sleepwalking for one more hour.

sleepwalking for two decades with a protruding gut and
eyes as buried deep as petrified wood,
i’ve dug up a treasure-
a realization, if you will.
everyone will leave when they see the ice sheets on my bones.

a feather without a breeze,
a storm of acid rain,

wind currents in hibernation,

gasping, treading, begging for a direction to open eyelids,
sinking,
sinking,
losing oxygen-

marathons,
pockets filled to the brim with stones,
i am drowning as far inland as a swimmer can be,

i am a cold, cosmic dot and one hour will not burn enough energy-
my brothers and sisters in the cold, i am
one hour further away from leaving this lonely, unforgiving, jagged, racially segregated and
factory farming piece of terrain that has worn down my bones without ever using a blade.

one hour closer to the next heartbreak, to feeling my heart as a vase dropped down the stairs of an apartment complex, friendly enough to feel its walls in my soul like fresh lipstick on my cheek, apathetic enough to leave the shards under the jungle jim for weeks.

one hour further away from the dishonest dream of my grass-stained bare feet, no nails in tires, and mom singing to pop radio while making chicken-
one hour more distant from broken pencils and dad’s empty beer bottles. drifting like a poor, lonely cloud given the horrific gift of conscious thought, i am one hour further away.


sinking.

one more hour of frozen tundra,
i am waiting for daylight to come and pass
as a sheep without wool,
dying much too slowly,

for one more wretched,
godless
hour.

I'm a very angry, self-destructive person.
I like to blame it on the fact that I'm an Aries.
I have fire in my veins, heat radiating off of my skin.
Please don't touch me.

"You touched my fingertips.
I felt it. My heart skipped a beat.
Taking hold of my hand. It stopped.
The high school child in me embraced
the playtime once again.
Sitting on a park bench thinking of our bleachers
at the Friday night football games.
Now we cheer for the pigeons as they fight
for the bread crumbs.
It's all so beautiful, only different times.
We are here still together, that's all that really
matters.
Beautiful to reminisce, grateful that
we can.
To kiss each others lips, and start our hearts
pumping once again."

lost ash blurred skin lips emptiness there was something before but it has fled departed in out something important meaningful run into the ground through streams of bitter ache i was a memory caught in its own remembrance straining to be heard now i am nothing returned to the vessel womb death it is six and the heater does nothing air like frost father telling me that the future is positivism there was a staircase surreal void morrow the edge of the world lost between something i could not perceive trapped in the moment flashing with red tumbling seeking losing words sinking through my own flesh to the earth dirt too far from my head to tell grains apart split like atomic what did i want to remember i have spent days losing too much on purpose bed soaked a matted waste of sweat and the hours **** splitting futures like a prism where i find myself a stranger i cannot stand she us a wretched heart on a couch sitting all sudden a boring cliche lips running along salt severed skin fingers head the bone breaks the back arcs itself in an unending whimper a voice escapes and i’m left trying to catch it in the morning teeth the sliver of a smile haunting the air like a phantom fingers trace smoke sunbeams and feel nothing i fell into her like ash the breaking end of a cigarette all cold and irreversible a collapsed worthless wake and now i am alone

And the sun begins;
Hot damp rays which
Glow in the morning,
Glaze in the evening
And blaze in the afternoon,

And dusk begins;
of feathery air and fireflies,
Hot as firey amber,
Cool as a sea of Shadow
Growing long as day grows old

And the summer fire fades;
Long red rays dip below the sea
The cool blue air like water
Drips through the open windows
And sets cool hands on fevered flesh

The early
          Summer
                        Sets
In a blaze

     And night becomes the world

In the brisk night air of the city,
The crowd in the bar and the music
Spill out into the street like stale beer.

Sharing drinks and discussions
With Swedes and rock n' rollers,
Surprisingly found delightful.

No lack of slumber will slow us,
The nighthawks flying close over
The gulls swimming in the grimy river,

And on a second stolen glance,
Sometimes the world is so small,
So pleasurable, so far and so good.

-Jamie F. Nugent

I remember how you claimed to read me like a book
And then left me on the shelf
Forgotten by the person
I could never forget
Slowly quietly
Hiding behind closed doors
I remember
The time I loved you
Quickly frantically burying my tears
In the cloth of my sleeves
I remember
The time I loved you