there is no one at fault
except for the plates trembling below
swiping our soul as one
to gobble it up
suffocate our pores
let the screams turn up
and taste-bud-dots peel
there is nothing left to sense
but the barren soil
while the last engine pops
and the final bell rings
the church has set free
all the old taken things

15 MPH
caution, the kids are at play
embracing the youth they will
one day lose
just like you have

50 MPH
you get where you're going
but on the highway there are hazards
if you don't watch where you're going
or look through the dark
you'll wind up turned over
rolling
rolling
roll...

70 MPH
you're making time
straight forward shot
but you can not see the scenery
and the music is too upbeat
but speed along, sweetie, speed along.

100 MPH
only on the track are you really safe
you're passing strangers
you're losing control
but you can't slam the breaks
you can never stop

280 MPH—

I was told to never fall in love with a writer.
But, a writer that recites his work with his hands is ten times more dangerous.
Eventually, you'll find yourself immensely fascinated by the veins that can play keys oh-so softly; soft enough to cradle an infant,
or even the aggressive way he fills your entire childhood bedroom with such impossible power and passion
in a single chord.
But, these hands are dangerous.
Just as they can hammer into the piano, his hands can rip through your heart. His hands will never just play your body simply black and white, oh no.
His hands will destroy you; each and every muscle movement will have you on edge and by the time the decrescendo drains the flood in your mind, it will be too late.

clear thumbtacks hold the
few blades of grass
collected from the meadows
of the Magnificent Days.
no baby blanket can wrap up
these times;
no perfume from the 80's
mask such greatness.
driving home at 8:56
in february feels like four-thirteen a.m.
while it's raining
(how strange)
we don't feel like talking,
we don't feel like junk food
but scratchy blankets to tuck
in the snow-less mountains
this time of year.
something has to cover them,
because our society doesn't approve
of ******
or happiness, really
for our smoke detectors
are dead and the mirrors are stained
the rugs are frayed
and our poetry *****.
our candles smell like grandmothers
but that future for us isn't so
far away.
we focus on the water that will burst
past the controlled walls
in a few months;
that's so close (too close) to tell
because we are told
we won't end up being what we thought
we'd wanted at sixteen.
our christmas lights are getting dull
and we don't strive to make people jealous
anymore.
we just sulk on the loss
of the Magnificent Days,
bright and kind.

The hands on a clock
are only in sync
twenty-four times a day.
The hands spend one thousand, four hundred, sixteen
minutes a day
racing around the clock,
trying to be together.
The arms on a clock,
like the arms of a son,
do not always mask one another.
Arms on a clock never leave.
Nature’s clock can tell time and kiss fathers’ foreheads
just long enough to leave a spot.
Around the sun-kissed spot is a receding hairline
and wicked-sharp eyebrows a mile away,
just above the dark eyes and weak smile.

Over time, history repeats.

Who knew that just a strong bond could create such similarity?
Soon, the same dark eyes will be found
just to the right,
below a receding hairline;
a replica of December, 1995.
The problem with dates
is that they are in the past
and the strings of time
that hold such father-son relationships together
fray until the ropes of hope
can no longer be held
on both ends.

may she shine with symphony,
shake when they hit the road,
stare at time through her madness,
run after my sad, drunk blood,
crushing above an essential friend

her feet ache

Stick around and taste the honey on his cold, stone lips
and trace outlines of every skin cell around the thumbnails he uses to push lovers' pins into the ground.
Stick around and connect the dots on every leaf his messy hair has trapped
while I sip my coffee in the window,
watching the rain pour down.
In the meantime, race the raindrops in hopes for a beam of light, because the clouds never clear in his foggy, misleading, choir-like singing eyes.

The way you hold all the petals in place
because the center of the daisy needs some assistance shows the greatest of all strengths.
Letting me not burst into flames when my pores are seeking fire and heat the most is the ultimate control.

You possess much power.

Though orchids are something you love in the color blue, your eyes change from green to hazel with your mood, never to be the lilacs nor the dalias.

I could find your face in a pile of millions of pieces of shattered glass that the artists claim to be mosaic, however I am no artist and neither are you but the sound your keys make as they dangle upstairs and the silly grin you make, showing your teeth when you are trying to be funny.. You hate black ink but here I am anyway and I love you
to the moon
and beyond
and back again.

**** it up,* they'll say
and sit up straight.

But don't you see that we cannot simply do as we are told?

Our generation as a whole is the sweaty gym sock lost between lockers
and the confusion between the zebra being black with white stripes or white with black stripes
and the fine print on the advertisements that reads "for entertainment purposes only"


We, as one, are towered over
underpowered
piled upon with high pressure
and the balloon has to someday burst.

You can be whatever you want to be is the number one statement that the Statue of Liberty cannot hold for her hands are too high and the meaning is written in a frequency too low.
We are are the glass bones that will shatter on wood and there is no carpet or cushion below us and we are tumbling down in what we think we love and what we know we hate.

When the scissors cut crooked, think of us.

We are slammed while we slam and try to create a steady beat which goes stray within the car horns and crow caws.

Small and underestimated.

"forever isn't real," I tell the boy
who thought we would last forever

midnight darkness is the evil waters
the flakes drown themselves in
they never melt
their souls do not dissolve

absorb the whispers in the pockets
the fibers of the sheets
the birds bury themselves in
it's a rainy day
so the caterpillars dance
they don't know their lives will change the second the storm clears

the words are not spoken
nor are they written
it is just a telepathic wrongness
meaningless
help get untangled from the sea glass
come out with no cuts
out of your membrane
light shines and sparks
the empty holes fill with dust
the bones disintegrate
nothing is left
melodies in the wind

Hiding under that mattress
isn't getting you anywhere.
You can dream of foreign countries
but your family won't be rushing to see you
to tell you they love you
and miss you.
Somewhere pressed between **** and
humidity,
your lungs transparent grow moss
and your throat hurts from not screaming.
Soon it's two below
(as it is surely supposed to be)
and your young mind hates it.
Your esophagus has become
entirely a forest
abandoned
for the winter.
The scariest thing is not knowing
if your population will retain
its original numbers.
The trees around you can't hold you
and the cliff you're on
is not going to carry you home.
"You have your own inside you, be it for yourself,"
but that doesn't help.
It was something you loved but the stilts
of support splintered.
Your mattress reeks of ****.
Your lungs of cushion collapse.
Your cliff has crumbled
and your ashes are held in the
eyes of your old pals,
but they become the coastal sand.

The excess raindrops
get louder
with every open window
like you become
more tantalizing
with every cheap tile
you cross over
with your ashamed
feet
in those miserable
hallways
And you know as well
as I do
that it is not easy
having a sentimental,
earthly element
remind you of
where you wanted
your last breath
to be raked from
the blood and
the gray
that would have
been soaked into
soil
before anyone noticed.

"Tell yourself I love you when I die."
Since then, burning my back on artificial heat has become my November addiction
The snow falling outside has been there for a week; it's getting old
And god, **** the man who invented movie theaters to take away from the magnificent show of the sky every morning and most nights

It will hit soon: the withdrawal of all the adventurous, summery memories our brains do not contain
We climbed a mountain, the literal ******
Seasonal affective disorder to the tee
No, don't drink that tea
Daughters playing in the background of a last kiss of a warm breath before it freezes

How delusional:
Allowing myself to fall asleep with the thought of March and you still underneath my fingernails
I wouldn't dare to crawl out, for it would be pointless to replace dirt with dirt
Where are your associates at?
Your support system is nothing short of the pipes of a flushing toilet in the dead of January
But here I am, supporting you with the twigs the trees call branches this time of year

Under the bed, missing four pairs of slippers
Too late to keep your toes moving
Slowly fewer mountains are climbed
Less smiles are shot anywhere near a window
And you're still breathing as far as I can tell, but the intense headache that forms when you are within a hundred-foot vicinity of myself is purely physical
Take that in

This poem is not about you.
     This poem is about the candles that I no longer burn because the scent is the seasonal smell of you. It is about me trying to give them away to my unsuspecting friends and them knowing the history behind a jar of ******* wax. It is about the nightstand that holds the candles behind all of the others and makes me forget for a while.

But this poem is not about you.
     It is about the love that I ordered off the internet and gave to you. It is about wondering whether you sleep with it, or stuffed it in your closet, or burned it. It is about the scent that I wrapped it in, that I no longer wear, for it reminds me of you being reminded of me.

Though it may sound like it, this poem really is not about you.
     It is about the melody that I no longer cry to when it hits my ears. It is about how my obsession with Iron and Wine crashed after we danced. It is about how I obsess again and can do it happily.

     It is about how I can write neutrally with an undertone of you.
     This poem is not about you.

For each string I pick
there is a woman
with her child
sitting on the sidewalk
telling him a story
of a false reality.

For every dollar she spends
there is a gust of wind
carrying something greater
that just leaves
cradling the secrets
swept away from their owners.

For every rock a child tosses
into the fast-moving river
there is someone
or something
separated from another
but we may never learn
that a note is never the same
and money is hardly earned
and rocks don't float

They always say, "the past repeats,"
but ours can never again.
We were sworn together with knots,
and bled together with needles and thorns.
our window is closing
on the 70 mph highway
because too many bees flew into the car.
Your batteries are dead and my
charger is torn apart.
Your nicotine breath has staled,
and the fire's out of wood.
We can try to write a new script,
but sequels are never as good.

1:07 a.m.
wake up
shake

it's foreign
my legs are being clung to
i just want you to let go
it's a beg,
it's a cry for help
in the back of a black suburban
a scary place
where headlights are not used
a hand cannot be seen an inch in front of you
but somehow my body is found
and you invade
without permission
the words to shout
"Please stop"

3:34 a.m.
wake up
shake

sitting on the rotting dock
the cloth i wear
falling through
the salty rain
burns my cuts
lashed
the Norman in the yellow boots
and the white beard
retrieves my soul
he is not the gangster
who disturbed me before

4:56 a.m.
wake up
shake

powering into the church
stumbling over the invisible crutch
nothing more strange
it's a place i've rarely been
all eyes are on me
they know i am the spawn
of the heathen
but all i can do is cry
into the open arms of the church goers
and explain my long travels
and running away
the horrid torture that has reached my city

6:21 a.m.
wake up
shake

the white beat up car
holds a young mom
with her baby
who just stares at me with envy
as if i hadn't just been hurt like she
my parentals were called
and i was on my way out
something the young mom seemed
to have never seen

The best purchase I ever made
was the blackout shade for my bedroom window,
made to allow ignorance towards
the hasty mornings in which you arise.
Glass panels show haze across the valley this January. Did you sneeze?

For a world that revolves around you,
it's beautiful.

Even though the mountains aren't as tall anymore,
and the clouds hang lower—unlike your self esteem, but much like mine—I can still climb these melting piles of guilt in an attempt to reach solitude.
What is solitude?
Can anyone find this in a muddy world that revolves around you?

month ten, it began to snow
as the choir sang christmas songs
all too soon
and while everyone got all warm
and fuzzy,
it's not gloomy enough for me.
i grew up in the rain and
my filters drowned in it
which probably explains
my bitterness towards the sun
and any given day.
but yesterday,
how sweet it was, for you to say
you love me
to this female who loves you too much
for you to be kind
for you to be nice
for you to be generous
for you to be kidding
and the casual invitation
in which you promptly ignore.
now, the smoke that rolls over when each of your veins move
has become my october addiction
but your words are a close second
and the storms that the forecast
no longer calls for are the reason
it's tolerable,
tolerable,
is it tolerable?

what a world it is
in which we reside.
we've come to the point
where we've lost all our
wonder.
as a species,
we act as though
there is nothing left to discover!
all we are
are satisfaction-seekers
and to have anything
unanswered
would
be
absurd!
this world we live in
is clogged up with "feelings"
and drowning in the pixels of
burning photographs doesn't seem
too steamy.
the concepts
which are thrived upon
are nothing more than perspective;
is that paper crumpled,
or is it a cultured crane?

What is to become of the You who _*

a) finds herself traveling through the sharp, acidic, triangular tunnel while attempting to drive home from a drunken love and self worth/self control final exam?
b) finds herself looking at the life inside of her in a stiff, unsettling room with a stranger in a white coat and heels; the only literal touch of support from salty drops of on lens cleaner?
c) finds herself with fingers cut from stacks of paper, as well as the stacks of paper cut by her struggling, broke fingers and overloaded, broke mind?
d) finds herself with sore cheeks from pulling an expression with a falling face, falling down with the *sky and her sister's damp, isolated ground in a field of yellowed bones, shed hair and disintegrated skin?

it's visiting walls packed tight with people
possessing the god-forbidden depression
like bait for the fish
to latch onto the lure
substances?
i'm hooked

but to hold on to the victim
is to pull on his life
and rip through the roof
let some light in
and when it no longer visits,
but is crammed into your home;
what's the matter?
the walls are no more depression than
they are roots and soil

do not bring home the dogs
for the dogs can dig
and an act of jealousy
can let it all cave in
but father, do you see?
these roots are not buried
and the seeds will soon sprout
(if you'll let them)
and they'll grow higher than you,
greater than you,
to make it out of the ground
leave you, hound, behind

but you're a barb to get past
and you're attached to alcohol
leaving the only path to follow
be one of the earthworms
and no future ahead
**oh, father.

she wanted to enjoy her year,
but her constant state of mind
is a long glass wall.
looking through the
other side,
her lover lives.
on her current side,
she is no longer safe
around the people she trusts most.
the other side has her
words plastered on every
surface visual to the world.
positivity.
the grass is not necessarily
greener, but the mountains,
my god,
are taller and fresher
with the lakes sparkling
beauty.
solitude.
her current side contains
her words sprayed on to
every surface
invisible to the world.
negativity.
she hides away.
her lover speaks
with swords.
her best friend takes
the heartbeat away
in her sleep.
her mountains are muddy.
isolation; danger.

My bones were once tender for you.
It's a muddy road you're strolling down,
and I don't know if you know,
but your shoes are untied
(of course you ******* know).
Or are you wearing slip-ons?
I wouldn't recognize you anymore.
I considered taking the same road
to church this very Sunday
but I was stopped by the discomfort
I felt in the presence of a cross.
Faith cannot mean that my life is safe.
Though my bones were once tender for you,
it is unfair that we are both on a hook
but you hold the string
that tugs on guts
whenever I try to breathe.

It's not her fault the towels have blood stains on them.
You're the one who destroyed her knees,
(among other things)
remember?
In one swipe of a night,
the greatest thing
you ever had
lost you,
and you think you understand!
She isn't mad because of your actions;
she isn't mad at all.
She's aggravated that you have to be past-tense
and a tail now pulls at her head
whenever she tries to rest.

It's fine,
dance around me.
Your beanie in the summer
makes you look much more
ridiculous than she with he.
Although you're not a ghost,
nor clown,
you haunt
and make her laugh
effortlessly.
What is your secret?
What have you done?
The way you scurry
can only have one wondering
what you were doing in
2013,
when your life began,
and began with me,
but you've always been
barely without me.

Between our two subconscious minds
dries one cigarette
missing the lips of one another and
the sweet relief of familiarity
and bad habits.

To inhale takes focus
To exhale takes bravery
But to do neither
is nothing more than the
cast of a fishing pole
into the pond that is our ocean.
I was fishing without the flat chest
I still call home;
The happiest habit I know--

It's dusty and abstract,
the outside to the eyes.
The people, the places,
the styles, the minds;
the world isn't plaid,
it's ringed and it's crystal
made of a path that goes fireside
where there is light and there is color;
where the sounds blend together
and a binaural beat
brings a shoulder to a cheek
and kisses to knees;
they find freckles in the peace
"look, it's you and it's me."

A little more power and strength is added to my being when I see the pavement is steaming.
I saw it coming.
The sun showed signs of popping back out in the midst of civilians fearing a storm.
A sly *******, everyone has to have a little fun.
By textbook-definition, entertainment is dangling the sweet taste of chlorophyll and spring in front of me, and it isn't selfish until my vision and interest are taken for granted.

Gas is a force of nature
and I'm on the other side of the glass.