My body is the ocean

I will never sleep alone.

I let you
**** me;
You didn't mean it.
I let you
love me back.
I let you hit me;
you felt better.
I let you lie,
And treat me
The way
I needed to
feel;
break walls and crush me
into
Vulnerability.
I smiled while you told me
Someone else's name;
More pleasure
Than my eyes and soul combined.
I let you dig your nails into cracked skin,
Pull out pieces that didn't match yours.
I let you bite my neck
And ******* tears
If it meant you'd remember my name.

the parable changed shape;
changed eyes
mathed your spine
in the winter

follies did mellow;
tides rose
kissed gray sand goodbye
again this summer

earth formed crust;
toes tore
veins painted paper
red as you danced through my rib cage

Dust on the mantle,
Candles in a box

A reminder
light is beyond the horizon,
To return as quick as it went

And place roses
Where another left thorns.

1:31
feet up
soul peeled
layers open;
blood or metal?
who gives a ****,
they taste the same.

It's late
Almost midnight
Your eyes are sealed and sleeping not far from mine
on my mind
As usual
I regret not saying
I love you tonight.
I'm scared you'll get tired of hearing it and forget it means something.
Kinda like the *** that doesn't mean a thing anymore.
I'm terrified I'm losing you to the spaces I can't seem to find
But they exist because why else would you be feeling an ocean between our shores.
I feel it too and it terrifies me.
There's a bridge in your mind
you're on one side surrounded by water turning red
I have a superficial hold that
may break like a vine wrapped around a tree
What's changed I can't quite say
But I need you right now
To tell me you won't go
but you're sleeping
And I'm feeling like I'm about to cry because you mean more than the world
But something is off
And I'm worried it won't come back
I'm worried you'll realize there are girls with their priorities straight
Who don't try to be three people at  once
they are beautiful and kiss much harder
But I love you
I can't speak for them
But I think it's okay to say
I'll love you more then they ever will.
I want you right now
to sit on your lap and shrink to half my size
I want you to hold me and comfort me
But what if you don't and what if I'm all alone
I can't hold myself
my arms aren't long enough
I remember what it feels like to have a broken heart and I can't
I just can't right now.
I don't want you to feel trapped because if you want to go,
Go
But realize what you're leaving behind
For a new girl
Who won't know what color your heart is and why

Someday someone
will love me like they do in the summer
even when the snow falls.

one person turned my stomach inside out
flowers wilted
fast as promises made
of smoke.
Cigarettes lied to me,
all four I've ever loved.
Little mirrors
and naked boys
sang a song of pomegranates.
From the tree
to her crown it fell;
snapped branches from her hair
laid down beside another wet cheek.
Sadness is intimate
for me to create:
and destroy
not for ***** feet
on white carpet.
your wings were my wings
remember that?
on a path haunted
by rocks and maybe bears.
wound tightly around your center
this vine won't hold
forever.

There's a place
between my veins
and bones;
It's orange
and filled with parts of you
I refuse to share.

How much blood
can fit inside the hole in a guitar
the highway was your stage
three words
that meant about as much as your favorite song
on repeat the time
you first told me
I was talking over
the music.
Five in the afternoon and all the world was
sleeping
on a Sunday
I lay,
palms facing up,
away from a mattress stained with
sweat.
By day
by night
only one tear
fell
when out loud was muttered:
you turned my eyes to red
with smoke
and blood
but whats the difference?
a day off my life
just a day
get the **** over it Lil.

You're in every crack on the tar,
Hiding beneath layers for days and weeks.
You're there when I close my eyes,
Arms painted purple by your fingertips.
You're in the front of my mind holding my hand,
blowing out smoke
Or blowing a kiss.
You're holding me against the bed,
Running barefoot across your lawn.
You couldn't control your fists
And I couldn't control my heart
So I guess we both killed each other in silent ways.

9:57
Vinyl Morrissey on the record player:
Window down,
Hair riffling in the breeze.
Guitar in hand,
strumming patterns guaranteed to relax my shoulders.
Crinkled papers line the floor
Covered in unused song lyrics
And scribbled what ifs about the girl you used to love.
For a second the sun hits your eyes and you look
Fragile.
Sensitive and vulnerable like myself.
Drops of rain shoot from the sky and kiss your window sill.
I slide my hand toward yours,
Stroke the outline of your fingertips
Until morning came,
and changed your eyes from blue
To gray.

Happy spring*
I whispered to the pine
What I couldn't tell your eyes
Because you weren't human after all;
Just another loaded gun.

My mind is a garden;
Overgrown,
Blooming far to much for my own good.
Every August a flower appears to shower me with water,
Touch a petal to my cheek,
And wilt away
As each
"I love you"
Turns frail in my fingertips.
A red rose grew
Ridden with thorns;
I couldn't hold on long
Without bleeding.
Garden filled with weeds
petals blocking sun,
Impossible to breathe.
Red as fire,
Borne of blood
Dew turned to rain
Until I couldn't tell tears
From flood.
I loved you still.
Winter came and nipped your neck
But you grew
Into someone else's garden.
And on valentines day,
You made her eyes like daisies.

You're the light
In a sea of reeds.
Salt clinging to hair
Bubbles kissing eyelids.
You're the grains in my toes,
Crashing euphoria.
A wave
Returning when the moon calls the tides.
You're a feather
Without a reason to fly
Or bird to pay homage.
Skin of a seal
Sliding peacefully;
secrets of past storms
leaving bellies weathered.
You're the mender of flesh
Torn on tiny pebbles.
Each budding heart
Back to the sea,
To mend in the only arms
Guaranteed to remember my name.

You taught me the sky

The sea

And how hot a fire can burn.

You are the vibrations;
deep blues
orange saturations
feathered red
drips of copper
yellow strands
charcoal shadow of the sea
river in my veins.

In the palm of my hand,
You placed
The sun.

I couldn't stand thinking about you;
I started drinking about you.
Wine ran thin,
morphed to blood.
You called me psychotic,
I've just seen too much of you to be sane.
Like bruised ribs
and eyes black as the pit in your chest.
Where is your heart?
Washed away in the rain,
dripping through cracks
so girls below can catch a glimpse of hell.
Enough is enough.
The words inside melodies never say anything new,
but I listen on repeat just in case
I catch a glimpse of anything true.
Or things I lost when the flood broke my bones,
Making an enemy ship of our sullen home.

Sitting by the window of an unfriendly room,
baffled voices surround an unquenchable core.
Digging my nails into flesh on my wrist,
I crack both big toes.
All the while, your limbs travel my inner eye lids.
Something simple as a blade of grass,
complex as The Birth of Venus cracking the surface of the sea.
Strings lace the cortex of my mind,
until all that remains are two puppets;
metal spokes force your eyes
to exonerate mine.

I woke up ******* on the moon.
Ear to sand,
All the ocean sang was him.
Like art,
Not meant for beauty,
Only tears.

In the palm of your hand an augur collects dew,
Closer to molten rock then lava,
Like skin on glue.
Jeremiad tongues connect with one kiss
Of the first lover of his kind
Never to be missed.
Amongst skipping stones and a de facto home,
Books stack high between beds made of bone.
Excavating a rib cage only to find a heart, hard
Stripping each symbol of protection
On a door fire charred.
Your eyes choked love
Words tore veins slow
Burning the worst fire I'll ever know.

Headphones and fried food,
metabolisms and ****** moods.
Broken condoms; beer pong,
scraped up knees, rip the ****.
Scratched wrists;
That kiss was more than just a kiss.
Mirrors, scales,
headaches, high heels.
Anti-depressants, cold sores,
***** toe nails, clogged pores.
Bare feet, torn shirts,
sweat covered forehead, short skirts.
Lace bra on the floor,
don't forget to lock the door
Pimples and Prozac;
******* and match making.
You can always tell when she's faking.
Pierced ears, cheap beers,
blow jobs and rich snobs.
To your last family party and first cigarette;
Raspberry tinted ***** and the first name you try to forget.
Stained underwear, tweezers and straightened hair.
Mascara and flat irons,
But in all honesty
What the **** is a flat iron?
To rice cakes and heartaches
Lice and love and public bathrooms.
Undercover cops,
Plan B and mushrooms.
A bruise so sore,
what's there to live for?
Can't have my love, can't have my *****,

what happened to the right to choose?

We were like the sun,
A nebula of broken words that led straight to warmth.
Your hands were mine to hold,
And rub.
They look
Colder and shadowed purple
From halfway across the room.  
Your eyes, a swarm of bees,
But your taste buds are no longer satisfied with honey;
They crave something greener.
We smiled at each others flaws,
And skipped stones to maybe one day glide across the water,
without being scraped by salt.
Your forearms healed each wound inflicted by burns.
Hours spend straightening your shoulders
To walk among a rare breed,
As connected to the fire as you.
Close to the brim,
Bursting with love,
You must have looked back and fallen in,
To the smoke your lungs couldn't deny.
But don't deny me,
the right to love you still.

Fingers like bones morph to my chin,
Tilt it always back toward the land,
Whenever I float to the sea.
I envy the sky for it hears the sound of your laugh.
I imagine it like the stars;
Bright and unique,
Probably shining.
Please dance through my eardrums;
Sing songs of protection and loyalty.
I wonder if you were a lovely liar,
Or maybe even a poet.
I hope you'd be proud;
I ran from the smoke,
coughed the cloud from my lungs.
It lingered above until it ran out of rain,
Like tears on the crescent moon of my cheeks.
The blood we share flows faster then his temper,
And hotter then her lips,
But I swear to God I feel you somewhere,
Disguised as my rib cage,
You hold me up,
Keep me centered.
For me and you I swear,
Ill chase the stars till sunrise,
And light candles in corners forgotten.
Your room is yellow,
Flowers bloom in the floor boards,
Signs of you all around.
I lay my head where you once placed yours and think;
Did you even like yellow?
The palm of my hand is a map to your core.
Ill shrink to a vein within myself and slide straight to you.
The problem is picking which path of three will land me back to a face like my own.
Hold the matches,
Kiss every tomb,
Saturate my eye lids,
show my blood to me.

Here's to pianos.
To uncut toe nails and broken jaws.  
Here's to sweaty palms and fancy door knobs.
The last tissue in the box and third graders who know every single dinosaur.
Here's to prickly legs and furless cats.
Slamming doors and rubbing alcohol.
Fun house mirrors and wet towels.
Here's to the boy with the sweaty armpits,
And the biggest heart in the room.
Here's to all the girls who will never give him a chance
Because his hair is greasy
And he always has pieces of apple stuck in his braces.  
Here's to grandmothers holding their children's babies for the first
And last time.
Here's to six foot tall nine year olds
And acne covered foreheads.
North Ohio and beehives.
Here's to wrinkles and back pain,
And the kids who never change for gym class.
Here's to burnt papers and wrongful convictions.
Faked I love you's and backwards t shirts.
For every broken leg and broken heart,
Seasonal depression and ADD.
For unshaven armpits and ripped jeans.
Frequent showers and twisted ankles.
****** mattresses and forged signatures.
Here's to the things that remind me of you.

You are only as beautiful
As the scent of your soul;
And gasoline can't seem to light any fire
But your own.
Wrapped up in twine tighter then your grip,
Pull the string, I'll spin fast enough to forget your face
Again.
One, two, three spokes and sticks
To scrape the cornea of a third eye,
Barely wide enough to see freckles on your face.
Painting sidewalks red with chalk
To hide blood from Christmas morning,
Ignoring every warning;
Do you think leaves brown and fall to die without a meaning?
Palms up, veins sprawled,
Come inside and prove yourself to the rusted copper sign on my spine,
Warning of a fine line.
Splatter spatter dots and scrapes
On the white wall beneath a triangle window,
Crossing a bridge you swore you'd ignore
Back to the soles of my shoes.
Red white and black or blue,
What's it matter when my bones and blood are no longer bruised.
And it doesn't make sense why we don't hold hands,
And why we can't help singing the words to our least favorite songs.
Today I heard you breathe,
Saw you bleed and slam a fist on the table,
Because for every flower that wilts and dies,
A secret garden dances ballet toward torn petals,
Blooming blue from red.

Who broke the rules,
Who broke your heart?
Why was the counter so sticky?
Even more beautiful in the rain
Or in the madness between your lungs.
Who broke the rules,
Who said it first?
Does it count if I lied through my teeth.
One rose for us all
But someone got there first and stole them all.
American as it seems it's still unfair.
Thank you for teaching me the sorrow in solidarity.
If the palm of your hand could cleanse each sin
blood would cover my body.

You kissed away the scratches,
turned them into rose petals.

I saw a boy in maroon pants singing himself hymns

The boy became air and hummed tunes to each daisy

They danced on fathers back, carried away from the grass

The grass not cut since last time the lighthouse illuminated

Light for each flower that rolled fire down the hills

Sixteen cuts and not a drop of blood to prove

Just how strong the neck of a daisy can be.

She's eloquent
and wonderful
and  always manages to be just as beautiful at the crack of dawn.

It's 7:41 on a Thursday,
she's away at school,
her feet aren't in the country,
she would say I warned you
and he would change the subject.
He can't be bothered,
and he who would move mountains
can't know how high they perch.
He's too high to notice,
and I gave her up to impatience months ago,
trading beer for cigarettes,
even though smoking kills.
He would cry victim,
and be right all along,
while she would smirk silently
and whisper
what goes around comes around.

It's 7:46 on a Thursday,
and your lips are far from mine
but in my mind,
still.
Still there, filled with words like
now
and
trust me, it'll start to feel good soon.

Still there, singing Iron and Wine
with too much soul and not enough rasp.

Still there, chapped and peeling,
blowing smoke in my eyes so I can't quite see.

Still there, asking for another hit,
and apologizing because you hit too hard,
but hit the **** again
because we both know what you really mean
when tension is fire and your fists are the savior
So go for it,
hit again
maybe this time I'll bleed enough for you to notice.

Notice,
notice.

The mix tape I left you has love written all over it,
literally.
Is the birthday card still on your dresser?
Ironic.
My dresser,
your dresser,
your fist,
my nails.
We all seem to have something in common here,
maybe none of us know how
or when
to stop.

Stop.
hit,
ignore,
light up,
fall down,
get high again,
bend over,
trapped under...
this time the answer is

**no.

A swarm of horses sailed toward the sky
half in reverse of the ocean,
a heart that questioned the reflection of seaside.
Back in the south she melted bicycle gears to liquor
Quenching a million budding buoys becoming boys.
Inside her smile, a compartment of spit
beside the blinds sealed off to the color red.
In a room full of eardrums
a name like a knife,
rooting and sewing the ground of your yearning.
The moon shook you
As fast as headache turns to dust.
It hits harder then your hands,
softer then tears of antelope sliding down sails;
A reminder how you looked 
when you first caught my eye
Plastered on the tree of a chandelier
Hanging as high as suicide pastries
Under emerald flavored corneas.

She carves names of people she won't meet
On bark she can't reach
On trees her hallucinations nourish
In grass too brown to flourish.

I slept through the fall
And tripped through the spring
On pebbles that grew wings
and flew to my window
Shattering glass
between my arms and your past
But the wind blew again,
Packed my door shut with snow
Until all there was to do
Was get high
And pray your hands
made it back to mine.

Each streak of sun
Is softer then the next
Except for your ray,
The brightest on this side of the triangle.

Twenty six layers of skin on the mountain;
One for each mile between
Your bare feet
And the fire by my shore.

The core of tectonic foundation swallowed words like
I love you
Until you guided my lips
To a mutual spine.

My favorite vertibre is your silent laugh,
How you have to be on top when we hold hands,
The way you catch each shooting star at exactly the right time to whisper
I love you
So it sounds like you mean it.

I can't say I said to stop
but I never asked for this to start.
It was a Monday,
A cold one when you first held my hand.
Well not my hand, my hips actually,
but it may as well be the same thing at this point.
I told you not to fall and I swear to god I meant it,
But anyway,
seasons change and nothing stops the wind from blowing.
It was the comfortable type of pain, you said,
the kind where you forget what it was like to breathe normal.
Somewhere along the way by the rocks or maybe even in a field,
I remembered why I loved you
And cried to each and every blade of grass because they'd never understand.
I pulled out clumps and chunks until all that was left was dirt,
And when I realized what was gone I sat blisterung in the sun,
threading each and every blade back into place.
The difference was,
no one was waiting on my side with a needle to repair the damage,
Because I crossed the bridge to you.
You didn't play the part
You let the part play you and ego swallowed you whole.
You were free to go at any time,
I never made you stay
And the word I love you sounded tainted coming from hands that pressed my body to the ground.
Nothing bites as hard as reality
Except you, according to my neck at least.
I'm sorry we ever became lovers because since October the girl has changed but the moon has stayed the same.
And can I tell you something...
You never even ment a thing.

Sail back down the moon
left by the door of dust caked feet
you claim to be your own.
Paint back the days spent flipping scales,
replace the compass drenched in blood
in the center of my living room.
The king and pawn don't look so different
if you squint you eyes.
Tell me again, slower this time
how we coexist as moths and light.
Peculiar you'd say, how unequal it seems.
Seventeen years and not a sense
of the universe within each drop
on flesh as thin as the umbrella above your head.
Everyone's a soldier
marching on the shoulder
of every other soldier.
Carry me back on the back that didn't break
when night swallowed its stomach.
I may be a moth by your side
but the light didn't leave
when it had the chance.

Before I could connect the dots
They became like stars
And sat on your cheeks
Painting the universe with scars.
Taking me to a place
Where rain drops elate
And sun dries the fields
Where the great trees yield
Seeds of yesterday's blessings.
Do you know knuckles tighten
Tears swell and bloom,
And vessels seem to cringe
When your name,
Like a knife
Is thrown across the room.
I hate the sour taste of resent on my tongue,
And the emptiness of words
Like the songs never sung.
You, like a cloud, hang too low
Like last night when they pried
So I swallowed the tears to let it go,
Heavy with regret.
Each one of my bones has your initials etched
And probably my forehead too
Because everyone seems to draw a line between me and you
Thicker then it ever grew on your side of the fence.
The truth behind us is as simple as flames,
One always burns faster, and nothing's to blame
But it's 5 pm and my hands have moved on
To someone else's back
And you may hold her hair back for a moment on your bed
But she will never understand the
Mountains in your mind
Or try to climb to sunrise and understand the lies
Like I did one Sunday morning.
I hope she never loves you
Because you deserve nothing more then the sting of the sea you refuse to walk along with me.

Wake up already.
I've been staring at the scratch on your neck since half past three.
You look strangely similar
To the sidewalk I've walked a million times before
But you're not cracked
Or rotted like my eye sockets.
If everybody knew why windshield wipers
Hide what keeps us writing love letters to boys we'll never meet,
Even weeds would look good in a garden.
The cold rusted my knee caps
And staining the carpet red
But it was worth it to hold your hand,
for a minute and 37 seconds.
There's a vase of flowers by the door
From a lover who didn't make the cut.
A cut on your shoulder
Leaves the fire burning blue.
Paper clips lined the ceiling
Of the California oak
By the edge of his bed.
Do it for yourself,
I swear to the moon I'll be grateful
No matter how long the line to heaven
Wraps around my wrists.
Under the sand trapped in your toes
I learned to choke on something other then the water
Bubbling my lungs to cobalt.
I'll flick every switch and touch you forever
If you teach me to love you back.
And if the desert could yell
As loud as my eyes
*You'd feel it too.

You can't break a heart that isn't healed from the last set of eyes.
A reminder from the moon to the stars
It's never too late for something beautiful
To fall from the sky
Into the palm of your hands.
There is a place across a river
Where the East meets what's west,
And all the children wait with bandages for cut wrists to heal in the sun before it sets.
I have a fear of setting in stone
Because you can only stare at the sun for so long
Before beauty and light causes tears.
Nothing beautiful,
Like an angel in the snow
Remains forever,
And I'm stuck in time
Because there's something going around the room
That I've avoided well so far
But a bird can't fly forever and neither can my heart
I have to fall at some point
Into someone one else's sun.

Winters back to remind me I loved you
In every patch of ice
Summers back to swap the tide
Of my eyes
And change reflection to deception in the sea that turned our bodies to trees
Floating as simply as regret on the tip of a tongue too timid to change its mind
I don't mind, I swear.
Tell me again how the flowers bloomed before August
And have since withered to stone
But eighty seven rib cages cant form a single heart
Each piece of glass slammed on your skull remains in my top drawer
Just in case I decide to piece you back together
And form from red a sky of grey
The birch on the tree left stomachs in knots so
Why not
change the song on the radio again,
Just in case the next one doesn't remind me of you
But it seems to haunt shoulders stroking my neck as softly as birds released from the cage of my shoulder blades
You live in cartoon houses
Beside plastic covered floors
And shield leaves with newspaper
Just to fill the space
between me and you.
There is a blood stain on my floor I can't seem to scrape
And your shirt is in my closet
Beside the window shattered to grain as small as bone
Somewhere between a metal and a base I found your fingertips tapping my leg
But you took it with you when you left
And now I can't walk to the window and watch you cry every Tuesday.
The rope burns you splintered
On the corners of my eyes reminded
I should have known you didn't mean it
When grass formed in the cracks of your lips because
All things go
Except the smell of sweat on my bed,
tears like dew on the petals of my cheeks
And the sea I gave my soul to.
Salt remains to evporate eventually
Along with thoughts of you so
I stayed up debating if the sky was simply a piece of black paper freckled silver
And if you ever felt the grass between your toes
But all things fade with sunrise.

97 days
12 grams
4 cigarettes
18 coffees,
and I still can't recall
the color of your spine.

I didn't come here to cry,
but you're in every crack on this street
making it harder then before.
We invented the winter
to fill my mouth with clouds
and watch trees sprout from bare branches.
I have a book full of poems,
34 about you;
empty words of a cluttered mind.
Everything worth saying
is trapped on the corners of your lips
below the sun of east Portugal
by the bay that burned your feet.
I watched a moth land on your eye lid;
you hardly even flinched.
The sewing machine in the sky
that held us close can't click forever,
neither can the clock on the mantle
and I fear we are running out of time to say
I'm sorry
and take back each rock we threw
before we forget each others faces.
Remember
the things we smoked,
and the love we made one Tuesday.
The feelings we shared as coldly
as the hands we never grasped.
You slid my bones from cellophane skin,
and threw them back to the shore,
just please give me back to Ohio
when October knocks on the brick between my veins.
Remember my eyes?
You took them on your back when you left,
and haven't seen them since.
I want to press  my cheek against your chest,
feel you breathing like so many times before.
If I could have one wish
I would run as far as it took to look into your eyes
just one last time,
and hope to god you notice.

A tulip is just a tulip
in her palm or mine.

It didn't make sense to a sky
that only cried in April.

Same moon,
different set if eyes.

Just promise me,
you're one of us.