i've been tripping through cemeteries again
searching for all the old skeletons
covered in cobwebs
from the depths of my closet
i wonder what would happen if i lose them

i don't know who i am when i'm not
falling for you,
falling apart at the seams.

I THINK MY PROBLEM IS FLINGING MYSELF OFF CLIFFS WITHOUT BOTHERING TO SEE HOW DEEP THE RAVINE IS. I CARE TOO MUCH TOO FAST UNTIL I'M *BURNING

i guess what i'm learning is that you have to have your tragedies if you're ever going to learn anything and i guess i never realized that you were just a lesson the whole time. i didn't want to let go of hope and trust and i have never been able to burn bridges very well after all. i keep matches in my pockets but i've never really liked the smell of gasoline for long enough to keep it with me. after all, i never needed it. i like to keep all my paths open. it was up to you to destroy us and wow you did it so well that i can barely feel it, the decimation of nerve endings like beating a dead horse that can't feel anymore. i don't need you anymore. i can't feel you anymore. do you know what it's like to lose a limb, feel the phantom pains of old heartache that was never really broken but never quite something other than love? maybe for you it was just something to pass the time and maybe for you it was just another smile in a hallway of a maze of old faces that you just don't recognize anymore. maybe i'll be a face you just don't recognize anymore. after all i don't think that i could recognize you anymore from a line up of old haunts and ghosts and skeletons from my closet and memories and the past. i tend to avoid burning bridges but i do tend to build cement walls right beside them. i don't know if you've set that way ablaze because i can't see it anymore, it's behind the thick brick cement that keeps me safe from everyone that might try to hurt me and hiding is what i do best after all. hiding and falling because i can't stop looking at the stars maybe that's why i call myself icarus maybe that's why i feel like a tragedy. maybe i was your lesson or maybe i was just a story, a piece of poetry to read once and then put back on the shelf in its collection, nothing impressive or important, just another part of ovid's collection. you were helios to me and that was my mistake from the start. how dare you make me ever believe you were a god? as if you could ever be close to heavenly after all

there’s electricity spiking the air when your stormy eyes meet mine for the first time and it’s like suddenly everything is charged, magnetic, pulling my blood from my heart to the tip of my nose, an explosion of embarrassment and twitching hands, the jolt of feeling like falling just before you finally fall asleep. i’m seeing your mouth moving but all i can look at is your lips, the dart of your tongue, and pride swells like a tsunami high tide as i think about you, my nike, my victory, mentally running racetracks and hopping hurdles even though you never agreed to compete for anything. little eyes and big stars, stretching the space between us until we’re solar systems apart, our hearts destined for different galaxies. i always knew you weren’t meant for me but that doesn’t change the way it feels when you reach for me: we’re the calm before the storm, the way we always have been but we never should be.

maybe the reason i always call myself icarus
is that the only person who never saw this coming
was me.
maybe the reason i always call myself icarus
is because my mother shook and cried as she
strapped wax wings on me and said,
“do not look at the stars”
because she knew childish wonder
would only **** me.
maybe the reason i always call myself icarus
is that i wish i had been that light, i wish i had
been able to see those stars and really
touch them.
maybe the reason i always call myself icarus
is because i’m a ******* tragedy but nobody
seems to realize it except me.
no one ever felt the fall quite like
me.
maybe the reason i always call myself icarus
is because the only person i’ve ever disappointed
is myself, my own ambition, my own dreams.
maybe the reason i always call myself icarus
is because i always feel like i’m
falling.

it's that time of the year
again
full of dry skin and
dryer eyes
emotions feeling like
woollen sweaters
in the sunlight
feeling like regret, feeling
like very not right
feeling like the whole season
makes you sleepy, makes it night
darker mornings, darker times
and it's well known
we all feel a little more alone
at night.

are you collecting the old counts of how
they slaughtered your son and his power-hungry heart,
twenty three knives to the torso,
the killing blow delivered by a beloved friend?
or are those the scrolls that you wish
dust would settle over forever, relics and reliefs of
everything you see behind your closed eyelids.
a politician’s mother
must be all the more clever; her son will not
be going into battle to die with honor
but rather with deceit. give her-- you-- a laurel wreath,
the irony of the goddess nike standing
golden over the tomb of your son: emperor,
caesar. mother of summer, of boiling july,
are you not the sun? are you not the constellations
freckling burnt pale skin? are you not
the fiercest and brightest of warriors, quietly,
without warning?