Maybe it's just the drugs fading,
but tonight I feel hollow.
And maybe it's just the feeling of coming home,
but right now I feel stuck.

Stuck on the simple sensation
of a warm body adjacent
as the night is erased and
a new dawn awakes us.

I laugh often, but I'm hardly ever
amused
mostly I just like to make people feel funny
when they are.
I sigh often because I'm hardly ever not tired,
tired of waking with hopes floating on hot air balloons
only to be set back down with the dipping of the evening sun.

And maybe it's just the ringing in my ears,
but everything is much too quiet right now.
Maybe it's just that the blinds are drawn,
but it is
so dark
in this room.

Remember the way the leaves used to crumble between the spokes of our tires?
The exciting monotony of that broken pavement
The stories, the races,
and now,
Just the few paces
That separate us.
For our world is the same,
Yet so different from those years ago
Where life let our happiness flow.

The wind is always blowing here.
It rushes down out of the canyon
to the east
like a cavalcade of rhinoceroses.
The cyclists
struggle against it
the pedestrians
have to lean into it
the motorists
spend two dollars and ninety cents extra
each time they gas up
to compensate for it.
The trees on the eastern edge of the cemetery
are bowed-
to the west-
and their leaves don’t fall
they’re ejected
like screaming pilots from flaming cockpits
at wonky angles
until they crash into the grave markers below them.
And the headstones are all weathered
prematurely,
names and dates and histories
erased

while below,
wrinkled shells dressed in sunday suits
sit in metal boxes
pretending
that some shred of them
will last forever.

The dark of my night is without contrast.
It is impending,
Heavy,
And it blankets and submerges
Like dreamless sleep.

The dark of my night is all-encompassing.
It wants to make me like it.
To fade me into static
And overwhelm me.

The dark of my night is without answer
Resonating echoes breaking like waves along my rib bones
Reverberating in the hollow cavity of my skull
Rattling the rice-grain small bones of my inner ear.

The dark of my night is haunting.
It sleeps and dreams of me,
Awake,
And pawing my way through it
With eyes closed.
It hides in still pools underground
In swaths of twilight fog
In places still untouched by the human gaze.

The dark of my night is motionless
And mute
And numb.

if i say i do not love you
that would be a complete and empty lie
but if do not try to get away from you
there would not be another going back

if i hoped for peace and light by my side
you only summon storm and darkness
with lies, indifference and pride
i know you do not enjoy it either

i remember your smile when we meet,
the sound of your voice saying my name from far away
that constant feeling of being haunted
then remember when everything, changed

words are rocks in my mouth and
i think obeying traffic laws in the
middle of the night is stupid and
driving from your house i feel like
the little kid who realizes he is too
big to stretch out in the bath tub
anymore. my pockets are full of
those gummy worms i stole yester-
day and pockets in my head are
***** with wanting your selfish self
in the passengers seat, telling me
when to take a left and using red
lights and your pretty eyes to the
full advantage

We're like, the cautious,
Wind that, blows promise.
Light in, the window,
Touching, Breathe slow.
You and, me now,
Far away, from sound.
Don't let, it go,
Dripping, like snow.
We're like, the cautious,
Waves that, break conscience.