April 2, 2012.

The only thing I am capable of drawing
is a city skyline.

Anonymous configurations
buildings I've never actually seen before.

Everytime I was handed a writing utensil
and a smooth wriing surface
my hand would flow into the careful rhythm
of drawing parallel lines

some buildings were topped off with triangular party hats
others remained flat
a place for the horizion to rest upon

This started at a young age.
Somewhere between eight and twelve.

My body began to itch for a city
that was overcrowded with the heat
of dream driven bodies

A constant ticking of an alarm clock
that would never understand
the word snooze

Tonight, I am reminded of this feeling.
The worn out, drugged feeling
unsatiated with drawing the familiar pattern

A feeling I've constantly felt
but a skyline I've never seen

The first of thirty and the first time I've ever comitted to something I find very important.

Beneath my chest are two parachutes
On a daily basis the expand themselves,
with each breath.

Moving in a synchronized fashion, togther
they support the same body.
Never does one think of the consequence,
often embracing the heat of a cigarette
or the medically created air of an inhaler

My lungs
They make the best parachutes

Capillary kite strings,
perfect precision of movement
between the fine lines of the atmosphere

Kite strings that are often and only severed by a blunt force trauma
that, waking up feeling of getting hit by a truck
too many cigarettes between nervous conversations with a ghost

or the constant reassurance between inhalations that sometime soon,
my heart will beat again like it used too
for something that matters
instead of something that should matter

My lungs make the best parachutes
never ceasing to stop their rhythm
constantly supporting the downfalls.

Upon finding pictures of your ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend kissing

1) Remind yourself that he is a ****** kisser, that the first time he kissed you
was in the sketchy part of town
(he told you to hide your purse underneath his car seat)
and he kissed so oddly passionate
that he might as well of taken your tonsils out

2) Remember that his idea of a perfect date night consisted
of him sharing a 69 cent soda from Mcdonalds and
devouring a plate of onion rings like it was the 2010 world eating championship

3) Remember that food was all he liked to eat.
Nothing else.

4) When you see this picture, recognize that he is in something
other than his favorite maroon t-shirt.
Realize that maybe his new girlfriend, taught him how to do laundry,
maybe she even bought him cologne.
Instead of sheepishly leaving it on the hood of his car as
a friendly reminder that smelling decent is an important factor
in a long lasting relationship

5) Remember the nights your father paid him $40 to
take you out on a real date

6) Remind yourself that the $40 dollars was spent
on **** and a movie
you both don't remember watching

7) Remember that he was your first love,
that nothing more powerful than your two bodies
making out in his run-down car
behind the giant bush in front of your parents house
was once the most important thing in the world to you

8) Realize that maybe this new girlfriend of his
fits all of the qualities he found difficult finding in you.

9)Realize that he likes her, and he's falling in love with her.
The picture clearly shows it, he's falling in love again.
Pray for that girl

10) Pray that when he looks her in the eyes
for the hundredth time that when his lips part
and he whispers, "i love you"
that this time around, he'll actually mean it.

I could swear you have a twin.
I see him on every ******* street in Portland
It's funny though, because you hate the rain.
Before we both left for college you cursed the North West, Portland.
Telling me every bullied kid on the playground, math class failure, teens with feverish hearts that can only be cooled with rain water, the depressed they're the ones who move to a place like Portland.
The depressed want to have an excuse for why they feel and what better atmosphere than a city that has some ten odd bridges to jump off.

I hated that you mentioned the word depressed.
Through our seven months and 12 days of our relationship I was what my psychotherapist deemed as depressed.
Cracked rib bones that lodged themselves into my heart, inclosed between broken lockets and love me nots, wrapped in a blue cellophane.
No cocktail of medicine could piece back a broken sculpture

For 2 and half years, my best friend was a razor blade.
Rough around the edges, easy to toss aside.
She was the perfect companion
A stunning rectangular reflection
Of a girl longing for someone to tell her
You are the first sun of the summer, the perfect combination of cigarettes and alcohol, coffee at 4 am on a foggy morning.
Your freckles reminiscent of summer skies
Constellations still yet undiscovered

Someone to say, I will be your best friend.
Even when the world protests against you and the barbed wire between our hearts create a fence that is prison worthy
I will not escape you, the only thing I plan on murdering is your relationship between you and that blade. You cannot call that a friendship, darling.

I wish I could say this person existed and instead of creating his own story within my head
He had weaved himself between my cracked rib bones, stitched his striped sweater strings into my slit wrists, murmured beauty into my ruptured ear drums.

That he carefully molded the mercury consistency of my heart into a plastic masterpiece
Something that wouldn't shatter easily he said

I got to thinking this because I though I saw you again
Somewhere between two narrow city streets
Our veins outstretched towards one another

I followed you for two **** street blocks,
waiting for you to recognize your familiar catastrophe the one with the plastic heart, walking in the direction of something hopeful.
Some place the depressed called home.

Today I saw a boy cry.
Not a boy
A man.

He was 27.
He talked about how the power of words made life difficult
That the "I do's" he once shared with his wife were strange words
How his daughter would never understand him

You see all of the words he ever spoke were
long and broken
He never had a complete thought leave his scattered mind
because of this he cried in the uncomfortable silence

In the middle of WR 213,
about his own free write

I'd never seen a boy cry before.
I mean a man.
I'd never seen a man cry before.
It was uncomfortable, but i'm not ashamed to say that it all made sense.

My fingerprints tell a story
on occasion I'll glance down at them
Careful yet unobtrusive rings of life
Much like the tree that grew in the yard
of my childhood home.

Tonight these circles within circles
trace the outline of your body.
Your spine.
Your hip bones.
Your ribs.
Every muscle tense and then relaxes
under the strength of my extremities

I'm horrible at saying goodbye
I'd much rather lie here and
outline your body for you.
My fingers the chalk outline at a crime scene

Fugitives are always careful about fingerprints.
They're easily picked up by white dust
and foreign gloved hands

But this time, I'll leave my ringed prints behind
I want them to know I knew you.

Every morning I look at the same **** skyscraper
Nothing changes about it
Except the lights

Sometimes four lights on the top are on
Once in a while 2 on the bottom
Never is the entire thing illuminated

Why can't everyone be home at the same time
I always wonder.