i've seen oceans
commit atrocities
that have been washed away silently
i kept my mouth shut
and left the scenery
i swore i'd never return again

i regret.
i turn the clock back
i felt the waves come crashing in
i felt heavy hands
under my skin again
and i can't seem to shake the fear

i want to forget
but the water's clear
and all i can do is forgive
and i know
i shouldn't be so weak
because what good did it ever do in the end

i just want to forget
but i can't have that
because the water's clear and i can see myself again

write out your stream of consciousness, your every thought. explicitly and unedited with every little detail. don't scratch anything out, don't think twice. read it, reread it, read it out loud and feel embarrassed or ashamed. resist the urge to tear it up and forget it ever happened. save it for another day. hide it where no one else can find it because that's the part of you no one deserves to see.
2. take off all of your clothes and stand in front of a mirror. become aware of every detail, every mole, freckle, birthmark. trace every curve and crevice. pinch and poke and drag your fingers along while you follow the trail of sensations. look at yourself again. notice the little flaws. the crooked part of your smile, the unevenness of your skin, the way your face is not perfectly symmetrical. look in the mirror and see what you don't want to see. embrace yourself.
3. turn off every electronic device, every distraction from the world or connection to the world. lay in bed. wrap yourself up in blankets. focus on your breathing. don't think about anything else. you can almost do it. clear your mind. but the monsters always find a way. lean on them. don't fight the nightmares. find comfort in it, somehow, because what other way is there.
4. go for a run and watch the world changing in front of you. look at the sky. are there any clouds? are there any stars? feel the impact of the ground hitting your feet. feel your weight, your every pound and gravity pushing you down. feel your lightness when the breeze hits and you think you're going to wither away. why are you running? what are you running from? don't look back.
5. fall in love with the wrong person and follow them. then what.
6. get in your car and fill up your tank and find a highway and drive. put on some music and sing the wrong lyrics and sing them loud. turn off the music and listen to all the people in the world trying to be somewhere else.
7. pack up everything in a suitcase. everything is subjective. leave behind anything you don't want in this new life. walk around in circles. think about leaving think about starting over think about a clean slate. then stop and look at where you are and unpack your things and put them back where they belong.

I learned so many tongues so I could try to find the right way to say "I love you." None of them struck a chord with you.

At the end of the night we were still strangers. You turned out to be my existential crisis. I never was the same after I felt the wounds I left you to endure.

Thank you for teaching me boundaries, and how to pray on a Sunday afternoon. I would have died without you.

The dirt and the heavens have sat and shown us everything at once, telling about the heart has grown gray hairs on it's brim waiting to be groomed.
I say they are roots, not hairs.
I say all the words anyone can ever spill into you are a rainstorm or a desert and they are going to make you wilt or drown you but either way you are as much of yourself as you can be.
We live in a world that is plagued with shadows that are taken apart by sun beams and sparks of the moon yet they do not know how to stop coming back to our hips like black horses that ride with what we allow Them to ride with.
And they sleep like they know there is a tomorrow, they have courage welded from wind and reverence from the cathedrals of giants that do not know how to be anything less than their very own purpose.
I think of the chapels of light, and the towers of dark, and how there are not even kingdoms filled with both of them, and I am reminded that they love each other too much to be consumed with the presence of one another knowing the world may stop it's dancing.
I hope come to be that way.
That I learn to love someones precense so much I cannot bare to be around it.
Infesting the night or the stars dictating the day as if something that cannot be held is not worth hoping for.
I think of what does not return and what does return, and ask that I have the wisdom to know the difference between what keeps me from seeing, and what has spent it's entire life giving my eyes gifts wrapped in flesh and blood and bone and filled with secrets not made to be kept on shelves or shoulders.
This world is not a child that can lie on your chest in slumber and fall asleep as easy as it wakes up. And I say, there cannot be evil where there is music, and that both what we give, and what we take, are the mosr beautiful thins our bodies can produce and that,

that is what is hidden in between shades of the Earth and her silence.
And from the loss and the blind places of land,
we run.

i still remember the first night we fell asleep on the phone together. i don't recall why you were crying and i'm sorry that you probably do. but i sang to you. i sang to you until you were silent. and that became a ritual for us. my voice carried you into dreams and i had never felt so important before. i didn't know it was possible to think the way someone snored was cute but night after night you proved me wrong. the moments before sleep were occupied by conversations of the future we wanted to build. we talked about being together in our bed in our house someday. i conjured up countless images of memories yet to be made that served as pictures on the pages of stories you told me. those images are still stuck to the walls of my skull, clinging to them as if to say, "but he promised." every time i try to peel them off they scream. i told you from the beginning the way promises tie my stomach in knots and most of the time you were careful. but at 4am when my voice was drowning in sobs i let you tell me you weren't going anywhere. you told me to breathe, suddenly i could. and you kept doing stupid little things until i gave in and laughed. i felt you smile. promises still made me feel sick. but i needed your consistency. the nights i had to fall asleep without you were hell. they always turned into red-eyed mornings where i watched the sun rise before managing only a few hours of dreamless sleep. i always woke up tired. i looked for you in other voices but none of them fit. your promises still lingered in my head. you said my heart would never be broken again, and i know this is not your fault, but i have been picking glass from my lungs for 17 days and the bleeding hasn't stopped.

- m.f

find me not for i am past
the promise of your heart
hear me not when silence does
dig our nights apart

trust me not when i do swear
upon a tranquil light
sing into the wilderness
yearn your tender sight

seek a snowy yesterday
to memories resign
as the ocean's secret vain
fathomlessly lie

slenderly ignore the taste
of penitence awhile
bury my brazen shallow songs
all up in tearing skies

if blowing blooms of dust desire
veil vermins fleetingly
play and pose as puppet hands
hunt and yet haunted be

for the sake of love suspire
swig in a morning dream
until your soul's a raging fire
please stop loving me