we both had an ocean once
which crashed upon the rocks
& for one salty, open month
we splashed away our thoughts

we danced along the waves
dove down below the reef
explored every darkened cave
& grew new gills to breathe

told our truths through bubbled words
safe here deep beneath the bay
then our every sacred secret burst
& i drowned as you swam away

dilate my eyes
let me see things as they are
give me more light to work with
push me past the invisible wall
where gravity has no hold
& i'm truly free
to embrace the crevices of my mind
in that dark escape where the sane seldom step
to chase that tiny ray of light
flashing signals of truth
to be deciphered
but i'm too weak to hold the beam
i still can't grasp
at god's design

i want to kiss
your blossomed lips
until heaven rips apart
til the angels
have been strangled
by the swelling of my heart
til the ocean flows in
different rhythms
than the moon has given them
trustfully conducting
their obstructed innocence
& floods our love with sins

i'm in love with
the air inside your lungs
& the taste buds on your tongue
& the redness of your blood
& a ton of other stuff
but your brain just isn't one.

lets get all our problems dead and buried
but wed still linger for weeks in the cemetery
each tombstone marked with an argument
that will never rise up from the ground again

but we'd still stay there searching for zombies
the walking dead words that still harbor longing
because we're still chained to decaying corpses
of angry verbs that helped push us forward

& once were unbound from those severed limbs
& link our reaching hands together instead
we can leave the graveyard through the iron gates
& step into a love which we cannot escape

i will say i will see you tomorrow someday
& slice & carve the hardened clay
until molten emotions rise & flow away
& all around me sounds decay
& all the sights dim & rise then fade
until i’m left fighting this white abyss
while my cognitions give in & commit
to rearrange the big bang of my existence

sun comes up – one more empty day
all the world’s gone and vanished
to opaque

all alone – no place to go
it’s hard to be in love when
everyone’s a ghost

walk along – tread empty streets
machinery roars with more life
than the people I see

i’m afraid – this life I fell in
has finally found a way to **** me
again

can’t do it – far too much fear
want to be like the others, but just
can’t disappear

late at night – pass out in bed
resort to smoke to do this favor
for my head

your starry eyes
my lornelei
will set ablaze
the darkened sky
and get the blood
from my frozen heart
to burst from death
to a screaming start
they'd uproot trees
from the ***** grip
of mother nature's
earthen fists
they'd take the sea
of salty tears
and lap it up
until it disappears
and all the sea-dwellers
grow pairs of legs
and have the will
to walk away

you took my heart out of my chest
you cleansed the valves then stomped it dead
you took my brain out of my head
you spun it around and dizzied it
you ripped from my body every limb
you beat me with those fleshy sticks
you ripped my eyes from their sockets
you sliced my sight with steady hands
you stole my skull from off my neck
you cracked it like a feeble egg
you stole everything ive ever had
you slaughtered me through carelessness

two months ago
when i tried to kiss you
under the street lamp
like we were under a spotlight
on a stage
the center of the universe
you & i
you wiggled away
to the next scene so swiftly
you left me bathing
in the breath you left behind
& i swear the light followed you
as i lingered
trying to remember
if that was in the script

last month
after some awkward costume changes
another act with a background adjustment
new years eve
we're confessing to our characters
on a side stage
how long we've longed for the other
the inevitable intimacy we equally ache for
& i SAY:
(that line i always forget)
but this time you lean into me
& i don't wiggle
i don't waver
i've been waiting
& it's better than the dress rehearsals
my lips wet from yours
& the rain
anxious to unravel your costume
& bowing for an audience
we never meant to entertain

you say you're doing your best
to cure my disease
but don't you ever forget
you gave it to me.
so you're an animist
you dance with the trees
but took my confidence
& put it to sleep.
so it hibernates
for years while you
try to save face
with somebody new
& you clothed yourself
in mindless ***
& said you felt
where there was nothing left
& when the two of you died
you fell first
then i reached six feet inside
& pulled you up from the dirt
so now i walk with the dead
& it curves my lips
the promises we kept
are all that still lives.

i wondered
if there were others
that submitted to the summer's comfort
smothered in their sunny mother
snuggled under yellow covers
absorbed by that burning orb
of course our skin became golden
& our bones were worn paper thin
by that often hot & rotten oxygen
the air that scarred our hair & hearts
both sun-drenched blonde & clotted dry
by sun spots that dot our blotted eyes
us foster kids got tossed aside
when the rain came in that vacant night
our mom got carried off by clouds!!
persuaded by grey to leave us without...
those sinning cirrus salesmen
stole her with the wailing wind
& convinced us to pray to them
now i am a pardoned pastor
to the precipitation i used to hate
& we don't mention mother's name.

i haven't written in several days
have not been smitten with paper praise
so i depressed my pen & walked away
because without you words don't exist
there's no purpose to lifting lips
& everyone feels guilty to **** trees because
all writing will be wilting without you my love
& if my ***** pen still bleeds
he'll die in vain & filthy
because i would never try to use
these simple words to describe you
in fact ill just lay all language to rest
& tell those men to end their fatal attempts
those gorgeous words haven't been invented yet

you're dead.
you were murdered
during the third birth of my head
at first it hurt but then dispersed
& turned into regret
i made you an orphan from
the water source inside my eye
drained it dry & drown you now
you found out how to die
& eventually
you'll essentially
be erased from my memory
i'll ***** you out & shove you down
til your touch is just a skin disease

listen.
just so you know,
i know that you're not alone
in those pictures you post
  ((a table decorated
     by two half-empty
     glasses in a bar
     in the city where we met))
as it slides past my screen
amongst other photos i don't care about.
because you never did anything alone,
really.
not like me
the man you met,
  ((who went to movies alone
     long before he loved you,
     who spent nights scribbling
     over a tiny desk
     in a ***-soaked bedroom))
the man you changed
& then wondered aloud
what the hell happened to him...

& yeah you don't tag anyone
& yeah there's no one even in the photo
but i know
you know
he ******* probably knows
exactly what you're trying to say
  ((he paid for
     the whole thing))
with the dim lighting
& tablecloths
& glasses that aren't mason jars,
this is how you deserve to be treated,
right?

i wonder if she's gorgeous
on purpose
she makes me feel so worthless
her words are so perfect
i became so uncertain
once i had heard them
...my love is just a burden
& i don't want to hurt her
so ill bury myself in the dirt
never to return to the surface

one lonely night in davenport
& i swear i couldn't miss you more
but ill find these lines a lie tomorrow
when i stretch to wretched depths of sorrow
as i follow freight trains through the great plains
& pray things stay the same way

but the future ******* frightens me
cuz life seems such a sight to see
so i'm running from it (rightfully).

so i had slowly exposed
your lowly motives:
to be known as less lonely
you pulled me from cold lips.
you warmed the form of my torn heart
& welded the melted pieces
til i felt the swell of its beating,
the engine of my breathing
roughly revived from receding
from purity into obscurity
a cynical side effect of maturity.
but i was not the first to see
life lacking you's a blur to me
but now you made it crisp & clear
love never fades or disappears
we just pretend it isn't here
to suspend the hurt & end the fear,
but its nights like this i am reminded
why you're all i see behind my eyelids.
the touch i once took much for granted
i cherish, less careless than i was back then,
but love's just not enough i guess
when the one you yearn for deserves the best
when she views you as a massive mess
just another wretched time investment
or just another forceful *****
leading to the corpse of hope.

you say all the perfect things
i swear to god you practice them
repeating them in quick refrain
& they're lovely once they leave your lips
& i love their ringing resonance
& i whisper the same words in loving pace
because i love the way they sound & taste
but i hate how afterwords my lungs feel clean
& i hate the way my tongue can't speak
unless i use your mouth to breathe

your eyes are like the ocean
& i'm dying just to drown again
to feel the gentle mental wind
of our vacant conversations
i'm speaking to keep you from leaving
or to deceive you from believing
we ever have to end

father, son, & holy joke
down on knees i clearly spoke
my palms pressed together tight
i split my lips & closed my eyes
i told the stars of all my stress
& asked the black sky for guidance.

it said "my son, be not naive
i cant help those who dont believe
though i visit you in dreams
the only time you speak to me
is when your mind is weak with grief."

i was startled by the martyr's words
it spoke the truth of what occurred
the one that knows what true wealth is
sees my every need as selfish
& so i responded, basically,
"but where, my lord, is your faith in me?"

while i'm lying here hurt and bleeding
you cant conjure up a feeling
and no matter how i scream
you'll never hear me
because i'm not what you want to be hearing

but i know that you're just pretending
like you haven't been listening
but would you have heard
if i didn't scream for you first
and been at my side down and kneeling?

i imagine that were never-ending
but i don't know what you're intending
as you shed every tear
they're salted insincere
and i feel like we're just beginning

did the days get slow again
& i didn't even notice it?
i just used up my lone defense
on sins i didn't know exist
ill give you just a little tip:
i've loved you since the day we met

weep weep weep for
the sweet sorrow of tomorrow
for once you slip under the covers
death's brother slumber borrows
pieces of the secrets that you sweep away,
molds them into monoliths,
& starts his sleepy play
but even hes afraid of the dreamscapes you create

that diamond crested,
disease infested life lesson
about the direction in which life beckons
"i need to run away to be free"
but isn't this a repeat?
didn't we make the fleeting defeatist decision
and now you're back again hurting me????
"yeah but we were only thirteen, see?"
well i'm still the same dumb kid
who thinks you cannot be trusted
i'm just a busted substitute for whatever love is.
but now you realize this
and severed our every tie it's
me trying to deny it's really the end this time...

i let you get the best of me
i fell in love & hid nothing
...like i always do.
god i wish i'd learn
to have the love & not the hurt
to not **** up & make it work
to have someone who cares for me
much less sparingly
than all of you before.
i let you have the rest of me
& you swallowed every breath i breathe

essentially
i am nothing
in the morning
a yawning representation
of a person pretending to be
facing out a window
sipping on a bitter cup
gripping onto the unraveling sanity
that is last night's dreams
you were there
some smiling
spinning
short blur of long hair & happiness
you flowed past me like water
& i was damp with sweat
when i awoke
without you
we are nothing
you keep telling me
we'll never be anything because we can't be
you keep saying
with so much emphasis
on the can't
your jaw clicks like
when you're having those nightmares
i wonder if i'm in them
while you thrash
beside me
i wonder who else
you're trying not to love
right now

i dream about you
when i'm standing up
waiting in line at the grocery store
your freckles are there
dancing circles around my pupils
your laugh echoing
down the ethnic food aisle
& when i get to the checkout
i've subconsciously slipped
a small bag of your favorite candy
into my basket

& it's like the other day
when a ladybug landed
on my enormous ugly nose
& the projector in my head
coughed up your windowsill
covered in those tiny spotted
good luck charms
& my drive that morning
was dedicated to other memories of ours...
barreling down the highway
with your singing voice
spilling from the speakers
& driving blind
with your smile stretched
across the windshield,
billboards blasting past
plastered with ads
about your ankles
as i travel through the tunnels
you are flowing through my veins

& work is worse
oh look
this customer's pinky toe
is about the same size as yours
oh & her name!
it starts with the same letter as yours!
wow what are the odds
you've got ahold of my whole heart
each of the four chambers
is labeled with the letters
of your last name

i'm ******* losing it.

i just don't understand
how such a tiny
lil
dainty thing
like
you
could take up SO MUCH space
inside  my  mind  &  even  come
flooding clumsily into my ugly heart...
your ringed
                    fingers forming bridges
across the tread marks
left behind
by earlier attempts to find you
((by other women i mistook for you)),
tiny smoldering campsites
& a persistent rhythm
marking the remnants of relationships
that your eyes help me forget...
yes
when i stretch out on your retinas
the others don't exist
yeah
when i fixate on your freckles
        there's     no       echo o o
                    in             my head.
you've filled it up entirely &
my eyelids keep the image in....
imagine what the ending is
if the beginning blows my mind like this!
we are simply freckles
                      on the face
                          of god
& you won't stick around for long
so i'll just be yours until you're gone.