there is passion and there is numbness
and there is something inbetween.
something that's alotabit a both-
that's all mixed up and frantic.its quiet on the outside
but unpredictable

there's the meanness in this world
and there's the not

and there the winter time

and an old LP of houses of the holy jammed up at the cardboard corners and worn down to the white  along the spine

even if things get better
           -even
       if
             they
      get good,
we can never be the same.

even if i can reach a point when i can say "i love you" again, (which by the way i still do- even though mostly i wish i could stop.)

it can never be the same.

even though no mater what happens, i'll still care about you for some reason- and i'd never wish you ill,
it will never be the same.

your name upon my lips will never be quite as special.


don't take comfort in any kindness i extend.
that's just who i am.
how i'll always be.
i'm still taking everything in slowly.

i never yelled.
or called you names.

not yet.

though i don't think i would- don't think i could-
that's not who i am.


i've tried so hard.

i wish that you had tried just a little bit harder
- a lot harder.
it turns out you really didn't try very hard at all.

it shouldn't have been that easy to bury 4 years of me giving you everything i ever could and more.
-for the love of god, you were the first girl i ever kissed.

that was in highschool.
that seems like a long time ago.

i feel old.

i can never be the same.

"do you believe in madness?"
i whispered in the dark, half afraid of a reply.
"yes,"
trembled from her lips,
"but this it not it."
i say her lips trembled but in truth i could not see her face. perhaps it was i who was trembling, but if only in my imagination i could of sworn, she was trembling too.
the walls pushed forcibly on my chest and spine each time i inhaled

each mouthful of still air pressed me to the sides as a harsh reminder that the passage was only barely wide enough for us to walk through sideways, shoulder to shoulder, scraping our skin as we went.
i'm not sure how much time had passed
not much had changed
since the last word had been spoken out-loud

i had begun again to forget what words felt like,
both on the lips and upon softing the delicate hairs of the inner ear
all i could know was the dark, and my breathing, and her breathing.  and i begun to wonder if she was breathing at all,
of if the fainter, more distant breaths-  were not just echoes of my own.
had i gone mad. was i truly alone. no companion. no accomplice. just an invention of my lonely silence.
was it days that had been passing. or were they weeks.

perhaps just a few hours, and my sense of brooding, too dark.

each day lasts forever.but the weeks are forcibly torn out.crumpled into the void like unwanted notebook pages-the years are the most frightening-just to slide by them.folded over like the rolled edge of a dull pocketknife. imprecisely honed. imperfectly lived. [memoirs of a boy scout drop out]there's something suffering (in the way you do those things) stumbling into the musky, razor-blade winters of jack london's finest fantasies.like a ghost seen walking in circles around the perfect spaces in-between the empty moments of gentle speech.mumbling softly over the warm murmurs of crackling embers delicately pacing distance between themselves(so as not to burn so quickly.)the hot tangy slurs of blood dripping from downward facing fingertips.teeth gnashed together, translucent grey flint-wheel sparks springing from the shadows-flaring nostrils coupled with rapidly expanding lungs.breathing in the ferrous red-a single hammerfallpulsation. arms interacting with the bitter indifference of the cold that snaps open the veins throbbing wildly in clumsy hands-letting the animal spirits trickle out unrhythmically-into jackson ******* droplets.
onto the pristine snow.

teardrop stone
arrowhead mother
copper-red veins flecked with crystalline dust
[iridescent]
[irrelevant]
you are just some fat piece of flagstone-
broke off corner of some stone paver-
seated in an empty flowerpot beside 30+lbs. of rusted chain in an old screwtop pretzel jar

be awoken
from your cot by the silence of dry lightning.and the promise of
windviolent in the treetops.bendingthethinnerbranches.shaking the
leaves fromtheir:hotandhumid slumber.and then the sirens:from the
centerof camp.runninglikemad: as the rain. as the mildew munches.figure\itoutquick just howcoldthewaterinthe atmo is.hitinthe
face.thedirtpath.wetcanvassflaps. slapping.rivers wrenchingthe soilfrom the earth.tearing sand.huddletogetherinthe mess-hall.sittingon benches.lying ontables.outside:striking the flagpoleand
thebuildingandthetrees.losing power, losing radio. no
morewalkietalkies.some one

when i saw the plastic
solar light on the fencepost, i knew i was flickering.

and if someone were to ask me how i feel
i would say that i am flickering.