lucid disorient, waking at dusk—
you can leave if you must,
but don't rush it.
my polished exterior, hiding a husk,
looks like silk to the touch,
so don't touch it.

lazing away
through both halves of the day,
I'd've lain in your aura
accordant.
but off you must go
so I won't let you know
that each moment,
your absence is torment.

You: a fire hazard,
and I am the glowing-red exit

whose handle you hold
just to be sure
nothing burns
on the other side.

But nothing can burn me.
What's burning is you,

on the outside
of the exit door.

I was depressed and called it ~lifted~
(still get off on being cryptic)
Did my best to take it back
but found my love had been regifted.
Now, though, surely I have grieved,
I'm done suspending disbelief:
let's put this one to bed
and get some sleep.

stoically emotional,
preconceiving notions of
a starving population
for an unfaithful devotion.
while you're bending over backwards
just to bear the burden's weight,
you speak unspoken tongues
like you've been bitten by some snakes.

heavens, lord have mercy,
you're the only one could hurt me.
righteous, turn to your concerns
and leave us laughing, crying, cursing.
and oh, my goodness gracious,
there's just not a thing could save us
from this semi-static state,
no suit nor armor.
so keep on speaking to those snakes
'til you're their charmer.

recklessly but partway honest
careful with the pointed things
shining brighter light upon this
devil with angelic wings

broken (once) a promise
once imperative to keep
to feel so free in honesty
will sing us both to sleep

In a cross between
distortion and redemption,
soft pleas reveal and ease
our hidden tension.
It's only right to fix
the buckled road that led to this:
to mix up what is left
and what there isn't.

I am mixed up in what's left
and what there isn't.

Is love unlimited?
Could I amend all that I did?
admit defeat and use my walls
to bridge the distance?
I'll add my fragment thoughts up
with my heart's holy persistence.
Oh, tell me there's a way
to bridge the distance.

The lengths that I would go
to bridge the distance.

*Perhaps I should
stand still instead
in this specific instance.

pleas and hints
l'éveil doux du prince
I'm convinced
que je connais sa langue.
que devrais-je faire,
si, oh, au contraire
and too late, I realize I'm wrong?

You remembered the honey to go with the cream for the tea that I drink while I'm reading.
Later I'll bend like the bind of my book so to show you the depth of its meaning.

I haven't learned the secret,
save to know that it exists.
I would tell you more about it
if it wouldn't break a promise.
Beyond its weighted words,
I can't be sure it can be heard
but I can tell you how it feels (or so I'm told).
It burns and, though it's searing, it feels cold.

You  were  toying  with  my head, with
how   you   said   the  things   you  said
the  way   you   phrased  them   for  the
better,   then   much worse.    Walk  out
or    walk     away  ,  keep    on    saying 
what  you're  saying ,  but  all  I   hear's
c    o     m    p     l    a     i     n     i     n    g
and      your       echoes       in     reverse.

Up in Appalachia they say,
Don't drink the water here.
The rashes on my body aren't enough
to stop my shower beer.
I've been drunk for days,
so ****** thirsty from the green I smoke.
If this all makes you nervous,
have a sip and take a ****.
They say,
they're sending help to all us
deep up in the mountains.
They can keep their water
if they bring me 40 ounces,
'cuz everyday's a party
gettin high on toxic fumes!
Hey Freedom Industries,
just keep doin what you're doin.

I imagine you'd kiss me,
take my hand, read my note;
smile for the words that I,
weeping, once wrote.
Unsure what to do,
I know one thing I can:
No one can stop me when
"I have a plan."

What comfort in knowing,
wherever you're going,
the path is left
up to your willing.
What safety in saying
the life you are paying
is spent upon
only your bidding.
Your sense of control
seems so admirably droll
though, in hindsight,
it did the misleading.
Because life has one cost,
earned at death, then it's lost.
Rejoice: life is only
your meaning.

There are ghosts in your old haunt.
You push the door as if you'll find her,
but the silent apparitions
never treat you any kinder.
Their sole purpose anymore
is for a good scare to remind you:
What good is it to lock a door
you don't pull closed behind you?

Faulty filter,
fully-functional.
He waits for her
(poised and punctual):
Ascent-dependent;
she drowns on air,
aloof, alert
she hides in hair.
Her lines, off-putting
hollow hymns
of mind onfoot with
phantom limbs.
She garners courage
on the stairs,
and peeks upon
his lone affairs.

His untapped rhythm
beats persistent,
caged by ribs, but
closing distance.
It gives a pacing
to her thoughts
in lilting measures:
all or naught.
His feet can feel her
on the stairs.
"Only enter,
he who dares."

Waiting for her
near her door,
the floor won't meet her heels.
His fate, yet to be sealed.

You'll find ashes in the keys
from when I burned to stop the bleed,
and you can choose to think of me
but I know you won't.
When you go to say you're sorry,
I hope you don't.

It's thrilling and it's terrible,
it's wondrous while unbearable:
the piquing mind which seeks to find
the riddle in the parable.
Just when you think you've caught a glimpse,
your eyes will make a trick of it.
Elusive and seducing up until you have to blink again.

Seeking out solutions
to all of the wrong problems.
Powerless to the hourless,
oh, how could you hope to solve them?
Traverse the universe
like it is yours
for the unwrapping--
the only thing
of anything
to ever free its trappings.

A specious speculation
to a quiet congregation,
got you searching your thought corridors--
all you see is already yours.
If you're thinking life post-mortem
could be anything but boredom:
Try to think again.
Create your own Eden.

When what is real is relative,
and yours is unlike mine,
could you say how well I live?
Your virtue is my crime.
Traverse the universe
like it is yours
for the unwrapping--
the only thing
of anything
to ever free its trappings.

It's thrilling and it's terrible,
it's wondrous while unbearable:
the piquing mind
which seeks to find
the riddle in the parable.
Traverse the universe
like it is yours
for the unwrapping--
the only thing
of anything
to ever free its trappings.

Hope for you
is shattered.
Unflattered,
unimpressed.
Bit more than you
could chew
and so
you swallowed whole
the rest.
A year,
now in regression.
An obsession
would begin.
All my words
were yours to keep
when they escaped
the pen.

The events that transpired
occured as written.
Our mouths and neurons fired,
seeding flowering unmention.
Fuel and fire brought attention
to a subtle, growing tension.
The events that transpired
occured as written.

A predictable reaction
to words written
caused the changes, gaining traction
among smitten.
An explosive interaction
between palpable attractions--
predictable reactions,
just as written.

Burned it to the ground,
as it was written.
The lost was found
and lost again, in stark and wry omission.
Quiet was the mission
born of wavering disposition.
It burned into the ground
as it was written.

Back to where we started,
all reversibly departed.
The events that transpired
occured as written.

Well, no.

If I'd ask you for a dime,
you'd just toss me a nickle.
If I'd ask for your advice,
all you'd say is, "Life is fickle."
You like to keep me wanting more,
thirsty while you hold the cup,
so when I head for the door,
I always leave without enough.

If patience is a virtue,
I could be its patron saint.
I canvassed my whole life with you
before you smeared the paint.
When I hear your off-key chorus,
it gets hard to keep composure.
I know where the door is,
but the window is much closer.

I don't want to be leaving,
but it's clear I shouldn't stay.
It's my fault for believing
all the things you had to say.
What's the use in grieving?
Nothing to lose, anyway.

One finds solace in the clearing among skittering of leaves.
With solstice quickly nearing, love bereaves.
The wind is honest when it cleaves the foliage from frozen trees;
the noblest will fall to her decree.
One walks with empty hands, but for worth and sense of self,
an unleashed dog in place of a forgotten someone else.
There, one stops to stand, planted feet to leafen land,
wholly nestled in a richness void of wealth.

You're fiddling with your buttons,
I try to speak but nothing's
gonna help.
You've gotta deal with this yourself.
You're fooling with your jacket zipper
and I can tell you miss her.
I can tell,
and I'll miss you as well.

The earth is moved beneath me,
I'm a world away from you.
The light posts are all crooked
and the road is buckled, too.
You tell me that you're sorry,
but there's nothing I can do.
It's time to move.

Your hands run through your hair,
they tend to do that when you care
about how you sound,
while your mind's running around.
You go to bite your lip
and I can tell that this is it.
You speak so loud
when you hardly move your mouth.

You don't turn to watch me go,
you always act like you don't know
what to expect.
Regardless, it comes next.
My foot taps on the gas,
escaping questions I can't ask.
They interject.
The light ahead only reflects.

The earth is moved beneath me,
I'm a world away from you.
The light posts are all crooked
and the road is buckled, too.
You tell me that you're sorry,
I know there's nothing I can do.
I'm sorry, too.