You had your words and I had mine.
But where your words were beautifully crafted,
mine were a jumbled mess.

“I don’t know why...”

Wait.

That’s the biggest lie I’ve ever written.
I know exactly–
Why I don’t write.
Why I can’t write.
Why I’m terrified to write.

Every time I open my laptop–
I’m loading that hollow point bullet into
the cylinder, giving it a casual last roll,
and pressing the muzzle to my temple

Every time I push my pen to the paper–
I’m finishing up that thirteenth rung on a
noose and slipping it tightly over my throat,
standing at the edge of the seat, waiting to take a step.

Every time I think–
Every time I write–
I hesitate.

And you make it sound so simple.

You can pull a beautiful phrase from the skyline
and have a masterpiece in minutes,
while I set here scheming for hours;
trying to expel just a word or two from my consciousness.

It really ****** me off that you can do that.

You know?

My head and heart have never
been on speaking terms–
one's always ******* to the other.
Or one becomes submissive
and shuts the world out to survive.

It gets old.

It gets old really fast.

Trust between the two wanes,
but never fades completely;
leaving room for apathy
or even worse:

Depression.

Objectivity becomes obsession.
Silence becomes heavy.
My body tears at the seams
trying to accommodate this
****** issue of trust.

But at the end of the day
the threads pull tightly.

Until they finally split.

Drew,

I hope you made it to detox.
& I wish you would have gone to 7/11 with us instead of getting lost at the liquor store. But a promise is a promise. I quit popping pills today, like I told you. Even if you we’re just telling me what I wanted to hear, letting your words serenade me into buying you some cheap ***. Wherever you are just known I kept up on my end of the deal.
I’m irritable, hungry and I want to bash my head into the wall. But in a couple weeks I’ll be feeling really good again. The kind of good you can only dream of. The kind of good you felt before you knew the world was so bad.
Everyone says Jacob was a liar in the bible. But I think the bible is full of lies. My names Jacob and I’m actually honest.

I laid on my side like a mountain that admires the city lights below.
Your gentle face, the object of my attention.

Last night,
our shadows on the walls
were giants dancing.
I let you come closer,
I bet you could taste the smoke in my breath.

You slept quietly and only made noise
when you would turn your body from east to west,
and like a child watching a wave unfold,
I would move back as if
to not let your ocean touch my feet or
catch me looking.

There's very little you reveal about yourself,
you're a mystery that I've known of for a long time
and I know that watching you sleep
is the closest I will ever get to you.
I'm okay with that.

Sometimes throughout the night our hands would interlock,
our legs tangle like vines,
and If ever you faced west you would kiss me softly on the forehead.
I would smile
but with your eyes closed, I'm sure you could not tell.