For a split second
I believe in the glimpse of my past self
with muscles swelling
to the pounding of pavement,
comfort in my skin
and breath flowing freely.

I snap back to a present
stamped “Handle with care”
for the feet that stumble stay fragile.

Maybe this glimpse
is a vision of the future,
the possibility of granting
of a year’s worth of wishes.
“Patience is a virtue,”
I’ve always heard.
Give me the sanity to see through.

When I finally find the stable ground,
I make it my means to make myself fool,
So, commence the run, and don't turn around,
Because no one is looking back.

That moment
When you know everything you’ve been fighting -
Every tear, every laugh, every thought, every desire -
Is finally catching up,
And the words dance on the tip of your tongue,
But this fear inhibits the release,
And if you just had something provoke you,
A single solitary word,
That’s all it would take to let it all go,
To let them know,
To just say it -
This ever fleeting desire within
To let yourself feel,
But you always let the fear win.

Please, sir,
Can you just say something?
Say anything to goad her?
She has all of the words right there,
But the beating of her heart tearing through her flesh,
The blinding emotion that emerges with your presence…
It scares her.
She doesn’t want to become that person again,
The one who always depends.

Please, sir,
Just say something.

Please, sir,
Say anything.

She needs this release.
I beg you.

I’m sick of “I’m sorry.”
I’m sick of “I care about you.”
I’m sick of “I love you.”
Because you’re not,
And you don’t.

And if you truly are,
Then stop being sorry,
Start growing some *****,
And make it right instead.

And if you truly do,
I don’t want to hear it.
If you do,
Then be here
When I need you the most.

Breathe me in.
Let me fill your washed-up crevices.
Sweat out your lies,
and bleed out your hatred.
Fill the empty spaces between my fingers
with your dry, callused safety.
Tell me why I’m worth this,
or just show me why you care.

...Things I must ask of myself
on a daily basis,
Things I never quite learn correctly

If I would have done it,
would you have felt guilty?

If I would have done it,
would you have really even cared?

If I would have done it,
would you have mourned my life in silence?

If I would have done it,
would you have used it for your own attention?

If I would have done it,
would you have cried?

If I would have done it,
would you have come to say good-bye?

If I would have done it,
who would you be today?

They each have their own vision.
Each lie acts an incision,
A mold into division.
They like to think they know her.

They’ve all made the decision
To bombard her with provisions,
But to her it’s just collision,
And it simply only slows her.

They like to think they know,
But on them rains down the joke,
Cause how can someone know a girl
Who’s lost sight of her own stroke
In time, continuing to choke.

I’ve heard it said that we must all
Walk to the beat of our own drum,
But what do you do when who you are
Is better than who you’ve become?

With great regret,
With great remorse,
I can honestly say
That had I known we’d end up strangers,
I never would have let the words “I can’t”
Escape my lips.

I don't want you to tell me I'm hot.
I just want you to care.

I don't want you to talk about my body.
I just want you to see inside.

I don't want to hear about her.
I just want to be comfortable again.

I don't want you to take advantage.
I just want you to miss me.

All I ever wanted was the truth,
But no one tells that anymore.
So, with what miniscule amount of faith I have left -
In any kind of god, but especially humanity -
All I can really do is try to believe in myself,
Wake up every day, hoping to feel a little bit better than the one before.
Because letting people in is the equivalent to losing control.
When you do it,
You just end up dying before you're actually dead.
And I got sick of being dead.

I see your lips moving
And your eyes’ hold on mine,
But I don’t hear a thing.
It’s just another line.

Useless.

Wake up.
It’s only a dream.
That’s only the fear raging through your veins,
But fighting it can bring a ghost to life.

Wake up.
It’s a nightmare.
Deep down you must know
That you made the simple so difficult,
As did I.

Wake up.
Open your eyes from this frozen, lifeless slumber.
Remove your glasses of tenacity,
And I’ll let my guard down.
Trust me with your heart,
And I’ll save you from yourself.

Wake up.
Let me in,
And I’ll shine the light back down
To keep you from drowning in your own ocean of poison.
Give me your hand,
And I will grasp it with my life to pull you ashore.
Because we’re both fools if we let this crash
Push us apart and change us for the worse.

Wake up.
I’m standing right in front of you.
I will not stagger.
I will not sway.

On dark nights I lie in bed in hopes of a sleep
that will appease the uncertainties of my brain,
but somehow it rarely approaches.

Just close my eyes to what my world has become
and place me somewhere I recognize again.
Bury my feet in the sand, and let me dig
each crevice of my toes into the grainy earth,
sifting and scraping away the dead pieces.
I pray that when I open my eyes, I’ll once again
be surrounded by those I call my friends,
but I imagine that when lashes meet lid,
there’s no one in the distance.
A beach’s waves sing me a lullaby
each time they greet the shore,
and I’m comforted by the realization
that this is where I always felt f   r   e   e.

Slowly I lower myself to the ground
and find a comfortable home against the shoreline.
My fingers find their way through the grains,
and as if they have a mind of their own,
their voice bellowing in the subtle path they form.
Before I know it, I am reading the words
“I love you”
in the sand.

An eager wave washes the letters away
and a piece of myself with it.
Relentlessly, they trace the earth again,
and the sanding of my skin cells stings sweetly,
and before the sensation grows painful,
“I am loved”
appears below.

Yet once again, as the sun begins setting,
the ocean grazes the shore in a soft embrace,
this time leaving traces of my work
but stabbing me nonetheless.
One more time I actively and purposefully
etch a last sentence into the granules,
because I believe with (almost) every part of my soul
that it must be a legitimate reality,
that I don’t wonder if I lie to myself
or if it’s just a rare moment when my old pal
Depression
comes creeping back to spread fabrications,
and I shove my finger so deep into the earth
I swear it will be covered in blood when I’m done,
but I have to believe in every syllable of the phrase
I wear over, around, and within my heart,
because if don’t,
I lose myself completely.

“I am happy.”

I.
Am.
Happy.

The salt may wash these words away,
but I’ll be ****** if they take me with it.

Just open my eyes to what my world has become.
Awake, I still find myself dreaming.

All I really wanted
          All I was trying to do
                    All I was seeking
                              Was for someone to see through it
                    For someone to know me
          For someone to fight
It always comes back to that

It's after you've fallen
time after time
from a short wingspan
and a weak leap,
when suddenly one day
your flap grows strong
and the air beneath you
defies gravity,
when you yell behind
at the top of your lungs,
"Look, you guys!
I'm finally flying!"
that,
with a brief glance
and confusion in your eyes,
the silence overtakes you,

because there's no longer anyone there.

I don't want these ears.
They still hear the echoes.

I don't want these eyes.
They often get lost.

I don't want these lips.
They hold so much in.

I don't want this mind.
I thinks far too much.

I don't want these hands.
They've given up reach.

I don't want these legs.
They can never outrun.

I don't want this heart.
I've used it to death.

I don't want this life.
I've emptied it so.


I just want out.
Completely. Forever.

There’s tranquility in the way
our star slowly hides itself beneath the horizon
before tucking our hemisphere into bed each night.
I ache for that view sometimes
to an extent that concerns me,
but I still live for its solidarity
alone under a blanketed sky.
Sharing it with anyone else has always
ruined its preciousness,
but tonight
hundreds of humans no different than I
gather along this pier,
unified in our attempt at peace,
quiet among the backdrop of a world
that has become so corrupt with hatred and violence.
For a few moments
I forget about the malice that causes me
to fall to my knees each night,
praying that we find a leader that can help us escape.
We are the cult,
and the pier our sanctuary,
but in this world
that may actually be more safe.
If but a few minutes here can briefly salvage
the hope within us,
I see no reason to walk away
until the sky falls fast asleep,
and I fall quick with serenity.

My iPod serenades me softly,
vibrating into my back,
up to my eardrums,
and around my head,
but I don’t hear it.

The steering wheel strums
the chords of sweet memories
beneath my palms
as though I can stroke them
between my fingertips.

I stare at the road before me,
but it is left unseen.
Point A to point B
is a miracle,
point A too difficult to leave.

Take a piece of my heart with you when you go,
and I’ll put you in its place.
I’ll keep it well protected with this shield
we’ve formed so slowly.
Put down your swords, and dry your tears,
for the best is yet to come.
Take a piece of my heart with you when you go,
and I’ll never leave your side.

Forever, we are full.

At a twisted hill and halt
a twinkle on my wrist
begins,
“Our friendship,
beautifully infinite…”
We’ve yet to write the rest.

Tell me,
Would she be smiling if she knew
Where your hand wanted to venture?

Tell me,
Would she be happy to know
How close your fingertips came?

Tell me,
Would her eyes brighten at the fact
That had I not awoken from sleep…
(I cringe at the mere thought.)?

Tell me,
Would she approve
Of the words that journey from your lips?

Tell me,
Would she still love you if she saw
The movement of your hips?

Tell me,
Would she cry
Knowing what people like you get away with?

Your touch is the stench of a decaying carcass.
You disgust me.
What did you do to deserve happiness?

You
make me feel everything,
all at once,
in ways I've never experienced.

I
don't like that.

I think I’m jealous of the sun.
All it has to do is spread the multicolored ribbons it has as arms
and settle over the horizon
to fill each individual who steals a glimpse in its direction
with an uncontrolled,
self-actualizing
knowledge of how small,
yet how incredibly crucial,
their existence is
to the universe.

With every step
I can feel the cloud of heat around me
growing stronger.
It’s been so long since I’ve
heard my own footsteps here.
This is my favorite silence,
light buzz of dim lighting,
a door close every now and then
on the floors beneath.
I retrace every year before me
with the words I carved here.
This is embarrassing.
Every letter reveals a person
I feel I’ve never known,
pathetic in self-pity,
A mirror to my past
whose reflection I don’t recognize.
I’m glad she’s gone.
A while ago I tried to scribble away
some of my stories,
but my marker was so weak.
They are a part of me.
Beneath one of them
I notice a stranger’s replies,
but they are only that:
words of a stranger,
meaningless without an identity.
I remember why I stopped coming here now.
I stopped needing it,
because I couldn’t find my answers up here.
I’m not sure I ever did.
I guess you have to know what you’re searching for
in order to find it.
So, instead of prolonging this reflection,
I descend to fresh, evening air
and breathe in the thoughts
that brought me back to life.
That place only strangled me peacefully.
A gust of wind places it’s palm on my cheek
and utters,
“Chin up, dear,
the world needs you today.”
So, I walk away quietly.

For the first time in these three months
I feel empty.

For the first time in these three months
I am a shell.

For the first time in these three months
I have no light left in me.

For the first time in these three months
I feel hurt by the person
And not the situation.

For the first time in these three months
I feel everything inside,
But I am physically incapable to showing it.
Numb.
Pathetic.

I try to cry.
No tears.

I try to laugh.
No sound.

I try to scream.
No whisper.

I try to destroy.
No will.

For the first time in these three months,
I've given up on myself.
There is no more hope inside.
Just darkness.
And I don't even care.

I don't care about a **** thing.

If you see me,
Let me know.
For I cannot see myself.
I am a ghost.
I am invisible.
I am nothing.
I am gone.

It’s so cliché:
the view from the plane during lift-off.
We’ve all heard about the neatly lain world beneath us,
more shapes than we knew possible to make
with our roads and landscapes,
the twists and turns that make us dizzy
when we live in them
but from above seem small,
almost easy,
almost remarkable.

I like it up here,
considering the world so neat and tidy.
Here I don’t need to dive into
any confusion.
Feelings of doubt float away
and cave in,
the way my chest caves
from the air pressure.
Up here
my heart is a rock.
Down there
my heart is a boulder.

I could watch the world forever
if it meant I’d never break.
I could watch the world forever
if it meant I’d never drown.

I couldn’t watch the world forever
if it meant I’d never feel.
I couldn’t watch the world forever
if it meant I’d never live.

So, dive in with me,
laugh with me,
love with me,
hurt with me,
let this pain consume me
so I can feel the way it seeps out of my wounds
so slowly
when they are ready to heal.
Then heal with me.
Give in with me.
Feel with me.

I miss that.
And I didn’t know it until now.

Are you ready?
Because I’m not.
But that doesn’t matter anymore.

We’re coming in for landing.

In this silence
All I can hear is the echo of every word.
Mine. Yours. Theirs.
Who the hell do you think you are?
Who the hell do I think I am?

After multiple traumatic relationships,
years of cynically happy single-ness,
and a series of mismatched puzzle pieces...
No gesture,
promise,
or amount of time
will ever render me accustomed to saying,
"I love you,"
and hearing,
"I love you, too."

I remember six years ago
like it was last week
but another lifetime.
I can still see the office
and the corner chairs in which we rested
as I interviewed for what would later become a home.
I can recall the nerves that buzzed in me
over the unknown territory in which
I was about to step foot,
and I can hear the voicemail
that made me giddy for the opportunity
to have three weeks outside of my lifeless desert of a brain.
But this out of body experience
confuses me when I consider the fact
that I can’t fathom who that girl was,
because she wasn’t me.

When we place our non-callused feet
on the floor for the first time as kids,
there’s no way of knowing what terrain
life will throw their way.
Six years ago
my feet were fresh off of burning coals,
blistered and overly delicate to any palpable sensation.
I kept walking on those coals for several years,
too stupid to turn and direct my own path
into something less excruciating.
One of those years is so far down in
an ocean of my own despair,
I could never dive deep enough
to bring it back.

In these circumstances,
you are faced with two options:
Keep stabbing your blisters,
or wrap your wounds to let the healing in.
Well, I wrapped, and I wrapped,
and I wrapped so hard that I cut off my own circulation…
but feeling nothing felt a lot better than anguish.

Eventually,
I loosened the bandage and let the blood back in
to continue on my way.
With my mountain before me,
there was nothing left to do but climb.
Every day is spent clawing my way through rocks and rubble
as the wind tries to knock me down,
but my muscles have swollen with strength,
and my blisters have roughened to callus.

I am still climbing,
but at least there’s a hell of a view from up here.

Is it wrong that I became so accustomed
to chaos swirling around in my head that,
even years since,
I find myself overzealous to run outside
every time the sky opens its eyes
to cry on us?
Somehow running through its tears
gives me an exhilarating boost,
stirring my consciousness to the oceans of blood within.
I can stand motionless,
eyes fully closed,
listening to its white noise for hours,
and the world suddenly stills,
time halts,
and for a moment…
I am indestructible.

I’ve watched sunsets
over oceans,
by lakes,
reflecting off of lighthouses,
blazing in deserts,
and while resting on mountaintops,
but…
Even though the view from here can’t compare…
there is nothing like watching the sunset
from home
on a Sunday
with the evening dew beginning to wet my feet
and the buzz of nocturnal insects
singing from the trees.

My stomach is a series of knots
slowly suffocating my breath
so my brain can’t focus
and my mind starts racing.
Salt water fills my eyes
until it overflows and spills
out onto the skin that’s crawling
over the anxiety that I fear
may scare you away.
You are the fresh air
in the bland, stale world
to which my life became.
My heart isn’t ready to lose you
before it even has you.

This is me.
I'm not perfect.
Take it or leave it.

Your breath
against
my back
is the comfortable embrace
I never expected
to envelop
so quickly
and never expected
to feel
so safe.

How many times
are you going to smash your face
before you realize
you can't walk through
a closed door?

There’s a note
hidden in the melodies
that sing to me as I drive.
It is faint,
but I hear it
louder than my morning alarm.
I can almost feel God’s embrace
wrapping me until I’m warm again.

A smile envelops my mandible
as weary laugh escapes my teeth.
This is what they call clarity.

Deep in my gut is a chest of secrets
I thought I had buried
beneath the hushed cries of a young 20-something’s
most regretted decisions…
give-ins, rather.

Those cries choked me until I finally had the sense
to close my eyes and stop breathing for a few seconds.
And these eyes have stayed dry ever since.
When you don’t give yourself the opportunity to feel,
there isn’t much that can tear at your seams…

…Until one day
the purest of phrases
and the most genuine gazes
slowly un-sew the web wrapped neatly around
the cavity I filled with dirt and bubble wrap.

It may only take one more smile
for me to hand over my shovel.

When you hear the metal collide,
I’ll guide you to the key.

I don’t remember how it’s supposed to feel
when you’re falling in love.

If it’s an unrelenting need to lie beside someone
whose touch tingles every inch of your skin
until goose bumps lift each hair follicle so high
that you get chills down your back,
where their breath’s embrace so sweetly warms the chill away…
then I’ve got that.

If it’s also an incessant fear that you will mess up so badly
that you feel all insecurities race through your vessels
until they reach whatever lobe of your brain
that controls your emotions
and cause you go completely insane
until the moment you get to speak again…
then I’ve also got that.

Sometimes,
you don't need words
or phrases
or prayers.

Sometimes,
you just need
someone to sit with you silently,
stripped of cliches,
and just be there.

The countryside has a way of slowing down time.
The crashes of each raindrop against the leaves beside me
drum a beat that silences the clatter in my head.
I close my eyes and just breathe.
The grass’s dewy aroma is the sweetest perfume
I have ever encountered,
and the absence of street sounds is deafening.
The cool draft against my skin as this swing slowly sways
back and forth…
b
    a
         c
             k
                  a
                  n
                  d
            f
         o
      r
   t
h
is the guardian angel keeping me at peace.

I had forgotten what this feels like.

My mind is tired
from the marathons it’s been running
around my head,
trying to make sense of a society
so hell bent on hating one another
under the guise of Christianity.
You think everything is black or white,
right or wrong,
conspiracy or honesty,
when the God I know can’t work that way.
Send me to sleep tonight
without a prayer,
because I don’t know what to ask for anymore.
For now,
I’m content with the bed I’ve made
deep within sheets of grey.

It’s been a rough year– especially this month and, furthermore, this week–
but there is a single, irrelevant moment that my brain has been playing on repeat:
You were making dinner in the kitchen, music saturating the room –
most likely some smooth jazz ballad you’ve crooned a million times –
and you took a break from the stove to try to dance with me.
Embarrassed by my inability to dance socially without being awkward,
I swindled my way out with an excursion to the bathroom.

There aren’t many things I would change about the last few months…
not the inebriated tears I couldn’t trap behind my eyes,
nor the hours I spent listening to you ramble on about
everything that excites you,
which is everything.

It’s the simplest moment I regret the most…
I just wish I would have danced with you.