i'm sorry for needing you to touch me all the time
it's not a ****** thing
though
it could be
if you were okay with that

but no i have this naked way about me
i'm always cold
and longing
and you're warm
you mammal you

perhaps i'm a special kind of vampire
why yes i do stay up all night but
i feed off of love instead of blood.

Wasting my parent's money I skip algebra to lay in the grass and watch ants crawl up my arms
I can't summon the strength to face numbers and figures and x equals agony and y equals misery
And when you divide them you get a quotient sense of absolute isolation from the swarming intellectual hive of the world
I watch the clouds and ask them why living is worth all this hassle
All this nodding and smiling along never really comprehending
I ask them as if they hold all of the answers inside like they hold the rain
They tease me and slide out of view right as I grasp their responding formation
The reasons to keep going are always changing and at times drift away completely
Over the horizon leaving me
Nothing
But
Blue.

I considered killing myself today
No, it's not a cry for help
Just a plea for life
The pressure oh the pressure it hurts and burns

A passing fantasy
How easy and peaceful
Poppy tea would be, just another nap
A beautiful dream that doesn't have to end

It's so much more mature than when I was 15
I used to cut stars into my ankles and call it art
It made sense to induce my own pain, to control it, for once

To have something so abstract as emotion
Visible and finally released as such a brilliant, lively serum

In these times of existential crisis, I realize how morbid I really am
Maybe I'll just be a gothic poet, my hair is already black
I'll wander around abandoned buildings
And read The Bell Jar in the dark

I think I'm going insane slowly, like you know how geniuses think too much
And eventually lose it completely

If I'm too intense for you then no comments are needed
Hold onto my words though and you might relate someday

Maybe this isn't even poetry
Maybe it's just a long lost journal entry I never had the guts to write.

If I lose you after all, after this fall
After the leaves change and death fills the air
I'll just lie to myself and say you were just research for the secret book I'm narrating in my head
Internal observer, on the inside looking out
Taking notes somewhere in my cerebral cortex
Somehow without my consent the neurons fired them into my heart
And it was supposed to help me breathe but it has only become more difficult
A carefully executed experiment but apparently I have
Fallen victim to my own placebo effect
Is it real if I believe it is?
Is it like thinking happy thoughts in order to fly
What would prove as compelling evidence
I have to remain objective until
A positive correlation is made and solidified and
Thrown in my face
Maybe it's the way your Claddagh ring is still turned on its inside
And I don't know if that means you already belong to someone
Or if you think that means you belong to no one
Who understands all this fleeting symbolic **** anyway
Who really understands anything at all

throw away all of our material *******
our iphones and credit cards and television sets
throw them in a bonfire, take off our clothes and
dance around the flames naked chanting freedom mantras
we could do anything we wanted
climb to machu picchu and try to feel the past
drink ayahuasca and play shaman for a day
be wild and open and part of the earth again
for once in our lives we might feel important
unrestricted, powerful
like we have a purpose
and even after the hallucinations fade
maybe the plants will still whisper to us our destiny
when we are sleeping in hammocks and eating bugs
i guess i just wouldn't care if the guts got stuck in my teeth
because you'd be there and encourage me to give up my ocd habits
of always being clean
because you'd make it worth it to not care
i'd give you my soul if it meant we could always feel this way
so wonderfully lost in each other that nothing else matters.

we both have this,
hidden....core
we slowly peel back to reveal
like we're withholding this great wizard
behind some elegant curtain

maybe it's because we both know mute suffering
the kind that sticks around and becomes part of your bones

we say to each other, oh i won't judge you, you can tell me anything
i can handle anything, you can't scare me

and it's true but still we,
are....crawling
back to our shells like hermit *****.

You pick me up in your green car, your favorite color, like the tint of your eyes when the light hits right
You act so casual, everything so smooth, everything so easy

(I wish it was as easy for me)

We have these moments when conversation stalls
It's not uncomfortable, just heavy
A mountain range beneath the stillness of water
A rising heat from a hidden fire

(I wonder if you know I'm losing my mind over you
If you know that I know that you know that we know that we really could have something here)

We drink bitter coffee drinks and eat day old scones
Pretending to be bohemian intellectuals, we talk about *** and peace and justice
We play Scrabble:

"Nurses"
"Loot"
"Vines"

Secretly I want to sweep away the crossword chaos and make my own message:

"Be mine now now right now"

But that would be breaking the rules of both games we're playing

Pleasure delayers, keep silent, nonchalant
Take one step forward and two steps back
Show affection, but not too much
Wear your heart on your sleeve, but only in small portions

I don't want to overdose, overwhelm, over exaggerate
And watch another
Run away

(Please, please don't)

And so I dream of you, in your John Lennon t-shirt and shaggy hair
You tell me to give you time
I give you a watch and you laugh at my cleverness but really
I was hoping that it would be enough.