I write this word empty.
Squeezed dry of any meaning.
Parched and
                    
                        crumbling,
doused in my ink and yearning
for your reaction.

                                 My night
turned to your morning,
pressed letters split your skin.

You have been written dry;
I fear you no longer.

Good mourning.

please wake me up and tell me you still love me
because I know you do.

a blazing fire can't be put out with just a single bucket of water
but I guess you can stop loving me because of just one other girl

What makes a reader?

What makes a writer?

What compels anyone to the love of language?

Why do we not sing?

Why do we not play?

Why do we not paint?

What leads us to be so loyal to our craft?

There is a man who seeks new methods of relaxation, a man who can so easily slip into another man’s life.  There is a man who is enthralled by the mere re-telling of high tales.  A man who is quite an observer. A man who is logical (in one sense or another) and observes his plate well.  A man whom rests his faith on an influence and the good faith of escape.  A man who rests in the lines of paper, whether they be marked by blue or red ink.

He stood up,

With a vigor comparable to that of a bear.

In a rush, blood began to flood his veins.

They pulsated, and wound his fist back to a tightly-coiled projectile.

And eventually when the sun came to its final moment, he understood.  Long after his body will rot, his pen will continue to spill ink.  Long after he dies, people will continue to live.  Long after humans die, things will continue to die.  What could mean more than that?

had a dream
red sun rises
old west feeling
low brim hat
eye, locked
m22
whiskey, no gin
oak (dark wood?) table
or wine?
i don't know enough about it
rust, ****** hair, beard
writing
parchment
window pane
light-natural-through the
window pains
cloths
fine fabrics
fine point pens
old poems
about old feelings
falling out
of notebooks
i should still
be
writing in

Let me crave it,
Let me tame it.
Let me sit and think about it,
so that I may feel what I have not had the pleasure of feeling before.

Im one of those ridiculous people,
I'll justify myself. I do not need your help.
I never have.

I am the girl you love to hate,
The one you think may be doing something,
But whom occupies doing what you couldn't
Simply… being.

I am the dream of the other woman, wrapped in value,
Crowned in moral.
I will break what you couldn't find in,
I will write it out.

FIVE LINES.
A STAFF.
I WILL NOT GIVE YOU WHAT YOU NEED!!
I will show you what you need.

Please, find me between the lines
and the apple tree, which
I find to be all that makes up… me.

Tell me that loneliness is more than I could grasp,
A sudden task,
That I couldn't spread between my fingers,

HA! I have found purpose.

I sat and watched a bug crawl across your skin
From your leg to your hand to your wrist,
to the scars up your arm.

Scars I’ve never noticed,
Scars that look familiar,
Scars that amount to more than mine.

And I looked to see that
My skin appeared to be held together by spiderwebs.

I felt ugly.
I felt human.

And then the sun shone brighter
and I was a million little stained glass pieces.

A million little stained glass pieces held together by spiderwebs.

I folded into myself and
tried to listen to the choir sing
But they were too far away.

I was alone.
I knew you were too.

Alone with the sunshine. Alone in our stained glass.

I just sat there in the grass,
folding and unfolding.
Letting the sun shine into me.

To be under our skin and
To see the way all our little fragments shone.
I wonder how we would look turned inside out.

The summer I was seventeen
I kissed a boy,
And together we made
A perfect tangle
of youth and vulnerability.

I went back to our river
After he had left for the west coast.

The tides ran lower.

Sometimes I think of you
And you still make me feel like
*** and sunshine,
Frank Sinatra
and street light kisses.

i bought a pack of cigarettes tonight, even though my lungs don't work quite right.
i sat on the stairs in the yard of the old house with its walls crumbling,
with its facade turned to dust.
the air was so cold it stung my fingers, frost licking my face,
turning my cheeks blood-red but nothing hurt
as much as you do.

i smoked a cigarette tonight, even though my lungs don't work quite right.
the smoke filled me up and i feared
it would leak out of all the holes you punched in me.
it didn't. i choked and i coughed and it felt a little like drowning.
like your mouth on my mouth, like your teeth on my neck.
i choked and i coughed and it felt a little like you
so i liked it.
who cares i almost died.

i smoked a second cigarette tonight, even though my lungs don't work quite right.
nicotine ran in my veins,
blue rivers along my pale skin and it felt, it really felt
a lot like love. a lot like you. a lot like us.
galaxies scattered across my skin, poison running in my blood,
yes, it felt a lot like us.
i didn't choke this time, but i think you would have laughed
at the way i ******
on the cigarette ****.

i smoked a third cigarette tonight, even though my lungs don't work quite right.
i swallowed cancer like a drug and it stung
at the back of my throat, and it burned and it burned and it burned
as ash gathered at the burning end
and fell to the ground like snowflakes,
little flakes of ash on my sneakers
and it reminded me of your kisses a little, i didn't choke this time.
i laughed. a bitter laugh.
you hurt at the back of my mind as i put
the cigarette out and i thought about the way
you'd look at me, boldness in your eyes, hair a little all over
the place and your mouth
shaped in a little "o"
as you blew circles of smoke out.

i smoked a fourth cigarette tonight, even though my lungs don't work quite right.
the cold stung but not as much as my lungs burnt and my brain burned
and you hurt.
i blew smoke out but never quite like you did,
and i thought it looked and was a little
ridiculous maybe
to burn the leaves of a plant wrapped in paper
and fill our fragile bodies with the exhausts
we breathe out smoke like broken steam engines,
ain't it funny, haha.
you'd laugh, harshly, you'd bite me, you were always
a little rough.

i smoked a fifth cigarette tonight, even though my lungs don't work quite right.
it's not half as venomous as you were, i decided.
i put it out.
cigarettes are so not worth the hype.
you were.
you are.