I crave human affection as much as
a flower demands photosynthesis
hiding beneath a shaded tree. It has
no control over capriciousness
from the sun.

The disappointment that resides in me,
as much as I tell it to go away,
swallows my entire body.

It eats away at my flesh and rarely
leaves enough time for skin to regenerate.
The disappointment that resides in me

licks its lips hungrily
at the sight of my blood, salivates
and swallows my entire body.

This cannot be healthy,
I say to myself. There has to be a way to invalidate
the disappointment that resides in me.

I wonder if there was ever a phase of sobriety
when my expectations' weight
did not swallow my entire body.

I suppose I must return to reality
and succumb to incubate
the disappointment that resides in me,
that swallows my entire body.

One day someone will hold my body, reach
intimate places, steal breaths from my throat
and his cold barb-wired fingers will breach
my silk-woven skin, leaving me to choke.
I'm afraid I'm not sufficient enough
to let his love crawl in me, sweeping dust
away that no one has bothered to touch
after all these years. Certainly he must
not want to encounter a tornado
that destructs everything that could save me.
When he's done, there will not be a halo
above his head. He precariously
set my heart up for more disappointment.
He took my trust with the lack of consent.

Realizing I am slipping away from her when she didn't text me happy birthday this year. Even though we haven't talked in four years, the very least we could do is say, "I thought of you today, and I hope it's going great." The absence of that sank its fangs into my throat.

Sipping a hot cinnamon dolce latte while sitting on the second floor deck of the student center. Watching students stream in waves to classes, and wondering what their story is.

Hearing the three chimes in 'Cassy O' and the guitar's chaos at minute 6:47 to 7:45 of 'Freedom' live at the Hammersmith Apollo, 2007.

Gazing at the sky when the sun is on the other side of the world, but a shade of crimson tinges in a terrifying drench.

Conversely, when the sky is so white, all one smooth blanket, I wonder what color will I see when I finally go to sleep- or will I be stuck in a black film?

Knowing a boy is near me so I stretch my neck, straighten my back, and hope he notices everything I want a person to notice and grow to love.

The disappointment people have in me swallows my whole body. Sometimes it's an act of cannibalism, and I can't push away regret faster than it starts to lick its lips at the sight of my glistening blood.

Seeing a picture of my younger self from sixteen, and it seems I have changed far too much to connect with the person in the image. She didn't know anything. I still don't know anything.

I stare at myself in the mirror, sometimes fully clothed and sometimes naked, and I wonder, "Who the hell is this? Who is she?" I detach my soul from my frame, and my face does not match my mind.

My eyes can just take a picture. I know the quality and the subject, my camera does not. I see angles and perspectives differently, and it frustrates me that I cannot get my vision out.

Some days my hearing does not affect me whatsoever. I don't even think about it. But others, particularly when I make mistakes, I blame my disability. And I hate to make excuses.

I want someone to film my passing moments, catch my laughter, study my ****** expressions. Expect me to glow and beam when I hear my favorite sounds, know where my dialect comes from, smile when I mention my friends.

One day someone will hold me and reach intimate places, and I'm afraid I will not be sufficient enough.

The scariest thing, however, and I absolutely have no way of explaining it, is life after death. We live for a fraction of time. We will forever live in white space, and not come alive again. Doesn't that terrify you?

the worst kind of crying
is that film residing in your throat
glazing over your vocal chords.
your stomach is twisted
into tiny intricate knots, triple tied.
your eyes bead in the corners,
glistening but not dripping.
you feel that you will never
be as sad as this moment.
your brain shuts off
a failed attempt to detach itself
from the veins fusing and tightening
stars heighten without blinking.
you have become so unaware of your actual body
the sadness eats away
at whatever remains. and even then
you are much too empty
to be dissembled.

The scary thing about
how time heals
is that I forgot
the only person I wanted to remember.
I force myself to be okay with that.
I started to lose

all the details about her, all the fights I knew I'd lose
before the arguments began, because I couldn't stand to think about
her being upset with me. I was quick to let her think that
the tension between us healed
that neither of us could remember
the reason we were fighting in the first place. I forgot

her coffee order when she's sad, I forgot
how she freaked out when she lost
the callback to someone we despised. I forgot how she remembers
that I counted how many chicken nuggets I ordered. She was all about
knowing the little things that kept me at ease, that healed
my stress away from her. But then I knew that,

with the poison I kept on the tip of my tongue, that
would be impossible. She tended to forget
even though she was the one to heal
me emotionally when no one else could, she would lose
me at the same time with disappointment. It was not her fault. About
four years now, I'm still alone in pictures. I remember

that we were always together in a single frame. I remember
I kept my mouth closed and she smiled with her teeth. That
passenger seat remained empty, beneath a full moon about
to transform into new. Once I forget
eclipses only last a few hours, I lose
the nostalgia that never did get me healed.

Replaying my memories will not heal
what I once had. I will not remember
everything I thought I'd never lose.
Once it hits, I am on the floor, pressing into the cold tiles, so close that
I can reimagine her skin, and I will never forget
all of the things I thought about.

I believe she can no longer heal me and that kills me.
I can't remember to forget her.
I constantly wonder about her, and the universe I lost.

one pitcher of sugar, three tea bags
can't sweeten the southern drink
any more than you could sweeten
your flat, stale love

I need to stop looking
at her as though the sun has risen,
and the rays paint the universe in a collection
of pinks and oranges, and sparkles the terrain.
She cannot be the most beautiful thing
I have ever seen. For she is also the night
who constantly leaves me in the dark
when I need only a single slant of light
to scarcely live.

Watching the exchange of two people in love
really validates the small percent of hope
I have left in marriage. It completely overshadows
the bad experiences I've seen between my parents.
You see how she absolutely lights up
when he talks, like the stars have arrived
after a rainy day. For those few moments
of seeing real love, I forgot all my cynical
views and desperately wished I had that exchange.
Hearing him say "This is why I married you"
after she said some intelligent remark about our
parts of speech work sheet, and her smile
spoke all the words unsaid. How so in love she still
is, with this man from their wedding ten years ago, and a kid throughout their ongoing journey. They are a story
so rarely told, and I want to shout to the world that love
remains alive.

Two linked sugars make up a disaccharide. And that's
what we are. Simple, plain
table sugar, dully passed back
and forth to sweeten our taste.
Sometimes I'll accidentally switch
the shakers for breakfast, hand

you the salt, and you hand
me a spice so harsh that
my tongue curls at the unexpected switch.
I do not prefer the boring, plain
predictable exchange of taste
I followed for so many years back.

So I turn my back
to you, hold up my hand
as a shield of what you would say next. "Have you lost your taste,"
you say, anger overshadowing your faded love, "that
I've grown plain
to you?" I knew then to make the switch

into freedom from the same scene replayed. I get up and turn the light switch
off and leave you in the dark. "When you get back
from work," I say to the plain
dining room, "you will find this ring off my hand."
I can barely see your eyes glowing in the only source of morning light. "That's
absurd," you exclaim. "All because of how I want my cereal to taste?"

I shake my head. "It's not the physical taste. It's the taste
of you that makes me want to switch
out of this marriage. You aren't giving me what I want, and that
is my reason to back
out of this. You offered your hand
to hold mine, to support me, but it's all so plain."

I continue, "And isn't it plain
to see that my taste
in relationships lack passion? I give out my hand
to anything that flicks the switch
of love. You give me the nudge to turn it back
off." With that

I exit the house and try to restore my taste the way I had it back
to my actual preferences. I switch from the plain
safety and run with the risk that I never had at hand.

The sun undresses its silky rays
before the blushing earth.

The earth gazes,
her sapphire eyes soak in
the glimmering shot of dawn. The moon
hide away, curving against
the hangnail of light. Stars
scintillate their last dust of evening.

“You always act like you’ve never seen me before.”
The sun removes another layer.
“Like each time is too good to be true. ”

Spinning, the earth grows dizzy. “You are the one who
abandons me in the dark.”

Above the horizon, the sun smiles.
“Clairvoyance is buried inside of you.
You know I will always return.”

The sun’s amber skin
radiates along coasts and cities,
intensifying. Brightness diminishes-
night turns into day into night once more.

“I’m still alive for you, love.”
The earth tucks in the trails of dusk
as the sun cradles revolving planets.

“See you again, soon.”

there's a part of me that keeps
checking in to see how
your life is going. I can't shield
my curiosity from the pain
when I see that you have replaced
me in each pose
every sunset
and a single smile that
was not catapulted at me.

There's a huge disconnect when I see your face
that memories have burned themselves
far too much to resemble ashes
and as I try to rearrange the picture
it seems the person I knew
does not exist anymore.
the person I tried so hard to forget
when you were the only one
I wanted to remember
I can't rush back to the start
and not notice how much you've changed.

One day, maybe in two years, I’ll eventually
finally experience the rush
I’ve dreamt of the future
that I so terribly ached
for, that I would undoubtedly  risk
the factors of throwing away used

items that I no longer cherished, used
people only needed to be a stand-in, and eventually
the risk
will not catch up to me, since the rush
of real happiness overshadows the ache
like a penumbra clearing away in the future.

But it’s terrifying knowing that the future
will become a washed up, used
daydream to quiet the ache
I thought would never eventually
stop the overflowing rush
knowing that my biggest dream is entirely a risk.

I am willing to take the risk
so that my deserved  future
will swell over the echoed rush
coffee beans stained  used
cups will eventually
wash away ache.

My heart quickens
so terribly fast when I listen to the voicemail
that I've gotten an interview
for a job I blindly applied to.
That dreaded "tell me about yourself"
question, I respond with a different answer every
single time. I don't really
know much about myself
except that I change as often
as a song in shuffle,
the clouds drift in seasons,
rising from sleep
after a long night.

Against the perimeter of my childhood backyard
cluttered rows of privet hedges produced
tiny ruby berries, easily crushed if stepped on.
They always fell from the branches
in the slightest trail of wind.

Cougars prowled my playground.
My parents, hesitant to let me out alone,
planted the bushes
in the hopes the cougars would
eat the Ligustrum ovalifolium and never return.

I knew the berries were toxic
and could make me ***** more than what I consumed,
a time bomb in my stomach.
Mother said the poison could make
me shiver harder than a winter day.

When, once, I raised a berry to my lips
Mother plunged forward
and slapped it out of my fingers,
a strange mixture of anger and concern in her eyes.
I was never to pick one again.

I didn’t understand the problem
until I saw two cougars laying behind a privet—
a mama and her cub
no longer breathing in sync.

The president of the horticulture club
thumbs the violet leaves of a aconite
ignoring the shooting pain crawling on her skin.
The other members glare at her,
waiting for the reaction-
touch the frail plant
and your mouth is sure to set on fire.
The contact she has on the flower
is insanely dangerous.
Potent alkaloids bloom overhead
and she continues to breathe in deeply as if she is trying to swallow
the strong, acrid taste of the atmosphere,
which should have sent her into a frenzy of disorientation
and seizures of her small limbs
but at last, she glances
at the frozen treasurer and spoke calmly, her mouth slouching,
"Are you writing this down?
I want the future of this club
to know to never touch plants
without doing their research."
Then she blinks,
slumps against the bench,
undeterred.

They say you can’t keep your prying eyes off of a w r e c k.

The extended siren diminishes even as it creeps closer,
the road only grows harder, pierced glass and incarnadine blood.

Clear in your head where you're setting those sights,
disregard the stench of burnt metal and the doused fire of the passenger seat,
block out the screams that streams into your ears.

There is nothing to be curious about.

The slow, infantile pause while your pitying gaze
shifts across the midnight scene
is the only thing the jaded victims can feel,
beside the rusted pain destroying their decaying bodies.

Strangers are the distraction from the d e s t r u c t i o n.

My father tells me what should be my first memory of hearing:
A car scuttles up the gravel hill in front of the home I loved.
I drop my chalk and run to the end of the driveway,
as if I am chasing the exhaust of fumes sputtering out the tail pipe,
wondering what on earth is that strain of air
since I was not given sound from birth.

At my testing, the audiologist put me in a soundproof booth:
The ocean has forgotten to pull its stitches together for the life of it.
I want to scream that I feel like I am drowning
as the waves tormented me into debilitation,
kicking for a gasp of air, just anything to break the current.
I cannot keep myself afloat.

My friend’s voice is the most beautiful I’ve ever heard:
Her laugh makes me want to jump in euphoric joy, like she’s dosed me with ecstasy.
I can see her smile and it speaks all the words I don't need to hear.
When she repeats a story for the third time, I do not mind
that she trusts me with her voice and her whimsical light
since she is the only one patient enough to put up with my aggravating nuisances.

That night at the David Gray concert, my God what a beautiful night:
I am so familiarized with the stretching of violin strings and guitar plucks,
Gray’s hypnotic vocals roaring into my heart with the bass thumping
into my disabled ears, rendered quite useless until I have tasted such delightful surprise
with so many of my favorite noises encasing me into their world,
that I have forgotten my own disability.

It peeves me when I am with others:
The muffling of girls whispering once the lights are out;
my stepfather keeping the TV volume low and does not provide caption while the movie rolls;
how I answer the question with the wrong response and receive confused glares.
I am a lonesome tree in the woods
with no one around to see my inevitable fall as the fire plagues on.

A technical transition last July:
Misery trenched my mind as everything rang louder-
the shuffling of my hair against my ears bothered me very much so;
I heard women talking from three tables over at the pizza place.
First given nothing, now having too much,
I am not appreciative of all the sounds in the frantic tussle of daily life.

A forest begins to chill at four o clock:
The leaves flutter on the terrain in a dance no one knows,
the sun warms me in a song with lyrics I can’t comprehend.
I am relishing what is given to me, that even though I am broken,
I still realize that I would much rather be deaf
than to ever go blind.

I’ve always believed that we were on the same wavelength,
but never the same tide.
From here I can almost see the sea
with you on the other shore.
Are you reaching out to me? Or is this morning fog too strong?

I glance at you from the other side of the room,
hoping that maybe you are looking back
wondering if I was looking back at you.
My eyes shift down when they’re tangled in your sight.
I wish you’d notice me.

There has only been a few times when you stood close to me.
As I felt the heat radiating off your tall body
a hurricane collided. The tides have crashed.
It feels like lightning running through my veins
then it all stops when you step away.

In little ways you remind me that we belong together
but you don’t see it like I do.
Of course you don’t.
It’s been eight years. By now,
I figure you’d realize it too.

It’s lonely being on this side of the ocean.

My mind is a thousand rooms lit on fire,
a fuse crawled on every window,
pins and needles holding up posters of blank faces,
for the person that belonged in that body is not the same as the memory.
My mind is the intersection at dawn,
lazy cars drowning thoughts,
red lights on all four corners,
until the light turns into a green frenzy.
My mind wisps like tendrils of coffee,
sweet bitter dreams,
that never does quite come alive
when it only leaves a faint taste.
My mind cannot erase the doors you walked in,
or the smiles that blew my way,
and the air you scented in your perfume
of hay and horses from your Saturday hobby.
My mind likes to pretend that I hated you,
that I despised how we sat two desks away and we never said hello, even though it’s been three years since we’ve spoken a word.
I’m doing all that I can to not crumble when I see you have moved on.
My mind constantly replays that night at the football game,
and the conversation we had a week later that said
“I don’t want to say it. But we can’t be friends anymore.”
It broke me like a summer hurricane.
My mind doesn’t know how to let you go.
It, and I, are having a hard time
finding something to fill the space
you have left
in my mind.

The first bite of a strawberry,
bulbous soft ruby,
tastes so extremely bitter
as your friendship was to me
that after several berries,
my tongue dissolves the sour
sting of disappointment
slowly
diminishing.

sometimes you never really know
how the carpet looks
until you stare at it so long
that the fabric melts in
you start to feel cross that you cant
distinguish
whether it is purple with yellow waves
or yellow with purple waves
or if it's just really
ugly carpet to begin with.

A shred of gasoline spills
each time I give myself to you.
I continue to light my breaking limbs on fire
each time you glance at me.
The flames burn and lick and spread
each time we crash we disintegrate we exist no more.

I can't say goodbye to the fact that you saved me. That you understood me, the fragility of my heart, and the broken glass of my thoughts. You were always my first choice. You're my strings of lights that's guiding me home. You made me forget the world. There were so many things that you have done for me, that I can't thank you enough for. I'm still living because of you. Please do not feel guilty for my actions, and yours. Time and life happened. We were just meant for those five years, no more and no less.

I felt homeless
even though I had two houses.
I asked myself,
why do I always have to pack a bag
to go to the next house.
I never really felt at home in either place.
Of course I appreciated the bed
hardened by years of my emotionless body
but I never had a home within range.
My real home is 2120 miles away from my house.
Sadness is just about the only thing I experience,
beside the anger in my parents for their sickening divorce
beside the loneliness that hallowed me into a stone heart
beside the nostalgia I crave to be at peace again
for the first time in fourteen years.

Nostalgia hijacks unnecessarily
bleeding into a bloodless heart
where I feel peculiar
outside of my puppet body
the force dragging me to the next location
the next goal
the next unfulfilled dream.
I do not feel alive. I do not feel like I am breathing.
My stomach rises, but my hopes crash.
Every lock crunches together when I run into a bad thing
I shut myself off to protect myself
from an inevitable feeling that will not matter
once I'm beyond the earth
once I'm packed in a grave
and shipped off to the next meaningless life.

i hate that im not sleeping with you tonight
i finally warmed up to the comfort of being near someone somewhat close for a long amount of time
obviously it doesnt have to be specifically with you for me to feel that comfort
but i know ill crave it until i find someone that im remotely comfortable with
even though i panicked i still liked the idea that i was next to someone
and now i feel a little empty with no body shifting beside me
(and sleeping with their mouth open to collect air rushing in)

still i felt desolate
while singing miley's "the climb"
while laying on the pavement
with her watching the stars
while blurring the lights of el paso
behind my sights
because while i love who im with
im not in love
and i constantly wonder
what its like to be with someone
who loves you back
all the same.

the world is mind numbingly quiet
the streets drenched in nostalgic sepia,
the kind that ushers you into a movie moment reeling in
under the notes of a power ballad
and all of a sudden you just feel
alive but detached from your life.
your body is immobile in a moving vehicle,
your brain takes pictures
of the people that is around you,
and you realize that their life
is not yours.
they are under impressions of sunrises
and the shading of trees in the summer's sleep,
while you exist
because of the way the street appears
at night beneath the empty moon.

I am the typewriter and you were
backspacing backspacing backspa
all my words as if I had never said them.
You knew I meant
every letter I slammed down
furiously into the keyboard
writing about you
about your lack of making time
closing me off last minute
ignoring any plans we made at all.
I don't get why you had to leave my
thoughts as if they were not validated.
If someone cared for you as much as I do,
I sure hope you don't backspace on them
before they can get a word out.

Whoever swoops into my heart next
please don't make a nest
and then fly away when you're ready to be on your own.
Don't use me as a shelter
to keep you from the drowning rain
and expect me to feed you
when nothing else is living.
It’s hard holding a home sturdy
sufficiently well for my aching soul.
The branches are already trembling
the weeping wind echoing
lost, diminished cries
of the ones who took off.
I know I push you away
when you get too close,
but this is where you fight to hold on longer.
I keep losing the ones I love
because they have not loved me
enough to stay.

Two linked sugars
make up a disaccharide.
And that’s what we are-
simple, plain table sugar
dully passed back and forth
to sweeten our taste.
Sometimes I'll accidentally
switch the shakers for breakfast,
hand you the salt
just to change up the spice.
And sometimes I regret
the bitter words
you exchange in return
for breaking the boring
status quo.

I put my trust in an already
broken vase and
handed it to you.
I said, "If this cracks
even a little bit,
my trust will ooze out
and the shard that splits
is a piece of my heart
that ran away again."
It's taken me so long
to find that piece
and convince it to
fit back where it was supposed to.
But it always struggle to accept.
This is where I urge you
to not drop me.

It's getting easier to say goodbye to you.
Every time I migrate away from home to find warmth,
leave you behind in the cold,
I am taking back a piece of my soul
that I have left in your icy hands.
You still have the same hold, the same capture,
but I am learning that it's much easier
to keep my heart to myself.

They say that the Arizona trout is found
only in this state,
and I wonder if I had not found you
who else would have taken me in?
The sore problem is maybe
you have discovered me on accident
when there was someone else out there
that needed you instead.
I'm petrified at the thought
that if I swim away,
no one would ever find me again.

One day we were counting
the ghosts of our mistakes
and you randomly brought up,
"Ernest Hemingway saved his manuscripts
by throwing them out the upstairs window
while his studio was burning."

I compared you to Hemingway
that a man can love words
more than an actual person,
more than his own life at stake.

To which I responded,
as I hope it marred your mind,
“I liked the idea of loving you.
I wanted some sort of filler
to compensate for the feelings I got.”

Your fixation was intensely unnerving,
like you were unwrapping every vein that rippled in my body.
I carried on, watching the embers of fault lick you profusely.

“For some reason, I use people until there’s nothing left to use.
Romantically, I used you to cover what I wanted-
Cast you in daydreams where it is like this right now,
in a coffee shop underneath the streetlights.

“It was all the idea of it.
As much as I wanted to make up our relationship,
I couldn’t imagine what it was like to really be with you.
To be close to you, your hand in mine,
to watch your favorite movies under a warm blanket, to jump
in the car with you to chase a sunset.
To have you text me at two in the morning
and tell me I’m beautiful.”

You began to protest,
but I wouldn’t listen.
There is something satisfying
in expressing true happiness
rather than dwelling on it in your mind.
I knew you weren’t giving me that.

“So I don’t think I was ever in love with you.
Just the thought of you.”

Nothing works out in the end.
All of us will be gone.
Our name will not be remembered.

The signs and lights will fade to black.
The Hollywood sign will collapse of old age, like us.
Poppies shrivel up, their red coats falling onto the scorched earth.
Grapes transcend into wrinkly sacs of bitter wine.

The way your hand slipped in mine,
the fingerprints will rub away.
Our heart beats slow,
diminish.
Our laughter evanesce,
wanes
as our voices descend past the Pacific ocean.