Old friends, I apologize
Your specters have settled
In the wrinkles of my hands

I'm in an empty room with 5 letters
I'll make things better
I'll send them to your souls in good weather

H: The West calls. You should go. Your hair is growing fast. Everyone knows about your whispers and I cannot stand your love being for creation's play. I'm sorry you never got your way but the Rockies will calm your seas if you let them.

T: Thanks for trying to be someone else for me. I hope you don't regret our rolls around the floor. Or nights on benches. Or the time tears fell onto my lips from melancholy bliss. I'm sorry I could never be caught in your light. I hope you learned to fall asleep easy, and make sure to tell the next girl that your heart is as tender as a peach.

Y: I'm sorry that I couldn't trust a mind that shines in headlights. I know that if you swim backwards you drown and I do want to say, in the past two years I have been caught in a constant backstroke. I replay my lost memory of you in a corner and myself in a stupor. I'm sorry that I tried to make an enemy of your differences.

C: Sorry I wrote our fairy tale without your permission. That's all I really have to say.

J: You met me in isolated pieces. You put me together to reveal a little girl in a costume of what she wants to be. Your disinterest became a lead blanket. Your retracted friendship left me with empty palms up, and no one has tried to fill them since our lost October. Light the candles, Say a prayer

the more noise you make
the less they can look away
but all that friction in your mouth
averts them from your eyes
and hands go wild
trying to pin desire to the wall
trying to scrape the mud from the linoleum bathtub
trying to hide from the pitfall in your chest
when you're surrounded by the smell of pine
trying to get home with all of your cinnamon welts
trying so hard to level the picture frame of your mind
that continuously leans too far to the left
trying to rest your dreams in a tiny wooden casket
a graveyard beneath your pillowcase

what counts is that we're trying
but gloves keep holding my identity hostage

smiling souls are nothing but black holes
and outer-space is everything that can't be a star

Yes it's true
There was a time we held hands and cried
There was a time her lights guided us into the unknown
There was a time with the ukulele on the roof
And we all wore those green pants
And vomited while her grandfather slept in the basement
There was a time with sharpie and antiques
Holes in our heads
And babies that were kind
Snow and sun ceased to shimmer
from the yells of rebellion
Bare feet and carpet friction
Pine tree ink on toes
We hushed the fire
The guitar speaks best after midnight
And the fall articulates with a resounding whisper
Of nervous hands touching in your mother’s car
Like once the sun goes down we all go mad
And teenage years squirm out of the grasp
Of slowly stilling blood
There was a time where we all looked up
And saw endless navy
Snakes in lakes
And ignorant love trapped beneath the tide
There was a time
I braided her hair
And told her to never cry over her freckles
We slept on cots and bugs and dreams
In the night the wolves were louder than
her slowly decaying soul
But now three years later
It’s the only song left in my mind

City skies at night
are the deepest trench of the ocean

I am in a suit
Grazing the depths of the aquarium floor

We all wear tiny lights in front of us

And who's to say that water isn't oxygen

Celebration in the courthouse
Too many loves, now the lack
She held most men's hearts
In a velvet dress painted black

Through the lens Jimmy saw
Icy hair, Snow blonde skin
Ribs,her birdcage of a home
Tops of trees lack of sin

Her heart boiled over
While she read Kerouac
She fully felt each emotion
Right before the attack

Unashamed in decision
Never lost how to live
Elizabeth had her two children
A man who couldn't forgive

Her too honest tongue
And her heart made of wax
Found their way into the hands
Of the man who came back

They both held together
Each crest was to merge
But hers started to shake
And unleash all her birds

Immune flew off first
Memory left near the last
Flying south in the winter
Seeping backwards to past

Now her fist's in her mouth
And newsprint's in his eyes
Mr. Jones holds the map
To where her spirit now flies

You sleep in, eat in, read in
Rooms with what feel like soldiers of learning
Bordering liberation
Kept quiet with papers
You look around and see
Dark circles and streaming hot cups of
Whatever today brings will make a good expensive grade
We’ll learn words right before we need to dispose of them
College is weird

You talk to the girl next to you in lecture
Just to take a break from looking at your phone
And for a second she looks exactly like
Your best friend’s dead mother
But her name’s Victoria
And she is a marketing major
And sorority girl
And she swears she saw you
At Steve’s party the week before
Dancing with a boy
That went to her high school
She doesn’t know that he kissed you in a hallway
And he sat in the fire escape all night after
College is weird

You can’t wait to lose syntax
And semantics on a ***** frat floor
Anxiety runs high but
Everyone silently knows
We are safe under Christmas lights
You black out three nights in one week
Spending the other four
Trying to remember
The names of the boys you kissed
For letting you drink
Straight out of the bottle
How kind
College is weird

You fall in love with the idea of a boy
And the maps of his brain
And you smile nervously
At each other under a tent
Both wearing dueling plaid
He drunk calls you on a Saturday night
And he plays your guitar
You both complain about TVs
He says that they’re like windows
That can never be opened to let in a cool breeze
And you can’t seem to disagree
He sleeps on your couch
And you both make breakfast
Smiling like your conversation at 3 am
Was the best *** anyone has ever had
And then he leaves and never texts you back
College is weird

On his 20th birthday
You bother him right before midnight
So the time under your digital words
Allude to a productive day
That was actually spent
Cultivating metaphors for how close
You came to kissing him
But you press send
A “happy birthday I still exist” message
And it’s left with a pity “thanks”
And you hear too many of your fake friends talk
Down about “catching feelings”
And “being clingy”
Because God only knows what would happen
If everyone pursued a feeling of joy
Or thought twice about
Confessing that only a boy’s words could make them happy
No we are only here in this Temporary Bookland
For good **** and a diploma
Fellowship and Emotion are not a general requirement
And now I can only explain
Nothing more
Nothing less

College is weird

***** porch smoke smell and anything Julia


The American flag is a reminder and cigars are meant for the mouth

Kisses are a better fate than wisdom [lady] I swear by all flowers
We promised to get tattoos
We promised to move to New York