will some letters ever find their way to you?






impeccably yours from dawn to dusk
I bring forth the unlikely
with dreams cut cleverly from the cloth of space
and sprinkled with stardust stolen from god's lonely sky

it's a pity you can't stand my edgy fire
and I cherish this somewhat many sided love
like a mammal bright, a whale at karmic sea
harpooned and tried for strength and tested endless
how easily you flick the ashes of your blustering efforts
into the dustbin of my mind

begging this wild heartbeat to roost in your care
and for this restless pining to migrate to rest

eagerly pick my locks for the contradiction I am
to find your heart inside the confusion of this mainstay

I found the wood knife today
it was shoved in the box
squeezed between the wall and a stack of half-used notebooks.

I grabbed it by its rope-
still strung through the hole in the center of the blade -
played with the wood disks and tiny beads that dangle from both sides.

I held it up by the hilt,
the metal ring clinked against the wood disks - imprisoned.

Grandma made these puzzles out of found objects all the time -
Contrpations that were usually a clever a mess of metal and wood.
All based on designs created before electricity was a thing.
The knife was the sole survivor from a box of flood damaged puzzles
    
Smiling to myself, I held the knife behind my back, in my right hand.

"Sometimes, I wish you never even had kids"
I still recall her words to my mother
as I tip the knife and slip the ring down to the base of the blade
"Write?! Josh that's a hobby! You're twenty, what are you going to do for a living?"

I push one disk through the hole with my thumb
"What if you get this girl your with pregnant? Then what?"
I bring the metal ring up and over the tip of the blade by tilting it downwards.

"If your father had done a better job raising you, we wouldn't be having this talk"
with a flick of my wrist, I fling the metal ring
though the hole and off of the knife.

It's been four years.
I still remember how it goes.
Muscle memory, I guess.
Engrained in my mind from years of practice.

Sometimes I think of her,
and I wonder if I miss her
or if that's just muscle memory too.

The words are so hard to form
The memories singe my eyes
I burnt the bridges I built
Let go off the person I love the most
Let go off myself to being lost
Lost in eternity
I miss the warm smile which held my heart
I miss the feeling of your touch
The crinkle around your eyes
The sparkle in your eyes beholding me
The warmth of your touch
The touch of your lips
I miss you; I miss us
I know I burnt your trust

My tears singe my eyes
The scars hurt me deep inside
The wounds in me burn me
The memory lasts forever
Can love be violent
I miss being alive
The screams fill my ears
A part of me dies everyday
A part of me is lost
Lost in eternity

There's a girl
somewhere
and she's happy
she looks to her boyfriend when things get tough
but he can't really assist
she's happy
she's so happy
but everyone's skeptical of her

There's a girl
far away
and she's content
she spends time with her girlfriend
despite the backlash she gets to be seen with her
she's content
she's very content
but she can't understand why everyone hates her so much

There's a girl
over there
and she's alright
her boyfriend yells at her sometimes
about her ex's
she's alright
she's perfectly alright
but she can't understand why everyone's so upset with her

There's a girl
someplace
and she's upset
she looks to her boyfriend for help
and he tries so hard but
she's upset
she's thoroughly upset
and she wishes everyone would stop making fun of her

There's a girl
in the ground
and she's dead
she killed herself one night
because of everyone else
she's dead
she's properly dead
and no can understand why she did it

I am on trial
And my sins
Are my testimony
My defense is pathetic
Crumbling under the weight
Of your
Disappointment
I cannot win this case
When I can't even
Believe myself
Everything I say
Can and is used against me
In your court
The jury is your peers
Convicting me on one night
Of blurry evidence
I'll wear this number
Forever burned in my memory
Guilty as charged

Like the rainbow shooting out of the horizon:
a whole palette of colours emerges,
carrying in her wings,
all the embers
of the late monsoon -

a side glance, bass strummed of the heart;
Her dimpled smile, drumbeat, missed.
brass, sax, crossing paths,
leaping on a trampoline,
the ***** shrill.

O my towering folly, that
stands mourning like a lighthouse
with the gulls by the rough sea.

All the tones come alive hidden
in this song that like amber
held a slice of that time
in her depths,

screen covered in mist, as now a car pulls over:
clearing it as in a Mandarin Ai, a hut
and some jagged lines: glimpses,
of that dimpled smile -
and a whole jazz band comes alive.

cold embraces in the midnight dark
blue streaked with the liquids and fluids
in my head
in my body
within myself there are
combinations of strands that freeze with the frigid ice cubes
i'm freezing in my skin