she was so beautiful
so i plucked her from her bed,
denied her a glass of water,
and suffocated her between
two encyclopedias
so she could stay
that way
f
o
r
e
v
e
r

to the nights where tomorrow looms bright as star graced eve
and glimpsed from sight, into obscurity and then
out of reach
where we make amends with the moonlight; so hesitant to outshine the sun
or rouse the sleeping child from bed
until dawn
our boats float down the riverbed where we watch them slide through black streams
and water cold and brilliant, passing timely
never stagnant
moving in and out of luminance with the cadence of age
following the maps in the sky there for those seeking though
never quite at place
carrying along the breeze, that shifts through the night
and the kisses of the rising sun before long, tall days
that feel like many
and into that daylight where tomorrow wanes and ripples and rises
like the edge of the horizon, against all that is
still

Then as she parts
She never leaves
Lingers as dust
Or a palm on concrete

When she breathes
She needs not air
Her now scent gone
The dress she wears

Swatch of silk
That wind commands
The jagged edge
Of her silver hand

Her whisper creeps
Through carpet halls
Sideways sway
on garden wall

Tendon creak
And teapot bubble
She stays a spell
And means no trouble

A gentle hum
With every set
Shes merely gone
But she never left

the rust on these walls
has begun to beckon and call
me back to a state
of wanting never to look back
so young and obscene

my cold brought by warmth
is stagnant as times shuffles forth
to new chateaus uphill
where the numbers live in safety
on beautiful screens

I'm still there when its storming
listening to the bells and ghosts swarming
as echos in these halls
still alive in the ways of this building
growing old and mean

Our tears have solidified to rust
now far too late for most of us
to reclaim forgotten comforts
cast aside with indifference
in that foolish scene

but those walls still stand in concrete
rotting away in summers heat
still guarding the memories
cast aside for sake of forgetting
ever being thirteen

The glass walls shield me away from a world contradicting the one in my journals. My experience is limited through generations of filters designed to rid me of challenge and deprive me of ambition. They have prevented my escape with their attentive care. When I step outside my throat closes at the smell of flowers, eyes water when its sunny, legs tense up inclinations. I could burn myself inside of this townhouse and I'd still be freezing. The uncomfortable is as foreign to me as the tops of trees. I am only exercised out of obligation to the billboard queens and anticipation of physical intimacy. I breathe out of habit. Fresh air tastes like money. I can't walk outside when it's raining, for fear it washes away my face. I am sanitized until numb. Educated until dumb. Holding my breath so I fall out of consciousness and into a blanket of stars. Each of them brighter than ours. Meant to remind me of the sky hiding behind my glass walls. Neither waiting for, nor needing me. Simply having the autonomy to be.