one day
it will be easy to breathe
my lungs will inhale flowers
and honey
it will be second nature
like riding a bicycle
like tying a shoe
like swallowing a pill
and i will hold on
tightly and
with shaking hands
until then

This depression
runs deeper than Hadal.
A dead man’s float
protects me from drowning,
and I’m told how strong this is,
as if it’s the same as
parting this Red Sea with my own hands.

In moments of sufficient serotonin,
I believe them, some days
arms go brittle, body limp,
stillness capturing blood shot eyes,
and right before I drown
something saves me,
but when I come to,
I cough sea water against the shore,
and I am still alone.

The ocean’s soot stained hands are the only constant I can recognize.

I know it will come back.
It always does.

I have forgotten how to write.
There are only feelings, and too many
personal pronouns to even
consider this
poem.

I write this broken
as sentences
scatter orthographically
across oceans of white,
how sailboats coast the shore,
eventually
blown away from the wind.
No captain, no shipwreck,
just disappear.
As if it was never here.

I wonder
which islands they find,
whether riches or crumble.  
Is the ocean fruit still fresh?
Do animals wait with soft eyes,
or shall beasts follow forward?
How does the sun cry?
Sometimes
I hear Him.
Between clouds
and raindrops,
despite all the grey
He still shines
like these stars
within nightly kisses skies,
except all I taste are dead bodies
falling from clouds like lies
seeded against my lips with their lies.

I know not to trust.
Take it from school for example,
they teach about constellations
while hiding the biggest truth of all:
some of them are dead.
But since they still shine
inside kaleidoscopes,
does that make the lie more truth,
or still a lie?
Regardless we are blinded by the beauty,
and I’d rather sit in darkness instead of a lie.

I am so sick of trying.

I stay faded,
within days of coasting
through smog, green tufts
of paper rolled into precision.
I am not happy.

All I’m good for is flicking a cigarette.
Tilted head while a drag ensues
dancing lip
and smoke,
and it is
disgusting.

The view is numbing.
I look out beyond balconies,
and I tremble.
I am so sick.
This constant human failure
of relationships have really
****** me over,
and I am to blame.

This heartbeat must be a bomb.
Explosions of sickness.
I can’t enjoy being alive.

Sometimes.
I do though.
Joy comes through
the cracked curtain,
sunlight setting on my morning skin,
between watching a puppy play
and the way
I look outside windows
only to close my eyes again.

There are times
when I want to
wander into a forest,
rope in hand,
and find the perfect tree,
a sculpted branch
beckoning noose,
to paint limp body
and carcass with
crows waiting to feast.

I cannot.
Fantasy is always distant.
I am not strong enough to live,
yet I am not strong enough to die.
What a ******* life.

Why?

Like a flower pressed against someone's clenched fist will leave a final gift of scented skin holding selflessness to who has become killer; I must remember this when someone destroys me again.

I know you'll be a good man for another and I will be to blame for never being good enough. You never kissed this writer in the dark and I don't blame you, because this open envelope poem is my heart's remain and I hate myself for scenting strangers with picked apart scabs bleeding fresh, whisper to audiences I love you ‘til my heartbeat stops, and even if you call the cops I still wouldn't talk.

Within my darkest hour I find selfish courage so our cloud atlas love story will end with me pulling the trigger, and you never finding my corpse in a ****** bathtub with too many love poems that nobody wanted to read. That's the thing ... the terror, the gun fights, the trauma and bloodied moonlight, I can't tell whether you noticed the tide always rose with the passing of midnight. I don’t know if you ever heard me call your name from underwater.

You never kissed this writer in the dark, and I will love you even after the gunshot, the last letter, for I still feel you, and I always wonder now if you were to see me in passing, would you stop me, or let me go? You and I are lifetimes of found perfect places, and my heart will continue to break for all the goodness your next man will receive. My heart will continue to break for every time someone tries to kiss me in the dark, and I pull away.

My purpose in life falls into two very simple yet difficult things to do. The first to learn, the second to cope. This is what someone might call "hard feelings" like the memories left of buying groceries, getting high, the make up *** and hatefucks that are all still too real for me. I'll start letting go of all these little things until I'm far away from you, far from these perfect places and adrift on cloud atlas until I find you again in another life, another perfect place because this lifetime is nothing but one more letter calling itself a poem never sent, one last gunshot never heard.

© 2017 Lucas Kolthof

I’ve learned how to dismember my ligaments
For those who need body parts, how to
Digest ***** burning the stomach lining.
I’ve learned how to read the bible
As a poem and not a story, as
A way of life; not an outline of life.

I’ve learned how to open my arms
To those claiming refugee on cement sidewalks.
I’ve learned how to sing; not choir songs,
No symphonies nor harmonies, but sing
With a shaking voice from the pits
Of carcass burnt within fiery honesty.

I'm still learning how to scratch the surface
To let scabs turn to skin, because I have always
Been fascinated with the process of healing,
But I become nostalgic when I outline stains
On my skin from previous memories.

I’ve learned how to paint the silhouette
Of a smiling man saying goodbye to his wife
While holding rifles pointed at the cross
By the church where they used to meet.

Knowledge comes in two forms;
The first resides within yearning, the second within coping.
I do not know how to tame forest fires
From flocking flames feathering forgiveness:

I guess I haven’t learned anything after all.

Before you kiss someone for the first time,
Just wait.

Take a second to look at them.
They are so new and so unfamiliar.
Right now you don’t know how they taste,
How their hands will intertwine with yours,
How they’ll exhale after touching your bones.

You won’t see them like this ever again

Stare into their wanting -
the apprehension
budding inside their pupils -
they don’t know as well.
In their mind
you are uncharted territory as well.

Isn’t that special?

Keep it.
That’s how you’ll never lose them,
Or so I think.
Every so often after this moment,
look at them through these
soon to be ancient eyes.
Find this vision,
this exact dialect
of witness,
find these
pair of eyes

And don’t lose this wonder.
Don’t lose the spark.

For if you do,
The burns will leave you scared of the sun,
While the sunlight will still dance in their hair.

Even the universe is jealous of this moment, and will take this away from you in years to come,

Just know
If you are the forest fire
I will be the rainfall calming smoke scented winds.

Skin is delicate
But this story could be beautiful,
As we dive into the unknown.

- an excerpt from a book I’ll never have the courage to write