We never talk
About the day the movers came and filled two trucks with our things
How in a matter of hours they took 13 years-
3 floors, 4 bedrooms, 5 baths, fully furnished attic-
13 years of kids playing
Where I went through 4 schools
Broke the window
Learned to drive

We never talk
About the day we sat on the radiator in the dining room and saw clear across the house
You were crying
And I put on a brave face to comfort you-
How you walked out the red front door and didn’t look back

Well I looked back
I went to our old house
I saw how they painted my dining room red
How they tore up all the carpet
The living room, now orange
The new kitchen complete with see through doors on the refrigerator

How you think that ridding the walls of old wallpaper
And putting up a coat of paint-
Will silence those walls from disclosing other people’s secrets
That a new carpet and new countertops will make this new place yours

Then you invite your friends to come marvel at the new place
The new royal blue carpet
The choice of paint color
The new countertops, unscratched, unstained, unscathed
And you tell them you don’t miss the old house at all

Mail in your coupon to save a few bucks
Use the money to buy time off your sentence
Cutting out a coupon
Sure beats cutting up your soul
Send away for redemption
If you can find a stamp
Mail in redemption
The answer to salvation
Lies
On the box

Headline:
Mild mannered man morphs into monster
I thought to myself as I rolled over in bed
Tangling myself further in the jaws of the sheets

Sleep was running around in the distance of my closed eyes
Afraid to come close
I could still hear your voice echoing in the house and my ears

This time I wasn’t afraid
Visions of scared children charging the stairs to escape
The booming voice tore through my head
While I tried to ****** sleep from the abyss

How you managed to fool so many people into thinking you were Clark Kent
Mild mannered man morphs in the living room
Only feet away

How I wanted them all to see you
But sleep seemed to lurk so close now

Idea for a story I thought
As I shot straight up in bed

Pack your bags with the pieces of your broken heart
And hop the first bus outta here
Find a seat among the crowd
The tires start to roll and you sink into yourself
The night welcomes you
Only a perfectly dismal amount of light leaks from overhead
Casting strange shadows over the seats
As people attempt to read
A voice breaks into your peace
Telling stories of lost love and past lives
You find solace in the words
And comfort in the company
Relieved to give up part of your anonymity
The steady movement of the bus lulls you to sleep
And you find happiness
In transit

My blood is my precious gift
I guard it righteously
If you cut me I bleed knowledge
The words drip down quietly from my body
Pooling into puddles of books
The dark red leaves my veins, turning into ink
The pages read of vows of loyalty, fidelity and trust
Telling my life story
Each drop counting a lifetime of laughter and tears
Each splash sharing my thoughts, my feelings, my soul
The books I bleed are rare
The world turns a blind eye to my volumes
Seeing what they will
Blank pages and listlessness
But my blood is my precious gift
It gives life to classics

Our friendship went up in flames
Because I set it on fire and watched it burn
And now my eyes are bleary from the ash,
Pained from the duration
Blood shot
Open for hours? Days?
Reading and rereading the words
It makes the most sense to just erase
What’s left to hold on to?
All the other casual reminders that used to lay about
Are now relegated to a small space
On a high shelf
In a less-than-often thought of closet
They don’t seem strange-
Those empty spaces
Time has erased feeling off the walls
Or they are so used to comings and goings
They’ve fortified themselves against impermanence
However, their blankness traps me in-
In with the essence of you
That lingers
Like the smoke