Today it seems as though your ghost let itself in
I know it’s been wandering through my field for months
and I avoided the windows but today
your ghost burst through the door
into my room
and looked me straight in the eye
in a very afterlife way
to say
I’m still here

and I still feel every inch of what we were

It’s my birthday and I blew out the candles
but now they look more like pretty cigarettes yes
tobacco tainted and blood stained, you were nineteen
and my innocence lost has finally dawned on me
yes you let yourself into my house
reminding me that we lost our innocence
while we listened to melting pipes drip onto ***** coated floors
you let a map stain your walls
and white has never been a color of innocence
it’s the color of the absence of it
if anything black is the color of innocence
your only sight before you are forced from your mother’s lap, trust me this love relapse is only Regret’s quiet laugh.

Now I only see your grin, and taste the blunt forced gin that will quiet the wind outside the windows of the past

It was one of those nights
You know
The kind of night where you and your friends are fated to dive off of the nearest cliff
A night where your empty bottle is just one grave example of the spaces you can’t fill
In your bed
Your closet
Your fridge
Your piano keys
Your heart
Where paper cuts replace the sound of your name
And you wake up sweaty
Covered in American sadness
The knowledge that you have all that you need
And your greedy soul feeds and feeds
Screaming that happy is never enough

Look through the nearest x-ray
You will see
Your brain stem is the steepest climb of a roller coaster
And the remaining track is where you lose yourself

Removing the fuzz from the dryer is the feeling of rain
My growing anxiety is thunder
And the flickering bulb is homemade lightning

My depression nuzzles in the dark clouds found in my laundry room

Maybe the smoke in my lungs will thaw the ice in my bones
Maybe it will boil the ideas in my brain
And heat the memories too tragic to be saved

Maybe this smoke is the real way God wanted to baptize me
Maybe I needed a full body Ash Wednesday to make my soul clean
Maybe to dust we return and I'm starting early
breathing dead particles we all soon will be

Cigars are for the lips
Cigarettes are for the lips
**** is for the lips
You were never for my lips

Maybe I was meant for the stoop and you needed someone more pleasant
With empty hands and open arms
And posture keen

And now I'll remain in the dark
Only seen
Through the glow of a lighter
And a sinner's favorite steam

Catholics and their plaid

Green- the color of a boy with the worst case of deja vu
his formal dance suit
the feeling of jealousy when he won't look at you
the evergreen tree that should have fallen
when spoiled beer escaped from its graves
when anniversaries go array
fields frolicked and forgotten
the color of all outdoor background noise
the color you overlook because you are distracted by the blue of the skies

Blue- a heart in sailor knots
sandwiched between punchlines
cloth wrapped feet and wild hair
blood before its birth
every night she appears
the skies are more blue than black
and eyes bruise to match
all ghosts will fade to that
the color of our atmosphere
a shade to fight against
with a surface ironic numbness

Yellow - our beeline into an unsure heaven
with an ironed out halo
the color of her hair when she jumps from two stories up
or the ukulele strings
and every light bulb she breaks
cornfields through an x-ray
the color of a cat eyed miracle
and the fact that happy can still be bright when it aches

Black- trailer bile and trash bags
hiding keys and goodbyes
a man named Memory's soul
every pupil ever seen
her leather shorts forever smelling of beer
big cities on a map
sharpie used to wipe out a distant dream
asphalt I love you's
ink and ashes
our colorful world always returns to black

Red-some see the fires of hell
but i only see
the eternal glow of an exit sign
that exists only in ours mind

maybe i will spend the rest of my life
trying to marry your shadow
while the real you is one step ahead
holding someone else's hand

lay down your drink and gun
i know you speak from liquor tongues
as you string the stars across your yard
i chew on the glass shards
from the last bottle you blew your song through

it's not fair
you have tied everyone you love
to the stake that you plan on driving through your own heart