasted
Their adoration on the wrong person

*I wasted my devotion on you.

You told me you weren't ready for a relationship
I sighed and smiled
Said it was "okay, you're fine, darling."
I heard you laugh lightly, mutter something about being hurt
Expanse of silence followed by a few more sighs
A handful of whispers
A gathering of exhales
And then we moved on in conversation
You talked about drumming
And I laughed
Stared at the ceiling and thought about you
Missed you
Even though you were technically a phone line away from me
I remember speaking
But I don't remember what I said
Maybe I said you were a boy I could love

The stars fall from the sky and up comes the sun, full, bright, so present
Birds echo calls that have been repeated for so many years, it's almost cliche
And the world is still sleeping
And I am still awake...

White men are shutting down the movements that create free country, free people
And boys aren't learning to not ****, they are learning that women tailor to them
Politicians banter about birth control and women's issues they can't understand
And I am still awake...

You are falling asleep, words stuck on the precipice of your bottom lip, hanging
And the moon is rising so high in the sky it could burst through our universe
The sun is skating down the curve of our atmosphere, sliding, slipping
*And I am still awake...

I don’t know if you realized this but for most of the night, I looked you; looked at your profile and your fine, straight ***** nose. Looked at the curve of your forehead and delicate indent under your cheekbones. I couldn’t get enough of this beautiful configuration of atoms sitting next to me.

And for most of the night we laid in our seats and we were always touching, A hand, a few fingers, an arm or our heads. And your warmth transferred to me, and mine to you. We were these two small stars amidst the glowing sea of city lights spread out below us. And we stayed like that for hours.

After all of this, I can’t believe that a person like me would be so lucky as to have found a person like you. Because you are the moon and the small flakes of snow that fall silently at night and you are the hushed whisper that I wish I could hear saying “I love you” at night.

Because I would say the same thing back.

We're happy and we're sitting in our socks and underwear
And the light from a flickering television screen is casting our laughing shadows onto the wall
And i'm smiling because we're suddenly children again with bowls of cereal
And we are throwing it into each others' mouths, missing more than we are making
And on the television a comedian is telling jokes
And we are having giggling fits because i snort when i laugh and you keep making faces at me
And we are suddenly dead faced, staring at each other and we somehow know we will hurt someday
And we will leave a scar somewhere on the other because love that kind doesn't always have to be kind forever
And i am hoping that you hurt me instead of me hurting you
And suddenly we're not saying goodnight anymore
And the nights spent in our socks and underwear, in our jeans and sweatshirts, in our coats and mittens, in our t-shirts and shorts are the scars that we left
And i still am sitting here hoping that i do not harm you
And you are sitting across from me hoping that i do not harm you
because suddenly i am not laughing and i am not tracing your face with my eyes
And you pick up your pants and your shirt and your baseball cap
And you slip into them in front of the flickering television screen that makes our shadows look like they are dancing
And suddenly, *you leave

i. my favourite days are the ones where the air doesn't seem quite clear, but out of focus, backlit with haze. the grass gets dusty and the trees blend together like old oil paints. it's these days that it seems the world is saying "leave this place, you don't belong." i sleep the best on those days.

ii. the sepia film layered over old photos makes me nostalgic for something my lifetime will never know. but it's familiar, smiling faces with blushing cheeks, dust and dirt lining sun-creased foreheads. it's comforting, calming, restful. it makes you wish for that simplicity. how kind a colour can be.

iii. dust covering riddled boxes, coating worn wood, cloaking drapes mirrors, mannequins, rocking horses. an attic is a place my heart feels the strangest. everything seems haunted and in it, i am also haunted. each dirt-laden item carries an event that led to its demise. the wardrobe's mirror cracked and a new one filled in. the jewellery box did not grow with its contained collection. the doll sat too peacefully in the corner of that room and found itself sitting just as quietly beside the wardrobe.

iv. i will always wish for the feeling of an open road on a warm day. the sun rests its legs on the edge of the horizon, the clouds paint themselves with watercolours, the crickets and cicadas tune to each other. that complete content will always be my favourite.

v. sometimes i wish i knew where i was going, knew where i was supposed to arrive. however, the knowledge that i will eventually arrive somewhere is intensely satisfying and comforting, even in its uncertainty.

Poetry is hard to write when you have no more words to describe whatever you call heartbreak. At some point, the feeling of your heart residing in your stomach is no longer an anomaly. It's nothing. It's the full feeling that makes you feel sick and it's the choking feeling that comes at night before you brush your teeth. The sadness washes your face for you and tucks you into bed so you can focus on how heavy your heart really is.

It becomes your caretaker, in a sense. Because when you notice that your eyes have more trouble staying open than usual, sadness swoops in and whispers "hello, I'm always ready to help you sleep. I've been waiting."

And so all of the sudden you sleep so soundly, so heavily, that not even your dreams visit you. Your alarm doesn't crack open your eyes, the birds don't make enough noise to shake you from your own nest.

And when you have no one to drag you from under the covers, each day seems a little more daunting than the last. The love that you've been holding like a breath starts to stain the mattress beneath you and spreads into the springs, leaving a stench that can be similar to sadness, but sweeter.

When he leaves (and he will) this stench will permeate your own skin. He'll leave on a bright and clear morning with a suitcase full of your sacrifices. He'll load in on the plane and then lose it at the baggage claim. People will ask how they can help and he will say "don't worry, it's nothing I can't replace." And you will feel the exact moment he erases you from his being.

It'll feel like ice, but also like a searing fire, right through the middle of your body. And all he'll feel is a sense of freedom and a slight worry that maybe he left something important behind.

Love is like that. So filling and encompassing when it doesn't need to be, and so vacant when it really counts.

And it really counts when you come back to the place you thought your love kept up residence. It counts when you walk into your room and don't smell the same sweetness you remember. It counts when you've been craving love for weeks and return to find nothing.

Seeking salvation in a person is the most foolish decision someone in love can make. It's the downfall of soft-hearted people who think their person-hood is confirmed by how much of themselves they've put in the gaps of those they adore. And they watch them walk away with that bit of themselves.

Sometimes they'll walk close enough to one of these people that their body tenses, wants to ****** the piece back, but it's been so long that the piece has grown into the person they once were growing with. And it's such a feeling of emptiness and tenderness that it's hard to discern whether it's regret they're swallowing or a longing for the past.

In any case, poetry comes easier to write to those who have enough sadness to last three lifetimes.

A fox sweeps through the pool of light cast from the kitchen window
A soft woosh following the empty air

The trees are telling the sleeping birds secrets that the birds will never keep

The floodlight on the neighbors garage flickers nonchalantly
Wayward branches waking it

A car drives up the street, motor mumbling complaints about the cold
The driver holding a cigarette between *******

The streetlamp shivers in the stiff breeze
Light swaying over the ice-tarnished pavement

A stray cat tumbles across the driveway, swift feet tripping sensors
The floodlight comes on

And the house is sleeping
Groaning and shifting and snoring and sighing

The floodlight flickers then clicks off

a friend, a smiling stranger, a dark corner waiting for the stars to come out

It's been a while
Since I've sipped from the warm lips of that coffee shop we loved together
In case you've forgotten, I like to try the chai of every single new place I go, to see if it contains the same wholeness as the others

I've learned that I do not show affection like I used to, with grabbing hands and tender eyes
No, I pull the tendrils of adoration back into my throat and coil them between my reserved palms until I have someone to dress in my gentle love again

At this point in time, I do not miss anyone as much as I did a year ago
Meaning: I might still miss him but I've forgotten what it was like to wring my happiness from his grey eyes and his dancing laughter
Meaning: I've mustered up all the strength in my weary heart to forget the videos of us being so in love it hurt

My smile comes easier now, not like the glaring sun on a summer day, but like the hesitant shimmer after a rain shower
I can stay awake for longer because I don't wish to sleep the days away quite as much
The nights bring me comfort in the sense that they know more about being lonely than even I do

At this moment in time, I am not a girl like you knew me, small and dependent and bossy and too independent, all at once
I am a bigger, warmer, friendlier, meaner, tougher, all at once
If before I was a lamb, I am by no means a lion, but I am by no means any less than a star

It would be a privilege to love you, my dear
A privilege to have my heart broken by you

It would be a privilege to touch you, my dear
A privilege to be burned by you

I couldn't imagine anyone else but you tangling my hair in fingers
Long and lean, strong and clean

I wouldn't rather any other human to taint my wasted lips
And scar my pale hands with heated fingerprints

It would be a privilege to love you, my dear
And a privilege to be broken by you.

I am in love with the idea of love, with the very thought of it.
But I am not in love with being in love.

It hurts in the pits of my stomach, roils like a storm above an unsettled sea.
And my eyes are the escape, my mouth the outlet.

Once the actual love comes pouring into my chest cavity the turmoil grows louder.
An antagonist, a conduit for anger, destruction.

When I love it is with fear, a tight fist clutched at my side, a knot of unknow.
I'll apologize each time I let this go.

In the deepest part of midnight, you walk among the hidden creatures of the wood, the reflection of their eyes guiding you through the thickets.

The deer murmur the prayers of the tall grass, their low hushings travelling across the valley and turning heavy with magic.

The owl's watchful gaze never loses its hold on the back of your heels, making sure that you stay on the path you've chosen. A breeze disrupts the pattern of your footsteps, multiplied by the possums that walk upright in your wake.

Something talks with the voice of the trees, damp, tepid, stagnant and woeful, like a being trapped in engravings on the bark left by the ants and the nightwalkers alike.

In the distance, your mother calls your name. The loam and sand has already made itself into your bed and the moss covers your eyes as you sleep.

In the morning you wake in the stream with remnants of moondust and pollen clinging like lichen to the bareness of your skin.

My dearest,
   Some things end too soon, while others continue on without reason or sense. We were somehow both, yet neither, at the same time. And I'm not sure how that can be, it just simply is.
   I loved you. Truly and deeply and so, so beautifully. The sky was never bluer than when I was with you. The wind never warmer. And the world never more tolerable, than when I was looking at you. Seeing you, was like taking that first breath after diving to the bottom of the pool. It felt so refreshing and comforting, because once you've held your breath for so long coming up is like seeing things brighter than before.
   I think that the concept of love is sometimes a bit misconstrued. We see it as the ultimate goal, the one thing that a person needs to feel before their life is over. We see it as something either hot and heavy, tension and want at all times. Physical attraction. Or we see it as this pure and lovely sort of love, the kind where there is never an unhappy and bitter moment, where the sun always peeks its smile around corners to illuminate it.
   But rarely do I hear anything on the love we had. Ours was again, both. It was full of the hot and heavy, the late nights and the lazy afternoons spent together. It was also the warm and hazy kind, with the innocent morning coffees and the evenings with blankets around our shoulders and heads resting on chests. It was arguments and disagreements. It was bittersweet goodbyes and hesitant good mornings afterwards. It was feelings and thoughts and memories and it was so, so much.
   It was also you moving on while I stayed behind. It was you standing up and me sitting down. It was you discovering more and me losing everything and you still loving and me also still loving. But the wrong person. You.
   And sure, your sky is now bluer and your winds have turned into gentle breezes, but the clouds have started rolling over that gently smiling sun of mine and the gusts of friendly wind don't stir up the butterflies in the pits of my stomach anymore. How can love be this when it was so much more?
   I guess that what I'm trying to say is that love is never one thing. It is never just love. It is also gladness and regret and happiness and sorrow and it is building and destroying. And love isn't kind, but my god, it's so addicting.
   You've stopped being what I wish on stars for, but you haven't stopped being someone I care for. Not yet.
          Claire

i. when the sun begins setting behind the full leaves of the oaks and cottonwoods, the air turns soft with lazy warmth, golden and shimmering in the valleys and fields. sometimes when the hour between late afternoon and early evening hits, i get a little more nostalgic about how the crickets begin to sing and how the cicadas hum brightly in their wooded alcoves. everything becomes nostalgic about the August before this one

ii. once August trails the dead petals of the ladyfingers out the door, September sneaks in behind. August leaves behind its last remaining warmth, casting a blanket over the afternoons and tugging it off during the dead of night. it leaves behind the summer romances, the one night stands, the flings that blazed throughout June and July. and it leaves behind just enough of my happiness to last me until the first snow. and then November takes the rest.

iii. there's a little-known term that latches itself onto the coattails of August: sun-drunk. long days spent in the sun, warm and tan. lungs consisting entirely of fresh air and hopeful opportunities. ending the afternoons with a bone-tired sigh, a comfortable nap, still sweaty from play, eyes half-lidded. an exhaustion unlike any other.

iv. when the summer retracts its tendrils back into itself, its last wish is to begin anew in a year. it wishes to coax the life back into the shuddering trees and wilting grass, coming into spring with a fervour. when the cold bites at the nape of the summer's neck, every living thing places their hope on warmth's feeling shoulders.

v. every time i go to the places we used to roam, i hear your voice again. the thick humidity has an uncanny ability to replicate the smell of your skin. or maybe nostalgia makes everything contain some portion of you. my hands unfold for the breeze, which carries your touch; my eyes soften for the sun, which carries your gaze; my legs take bigger steps to miss the cracks of the sidewalk, which mimic your long strides. again and again, my body will always want you.

Let's say...hypothetically...that you loved me
Would you have made it more clear?

Just for a minute...briefly...imagine that I hadn't loved you
Would I still have been left with all the ashes?

My heart is a plaything, I'll admit.
Your heart is a midsummer's evening, all delicate balance and heaving worry.
I'd like to think that I was a sort of awning for the rain that drenched you in sadness and fear that I'd cease to be your awning.
You were the rain.

Hopeless love is the most hopeful love there is in the fact that those who love hopelessly, are the ones who wish the hardest for the universe to make them both either the rain, or the awning.

It's been a year.
A year since the night I was last in love.
Or realized that I was in love.

It's been a year.
A year since the evening I cried as the sky turned blue, orange, pink, purple, black.
Since I cried as the night stumbled in.

A year seems like not a very long time.
Not a long time yet it feels like it's been three years.
And maybe I've grown, or maybe I've just changed.

It's been over a year since you laid with me while thinking about her.
Since you've pressed yourself against me while knowing she was yours tomorrow night.
Over a year since you told her that you were hers forever and I was yours for always.

And now, a year later, she and I are friends, and I still mumble about you in my sleep sometimes, and I wish that I hadn't known how soft your betrayal was.

sweaty palms and white faces
freshman freshmeat
the urge to learn long gone
the will to gain anything besides some anxiety issues
long gone

high school students are crazier than phsyciatric patients in the 1950's
did you know that?
senioritis sets in prematurely
and by 12th grade, it kills

am i ready for real life?
probably not
being a final year student doesn't make me any more prepared
except
i'm learning how to manage my stress levels
by binge eating and crying every night

so yeah
you could say i'm ready to go back school

My mind tells me things are wrong with this world
That I belong somewhere else
In a universe where love is always blind
And love is always kind
I'm experiencing a case of bad
Deja vu
In my dreams
I see you almost every night
And wake up screaming into my pillow
I can't bear to see your face haunt my sleep as well
It only reminds me of how inferior
I was to you
Did you finally draw away because
You saw me how I see myself?

What if he knew about my thoughts?
                                                    
  ­                                    "What do you mean"?

I meant those ones that involve bad things.
                                                    
    ­                                  "Well, what do those bad thoughts include?"

I guess those ones that only crazy people think of...
                                                   
       ­                               "Like what?"

The ones that involve sad and love and God.
                                                   
        ­                              "All thoughts of God are crazy."

Well then I guess I am crazy. I guess we all are.
                                                   
        ­                               "And what of love?"

Forever, I suppose. Thoughts of forever.
                                                 
      ­                                 "Forever is an impossibility that clouds better judgment."

I guess I have horrid judgment then. I guess we all do.
                                                   
            ­                           "The talk of sad...and those?"

Death.....
                                            ­      
                                       "Death is for the weak. The ones that give up."

I guess I am weak, then. I suppose we all are.
                                                  
             ­                          "You are a crazy one. Different."

I get that a lot.
                                                 
              ­                         "But it is a good thing, I guess."

Why would that be?
                                                    
           ­                            "Because it means you are not afraid of those things."

I do not understand...
                                                   ­
                                      "You choose to think about that, therefore, you face the fear."

I suppose you are right.
                                           
                    ­                   "Of course I am."

Yes....of course.....
                                                   
 ­                                      "You are different because fear cannot taint you."

But oh, I am terrified.

I've found out I find too much beauty in too many people

There is the gentle curve of my sister's mouth, the delicate grasp in my tennis coach's fingers, the a lilt to a boy's voice in my Spanish class that makes me feel alive.

The entire world is alive with this beauty that wracks through our bones in tumultuous waves, lifting us from our feet and tossing us high above the things we should pay attention to.

The way a person's eyes brighten when they speak of their mother or how a pair of legs work in harmony to walk is in itself a small victory to our short humankind.

We live in shadows, our faces cast in a blackness only describes as ignorance.

And something so simple as pulling aside that veil of blissful unknown is how we plunge ourselves into the abyss of loving the small details that our eyes roam over.

The way a child breathes when they are excited, how a grown man cries when he comes back from an eternal war, the seamless laughter of a human dear to your heart.

So fall in love with every blink and every drop of spilled ink that splays across the skin of a hand.

Love the birds that rise with the sun and the dogs that groan with content and happiness.

For they are the embodiment our race and our lives.

We will be known as the century of timeless freedom that allows our minds to feel as if floating through space wasn't such a slippery grasp.

Find the beauty within yourself, for before loving others, your self must feel as if it belongs.

something had settled in my lungs again. it's been there before, a familiar restlessness. but before, i threw it up in the form of late nights and lost love. this year i hold it in palmfuls, like a bird or water.

my legs feel full of bees, of ants and moths trying to stretch towards light. cross, uncross, stretch and coil. do anything to remain unsettled, unsedimented. but they can't escape the unrest. it just waits.

i think of it like sediment, silt that sometimes has a hand run through it or a toe seeped deep into its coolness and then it stirs through my veins alongside every particle of anxiety i've inherited.

is this what it's supposed to look like? a little dim and maybe foggy on the darker days. sometimes i think about letting this fog out into the chilly room of someone else, but it retreats just in time.

beds were designed for tired bones, nights designed for weighted eyes. days were made for the ones with fingers full of light and flowers were made for it all. the night comes easier to me, like a friend.

January isn't my usual month of bee-legged unrest, or heavy lidded nights, but it seems to have assumed the role of injecting something not settled into the crook of my neck, my elbow and the soft part behind my ear.

The things I miss most are:

Sitting by the cherry tree with you, branches decadent with petals and blossoms spilling onto the ground

Drawing on the bench way up in my yard and listening to the crickets sing love serenades to partners hidden in the grass

Telling secrets as friends and partners in crime, not as lovers and unstable atoms

Walking the highway running through the mountains in Colorado, sipping Gatorade like fine wine and waving at cars that flew past

Sauntering back to the cabin while everyone yelled our names and searched for our souls on the snowy roads that wound around the bases of mountains

Sitting in the practice rooms and switching saxophones for the day, confusing even each other with who was who, being the same person at heart

Getting on Facebook and scrolling through my friends to find you and message you the days' troubles, talk to you about your
dad and your
mom and your
sister and your
life and the
sunset that dripped off the canvas of the sky that evening


I miss what we had before we were more than friends.

The cars hiss by on the wet pavement
You stand and watch, invisible, still, and quiet.
A raindrop hits your nose and rolls off the steep cliff of your bottom lip

There's a dog, jogging past on soft paws
Water arches behind it's wagging tail
Wet fur sways under its belly

The sky is splitting above you
Lightning unaware that you are standing in the exact spot
It would like to strike

But you move a foot to your left
And it continues on with its angry rumblings
A continuous murmur in the clouds

People pass by and look startled your way
Because their shoulder happened to greet yours
But what they cannot see they fear

And the night descends as you stand on the bustling street corner
The shops close down and the lights dim to accommodate the darkness
And you stand invisible, still, and quiet.

i was going through hell and you were my piece of
heaven,
and now i can't tell if you gave me a taste of something i can't
have
and now i talk to someone that i sometimes need, that i sometimes
(want)
i guess it doesn't matter if this guy actually wants me for
me
but doesn't it hurt worse
now
knowing he's your best friend?

Sweater weather*
Is
Better weather
And these big glasses
Don't hide much more than eyes
Guess I'm just a hipster.

caress the body
so soft of skin like the ruffling of a cat's fur
see the eyes that see you
deep like an ocean littered with grains of sand
oil slicks covering the surface
taste the mouth in which words flow from
ones that taste of sweet lullabies
and smell of sleep, that which is silky and cool
touch the hair as if it is the waves of grass
so smooth like the field of cattails and babies breath
dive into the self of another
explore the lingering scenes
those which make a heart constrict or expand
they are stars and souls and black holes and entire galaxies
that cannot be tamed nor handled
like the silver of a plate
easily tarnished
a being isn't being
if the being isn't truly
being

The sun is shining through the windows
And I feel happy for once

I know I should embrace this moment of true beauty

Because the earth is spinning as we speak
And the clouds are wisping over plains that reach as far as the eye can see

The sea is rushing over rocks that were there 100 years ago
And the air is brushing against cheeks that used to have tears on them

And to think that the earth has created something so beautiful as animals
And something so amazing as us

It's mind boggling to think that birds can defy gravity
And fish can defy water

If that isn't amazing then I don't know what is

But the most beautiful thing is to think
That we are breathing at the same time

And that's the most amazing thing that I can think of

It was an honor breathing with you for a short while.

i don't have anyone to call anymore on the nights when i can't breath
and the lights have left my eyes

I AM SAD
AND YOU
DON'T CARE
BECAUSE WHY
SHOULD YOU?
I'M NOTHING ANYMORE
AND I WANT TO
MAKE YOU JEALOUS
BUT ALL I'VE ACHIEVED
IS A SENSE OF LOSS
AND SADNESS.
MAYBE WE SHOULD TALK?

It is only 11:45 at night but it already feels like 2 in the morning.
A black and featurless night that washes away rational fears and
Replaces them with monsters more real than can be imagined.
I have so much to say to you, so much to tell you and show you.
But alas I cannot because understanding would be futile.
You see, my love, (if I can still call you that)
I still want you, still love you I suppose.
I am lost, adrift amid a sea of black impenetrable and so very vast.
I am unable to say that I am okay, but I am not in a desolate state of utter misery either,
I sometimes seem to trick myself into thinking so.
You see, I miss you at 5 in the early dawn when everything slumbers on the very edges of consciousness,
When the birds wake and coo to their partners.
I miss you in the depths of the night, 12 o'clock and desperate for company.
And I miss you at 3 in the afternoon when the kids get out of school
And the world rushes by in a blur from a grimy school bus window.
But, it is not really the mental connection that I crave.
It was more your body, your hands, your lips exploring parts of my body that have not yet been explored.
I am aware that I could trick many other willing guys into playing with me,
Dancing their lush tongues against already blemished skin,
But I can only imagine you holding me in the wails of my agonizing pleasure, the moans of my miserable release.
I can only see your hands caressing my hips and your back ridged beneath my exploring fingertips.
And I can definitely imagine other, more  pleasant men, guys,
That could satisfy my burning desire for a certain closeness.
Do you feel the same?
I looked at your Tumblr the other day.
It has grown wasted.
The margins of your pages have been filled with sorrow.
Am I the cause of this?
One post caught my eye.
It was a wall scribbled with words jumbled and tangles like my thoughts, and probably yours as well.
It read something I almost couldn't bear to read.
It must have expressed your feeling well, for I had seen it before, but never thought anything of it.
It said that you wished I would bleed, that I would become miserable at best.
Can't say I'm not already there.
It said you were a friends of the devils.
Is that really true?
And it said that you were too nice a person to do these things it said.
I didn't really believe it.
Above it a screen had a few words stated simply in a piercing blue.
"I wish I could you hate you but I can't bring myself to."
I guess I feel the same.
In the end, I am a broken person and you are one who fixes, a savior of wasted toys.
Was that all I was to you?
A project that needed fixing?
I didn't end up quite like how you wanted me to, I was too broken and missing too many parts you couldn't find.
It isn't shocking, that you gave up on me, I mean.
I am quite easy to abandon, you could say that yourself.
But I don't miss it like I thought I would.
No.
I kept trying to convince myself to run back to you, to beg mercy,
To stick your hammer back in your hand and lay myself bare on your worktable.
But I couldn't bring myself to ask forgiveness to what I had done.
My mind wasn't functioning enough for that.
And so now I sit here in the dark of my basement, my dog lying here beside me and snoring in a blissful sleep,
His chest rising and falling like machinery.
My veins are popping up from my hands and my fingers hurt from the non-stop typing I have been doing.
And I can only stare in fascination at the webbing of blue that coats my right hand,
The shadow it casts from the pale of my computer screen.
Did you know I haven't been eating as much lately?
I'm actually losing weight now, slowly but surely, just like I promised you.
But you can't see the end result when I will be pretty,
You won't see me spread eagle beneath you on a pillow top bed like we dreamed together.
Some other person will.
And I feel bad for you, dumping me in the black bottomless pit that is the single life, because I could be gold on the inside, it just takes some panning to see it.

Catch me before I fall, darling
I'm falling too fast for the eye to see

I can't catch my breath, darling
Something's caught in my lungs
It's growing out of the seeds you planted there

I'm afraid, darling
I'm afraid that they're nothing but weeds that you planted
Because I thought that we had something beautiful
But once it all comes out of my throat I'm afraid of what I'll see

I've figured I'm done missing you
It's so tiring, darling

I'm tired of feeling like **** all the time
But I don't know how to feel any other way
It's turned into my home and if I feel any other way I'm homeless

I don't like talking to people
It's like a dread that swallows me whole
My insides fold in on themselves
What kind of life is it to live in constant fear of interaction?

I've had my life planned out for the past 10 years
And all of the sudden it's all gone
How does all of this ******* happen?
I thought I had everything figured out
But I can't think straight and I don't want a future
I don't want to live life struggling.