Maybe
If I buy new sheets
I'll have an easier time forgetting you
And your shifting eyes
All morning sun and maroon.

I had better get a new color too

Just not blue...
That was the one before you
With the thin hair and half lies
And winter city lights.

And before that I like to remember nothing besides the yellow daisies on a peachy sunrise of my youth,
But the silky stitches will forever hold
Their petals;  
White centered with a splintering,
Tainted innocence;
A pasty white puddle of
Bodies too young-
Caught in the riptide of our
Childhood storms
And a desire for adulthood
Or something seemingly more....
Stable.

Details will only cause us to once again derail
so I must insist you don't question this.

I've been going out of my way so long
Trying to wrap up my Saran facade.
Now every interaction
Feels wrong
And rubs me raw.
My plastic skin is wearing thin
And I might melt against the heat
Of the confrontational defeat
That I suppose ...

We all just get used to.

I keep tripping over perceptions
Strewn across a convex looking-glass
Of stereotypes and slurs that shaped my past;
And I suppose
Made a lasting impression
Rooted deep enough
to now be the
Instigator of my regression
And unrelated, runaway thoughts

That seem to always get deeper

On accident.


Everything will become a hazy memory
And glob into two word phrases
Of the forced politeness
That accompanies the acknowledgement
Of a past regret-
Still freshly gawky
As a transitional stranger;


I am inquiring
In an attempt to find an explanation  for this untold something
That remains unseen
Until we're too disheveled
To distinguish it from a
A misplaced dream or idea.


Relativity counteracts the sheen
And perspective is everything,
But I feel myself slipping away
Into a despondent complacency.

I left all my linens in places
I no longer cared to be.

Yeah,
Maybe new sheets are what I need.

C.e.M 12.23.14

I awoke with a burnt tongue
And wild hair-
My body shriveling up
At the touch
Of the cold empty air.

Naked, and you had the blankets;
How did I ever think we'd make it.


C.e.M. 12.26.14

the lights hung,
suspended in the fog
of the incoming storm
like lanterns from across the barriers of hades.
your faces hid in the shadows
drawn on like your thick eyeliner
and smudged, ****** lip stain
worn from too many cheap beers.

the methodical flashing of streetlights
played a song as monotonous
as a morse code metronome
spitting out meaningless phrases
and chords
that lead to no resolution nor reprieve.
with the flick of your lighter,
you ignited your somber visage momentarily
as we sped down winding hills to the highway.

the times were changing;
they were tearing down buildings
we had always taken for granted
and the friends we made
in our childhood
now lingered as undisclosed phantoms.

would you really go back?
if you could?
to the room in the morning
to the knife tucked in your boot
to the side of the road
to the carcass of your
festering
forgotten
fallacies.

or will you get in the passenger seat

and move forward with me.

C.e.M. 1.6.15

so strange
it should seem
how vividly those lost moments
reappear to me.

they seep into my conscious stream
like the steam
beneath a ***
simmering on the
low heat of three.

I’ve never been much for
the romanticism of lost time
regardless of the frequency
at which it
captures my complacent mind,

but the silent movies
that wind
and unwind
behind closed eyes
are redefining
the circular lies
you seem to find comfort
in hiding behind
in order to maintain sanity
in the circling calamity
of present circumstance
and reoccurring coincidences.

I am victim
to the incident
that serves as
a lingering question mark
of the intent
behind the recently
protruding insolence that has been
festering since I
refused penance
on the slight chance

I’d find a savior in myself.

C.e.M. 8.19.14

his voice is like poetry
while I’m sleeping-

I cant make sense
of the information I’m
gleaning
in tidal waves
spawned by
the moon that is his mind.

the space is stuffy
and I’m
sweating,
tears for the idea
of a young man who never existed.

every new face is a pawn
in the facade
of a game I’ve spun together
over years of misfortune
and emotional torture.

I’m enraptured
by the subtleties of self
you capture in such
spirited convalescence.

In an effort of defense
I will plead the ignorance
of a meager age
and a shifty stage in life.

i am prone to strife
that entices me
late at night when
the dishes are piling and
ash is frosting my kitchen floor.

I’ll make it back to bed
when the sneaking wisps of daylight
come slithering
across
your uninhibited sprawl.

I really
should
stop
playing God.  
c.m.
8-19-14

To the crushing of bones
when you implode;
my stubborn skull
was no match for the concrete.

I flew face first-
now I am ground into dirt,
or the dirt is ground into me
wherever I’m bleeding.


I can’t clean these wounds sober.
this girl?
you won't know her.

my jaw is popping-
is there any chance of that stopping soon?
The moon is closing in on the sun,
threatening to collide
and I've grown wearing of hiding in the night.
I'd just like some
medical attention.

My knees,
my knees...
I forgot to mention they're all ******;
I don't have the money to call off
for a few days.

can I sleep on my face?
my pain is evidence of my shame-
these wounds just my physical disgrace.

I'll regain coherency
at a quarter till three
with a swollen, puffy face
and vinegar in my veins.

just add it to the list
of blundering strains
maybe some time in the future
I’ll be able to worry about it again.

it never ends.

my new lamp, shattered
my clean sheets
dirtied and tattered.

my left ear is buzzing-
everything has gone fuzzy
and my head is numb and
throbbing.

maybe I’ll sleep well tonight,
and my nightmares will find me
without any fight left
in my dried out bones
and pseudo studio home.

c.m.
draft/original: 8.5.14
posted: 1.7.15
revision/edit: 1.8.15

I keep remembering flashes of your smile,
all sweltering summer and
sun soaked in ***.

In the night we writhed against hours
that came calling as we tried
desperately to sleep and
the heat of your palms
struck as hammers against
the ashy coal
of my peeling pain.

Even after hours of charring
in the blaze of our undisputed confusion
you still felt icy
and I couldn't agree
to the unspoken regulations
and expectations.

I left you
with a laundry list of reasons
I could not love you
left forever unspoken.

Now twenty-three hours lie between us
and I wish I'd had the guts
to discuss my contempt
for situations I allowed
to escape my control

but consolation will never come,
and I'll always be in the hole.

You smell like the second night
In a fresh bed of sheets
Soon to be soaked
In a morning sun
That has slipped it's way
In through the window to
Drench you in daylight and responsibility.
You worry what the others will think
But they're downstairs
And a ghost like wind
Will shut your door to hide you from them,
It will caress you and suggest you
Dive back into sleep again
But morning must end  
And you're drawn back
Into the pretend game
That awaits you
On the other side
Of your second day sheets.

C.e.M. 3.21.15

Stale crackers and
Quivering cigarettes
Held in a hesitant hand
And lonesome lips.
Nothing tastes more of regret
Than the spit on your chin
On your way back
From the bathroom,
Twenty minutes after your knees
Have finished holding down the floor
While the cold wrinkled faces
Of your feet turn up towards
The dull buzzing of the fan.

Your vision is blurred
By the tainted tears
That squeeze out
When the hand over your mouth
Just isn't enough to cover
the cost
Of last nights tab
And the penalty you avoided
By taking a cab back to
Your flat for a short nap
Before your six am shift.

But eleven hours later
And the ding of the elevator outside your door
Jolts you awake-
Seven missed calls mark your mistake
And there's a feeling you can't shake
That this is terribly wrong.

Turn over again
Running miles, still in bed.
You've spent too long
Marinating in your poor decisions
And night after night
You succumb to your vices.
You will make no progress
If you cannot be contrite.
You aren't
Alright.

C.e.M. 3.28.15

I will touch your hair,
matted and wet after a shower,
and tell you sweetly I like it better
when you forget the conditioner.

I will count each drop that falls
from tangled strands
that are strewn across
your pink *******,
and slides down under my fingers
until there are no more,
and I will be forced to speak.

you smile,
and its so much sweeter
without that awful shade of red
I used to fancy you in.

You offer me breakfast in bed
but I want you instead.
we lie face to face,
nothing but sheets in the way
begging the day not to begin
and this dream not to end.

you are sweet as sin
and I'm ready to dig in.

Pushed to the back of the fridge
Styrafoams full of predictions
Of life after your childish ambitions
played out.

Carried home from a family occasion
The ideas molded
Over the ages of a chilly
Adolescence.

Now each morning
hits like a punch in the mouth,
The sour taste of last nights
Forgetfulness
Heavy on your breath.


it's always too early
To stomach the sun.
Returning to lost love
With only poison in your gut;
It's getting easier to move on.

Continue along
Hanging from a precarious
Cable car of ambivalence
Wave at each opportunity missed
As it passes you by,
your eyes
Idly on the sky.

"Next time, next time"
You mutter

"Next time I'll give it a try."

C.e.M.
2.17.15

I hereby resign myself
To lie in a bed,
Overheated and always tired,
Next to a body that I never touch
And never
Touches me.

I will drive the miles
And spend the money
On a friendship I can't afford
And be ignored
When it's convenient
Like the all the rest
of casual acquaintances.

I will pick up every odd shift
For a few more dollars
That surely
won't be in my pocket
For very long.

I will sing the same sad songs
On the occasion
I might at last
Have made it to the shower
Because although I still have water
I might've lost power
And still done nothing
To fix it.

I'll be the texts
At 5am
When the rest of the world
Is sleeping in bed
Likely dreaming and spooning
With breaths regulated
By their cyclical,
routine naïveté.

I'll be the cold body next to
No one
When the morning comes
In the next state over
In the back seat of my car
Wishing I had enough gas
To take me further.

I resign myself
To second place,
The hell for the always over looked.
I'll read another book
And wonder how easy
Fictitious lives must be
Only spanning two hundred pages
Of tastefully flawed existence
With a diligent persistence
To come out better in the end.

I'll stand lonesome as a highway ****
Blown in on the back
Of some filthy bird
Who dropped me off
And never noticed my missing,
Never knew I was with him.
I will never flower.
I only wither.

Cem