between these lines of battered pages are
tapestries of flowing thought riddled with
words from chaos habitually written
over and over
until i can breathe again. cryptic is good.
eyes paint metaphors. valleys vague. these are the summits and plummets of my pulse against the night sky.
i'll let you peak inside at the spiders' webs, follow these lines and see where they go.
i'll tear down bricks to let myself feel. grab wildflowers by the roots. take out the bad, vinedresser.
on this paper i'll bleed until i'm empty. of your words i'll eat until i'm healed.

in foggy reflections behind skin in colors milked with lavenders and soft tangerines live half-hearted twists of sunburnt oranges and crimson riddled with hurt. I watched her share feelings after the fight to unbury them, they call her needy, I call her brave. words spoken to a half listening computer screen are easier to breathe life to than words spoken in the midst of whole listening souls, the main difference being a flow of sub-conscience-bearing mumbles springing through aching fingers and a backspace key. lingering thoughts of an absent pulse, a deep desire for another place, wondering and flipping thoughts over and over in my mind to feel them, feel them, again and again with each turn. how are you feeling today. we can't pretend it isn't there. is it because of me?
the same. I want to. never.
someday it will make sense.

there were golden lines slicing through the blinds when we came back from it. sometimes puddles form around the window while the rain falls steadily to join the old, as grey as the diamond blanket we dream under, as cold as the a/c unit that bites my toes every morning. i wrote a few small words on the crease of your back between the valley of your shoulder blades, nothing new, words of adoration, admiration, admonition, disbelief at where we are.
sometimes at night i see outlines of trees being tossed by the wind and i welcome the metaphors that creep into my brain of how similar we are, the trees and me. you're like the winter and i'm the summertime and snowflakes tied to sun-rays have never looked more outlandish and real.
remember when the thunder fought with the sound of your heartbeat and everything faded into a realm unreachable and we discovered who we were. the grey splattered wallpaper of this bedroom starts to feel like smog when you aren't around, what else can my eyes fix themselves to. i hang on to every i can't believe it, i'm in love with you, this is crazy like each letter is oxygen and i'm running out of clean air.
sometimes at night i trace your face with my eyes and wish you would say them again. sometimes i fall into holes around the sidewalk and i forget. i've never craved the wintertime more in my life. you always find me when i'm lost in those holes, crawl inside with your snowflakes and words, stay with me until i learn to walk again.

we re-create ourselves constantly.
(we, as if it's a choice).
rivers have rapids and turns and sharp rocks and smooth places.
we're all rivers
never the same
i wasn't the same
inconsistent and illogical.
words, medicine.
i write when i've been poisoned, near death i reach knives
deep inside my chest and my stomach and my skull to spill blood on this paper until i'm somewhat healed.
these days life has been kinder and kinder and so suddenly it seems these
aren't the words I need right now.
i write when i feel, feeling things that have no name, they're lost, i'm lost, drifting in obscurity, heartache, pulsing heart only beating for a ray of light, and it
isn't me right now.
i feel, you, myself, free, new, in love with you
right now is good, right now is right
i don't write the way i used to, i can't and
i don't need to.
that's a good thing, for now, perhaps
life is unpredictable, gray, fuzzy like an old tv screen, i'm not sure what's next
i'll be back when it does
i'll be back when it fades again, as i so often do, fade
when i come back, i'll bleed and i'll write again and they'll come so easily, pen and paper begging me to decorate them with darkness and confusion while i ache for them to understand
for now, my words are more alive than ever circulating through my veins, lost in your touch, on the tip of your nose, here in this house, i'll go find them and we'll keep them, no paper in sight, suspended in air, you and me we'll keep them there

i.
three in the afternoon, he
sees himself in clumsy knots
of nerves running from hook to
pole fishing close to murky
strands of lakeweed cloudy and
soft like his memories of her.
ii.
three in the afternoon, she
traces patterns in the bracelet
on her arm he placed gently moons
ago firm like painful memories
seeping through the beads
she can’t seem to remove.
iii.
he doesn’t know who
who he's fishing for anymore
she doesn’t know what
what she's waiting for anymore
carry on, darling
carry on.

you know things
morning dew, whisper softly
try and feel their weight, create an ocean.
for me, for us

these days will pass, as days do
and suddenly we'll know things
we'll know why they obsess, why they ache, why they scurry
we'll laugh, we'll cry, we'll hope for the new

look at who I've become
look at me, it's gone
the rhythm's gone from my head, it's in my lips
from my fingertips to my veins
from my daydreams to my eyes
you're the poem I'll read for the rest of my life
spinning around and over in my thoughts
I'll paint you again and again

these days will pass, as days do
and we'll know things
together, we'll know.