Lines cut clean.
the silence overwhelms me.
my pain develops;
raw and torn.

I wander up our shore,
Now, one set of footsteps,
I walk alone,
Against your echo in our waves.

The water burns,
salt rushes to the wounds,
Sand gets in,
the irritation sickens.

Hear me?
I'm screaming from your pain.
See me?
Curled up on the shore?

The silence overwhelms me,
Lines cut clean,
I cry for help.
I am alone.

Another me walks on your shore.
My heavy beat slows,
I succumb,
Vision blurs.

I am alone.
As the waves take me,
my footsteps fade.
I pray for you to not look away.

Eventually,
the sand moistens;
the waves crash;
I was never there.

1045

Nature rarer uses Yellow
Than another Hue.
Saves she all of that for Sunsets
Prodigal of Blue

Spending Scarlet, like a Woman
Yellow she affords
Only scantly and selectly
Like a Lover’s Words.

.Well, there's another idea that died in your mouth!Are you still waiting for eyes to see beyond the little door?What is behind it?An open shoe box full of your poetry?There's cliches clothed in their Sunday finest.Shiny shoes and a red bow-tie.To escape naked into the streets inthe middle of an uncomfortable conversation,only to find that your cigarette was lit and wasbackward in your lips.You screamed for the fire department andyour father just laughed.Just when the dust on your wine bottlewas finally at its thickest,someone entered the roomand polished it off.Pardon my smile, butyou are so funny!Did you cry asyour insect collectionwas flying away?Lace up your shoes,because I double checked your closetand there ain't no bears in there.And, yeah. I'd quit smoking if I were you..

Precariously perched atop a mountain
Swaying in the sickly sweet breeze
To the right, shining sun
Blissfully beckons.
To the left, deathly drums
Pound my mind ceaselessly.
Restless, I pace the psyche depths
In a race neverending.
Fleeing myself?
Thoughts of blades and pills
Delude this once harmonious life.
Godammit WHY I cry
As I look to the right
At my lover, so divine.
Such passion, such beauty
Should break these **** chains,
Yet they brace and remain
Leave me low all the same.
Birds swoop above, free,
Taunting with their calls.
So I jump and fly
Higher, so high
through the mounds of clouds,
I have found
Freedom fleeting.
Will it last?

Once I took one of those blot tests, the ones that that Rorschach guy invented.
Or maybe it's Rorscarch.
I don't know, but I call him Roar-shark.
Anyhow.
The ones with blots of black paint that you're supposed to find pictures in.
There was this one blot, and I saw the profile of a lady's face, with long windblown-looking hair.
I was supposed to find a butterfly.

I've always had a different take on things, a weird memory association.
Well, I guess I can't call it memory. As far as I can recall, I've never seen that Roar-shark blot lady in my life, or anyone like her. At least, anyone that I can remember. And I only remember the truly remarkable.

I had these really great microwave burritos that I would eat after school, before rehearsal so I could just pop them in and go.
They were warm and gooey and really realllly bad for me, but hey.
I'm in a hurry. I'm allowed to be fat.
They were soft and I could eat them in the car on the way to the theatre without spilling things on my rehearsal skirts.
But then my grandad got throat cancer.
I was house-sitting my Nana's house one day and opened the fridge to get myself a glass of milk while I fed her cats.
Those very same burritos were in their freezer.
The other day I shoved one of them in the microwave so I could grab it and go,
and I hopped in the car and took a bite
But I couldn't eat anymore.
I looked at it and my stomach turned and for some reason I could not eat that burrito.
My mind had decided that if I were to take another bite out of that food,
I would be eating cancer.
I told myself that I was being ridiculous and stupid and I was hungry, so eat it.
But I couldn't shake it.
So I threw it out the window.

My mind's ALWAYS doing stuff like that, playing tricks on me.
I can't touch the page numbers on the pages of a book. I think they're spiders.
Sometimes I think my oboe reed blades are actual blade blades
and I'm afraid to put them in my mouth.
Weirdness doesn't go away.

So now I've switched my before-rehearsal food.
Tortilla. And milk.
I don't know why this strikes me as appealing, but it does.
My mind equates tortillas and milk-- warm and cool-- with happiness,
just like it equates my face wash to orange and honeysuckle.
(Though it smells like neither.)
and Christmas angels to pillows.
Rugs remind me of Egyptians.
Theatre seats are associated with a certain animated clownfish.
Leaves are reminiscent of the Sistine CHapel.
Pleas don't tell Roar-shark.

Once my English teacher told my class to write everything important in ink,
which brings us back to that one guy,
in pen.
Since everything I write is important, I write everything in pen.
Of course, you can see everything I scratch out, too.
The unimportant of the always important.
I like to think I'm not afraid of mistakes.

But sometimes, when my iPod is on shuffle,
it decides to get inside my head and play that song
that reminds me of you--
back when I bit my lip,
back when you owed me a slow dance,
back when I actually LIKED the scent of apples and pine trees.
And my mind does this "freeze" thing that
makes me stop breathing for a second.
and I hit the next button really really fast and then
fly off to the kitchen to find a glass of milk
because nothing can go wrong when I've got happiness in my hands.
But it's no use.
The thought gets to me before I can stop it.
About
my
our
YOUR mistake.
And then I just get angry and the milk quivers in my glass and I have to set it down before I throw it at the wall or something drastic like that.
Because I am dramatic, maybe.
Because even though I have played it over in my head
because even though I try to think it's my fault
because even though I try to blame it on myself
I can't.
Because it's not.
Because I'm not afraid to make mistake.
But I'm afraid to remember you.
Because
Even if you were remarkable.
You aren't.
Roar-shark would have a field day.

Oh, I have tried to laugh the pain away,
Let new flames brush my love-springs like a feather.
But the old fever seizes me to-day,
As sickness grips a soul in wretched weather.
I have given up myself to every urge,
With not a care of precious powers spent,
Have bared my body to the strangest scourge,
To soothe and deaden my heart's unhealing rent.
But you have torn a nerve out of my frame,
A gut that no physician can replace,
And reft my life of happiness and aim.
Oh what new purpose shall I now embrace?
What substance hold, what lovely form pursue,
When my thought burns through everything to you?