After the towers fell,
My father went off to war,
12 months later he brought back the battlefield
We didn’t talk about it much as it just hung there,
Afraid of the left over land mines, we would tiptoe
around the room, through the kitchen, back to bed.
-
My mother is a bottle,
Empty now but the glass corpse still outlines her frame,
4 years sober, going on 5 after her brother click-clacked his way out of our lives,
I tattooed the day he passed on my arm,
1. to remember him and 2. to know that today is better than what my life once was,
-
I read somewhere that conversations are like knife fights,
Ive chosen my words carefully like dull blades,
So if I am ever to strike a nerve it won’t leave anyone bleeding,
I am afraid of blood.
I hate the smell,
the taste, the color of the stains it leaves,
The consistency,
I am afraid of bleeding,
I am too vulnerable in this world to hurt anymore,
Every breath closer to the minute i’ll break,
I am afraid to break and i worry about how many pieces I will leave in my wake
and if anyone will be there to pick them up and glue me back together,
Today I am happier than most days in these past years,
She has taught me patience,
All I worry about now is losing her warmth

Where has your heart gone?
Did it flee with the rest of you?
Fit inside your carry on as the
wings caught air beneath them,
Im tired of speaking in check points,
Ive been waiting at your gate for days now,
Hoping for you to round the corner,
Back to this most timid of loves,
I'll even hold your bags,
Come home soon.

Ive sailed seas of letters,
Oceans of consonants,
drank from rivers of vowels,
I know that the depths of words
lies far beneath the surface,
Somewhere along its floor

Head in his books, Mind fluttering elsewhere
Floating back across the atlantic
The breeze rustles the crowns of their golden heads,
Taking what they’ve learned back to the place
from which they once came,
For hours now they’ve stared off into the distance,
Her touch introduces itself to my side,
Our sails carry southern winds,
Making our way past foreign lands
The lights of the mainland have dulled in the distance
And the vast of the ocean is all that remains

My flag is raised white
This field of my chest
Covered in boot prints and gun smoke
Avoid the shrapnel, the left over explosives
I know I have lost the battle,
Ive lost the war,
Take me back to your golden kingdom,
I am yours, do with me as you wish
My heart could not have it any other way

I just wanted to feel again,
I knew the properties of space,
Stayed within my borders
Held colors in my hands,
I know nothing,
I want to be held by the world,
But now I am silent
I’ll probably stay that way,
It is hard to express some feelings

Because as we sat there under that tree one chilly Autumn afternoon all I could think was, "****, I could love her forever."
-and this is why we would never work // a.s.