On a hill untrodden
Lay hooves of animals forgotten
Hovering inches above
The tall blades of grass
That guard the crimson soil
From the deadly spoil
Of creatures with a heartbeat.

Neither human nor animal
Is allowed to trample
On the swaying current
Of carbon breathing forests
That sing in unchecked choruses
About a mythical life
That forever strives
For their listless existence
But always fails in the face
Of pure logic.

On the edge we stand
And there we will remain
If not forced to refrain
From ever being in unison
With life that knows no burden
Of the constant need for self-satisfaction
But somehow manages
To breathe without stealing air
From one less sanctioned
In a state unbalanced
Despite existing on a sustainable planet.

Even fairies stir in their leaves
When news arrives
That the hill still survives
Without their manufactured dust
And fake-winged lust
For something more mythical
Than themselves
In a world that revolves
Around their heads
And death is made of flower-covered beds
Of false remembrance.

Still you wonder
Why such splendour
Sits only in our worship and prayers
When it has no power
Over anything that enters its perimeters
Knowing however
That the thought it has inscribed
Into our minds
Will live forever
Even if it does not do so itself.

Taken from his tender lips;
A sonnet from his ancestor-
Clouding up the dim air,
With warm wisps of internal fire.
And he bequeath his last breath,
To the death inside the pyre-
That warm stew that brews within myself;
A testimony of joined desire.
Unravelling his soul from skin-
Heart hung on fleshy strings;
He beams with last repose,
And passes away beside his black rose.

when your views on life clash
like lightening to mighty tree trunks
breaking open decades of days you've prayed
your hardest to forget
they are now burning cinders of lined bark
turned to ash
now to be stored in yet another urn
marking the tragic death of yet another
forsaken part of your wilting life
and what else can you do but cry
little puddles of light
to extinguish the heat of the dying fire
trying to distinguish between
the smell of burning wood
and your fruitless anguish

Dear Oliver,
         It’s been a while since I’ve written to you, but not so long since we’ve spoken. I know you’re always patiently watching; eyes lowered but mind forever intertwined with mine. You sit and wait for the right time to chime into the rhythms that skim the slippery slide to the restless places of my mind’s eye.
         The world still doesn’t know how you manage to exist in one place and then the next; never resting, always humming to my thoughts “today will be okay”. Some people know about you. And I’m not sure if they think it’s a joke because they haven’t really laughed. I see the worry in the twitch of their eyes, the open lines that come to their mind; like is she crazy or maybe this is a lie? But how can intangible innocence of my conscience be a flaw in my logic. Your light blue eyes are too real to be made up by a tragic cataclysm of chemistry’s flawed magic. They’re engrained in my brain, and I don’t know why. They’re the features that stand out to me the most. I think, that maybe, in my head, I’m trying too hard to give you a soul. But it’s okay, and I know you’ll say it’s fine, because you’re the kind to help grown-ups like me climb the things we’ve clung onto too tightly. Childhood’s grip never did loosen its hold around me. I still feel like I’m stuck in purgatory. But your smile; I can see it, and I can feel it, and worst of all I recognise it.
          Sometimes in the darkness of the reaper’s shadows, when I wonder why I feel so suffocated even when I’m breathing, you sit there in our hideaway, calling out to sway the deafening silence that begs to stay, beckoning me to crawl your way. Because, you know I have this tiny light I keep hidden away in my mind, and even when I think I’m about to die out in existential cinders of the world’s abandoned fire… I’ll follow it. You have my hope under lock and key, guarded only by your trust in my will to live and forgive, not only others but myself. You float around my sickness with it, see right through the thick fog of misty tears that forever stream across my face. You grin at me and say, “It’s alright, you’re alive.”
         To tell you the truth, that line hurts as much as it helps, because you’re not; I reach out into our void and touch your nothingness with my aching fingers, try to hold your hand, to feel the touch of something uncorrupted and sinless… only to end up curling myself around the air where your comfort still softly lingers. Maybe it’s a small curse wrapped in the purest blessing but you’re something I can’t extinguish. People think you grow out of these things, but imagination only grows with you.
         I’ll finish this pointless letter with the words that truly shape you. You are the countless moments people wish they would never forget. You are the thump of a child’s wild heart. You are the light that first hits our blind eyes. You are not alive, but you are living in us all. And the purest thing I can say today is, there’s nothing more I could wish for.                      
                                                                                                     Yours sincerely,
                                                                                                                          Me.

ground zero
i become aware of boundaries
i am a dog chasing cars
i sing your voicemail to sleep
there are no surgeon general warnings
to tell me that
the objects in the mirror
are more depressed than they appear
so how do i tell you
that there are parts of my life
that move slower
without you in them?
or that i look for you every day
in emails & unanswered calls
in the sunrises
i didn't choose to be awake to watch
that i sometimes still stare at doorways hoping you would walk through them
   *stage 1 you tell your new lover you've got a splinter and they pull the sound of your body falling asleep on mine out of your fingertip
   stage 2 your new lover says something at dinner that makes you choke so they call 911 & the paramedics do the hymleich not knowing you would ***** our promises all over the the restaurant
   stage 3 your new lover surprises you by cleaning the house & washes the shirt you kept next to the bed, not knowing it was the last thing you had that smelled like me
after
people always ask
what was loving her like?
after a really long silence
i just say
"it must be nice"
but i never say
it's watching paint dry
i never say
it's a window seat in hell
i don't tell anyone
about the dreams
where i am reading you
bedtime stories
each one is a different way you die
& every time i can never save you
dreams where what i think
are angels in my bedroom
are just homeless versions
of myself you never loved
i have dreams
where i pay someone to shoot me
just to see if you would cry
just to see
if you would cradle my body
i don't tell people
that loving you is like
playing piano
for someone who can't hear
that it's hitting repeat
on my favorite song
& forgetting the words
every time it starts over
that it's finding out
there's no milk after you already
poured yourself a bowl of cereal
it's getting locked in the dark
& being told to
look on the bright side
that loving you is like
being reminded of what it felt like
the first time
you accidentally let go
of a balloon as a child
it's drowning without the water
it's the feeling you get
when you start to dance
& the song ends

I’ve seen too many empty words
On papers covered with text
Like rows of parallel lines and
I’m painfully waiting for them to converge;
Feeling like a hopeless dreamer in a reality
Where intelligence is measured by the
Amount of white space you can cover
With a brush, but no paint.

And I wonder how you can speak with all your might
And still not be heard,
Am I simply not choosing the right words?

Maybe this rhyme wasn’t timed
Just right
For your head to ignite
With all the fury that spins inside of me
Like tornados of dirt in an open space
Where there is so much potential
But no one is there to observe,

How I can sometimes form images
Out of reckless stanzas of
Sounds that bounce just right
In the pits of my mind.

But these metaphors and similes
Don’t seem to put smiles on the faces
Of academics sitting up high,
On chairs of published journals
And research that stomps on your behind,
Until you realise you can never measure up
To their size.

But, I still twirl around in circles sometimes,
Collecting debris of those
Who have been misheard and
Misinterpreted as
Deadly villains in stereotypical stories,
Where their side of the story
Is simplified into scenes of disturbance.

I dance around manipulation
Ushering words I’ve gathered along the way
Until it amounts to a mangled creation
One that would make Frankenstein
Smile in admiration;
Until the story is turned upside down
And then all the way around.

I’ve seen too many bland sentences
In essays that we’re told to embrace,
When these chunks of information cannot hold themselves up
Without a thick spine of paragraphed meaning
And meticulously referenced supporting points-
Of relevance.
And you always sit there wondering
What the hell counts as relevant?
When there are thousands of combinations
Making up thousands of words that have yet
To grace our impatience.

I am still waiting,
Knees bouncing and hands drumming
Trying to piece together symphonies
In silent lectures about everything

And sometimes I think it might amount to nothing;
If I can’t make it interesting,
Interesting enough for me to want to weave it into
My natural disaster of a technique,
And call it a piece of myself;
A work of poetry.

I’ve seen too many empty words
On papers covered with text
Like rows of parallel lines and
I’m painfully waiting for them to converge.
And I wonder how you can speak with all your might
And still not be heard,
Am I simply not choosing the right words?
Maybe this rhyme wasn’t timed
Just right
For your head to ignite
With all the fury that spins inside of me
Like tornadoes of dirt in an open space
Where there is so much potential
But no one is there to observe
How I can sometimes form images
Out of reckless stanzas of
Sounds that bounce just right
In the pits of my mind.
I still twirl around in circles sometimes
Collecting debris of those
Who have been misheard and
Misinterpreted as
Deadly villains in stereotypical stories
Where their side of the story
Is simplified into scenes of disturbance.
I’ve seen too many bland sentences
In essays that we’re told to embrace,
When these chunks of information cannot hold themselves up
Without a spine of meaning and supporting points
Of relevance
And you always sit there wondering
What the hell counts as relevant?
When there are thousands of combinations
Making up thousands of words that have yet
To grace our impatience.
I am still waiting,
Knees bouncing and hands drumming
In silent lectures about everything
And sometimes I think it might amount to nothing
If I can’t make it interesting
Interesting enough for me to want to weave it into
My natural disaster of a technique
And call it a piece of myself;
A work of poetry.