I stare at my bedroom wall
Laughing with crinkled eyes.

My walls are blue
Like the sweatshirt you wore.

My pillow is blue
Like your blue sweatshirt arms.

It's wrapped around me
Like your arms were for seconds.

For seconds
I imagined you never letting go.

When I imagine you
I laugh from how easy it is to imagine you.

I laugh because you
Find a way into my smile easier each day.

I smile easier each day
Because you make me laugh.

Laughing with crinkled eyes,
I stare at my bedroom wall.

When I stare at my wall
With the right slant of head
I feel my toes in Superior sand,
Remember the silhouette of your hands
On my back. I hear the water,
Your breathing, how they were
The same. I feel your timid face
On my nose, telling me stories
Of every crevice in your atrium.
I taste the warmth of your tongue
Breaking through your blossomed lips,
Inching nearer my teeth with every ended
Chapter of aorta.
I catch your warmth as it boils under my chin,
despite Northern winds,
watch our chests weld into one with our heat.
I see your soft eyes,
Drowning in your heavy lids
As they fall asleep to the sound of our
Silence.

But your hands were too big for mine
That afternoon.
I think maybe you need to shrink,
Or I need to grow.
Or we will meet in the middle,
Frightened and in love
with our new shape and size.

It never showed its face, never once gave me a sign of nearness

So why can I now touch it, taste it, understand the meaning of its appearance?

I question whether it's healthy, the fact that my mind has so quickly steered me toward this wall.
                           And the word wall does not give proper definition...
                           It's more of a path,
Where this path leads, I must answer in time.
Because time heals all wounds

There are the days that love swells and grows infinitely around me.
It will pick me up and throw me over its shoulder in bliss and sing me to sleep with harmonics so angelic my tears themselves begin to cry.
There are the days when love will never be proven wrong, when nothing matters but love.

         And then there is today.

It's hard to imagine The Close
No one has seen it,
No one will
But some find it easy to contemplate all of the ways to get there
Some believe it's never ending sadness
Others believe it's pure beauty at every corner

It's a scary place, indeed
To be in a position of constant fear of The Close

But I find it easy to fend off this fear
And I do this with *love

Have you ever watched a face before you drip into itself? Imploding in slow motion,
Melting inside into darkness?
And watch each drop of liquid flesh melt the day away.
And the waxy ooze pools in staggering stalagmites, gathering till no longer can the mountain continue to heighten.
They seem to be tears,
But how can they be such things with no emotion inside?


Aren't we all just dolls?
Suspended until the candle gets too close?
Placed here to fill a space, fill a hole and make it "whole"?

Someday I want to know if I'm made of plastic, or if I'm real.
But for now, I know the answer.

I wish dreams did not exist


The only place I could ever hope to escape you is the subconscious, and yet I can't.
I see you coming before I even recognize you.
You are a face not easily forgotten, yet you might not even look the same.
I can still smell your hatred from your rotten, putrified soul, decaying inside that marble sculpted coating.
The smallest memory, the quickest glimpse is a trigger enough to haunt me all night.
The vicious cycle continues, as dreams remind me more of your absence, and that remembrance catalysts more dreams.
I think that to be the reason you've never left me yet.
How selfish you are, to never let me go, to even grip tighter than before,
Like you want to **** me dry of all that is my own,
And leave me with nothing but an outer shell - all of the things inside that matter stolen under the worst intentions.

And the saddest part?
Whether it's through seduction or shear abuse, you will always shatter my heart in the end.
Kissing, touching,
Screaming, torturing. They feel no different now.
I never save myself,
Perhaps I'm waiting for that story book ending I never received.
Perhaps I just don't know how to not let you hurt me.
Most likely, it's both.


I wish that dreams wouldn't exist,
Because if they didn't,
Then you might not either

Shall I go all life without you, wondering if I will be able to breath?
  The way you make things easier
    The way you make things optimistic
      The way you make things harmonious
        The way you make things happy is what makes my heart beat
Is what makes my brain function
  Is what keeps me alive...
Shall I go all life without you, wondering if I will be able to breath?

I pretend your smell
Walks the same blocks that I do
Home. Kindled under street lamp.
Or sleeps in my passenger seat,
Underneath fingernails and
Seeping through my palm.

I also pretend to know what your smell is.
When I remember how I don't know
I pretend I'll find out tomorrow,
Reaching for the smallest wisps
Traveling down jet stream and Lake Effect crispness.

I hate to write poetry
Because every one I write is about you,
Because every thought is about you,
Because you make me sad.

I love to write poetry
Because every one I write is about you,
Because every thought is about you,
Because you made me happy.

But did you know that every hushed slip of lips,
Every lust swept memory,
Every clouded sky daydream
Is nothing but you?

And did you know that my car seat is unbearable to sit on,
"Time Machine" is no longer listened to,
In fact every song
Is tainted like rotting flesh.

Even this poem,
Yes,
Is undeniably about you.
And so will be the rest of them
In eons,
In millions of words,
In kilometers.


       I hate to write poetry
       Because I love you.

       I love to write poetry
       Because you loved me.

I seem to be the only one that knows how to cite my writings anymore (O'Donnell).
Nobody but I understands the difference between APA and MLA
(Which in reality sounds much scarier than it really is).
Yes, citation is more than plugging a URL into citemypaper.net and copying, pasting, repeating.
Don't you ever want to learn to do for yourself and not through asinine websites that get it wrong half the time anyways?
Nobody cares enough to work hard, learn good... Excuse me, learn well.
Nobody gives two ***** about good grades and class rankings.
Just less competition for me, I guess.

But no, this is something bigger than that.
Why am I the only person who cares about where their words come from?
Where are all the people who used to fact check and actually think about what they say?
I just seem to wonder more than others the vitality of truth in words,
Of validity in claims,
And of proof in ambiguous pudding eaten without prior knowledge of its upbringing.
Is it really pudding? Well you won't really know unless you care enough to find out...
And who ever knows if you're speaking words of Gandhi or of Grandma anymore.
Giving a **** used to be something of importance,
Now put to the side with adolescent legend lessons.




I wish I could make you give a **** about this "silly" school project,

But that's not what we're really talking about here anyways.




Works Cited
O'Donnell, E. The Basic Principles of English. Mt. Pleasant:
        Elizabeth, September 15, 2014. Print.

I lay outside
The wind sweeps through my hair, covering my eyes with my locks

This wind is a brisk cold, it chills my insides, making me feel alive
But at the same time, I can't survive the space between us

Pulling,

Ripping,

Tearing

Our relationship apart

Like a ticking bomb, I am waiting for it to happen, the day when you will pull away...

I took fifty steps backwards when I decided to read the book I wrote you today.
You know, the ******* fifty page story of our love?
The one that I spent three months on?
The one that I poured my heart and soul into?
The one I gave to you on our one-year anniversary, the first of "many more"?
Ya, it ******* killed me to remember all the good things I forgot on purpose.
And then I remembered that I loved you since day zero, and then I got to thinking how I'll love you till the birds stop singing.
I managed to stop reading at page 3,
But up until that point was needles to my eyes, daggers to my heart, razor blades to my soul.
I managed to stop reading at page 3,
But tomorrow may bring page 4.

This was all after I looked at the pictures of your graduation day.
Remember I couldn't stop crying?
Remember how every day since then I haven't stopped crying, dying, trying to forget all the **** you left piled up in front of me to climb over, holding my breath and slipping.
It's become an downward uphill battle,
Because every step I progress you push me down twice with an invisible hand of dishonesty.

Something stopped my finger from clicking on the folder of prom pictures.
The one where we kissed always brought tears to my eyes,
But now I'm crying for different reasons.
When I look at you in still candid shots all the other colors fade into the photograph and my eyes dilate farther into the sea of "used to be".
I'm tired of my grey world without you.
I want something to make the world what I had before,
Before you piled the **** and left me to rot,
I want all of that,
But I want none of it.
And then I try to tell myself "no, *******" but you know it never works.
It never will,
Because then I start to think about being naked with you,
And the electric feeling that your bare chest against my stomach gave me,
And how your fingers tangled in my hair drilled me deep inside of you,
So deep,
So deep I need surgery for removal.
But any successful operation would never end in life.

For all the words good about you I've written, I can match them all for bad.
But you know it doesn't matter,
Because here I come climbing over your **** pile,
Because maybe
I still have a chance with you.
Maybe if I wade through the **** I'll reach you someday.
Or maybe it's going to keep growing in height and diameter till it reaches and pollutes even Heaven above.
And then what hope is there to ever live a life without you?
Because Heaven is the only possible place,
Since I know you'll never make it there.

I am small.
When I scream my limbs shrink shorter.

I eat my hair.
The frizz sends me into claustrophobic tremors.

I have seven teeth.
I unscrew them with frantic fingers wrapped around a flathead before I sleep.

I never sleep.
When j sleep I keep a test tube of your thoughts twisted in my sheets.

I've seen the largest rivers.
I never travel because I fear sprouting feathers, being a freak.

I've planted 10 trees.
The roots sinch my toes and bring me to my knees.

She put her ears up in a
perky
quirky manner,
and smiled with a full tongue out at the purple clouds cast against the salmon sun.

Finally, we had found something in common.

We sweat and gasped together, but we felt beautiful together.
And I scratched the exact spot on each side of your face simultaneously
which cripples you momentarily as you fall over in excitement just to hear me say one consonant.

And for the two seconds we gazed, the leash in my hand became more than vinyl weave.
It was a connection we didn't understand, something money doesn't own, and something God never created.

We were us.


But peaceful bliss dies as quickly as the squirrel she smells,
had the leash not been wrapped around my blood-thirsty, suffocating forearm.
So back down the stairs we walk (run) as her smile tightens and mine fades like the pigment of my arm's skin.

I think I'm going to blow away
And see what happens as the moss turns into trees.

I think I'm going to run away
And watch each river incandescently freeze.

But when the time comes to accept the end of my mobility,
I will tilt back and wonder about all the other inbetweens.

The building ate itself inside,
Flattened to a lake of brick,
Like a table
Disappearing from underneath shadowed cloth
As the magician snapped his fingers.

Love not found under bed sheets,
But found in the heart,
Spread thinly as the beach sand
That dirties my feet
When we ran into the woods.
Connected by fear
And our hands
As we stumbled upon safety
In a city of giants undisturbed by society,
I felt your thoughts sweat through your fingerprints,
Siphon into my blood to pulse through my body.

And when we lit campfires for our lungs
You tucked me close to your knee,
Your elbow resting on my femur,
Rushing your thoughts even faster still to my heart.
I felt your love nest at the base of my brain,
And I was reminded
That I love you,
How you love the thought of loving me,
And how much that will never matter.

I asked a flower one day where the world's going to go.
She shook her head and laughed,
Responded with an
"I Don't know".

I asked a bird one day when time will stop.
She motioned at the perched oak branch over our heads and whispered
"When this branch drops".

I asked a fawn one day if things will ever change,
She whinnied and stomped her feet,
As if I'd asked something strange.

So I sought next no less than the absolute best, the most humble of all that I could guess.
I found the blue whale, perfect and pale with his perpetual grumbling wale.
And I ask him where the answers were
But he said
"Child, save yourself, and no longer wonder".


If peace can't find these questions answered,
Then what does anything mean that I've heard?

There is a place I recall
Where flowers of neon fluorescence dripped fragrances of deep passion,
The kind only received in love.
Letters were not ended with
Sincerely,
My deepest regards.
Christmas trees became disco *****,
Beckoning dances of slow satisfaction.

I seem to have lost the light.
My friends around me teeter toward it,
Yet no longer do I step forward once without two steps
Back.
So faint are the feelings of warmth.
I wish only for luminosity,
But perhaps tomorrow.

It will ring whether they want it to or not.

There's the day they will force it,
There's the day they will stop.

Yet She rings on still stronger,
Whether they want it to or not.

In good time the leaves will turn with fall.
The hearts of boney legged men will tone,
And I'll still be waiting,
Breath baited,
As I watch from a distance our connection
Drip toxicity and dissolve the fragile string that held us
In a perfect repulsive state with brilliant resonance,
Suspended at an equilibrium that allowed these trees to paint their seeded leaves.

The lake is glass, the trees are still
And I, on the opposite side, will row this boat
My vessel of fear
Until the lonely shore becomes near
To get closer to thee

My oar is dripping
With the liquid gold of eons before me
And of the ladies past who made the same trek.
As I make it to shore,
Like never before I feel a stillness beneath me
And the steps I take to lessen the distance still become harder and
Harder,
Yet carry on I must, to progress my life much farther

The door creaks
And the windows squeak
As I enter through the way
Into the house of ages past and darkness never known
Where I will find you on my own,
An ending of beginning
A close at the opening of a door

You came home with us yesterday after we connected at the local homeless shelter.
Mom wanted you, and so she channeled through our eyes to guide us to the right decision.
Her absence was never unnoticed.
But we did well, with a soft heart we found you and you accepted our invitation.
Soft spoken quickly became pack leader.
As pack leader quickly became elder.
As elder became...
... Are you there? Did you wander too far again? Should I start the car to drive the blocked radius you love to rome?

But no, there's no need to locate my car keys, because you slipped beyond,
And I payed no attention to your foothold.
I never said my goodbyes because you fell so soon, without warning you moved into the darkest realm.

But I'm thankful for your simple passing at the same time that I weep for you, for my mother, and for your now lonely sister.
The transition was graced by something bigger than us.
Too long did we wait for Sarah,
When we had the chance to relieve we deceived.
And we thought it was beneficial but you had the worrying eyes that told all emotions,
You knew it was time, but we couldn't read you.
Thankful are we for the extra hours,
But pained are we for her extra suffering.

The last time I saw you, those eyes came back,
And I knew it was for you and not for Andie.
At this point I could have wished you peace for the last time but I didn't.
"In four weeks she'll still be here", I thought and denied myself of pain momentarily.
I patted your head when I should have hugged,
And I should have given 30 minutes, not 30 seconds.
I regret the time not spent just looking at you.
So I apologize for ignoring the signals you sent,
And I hope you forgive the lack of attention I gave.
When I see you again with everyone there to greet me-
Mikey
Jeffy
Sarah
And now you-
I'm going to love you deeply.
I'm going to make up for past bath times neglected and postponed.
But most importantly, we will all love you together as deep as the ocean,
And who knows where we will swim to?

The flame will burn still stronger
And the cheers will echo loud
If you, my dear, just linger
In my world till we find our ways somehow

I feel my heartbeat quicken
And my jaw clenches tighter each moment
As you kiss like years gone by
And we smile and laugh in rhythm
With the neurons, sending signals sky-high

We dance with the doves and daughters
With the trees and daffodils that sing
They enchant us with their canter
It rings in my ears till morning

And the drum rattles harder and faster
As you struggle to keep me on the ground
But I cannot stay here much longer
The clouds are calling my name, now

For how can I resist its beckon
When the heavens wish for comfort

Only because you want me
The lust yields too strong to divert

There was a way of the flip in her hair, with liquidity and lethargy,
That brought young men to their knees.
She walked with such lust that their hearts reached with open mouths.
They gasped in an effort to
Just for one moment
Breath the same way and in the same space.

In the light her skin shone like platinum in heaven above.
She magnetized the very molecules she made contact with, and the air bent around her like hot syrup.
Time slowed for her only,
Or perhaps she controlled time.
Every man's ring finger felt lost in a void of blackness. The small golden hoop was pocketed,
Play time for the masses.
If only for a second they may earn her attention, that second would become life itself
That second may end sickness, hunger, and poverty.
There was never a time of deeper betrayal when she came to town


And while the men swooned, the women cried, for
They could never achieve the beauty to be loved.
And the tears twinkled a deep blue,
As if stolen from the ocean directly.
There was never a time of deeper sadness than when she came to town.

To love so much
Feels impossible to love you more each day

Yet everyday,
I do

I know this is right.

I know that soon, you will run again, pant with excitement, and retrieve hundreds of tennis ***** with your comrades.

I know, inside, I'm ready. I understand it's time, I can see it in your eyes. They are weary with age and eternal fatigue.

I know that I don't want to watch the days go by as you progress, progress, and suffer. I know you will thank us for the burden we will relieve.

I know that I'll miss you. I know that all I remember is with you, and all you remember is with me. But I know those memories will carry on, and not pass as you will.



But I still don't want it to happen