My heart hurts for you.
For the swirling ashes
You call home. The burning
Embers, the paper smoke
You call your soul. Thunder—
It was like thunder. A thick cloud,
Dense enough to smother the sun.
Silence settles deep in my bones. I
Breathe you in, and you constrict
My throat. You looked like snow
On the streets below.
My eyes were wide, my beliefs were
Stolen. I watched you crash, dust
To dust, and so many hearts
Were broken. The taste of
Horrifying defeat sinks in, like
You do, bitter and reeking of
Concrete and steal. And I saw
You fall, I saw you fall. I saw you
Bend and break, I saw the end of it
All. It looked like a hot knife
Cutting through butter, but the knife
Was on fire you and you were
Determined not to be deterred
From the stairwell where you heard
Every shattered window screeching
Like titanium steal, beseeching you—
Listen to the warning, 93 flights away.
But you’re on fire, on my tongue.
A reminder of the two-thousand
seven-hundred and forty-eight things I
should’ve-could’ve done.  
Yes, my heart hurts for you, my son.

I've been paid to pour sticky-sweet
dancing-juice down the throats
of men who can't afford
a ******
but want the salt of Bourbon Street
on their tongues when they wake up.
I've stumbled up to my door,
dropping the keys and loudly spitting out a
"Shh!"
to myself, to retain some sense
of dignity.
I've woken up with an army in my head,
shouts muddled because their leader
has been shot, and all they can do now
is stomp around and
make loud noise and
hurt.

It never hurt as much
as being awake without a hangover
and having nothing physical
to nurse.

I forget what I wanted to write about.

I forget because I'm cold,
and I'm on the front porch
of my parents' house while they're both asleep.
Because they know I smoke, but
I don't like to rub it in. Like,
"This is what you've taught me to avoid!
And this
is all I rely on!"
And that's all I hear.
And I don't want them
to hear that.

And I forget
what I wanted rely on,
but when I think about it,
it sounds like music notes in my head,
and there's no way you can hear the song,
because it fades in the distance
(on a minor chord)
when I toss the cigarette ****
into the ivy, where my parents won't see it
as a constant reminder of how
I fell so hard.

So you can't hear what I hear.
And I can't really hear it either,
but when I wake up
in the afternoon
on my parents' couch,
all I know is
there's something I should be listening to,
and maybe it's the wisps of my dream,
or maybe it's something bigger
I can't quite grasp, but,
I should hear it.
And I can't.

So, at two PM, I fall back asleep,
trying to hear it again.
Or maybe, I wake up,
and wander around wearing oversized clothes
and wait to put on deodorant unless
I go outside,
and until then, I eat everything in the house
until I feel satisfied
and I never will.

Everything smells like cigarette smoke,
and nothing smells
like the butterflies in my gut.

But strangers like the camels I smoke.
So I purge my nervous stomach
onto the blank canvas in front of me;

and I bathe myself in nervous applause,
while my insides
wrestle with the snake left in my belly,
never to be seen
by the audience, because
lovers don't like that.

Remember the time you asked
    why we can't just fast forward to the
        house and the wooded state and
                our well-trodden garden?

I understand now.

         And I would.

I find the places we have been
    miss us while we're away

for rivers to know laughter and then
          only the rush of water

            no parameters, no
         sense of urgency,
                
       nothing compares.

Perhaps I'm growing up,
Learning to take responsibility; to stop ******* up,
Saying no, tonight I'll think I'll just go home,
Go to bed sober; go to bed alone,
And think for a while about who I'll grow to be,
Maybe there is an adult inside of me.

Perhaps with the new pills,
I can feel the pleasure; I can feel the thrills,
Without the anxiety
I can open up; I can be me,
And show the whole world who I will grow to be,
Maybe I can fit into society.

Perhaps my inner child died that night,
No resistance; no fight or flight,
No longer looking for thrills,
Still leaves me empty; still gives me chills,
And all that's left is an empty mold,
Ready, set, society take your hold.

Your words, they seep into my ears
Shards of glass leaving my soul
Red and raw and full of tears.
Repeated insults take their toll.
Until scabs form over that place
That makes you vibrant and caring.
Flushed tissues of layered lace
Whisper to the knife,
"Do you know about sharing?"

when it was over
I was lost........ again
inbetween right and wrong
sanity       senility
day       and      night

here you are

finally

but where am I?
somewhere between me
and what others want from me
I've proven to be capable of stupidity
and ignorant enough to tease
irreversible territory

don’t take me to where this started

          Through the window I see her rubbing his back in the
          flickering light of late night TV . Something is wrong.
          It isn't quite right, he's only 17.  she swears
          it isn't what it seems

my eyes are closed and yet I see with
a heightened sense of taste, the bitterness of
that hot September night across the screen of my mind

I taste it again

I taste it again

I taste it

I taste

and you lose

on another screen
I'm standing on a railroad track
a train approaches
I move to the left
a parallel track
a parallel train
I move again
another track
another train
It starts to rain

and my world closes in
like a zipper of cold teeth

closing off escape

closing off escape

closing off

closing

lost

I've got nothing but words to make you hear me.

I've got nothing but words.

I've got nothing.

I'm sorry.