When he says that he no longer wonders what your lips taste like
A light switch will go off in your chest
A firecracker, time bomb, grenade, explosion, beating of drums
Drop the ball in your throat, feel it sink down into your stomach
You will appear to be quiet on the outside
Your ribs will break one by one and shards are going to crumble into each other like buildings falling to the ground
You will have to hold yourself in your own arms
You will howl and collapse like a dying star and remember that he was the Earth and you will continue to heave even after your body can no longer produce salt water tears
You will remember things more vividly now
The way he looked at you when you were singing in the car
The way he pulled you in when you tried to move away
The grip of the handle as he opened the car door
The way his lips felt on your neck
You are going to remember the temperature of standing in the road, you are going to remember the embrace, you will remember looking up at him
You will remember it all as if it is a movie playing in your brain
You will remember how he slowly glanced at the world
You wonder if eye contact would ever break
When he says that he no longer wonders what your lips taste like
Tell him that you no longer wonder either
Tell him this even though you do

Where was I?
I fell through the sky when they all thought chicken little cried wolf
Somewhere in a black hole sun
A coin stands on it's edge and things aren't what they seem
Bermuda Triangle violently exhaling anomalies
The air splits like a wound when propeller blades start spinning too fast
Eventually we all get ****** into this perfect storm
I hear it's a place where magicians perform
Pull me out of a hat and watch the universe unravel
My heart strings wound too tight
The world collapses like a lung

Where was I?
Always dwelling in ancient libraries
Deciphering unknown artifacts
There's foreign footprints in these catacombs
All these digital files and old photo albums
Analyze, evaluate, re-analyze
Question everything
Metamorphosis manifests
And the chameleon knows how to change it's scales
The world goes off balance when Atlas's shoulders get tired

Where was I
When the sirens sounded their alarm?
Have you seen the basements of my mind?
Charcoal smeared and cold dust
Cluttered and hazardous
Climb out the fire escapes in the thick hot heat of things
Underground bunkers at Hiroshima
Salem burning
There are witches under the house
These tornadoes don't rest
because the scarecrow has a stick up his ***
Where does the lion hide?
Where does the lion sleep when the jungle's on fire?
How does the tin man ****?

Where was I?
Somewhere down the rabbit hole
Running out of time
That ferocious lunar grin
Meet me under the Cheshire moon
In that last lamp light
The toadstools tremble beneath our toes
Did you plant these mushroom clouds for us?
The mad hatter struck a match
and our house of cards is burning down
Why do my hands smell like gas?
I saw you catching ash on your tongue
I guess there's something beautiful in the way things burn
The roses are dripping red
and there's blood on my hands
The dream is gone when the queen cuts off
another head

Where was I?
Always digging tunnels in the ant farms of my mind
Dirt covers up old bodies
I leave them a rose
For paradises lost
For another lost soul
Another Eden gone to hell
Something slithered in the grass when the apple fell
Apocalypse now
But what is it about the way things disappear?

Where was I?
Where is here?

If you accidentally
             fall out of love,
Do you just dive
                back in head first?
           Feet first??
                     Eyes closed???
        Cannon ball????
             Or
Do you walk away
       Cause you can't swim
And you're scared to death
                   of *drowning?????

Sometimes I scratch my skin so loose
about whether we would find where happy is hiding
if we thought much less
about these twisting logics,
quieted our overstimulated ambiance
by quieting our own processing
and essentially
not caring so much.

I know I would, would find it somewhere,
but it's funny how that doesn't make me wish
I thought less in time,
I wonder what is brewing in me
that so craves a stormy conscious
rather than what we all cry those late nights about,
because my theory of life
is that the purpose of life
is to find it,
yet part of me seems to care more about the theory
than the truth and action of itself.

There is no I in denial.
They kiss in bed.
They roll around.

There is no I in denial.
He bought her flowers.
She placed them in a vase.

There is no I in denial.
They hug outside of
traditional thought.

I do not know how we got here,
but I know I don't want us
to stay.

There is no I in denial.
They **** in bathrooms.
They make love in gardens.

There is no I in denial.
She blew a kiss.
He caught a tough break.

There is no I in denial.
He holds a box of his things,
after being shown out.
She says they'll manage.

I do not know how we got here,
but I know I don't want us
to stay.

There is no I in denial.
They kiss in bed,
but it's not the same.
They roll around in bed,
but it begins
to feel
like effort.

There is no I in denial.
He bought her less.
She said it didn't matter.

There is no I in denial.
He feels like his father,
imagining things
she's doing.

I do not know how we got here,
but I know I don't want us
to stay.

There Is No I In Denial.
They don't talk as much.
They sit farther apart.

There Is No I In Denial.
She asks him what's wrong.
He resents her care.

There Is No I In Denial.
He gets drunk and
breaks the vase.
The flowers lay,
covered in wet glass,
sleeping in a puddle.

I do not know how we got here,
but I know I don't want us
to stay.

THERE IS NO I IN DENIAL.
They don't talk, they yell.
They don't remember each other.

THERE IS NO I IN DENIAL.
He drinks more.
She feels less.

THERE IS NO I IN DENIAL.
They were married underneath
an oak tree,
  She said, "I do."
He smiled and said,
  "I'm so lucky."

The flowers lay on the floor,
  dying.

I do not know how we got here,
but I know I don't want us
*to stay.

His dog chased her
through the woods.
The rifle can **** from
three-hundred yards.

Watch her leap logs
and sidestep
sticks grabbing
at her shoulders.

There are three Gods
in the woods,
behind any tree.

No one is as ruled
as the lawless.
No one is as sedated
as the frenzied.

Sympathy couldn't be
measured in screams,
but measured
in her breaths.

Beyond the
honeydew horizon,
the senseless cease.
The half-life of eyes:
her only escape.

Where the tree-trunks
are furnished by the
candied corpses.
Her feet chomp at the
prostituted ground.

She will die, here,
whether she lives
or not.
For what is stolen,
stays.

Is that still you?
I remember days of not breathing
at the thought of your last breath,
of loose words
and using them to carefully twist
a heartstring hammock.

I can't see past the red in your eyes now,
the spots on your face like footprints, track marks,
soft and tired,
hard like needles.
They stripe your skin as if for an ancient battle,
for a war that soaks your empty spaces in kerosene
and scrapes the match off your wrist.

So while these butterflies pull my stomach
out my mouth, to the floor,
and your feet shuffle from the bombs erupting
down to your toes...
I can't bear the thought of a cloudless conscious,
of reality too close to the glass.
The thought that I can't save you from this,
because all I want
is to burn down with you.

I wish we started with tears
For becoming strangers
and no longer knowing the rhythm of the other's heart
And moved to angry rants
Spewing brand new feelings of hatred
Though we're not sure where they came from
Progressing to the closeness of intertwined bodies
Always feeling the cadence of one another
To being so in love
That the thought of the other makes you flush with enamor
Moving then to late night talks
About life and the universe
And flowers and chocolate
Because what's more cliché?
Then to sweet love
Shown through holding sweaty hands
And wanting to spend every moment in contact
Then gradually spreading apart
Becoming tentative but appreciating every time you touch
Swallowing every word you ever said to them
And letting theirs drain from your ears
So that you drift safely away from each other
I wish we started with tears
And ended with "Hi, nice to meet you."