trying to find quiet
fighting my body
battling my mind

I hurt
in ways well described
by the clocks ticking time
chasing rhymes
with false sincerity

alone
like the one emotion
you refuse to show

for your thoughts
for your wishes
for our distance
for your kisses
for clichés
for the comfort
for 365 days
for many more
for silly honesty
for seasons slipping by
a dozen, bright red roses
for a love that keeps us
high

far too sober
and far too lucid
to formulate
anything worthwhile

but I'm nothing
if not stubborn

alas
it's an underrated
virtue

Less than content with
the content you're left with
corrupted
with eroded shoulders
worn down by
the weight of your potential

don't believe in fate
if god decides to show its face
**** on your words
here that bitter regret
bruising

test the limits
of your passion
of your trust
one is daunting
the other claustrophobic
to be caged so tightly by anxiety

tortured by the thought of imperfection

How about
we explore
and expose
the underbelly
of our drunken tongues

I want to fall in love
with your ugly
and
forget why
once morning has begun

This block that’s been haunting me
I finally know what it is
It’s not that my thoughts have ever ceased to exist
(no matter how hard I wish)
My truth
Has never been poetic.
My 4 shots of honesty
Are tucked under unclean bed-sheets
Collecting dust
Because I haven’t found a soul
With good enough reason to trust

I work with formulated brushstrokes
My polished softer madness
Because I’ve been told that
This much eye contact makes you
Uncomfortable
That sometimes
I say the things
that you didn't
want to (or know how)
to hear
not sweet enough
for you to swallow
So shove it down my throat
with a gleam in your eye
you gloat
like you actually think
you’ve solved my mystery

I
have covered up
every last shadow
of sincerity
every vicious glimmer
of your fingerprints
marring the fabric
of my skin
my canvas
my natural form
is your sin

I shudder to think
That I’m waiting
For my censored text to be read
Waiting for repercussions
Of wounds that I’ve already bled
My truth
Is that I blurred through the boundaries
Between memories and lies
That I often can’t remember
What I made up and why
there was so much to
cover up
with false nostalgia

my heartache
is
that there’s no logic behind that
no reason to
forget how to feel
to go three days
with my eyes glazed
until I can grasp on
to what's real
a patched up framework of sane
and I want to see blood
to feel purpose for pain

Every time my tremors
Shake in new directions
I want to cry because
That’s just one step further away
from perfection
Playing pretend
Was just imagination
until it was dysfunction
and I set fire to my lungs
Because no matter what
I was never good enough

I choke on my breath
And the burn of swallowed blood
too warm
out of place
like a breeze to the bone
Dripping past the place that
Your name once called home
I still visit
The grave of a legend
In my body
So heavy with the weight
Of lives I never lived

It was never like
The words I so hopefully drowned in
The promises that
my fears were unfounded
That no one could really
Be alone
Not like this
Not like
Being left to remember your kiss
Not like
Nail marks in the palms of clenched fists
Not like fading in and out of dreams
Asking myself
Which reality is this?
Untangling from cold sweats
With the ringing in my ears
Reminding me ruthlessly
That god ****** I’m still here
And you’re gone

I hate that “I miss you”
Is mistaken for cliché
But it’s my truth
It’s my indescribable
My engulfing
My around every corner
Over and over
Your absence impacts like a train
stolen months
dripping in honey sweet
hope
we were my first us
it's hard to find salvation
when your
foundation gives up

My anger
Is sharp breaths
It tastes like
***** coming out my nose
Splashing against my skin
It burns a little like
Bee stings
Coming up my throat
And a whole lot less
Than the loneliness

That vacant isolation
That booms so stubborn
Trying to heal
from numb
Reminding me that
Summer by summer
I become something
That I wont
be willing to save.
At this point
I'm not sure what I crave.
it feels like thunder
on the horizon
of my intangible
you are so much more
than a metaphor
for how perspective
is flammable
but my story
was never about you

birthed from ashes
I am
your favourite taboo

The last thing I would wish you
Is well

the lulls of fog hug close
to the hips of the hills
caught
in the soaked grass
and the sighs of February

the styrofoam sticks
burned to the roots,
compact in the cracks
of the sidewalk so packed
into my memory

and the powdered
assimilation
leaves sweetness
on the base of my tongue

the hooves of fog
race us
they dance between the trees
bucking at the thunder
at the bursting
of my anticipation

the melancholy you wear always
is becoming of you, albeit repeated.
I reminisce about last year
about the ethereal days
filled with pain yet,
                                           I felt... like, I was supposed to
does that make sense to you?

your furtive glances make me anxious
anticipating the moment
where you regurgitate your words
your unpoetic bile

that I drink in so willingly
so deep
our movements ripple
our murmurs trail off

to somewhere we cannot follow

contracting breaths
between the sentences
of those faceless giants
that surround me
without a comprehensible sound
lost
and not quite yet
found
you'll come around,
but only once I've given in
sin, skin, and cigarettes
fleeting hope
and looming regrets
in overcast limbo

fool me once
shame for life
you said you'd never hurt me
but the pain came twice

tell her that she's alone
that she deserved it
she's on her own
well I won't let you take
her voice away
she likes to ****
but you like to pray
kiss and makeup
because there is plenty else to hate
and your ignorance is out of date

your loneliness is just a phase
but hakuna matata is just a phrase
and happily ever after
is just a ghost in the wall
high, tripping, and falling
into ink
into dreams
into distant ****** up haze
of your forgiveness
which I am expected to accept
even when you took away
until there was nothing I had left
an intolerable possibility
that I should be so willing to receive
your gold paved poor intentions

pour them
into my poor eroded throat
just to be evoked
from a bottomless pit
where my insides should be

no clear beginning or end
to myself, or identity
like a blurry negative
or a softly fallen tree
keep the change
the empty promises
the debt and the punishment

but I'm breaking the mirror
and not the habits I loathe
dissociation
a celebration and emancipation
from the tunnels of my mind
winding and finding
yourself
so undone

this is a war that can't be won
without losing

sometimes I write goodbyes
to prepare for hellos
and maybe that's why
they like me
(when I'm distant)

Internalize
what you love,
despise
desire
lose yourself, entire

yet don't dismiss
that inner tormented artist
when did we proclaim
that our dreams were unattainable?

The serpent of jealousy
slides through dusty veins
that trace your skeleton
so delicate

desire
to be empty
an addiction to the act of forgetting
yet you give permission
to your heart
you allow its hypnotic rhythm
to continually keep you up at night

rhetoric
is art
is falling
is free
unlike the cost
of loving what kills you
of loving
what is "me"

Beyond any language
I need the temptation
like rusted gears
turning in empathy
catharsis

taste iron and smile
for all the times you couldn't make it
yet still did
idiotic content
of the communal brain that we sustain
the sickness we maintain

frantic
hands ripping through air
reaching for a grasp
on your sadness

I have been
will be
am
enraptured in your temperature.
contented in contempt
for your fairytale past
impossible
to impact

yet coveting the forbidden
taste
of imprints
in your reality
sparks a dorment sentiment
of such coarse,
rough reciprocity

tempting taste of your bliss
come close
and through shifting smoke
we can descend into
crude togetherness

Bittersweet
almost metallic
your fingers pull me closer
I can't wait anymore
let's digress
into the silence
of understanding
fill in the cracks
while you calm my tremors
Find a new sense of serenity
that I never thought was meant for me
when I found you
I realized you were missing
don't leave me
but don't make promises
that you can't keep
I know that you're under
these starry nights,
with or without me.

Hold in your sentiments

My palms itch from holding on

Remember this jump
As the most graceful thing I've ever done.

I don't want to live long enough
To be a disappointment.

I am the faded moth,
attracted to the light you project,
or maybe in the end
I really am the butterfly
because those false pretenses of protection
keep me in the dark
Opposites attract
yet comprehension
of deeper senses
retains a spark.

I can't seem to get out of my head.
Frantic, demanding that
someone brings relief
and like the dreams
(that were safe in their painless blur)
no souls seem to see
a soul in me.

How disgusted I am
knotted
at the thought of simple needs.
Keeping me believing
but I need my sanity
for tainted perspective.
Concepts of
timelessness and gravity
and post life confessions
dragging judgment down
to endless inferno
(or was that above ground?)
I guess that is, perhaps,
what we're arguing for.

Believe in my sin
Or you'll burn in my hell.
Hypocrites can spit their biased rhymes
the sweetest sound of their own voice
pounding out adversity
with privilege so protected
by a sheltered sense of freedom
have you seen them?
sparks in their eyes
but no fire meets mine
like a reflection on black glass
asking for attention, recognition
but I was raised with suspicious superstition
born to distrust
disgust
and disappear.

I am independent and sentient
and patience has never been my virtue
expectations only lead me to hurt you
because with a broken heart
my hairs raise
my eyes ablaze
and my edges sharp
so as you attempt
to clean up your mess
you cut your
pretty face
on the jagged shape
of my  e m p t i n e s s

I inhale
until the fabric of my lungs burn
stretched
and then collapse

I still feel cheated

did you steal the oxygen too?
or maybe just enough
that I'd never feel full

punishment
for surviving
I suppose

I have some books
and their pages stay crisp
and they remain clean
kept in a state
of perfection

I have
no holes
in those sweaters
that stay on the shelf
(those that always
reminded me of you)

what I love
I destroy
(it wasn't meant
to happen with people too)

I carry this
heavy emptiness
as if
it was never lifted
never full

overcast eyes
throbbing soreness
in my chest
tightened around
the wounds
where those simple things
have stabbed me

oh I grow so tired
of wondering why
of simmering with sorrow
and painfully spitting
blood
from all the times
I bite my tongue

yet I cannot
will not
show

it isn't beautiful
not in the same way that you were
with your earth toned sighs
and your heart-wrenching lullabies
not like your summertime sweaters
or the way you waited for dreaming
it isn't beautiful
in the way you wore your sadness
cloaked over your sunken shoulders
oh so lovely
but it is new
and bright
and feels so very alive
it is beautiful like
I may never see your lips shake
and dreaming can wait
because I'm no longer
so heavily pained by day
it is beautiful like
escaping laughter
because happiness
holds no shame

Take the taste of proper nouns
Roll it over with your tongue
And keep on marching
Until we say you’re done
Push your convictions into pulp
Squeeze them dry
Drink in the modesty
Swallow the bitter honesty
When you pull away from a kiss
And you can barely remember the feel of her lips
Yet it’s your clearest memory
The comfort in the pressure
body to body
The taste of affection
Of never wanting anything else
The smell of skin so close
Regret tastes like envy
I loved you.
I loved you.
I love you.

Hold in your sentiments
that jump
the most graceful thing I've ever done

dive into the rabbit hole
singing all the while
weightless
approaching non existence

our veins are burning
we'll plead insane
its all wrong
you won't believe
that I don't lie through these false teeth
a breed of actors

do we let the emptiness win?
primal
naked
soaking in spotlights
slip into easy old footprints

but its only a dream
reasons fade
and scars stack up
what would you have done?

terrified and thrilled
drowning in ink
squeeze each other dry
take and take
and tick tock tick

affectionate bile
bitter honesty
you still feel sick
regret tastes like envy

running on instinct
continuity is a curse
I confess
I try to be distant
different?
anything but in the moment

recognize your delusions
don't count on the constant beat or breath
leave your artificial loyalty

you itch to collapse
to make an impact.

I know that
with your
little fixes
you're always
just trying
to help me get better
but
I am
so much better where
I am

exhausting
every possibility
of how I am
becoming
                 limitless

I can't fathom
The emptiness you've left
In this universe
In lives
In existence
That leaves it dull
That leaves us lacking
I would give you a million
Of my breaths
If it would mean
You'd breathe just once, again.
Please forgive
My insensitive words
Because you're suddenly gone now
And all I think about
Is what I'm missing.
Your belief in laughter medicine
And your hand on my shoulder
When I felt less than I should.
I would give you
A thousand river dips
And sun beams
If it would mean
You could Be,
again.

I see the same hope in each person
Painting faces and holding hands
Lying through false teeth
We’re a breed of actors
So encased in your cravings
Your heart will forget to beat
A momentary lapse of routine
And you’ll fight to regain your senses
In the back of your head
You all want the emptiness to win
Because we’re just passing time
Feeding insecurities
Until it’s over
Maybe I’m selfish
Maybe I’m weak
But it's a primal ache
So close but off limits
You all try but I won’t break
You raise this child just to **** it
Ink fills my pores
Forcing me to remember
Your guilty words and painful lectures
Forgetting expression
Brief interactions with perfection
Isolation
Sinking back into a life I’ve lived before
Swiftly slipping into old footprints
I’m not mental
I’m just sick of feeling
But don’t quite give up dear
Because for now I’m still here
At least for tonight
I will sleep by your side
Ill keep on pretending
And you can keep praying
That maybe some day I’ll turn out all right
It becomes more of an instinct as time goes on
Less of a mask
More comfortable than the truth
My palms sweat
And I begin to forget
What brought me here in the first place?
Words are lost to me
I know I have thought
I don’t know what they mean
I need to run but you’re holding my face
Holding me here for as long as you need
I want to be cut open
I want you to see me bleed
You kiss me with amnesia and leave without a trace
I cover my fears with ideas and stories
I want you to notice but you ******* ignore me
That’s why we’re addicted
Medicating our lives
With make believe and lies
Who’s the director?
The church or the people?
Lets hold each other
As the flames climb the steeple

Confusion
sink
you loved me, I think
I am the weakest link
in this false democracy

**** your hypocrisy
I'm getting out of my head
I'll be back when we're dead
everywhere that you tread

time is ticking
distance is tricking
you into oblivion
the war that noone won
you're still fighting but we're done

it's laughable, your pride
the tension in your stride
the pathetic ways you hide

we're right behind you
until you see us
it won't be true

don't look back.

the broken rush
resonates through my skull
reminiscent of heavy footsteps
My nightmares
all returning
climbing onto my chest
weighing me down
I wouldn't dare open my eyes
terrified
Daddy said I would forget
well he was wrong
and so was I
to twist my subconscious into lies
creating a getaway
So my monsters followed me to the grave
so it seems
and nobody is left to save me
do the terrors win?
is this really the end?
the weight on my chest
sinks deep
into my heart it bends
If its over
might as well
see the creatures
dragging me to hell
with my last breath
my final moment
it will be said
that my eyes were open

your chest so tight
threatening
to crush the ribs within
to silence
the heart cried raw
that reminds you
what you've lost

melancholy
has this
terrible accuracy
when it anchors down
right where
you needed security
the most

the tangible enormity
of your absence
is unsettling
especially considering
you were
never here at all

your stories are poetry
and my tired eyes
want your lullaby

you have the power
to allow yourself
to ask for help
to take for granted
to take some time
to take the healing pains off your mind.

Sparkling cracks
in the seam of things
yet things still seem to lack
your beautiful imperfection.
aren't there some questions
still unanswered?
taunting you to fill
those gaps with dependence
on chemicals
on fallen giants
on silly lullabies
like this one that echoes
when you dance through my mind
the absence of light
couldn't be darker
than hurtful intentions
of making me believe
in anything you can give to me
things leave us
blind to the truth.
the truth
that change is constant.

(I'm screaming)
You told me I was being too loud.
It's silly,
to be neither seen nor heard.

(I'm hiding)
You scold me for interrupting too much.
Even that
Doesn't really seem to work.

I guess I don't want to
seem overbearing
but my senses
are blurred at the edges
and my substance
doesn't feel so substantial at all

Creeping insecurity
that those shooting stars
didn't really fall through
and my wishes
of invisibility
are fading into truth.

I hear you
like the ringing in my ears
in the time
between consciousness
and dreams

fading scar tissue on my skin
feels so far from healing

aggressive breath
anxious sweat
pearls at the base of my neck

like puddles reflecting
that one lit up window
that spoke volumes
on the subject
of loneliness
and surrender

smog drifting higher
hugging the sun
in its suffocating embrace
so let the kids play
because tomorrow
the headlines could tell you
that it's finally time
to give up
give in
give away
anything
and everything you tried to save

cough like
your eroded throat
is the holy vessel
and your pain is scripture
pretend you didn't repeat
the things you pretended
to not have heard
so give me your last breath
and I give you my word
I'll never let your anguish
be remembered

so come on
and cough.

cough
like you could evict
the bitter thickness
of failure from your lungs
purge the fallacies you're pounded with
the shame
of cheap whiskey
and the voicemails you've saved
just to remind yourself
that you ruined things
punishment
because it feels righteous
when it comes from within
cough
and when your lungs settle
the heaviness remains
so take another desperate drag
because perhaps
this will finally be your last

frustration
to say the least
to say the most
my thoughts have ceased
to make sense at all
you dropped your responsibility
of standing by my side
I have no concept
of what sprints through your mind

its not me

it never will be

at least not how
all the poets made me dream

Five o'clock
Is naked
Is harsh
Is too bright in rusty eyes

Blame the night before
For the cruel punishment
Of one more day

Is it so exhausting
To exist?
Postponing final rest
To avoid ending it.
Then again
If it was final
I'd be rushing to the finish.

kiss my spine
so intimate
your flaming breath
seeps through me
as if the years have made me porous

trace the silhouette
of my calloused fingers
and linger
on the ridges of my wrist
you shiver
I resist
the temptation of escape

rest your head against my own
so heavy with memories
the sinking weight
of stories never told

I taste your breath
I taste your empathy
I taste the words
you never said

Do you remember
The first time we kissed?
It was like I couldn't breathe anything
But the smell of your skin.
You were, are, will be
Every poetic sentiment
That I ever need.
I don't know how to live,
If not with you,
I'm scared shitless
Now that I have to,
But 3,377 miles
Can't stop me from loving you
More than  
All the daisies under the sun
And all the bubbles in the sea
I love you more than lightning storms
And every leaf on every tree
You are the sun, moon and stars
The very air that I breathe.
Distancing myself won't help
Because I had to choke down
An imperfect goodbye
No words in any language
Exist to say what I need
You echo in my existence
Every time I laugh, kiss, cry or bleed
And no physical distance
Changes that first kiss
Or touch, or love.
When I'm lost
Ill remember your lips
That tought me how to miss you
I kissed you goodbye
But nothing near final
Because together
Ill settle for nothing less than forever
Before long you'll be seeing me
I'm scared as hell but
I'm still on my feet
Step by step
Moment by moment
Breath by breath
We will learn
How to be.

change from always saying no
to yourself
creative confidence
threat
and inspiration
feel the freedom to fail
and the independence
of saying yes

I won't take one more day
of being dulled down
to your level
Suppressing the rest of
what keeps me from hell
because your fragile grasp of power
is just that tangible

You say I stress on your spine
I know it's just that
my existence
escapes the boundaries
of your mind
when this exasperation
can't escape
when you so refuse all reason
I ache to break
the balmy surface of my skin
(in the end
I cannot win)

I know I owe you
for a life I never got to choose
for all these years
marked by faded bruises
though I love you
you've barely got
respect to lose

these words spread out,
in letters left but not forgotten
on screens that light up lonely rooms

praying silently
that you will read a deeper meaning
confessions and obsessions
longing for recognition

but in the end
it's more than that

it's thirsting for
enigmatic connection
lusting after
someone
anyone
to unravel

and in turn
to unravel me

someone who won't believe me
when I'm lying to myself
someone who will disentangle
the shadowed shambles
that haunt my bones

I pine for
a soul
to comprehend the corners of my mind
to memorize the knots along my spine

in the end
I cannot fathom
why any soul would try

I see your face
I crave your company
why am I so full of wanting?
enamored with your smile
your roaming fingers
entranced by what is
behind your eyes
I'll grow close to you
take your love
and **** it dry
I
am
a monster.
never satisfied.

the air stings my bare skin
I can see my breath
I can see an escape
the overcast white is too bright
for my tired eyes
and my wandering heart
and two different cars
crashed in the exact same spot
two mornings in a row

and I could only help but laugh
at the synchronicity of the universe
or the foolishness of young toyota drivers
trying to believe their own mystery

two mornings in a row
I'm at loss for words
or certainty
but today
I saw an exit,
and it wasn't nosediving off the road

I have always yearned
to make music
maybe
I just don't have any music to make
Simply so much to say
but no courage to converse it
in need of beats and melodies
to camouflage
the vulnerability
that I present with my words

A false hope
of belonging

shaded by disappointed lectures
by an idolized puppeteer of authority

shameless
we toss our ideals on the roots below
to gain one free moment
from thought

look back on that body
think of the grunting
sweating
pouring ink onto pillows
secreting through stretched pores
letting the dreamer sleep,
and the others dream
on these brightest nights

no more possessive pronouns
no one wonders
like we used to
no greater power is knocking

we're convicts of our own convictions

a paradox
air gets hard to swallow
hide under your quilt
of disdain and guilt

keep me afloat
but never show me how

narcissistic thought
introspective questions
philosophy
and solid facts

please get out of my head
I'd honestly rather be dead
or at least sleeping
than searching my soul
or creating some ******* identity

this isn't a poem
you've been fooled
this is a comatose rant

this is cigarette ashes
blowing in the air
it smells like **** and gasoline

this is the scratch of a strangers beard
and his alcoholic breath
and his secrets that he's drinking away

this is failure at the end of a movie
this is disappointment
without a hiccough of glorious relief

only empty
yet overflowing
words
strung together with teenage angst
and a yearning for someone
to tell me that I'm not the only one
who sees this world
this frail sense of humanity

this is uncomfortable, sweaty bedsheets
this is tossing and turning
this is sleep with no rest

this is a stubbed toe after a breakup
this is my grey matter
attempting to produce something worth typing
and failing

but I'm too stubborn to give up.
I'm sorry.

Too many deep breaths
feels like desperation
You bleed through other people
you're an expert on salvation
The horizon of your hips
is by far my favorite mystery
Temptation told me tales of
our impossible history
it just hit me
you don't mind sunrise
because morning aren't
saturated, stained with goodbyes
I want to know your
when, how and why's
Where your worries go
at the end of the night
Then I could take your misunderstanding
as love
Because it can't be understood
so much as coveted
and
There's something in my past
that makes my head not grasp
why I ended up surrounded
by a world of destructed evolution
You can be my problem
I've had enough solutions
Too many left and forgotten
Too many ways to get lost
I may not be whole again
tangled in your fantasy
So captured in my abandon.

Kind of like
when the flames licked up
what I called home,
And every blink
came with a prayer
of waking up,
just the same
I still haven't.
the last time I saw you
my heart red like embers
like your eyes,
and they met mine so empty.
I think back to the past two decembers
wanting and then
having you,
and next
you're just one more person I've hurt
to remember,
left in my chain of
avoidable destruction.
resuscitate
your flashing glances
into sounds that say
you forgive me,
but wishful thinking
is the root of heartbreak
I really don't need
another.

the irony:
killing time
ends up killing me

but hey,
it's nothing personal
it's strictly business

I lust for you
to think of me
daydream
of your scribbled greetings
of your silent longing,
your thoughts of me
(thinking of you)

thirsty
for some confession
of truth
something drastic, something new

in this stagnant springtime

colours, bright and harsh
yet they fall upon me
oh so dull
the wind avoids my skin
walking in a vacuum
so constantly numb
so ardent for
a crack in
the continuity

it subdues
any passion
even my hatred
for routine

letting me subconsciously
slip
into the nightmare
of the "american dream"
the steady pretending
this enmeshment
it infects
the very seams of
my existence

the words don't come
when I try
lightheartedly
to write is to live
is to bleed

I can't compare
perfection
to anomaly
I can't think
I'm trying to breathe