Our hearts are the same.
They pluck the same tunes,
create the same vibrating frequencies
that we hear as individual notes.
It's the same reason why some songs
touch our insides more than others;
because they contain melodies crafted
from the same instrument that resides inside us.
It's the same reason why some souls
become electric when put together;
because the pretty voice inside your head
is perfectly in sync
with the rhythmic drum beats of my heart.
I can hear it.
It's music to my entity.

My toes have bruises
From all of the times
You've stepped on them
When we embrace.
I can no longer feel.

My tongue has cuts
From all of the times
I held back on saying
I love you.
I can no longer speak.

My eyes ache
From all of the times
I have looked at you and
Caught you staring first.
I can no longer see.

The one part of my body that isn't hurt from you is my heart.
No matter how many times you break it
It still beats on.

I wish for
you to meet
my piercing gaze
one last time
so that I
can realize that
blue plus blue
only equals heartbreak.

Crossing over the train tracks
to get to where you were
it wasn't that hard.

I never realized all the other obstacles I had to endure
until it was too late
until I stopped coming over.
A bridge, our high school, some shopping centers.
And stoplights. So many stoplights.

Sometimes, I still hear the train whistle from inside the depths of my room late at night.
I wonder if you hear it too, at 10:38 p.m. on Sundays,
and I wonder if you think of me.
But I never go that route anymore.

This time of year
I can never differentiate
between cold puffs of air
and smoke-filled exhales.

Then again, why does it matter.
Either way, my lungs are still
expanding and collapsing.
At least I am still breathing.

Pillage and plunder your way
through the villages of my skin.
Each hill, each valley,
every curve, every crescent of land,
fertile and bare,
is yours for the taking.
What defines a conqueror?
You must be brave enough to take it.

Burning all of the pages
I've written about you
would be equivalent
to setting a forest on fire.
Except I couldn't do that.
What a waste of paper,
what a waste of trees,
that I planted and grew,
watered them with my tears,
watched them flourish
with the many colors of you
glistening on all of the leaves.
The only thing you've written about me
was my name on the back
of a scratch piece of paper
crumpled up and forgotten
and you didn't even finish the sentence.
Just a little tree sapling.
Well, you can burn that
with a flame torch
for all I care.

stirring, swirling, whirling
porcelain and metal
clattering, clinging, singing
the bittersweet taste of Awakening

I looked around and saw
nobody
I closed my eyes and saw
you

I lit a candle
with a lighter I found
in my jacket pocket
I kept adding
candy wrappers into the flame
watching them burst and shrivel up
I stifled it but
the flame almost got away from me
sometimes I wish it did