Thoughts of you make
my mouth pool with blood
from the words that I can not bring myself
to say out loud, scratching
at the flesh inside my throat

You're the type of ghost
whose breath I swore I could feel
on the back of my neck.
The type of ghost,
I look over my shoulder for,
but never quick enough.

Some might call me crazy
for finding warmth in the dead.
They ask what is there to love
in someone who hasn't the arms
solid enough to seize you
when you pull them into an embrace.

They say to be careful of wandering ghosts,
who show up in your room, leave for days,
and then have the audacity to return,
with no explanation, as if it's there home.

They call me naive for thinking that
I am being used for more
than a light source for
someone who's candles have burned low,
and is tired of floating
among the shadows of this road.

But these are the same people who
read Shakespeare at cafes,
drink their coffee black,
tell everyone their major without having been asked.

You see,
I am your Comfort Inn,
placed along the freeway,
for you to stumble into,
intoxicated with whatever
burdens had been served to you that night.
And, and, and,
I am...
the cigarette you light up desperately
to bring to your lips, but just as quickly
press against your thigh
when a stranger strolls by.
And, and, and..
I am the spine.
That you bend. Crack.
To you use the splinters as needles,
to sew yourself back up.
And, and, and...
I happily oblige.
-m.a.e

he realized that this empty house was not a home but a labrynth of rooms, where memories hung like grease stains on peeling walls.
there was a time when he had convinced himself that he had been robbed but as he brought his fingers to touch the tables that were now collecting dust, he saw that he had been a fool, for he hadn't  any possessions to begin with.
he was weak to his impulsivity and he found himself laying face down on faded sheets that reeked of
whiskey tainted distress and careless words that he tried to swallow but inevitably slipped and fell off his swollen lips.
the same sheets she tangled herself in as she looked at him dazed with ****** eyes that had abandoned church doors.
the same eyes that he often woke up to and caught staring into the darkness trying to make shadows of the black nothingness
or staring out the uncurtained window, transfixed on vacant roads
the same road that he had scooped her body from, thinking that it would stop her rapid shivers failing to see that it was not the road that was so frigid, it was her heart.
so with bruised knuckles and salted cheeks
he walked away from an empty house
and walked along the vacant roads
with hands that were full of nothing whole.
-m.a.e