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

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.

your eyes are like a beacon
i'm being drawn toward
& even though i know
death rests on that shore
i still batten the hatches
& slice through the surf
& no matter what happens
i will reach that dirt
so there are rocks there
& they will **** my ship
& i will live in despair
because my vessel had missed
but i headed toward the light
it just wasn't your eyes
just a hidden deception guise
you had kept inside despite
utterance from subtle lips
of some love that was infinite
well darlin that dont exist
& thank you for proving it
& i still carry this love
but i will bury it now
i'll cover it in sand & blood
just under this lighthouse
i.miss.you.

i'm in love with a ******* ghost
or a ******* corpse
or a ******* warped distortion of a woman
& that *****'s omnipotent rhythm,
twisted with the weight of weeks
i've been distanced from her face & cheeks,
a scrambled, vintage, simple image
of feelings that did not exist.
a transparent carcass of her heart
with ****** valves & unchanged chambers
haunts my every aching body part
but leaves my lips to whisper prayers
& everytime i reach 'amen'
i'm attacked by that apparition.
it stalks me like an awful habit
she wants me with her in the casket...

since we've broken up
i've been loaded up
getting drunk & throwing up
swollen head all bloated up
from doses of the finest drugs
but it's never quite high enough
to forget your type of tired love
it keeps me anchored as i'm flying up
as i'm crowd surfing
on a cloud's surface
my head is drowning in the dirt
i'm ground to grains & feeling worthless
clay for brains & muddy urges
lead to vacant veins & vapor verses
a rehearsal for a solemn song
sedating the invading fog
while praying for the haze to stop

at your funeral
your friends & lovers said
"she was so beautiful
and still is when shes dead"
but you requested no mirror
inside your coffin

you slid along quietly
past everyone's face
with so little vanity
we all felt ashamed
for being the epitome
of everything vain

you sought no reflection
in the ocean’s waves
you strived for perfection
but never forgave
my sudden inception
in your personal space

i slap my hands together
& point them to the sky
please god if you could
deliver her tonight
jesus what the **** am i doing
praying to clouds when my faith is in ruins
begging every blinking star
please don't keep us far apart
pleading with that black abyss
i need to feel her hands & lips
but she probably forgot i exist...

i wish
i could skim your lips
with a kiss
that entices life
to rise in slight resistance
against death's intenseness
when it tries to reunite
the ties that bind our split hips
but never could we ever
endeavor in our pleasures
because together we would sever
the heaven that we live in
& end the friendships we mended
but its worth it
to be cursed with
that verbal disturbance
& hurt when this turns in
to a perfect occurence

pull on my preterite
volatile verbs
i lay every letter for you
inches of ink
morph into miles
stretching out far to find truth

soft-spoken syllables
tongue-licking treachery
now i constantly keep my mouth shut
linking up lips
ill eat with my eyes
but you'll never forget what i've done

i failed to mention
the frail dimensions
of my pale existence
no details specific
just the vaguest senses
of a plagued decision
that locks my life in prison
for an extended sentence
but when you inch in to visit
i get intricate visions
with our limbs all twisted
in romantic antics
& the only thing between
you, true love, & me
besides bedspreads & sheets
is my dead self esteem

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

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?

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...

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

DEAR (__),

sorry's a good place to start
i guess?
the lies stacked up like
***** dishes &
i had no intent to rinse them.
the sink was on the brink of breaking
with the weight of pretend plates---
**** im on a tangent...got distracted...
lets bring it back to the beginning
& strip it bare of poetic dribblings
because theres only one way to break this:

i never, ever, ever loved you
i just......
didn't...want anyone else...to *******.

but i suppose i can't stop everything
err--i know i can't stop anything
i was young, yearning & naive
& still believed in love's disease--
i was so desperate for its infection,
i injected it in every VEIN attempt
at getting you to love me back.
& i know too well that it was selfish
but whats the harm
if neither of us ever felt it?

never yours,
j

fishing for innocence
or some little chunk of flesh
an image so picturesque
you'd place it on your bed rest
so it's the first thing you see
while waking up without me
some soft spoken simile
of a *** display yet to be
and a slight lack of compromise
of a desire you'd rather die
than never quite realize
to see your skin reflect in his eyes

i wait for a letter you
swore was coming to me:
insincerity wrapped up in an envelope
you said “my love i
write every word to spite you,”
but as long as you’re writing
it doesn’t bother me.
i’m choked up in hands
i was never blessed enough to touch
and syllables become a source of comforting.
love used to leak from
the tip of your pen
but now blood's the only ink that shows up legibly.
i give up on a letter i
thought was coming to me
i guess it was just a misunderstanding.

craters created constantly
((dents in my design))
comets crash into my confidence
until my ego has evaporated
((eventually...))
in an awful orbit
worshiping an orphan star
ignorant of my existance
but i'm greedy for her gravity...
grasping for her geography,
but she's already forgotten me

i still think about you
every ******* day.
feet flat on the tile floor
eyes locked with myself in the mirror
foamy lips and the bristles of my tooth brush
methodically scraping memories of you,
residue of our relationship,
white plaque off white teeth
like it makes a ******* difference.
i grind the back ones down
each night
in an attempt to forget you, i think.
hopefully one day i'll wake up
just gums.
but now, as i gargle
i can see the face you would make
as i rubbed the head of my ****
against the inside of your belly button
trying to get it
to come out the other side
and sometimes i would
press on your belly
to see if i was close to breaking through
and your eyes would disappear
and you would open your mouth
s  o      w  i  d  e
i could see you still had your tonsils
and i would go to kiss that
gasping mouth of yours
and you'd act like
i wasn't there
at all.
so i spit that ghost into the sink
and watch it linger there before
it has a chance to spill down
the pipes clogged with your hair
and i think..
...i'm gonna go ahead
and take down all the mirrors
in this apartment..
...as i blink at my reflection.

so i see now you're with someone else,
& finally now i'm free:
you left no excess residue
as you exit me.

i expected to express regrets
as your final vapors left my vents
but now your vacancy sustains me:
i have aptitude in lacking you
& your absence accents my best attributes
because i'm no longer attached to you.

& each step weighs a little less
sans you stealing half my breath,
& when i'm bathing in her flesh
she'll find comfort in my cleanliness,
& she can finally drown inside my depth
as i love her like there's nothing left.

honey i'm sorry
that the sun goes down
when you kiss another's lips
with an open mouth
i tried to tough it out
but its over now
you surely showed me how
to feel worse than the dirt
on this frozen ground
where the roses drown
next time i hear lies
at least ill know the sound

baby birds collapsed on concrete
i wonder if she gave them names
before they fell & became jelly
drenched in their own **** & shame
with limbs bent like accordions
after bursting from a broken egg
their infancy spread evenly
across the sidewalk's face.

& when the flies came floating in
to feast on bloated intestines
filled with food undigested
exploding out of rubber ribs
i wonder if the mother sits
watching from a skyward limb
mourning for her fallen kids
or if she's flirting with the worms
& already forgotten them.

five years
of slight tears
& subtle sadness
but i guess that's what happens when
you think our love's an accident.
i cant convince you that it's true
ill always feel the same
whether you do or not
but please
just let a dead corpse rot.

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

i fell asleep
to the swelling beat
of ****** jealousy
& woke up
to a full cup
of cold love
that we hadn't
spoke of
since we broke up
& now sounds like
a low thud.
rather than
the thunderous
industrious thumping
that your valves
screamed out
when they ******
pumped for something.

it makes me so sad
that you're alive & not in love with me.
that your existence persists
despite your ocean waves of interest,
foaming on the shores
of my subconscious.
but it's not like you SAY
you don't love me.
no, those tiny words would never squirt
from your bursting lips,
pink like a ripe grapefruit
that i've forgotten the taste of.
no, you've never uttered it
but i see it when i dive
into those brown cups of coffee
you call your eyes,
there's someone else's sugar.
someone else has sweetened them,
& you just expect me to drink from the same cup??
no.
no.  i have burnt my tongue too many times,
but the other orbs were blue,
like glasses of water,
& i could see through them,
i thought.
& i knew you were a more muddy concoction,
like the blue transparency
of other women's water
gave me false confidence,
& with you i wanted some
     !!!!SURPRISE!!!!
& *******,
you got me good….
i didn't see all the lies crouched behind the couch,
that deceit with a lampshade on its head in the corner,
the fabrications pressed flat to the wall trying to blend in,
or even
the dishonesty hidden behind the door
that all JUMPED out at me
one day when i came home from work
like some birthday party from hell.

on your shelves there is a book
with a dog-eared page you'll never turn
you remember every sacred word
for that page is just a paper crook

it stole your every gasping breath,
thieved your thoughts through your eyes
your beating heart it burglarized
as words danced around your fingertips

it ***** your mouth and made it bleed,
ground your bones to sticky paste
your swollen head it clean erased
when you sang aloud its melody

but overtime you just forgot
that page that put your mind at rest
so you never made it to the end
and on forgotten shelf it rots

the future is inevitable
but the present's at least tangible
drowning in the dark debris
of a shadowed past collapsed & shattered
that i pepper now with pleasantries
to pretend that it even mattered that i
waded waist deep in blind mistakes
& preach the lessons i progressed from
but im still entrenched in bad intentions...
my soul is **** but i'm WIDE AWAKE

i tried forgetting you so hard
my liver's collapsing
& i've got these bruises & cuts -
contusions & concussions -
from my aggravation, concentrated
on the wrong people in crowded places
but we all need ventilation.
so i spilled out abuse
on whoever was willing to take it,
combining fists with faces -
call it distraction or entertainment,
whichever way you phrase it,
i won't remember...i was wasted -
i was swimming in liquid sentiments
the backstroke of the blind
as i'm blacking out my mind,
turning off the lights
on the portion of my life
you partially defined.

spinning around
for days in place
i wake up to a dizzy head
see-saw floors and
dancing doors
surround my swollen bed
the carpet bleeds
under my feet
and swallows all my skin
waltzing bones
and tissue floats
in oceans of my sin

my fingers tap dance on the keys
hopefully the rhythm rhymes
wrapping words round the relief
my sans serifs have symbolized
if i can alliterate the literacy
& make allusions to my usefulness
maybe it will hyperbolize the symmetry
& let similes diffuse the mess
so please believe in paper wings
ink blots will not weigh me down
i'll deceive with dialogue & themes
while i antagonize the ground

take these
automatic habits you implanted
in the back of my hands
that inflict dents in my relationships
whenever my muscles twitch
out of happiness
my fists clinch
in expectance of negative

the day you called me
i could hear that tin can tear drop echo
in the midst of my happy hello,
but my hopes crashed faster than my ego
as you recited those rehearsed lines of let go,
& the words were wet with sobs & sweat
& love wasn't mentioned amidst the mess
of apologies & idle threats.
& i listened with my full attention
until you ran out of breath,
& i responded cautiously
with tiny verbal tip-toed steps.
& while your eyes ***** dishonesty,
your heart hunts for a better chest
because you're aware of it so sparingly
it's just a ribcage ornament.
& i felt empathetic as you wept
because your valves were finally thawed & thumping
& i wonder if you felt the weight
on your breastplate
as it was shocked into a waking state,
& made up for missed decades
by pounding at a rapid pace
& revitalizing vapid veins.
& as i listened to you come alive
over that claustrophobic cell phone line
it floods my ears & drains my eyes
& makes my heart divide...

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

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?"

there are many miles mounting up
but they crumble with your crowding touch
they tumble down the love i found
& stumble round on troubled ground.
as i struggled with the distanced love,
i was humbled by its nonexistence
you mentioned love but never meant it.

i took all the poems i've written of you
& created a quilt of lovesick youth
& under this i gently sleep
& of our love i always dream
& sometimes in the dead of night
i swear i feel you press close to my side
i pull you closer & kiss your head
& realize how blind i've been
even in sleep you thought of me
resentment, addiction, jealousy
the past has ruined everything
far too selfish to forgive
i always looked for faults in you
far too perfect to be true

now i'm stranded in the sand
deserted with my eternal curse
& the fact you never looked back
doesn't make the dirt disperse
drowning in the gathered grains
the rough remains of love exchanges
but each was just a dusty joke
like the broken lies you spoke
& so i should hate with all my soul
but god i couldn't miss you more

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.

this dream i’ve been having
everyday when i wake up
the sun spreads fluorescent rays around me
i get blinded by sincerity
that you’ve made up
and let spill from your mouth from overcrowding

i drink all the sweat
from your soothing skin
and get stuck in this trap i got myself in
then i lie with you
under a blanket of dreams
and it disappears like all i’ve ever been

red was just a color that
bled through my brain's crevices
painted my dead retina
with slippery crimson messages
a filter for my frigid eyes
rejected all the other lies
until that color lined my sight
the only crayon ever craved
enveloped my swelling head
no telling how that ****** shade
sutured up my silly pain

2 years of separation
leads to reunions & dissections
of the shared heart we once betrayed
split symmetric down the chamber veins
& drained into a vacant maze
of muscle-coated misdirection:
from a gory war of self-destruction
to a boring morning-long discussion
on the proper functions of affection,
a lecture on the subtle pressure
of stitching missing years together.

so we descended through the memories
of manipulation tendencies
& our blended lungs breathed in relief
at our splendid self-discovery:
you're a different you & i'm no longer me;
thick skin grafts & habit transplants
transformed us to an image abstract
from a former siamese attachment,
our blurry split from commitment
carried independence infinite
& we soared more weightless through the clouds
with our orphaned organs on the ground

eternal sorrow breeds
eternal apologies
a succinct series of sorries
stretched out for years
i sacrifice my innate interior
to the naifs who know me not
obscurely tarnished & dimmed
one love plagues my skeleton
naivety levitates from relevance
for the new ones have been ruined
& so i repeat:
regurgitating the same remorse
just in a new direction

the rainbow ridden autumn leaves
sway solemnly falling at the feet
of the dark and dreary barkless trees
who have been stripped of all their dignity
to reveal the rotten wood beneath

so the monsters showed up one by one
to scrape up all the autumn blood
that lonesome limbs dropped from above
in an attempt to outstretch their love
but crushed is all the leaves become

the shrubs submitted to their death
with roots dug deep in their regrets
but once they see the sun's silhouette
they'll try and look their very best
and suddenly when summer ends
shell put their weary thoughts to rest

oh so youre the self-righteous
eyelid that closed overtop my iris
and blackened out my background
til my slackened eye was blinded?
well i've got news for you i truthfully decided
i'm not just gonna lie down where this virus has resided
i'm not the pitiful parasite you thought you were fightin
but i'm probably the person you partially have pride in
and i wont stop the slaughter til the waters are divided
til you're ******* up the sand on your own deserted island

i loved making you laugh
your clouded eyes like a thousand skies
sewn together, seamlessly
& im floating through them, aimlessly
lost inside them, namelessly
my anonymous exploration
of your pupils' dilation
i wonder how wide eye can make them...
playing with the petty words
your eyelid's optic prisoner

oh how the coward counts his cards
blackjack entrapment habits
at least there's free drinks!
what a time saver:
enabling 2 addictions at once,
maybe i'll save some money this way...
hit hit hit stay, embrace
hug my hands around the chips
my multicolor relatives
i'm betting on embellishments,
time to double up or split
my hand's as steady as my faith in god
so i'm shaking like an epileptic
seizing with the scenery
blinking with the burning lights
knee-deep in unending debt
i'll go all in on my hesitance
& sleep on this abandoned bench

hello bottom nice to meet you
underneath these reaching trees
i have decided to defeat you
please proceed to preach to me

tell me of that golden sky
that i will fly up to tonight
tell me of the sacred light
that guides my often orphan eyes

scream of all the sterile dirt
& bask beside my broken dream
tell me exactly what i'm worth
& barter for no breaths between

i fall asleep
on fallen leaves
& call to all the long deceased
tell them of the swelling trees
that melted their roots next to me
& left me unexpectedly
anchored to their rancor seeds
where pain pours out in memories
down narrow bones with marrow mesh
& find their homes in borrowed flesh
& take full hold of my confidence

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