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.

the night was black velvet,

and you were a castle.

cold coffee, dried flowers.
no, i don't write poems so much
anymore.
you came along and i'm
suddenly
living in
one.

there's melancholy softness in feeling detached, cobblestone streets and fake flowers, i don't want them anymore.
when i woke this morning i couldn't feel like myself, i don't know who you are when we fight against them, who am i.
i'm ashamed of the dark, you're a friend to it, too, but that doesn't make any of this stone-scraped melancholy sweeter.
where are we going, where will we go,
who are we fighting, down in this hole.
i shrugged it off like a metallic tilted fly, you left, i cried, died a little inside.
it's all my fault, dark twisted dreams led me down a path of savage thorns, and now they're yours to carry, too.
i never would have gone, if i knew they would be yours, i wouldn't have, i wouldn't have, i.

[noun]
1. a morbid impulse, or obsession, to travel or wander around
2. a compulsive wandering away from home

nights like these are soothing to a soul like mine
no place to be, no eyes to impress, after whirlwind tornadoes of raised pinkies, raised eyebrows, i'll drift down subconscious streams and fade into their currents
i'll try to understand all i've felt lately, all i've been lately, i'll see colors of you in the flowers you brought me, they still haven't died
i'll read old letters on note pages, letters that formed bridges around my thoughts until there were roads above rubble and oceans
there's a picture of us in my mind i keep revisiting, like an old friend, gone, but you never left
i did, i left, but
i came back, i'll always come back, to you
i always will,
i always do

my heart’s in my lungs
there’s a pain in my chest
that i never told you about
silence stains in shadows
piercing through to where
you used to be.
needle and mulberry thread
i’ll trim the edges with an echo
fill the space between the branches
where I thought you would be.
but you weren't, just take back your
promises.
you've already forgotten
about me.

i remember the feeling of being
ten a.m. safety nets fresh pages
it’s ten p.m. now.
i punched a hole in my nose
with a single silver jewel
called it freedom.
ocean waves struggle back
to where they belong
it’s not a choice.
giant waves pulsing through
veins every time you walk in
they belong to you.

i've spoken so many, many things these past days, sprouted feathers drifted gracefully between us
it was so easy
three years brought us here we smile in daydreams and realizations this is our life
calm, down to earth like clay
i'm lost for words in full places
writing is a friend to sorrow, these past days are excitingly kind
apart, i'll sit in bed tonight, pillows to my back, eyes tracing lines on the wall
for so long i've lost sleep to worry
this sleeplessness is the same yet so different, this sleeplessness is a train to somewhere new
you were the first boy i ever etched into poetry. and that fear i wrote of long ago was just that, a fear, it doesn't exist anymore. now we do

some knives are stone, some jelly and soft, even if both end up resting in the same place. sometimes. welded. fused. a deep cut, an always-bruise. i still can't wash the grape stain from my curtains blocking my view.
there were fifteen people in line today, sixteen minus you, i wondered how many knives they had. stone scraping bone, oozing jelly, blocked curtains, invisible. if i could, i'd take three from your back, plus the one in your foot, if you'd let me.
sometimes people forget about invisible knives. sometimes stone, but mostly jelly. they forget. take one look at me, give me two more.
what's two more, anyway

in ten thousand ways
i watch flames up ahead
swaying on ivory stilts
we sit in silence.
the color here is gold
ice at first, then the sun
we look skyward as far
as we can reach.
you're in the corner of
my eye, i need to
focus, jumbled music
are words we used to say.
sour turned sweet
somehow
peace to seep in open sun
morning windows
this is freedom.

you left the door slightly open on your way. swelling suitcase, silent, winding, cold iron staircase. i sit by the mirror, i'll take the pearls from my ears slowly
right, left, gone.
i try to write. they always told me i was much too quick to fade. i am a window in the snow, cold outside and in. i'll face the door with a broken handle, it wouldn't shut, it wont shut, i won't shut
i'll try again, but you wont come back
i've tried again
i dance to lovesick ballads in my mind, i wont lift a finger, none reach out
i'm a window, a friend to fog you never wanted to wipe away in the spring
it's winter now
in my bones, in my veins
lost in seas and oceans, dancing iced rivers of misunderstandings in circles
i try to write

my mind breathes color
painting memories with
faces in rich oils
light watercolor
water rarely dirties

you are a strong forest green
welcoming, rooted, sensible, honest

he is a gentle sea blue
jovial, calm, deep, understanding

my dear friend, carrying a foreign name, royal purple
the boy I used to fancy, burnt orange
the other boy, rich teal, when he returns my smiles
cinnamon, pearls, dusty blue

my father is honey-stained oak paneling
my mother is garnet fabrics
my brother is a vivid red

the woman behind the coffee counter this morning, sweet canary yellow
the man jogging past my house this afternoon, the color of granola and sand

and me. i.
the world is a kaleidoscope

     i have always been grey

cup of tea, apple pie
cinnamon swirling itself upwards
to meet my brain in inverted cascades
i drink thoughts, eat memories
tall sea waves
bare bones, i am here.
i laughed at watered herbs
smiled at curved picture frames
silent tambourines and deep
buckets of stone
i've never been fond of clean
lines in empty houses
give me ancient homes with
broken floorboards
time places its footsteps on
the ceiling
strong and sure, fragile and
changing
i watched your eyes when you
looked at him
i see it, smooth seas in a
hurricane, a hopeful heart.
100 Ways to be Happy
as if happiness were a person
How to be Happier, Being Happy,
Best Happiness Now
soft books, books made of
masks, i'm empty.
no, happiness is here
endless pages with empty lines
fresh dark ink pens overflowing
words as rich as dark cocoa
desserts from the man down
the street
this book with crimson
words, golden lining
cup of tea, apple pie
here i am, the next table over
come find me.

oh, it could be such a lovely distraction.
cavalier bandaging binding unclean wounds
pain? your tragic torment, worsening beneath
faux perfection. the sternest ivy inclines
tangling, reaching for golden lifelines.
a strange comfortable fog mist muffling
echoes drowning pathways. you were always
a fog, a deep hungry cloud
i didn't realize

the hardest part was starving it
every ideal like springtide flowerets
you turned to archaic grisly gravel
watch them crash through
weathered rooftops
watch them fall

drawing maps with hungry voices
winding staircase. hidden street.
drained from stepping on recurrent
cryptic papers scattered floorboards
no matter how many times they're
cleaned, there they are

bright coral turns vile muddy brown
when it stays in the sun too long
alone, everybody knows that
that's what they thought
beneath a brittle beacon, cloudy day
they'll keep pretending, it'll be okay

there’s a certain kind of silence there, so
rich it fills your lungs with honeysuckle roots.
restorative ones, like sweet memories flowing
from this hope-filled golden-rimmed book.
hands surrounding notes from the frame
of grand pianos voicing songs it sings like
soft whispers across marble halls telling
trial and triumph to stillness.
only, I can’t find the way myself, here in this
place He takes my hand, only He can show me in.

forever to be
the sweetest part of all.

she tilts her head to the sound of closed windows nestled between cherry paints blossoming over walls like twine packaging waiting to burst open with life.
the same whisper seeping through gaudy cracks beneath the door seeps over into veins pulsing towards her heart. cherry reds, cherry red.
she picks at colored flowers with her mind until they shrivel dry broken browns quickly shoving them between book pages to make them last a bit longer.
and with eyes tracing outlines of the sky she tries to numb her thoughts to those whispers that swallow her whole with the night, wallowing and swallowing, until she feels the presence of every last shriveled petal she's ever known.

these days are whispers hidden with melodies of scholar hearts beating faster with every footstep on the side of the mountains, going up and down across the windswept earth. up and down.
everyone's reaching for memories and happiness scattered across the pages of lights shining through the fog from distant towers that might not even exist.
"don't you quit, don't you dare quit," she told me with anger in her eyes a desperation in her voice (how little she knows of my rebellious heart) I sunk deeper inside to a hollow pit of murky waters same as yesterday.
it seems I'm losing myself to a fear of falling to the hard surface of peoples' thoughts and I've been told it isn't right
here in the cupboard I've a basket of flowers no one knows about growing heavier with an aching need for another home and here I am again, perpetually stuck at crossroads not knowing who to give them to.

her words formed colored dust on
butterfly wings collecting photographs
of green ivy hearts in the wildwood,
delicate valley flowers circling
her hair like verses of hope dappled
yellows, forest greens, daydreams and cream
she found a path in the forest balancing
on the breath of nature silver rings
like lace intertwined with reflections of
grace her own cordial way of handing
out smiles with every hello, slight twirl of
her skirt, I walk past shelves of stories golden
binding each classic manuscript echoing
her name we float down vintage corridors
like rivers dancing to the tune of a fiddle
breathing in deep breaths of autumn
winds beneath the willow canopy sky she found
a path in the forest and the reason to fly.

you’re the thought I can’t
wrap my head around
I’m the mess you never
thought I could be
collecting saturday
bouquets of silver
pendulums swaying
back and forth
with every sunrise
second but never
first

lately I've been breathlessly reveling in galaxies of unspoiled ocean currents filled with words from the souls of those I haven't met, plastering them in layers around the walls of my own.
lately I've opened so many curious doors an uncontrollable wind swept inside of me billowing loose sheets of paper to every direction imaginable and I'm not sure which door to close for it all to go away.
there's a sweet smell of summer mixed with heartache in my veins, a tide that comes in varying waves over the tips of my toes and fingertips wishing over and over again to surface the parts of me that aren't real.
there's a world of difference between imagining and experiencing, watching and listening, red wine and *** mixed with fruits of every possible color, the unavoidable oxymoron of my time in this place;
forgetting the things I wish to remember, remembering the things I wish to forget.

tender mercies slip past the
shattered glass around my feet
I should have worn shoes today
but I looked in the mirror, and I forgot.
mosaic shards of pinks and blues
reflect back the brightest sun to my eyes
it's not so bad, no
it's not so bad.
distant hymns echo between
the pine trees all around
and I am found
my heart is full, my heart is full
and I am found.

breaths of somber stillness
folding thoughts like linens
below feet on the kitchen floor.
I drew a mountain using only
colours from your eyes and I
placed it under this town, it grew
until the streets didn't flow
the way they used to flow
and now I'm left with question
marks following street signs
standing on a corner wondering
where to go from here

there was an indignant smudge
in the lower left corner unsettled
loftiness inside the message you sent
dripping with a misled shadow
breathing out suspended charcoal
you didn't notice

I sat in my room in disarray
headphone music spilling sideways
over the sides of the counter
dripping with a misled reason
breathing out a suspended sigh
you didn't notice

tomorrow I'll be gone
I don't want you to miss me
you'll be further than before
dripping with a misled mystery
breathing out your own
suspended question mark
I won't notice

lately I've
been building
castles out of
sand, shriveled
veins, dried
bones, fatigued souls,
they've been waiting
for the tide
to find its way
back to the rocks
it's all volcanic ash
blended into
sand across
the shore where
the sun tries to find
its way around
impassive clouds
they bicker with
the breeze while
it hums past my
ears and I realize I've
forgotten what
your voice
sounds like
I've forgotten
I imagine it sounds
a lot like crashing
waves on rocks, they're
constant
birds above my head
confident
sun against my shoulders
warm
and my thoughts across the sea
home

all alone in the unaccustomed patches of this
house, irrevocably mesmerized, washing the
eggshell blue ceramics submerged in winter,
all folly for the tallies I've sketched across
my forearm to the number of
pensive detachments I've buried in my pocket
from only that day, and that day alone.
no answers to the manner of this impulsive
habit of stretching my mind across the ocean
a fishing line with no hook
a photo frame with no picture living inside
I’ve turned you into someone you're not
I’ve brought you to places you’ll never be
surrounded by strangers, lovely oblivion
they don’t know, they’ll never know
and neither will you

old-fashioned letters carved with perception
ink-stained parchment of songbirds and a daydream
i see poems floating from the graveyard
sitting carefully on the mountainside
they barefoot whistle past the sugarcane early
with the sun every morning and i wonder how.
whimsical memories waiting to happen, some
never to hear the song

remember how the sunshine feels in winter.
remember how the flower feels in rain, they
whisper
sometimes i pretend you're sitting next to me
and i realize another summertime memory, so easily
slips out and joins those
never to hear the song
down the mountain path, past the graveyard, and far across the sea

fifteen years young, sat on the bus
burnt oranges, humid plastic seats, jolting and rattling with every bump in the sweltering pavement
told a stranger I wanted to be extraordinary someday
he laughed, ordinary is better, he said, I sat confused
this is extraordinary, he told me, pointed to my smile, I didn't understand
all I ever wanted was to build cathedrals that stretched for miles and miles and light fires on everything bad in this world, give a piece of my heart to the sky, create fireworks that echoed back in the reflection of every curious eye,
I stood before the crowds for too long alone I couldn't see past my wistfulness
the walls started crumbling and the fires spread to the good parts and my heart couldn't handle the feeling of being so alive
not fifteen anymore, I sit on the bus, still
jolting and rattling down the road, I realize it now
those trees stretching to the clouds are cathedrals and lighting fires isn't as effective as a single kind heart, my heart sustained from above, curious eyes have a need to be fixed on something much greater
ordinary is extraordinary, your smile, especially
you just have to look harder, I hope you'll see it too

sometimes I find myself on the edge of
rocky cliffs and I don't know how I got there in
the shadows of the mountains I caught
a glimpse of who I am and I wonder what
you'd think if I told you how much at
home I feel when rocks from the cliff break
away feed the unsettled ocean waves always
moving I'm on the edge of a rocky cliff with a
handful of violet flowers dropping slowly one by one from
my palms they fall and I wonder
if I could go with them three seconds to the splash because
diving in full force is the only way I know how, the
only way I've ever fallen

it was one of those nights
when the dark finds its way to
wrap itself around you in a blanket of concern
it turns to a vapor that seeps into your skin and bursts
from beneath your eyes and out your fingertips

it’s the wind outside the car window
rushing past while you sit in a daze of
obscurity to the tip-tapping of your
fingers on the keyboard thinking faster than
your brain, scrolling scrolling scrolling through the
pages that don’t really exist
haven’t you ever realized the way the internet
leaves you feeling empty inside the
same empty you felt after skipping meals when
you were young like skipping stones across the lake
always ending in the same middle abyss of springtime when
everything was new and the water was still too cold to touch

flash forward to here you’re in the stillness
darkened and dazed
with a glass of that same cold water sitting
next to you but you’ve forgotten so now it’s
lukewarm and it’ll make you sick, she would tell you
so don’t drink it
but it’s okay, you tell her
you’re too focused on the bright screen blinding your
tired eyes anyway searching for something you can’t
find you just feel empty
darkened and dazed
it was one of those nights