We're drowning
Together at least
I try to move for the surface
But you pull my hand
As if to say it's too far
And for all I know
It might be
So I rest at the bottom
Right next you
I feel the air almost gone
And then you go
You betray me
You push me to boost yourself
Looked me in the eye the whole time
And I always will remember that look
Not sadness
Not regret
It was more like anger
Like you had won
And while you swam to the top
I watch you
As my air
Is completly
*Gone

We walk around in solitude,
And stand by ourselves.
Our eyes see each other:
Flesh, and flesh alone is what we see,
It's what we seek.

We want the outer shell.
The soul is just an addition on the inside;
A thing hidden from the world,
That's not to be considered:
Just ignored and suppressed.

We're dominated in our minds,
We're slaves of the likes and the trends,
We want to be who they see us as,
But they, but we, but everybody can only see the flesh;
And that is what we seek.

We won't believe in what can't be seen.
We've grown to forsake the lurking monsters,
They were banished by rationality;
And when our conscience raises it's head,
It's just ignored and oppressed.

We've turned into Automatons;
Mannequins, who can style themselves.
The soul, hidden inside,
Is something that can't be seen,
And so, it isn't considered, isn't wanted;
Only flesh is what we seek.

While our soul shrivels up, decayed and decrypt,
Our flesh, we keep intact.
We swallow the infernal ache,
And plaster the cracks on our smiling face--
And the cries of our soul, we keep repressed.

*For, we care for what they see.
They can only see the flesh,
And flesh is what they seek.

It depresses me
To see other couples
Or people hooking up
I don't know why
But it has something to do
With you

You are the bags under my eyes
The bruises on my arms
And the cuts on my leg.

You are hour 50 of sleepless torture
8 cups of coffee a day
And another regretted bite.

You are the "I'm fine"
The little fibs that leave my lips
As part of my daily routine.

You are the tornado of thoughts
The flood of blood
And my beautiful nightmare.

This is who you are to me.

Pressure, deadlines,
Trauma and stress,
Give me the weight of the world,
And I will carry it.

But as strong as I am,
I'm even more weak.
My strength is all surface,
But my weakness runs deep.

Inside I'm so fragile,
So please be aware,
Like glass, I break easily,
So handle with care.

Give me impossible jobs,
And I will fight through them all,
But if you throw a sharp word,
I will crumble and fall.

I'm strong but so weak,
I'm fragile, hard to reach,
My strength is thin, my weakness deep,
So please break in, but don't break me.

All I ever got
out of loving you
was a snog and a
fuckload
of poetry.

Dear reader,


It won't be long before they electrocute the trees with candy colored Christmas lights. Soon everything will be gone: memories, glances, the year. Every thing will dissolve into nostalgia and our lives will become more patchwork and less hopeful. Soul-crushingly sweet our smiles will be, as we watch that disguised meteorite crash into our existence.

Her name was Reno. Her dad joked he named her so because she was the result of a gamble gone wrong.

I could see the stitching around her eyes start to falter, as tears slipped out like a young nineteen year-old girl, running out of the back of a double-wide. Away. Away from it all. Leaving her father, the mechanic who could only fix things with his hands. Running through a field as shimmering as her nails, touching the tall grass with her short fingers.

"I'm not trailer trash," she said, "I've just had it rough."

Reno could see things others couldn't see. Frequently she painted wrecked cars, and I asked why, to which she explained, "Some accidents are allowed to be beautiful."

I fell for her the way her jaw drops after one of my inappropriate jokes: quickly and with such joy.

She had the same answer to when I asked if she liked movies and if she missed her mom.

"Of course I do, Josh," she looked at me and smiled, "Hey buck, have you ever seen True Romance?"

A woman after my own heart.

We watched Christian Slater shoot Drexl, and, like a bullet to the chest, she placed her hand over my heart.

"My, oh my, are you sure that rib cage is big enough for that thing, Mr. Haines?"

She looked a little like Patricia Arquette, but identical to Michelle Williams.

"Are you aware that you look like Michelle Williams?"

Reno ran her hands up my legs, across my torso, and held her hands at my jaw,"Are you aware of how good of a person you are, John Mayer?"

"Ah, yeah. I've gotten that since high school."

She smiled, looked down and up at me,"No, the part about you being a good person? ...You're the drawing on my wall."

I didn't know what that meant.

"I had this drawing-so terrible-it was of the sunset on our hill in Welling Valley," she looked into me and down, while smiling,"Anyway, the sun would kiss the grass every evening, and one day I thought I'd draw it and keep it in my room. When every thing got ugly with my daddy's drinking, and when he beat me something awful, I wanted something to remind me that the light sometimes goes away but will always be back another day. You're my light, Josh. You're the next day after nineteen years of cussing and drinking."

We made love on my bed, as, through the window, the sun bathed our bodies. Her body was a sculpture and her voice was as soft as her lips. I was terrified.

Pulling her hair back, she stood at the foot of my bed, naked,"Are you scared of little ole' me? You look as white as a ghost."

"No, I've never felt so alive... You're so ******* beautiful."

Reno and I lain in bed while Parks and Rec played on the television. Her index and ******* walked across my chest and stopped as she asked, "Josh, have you ever been in love?"

I touched my fingers on hers, studying them with my eyes, and then I looked at her, "Yes, once."

"What was it like?"

I thought I'd feel pain but instead I smiled, "Fantastic, fleeting, and always a little out of reach."

She cooed, "I can't wait until I think I love you like nobody else."

"Me too."



Sincerely,


Joshua Haines