in your beauty lies every whisper that has slipped through painted lips, painted lips that have left stains on wine glasses, and cigarette filters, and vulnerable hearts. there's something more than just a flash or a sparkle dancing behind your eyes, something more than fireworks before the dawn or a star gone supernova. within your eyes there's always been something that set you apart, that spoke volumes between every subtle blink. the very blood that flows within you, dances and smiles, demands to be kissed in unsuspecting places. your bones, ivory and laced in pearls, wish to be wrapped around the bedpost and tangled in the sheets and hung out to dry on a clothesline in the summer breeze. your voice is melodic, hypnotizing, it wishes to grab and entice and desires only to watch its bidding be done; but despite, knows all the right things to say when the lights are dimmed and the door is locked and there's a candle or two burning to the core. and your core, your very essence is screaming. it's screaming all the time, haunting and chilling with elements of begging, let me be heard, let me be seen, let me be felt in the throat of your lover.
your beauty is something ineffable and all i'm left with is some metaphor that has manifested itself at the foot of my bed

two candles but they're only your eyes.
twisting and contorting, and they can articulate your desires better than your mouth ever could.
candle wax only exists on the crests of your cheekbones when your eyes have been blazing for days.
they drip down in patterns that God himself could only hope to decipher.
your eyes as they burn are subjective only to the sound of her voice, or the curvature of her body as it writhes beneath you.
your visceral reactions have nothing on the hidden semantics that litter her skin.
ubiquitous presences gazing down at you, gazing down at her, windows fogging and cracking.
now, This is Poetry
          This is Catharsis
this is raining hell down on her until she's every saturated colour she could never define.
like forcing her to write every pro and con of sleeping on the floor while you held a gun to her head.
and she knows better than to scream with the lights turned on.
give me guided meditation as a self defence mechanism.
give me self reflection as a form of shock therapy.
give me militant offensive tactics.
give me blood, give me a martyr.
whisper her name into the sheets and send them into space.
and let them drift along forever.
and send her into space after them.
and admire the way it can rob her of her last breath the way you never could.
maybe now you can look yourself in the eye in the mirror.
maybe you can stop burning all those ******* candles.
maybe now you can stop trying to burn yourself down.

I like the way you destroy yourself. The way your corpse-like face, with its sunken in cheeks and hollowed out eyes, smiles a crooked yellow smile at the thought of being buried in the ground, rotting away. I thought it was beautiful the way you'd force your fingers down your throat with spindly fingers, "look a rainbow," you'd say, "it's so beautiful," you'd whisper, clutching a slow burning cigarette between the two yellow fingers of your other hand. You'd flush the toilet with such grace. The whole process would've been that of a maestro conducting Beethoven’s 7th symphony, and for all you knew, it was.

I loved that time we were lying in that figurative gutter of morality and you handed me a sharpie, "wanna play connect the dots?" you rolled up your sleeve.

I still remember that day you stole that wedding dress from the Salvation Army. it was out of style and it's still up for debate whether that stain was red wine or blood, but you waltzed right in there, a needle still sticking out of your ******* neck, took that dress in your own two, scab littered arms, and walked right out the front door like you owned the place. I could've kissed you.

In that dress you looked like a princess, with your stringy hair and frame so malnourished that it hung off of you like you were wearing a pair of drapes, you looked like a something out of a bonafide Disney movie.

With my hand in your right hand, and a bag of speed in your left, you pulled me around the corner into the seclusion of the alley.

"I look like a princess"

You looked beautiful

"And that makes you my prince"

A homeless man stirred from behind a dumpster, peeking over the top, his eyes - though showing clear signs of many years deep in any bottle he could find - showed realization. His hand disappeared in the downward direction, his eyes were wide.

“And you know what princes and princesses always get?"

My hand was around your fragile throat, your neck read like Braille, you smile, such a beautiful smile.

"They always get, a happy ending"

And from there, I can't be sure, but I think all three of us finished at the same time.

But of all the days we had together, of every self-destructive tendency you had, I will always remember the day, all of your endless hard work finally materialized into everything you wanted it to become.

“I am the **** of the ******* earth”

This was the day you destroyed yourself. You told me why.

“I turned to self destruction for solace, solace from everything I was expected to become being shoved down my throat, I wiped my *** with morality and dogmas, and I became the antithesis of what I was supposed to be, I ******* won.”

And with that you dropped to your knees in front of the coffee table, the transparency of its clear glass surface obstructed by five pristine white lines. Like perfect little white picket fences, surrounding perfect little yards that perfect little children would play their perfect little games while their perfect parents would do not so perfect things behind the doors of their perfect little houses.

And this is when I understood.

Your *****, messy, clumped-up hair offered a half veil for your face. A $1 bill hovered above the first line; your practiced anticipation was beautiful. God, I loved this part, because you loved this part. Just before that first hit, just before the euphoria expanded, washing over you, blanketing your lanky figure and troubled mind in bliss. Your last seconds on earth.

And this is when I understood.

Before long, all five lines were absent from the table, and making their way through your system, you were glowing. You raised yourself up and teetered on your 6-inch heels, your stick thin legs threatening to snap in half and cut you down. You wrapped your arms around me, you didn't say it, neither did I. Your eyelids fluttered and you batted your eyelashes. I don’t know if it was on purpose, but it was ****.

You walked to the balcony, I knew you wouldn't jump. You just stood there, impossibly high, in your impossibly high heels, at the impossibly great distance to the ground. Your tiny frame, illuminated perfectly by the glow of the electric bug zapper, it was the perfect analogy. Your spotlight was a killer, and your beauty was destruction.

The sun fell behind the horizon lines, and the crescent moon rose high in the sky.

“I’m going to lounge on that”

The stars were faintly visible though the light pollution.

“I’m going to find the flattest stars and skip them through galaxies.”

You had a bottle of ****** in one hand, a bottle of ***** in the other.

“I’m going to visit every planet; I’m going to live in their gutters.”

The bottles were both open, you set the ***** down, shaking out pill after pill into your open palm, you smiled.

“I’m going to meet an alien; I’m going to dance with him.”

A mouth full of ****** and a bottle of ***** to wash it down.

“I’m going to meet God, if there is such a thing.”

Hours passing, felt like seconds. You’re starting to slip, you’re starting to float up, up to all those promises you made to the moon, and the stars, and the aliens.

For the longest time, I couldn't tell if your lifelessness was figurative – conjured up by my perspective of what you are – or literal. I may have sat there for a long time, admiring the beauty of everything you worked so hard for. You looked the same, and I think that was beautiful. It was beautiful the way you epitomized ruination. How you massacred every conventional idea of what it meant to be alive and well. How you taught me that a sense of loss is only relative. I think it was beautiful the way you destroyed yourself.

The room is painted green; a soft green, so subtle that it almost isn’t green. Everything about this room is subtle. As if it isn’t even there. There’s all of the necessary furniture. A dresser, filled with neatly folded jeans and t-shirts and every sock has a match. There’s a small desk, laden with paper and pens and notes and every item we just carelessly toss there because they have no proper place. There’s a bedside table, with a lamp, an alarm clock, a pair of useless reading glasses that neither of us ever need. There’s a bed, a large bed, maybe a queen sized, I’ve never noticed. The room is quite full, but everything is where it should be. There is no tension.

I sit beside the bedroom door. The paint on the frame is starting to chip and I want to peel it off. I want to slowly scrape my fingernails down it, watch it slip to the floor in little white sheets. The same way I want to rip the carpet up from its edges, the sheets of the bed, my skin from my body. Slowly, tantalizing, with great care, leaving a perfectly intact shell, as if nothing has changed and everything has changed all at once.

The seconds tick by, my heartrate leaving them in the dust, while the dust in the room is visible only by the beams of light streaming so cleanly through the gap in the curtain. I don’t dare look at the clock. It’ll only make the time slow further, a dull whisper, unheard beneath my racing thoughts.

My knees are sore and my legs are cramping, there is no draft in the room. I always endeavour to hear footsteps, but it’s just the foundation shifting beneath my tiny, kneeling frame. I think a lot when I’m in this position. I think about the past, avoid the present, and allow myself the briefest glimpse into the time that follows. Everything is calm, all noise is dulled. Cars passing on the street, speeding along to wherever they’re going, a siren in the distance, maybe there’s a bird chirping or a dog barking. They fall upon deaf ears. I allow myself the simple pleasure of relishing in the feeling of air in my lungs. Slowly and serenely, in and out, it’s the only way.

My internal monologue was louder than I thought, it took me by surprise when the door opened and he stood before me. I glanced up, quickly, in shock, before averting my eyes and dropping my chin. Just like that, the atmosphere changed. The room, subtle as ever, fell away from me. The dust molecules, held, suspended in the air by the palpable anticipation that comes with him. I focus on my breathing again and I feel his eyes on the top of my head, down my arms to my skyward palms resting on my thighs. I feel my ******* harden as the heat from his gaze reaches them. My breathing hitches slightly and he inhales so softly I can hear the words before they’ve been spoken.

“Little one.” A chill runs from my neck to the base of my spine. He reaches down to stroke my hair gently, instinctively, I shift towards his hand. He pulls it away, “stay still.” His voice is stern, but not hard, “and breathe.” I release the breath I didn’t know I was holding and shift back into position. He moves past me and I don’t dare to let my eyes follow. I stare at the floor, which is still in fact there, despite how vast this subtle room feels around me.

He removes his tie, his watch, and I hear him deposit them atop the desk. I know these things without seeing them, I know him without seeing him. His presence is a feeling, an electric current I feel run through every strand of hair, every eyelash, every single joint in my body. He approaches me from behind, with purpose he gathers my hair into his hand and fastens an elastic band around it, exposing the sides of my face, the back of my neck, allowing him to see my nervous swallowing and the breaths that hitch in my throat. He pulls my ponytail gently causing my head to tilt back and my eyes to lock on his.

I can feel him reading me, gauging where I am inside my own head. Eye contact restrictions were never a rule I had a problem with, especially with him. I feel almost guilty looking into his eyes; they give nothing away, like two book ends neatly holding everything in place. I can see myself reflected in them, thoughts and emotions fliting rapidly, back and forth; I turn my eyes towards the wall. Seeing nothing reflected back at me in the pale green paint.

“Look at me.” My eyes are back on his before he’s finished speaking. It’s incredible, the control this man has over my body. Like a second nature, just this visceral reaction to comply, to allow him complete control. We remain staring at one another for what feels like hours. His eyes boring into mine is another thing that affects the speed and passage of time, only in an entirely different way. In this place, this moment, every nerve ending in my body is on fire, like becoming paralyzed and injected with adrenaline all at once.

He releases my hair and moves around me, my eyes never leaving his. He crouches in front of me, “how are you feeling, little one?” My insides light up further with his use of my name, “Fine, Sir, thank you.” He strokes my face gently and I make a mental note to stay perfectly still. He stands up and makes his way to the bedside table, opening the drawer he produces a black leather collar. I glance at his back out the corner of my eye, and a pang of nervous excitement courses through me. Standing behind me again, he fastens the collar around my neck, tight enough to remind me that it’s there, and exactly who put it there.
He reaches down, wraps his fingers around it and pulls me to my feet. Dragging me quickly to the bed, he sits himself down and effortlessly pulls me across his lap. I gasp and kick my legs without thinking. The sting across my *** is instant and harsh. I gasp again, “Not a sound until I tell you to. Understand?”

     “Yes, Sir!” I gasp inwardly. His hand makes contact in the exact same spot as before, I cry out before I have the chance to bite my tongue. He pulls me off his lap by my hair so that I’m once again kneeling beside him. He grabs my face tightly with his other hand. “What part of ‘not a sound’ was confusing to you, ****?” I stare at him, keeping my mouth firmly shut, hardly even daring to breathe. “That’s better. Now, do you know why I’m punishing you?” I look down in shame and nod sullenly.

     “Tell me.” His tone is even, this is when he is his most menacing. No anger, no betrayal of any emotion besides purpose.

     “You’re punishing me because I disobeyed you, Sir.” My voice feels small and I can feel the flush in my cheeks.

      “I want specifics, ****. I need to know you understand or else this is pointless.” I breathe in deeply and let out a shaky breathe. “You’re punishing me because I deliberately disobeyed your orders. I went out after work when I was told to come right home. I didn’t call or text or let you know where I was, and I came home well after my curfew.” My voice began to falter, “I’m so, so sorry Sir, I’m sorry I disobeyed, I never should have gone out. It was wrong, and you know best, and I know you only want what’s best for me and it’ll never happen again, I promise Sir, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The words came out in a huge rush and probably would have continued if he had not silenced me with a sharp pull of my hair.

     “That’s enough. All I wanted to hear was if you knew why you were being punished. As you keep demonstrating, you’re not very good at following instructions.” The disapproval is evident in his voice and all I can do is hang my head. “Now, to aptly punish you, I’m going to count your misdemeanours. Firstly, you blatantly disobeyed me by going out after work. Second, you failed to let me know where you were or what you were doing, or at the very least, that you were safe. Third, you came home three hours past your week night curfew. And just now, you failed to follow simple instructions.”

     Disappointment in myself washes over me in waves. I hate letting him down, I know he cares, and wants what’s best for me, and even though it seems unfair, there’s always a reason. I’m cursing my own stubbornness when his voice brings me back to the here and now. “I am going to spank you 40 times, hard; Ten for each instance that you knowingly disobeyed me. Do you understand?”

     I nod my head rapidly, nearly giving myself whiplash trying to prove to him that I can listen, I’m a good listener. He says a soft okay before pulling me back across his lap. He places me across his left knee, using his right leg to hold my legs down, and with his left hand gripping my ponytail tightly, I feel the sting of his hand crashing against my right *** cheek. “What do you say, *****?” He growls at me.

     “One. Thank you, Sir.” I whimper. He hits me hard in the same spot before the words have finished leaving my mouth, I gasp, “Two. Thank you, Sir.” And again, four in quick succession, so quickly I can hardly keep up. I know he’s doing this on purpose. I know because he knows that I’m well attuned to the fact that if I lose count, he starts over.
The blows are merciless, and by number 23, it feels like he’s holding a welding torch to my ***. He’s switching, right and left, right and left, rhythmically striking me over and over.

     “Thirty-two. Thank you, Sir.” “Thirty-three. Thank you, Sir.” I cry out, sputtering the words out in one long breath, “Thirty-Four-Thank-You-Sir.” The last six are the hardest I’ve ever felt, and by the final one the tears are streaming down my face and I’m choking on my own sobs. At this point I can’t even tell which is worse, the sharp pain of his hand on reddened ***, or knowing that I’ve disappointed him and have done so by my own choice. I’m sobbing so hard I can’t even make out my own words. I begin to panic, trying to recall if I thanked him for the last one. His answering smack, though much lighter than the previous ones, confirm my fear.

     “Forty, forty, forty. Thank you Sir, Thank you, forty!” I sputter without thinking. I’m shaking and crying, bent across his knee, my stinging *** settling into a dull, warm, ache.

     Before I have time to take in the respite, he’s flipping me over and pulling me into his arms. Careful of my sore bottom, he holds me close and kisses my temple, “Are you okay, little one?”

     I nod my head quickly before burying it into the crook of his neck. The tears have stopped flowing so freely but the sobs still wrack my shaken frame. He kisses me gently and rubs tiny circles on my back, “Speak to me, I need to hear that you’re okay.” His voice is much softer, tinted with a gentle concern.

     “Yes,” my voice is hoarse and I clear my throat, “yes, I’m okay. I’m so sorry, I’m sorry.” I begin to cry again. He holds me tighter, nuzzling my hair with his nose and kissing me so softly. “Sh, sh, it’s okay, you did great, and you’re a very good girl.” I look up at him, and am instantly filled with a small sense of pride; pride at hearing those words, at making him happy, and being held, safe and cared for in his arms.

     He leans back slightly and uses his hand to tilt my chin up, forcing me to meet his eyes, “you’re sure that you’re okay?” I nod slightly, my eyes no doubt displaying my sincerity, “Yes, Sir, I’m okay, thank you.” He kisses my forehead and instructs me to lie on my stomach on the bed. I do so right away, albeit slowly in my current state. He stands and returns quickly with a bottle of lotion. He climbs on top of me, straddling my legs and uses the lotion to massage my stinging ***. As he does, he asks, “so, what have you learned today, little one?”

     “Forty is a lot higher of a number than I thought?” I can feel him smirking behind me but he gently flicks my bottom in response, Ouch! I cry out softly, and then giggle. “That you always know what’s best and though I may not agree with every rule, I belong to you and what you say, goes, and that I need to be a better listener, and most importantly, communicate.” He can sense my sincerity because he leans down to kiss the back of my head.  

     “Good girl.” The words are murmured into my hair and my skin prickles with goosebumps, I smile into the covers and dig my fingers into it. He notices immediately and grasps both of my hands firmly.  He’s still leaning down over me, his ******* inches away from my still aching ***. Before he can say anything, I’ve closed the distance and rubbed my behind against him. He tenses and I giggle in a very unlike-me way.

     Quickly he has flipped me over, his hands pinning my wrists above my head and his body keeping me firmly in place on the bed. “Oh? You’re a hungry little ****, are you?”

     I squirm beneath him, his words sending tingles through my body, causing me to drip with anticipation. I nod, biting my lip, moaning involuntarily at the thought of him entering me. I feel the heat between my legs, my heartbeat rising, my eyes darting between both of his, which, as usual, gave nothing away. “Please,” I whimper, the begging tone in my voice not lost on either of us.

     Quickly and suddenly he slaps me across the face, I hear the sound before I feel it. I meet his gaze, eyes blazing down at me; I can feel them burning my skin. I squirm again, desperately trying to break free of his hold on me, I need him to touch me, I want to launch myself at him. He slaps me again, harder this time, though it’s just a warning. I stop moving completely, and he gives me a look as if to stay, “stay ******* still.”  

     He’s up and back in the blink of an eye. Before I know what’s happening, he’s flipped me back over and is strapping leather cuffs around both of my wrists, binding them together behind my back. I open my mouth to moan and am silenced by the gag being forced into my mouth. He fastens it tightly behind my head, leaving me immobilized and helpless in a matter of seconds. I squirm, trying to rub my thighs together to offer myself some relief. It feels heavenly for a split second, but as if reading my mind, he grabs my ankles, putting cuffs on both and attaches a spreader bar between them. I have no hope for relieving myself and all I can do is give myself to him, and hope he’s merciful.

     The chuckle that escapes him is dark and sends a shiver down my spine. I’ve decided squirming is useless, and lie there, patiently waiting. I can feel his eyes on my body, hungrily taking in every inch of me; every inch of what belongs to him. “Now this is how I love to see you, worked up, *******, those lustful eyes. I don’t need to hear your voice to know that you’re begging, yearning to be touched.” His fingers lightly make their way up to back of my thigh, dancing, tantalizingly across my ***, and skipping, completely over where I want them. “I love the way your body tenses with anticipation,” I can feel his fingers hovering just over my *****. Not touching, not even thinking about touching. Just resting. “I own you, little one, you’re all mine. All of you.  Mine.” He slaps my ****, “who does this belong to?” I wince and jolt up, “yours, yours, all yours!” I cry through the gag.

     “Good girl,” he whispers gently as he begins to play with my *****, slowly, torturing me. I can feel myself getting wetter as he slides a single finger inside me. We gasp in synchronized time as he feels how wet I am, and I’m finally given something. He works his finger in and out in a torturous rhythm. I try to move my body to speed up his movement but it only results in a sharp smack on my ***.

     “Have patience, little one, I want to have my fun with you.” As I’m about to groan in protest he suddenly slides three fingers inside of me, causing me to cry out before giving into the sensation, giving my muffled thanks between moans. He’s still sliding his fingers in and out as I feel him shift his weight. I hear a zipper and the sound of pants sliding onto the floor. My insides

There’s something cold about the surface of your skin
A chill that lies on your corneas
Goosebumps don’t mean much but my back is arched and you haven’t touched me in months
Your hands are cold anyway, cold like distant galaxies and the hearts of those who mine mercury for lithium
The absence of the sun is purely metaphorical because you always feel closer with the lights turned out
What do you think of the birds?
Do you think that they get cold – or are they too distracted by the distance they have to go.
Sometimes I feel like a bird.
A bird that’s addicted to coffee and cigarettes and can’t close its eyes until the clock strikes precisely 4:02am
I feel like a bird with obsessive compulsive disorder and I can only fly away on Tuesday’s but the weather is always too
bad, I hate the word bad, but things are bad and I don’t know how to make them Good
I remember a boy who always used to capitalize good and I still haven’t figured out why because I have no reason to
This girl in my class has weird jeans but I'm glad she feels comfortable
I've never felt comfortable in my own skin, and I want to go camping in Stavanger and maybe discover something real;
I've gone off track because this was about being cold and now I'm talking about finding myself in Norway
I bet your it’s still cold in Norway
Maybe  I’ll learn another language again but probably not because I'm too cold and I really don’t care

it's been months since I bothered opening my eyes before the birds have finished their song and the sun is casting 5 o'clock shadows on the faces of those who work and strain and cry and just want to put food on the table for their loved ones. I never thought about what was just below the surface what was edging towards the eerie fog about the lake just as I turned my back. you told me flowers always sprout when rain and snow and hail and sleet and every form of tears god could throw at us whip your face and you're still not crying and why aren't you crying you're bleeding and I'm aching and have you ever thought about how clouds are just vessels for rain and how maybe you're a cloud and I'm a torrential downpour but I'm more like a thunderstorm without the lighting because nothing shines like your eyes when you hear your favourite passage read aloud and I hope you hear my voice in your head I hope that omnipresence you always complained about comforts you when your bed is the last place you want to be and I hope you dream harder than rocks falling down mountains until maybe the figures you see in sleep become real. until the apparitions you claim have plagued your mind are left with no safe house and no real home and you can box them up like pictures and firewood and the couch cushions with the stains on them like Why the **** didn't we get those cleaned. why didn't we clean up our mess why is the window still shattered it's getting cool at night and the blankets are itchy and the grass looks comfier than cots in prison cells and what kind of prison cell is this with birds and lights and piers with boats that never seem to come in and lighthouses that never seem to guide them home. like nothing could ever guide you home, like nothing but light and wind and waves crashing and you'll probably never see the captain again. the ship is never sinking but the captain died many years ago sending smoke signals swallowed up by the clouds who lost their rain.

we loved each other like neptune loved fire and venus loved diamond earrings
we could only hold hands for four minutes before we had to exhale
i only knew you and you only knew me when it came to reading fingerprints like braille
we caused an overdose in god's left iris and left him fiending and crawling and blinking like he had a twitch just to
get a fix
god could only crawl as fast as my eyes could read your heart like shakespeare and slightly slower than your hands could
turn the lights off
where did we meet is a question i ask myself
did we meet on the shores of lakes too cold to handle where portals carried the ducks by on infinite loops
or did we meet in a pretentious little coffee shop where there was always so much pressure and your head would explode
if only you could force yourself to ruin all the pieces local artists hung in high hopes
maybe we met with high hopes, or maybe just with high minds and low hearts and nothing left to believe in
we met when i couldn't rest my eyes on planets for longer than 3 seconds and your bed only looked slept in
i think we met when i could hold your hand without squeezing too tight or tugging it away or when you finally let me win
a thumb war
we still meet sometimes in my mind, over and over, infinitely gazing into each other's minds for the very first time
i don't know if you'll ever touch my skin like the unbroken spine of a newly printed book or a flower dried between its
ancient counter part's pages and pages and pages of nonsense
it's all nonsense
what does all this sound like to foreign ears, or foreign minds, what does love and words have to do with anything if
the sheets are never clean and the garden doesn't even grow in the sunshine any more
how does your heart feel without the touch of something artificial to give you a reason to wake up in the morning
does it feel like it's falling and falling on repeat, forever, stuck in limbo, except you can only wish it was limbo
in limbo your heart wouldn't be shattering, your eyes wouldn't be burning, your hair wouldn't be in clumps between
your fingers
you wouldn't have to open your eyes to anything and the alarm clock would tell you time is up and the day is done and
thank you for trying but it's not even necessary
take some time to think about everything you left in suitcases and boxes and hotel rooms that you kept the key for
you'll probably never let those keys go even if i told you to but what if i told you that hotel burnt down years ago
and the only thing that remains is a tattered bedsheet and it lies in the rubble like a decrepit flag that everyone
has forgotten to salute
we love each other like the ghosts of those who carried that flag
we love each other like ghosts and flags and the byproduct of an arson joke gone wrong
that flag stopped flying when your heart stopped beating to the tune of my mindless humming and my words forgot sobriety
for a while

the night and the frost and the words that they speak
your fingers are frozen, your eyelids are closed
the crests and the troughs of your breath in the air
like the language of winter winds;
harsh tones that never go unheard
beneath your feet or inside your ribcage
or even as the frigid night that entwines itself with you
demanding to be felt

you never believed in the concept of Nobody
until all you saw were dual suns rising and setting
East and West
only the cacti begging your pardon, please
and worms, called away by the birds
left with nothing but the last remark that remained
with a wave of your breath
your eyelids flecked with grey
keen eyes polluted by dust molecules
despite the quiet
you were far from comfortable, far from comfort
drink, fire, chance, and sandstorms
the weather seemed to be pleasant enough
you may think
this place
where only stranger travellers dared to venture
to your alarm, a barren wasteland at best
an imitation of your pleas for solitude
pairing magically with your astonishing disappearance
you'd think, a harmless enough tale this is
carried by the winds to the Away Beyond
beyond the people and the places
untouched since long ago
i could teach you a thing or two but
it would be nothing but white noise to the mind
evidently, forgetful of the danger
that crippling sudden fear that enevlops
a terrible, disastrous, lonely place
where you can't stop screaming
Do Something
but Nobody could not be disturbed

Her presence is superfluous and your demeanor is vindictive, and you can’t hold her close enough to pass the hours with any more trivialities. Your allusions to Eos mean nothing to her comfortably deaf ears. Her smile drips with poisonous innocence and she’s reaching for you, and oh no, you’re doubled over again, and she’s rubbing your back, and you’re clutching at your insides and you just want to hurl them at the wall and redefine expressionism. Transgressions displayed in a mason jar atop the fireplace mantel, like the ashes of some dead relative who stopped mattering when the estate paid out and your dad blew it all at the casino again. With a knock and a bump, the skeletons come tumbling out of your closet; their bones crumble into dust on your carpet. You've lost track of how often this happens but you think the carpet looks better grey anyway, and she’s still looking up at you. Those eyes so much like a child, riddled with naivety and wonderment, like you’re the perfect picture of Eden. It’s 5am and you can’t see the room through the smoke, and she can’t hear the cries for help over her utopian illusion of This Is All We Need. You were never one for cathexis and you hope she can’t see the blood on the walls, or the blood(lust) on your hands. She has the uncanny ability to not know, despite your nuances. She’ll never read into your mind the way she reads the words you carve into the trees and the sand and the snow. Every articulation of Truth is just refracted through her pretty little head and sent spinning into the abyss. The sun is rising and you wish she’d leave, but your shift in weight and your sideways glance is subjective to her and she promises to stay.  So instead you make bets with yourself over whether your body falling from a 30 story building, or the rising sun, will reach the horizon line first.

something temporary has such power to impress the mind because of the knowledge of its mortality. we hold it dearer for we know that it's beauty and the succession of feelings it forces upon us will be gone all too soon. the lights will dim, the curtains will close, and the memories once fresh will find their way into some unmarked box in your mind that you may one day stumble upon with a vague - and slightly wistful - sense of recollection. nothing can last forever and time limits are all too real, but without a finite end, without a sense of impermanence, we would have no appreciation for ephemeral beauty. we would know not respite in it's most tender form. we would not know the bittersweet tangibility of lingering kisses and final words and fleeting images of past joys. we must always remember to be thankful for the experiences that pass their afterlife in the recesses of our memories. we must always remember that their purpose has been fulfilled - to shape our future and lead us to the next ones who come along.

everyone's dying and all I can do is scream at the top of my lungs and wait for the bathroom light to burn out so we can use up all the extras we bought for the apocalypse that's never going to happen

and we smoke too many cigarettes in the house and everything is kind of yellow and you can't see yourself in the mirror proper but the stains on the couch and the carpet and the bed sheets seem to do the trick just as well

and we stay up too late and see more of the moon than the sun but we talk about our dreams like it hasn't been six months since we last saw a sunrise

and the floor is made of dust and ash but we never fall through when the blinds are closed and you carve the notches in the bedpost too deep and the bed collapses beneath us again

and the traffic never stops and the snow never melts cause it's always cold here but we burn the newspapers and our old science textbooks to keep warm and I couldn't even tell you what month it is now

but this morning I opened my eyes and read what the walls have been writing for months and we climbed up on ladders and smashed the ceiling.

we made a skylight and watched the sun rise

Draw like you want to beat the **** out of God for limiting the colour spectrum to something finite.

Write like the ******* paper is on fire and your pen is kerosene and it’s burning and you’re screaming but it feels so ******* good.

Realize you’re a ******* *****.

Realize everyone’s a ***** and the sun is only going to explode and the world is only going to burn and we’re all going to die in fire, but it’s only going to hurt for an instant.

But you love the pain, that’s why you beg him to paint you black and blue and make you bleed so you can see how disgusting you really are.

Remember that god has abandoned us all and Jesus died for your masochistic tendencies.

So, crucify me on your parent’s bed and **** me like repenting can save us.

**** me like you want to save us.

But what’s salvation to bruised knees and praying to the tune of incoherent screams and begging and pleading and Yes Sir and Thank You Sir and an ****** so hard your body joins your head in the clouds.

Learn languages and **** his **** in all of them.

Turn *** into art the way he turns you into his masterpiece.

Live like your biggest debate is whether or not to drink a pint of beer, or a pint of blood – and choose the blood every time.

**** yourself every second of every ******* day and remember that you’re alive and you’re not so well and never look your grave in the eyes until he tells you to.

Scrapbook every bullet hole you've kissed, keep mason jars for the dirt he rubbed your face in, plant a cigarette **** for good luck, always ask permission, remember you’re disgusting, remember you’re dying, remember you’re alive, remember love, remember passion, remember anger, remember this.

"what are you holding on to?"

the question wasn't rhetorical but the earth stood still. the clocks stopped ticking and the distant hum of car engines was silenced. even the street lights with their comforting buzz, stopped abruptly to take a pause. the stars nearly fell out of the sky, and nothing twinkled and danced in your dilated pupils. the air was dead and the strands of hair the wind had taken hostage were offered respite as they fell like pins down my back. the world faded - not into black - into nothing, into complete and absolute emptiness. your cigarette smoke hung in the air and the filter never came nearer and nearer. my heart, by some miraculous count, stopped racing long enough to reduce the sound in my ears to complete and utter silence.

i tried to answer, but all that came out was "I think we should paint the apartment soon."

you stared, "we should paint the apartment?"

"yes, I think so, it's so awfully bland. it makes me feel cold."

"why does it make you feel cold?"

"because of the absence of colour."

"what do you make of the absence of warmth?" your eyes were saying less than your mouth, and my words kept getting stuck in my throat.

"I think it's somewhere, maybe beneath the floorboards. we should change the floor, put in carpet. carpet is comforting."

"is that what you think? we can repaint and re-floor and we will be warm."

"I should think so. maybe a new bedspread, what do you think? we could go shopping maybe. tomorrow? or the day after?" my voice trailed off when your gaze shifted from my face to the ground.

"you're not holding on to renovation prospects and you're not answering my question."

in this state of universal paralysis, i became the focal point of the entire universe, to everything but you. i took a breath, and held it in, i thought and thought and though carbon copied hallmark responses danced around my brain, i had no words. i had only this moment, of complete and utter stasis, of company among solitude, of enlightenment as my senses betrayed me and my emotions were given room to embrace this artificial reality.

"the colour of light"

i know this surprised you, and i know you don't know why, even to this day. so i continued.

"i'm holding on to the sound of silence, and the taste of reassurance despite. the cathartic feeling of abandoning the conscious mind and licking mercury from your eyelids. the putrefaction of tactile and the vicious assimilation of awareness. the relentless burning of the merriem-webster definition of what it means to feel, to be. i'm holding on to everything you've cultivated within my mind, every stream of consciousness you diverted and corrupted, every single thought you've planted and watered and allowed to spiral out of control. i'm holding on to the challenge. i'm holding on to knowing - and what i know, is nothing."

you blinked, one hundred and twenty three times exactly - before you spoke, "you're holding on to what you know."

it was less of a question than a statement but I answered nonetheless, my voice was meek, "yes"

"well then," you flicked your cigarette and exhaled a breath, "we should pick out paint colours tomorrow. what were you thinking? red?"

"red is alive."

"grey it is then."

"but grey is oh so dull," I said, devoid of emotion.

you looked up for the first time in a while, "yes, I know, i'm holding on to what I know."

i heard a car horn or two. the colours returned and the sky had in fact remained full of stardust. we walked, quite a distance, until our senses once again became the paragon of normalcy. we both knew the ambiguity of my answer, we both knew that it ran deeper than we wanted to face, and we both knew that despite the inundation of motion in the perceivable world, the earth had not yet, begun to spin again.

I was half out the window, my feet had only just touched the roof of your garage when I heard your voice from within. I still can’t be sure if you had actually spoken or if it was just my guilty conscience playing tricks on me; but I heard your voice.

Good Morning but it’s laced with Goodbye.

The way it shook, like an empty tree branch in the middle of February. Your pleading tone called upon Mother Nature herself, the wind picked up and bit at my skin and rustled my hair. The love letters on the walls were ripped from their places and they fell. Like the fall of all great things, they leave their mark. They left shadows of memories; distorted colours of what once were affections. Images so fleeting you can’t even place trust in what your eyes claim as real. The letters, as they floated down covered the floor, and the dresser, the chair, and the bookshelf. Everywhere; except the bed sheets, where a boy with faltered breathing lay; where the hitch in your breath posed a vague question.

Why?

I know you thought to ask where I was going, and I know you thought better of it. Today was the kind of day the sun never really rises. Not the kind where it’s merely hidden behind a thick layer of clouds. No, today was the kind of day where the sun peeked just far enough over the horizon to decide that today was not worth the effort. The kind of day, where even the consistency of that celestial beauty wavers and you just know you can’t stay.

I always loved the way your heartbeat sounded as the sun broke dawn.

It felt like the world had stopped turning. My blood froze, my breathing stopped entirely, and I was amazed that I heard you ask me to close the window over the sound of my own racing heart in my ears. It was odd the way neither of us made a move; I don’t think either of us moved a single muscle until I made the one decision that brought everything flooding in. I met your eyes. Your crystalline eyes with an ocean storm brewing behind them. More breakable than glass; I remember whispering as they cracked viciously the longer you held my gaze. I know I tried to open my mouth, I know I tried to offer an explanation, but the world was crashing down around us and it was cold.

So very cold.

You asked me what the walls would think now. What would all the illusions I had painted to perfection think of the bullets that shattered their frames. What would the resounding whispers do when they get drowned out by screams; screams always just on the tip of your tongue. What would they do when all the light bulbs go out and the candles have burnt themselves down, in some desperate attempt to keep dancing for the ocean in your eyes.

What of the walls?

You asked me so many questions, none of which I had any answers for. All I could tell you was that the birds had flown away and the wind had beckoned me to follow, and that I promised I would be gone before the day the sun chose to rise again.

it's dark where you are
it's cold and the ghosts are unwelcoming and every part of you is tense and screaming and reaching out
but it's hard to reach out when you lose everything beyond your visceral reactions
and i'm sorry and i'm sorry and i'm sorry
the distinction between everything you believe to be true blurs with the allegories your mind creates
and you're swallowed by an all-encompassing darkness that picks and pokes at you until your scabbed and bruised without even the energy to swat it away
you lose the hope that somewhere, something is calling out to you
but to your ears, it's all distorted and the foundation is cracking and the floor boards are creaking and the windows are letting all the cold air in but you still can't breathe
the slight pressure of a hand in yours is nothing compared to the pressure that lies just behind your eyes
eyes that used to blaze with passion are dwindling and dying
the cold draft that whispers through your mind has blown out the candles and you didn't even get to make a wish
you'd wish for the flickering streetlights to taunt you into the path of oncoming headlights, or maybe just the energy to grab a bottle of something to drown out this feeling you just don't understand
and you're slipping and you're falling and you're stuck in a well and there's no way out and the rain is pouring down and the water's rising and rising and rising and i'm sorry and i'm sorry and the water, oh god, it's rising and it's cold and you're shivering and it's crippling and it hurts and it's suffocating and this is your life and these are your thoughts and There's No Way Out

High up on a hill
Like a little castle
Windows like the sun
T.J. Eckleburg’s eyes
Watching down below like the representative eyes of God
I can’t write poetry
This is a failure
Whatever
I wonder if the people in that building knew how they’d die
I wonder if we all know how we’ll die but we just can’t remember until we’re there
I hope my death is like a déjà vu
I hope I see this picture when I die
And the sky will be the same colour
And the ground will be cold and rocky
Somewhere in my line of sight there’ll be a building
With windows like the eyes of God
And I promise not to go into the light
But I can’t say it’ll offer the same courtesy
Maybe the people inside will be staring at screens or marking little boxes in the shape of my eyes with little x’s
They could be talking
Maybe, laughing
Morbidly joking, “oops there goes another one”
While they sip pinot grigio and pretend to be scientists
With their degrees bought in the black market
Agents of God that even He, Himself decided to write off
High up in the sky, watching life unfold like a bad reality TV show
God must hate reality TV