You feel like a warm day,
I feel like a burning building.

You shine and glisten,
I scorch and crumble.

You rise like the sun,
I detonate like a bomb.

You look like a rolling hillside,
I look like a blind cliff.

You go on for miles,
I’m a dead end.

You’re a gentle descent,
I’m an unsurvivable fall.

You sound like a country song,
I sound like an elegy.

You’re a sweetly ringing chord,
I’m a tearful, sobbing goodbye.

You’re a nostalgic love story,
I’m a painful flashback.

You taste like summer fruit,
I taste like rotting teeth.

You snap like a crisp bite,
I decay like a neglected body.

You grow and give,
I deteriorate and decompose.

You smell like warm bread,
I smell like burnt toast.

You’re a perfect morning,
I’m a worst nightmare.

The space you take in me
Stretches to every border of my landscape.

It leaves little terrain
For any other notion to take root.

Your wilderness is dense,
Filled with sharp-toothed creatures
And poison fruit.

It is invasive,
Spreading without challenge
Or consideration for the native species.

I wouldn’t mind your expansive occupation,
Had you ruled with benevolence.

But your presence is oppressive.
It leaves me cowering with fear
In the dark corners of your territory.

Now I think a revolution of the heart
Is about to ignite.
The resistance is growing
And torches are lit.

There is time to save yourself,
Time to quell the riots.
But it’s clear that you lack the will,
The mercy to change.

So now you must burn.
Every branch,
Every leaf,
Will be reduced to ash.

I will reclaim what is mine
Like I have done so many times before.
And your claim to my heart
Will go up in smoke.

i haven't posted anything in almost three years

i'm sorry.

i'm trying really hard.

but maybe im lying when i say that.

maybe im just pretending that what made me write before is still somewhere inside me.

it could be that the snake ive been trying to charm is dead.

no sweet melody can make it rise from its resting place inside me.

maybe i should put my flute down.

I wish I could believe you,
But I worry that sincerity cannot cross oceans.
And you can’t pack it up,
And send it home to me.

I wish I could keep my cheeks dry,
But I’m withering and wilting
And my eyes insist on self-watering.

I wish I knew how to tell you
That my lungs are stuck in my throat
And my eyes are swollen and sore,
Without it sounding like an accusation.

I wish that your absence
Wasn’t accompanied by heartache,
But I feel sick with desperation.

I wish you needed me
Even half as much as I need you,
But I’m as indispensable as an inkless pen.

I wish that my suffering
Mattered more to you than this expedition,
But I suppose that my suffering is steadfast
And no longer notable.

I wish you’d come home
I wish you’d never left
I wish you’d never leave again.

The sun stays later
And rises higher,
It thaws the first flowers
That open like my chest.

Today spring is here
And the radiating light
Reminds me of your wide grin
How it shines,
Your voice excited to have a day
Calling me sweet names
That still echo in my head.

I drive with my windows down
Feeling the warm breeze soothe my crosshatched raw skin.
The sensation pulls me back
To last years melt,
When we walked hand in hand
Out of the dark winter
And into the river
Into the woods
Onto the beach
Over the mountains.

Now even sunny days make me cry
Thanks to you.
Even the sweet smell of spring
Sours in my nose.
And the promise of longer days
Sounds more like a threat.

In my sleep
I beg you
Not to do the thing
You are not doing.

I call to you
Over and over,
Waking in a panic
That I have betrayed my reality.

You appear to me in crowds,
Where I see you in strangers
Who bare no resemblance.

I double take
And take again,
Searching for your face.

I bring you up in conversation
Because most stories
And topics
Are scored by the song
Of your memory.

I beg myself to stop,
To let silence overtake your name,
But still, I talk about you.

Like an aftertaste varnishing my mouth,
You linger.
Maybe, in my speaking,
I am trying to spit you out.

I plead with myself
That it is only proximity
That keeps you on the periphery
Of my perception.

That time enough
Has not gone by
To rinse your stain
From my senses.

Or it follows that new strain
In the same place
Would rouse an aching
In old wounds.

I wonder if I could be
Keeping a secret from myself.
If part of me knows something
The rest of me doesn't.

No, it could not be that I dream,
I search, I speak
In hope.

No, it is not
An involuntary manifestation
Performed by the masochistic
Other Self.

If the vestiges of you
Navigate through fear,
I will need to be brave.

If they are self-conjured aspirations,
A punishment must be found.

But maybe it is simply
The way of injury
And restoration.

That the grief
Should wax and wane
Until a different sun rises.

Slow Sadness, hello again.
Sometimes I miss you
When I overtake lucidity
On my ascension to indulgence.

Sometimes when my thoughts
Vacate my body
And spin around me like a mobile in the wind,
I crave your stillness,
Be it in aching obscurity.

So your meanderings have caught up with mine
And I will lie down in surrender to your encumbrance.
Contentedly, I find amusement in the sound
Of my bones snapping like toothpicks,
Breaking like dry twigs under your pressure,
Allowing paralysis to saturate me.

Motionless, I feel the pain
While rejoicing in the reprieve from
My manic pursuit of pleasure.
Now, the exigency of ecstasy
Cannot possess me like a puppet
And send me in search of titillating trouble.

And each time you find me
Reeling about in madness,
I see the lasso being thrown
And I wait in repose
To be snared by your rope.

I will follow you back
To wherever it is you call home
And acquiesce to your suppression
With satisfaction in my eyes.

For each time we meet,
I pray it is our last congress.
Every time you come to me
I throw down my defenses
And angle my head under your shadow
Hoping that the impact will be swift.

I lean into the assault,
Spun out like a top
Ready for the spinning to stop.
I beg you, be heavy
And fall with precision
So that this oscillation may end.

I do not have the stomach
To stand another turn
Around the wheel of my own whim.
My eyes get more crossed
And my hair more tangled
Each time around
This cycle of survival.

So, Sadness, welcome.
Stop playing with your dinner
And **** me like you mean it.
I will aid in the slaying
As much as I am able.
I will prime myself for sacrifice
Like a fawn in a frenzy
And point you to the soft spots
So you can do the digging.

Stop falling backwards, I try but I can’t.
Thinking of the dreams we had,
All of it was a shadow, a lie.
Too sweet for my bitterness
Heavy enough to drown me.

Rare love was anything but.
Feeling, fleeting forever for you.
Tremble, my hands. They still reach for you.
Rush to push you out of my head, replace you.
Dare myself to try again.

Don’t do it, I say. Knowing I always will.
Over and over, I come back to you.
Think of me, if you can remember sometimes.
Cry, please, I know I beg in vain.
Again, I beg for a sign that you feel anything.

My obsession began when I was a child.
Maybe it arose from a curiosity about the past,
My resolution that I would never be satisfied with a normal life.

Because what do we remember?
Not the mundane,
Not the simple,
And not the typical.

History has showed me what we all find to be valuable,
And its not a desk job
A suburban townhouse
Or some dissociative pursuit of a vague happiness.

It values
Struggle,
Beauty,
Revolution,
Creation,
Exploration.

I will refuse to become forgettable.
But I feel like I'm running out of time to become anything else.
What a waste of a mind and body to do nothing of significance.
But it's true, my mind and body are weak.

But I'm trying to drag myself onto this stage
In hopes of giving a performance to remember.

Down
Up
My eyes bounce from the water below me
To the dark and dancing river
That runs under the stone fortress I wander

Im sure I have felt this before
Mostly sure
But I can’t forage a memory
From the wilderness
That has rooted in me

I consume myself
Starting with my feet
I twist further to the start
Back to the beginning
But I haven’t yet tasted the memory of this feeling

Stepping into the treeline again
Touching the vastness that I have nurtured
I mingle with the my past selves
And paint pictures of the myriad of selves-yet-to-be

My car shakes,
Misfiring.
Spark plugs
Ignition coils.

I slam the door,
You shove the chair.
Misfiring.

It’s raining in the office.
Misfiring,
Electricity through the ceiling.

I ask you to please stop,
And you tell me to stop yelling.

I was not angry,
Until you told me I was angry.

The cats hiss
And chase each other.
We can’t tell if they’re playing or
Misfiring.

You defend yourself
Against accusations
I did not make.

Misfiring.
It took you longer
To wash your hands.

We would say
"Never, my love."

The song
Is slow and short.

You find it pressed into wax
And leave it where I remain.

Do you know that I
Never grew tired of you?

Brown velour vintage,
Silk under piles of waste.

You wear my affection still,
And I pretend to wish I wasn't so generous.

The song is short
And simple enough.

Three credits left to graduate,
Hours still to drive,
I will never regret what I gave.

We would say
"Never, my love,"
Could we call each other strangers.

Do you know that I never
Grew tired of you?