the fear
that after all this
time, all this
mess, all this
fight

that I will only lose
you to the
war in your
mind

some doors are closed for good reason
and some doors are not mine to open

all are lessons
learned the hard way

grief hangs heavy,
guilt swallows my ankles, my knees -
and sometimes i think
i'll really just let them take me under
this time.

the storm of disconnect
    mine
        yours

hell and home
meet like
two              sides
of one sea,
split down
the mid      dle;
we're                  beautiful,
they say.
a natural
                           wonder.

the natural wonder of

s e p a r a t i o n ,

they fail to realize,
is night and day,
earth and water.

they don't feel the warmth
of your side, the cold of mine -
the nothingness of     white
and emptiness be t w ee n      u s.

and I can't help but wonder
what is so beautiful about two
hands that will never hold?

undress
peel the layers
of skin

find the name
of every boy
carved into a
rib

the bones are like
flower petals
the blood like
a river

fed it the lavender
heat of want
and neglect

paint it on your
skin the war paint
of trying too hard

of giving up

find her in pieces
each and everyone
with your name on it
only yours
only yours
only yours

she pried every rib out
years ago, used them
to burn at the alter
of every loss and

every longing
and she still holds onto
the ribbons used
to connect you

the one you untied
years ago

those little words,
and the ones
that came after -
I'm sorry
I made you wait.
your hands in
my hair,
your hands
at my waist -
*but I know
I'm sure.

I am not
your bitterness.

quiet
pops and
bubbles
the burns and the
flesh the anger
the quiet
memory of
moments
feelings of
rightness of
balance
that aren't
there anymore
whispers of what
used to mean
okay
and not
okay anymore
not
okay

i miss you
(all the time)

but it is what it is
(my fault).

I built my house
with the stones
I found
when I hit
rock bottom.

it's a mess,
but it's mine.

tired of the mess
tired of bleeding from
the hole in my chest
tired of feeding mouths
that aren't mine
tired of going hungry
tired of empty hands
tired of the give and
the give and the never
get, tired of empty
hands empty heart
empty house tired
of the hole in my chest

I wish my
name had
never fallen
from your
tongue.

you didn't tell me
about your fifth dui
but i found out anyway

you didn't tell me
you hid your feed from me,
or mine from you
but i found out anyway

you didn't tell me
when you married
that awful woman
but i found out anyway

you did tell me
i'd have a bedroom
a second family
a place, always

had a knack for
hiding the truth
telling the lie
the false promise

you've fought hard
to be nothing
and no one to me

hope you relish
your victory

sometimes the crows
talk to me
and I imagine
you sent them
from your little
corner of the world

I pretend they
say "I miss you"

because truth be told
I miss you
too.

the pieces of me,
the pieces i have left
don't really fit together.
collected over the years
from hundreds of puzzles,
i am left with an image
maybe designed by a
toddler or maybe a psychopath -
the kaleidoscope view of
somebody who couldn't
keep track of all the pieces
all the pictures
all the puzzles.
but i guess they tried,
because here i am
in all of my mismatched glory -
all at once a gift and an apology.

she is the ocean,
giving rise to new moons
and high tides. she
will be the force
to guide you to safety,
to guide you into
the abyss. she
will give you life
and she will
swallow you whole
and while you drown,
while you feel her fingers
pulling the very life
from your skin
you will smile,
you will thank her. because
between going under
and letting go,
she is both destruction
and salvation.

in the absence,
the vacancy,
i am alone
with me
and we are
learning how
to sit in silence
together, how to
make dinner for
just us, how to be whole
again.

i am feeling less like
a caricature of myself,
less colored outside the
lines and haphazard
and the more i cut
away at the things which
do not serve, the more
i am my own for the first
time in so long.

to be tethered to no one
but me, i am finally,
finally free.

maybe
maybe i am choking
maybe the love you feed me
is poison, is ash,
maybe the hands you lay
on me are hands to harm
not to hold

maybe
maybe i am so used to
love that hurts that you
are swallowing me, stealing
all of my leftover parts
and maybe
i am such a fool
to let you.

i hope it burns
i hope you choke
on every word
i hope it haunts you
i hope it hurts

i hope you get everything you deserve.

i think we forget
time is not linear,
and we do not
exist on a line.
we do not exist
from this point
to this point.
it's kind of like
believing the world
is flat. it forgets that
there is neither
beginning nor end,
only continuation.
your end is a new
beginning somewhere
else. your timeline isn't
simply ended; it warps
and circles and splays.
you are not a momentary
blip on the map of the
universe, you are splatter
and chaos and birth
and decay. you are
so much more than
simple live and die.
you are so much more
complex than here
and not here. look at
the terrible beauty of
the poetry of everything.
we are synergy, we are
equally all and nothing.
i am the nerves spiderwebbing
your body - you are
the galaxies spiderwebbing
the universe. never
forget that you are not
dust - you are star dust.
infinite and complete.

there's a trail of my blood
that runs from one of this
town to the other, right
up the steps to my front
door.

this town has seen
all my ugliest moments
and yet I am still here,
sleeping in the same bed
cooking at the same stove,
living in the same house
I have already grieved
so many losses in.

this town is home and hell
and I want to escape just
as much as I never want
to leave and it depends
on the sky and it depends
on the day and it depends
if I see your faces, or my own,
in all the memories it carries.

i wish i could just
float away with the
current

to something
to nothing

it hardly matters
these days

chains
tethers
the long
lines of
events
we call
fate  &
d e s t i n y.

here, there
is no fate.
no destiny.
only the foretold
ending of ruin.
i can pinpoint
every
little
dot
that got us here,
can see the lines
ahead.
we will never win.
not a single one of us.

all I want
in this life
is to no
longer be in
possession of
this life.

you put your hands on me
like I am a church, a body
of worship, a home to confess
all your sins. write my
body like a poem, like a
confession, like you'll
find in me the verses of
redemption.

I am not your savior, not
a holy body. I am nothing
like salvation. I am the dark
place you only visit when
you're overrun with guilt
and rot and desperation.
I won't leave you feeling
clean, you'll leave me with
stains on your skin and ache
that will never empty.

i am the blood-soaked
blankets beneath your bed,
and I am the rusted knives
you keep hidden in that
box in your garage. i am
all your ***** thoughts
and ugly wants. i am that
itch creeping up your spine
and the cold tingle in your
fingertips. i am the compulsion
keeping you awake at night
and the obsession in your
every move. i am your
darkest secrets and your deepest
desires. i am the ghost that
haunts your waking moments
and i am the skeletons hidden
in your garden.

hello,
i hope your evening
is filled with
stubbed toes
burnt supper
spilled milk.

in the morning, i hope
you forget your office keys
your coffee until it's gone cold
your lunch
your password.

i hope this email
finds you well!

eyes wide
hearts untied
swallowed pride
laced cyanide
quiet suicide

god knows
we tried

i feel at odds with the existence,
lingering somewhere between
this is where i'm meant to be
and i do not belong here.  

i feel strongly anchored in some
memories, like i'm dreaming and
i can't wake up, like this is the worst
high and i'm stuck in the comedown.

i woke up different on the bathroom floor,
a different person, a different energy
and i'm still struggling to understand
if i woke up better or worse
or if i ever woke up at all.

slowly
like falling
                  asleep
i fall out
of love
with
        you.

imsorryimsorryimsorry
this isn't what i mean
this is a strange dream
one of the ones where i
know i'm asleep and i
can't wake up i can't
wake - your light trips
too bright, takes my
breath away

but it hurts it hurts
it hurts like a room
full of thousands of
wings desperate for
escape it hurts like
too big limbs in too
small cage it hurts
like letting go it hurts
like wanting more it
hurts like why can't
i ever be happy

take issue with the
light of my eyes
the need that
bleeds from
my skin
tell me how
every little
part of me
ruined you

if i'd gone
left that day
instead of right
if i'd made that
phone call
waited five
more minutes
finites and variables.

the pulse
the swell
these vultures
descending
to pick at the
wreckage
left of me

the walls
came down
that day
boys and bombs
and bodies

it's alright though.
remember the
phoenix and its
ashes...right?

eve runs in my
blood, she gives
me her power
so thick and electric
adam never knew.

she whispers
in my ear,
where did it go,
little girl? i poured my
soul into you and
you let hope bleed
from you like river water.
rise up. walk into the
fire. rebuild my empire.

i died on my knees
but i wasn't meant for
that. when the lights
come back on, i will
stand. i will no longer
be alone in this room.

the ghosts in the attic
play melodies on the piano,
something about how
love will always end
in destruction, either in life
or after death.

they tell us stories of the
ocean, how she can carry a
ship yet slip through your fingers,
how she kisses the shores,
yet she's always in pull
to the moon.

the ghosts in the attic tell
us how your soul will always
be bound to the places that
harmed you the most, how you
will move through walls but
you'll always sink right back
to the stain on the carpet.

they tell you to learn how to be
good with your hands, to paint
the love you feel on every canvas
you touch, to carry a heart gently
but know to make a fist when needed.

they tell us how they lived and
died in agony, how they watch
the living do the same. how the cycle
repeats itself, how the ghosts
in the attic become us,
how we become them.

I keep trying to fix myself
by destroying everything
around me and I'm still
surprised every time I
find myself alone in my own
wreckage.

it all goes back to that one
little moment
the pill in my hand
the table underneath
my elbows
the floor underneath
my feet.

i wish i would have given it back.
i wish i would have said no.
i wish i would have listened to
that terrified little voice in the back
of my head that this would be too
much.

i swallowed it.
let ecstasy swallow my life.
it's been years now
and i still feel like
i never really got it back.

some days the warrior
some days the worrier
and i'm never more
unsavable
than the days your
absence hits the hardest -
when everything smells
like you, and i hear your voice
the clearest and the
soundtrack in my head
is the alternating verses of you
telling me you love me
and telling me to use a sharper
knife next time -

these are the days
i find myself the
most numb,
trembling, aching for sleep,
for an escape from the pain
that comes with missing you
so deeply
even after all this time.

I keep writing about you.
all these words you don't
deserve, all this time. energy.
space. you deserve nothing
more of me, except maybe
this weight you left me with.
that, you deserve. I don't know
what it is. what links me to
you this way. do you feel me?
do you feel the inecessant
whine of my thoughts? the
childlike nature of it all,
elementary longing for a boy
for a boy for a boy for a
god forsaken pit of all the
things that wrecked me. yet,
here I am. well past midnight,
alone writing about you. they
say writing comes most easily
from broken heart, but mine
isn't really broken anymore.
a broken heart implies love,
and I don't have that for you
anymore. haven't for awhile.
that's not really the problem.
at least if I still loved you, I'd
know why you plague me still.
but I suppose these are questions
that don't have answers. maybe
time still does heal all wounds,
some just much slower than
others. but are you wound? am
I still wounded? I don't feel hurt
when I think of you. just...sore.
you know? how decades old
injuries have healed, but they
still inexplicably ache in the rain?
it's something like that. everything's
healed. these scars aren't pink and
shiny, they're old. almost invisible.
but they ache, sometimes. when
I'm alone. and the you I'm writing
to is the wrong one. the one that
broke me ages ago. the one that
deserves no more of my time. all
the while the you that loves me
sits in the other room, none the
wiser that these words pour
from my fingertips. that my
thoughts are on an old you. and
it's ****** up. I'm ****** up.
and I'm not sure which one of us
is more to blame.

take your time,
it's alright to go slow;
but my god I want to know
how it feels
to kiss you.

drips on the floor
an oil spill of
all the loss and longing
i tried i tried i tried
to hold your hands
but you let me slip
like water through
your fingers when
the weight of mine
became too heavy

my hands are empty
bruised and ******
yours are fists
yours are fists
yours are fists

burned the
house down,
started with our bed.
shredded the pictures,
used our bones as
kindling. watched
the kerosene of
everything we
could have been
feed the flame.

I watch my life
turn to ash, watch
you desperately
cling to any little
piece that still
remains.

wake in the early winter morning,
let the cold settle in your bones,
serve the quiet reminder that
all things come to an end eventually.
the silence of snow and the howl
of wind are the two hands that
say both goodnight and welcome home.
the sudden winter storms will heal
if you let them, but they'll also
steal you away when you
get lost in the night.
don't allow yourself to be
swallowed by the ache of it,
by the barren silence of it all.

they don't taste right -
other boys.  they put their
hands on me and my brain
is the tornado and my mouth
is the hurricane and they
don't taste right. too much
salt, not enough sugar.
like a meal, always missing
something, never quite
sure what.

I never had that problem with
you. you were always just
right, tasted like warm whiskey
and strong coffee. always knew
where to put your hands.

your palm melts
to the contour of
my face and
I melt into you.
lords knows
I will come
undone under
the fever of your
fingertips and
lord knows
I will come
unraveled
under the
weight of your
want and lord
knows

love is easy
when it's
slow and lazy -
like honey, warm
and sweet.

but it bites
at times like
a scared dog,
tail between its
legs.

this is how we
ran out of honey;
got rid of the dog.

i wish i had steady hands.
i wish my voice never shook,
never stumbled.
i wish i was more patient,
less tired.
i wish i complimented strangers,
paid for their coffee once in awhile.
i wish i could say i never yelled
at my cats or thought
unkind things.
i wish i could say i've never
done wrong, never cheated,
never lied.
i wish i was clean,
unblemished.
i wish i didn't have this temper,
wish i'd learned to control it
sooner.
i wish i could be many things,
a great deal of them softer,
more of them stronger.
i wish i could forgive myself
for all the things i am and am not,
i wish pathological perfection
didn't break down at the most minor
mistake.
i wish i could give myself the grace
i'd give anyone else,
the room for their humanity.
i wish i could stop feeling indebted,
permanently deserving of some ever so
slight punishment.
i wish i could forgive myself for who
i was at my most hurt.
i wish i could be proud of myself for
everything i've become
since.

there are days
I want to tell you
how you broke me
and there are days
I remember
you don't deserve
the satisfaction

I wish I was one of those
picturesque kind of beauties,
curved and carved and made
of porcelain and painted up
lovelier than any sunrise.
their hearts are pure and
gentle, elegance laced
into every single step.

my beauty is chaos, fueled
by the storm in my chest.
I'm graceless, built by rage
and concrete. I'm the greenish
hue of the sky just before
a tornado and I am the
aftermath, an unrooted
forest strewn across city streets.

sometimes I'm sorry
for the disaster I've hurtled
into your life and sometimes
I wish you'd thank me for
the landscapes I am forever
repainting. I am hell and
I am home and I cannot
undo my weaving. love me
anyway. love my carnage
and my ravaged heart.
I wish I was picturesque
but I will never condemn
the chaos in my blood.

I am so, so afraid
I've already given all
the love I had to give.
burned out, ash,
wax on the table,
nothing left to give
the hearts that have
the misfortune
to love mine after
the years of bleed and
leech. I am spent,
isolated ache,
want and crave and
empty space. I promise
I tried, I'm trying,
I'm trying.

breathe you in deep
like salty summer air
like cold winter, just
before it snows -
feel you on my skin
all the way into my lungs.