i may be an optimist,
but the truth never escapes me
the soldiers in my chest have long
abandoned their posts
with the foreknowledge that
some wars
will never be won

when the rain came,
all was drained from me then
i wore black for days to mourn myself

to those who think they could love me:
tread lightly,
for my ice is thin
in every season

are you so very hardened by life that you cannot love?
you lived and died in that tangled southern wilderness,
the branches reached out to you then and they
still reach out to you now
you feast on knowledge of the men who have passed,
wrote down their minds in great big books
but you have yet to be wise

we were trapped in there for so long that the hand on the clock forgot the direction it was going
that still sameness, over and over
that void, our voids, never being filled, and i tried
to cover them with beautiful things but the walls screamed
“lies, you’re lying, you are not in love and you never will be”
i formed habits i never had, sleeping pills and 42 proof

i just wanted to close my eyes for a while
i just wanted to be held for a while

i never knew what you really felt like, a piece of glass between us
so many times i broke through, but i always paid the price
my fingers bled and you’d build it up again
so i grew comfortable on the other side

we have been ghosts floating next to each other in here for eternity,
but each too immersed in our own death, to notice.

i am a hotel room, a refuge to many but a true home to none
i am the rack of coats, all of the pockets turned out
i am unmade sheets
i am old curtains, worn from looking outside
i am the bible in the drawer, my significance long forgotten
i am the light that doesn't work as well as it should
i am the television set missing the remote
i am the complimentary notepad with no notes
i am mass-produced framed artwork, lackluster and faded
i am the armchair with questionable stains
i am the heavy darkness at night, the feeling someone is watching
i am repetitive carpet designs and tasteless coffee
i am the morning, an almost-hot shower
i am an empty hotel room, a refuge to many,
but a true home to none.

she said,
   "tell me the things you say
   with your touch,
   because i cannot distinguish as  
   much
   is it fact or is it fiction,
   you're such a lovely contradiction, but
   how does one keep mixing
   cruelty with gentleness
   i assume it is not simple
   but must it be so complex?"
he waited, then thoughtfully replied,
   "everything is true,
   yet it is also all a lie."

virginia filled her pockets with rocks
and walked into a river
sylvia taped her doors shut
and crawled inside her oven
anne took a swig
and started her car to nowhere
ernest, like his fathers before him
an old fashion shotgun to the head
them and us and i
we were given too many thoughts to manage
and we failed to keep the dam up
to keep out all of those endless loops of words that
just kept flowing,
kept us reminiscing of a deeper emptiness that could never be articulated
the world of writing was never meant for the faint of heart
but so often madness has met creativity
and became the most arduous of lovers