Collapsed against the brick wall,
tears puddled on her knees,
devoid of comfort,
she was weeping alone.

This was never supposed to happen.

Heart fractured by a boy,
boss called to let her go,
the death of a loved one,
it could have been anything.

This isn't okay.

I've never known the girl,
never even seen her face;
but I still have to say,
her heart should never break.

This wasn't part of the plan.

Darling, you are more than this,
a greater love is here, I promise.
There will be an end to it;
the aching will cease to exist.

This is all going to be fixed.

Your Father adores you,
His shoulder will catch
your tears before they
have the chance to land.

This is finished.




*~ Matthew Walker ~

and here i am again
at the intersection
of pedestrian language
& old wives tales
swallowing gum
like 7 year memories
opening umbrellas inside
cause i can't seem get away
from all of this rain
i ******* with my left hand
cause i was told
back in highschool that
"it feels like someone else is doing it"
it gets me wondering
about the difference between
losing you and finding out
that some one else found you
or my sleep
or lack thereof
its starting to tear me apart
i keep having this dream
where you are in
an unfamiliar body of water
trying to wash my poetry
off of your hands
or the one where
something happens in my chest
every time you sit
on someone else's bed
i'm tired of feeling like something you've misplaced
but don't have the heart
to look for anymore
tired of you saying my name
like you're trying to bury it
i'm tired of wondering
if you can tell the difference
between the absence
of my voice & silence
the other day
i almost started sobbing
at work when a woman
asked me about
our equipment
i was explaining how
things come apart
and almost mentioned your name
it made me think
of how you used to say
things like "what would you do
if i showed up on your doorstep
one day?" now, i haunt
the windows in my house
i don't leave for weeks at a time
i sit on the porch like the dog
you didn't shoot behind the shed
the one that refuses to die
until you come home again
i told somebody once, that
you didn't even know
what my voicemail sounded like
i wonder if they thought
it was because you
are so important that i never
let it ring that many times
before picking up
or if you dont know
what it sounds like
because you've never called
you can't be the ****** weapon
and the search party
i'm tired of all the seats
to the ferris wheel in my chest
being empty
tired of your voice
being the one i look for
in abandoned places
that one sound i beg
to bounce back
down vacant hallways
i just seem to stand there
in all of that quiet
like someone looking for a mistake
on an eviction notice
so i guess the hardest part
isn't letting go
it's forgetting
you ever had a grip
in the first place
and since you've been gone
i wonder if when
you pushed yourself away from me
you used your left hand
so it felt like someone else did it

They always said it like it was a sin and I never believed them
I hand picked you out of a sea of people
Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I could see your eyes
So clearly from miles away and I wanted nothing more than to touch them
I knew the Queen of Hearts could never fall for a simple joker
But for better or for worse you took my hand and you followed me
What you never knew was how I stacked the deck
I never deserved a second of your time and I think we both knew it
But you never took your eyes off mine and my hands worked quickly
You can only pull the rabbit out of the hat so many times before you lose your charm
And everyone always forgets that the vanishing act is last
They always said it like it was a sin to mix pleasure and business
But I never believed them and now you’re gone

A home is not defined by a mailbox at the end of the driveway
It is not made up of a white picket fence or a garden outside the front door
And its not something as simple as where you fall asleep
You might feel safe with the trees and you might be at peace with the waves
But that doesn’t make you fit to live among them
We were never meant to live in the celestial bodies above or below
And we’re not meant for our own skin
Home is the curve of her smile when she looks at you
Its about knowing her favorite words to wake up to
And your favorite words on her lips as you kiss her
Home is where her scent lingers on everything
Where you can still hear her laughter between the couch cushions
And knowing she is ticklish below her third rib but only on the left side
Its where you can still see her when you can’t remember what day it is
Home is where the eviction notice was nailed to the door
*~W.C.

Take your time and finish what you have to say
I’ll be here carving our names into the branches of these trees
Those dark clouds are always rolling in
Constantly screaming her name at me
The spiders spin their webs around our necks
Please whisper to me don’t let me forget
Sit with me and watch the whole world fade away
These hollow hands and silence hanging between us
Why can’t we see everything falling apart
It rains again and the spectrum falls down to grey
On these shores we’re sinking we’re falling helpless
We’ve lost ourselves in things we were never meant to feel
I’m the one who fled to the sea looking for safety outside of your hands
Somewhere in the deep
*~W.C.

The miracle, the way that we have found enough light in people to see them as more than a spit of darkness, is my biggest question.
Because the heart is tender, and more of a song than anything else,
and it is up to us who we allow to echo throughout our hollow bodies, proving again that our anatomy an opera house, and coming home a
form of apologizing without even speaking. You only die as many times as you live, you only come back somewhere one time until it starts to become a
piece of you.
People are the same way.

It was not how her hands
trembled pouring orange juice at breakfast, or how I saw his eyes never looking at her the right way,
but it was the silence that broke my heart. The quiet, the absence of everything beautiful floating in midair, suspended like lungs that
were made to be drowned and never had the taste of saltwater.
Silence, more than any word, carries the weight of cities, it is
the red exit sign, sitting atop the door near the back of every
restraunt that you look for without even meaning to. I want to
write about life, and how much it simply is, and how there is so much
to it, but I can't tell the difference between it, and the moments that
define it. All of these personal infinities that shape us like skin was made from wood and hands made to carve, and I find myself grateful for the small
eternities that come to me.
All of these ways to take the tender from the heart.

sometimes i wonder if god keeps a record
of all the times i have been left,
all the times i have been unable to leave.
i wonder if he thinks to himself,
"when will she learn?"
as if he feels my heartache too.
i picture god with a furrowed brow,
hunched over a typewriter,
beginning me again and again,
a mountain of crumpled paper at his feet.
but somehow -
he always ends up at the same point in the story
where i am all ****** palms
and half-hearted hallelujahs
propped up on bruised knees.
spitting up blood & teeth at his feet screaming,
"IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT?"
but he doesn't answer.
and i catch myself wondering if the silence
is his way of punishing me for making a deity out of you.
after all, the bible says he is a jealous god.
i could've sworn there was a verse somewhere
that said you weren't allowed to love anyone other than me.
but now that i think about it,
i probably took it out of context.
if i could add a parable to those already existing,
it would be how your chest
felt like church under my head,
and how i thought to myself,
"this is how it would be if he loved me back."
or how you fled my bedroom like a crime scene.
i am still bleeding.
i won't tell you how many times
i cracked my heart in half
trying to be what you wanted.
how my lips on your skin felt judas.
now i am waiting for god to begin me once more,
hoping he'll leave you out of the plot this time
because i don't think i could stand to lose you again.
see, rumor has it he knew you'd leave
and has been trying to make it up to me
since before we'd even met.
my song is one of repentance.
the wood finish from abandoned pews
rotting under my fingernails.
i made sacrifices you didn't ask for.
i have never known
whether my inability to abandon people
is more a strength or a weakness
but so far everyone i've ever loved
has turned into an exit wound,
and myself into a flickering no vacancy sign.

- m.f.

i always thought
you were thru traffic
that you were just jet lag
background noise
the kiss in the rain
i've never had
but what if you aren't?
what if this
was the thousandth time
i have loved you?
what if this is just a fresh coat of paint?
what if god
keeps a handkerchief
soaked in the day we met
next to his bed?
maybe theres a reason
i reach for no one in bed
the way i would
if someone used to be there
you know, they say
the road behind us
is littered with things
we couldn't hold onto
i wonder how many times
you've slipped through my hands
like hour glass sand
do you know
how much erosion you've caused?
i heard cupid
stopped keeping count
of how many times
we came together
just to come apart again
maybe it was just a rumor
it makes me think
about how many times
i've almost had you
like if all this talk
about history repeating itself
endlessly replaying is true
i wonder how many times
things have happened already
like the time
i tried talking you
into loving me back
back fired
or the time i could have sworn
jesus & lazarus were playing chess
with my heartbeat
but it was only you smiling
how many times
have i tried to tell you
how many times
have you read this poem
how many times
have i tried not to meet you
in my dreams anymore
it's like sleep tries to warn
me of what's happening
before it does but
i keep having this dream
where i tell you bedtime stories
and each one
is a different way you die
and in every one
i can never save you
it's like you're this song
i have on repeat
and every time it starts over
i forget the words
it's like you picked up the book entitled "us"
and the back cover
said you'd leave
so you never bothered reading it
tell me you aren't
going back in that bookstore
just to do it again
or will you tell me tomorrow?
or is this the time
you don't say anything at all?
if this has all happened before
if we call it quits
before we begin
again
from the beginning
i just want to ask you
to be my fire
because i am tired
of these old lives
and i'd like to see them
burn

theory:

1 // don't fall in love with the girl who has grey eyes reminding you of fragmented moonlight and of fluttering high tide against a silver shore.

2 // don't fall in love with the way she tucks her hair behind her ear just so she can appreciate the way your voice falls like ethereal windchimes over her trembling heart.

3 // don't buy her flowers; she'll keep them even though they've wilted.

4 // don't tell her she's beautiful; she'll spend hours trying to find her name in its definitions within every dictionary she can get her hands on.

5 // fold her paperplanes and watch her fly them off the tops of skyscrapers but don't allow her to follow where flight fails her.

6 // trace your name over her skin only with your lips, because it will be more permanent than ink.

7 // but don't fall in love with the girl who has a shattered smile, she'll be here one moment and gone with the next monsoon.