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

crystal echoes in the ripples of the water
the moon watches over the leftover thoughts
of the day circulating in the minds of those who
fight to stay in this moment before it joins the multitude of yesterdays
piling up like the clothes you've been meaning to wash
the dishes you've been meaning to clean
the people you've been meaning to love
the words you've been meaning to say
you watch the liquid moon on the water as it dances free
away from its concrete place in the sky
you are the moon, but you are also the sun
don’t forget that when this night is over
you will shine again.

one a.m. thoughts tossing me around in the surging turmoil of
my cluttered brainwaves, surfing them like elastic
waves in the ocean's tide, bobbing up and down
up and down

one a.m. is lonely tonight, wishing the clock would
stop and give me the gift of time
so I can drink in the darkness and become
numb to these thoughts
thoughts of you, thoughts of leaving, thoughts of leaving you

one a.m. thoughts leave me craving something I can never hope to find
searching through the dark for a light
that only morning can bring
why do I keep searching here in the dark?
here, at one a.m.
when sleep slips out from between my fingers and buries itself beneath these crashing waves

attempting to breathe amidst these whispering flowers
paint them on the indoor walls, dandelions and daisies
before they're blown away by this whirlwind tornado
approaching faster and faster, day by day, hour by hour
trying not to let these flowers tremble in the
prelude of breezes howling past, as they
infiltrate, without and within

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

rain falls like ink blots forming words upon the busy canvas behind my eyeballs and all I can see is your face peering around each letter.
i tried to remember why I was still alone when the longing in my heart stretched itself upwards to fill the empty spaces in my mind.
if you were a song I would put you on repeat in the silver dusted moonlight
during the long drive home late at night
the stars, being the greatest audience,
would shine ten times brighter.

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.

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

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.

[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

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

the night was black velvet,

and you were a castle.

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

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.

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.

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.

you had no idea
and you have no idea
how strange it is to be
so close but so far and so in-between but so
lost in my mind, in my worries, I’m
falling but standing and swimming around
and around on the ground, in the sky, I’m
tasting tears on my lips and cringing at this feeling in
my chest in my head in my thought there’s a memory that
won’t leave me alone a ghost it haunts and I wonder
if you’re haunted too by that one time we sat there in darkness
gliding and thinking so much I didn’t pay attention to what was around
and around my head spins to that one time we ignored each
other like strangers with matching worlds inside of us
begging to come out but wrestling to stay inside the building of
music and feelings we might never have and it spins to the times
we were faceless and deep in thought in our own homes together
but apart and I couldn’t look at you because I might fall backwards
or forwards and I still don’t know what I was so afraid of it’s too late
my head spins and spins in the ballroom and I can’t fall asleep
so close but so far and so in-between
and you still have no idea

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