you once lived deeply within some passion,
  met it head on, ember-laden,
    and self-assured.

its completion priming a response to share,
  for some ephemeral happiness,
    snared closed to what you'd say was
      "honesty" or "openness."
a truth that even you don't know. but it wasn't that.

winter's edge has dulled those senses,
  mellowed it, twisting into irregular sleep,
    multitude bad habits,
      disdain for the art.

just shy of two turns at half-light--
  theatre has grown stale.

inspiration comes and goes, flickers inconstant,
  meteoric;
    and with each passing flame,
      you grow more weary.

we tried to find solace
in unknown deepness--
warmth & respite, ignored
in favor of stranger, atypical strides.

the sounds made sense at first,
then didn't.

imagine asking a question you never want answered,
posture straight and ears turned sideways,
cupped in hand,
yet deafened by sadness.

we weren't going to work,
but only time could tell us no
so firmly we stopped denying it.

inside slovenly crystalline stares,
words flitter, flutter, settle,
nest. resting on pages
that they couldn’t truly claim
as their own, yet still find love in them.
breakneck, fast-paced loving and mayhem,
turn around, find peace, lose it and question.
your process: sputter to a void,
senseless, demanding.
you dry-faced cry and burgeon.
love is in your heart, so claw it out
and be truthful.
admit yourself to yourself.

there’s solace in syllables,
humming as you write them,
their slight vibrations signal warmth.

fondness gives it life
and, in turn, is mountainous
in splendor.

this might be what love is.

this essence has been boiled down to the nearest nothing
and deep down, it feels familiar—

a bird too grown to only now learn to fly,
its wingtips creased the wrong way,
nearly featherless, and weak.
nowhere to go but down
and even then,
impact doesn't promise
resolution.

a poem with too few metaphors,
too much “telling”— we get the point
but SHOW us—
as if listless anger and sadness
it's just a clear-cut visual,
crystalline in memory against all odds.

this essence had been boiled down to the nearest nothing
and deep down, it feels misunderstood.

pin-pricked, the deep drip
spelled cacophony,
mired in chaos.
the human brand
of serially unkind
contradictions.
relatable

and distant.
far too nebulous
to satisfy your craving
after a long day of wanting.
those words silk-spilled
into some odd pile,
creation adjacent to intent,
and skewed from some cliff
hoping for release.

the truth chained itself and,
grimacing, he followed.
each star he eyed blew past,
one by one, and perched
themselves within him.
he picked, prodded, pleaded,
sleep smudging the night's corpse,
and optimism left him.

bit by bit, he read her heart
and lost it in translation.
her energy was effervescent,
and warm. inconsistent.
--
her energy was eclectic-- fierce,
and her words: silken, undisturbed
--
he lost himself in her songs,
the playlists of past hurts, wants, haves-
and happiness. rhapsodic
--
pain is a telegraph,
a tactile sensation that sounds off,
telling stories of past mistakes.