I live a life of unfulfilled dreams.
trips never travelled and sights never seen.
words never written and photos never taken.
a world full of wonder and I sit here unshaken.
one would think of glorious adventures ahead,
but I'm just trying to find a way out of bed.

that last breath you took,
was it for me?
or did you waste it begging for bravery?

it's so different now
it's as if that love I had for you was a candle trying to stay lit in a storm
and it was finally blown out
but I haven't any matches to light it again

how much longer until my future?
I know I'm living in it,
but when does it get better?
I thought that the present meant now,
but I think we're mistaken
because all I can picture is what is still waiting.

This is short and

sweet.

Just as we
were meant to be.

cold coffee warming my hands
the ghost of you staining my heart
the thought of us drifting apart

drop me in the ocean,
let my arms wave.
let me drown
in the waters uncharted
and regained.
balloons floating above me,
filled with my unconscious dreams.
I struggle and tug at the strings strangling me

I watched us burn.

I wanted to put out the flames,
but all I held was more gasoline.

I never thought I could be so content,
with your head in my lap
and your heart in my chest.

I find myself free falling
pulled by gravity
watching the ground slowly sneak up on me
and if I knew a way to slow my fall
maybe it would be your arms
that caught my all
but you seem disinterested
distracted by the sky
I'm just another spec of dust
something that's in abundace to find

thrown into new understandings
given earth beneath my feet
taking what love I encounter
falling harder
never faster
I grow from unbridled, invasive flowers
seeking uncontrollable laughter
escaping the soulless sorrow
I am wild, free
but still broken

all the pretty people
with pretty little faces
fake little hearts
and interrupting gazes
laughing away empty tears
loaded guns whisper in their ears
bottles of pills, personally filled
fake pretty people in millions of pretty pieces

Your eyes,
so lost in everything

but me.

Was I really that ordinary?
I was last on your list of

meaningless
ludicrous
mundane

priorities.

falling out of love with you
was like falling asleep.
first slowly and then all at once.

Mischief wanders
falling deep.
Twisting and turning
beneath your feet.

the moon is my only friend.
in darkness I pretend.

it's days likes these
where the rain soaks my bones
wilting the flowers I use to line my soul
and I seem too busy
to care for those roses
but if I'm not willing to tend my own garden
why do I think another poor soul will be up for the challenge?

tattoos
maybe on your body
mostly on your heart
I used to believe in the hope on my arm
I guess I still do, wishing for a new perspective of the word
I look down and see me
not someone people want me to be

now the cross on my wrist
sits so elegantly between my heart and my mind
these are the tattoos on my body
the ones you can touch and feel and find
I might explain the meaning
and you may trivially understand my words
but never my thoughts, the truth behind my heart
I wish you could see those tattoos  
because although the ones on my body are beautiful

at least to me

the ones on my heart are beyond anything you have ever seen
most people never know the feeling
the feeling of finding yourself
seeing who you actually are written on your own skin
I don't see ink
I see me
the person everyone else refuses to see

I want to wander among the leaves
that have fallen so carefully around me
they haven't hindered who I am
but they have showed me a new path
and I want to find where it's twists and turns end
beneath the snow and throughout my bones
I'm lost on this new path to an uncertain home
and I'm left without a reality to ground me
only to rely on something so far outside of me
I feel so alone with this emptiness that surrounds me
only filling each hole when I'm threatened to drowning

nostalgia for the past
creeps into every part of me.
overflowing my heart and my mind
with waters I will chart only once.
like a map with millions of pin holes,
my life is covered with people and places I have loved.
seen through these eyes and felt through this heart
are things I will continually long for.

I'm so far from home
I can't even find it on my map
I've been circling the same block for so long
each tree has grown to hide me even further
but I keep walking in that same circle
hoping it turns into a straight line

You were like a flower.
But a rose without petals.

*Nothing but thorns.

grounded, am I,
in these worn out shoes
soulless and hole strewn
just like my heart too
is broken in like these old shoes
wanderlust on my tongue
and insanity on my lips
I cry in my sleep like an addict on a bad trip
but my mind is clear as I gaze out my window
whisper sad songs as I draw in the fog with my fingers
I am gone, so gone,
I wish I could stay here,
but these soulless and hole strewn shoes
have plans to get away, dear

Don't love me to love me.
Love me to never lose me.

Hold me to never watch me go
and kiss me to never say goodbye.

Keep me only yours
*and I will keep you only mine.

the cold, my love
is something so close to us
it finds us in our dreams.
it haunts not only you,
but me.

the cold, my love
has something I want.
it has the warmth that is meant
to be for us.
but it so blatantly disregards
our every being.

the cold, my love
will soon find its way
in and between.
soaking into our bones
to keep us from loving.

empty hands with nothing to hold.
waves crashing against my broken bones.
I gave it a shot,
trying to swim to you.
but you let me drown
in the thought of you.

I misplaced you.
How could I have been so careless?

floating above mountain tops
and swimming through seas.
my dreams become lonely in the morning when I leave.
lost between my pillow cases
are journeys forgotten and redeemed,
but the moon remembers to smile when I slip into bed
and my dreams forgive my absence
to find me once again.

Fog seeps through every inch of me
Distorting my views of
You
Cleansing me of each thought of
You
These bleak misunderstandings of
You
Because it was really never actually about
You

Time is only a peace keeper.
Left to babysit the helpless.
It leaves us in handcuffs wrestling with priorities for the sane-less.
We fold our hands and twiddle our thumbs
hoping for silence which never comes.
We are broken in the shadows of a downtrodden land
and we are never affixed to see what it is that holds us to the ground.
I reach for something so far in the distance,
it's as if I'm a toddler grasping for vision.
I don't walk without stumbling and I promise you I'm not perfect.
But how in this world are we supposed to live with purpose?

Life sustains with a flicker,
but lives with a flame.

A noose slips when your feet do,
and a gun fires when there is nothing left
to claim.

take only what you need
and leave the rest for me.
my emotions are poor
and hardly comforting.
they have become stiff
and raw since you decided to leave.
I'm not sure anymore what it is
that seems to be ailing me.
for if it was you
it would mean I still have love in my heart.
but my dear,
I assure you that I surely do not.

to be yours would be a Sunday morning
sipping on a favorite tea
watching as everything became veiled in stillness

to have your love would be a summer night
stolen stars and kiss soaked memories
surrounded by the inevitable sunrise

but to have both
oh, to have both
that could be nothing but a dream

My love.
You are lost.
But as am I.
How on earth,
will we ever
intertwine?

I am enamored by you.

Ships sail from sea to sea,
but even that beauty
can't beat the unrequited dream

*of what we could be.

I've tried so hard to remember the love
that I've spent so long dreaming of.
wilted fireflies drawn from dust
and burned down memories
split from us.
we used to run with abandoned guile
deceiving each other with jilted smiles.

maybe that wasn't really me
that
drowning
sinking
feeling
or the crisp autumn air that touched my cheeks
maybe that was just--

oh
but what if it was me?
what a sweet feeling
to know that I was alive
even though I was dying
to know that I had lived
even though my last thought
my last breath
may be the ones currently occupying
that space
in which I most certainly was--

and then when it did go black
when there truly was nothing left
and my body no longer recognized
what it saw
what it felt
what it hoped
what it dreamed
yes,
when there was truly nothing left--

ahh I see
yes,
how silly to think
that it wasn't me
brushed with the feeling of wet pavement
a glimpse of the churning grey sky
on the other side
and my thoughts became so small
that the color red became irrelevant
and my skin
such a porcelain white
touched by many hands
but none were mine--

how silly really
to think
I was still alive

-h.j.-

She never did learn to love.

*Only how to run.

this fire
once stoked by the wood
from my undying forest
seems to be dwindling
in the crushed eyes of forgotten tomorrows
and I once thought so clear
I was a ghost in the mirror
now my loley reflection stains
my vivid recollection
and I stare not through
but at whom I
never thought I would become

"how is it that we have become so distant?" he asked.
"well, my love, you seem to have found a different disposition that no longer requires my assistance."

blank pages
you fill with empty words.
it would be nice to see those lines
those curves.
but words do not seem to amuse you.
they escape and abuse you.
so those pages that remain blank
will surely stay without ink.
for to get your book
would be an impossible thing.

my perspectives seem to be skewed.
uneven and drawn to misguided conclusions.
I'm left tilted and jilted
from my own interpretations.
flawed is my nature
with exceptional and judgmental accusations.
I'm not saying that I'm a wreck,
but I'm a ship that seems to have made a wrong turn
and I've somehow found my way to the bottom of the sea.

it's hard to let go of something
you have held onto for so long.
watching it drift away,
caught in the wind.
tears stream from your face
and it feels like your chest has caved in.
but watching this thing die,
something you've known for your whole life,
means there will be a new beginning.
whether you're ready for it or not.

I am a poet
and my words bleed my blood
they say what I feel
and breath through my lungs

So much trouble perched between your lips.
A match flirting just at the edge.

All you have to do is light it
and everything bursts into flames.

But it still sits there.
Eager for something new to chase.

like a night in October you swept me into you.
someone to comfort me and teach me what it is to lose.
because you left the moment I cradled your name between my lips
and I knew the reason you captured myself
was for your own certain bliss.
but just like October you came and you went
and I watched the leaves turn without your hands on my every inch.

Like the ocean,
I am deep.
But unlike the monsters that lie beneath,
I float atop the surface,
searching for a place to sink my teeth.

The cold trembles at my lips and I can feel shivers run down my dimpled skin.
My breathe forms in front of me as if it were its own entity.
The leaves crumple beneath my feet and I grin at the sound.
Your hand is weak in mine,
But I know you'll never let go.
I can feel your eyes trace me as I continue on in my own world.
The eloquence of your every step is lost in the protruding sound of mine.
I laugh and giggle as you watch and observe with the faintest of smiles.
The light from scattered lamp posts illuminate our silent conversation,
And I am lost in everything you are.

Snow hits my face and you brush it away unconsciously.
We stop and look up at the stars between the delicately placed clouds.
Your hand tightens around mine and I can feel you take in everything around us.
We count the lights in the blackened sky knowing that we could never possibly finish.
But we know we have a lifetime,
So we try.

You act like the world owes you
A broken beaten girl that gives all she has
But you're no different
You're not special
You give no more and no less
Just fall
Let your wounds bleed
You are owed absolutely nothing

I am imperfect.
I am unwhole.

I have been beaten and battered,
left without a soul.

As hard as I try,
I fall to my knees.

Begging for someone to comfort me.