seems like days get more spaced out or im falling in and out of consciousness and can only remember that the seconds change every hour and the minutes last a month. its been a few years, and judging by my timeline it feels like almost a decade. sometimes i still feel like it might of worked. sometimes i don't remember your name. sometimes i feel it all. it feels so distant its almost feels invalid. how dare the thought even cross my mind. whenever i hear it knocking on my window i slam it shut and the humidity makes me sweat out the sickness. i cant seem to move my arms, my legs, my hands, my head into a new space, into a new person. i can't even ******* sit up.

Walking in a circle is, in the fondest sense, going absolutely nowhere, even though it feels better than walking completely backwards. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I have never even been face to face with you and mine grows weaker and weaker with the length of time between the moments I get to touch you. The strange thing is that, prior to meeting you, I have a hard time describing what it was I was even doing - the storms you have hurled into my quiet life is all I know now, and I never realized just how flimsy my own infrastructure was. I have seeped into the walls you throw dishes in and the floors you roll around on, and I feel everything your fists do equally, if not more. Who knows my body better than you? The places I dip and divide and ***** and bend; who has held me down with nothing but words and sweaty silence that lay thick enough for us to cut with butcher knives? My stomach is trained to clench is desperation when your name is mentioned and I am nervous around anyone who shares with you; a picture is worth a thousand words, but your name is worth one million, and you've never spoken mine aloud but I have murmured yours, like a mantra, repeatedly, groaning in the way wounded animals do and trembling with that same fear. I can't count on my fingers how many nights I traded sleep for a reason to talk to you, and all too well do I know how many lifetimes are crammed into the seconds before an anticipated phone call. People might wonder how I even survive when you aren't around, but how many ways can a dog entertain himself when the master is away? Oftentimes, in a state of unwarranted panic, I claw at my clothes as though you are lurking underneath, and only rarely are you there, metaphysically. I am not the only person the rain falls on; I understand that there are plenty of others who are lulled by the charm of someone who knows nature of a human being in the way that otherworldly creatures might, but in this instance I know that everyone is haunted in their own exclusive way, and you are always flickering in the periphery of my blurry vision when my bedroom lights are out.

There is sea salt all over my hands, and I know I'm not the ocean.
So let's drink tea out of mason jars,
with cold porcelain shards instead of ice,
and let's cut our mouths on every argument we've ever had.
I hope you don't mind if I make a home out of you,
and I'm sorry if my spirit doesn't fit so well inside of yours, you see
I have been carrying dead weight with me like a terminated pregnancy,
and mourning the emptiness inside of me like a miscarriage.
Now it seems like I'm only giving birth
to the sorrow that my heart cannot hold.
Now I'm starting my mid-life crisis early, stating over, starting with you.
I'm writing my past into the sand, waiting for the tide to clean my slate.
So just wait a little but while I hold my breath hostage,
and I will wait for a ransom to come,
and I will pray that it doesn't come barreling down my door, looking like you.

We write about two AM because it is simplicity and we are underexposed. Overtime, simplicity becomes complex and subjective and harder to define. Soon you associate two AM with her hair holding on desperately to her shoulder blades, but at that point it doesn't matter what time it is because all your brain understands is her mouth and how badly you want to kiss it. Everything is clinging to something: hair to skin, sheets to mattress, mouth to teeth; but the real fear lies in what will end up letting go and this is why we are born with out fists clenched, because from the moment we are living, every insecurity spills like air out of a bag you thought was vacuum sealed. See, life is full of complexities and we can't seem to find permanent serenity, but, in the midst of it all, there are small things that resonate within us and soon we collapse into a string of cliches and we fight not to drown within them, collectively babbling and trying to make sense of the concept of never letting go.

AND I'M ******* SORRY FOR BRINGING MY HEART TO YOU BUT LEAVING MY SOUL IN THE ******* BACKYARD BUT YOUR EYES WEREN'T EVEN ******* OPEN I MEAN LIKE YOU WOULD'T EVEN KNOW IF I WAS IN A ******* COMA FOR ****'S SAKE YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO'S SUFFERING SO STOP DROWNING IN ******* THIN AIR I WISHED SOMEONE DID WAKE ME UP BEFORE I DECIDED TO GIVE MY WRETCHED SOUL TO THE ******* BACKYARD LIKE WHAT THE **** DO YOU EXPECT FROM ME AM I SUPPOSED TO LEND MY ******* SHOULDER TO YOU WHILE YOUR SCREAMS BREAK THESE ******* SKELETONS THAT I SPENT SO LONG TO REASSEMBLE I SAY EITHER YOU STOP PRETENDING OR THAT I BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE ******* SERIOUS AND I HOPE YOU WOULDN'T END UP IN THE ******* GRAVEYARD BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO LOSE MY ******* HEART AND I AM SURE I WILL BE GUILTY FOR THIS BUT HOW THE **** AM I SUPPOSED TO HAVE A CONSCIENCE WHEN MY HEART IS WEAK I JUST WISHED YOUR SORROW DIDN'T BRING MINE BACK. DID YOU HAVE TO END THE CALL? DID YOU? TELL ME, DID YOU? PLEASE DON'T END YOUR LIFE.

i want to dissolve into the sky
without a sound
without anyone noticing my empty space
in the most gentle and subtle way possible
i want to go away from here
i want to walk backwards and save myself
from what inevitability is ahead
i want to leave
i want you
to wish i’d stay

I dreamt that gravity
was just a conspiracy
to sell us shoes
but we never questioned it
just stood, penniless on blistered feet
gazing at the stars

Rage, riot-
wage war against the mind-cage

I dreamt I was an infant
who never learned
that my outstretched hands
were mine, were 'I,'
they tried to bathe me but
I swirled down the drain
and became the sea

Wail, weep-
sell your soul to the keeper of the mind-cage

I awoke with this migraine
shook my head and
heard the shackles clink
reached up and felt
this fissure in my skull
pried it open, watched my mind sigh
and expand to fill this space

Grow quiet, shake hands-
have a cup of tea with the mind-cage

Now I am creation
took the roof off my house
I waft into the open sky
opened my heart
clowns from a clown car
the sorrows walked out

Embrace, make peace-
just be with the mind-cage

Weightless, I meet my old desires
fluffy little wishes floating in the breeze
but there is nothing lacking now
I hold the mind-cage in my arms
we float as it screams
and blames, and fades

Slither, creep-
escape through the open bars

Come home to this joy

I've written too many poems for too many people. something about you, I know, is different. even the image of your cold eyes skipping across the words I'm creating is nothing short of a miracle. the thought of your distant mind holding a blurred depiction of me seems impossible. you deserve more than a poem- more than standing up on some balcony thinking, just for a second, you loved some girl you never met. and maybe you loved her because you saw the best of her. but, she loved you because she saw some of the worst in you. and you made her see it in herself.

how can I miss someone I've never met? someday, you'll just become another insect weaving along the streets. a heavy look, yet somehow empty, stained on your face. it will age even further than your mind already has. it will flash on TV screens and billboards who advertise a man they think they can define. just know, I'll refuse to say your name- and I'll still miss you.

this is not a poem. it's not a sonnet, nor a song, nor a love note. this is something to remember on the subway. something to hold on to when the sting of fluorescent lights loses its luster, and the smell of the city is deemed no longer potent. it's easy for me to believe in a years time, I will still be the face you never laid eyes on and the body you never touched. it's harder for me to percieve this as truth.

wherever it is that you go, I know it will be with confidence. I don't have to worry about your success or stability. I will worry I have been forgotten, just as swiftly as the thoughts I've told you when you're the only one keeping me up deep into the pit of night. you teach me more than I have ever learned in a textbook; sometimes, even more than I have learned as I walk amongst the pests inside this anthill. I cant make you feel: I can't make you miss me and I can't make you love me; I don't want you to. I can't make you touch me, and you shouldn't. I can't make you accept the warm embrace I'd willingly give you, hell, I can't even make you give me the chance to try.

I can't make you do anything, but wherever you go, whatever you do, I will always think highly of you. I'm sure you'll live wearing gold along your knuckles thats worth more than my life, and chatting with strangers I can only read about in novels. maybe someday, you'll reach back and taste just a hint of nostalgia from some scrap of me that flickers in your mind. maybe someday, you'll long for endless nights of voiceless conversation. and maybe, someday, you'll miss me too.

A thousand miles
Separated by screen and wire
Bringing two worlds together for such short hours

You laugh and smile until I grow restless
Shifting between you and him
Worrying about what he thinks
Until finally I find the courage
To tell you I'm going

Your smile fades when I say his name
Your lips an understanding line as you agree
He's been waiting for me, yes
But so have you

I'm sorry I don't know how to manage time
I want you to know he does the same things
The thin-lipped nod
The grudging I love you
The saddened blue eyes as I return to you

But I'm tired
Tired of endless calls and worries
Last minute change of plans
And the looks on your faces when I leave
You know I'll call you again
But you don't know why I have to ever stop