replacement friends are real
and I'm the villain here.
I'm sitting in the corner,
watching as green bottles litter the room.

this was exactly what I was expecting.

this is either earned or spent
wrong or right
but I maybe I don't care anymore

and there's many years to come
for consequence to follow karma.

I'm enjoying. 
what might be pain ignored
and lines crossed
morals damaged.

and if it isn't right
I know to lie to myself

the night is never over.

and life just hasn't begun yet.

just offhand.
and I have a couple ways to spend the hour that would be far more useful than this.
sleep isn't coming, but in a few weekends,
I'm coming home, and coming to visit.
it takes an occasion to write with conviction,
but I can convince myself occasionally.

just offhand. 
and this is the verse you get because the first half is mine alone. 
and the second part is all you need to know.
you'll be okay.
it's been a long time since I've been away,
and I lost interest.  
I'm sorry for misunderstanding. 
I'm sorry that I fell in love.
just telling you now,  that I'm done. 
I have been for awhile. 
that doesn't mean that I don't
miss your smile. 
I just don't need it everyday. 

2/12/13

2/10/13

you don't have to ask me anymore,
how I'm feeling or what I'm thinking.
it doesn't matter to me
if it matters to you. 
but I wonder if you dream of me,
or mistake me for that girl 
you saw walking down the street
if you remember as vividly as I did 
all the times we used to share.
all the words exchanged, 
my way of merely bordering sane.
I wouldn't expect you to. 

today you were brought up
from across the table. 
and my gut didn't ache
and I simply said,
"I'd rather not discuss it"
and I kept your privacy, 
I didn't expect to, but I did.
it's neither my buisness nor his.
nobody ever seems to know
all that has happened between us.
I suppose it's a blessing. 
so I went out for a cigarette,
and thought about absolutely nothing.

3/3/13

the light fades at the end of the day
it always has.
I sat and thought of you
on the sidewalk.

I can blame you, 
for just as many things 
as I thank you for.
our own little bit of ****** up zen.

last summer was classic
last summer will never die

I forget that you weren't around
you didn't have to be, for once.
I'll see you again, 
I'm almost certain

but even if I don't 
I don't think I'll cry.

going to meet the boy who has no name.
so we can smoke our cigarettes together.

he fills the empty, with our little talks.
leaning up against the no smoking sign.

it scares me, the way that I think of him,
like clockwork. meet by the sign,
monday wednesday friday afternoons,
and I'm starting to watch the time.

he's starting to fill up the empty spaces,
that he doesn't even know exist.

I still haven't asked his name.

I'm jangling along,
in time with charms falling across my arms.
silver fade with cheap,  black dyed suede.

I'm a simple kind of fix.

running into woven traps and loose ends,
hiding from our emotions,
hiding from our daily lives.

I started drawing exit signs.

coffee, college, cigarettes,
there's no place here to hold regrets,
but they occasionally manage to slip in for awhile.
it's nothing I can't drink away,
now that I know how badly I want to do just that.

packed away and labeled in little boxes,
dust is gathering on the picture frame,
that you gave to me after graduation.
how could we have known how little time we had?

and I'm sorry,
                          I'm sorry.

I'm not coming back for the past
it will **** me,  break me,  own me,

and I'm sorry,
                          I'm sorry.

I have no room for weaknesses now,
the spaces are reserved,  my heart is closed.
I turned to sand, and ash,  I slipped away.
where were you to save me?

I'm not going to remember you in four years,
so I suppose it's just as well.

3/5/13

I lied to you.
I said "who knows what the future holds."
before I walked out and had my cigarette.

I know.

I know I won't be coming back anymore.

I know I looked into your eyes, and didn't tremble.

I'm satisfied.
I want no more of these tense confessions
and temporary forgiveness.

let's bury the hatchet.
let's never have to talk again.

because I really didn't like it.

I was sitting here against the wall
when you woke up.
I knew I shouldn't expect you to know me,
and yet you did.

look at us,  how far we've come.
I know this room doesn't look like much.
you have to know,
that after all these years, I still find it beautiful.

we can leave right now,
but first I should tell you,

we were wrong.
the future is coming, and I am not afraid.

an epic poem that I can't convince my pen to write
'cause I've been far too busy riding city buses
and drinking beer,  and staying in bed.

a theme of budding alcoholism,
                                              and seasonal depression.

classes and meals skipped,
                                                  comas and car crashes.
it's all real, and it's all happening.

it's going home and then leaving it again,
boxes both packed and unpacked,
facebook messages I wish I could take back.

pages I leave blank,
                    when I want to write all the way down.
puking in your driveway,
                              the last night that I skipped town.
phone calls to celia,
                                 until I get to go see her again.
running into your houses,
                                 smoking cigarettes with friends.

I hope that Portland swallows you up.
and that Seattle drowns you.

the wind is taking more drags off my cigarette than I am. that's buffalo;
wind&concrete;&cold.;
I won't let you crawl into the gutters,
and die in the snow.
in the alleys of these long lost streets,
we keep trying to revive.

and I ask myself
if you'd let me fall asleep out in the cold,
six shots down & I don't want to know.
I'm still walking on my own,
against the cold, and keeping warm.

I'm taking good care of myself,
now that I know you won't do it for me.

10/29/12

drank my robitussin like a commercial,
made my gums sickly sweet and red.
coughing up discomfort and nicotine,
wishing my body could decide to be dead.

I wonder if Poe had to wait until he was sick,
to squeeze a meaningful thought out onto paper,
'cause lately I do.

10/11/12

the sun has died,  and yet the planets still orbit.
the fish swim in a char black ocean,  dead current.
the bull charges blindly into the ruins of the arena.

if god looks down,
then he's tired of my being cared for.
he sent a truck and a tumor to get me to care more.
and having failed at that,
he saw fit to pull my heart out.

the flaw in god is that,
he pulls too ******* the puppet strings.

you can bring a camel to water,
but you can never make it drink.

he can send two plagues to reform me,
and in the end I still think.

this is clear punishment for living life without god.
this is the reformation of nothing, and nobody.
this is the admission that I'll happily keep rotting.

10/22/12
that's the day you died
the day you became dead to me

sitting in the driveway at my dad's house
cigarette in hand
cottonwood tree standing tall and alive
concrete feeling cool and strong

both cottonwood and concrete
have seen me cry over many a boy like you
the wind howled a familiar howl
and suddenly I remembered

there've been so many just like you
and here I am,  returning home,
changed, and bitter, and with tears in my eyes
I returned home whole

I realized today that I don't need you
I realized that I could let you go.

we wrote ourselves an epilogue
in florescent lights and a corner of a moment. 
you were a hallucination
walking through the automatic doors, 
I wasn't ready for you to be real. 

I never wanted to see this to the end.
we could've forever been seniors
and in and out of love
every other day. 

I wanted to dream up a better ending
or cast us in a lifetime movie,
where I'd apologize
and you might accept it.

I saw you from across the aisle
my hair hadn't been washed in days
and I was tired.
I don't remember what I said.
it doesn't matter.

it was awkward, and worthless
I hope you found what you wanted
because I did.
this is how love dies.
in a ******* target.

take me home
tuck me in bed
promise me
that you'll stick around
until I wake up

I'm burning up
because I had this strange dream
I fell through the cellophane
to a way to get spiritual.
and woke up in my very own bed.

only two hours early for work.

I coughed up the equivalent
of what my lungs must feel like,
every **** day,
especially these days.

I smoked until I knew I was only making it worse
I'm hearing in different shades of pain
from my right ear canal
whenever I swallow.

if I'm going to die from a cold
can't we just please get it over with?

I hate menthol cigarettes with a passion. I swore I'd never eat seafood but I guess I'm going to in a few moments. I was cold until they gave me a blanket. I'm going to sit here and write a bible like jesus christ. are we going to dip into the jack daniels soon? because this wall is cold and it's my birthday tomorrow. this hat isn't mine but I keep it so I stay warm and undiscovered. I have a nagging suspicion you don't exist.  I'll never like metallica, I don't wanna try the salmon. I haven't eaten much today,  I wanna pack the bowl. I've never wanted to have this many people text me daily,  I can't believe I had *** during adventure time. this is the day before I turn 18, my inner lip tastes like ramen salt. here comes the salmon.  it's january now so we'll all freeze to death. except for you. you probably won't freeze to death unless I see you.

this is a quiet town
where the roads are covered in snow. 
and I am the marlboro fairy, 
spreading my ash in the dead of night

with my hair in blonde knots
savoring the delicate drags of my cigarette.
all the little children sleep sound,
and dream of me.

my ghosted footprints
silently appearing beneath the streetlight

as ashes fly away with wind for sails
I barely am breathing out
nor making a sound.

I'm the marlboro fairy of midway drive
I'm a college freshman born in '95
I am the future of at least one of your children,
I am the cigarette butts stashed,
by the side of the building.

I have a life that I go back to at night,
I don't leave this house without a light.
there is dog hair and dust and ugliness
that waits to welcome me inside,

but I'm the Marlboro fairy
and I've got so much to hide.

everything was looking up
and I never knew that everything was about to go down.

the sliver of light between the blinds reached into my heart and burned an image.

sweat and love and smoke and *****
all smelled the same for a summer. 

my heart stopped keeping time because this was never going to slow down or end.

it wasn't even summer yet.
but I remember that smell.

I remember the feeling of waking up in the morning,
flip flops and long skirts.
cigarettes and heart bursts.

I thought I let it slip away.
but it's right here.
I wrote it in stone for you.
but it's more for me.

2-5-13

my muse has wandered and fallen
dead like the leaves that I stepped on last autumn.
when pain was still fresh
and snow hidden deep in the sky, 
time would come to peel you off my shoulders.

caught like a leech you scabbed and wounded,
the proverbial thorn has
been released from my side.
there will be flowers blooming in spring time.
another muse to use up a recycled line.

I watched the leaves fall into my nicotine clouds,  saw many an emotion
carried beneath a burial shroud. 

every death is a reflection on you.
every snowflake a shot at something new.

thinking of you
when the sun leaves the sky forever.
we both know that we are dying.

you could find me where the city stood
while my eyes burned bright
not unlike the skyline
but I could never find you again.

thinking of highschool smiles
skipping classes and standing in lunch lines
the way you spoke to me
like a small child
that needed protecting,.

thinking of nothing but the way you looked at me
and the way that I looked back into your eyes
waiting for you to walk into a room

thinking of you

feeling like I am always feeling;
just waiting for you to walk into the room.

"let her beg"
is all that needs to be said
because you know that I'm filled with cough syrup,
and tucked safe in my bed.

what you don't know is the numbness that spreads
when you're not here to stop it;
when the pain bubbles up and I use my razor to pop it.

you can't feel the heat or the coldness I suffer
you'll always have paul as your emotional buffer.

"let her beg"
I'm sure you said.

but it isn't just you that I'm begging.
I'm begging ashley to wake up,
and I'm begging andrew to watch her.
I'm begging myself to forget you,
and not get myself hurt.

9-17-12

7-12-12

cold for a july night.
hands cupped like a begging addict
trying to savor the heat of the flame
that spreads to the filter of the cigarette

now thats two wasted.

with all the times I've spent
sitting and debating if
this life is worth slitting my wrists
it's a miracle I'm still alive.

it's only seventeen julys
but if you ask me,
it's more like seventeen million.

my feet are cold.
in all senses including proverbial.

shot into my very own world, right here
an all enclosing space, save for the exit wound.
& today I'm deciding that you can't come through.

this is mine, this is what I've built.
I'm neither leaving nor letting you in this time
I earned my place, and I'm not giving it up for any one.
but especially you.

new emblems and no overdoses,
walking the sidewalk squares in a strange osmosis.
I don't need your "clarity".
****  you.