The dead rise to life
Under your uncertain fingertips
But this is nothing but change
And you don’t know
What you’re doing
You breathe deep
And pray you aren’t a harbinger
Of the terrible things yet to come
Your body changes
As the blood drips
From careless hands
Where you held on too tight
Let the changes happen
As they will
You cannot stop them
But you cannot accept this
These symbols drawn
With shaking fingers
The meaning lost on you
But you know they are important
You just don’t know why.

I gasp for a breath
Suffocating under
A cellophane sky
Unconsciousness
Feels like mercy
As I claw
At my throat
At my mouth

I am being
Pressed down
Saved for later
Between the pages
Of books you’ve
Never read

Your eyes are
Hollow-points
But I am
Bullet proof
And you know it
It’s why
Your hands are
Around my neck

I am desperation
A fool
With closed eyes
And an open heart
I let you in
When I should have
Locked you out.

I wish I could draw circles
Signs and symbols
And have you understand
That there should be
More to life than this

The mundane
The days found lacking
The words that mean nothing
There is more than this
There has to be.

I cradle my head in my hands
And wish on a higher power
I draw sigils on my skin
and hope they mean something
Hope they make me more
Than what I am.

They don’t,
They are nothing but inkblots
Open to interpretation
But nothing else
They are not important
I am not important

I cannot draw a line on the ground
And turn it into a wall
I cannot paint birds
And make them fly
I cannot stand in a circle
And be protected
I cannot call upon power
That I do not have.

I am not chosen or called upon
I just live in the world
I haven’t changed it
The marks I make are superficial
They can all be erased

I’ve made a place right here
For you to live
Curled just beneath my ribs
We were simply
Trying to live
In each others' back pockets
Buried in each-others' chests
The sensation of separation
Too much to handle
But it too became commonplace
We adjusted
Chests expanded
Allowing space, and time
And it’s comfortable here
This time
This place
It’s nice to know
That time and distance
Can’t separate us
Any more than
The separation
Of flesh and bone
Will make us
Different people
Through biology alone.

I.
I never did understand
   The race to the finish
After all
We’re all too small in the
       end

II.
I hang
  Floating
Like a mylar balloon
   Pressed to the ceiling
Deflating
For want of sky.

III.
The way to my heart
Is through my head
Since my brain
   Thinks
It’s in control.

IV.
Like an unfinished sentence
  We are all

That last thin thread of trust
Well it unraveled, It broke
Another friend,
Another love lost.
This is why
I stopped trying to hope
Prayers are meaningless
When they are not heard
And I will no longer
Ask for answers
Where there are none.
This world is crumbling
And you tried to do
The right thing
misguided as it was
I know that now.
Overreaching your place, your power
And finding it too much
You’ve redeemed yourself to me
A thousand times in my dreams.
And every night
That I look to the stars
They seem darker
Missing the one point of light
That fell down to me
and tried to stay.
You lit the sky once
And now I wonder
Are you really gone
Or just too far away
For me to see?
Are you a shooting star somewhere?
Will you come back to me?

I write these words into your skin
Like a eulogy, like my dying breath
Like I’m hoping you’ll find comfort
Where really, there is none
Nails on a chalkboard
Bloodstains on the carpet
These unpleasant reminders
That tell me you’re not okay

The words roll off my tongue
Jagged and bitter
Sticking in the back of my throat
Like they don’t want to be said
But I know I need to say them
So I spit them at you
Like I’m breathing fire
And wish this didn’t have to burn

I sleep
I dream
I forget
Those moments of clarity
Of realization
And epiphany
Those moments where
For a second
I knew
I was whole and sane
Except I’m not
I’ve got demons
In my head
And the devil
I don’t believe in
Has been
Keeping me awake again

Swallow the things that break you apart
You know you’ve done something terrible
Like swallowing pills or drinking alone
But you can’t quite figure out
What exactly you’ve done to deserve this
And the pit of your stomach is hollow
Like the poison doesn’t fill you up
The way you thought it would
Like it’s eating away at you instead
Like everyone warned you it would
But it makes you feel warm,
And distant, and numb
Something rattles in your chest
And you think for a moment
There is some sort of bird
Caged in the space
Between your heart and lungs
That maybe you’ve poisoned it,
Maybe its wings are pinned to your ribs
Or that maybe it will never sing again
And the worst part of it is
You’re probably right.

Let’s pretend these sheets are a shroud
And that I’ve died or run away
Or done something equally as irreversible
Let’s pretend your heartbeat
Is rabbit fast and unsteady
Don’t beat yourself up
I forgive you
Don’t worry about me
These are the things I’ll tell you
From somewhere you can’t hear
And they won’t give you comfort
You won’t have solace or peace
Because I can’t make you hear them
So you won’t understand
That none of this was ever your fault
That I slipped away on my own
And didn’t burn the bridges
That I thought I would
That I could come back
At any time
You’d never believe me anyway
And my heart crushes inside my chest
Drops to the centre of my stomach
Like I’ve swallowed it
and I can feel it beat
Like a baseball bat to my insides
Breaking apart my body like glass
I’d really like an answer
For why exactly I’m still standing.

I struck the match
Watched it burn to my fingers
And let it keep going
I tried to light a fire
In my veins
In my heart
All I did was blister
And I can’t
Shake off these scars

I wrote a message
On each wall of my heart
But all it does is bleed
And I cannot take it out
And show it to you
My hands are red with trying
Digging around beneath my skin
For something I could give you
Some part of me
That you would want to keep
Now all I have are scars
And a heart that doesn’t
Beat the way it should.

There is a spot
Just above my heart
Where I think
A knife would fit
              And I think
              If I aimed it right
              I could
              Sever the harness
                               That holds it up.

Maybe we should be kinder
Because everyone
Is scared of something

Maybe we should dream
Drink and laugh
Like we mean it this time

Maybe it’s time
we pulled the bodies
From our closets

Maybe it’s time we accept
That we can bury our past
And not mourn our future

Maybe we should live
Like dying doesn’t matter
Like we aren’t afraid

Of the Dark.

Sometimes

Sometimes
It hurts.


Solar plexus hit
You break
You’re breaking
You’re broken
Harden the point
Make it count
Make it
The killing blow

You are strong
Enough
Strong enough
For this.


You think.

Everything is so far away
And I can’t breathe
Like I used to
Fear
Like some large beast
Makes it’s home
On my chest
Crushing the air
From my lungs
I am restrained
By its weight alone
Trapped
Grasping
At air
And the ignorance
Of passersby

I can’t breathe
My vision
Tunnels inward
Black at the edges
The weight
Is too much
My ribs shatter
And my heart
Is cut to ribbons
but still pounds
Faithfully
In my chest
Even when
All I want
Is for it
To stop.

We speak as one stone to another
In silent millennia
The slow language of erosion
And The decay of time around us

We are static objects
The universe spinning around us
While we stare at star trails
And wish we could be meteorites

Maybe we were falling stars once
Flaring and fading too quickly
Maybe we were once young and on fire
Maybe being still really is our reward.

Like a demon raised
From a hell I don’t believe in
A spike of heat to the heart
Burning up, out,
Pressing against your ribcage
Like something trapped
Dangerous
Choking on a sharp tongue
That jumps up
Shattering against
The teeth and lips
That hold it in
And the words fall
Unused and unwanted
From a fading smile
Piling up
The debris
Of a thousand things
Left unsaid.

I want to disappear
Into the rumble and hum of this world
I want to see
Faces I’ve never seen before
And places I never knew I’d love
I want new colours
A new piece of the sky to dream about
I want to know
The wings I feel
Thrusting out
From my shoulders
Aren’t just
Wax, paper, and string
Fragile and temporary
That they will let me
Fly away from here.

You catch dancing particles of dust
In your hand, and call them magic
Because they disappear when you open it again
And maybe there is a little magic there
Hidden in the fibers of my carpet
But dust settles and is swept away
It cannot dance forever
The sun won’t stream soft and warm
Through my bedroom window every morning
But I’m okay with slate grey skies
With the ticking of the rain on my window
This too is important, somehow.

I am musing on a dream
Where we’ve found ourselves drowning
And we are dragged from the water
Coughing and retching
Into the open skies
And we realize this is what life is
This is how we live
silently drowning
While we are saved repeatedly
By the rough hands of strangers
Or loved ones
Though sometimes
They are the same thing
We think the wrong thoughts
At the wrong times
It’s dangerous
Like swimming under ice
Especially when
There’s no one
To break through
To pull you to the surface
But we do it anyway
And maybe
That was the plan all along.

This ocean of things that I cannot change
Well it’s washing over me
And I’m breathing in water, drowning
Then dragging myself from the sea

Watch me save myself from the brink
Watch me feel the burn of air in my lungs
As I gasp, cough, and try to think
This ocean air is heavy

I still cannot breathe

Sometimes blue is just blue
And flowers are just flowers
Sometimes the meaning is hidden
Sometimes there is no meaning at all
Sometimes all of these symbols are wrong
Sometimes an apple really is an apple
And not a metaphor for sin.

My body is a graveyard
The inside of my chest a mausoleum
For all the thoughts
That never made it past my lips
All the half forgotten dreams
Buried alive
In the chambers of my heart
Each beat is a fist to a coffin lid
Each breath an attempt to quiet
These restless dead things
That crowd all the spaces within me
This is where I go to remember
All the things I thought I could be.

Hey don’t forget to dream
When the lights go out
Don’t let the turning of the world
Make you restless
Don’t let every wrong footstep
Leave its mark in your mind
You can’t erase the past
But you can hope for a future
That doesn’t leave you
Dreamless, Drifting, and lost
In a tide of missed opportunities
You are salt water
And the golden reflection
Of the sun on the sea
Pay attention to the sound
Of the water rising in your bones
As your breath rushes out
Like low tide
Leaving only those things
You no longer need.