Where do I go when
two roads diverging ahead
become one, and the west coast flames
disguise insecurity and reality?

I cannot begin
to explain
how black these
night skies tremble,
as if somehow
I sleep the sun away
because I cannot bring myself
to trust the light.

I am so withered.
bring me back to life
with rose petals and broken vases;

I am accustomed
to tending broken gardens
as I am a butler
to the trivial rituals
that is the current cascade
of exile and hate -

please
please
please
help me find
home
home
my heart.

I mistake it for gravestones -
whats a heart worth if left all alone?
Leave it long enough, and watch it turn to stone.

Why must we always be untrue?

I would never let you read this,
I would never dare to write about this.
I will not knock on your bedroom window.
I will not kiss you as a skipping stone against waterfronts.

You never hugged me goodbye.
I never lost my breath for you.
You never went out dancing with me,
I did not travel by your side.
I was not a show,
only for the night you lived next to me.

No need to worry,
I will not go crazy,
I will not think of you
as I've been doing better,
now its only every other night -
and the nights in between.

I know you will not invite me for brunch. We will not stay to sleep together.

You will remain a beautiful man,
and I will not want to see you again.
Never, will you undress me with your eyes.
I will not be your husband,
I will not have your children.

This is not the life you chose for me.
It will never be the life you chose for us.

I remember with disdain your hands on me,
I do not remember being excited.
If once you destroyed me
it seems more a dream
than something I lived through.

There is someone who blieves in a love
that appears, that lasts forever.
And it is love.
But you and I are safe
from that perfect illusion.
Because that someone is neither you nor me.
Because that someone will not be you or me.
Because that someone is neither you nor me.

Feed the good wolf he says,
as if he knows right from wrong.

I am prey,
he remains hunter,
and this is where
I’m supposed to
let my hands gnarled,
******, to match
the stains on my back
because it’s more fitting, he says.

I learned that our parents
teach us sayings,
as translation always changes
throughout the years -

no words of mercy were staining lips
in the times of Roman hierarchy,
or how child abuse today
was merely strict parenting back then.

When they say curiosity killed the cat,
they never told us
satisfaction brought it back,
Or how jack of all trades is a master of none
but they don't tell us it is better than a master of one.

They lie to us,
because great minds think alike
yet fools rarely differ.

So don’t question me
when I believe
Blood of the covenant,
of word and life;
is thicker than
the water of the womb;

Don’t you remember?
The doctors cut me away at birth.

O, how wolves are now dead.

Just like this family does.
And here we are,
a mansion of memories,
waiting to take a number.

As if these walls now hold real grass,
and snaking each other out,
because we’re all hurting.

Don’t call me emotional,
for I used to see beauty in people;
now merely muscle and bone,
flesh and open wound,
skeletal mass, and empty.

I’ve finally learned.

Between my kryptonite,
and beautiful men

I cannot help
but wager myself
between broken and replaceable -

I have become numb to compliments,
and reclusive to the world just means
keeping my bedroom curtains closed.

I sleep with sunlight,
and shower in moon dust:

Oh God,
hold my hands within prayer
for I tremble, shake, this body
an earthquake of this eclipsing depression,

and I am so tired
and I am so tired
and I am so tired.

Life Is Strange

Will you be my chaos theory?

Life is currently linear.
I’ve never been great at math either,
so don’t count on me
because I can’t count.
I have added and subtracted
to this equation,
yet I feel like I can’t control
the multiplying divisions
between here and then,
here and to be,
because the chimes
against the wind
have stopped whispering their grace.

Everything comes to an end,
as harshly it began.
The juxtaposition
between pieces of paper
laying next to one another,
one soaked, the other burned.
What misfortune
brought two opposites
within each other’s reality?
How does the butterfly
fly into another dimension,
leaving a storm behind previous realities?

Because if I could go back in time
I would change all the decisions,
every universe existing
and **** myself off
because you do not deserve
this suffering I constantly write about.

Normally I would end it here,
but this is merely the surface.

How naive am I to think
I have searched for you in myriads
of different lifetimes, when the truth is
despite all the little details:
my hair colour,
your either clean or bruised knuckles,
my scars and on which patch of skin,
your arms and how they stand as towers or cabins.

Despite all these minor additions,
we are constantly dividing ourselves
for pieces of the story that cannot be changed,
because in every alternate reality,

we are supposed to die young.
I am so fearful of this knowledge.

The stars must be able
to witness all these realities
at once, so it only makes sense
that they are already dead
by the time they reach our universe.

The guilt. The knowledge.
The calm before the storm.
Is there a calm after?
Hell is empty,
and no flames,
just ice winds and
darkness.

This is the aftermath.
I still don’t know how to
tell the ghosts
when the light will finally escape.

I leave here
with nothing
but a burnt down poem
drowning inside these tides
of my mind’s eye,
and there’s a hole in the earth
waiting for me.
They say I have a way with words,
so why am I speechless now?

Friend, make sense of all this
in your own turn, in your own turn.

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.