The Machine parts in me have rusted
I am all creaking metal fatigue
And slowly splintering glass
I am not indestructible
I am not build to withstand
The storms I have weathered
But I have survived them
Maybe a little less intact
Than I was before
And each one wears down
Each part of me a little more
There are no spare parts here
And when one wears out
You have to learn
To live without it
Until you are nothing but
Jangling bits inside a
Worn down shell
A barely functioning
Version of what you
Once were
But then again you have
More storms to weather
Than you could know
After all,
They don’t make them
Like you anymore.

There are seconds
Tick, Tick, Ticking
Beneath the curve of your smile
I wonder how long it will stay this time.

You fall
In licking flames
Of withdrawn absolution
Every stone of your foundation
Crumbling, black and broken
Into the oblivion of desperation

You fall
Into the ruins
Of your own creation
As the hand of your absent god
Sweeps clear the ground beneath you

You fall
A desperate gesture
Hope a distant memory
Burnt and fading at the edges
It crumbles under your shaking hands

You fall
This is not change
This is not epiphany or retribution
There is no stopping or fixing this
You’re too far gone.

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.

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.

You never believed in happy endings
A life lived clean
Was never in the cards for you
Your hands smear stains of blood and dirt
Into clothing layered with so much of it
You wonder if that’s all it is anymore
You wonder at how your heart holds together
With all of the pieces torn out of it
But it’s mended with alcohol, sewing kit sutures
And sheer force of will.
You are so tired of blood
You are so tired of being weighed down
By the force of your past
But it’s all you’ve ever known
And sometimes you wonder what it’s like
To look to the future
And hope.

Let’s shake hands
With the possibility of mercy
And let the stars
find their own way home
Let’s drink the night sky
As it comes crashing down around us
Let the darkness lay cold
On our tongues
Like the ink I spill
Onto blank pages
When no one is listening.
Let’s burn bright and hot
Like supernovas and dying stars
And lend our light to satellites
Let’s send a message
Written in new constellations
Drawn with our fingertips
Against the night sky
We’ll let the stars know
That we see them
Even in the brightest
Light of day
And That they’ll
Never be forgotten
Even if every last one
Blinks out of existence
Right before our eyes.

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

I don’t know if I believe that
We are all made of stardust or
Swirling galaxies of energy
I know that my skin isn’t
As thick as I’d like it to be
And the freckles on my body
Don’t make constellations
Unless you know how to
Connect the dots

I know that mountains and snow
Will always feel like home
No matter where I am
And I know that home
isn’t always in the same
Place twice

Sometimes you feel home
In waves, that make your heart
Feel lighter and heavier
At the same time
Sometimes it’s a moment in time
That you could spend your life
Trying to define

Home is a dream, a photograph,
a stretch of highway,
An acre of forest that you’ve
Never thought to explore
It’s somewhere you know well
And sometimes somewhere
You’ve never been before.

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 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.

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.

There is something big behind you
And you don’t know what it is
But you know you have to run
That you've always been running
The thing behind you
Is always bigger than you
But you've always taken it down
And down
And down
In the past, you’ll do it again
and again
and again
Because you have to
Because it’s your responsibility
Though you don’t remember accepting it
Because who else would be there
If you weren't?
And all you want
Is to unlace your boots
To lay down your guns
To let someone else take up the hunt
But the thing behind you
Is only behind you
And it’s always
Always
Bigger than you.

I see the pain of desire
Dripping from your
Half-closed eyes
And I want to swallow it
Taste the salt and metal
Of tears and blood
And a thousand other things
That are just you alone
This is like
Breathing in sunlight
And letting it burn
Trails of scarlet
Down your throat
And I can see the sunbeams
Exposing themselves
Between each rib
In your chest
Are they burning
Into the core of you?
Can you even feel them there?
I can feel them
Through your skin
As I place a palm on your chest
And feel you breathe in
I’m burning now, scorched
I can feel my lungs
Grow hot and bright
Is this reflected light
Or are you giving
Your sunlight to me?

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.

The earth you stand on is older than you can fathom.
It is millions of years of ash, bone, and rebirth
Layer upon layer of ages gone by
Time you will never experience first hand

You hold uncountable births and deaths
In your cupped palms as you fill them with earth
You cannot know how many lives were lived
In that palmful of dark sand

Your toes time travel as they sink into the sand
You bring back eons under your fingernails
As you dig further back
Trying to feel what the world was like
when the world was still new
And time had yet to exist.

This is where the ash on your tongue
Is sweeter than the blood on your hands
Even if they both mean the same thing
And these wolves with their sharp teeth and red tongues
are eating you alive but still you want to love them
They can’t help their nature
Any more than you can help your own
You are made of regret and grief
But you bite the hand that comforts you
Because you don’t know any other way
Because what are you without your pain?

The wolves are circling
And though were raised by them
You don’t recognize them as family now
And they certainly don’t recognize you
But still you want to love them
You take every bite, every drop of blood drawn
And tell yourself that this is what you deserve
Tell yourself you can never really go home.

Our bodies are torn up
By the weight of sunlight
Our skin cannot hold it out
And it bursts, white hot
From our fingertips
We are shattered
From the inside out
Our throats close up
On the words
That could save us
And there is not enough
Water in the world
To quench this thirst
Our bodies are
Consumed by light
We are brighter
Than the stars
But it burns through us
Like hellfire
And thousand degree days
Like we’ve swallowed
The core of the earth
And all we can do
Is feel the rapid
Burning in our veins
And hope it will last.

I realize now
That the twisting of time
Is not something I can stop
Resetting the clock
Changes nothing
Not really
And I can’t help
But be a little thankful
At this loss of control
If I could change time
Would I want to?
Would I change
Any decision I’ve ever made?
Would I want to know
Really, truly know
Where I’d be
If I wasn’t the sum
Of the consequences
I cannot change?

There are terrible secrets
Hidden in the curve of your lips
Your sins pushing against your teeth
And still, I can’t help but see
That they aren’t all you are
My own sins crowd my throat
Choking me, making me pay a debt
Of penance that will never be settled
Do any of us really
Deserve to be saved?
I don’t know, but then in the end
That’s really not up to us, is it?

We bleed, and fight, and suffer
For what? A world that doesn’t care?
A world that can’t see
The black creeping in at the edges
We aren’t heroes, never were  
we are damage control
We are “This won’t happen again”
We are sorry it happened at all
But we are here to pick up pieces
Not to stop things from breaking
If you knew what we knew
You wouldn’t thank us for saving you
You’d run as fast as you could
In the opposite direction
And no one would blame you.

We scraped our fingers over the ashes of our youth
Trying to gather all the pieces we left behind
Running toward the future
Carefully going crazy
Over every word we've ever said
Futilely grasping at every memory stripped away
Nostalgia is just a word
For memories we have yet to tarnish,
And people we didn't know we could lose.

Someday we’ll be young again
Not quite innocent
But naïve enough to be happy
With enough time to sit still
And think about
How small we are
Compared to the stars
And how we too could
Light up the sky
If only we weren’t
Afraid To burn

It’s like plucking the wings off of angels
And you can’t help but wonder
Who’s really in control here
Are those tears or are they blood
Is there really a difference now?

Dream of a home that no longer exists
You were right, you can’t go back there
Not now, not ever
But still, the gates are closing
And you are being pulled back in.

How can you help anyone
When you don’t even know
That you are the one that needs saving
How can you ask for the help
You don’t know you need.

And they’ve got your wings twisted
Clipped and torn, tagged and tracked
Giving a whole new meaning to
“Angels are watching over you”.

You turn heel and run
While the world
Snaps at the soles of your feet
Trying to take you down

So you run
Faster and further
Than ever before
Your lungs burn
You run

Your flesh and bones
Are not a cage
But they will slow you down
But what are limits
But rules meant to be

Broken.