My ears are ringing
it's because nobody
is willing to hear
my cries for attention

A winding all
a labyrinth of dreams
She is lost and alone
each room is
a history of a world
that is not her own
and she opens every door
with so much pain
leaving it open
forcing herself not to look back
at the ****** knobs and handles
She pushes her feet
her eyes
forward
wherever that may turn to be

The best intentions
started a new
civilization
in the waves of youth
but even the magnificence
of newfound freedom
was fleeting
faded into a
dull sickly color

So rich and red
was the blood
when I cut my tongue
on an expression of love

Alone
in a darkened room
I have hidden
with the
chalkdust remnants
of a dissembled nation

I walked myself into a
house of mirrors
where I'm slowly drowning
in my own well-wrought tears
I didn't get to say goodbye
so at every turn
I see myself
and choke on a grim hello

There have always been
dead smiles between
my teeth
Dishonestly
I resent them

What did you say?
I'm wearing your words on
my wrist
instead of reading them
Flat before me

You missed your chance
his ears were free
But you hid silent
under the canvas where he
can't see
and won't want

A gargantuan
among flimsy slips
the card
Where the world was dropped

Parallels running
stagnant
frozen underneath a bridge
we are unsure where the
water leads
So we watch the light
bounce off it
and theorize

Keeping a corpse
as company
cold hands to match mine
at least this one
stays
At least this one
listens
warmth it seems
corrupts

I have your name
caught in my throat
with every new
face
I smile upon
I want to swallow it
and find another
to put between my lips

It's the deadpan
he said
moving his hand
across his face
No
It's me
I thought right back

Countless cards and
Infinite ink just
so that you might turn around
and flick your eyes up and down
the length of my body
and
spread a soft smile
gently
warm and honest
across your flushed face
you may turn right back around
bashful
so nobody sees
but I saw
and it was worth
every word

My pen is running from me
it knows the power it holds
The danger in my hand
that wields it

I was broken
pieces of glass
on a hard unforgiving floor
You knew I was broken
You told me I was broken
yet you took up a hammer
and crushed
what I had left
of myself
into a dust
coarse
and painful even to look at

If I sigh louder
will they notice?
At what decibel
will I sound damaged?
Do I have to scream
my hurts in their faces
to make them hear my pain?
To make them care.
My problems must air
in tears
and blood

The more you look
the more you see
little things
like a patch of red
amongst neatly clipped
chocolate hair
endearing little traits
pieces of a visual whole
that tie the vision together

My smile
so 'easy'
muffles the sound
of the scream
swirling in my chest
ready to tear through
my heart
and break past my
flashed teeth

My strong convictions
which I had
written out on my arm
are fading
and I'm begging them
to stop
to stay
but
I can't see ten enough
anymore

I'm clicking my pen
against my teeth
thinking of you
hoping you'll hear
I don't know to what end
but I don't want it to end
some beginning things
would be lovely

Smooth covers hold
breaking at the spine
the weight of my conscious

Spotlight on an empty field
Where is the knight?
He slumps by a stream
I don't know what he waits for
or why I can't look away
All is concentrated
in that one spot
where nothing really happens

It's the tree of life
get it?
I hope you do because

I'm going in and out
and I need something to
ground me

and you need soil
something to hold

dazed and confused
stuck in a murky stupor
the warmth of spring
and the lure of a free day
they tore down the calendar
and stole my books
so here I lay
unaware

Sometimes the worst
kind of stress
is the one you can't see
but feel
when you wake up
after thinking you were
safe
to breathe

I dreamed that
I cracked bone
or
enamel between my teeth
but I couldn't find it
in the mirror
and
my friend was in a
living hell
where I could see him
and belonged
I woke up
bewildered
and with the most sore jaw

Awful spirit
reclined in a chair
sleeping in indifferent good humor
Hold your legs up
let us look on sideways
and don't you dare look back

Oh the times we're living in
I can't feel my body
but for the burning in my throat
Bathed in talent
and guiding experience
fighting a cold numbness
lifting headrush
I lose the meaning
I lose the direction
But not the heart
so tell me
aren't these the times we're living in?

NEVER GO BACK
a finality I hope not
to hear
in my own fate
is it flexible?
I need the option

I smile all
warmth and
summer of best intentions
host of hopes in spring
lukewarm courtesy is all
I receive
so I just put my head down
to hide my frigid burning tears
ineffectually with my
cold steel hacked so short
and shove my numb hands
into the snow
I have packed into my
ample pockets

Personified
with the floral art
I'm filled with words
maddening it can't stop
it moves my fingers
and I try to employ my eye
elsewhere
fruitless
but a bursting yield
spills through my pen
Does the irony or the
exhaustion **** me?

Binding page after page
I have no idea how long
this book will be
Or if it will even end
I don't even have words to write
on their bare backs
but each page goes in
and my hands are numb
Page after page
I bind
I bind
Anyway

My head hurts
because you're forcing my jaw
shut
where you once
opened up an easy smile

Crooked windows
show more
of their landed view
and they let more snow in
they who built an unsteady house
we need to fix the foundation
raise the structure
and put some books under it
Let's hope that stops the wobbling

A gradient of shade
blocks out what falls
and I'm left wondering
what comes next

I'm starting to see shadows
in the peripherals of my
memory
the noises are a muffled
echo
this illness filters
I'm scared
I'm alone
stumbling over what was
always there

Staring
glazed over
lost in a state of wonder
single planed
dimension of disembodied one
I find my courageous future
in the pinnacle
of a symmetric background
a whole wall of it before me
this is what we're dying for
in this moment above forward
and all beyond
us
so innocent a face
to your dark new feel
meta strange
wheel and float
you are mine
it is ours
this gives me hope
and a willingness to
grander cohesion
I wish this will all
be vibrant tomorrow

I am angry
that you don't see
how much it hurts
when I swoon

Or maybe you do
you just say nothing
and that just makes me
sad

Nervously shoveling snowcaps
in my face
while watching in vain
for whitecaps
the only calm of the day

Shake me down
just try
I'm walking up
in the air
the wind
playing with my hair
like a lover
excited to have me back in his bed
after a long
long
time away

The best of intentions
has fed the worst of habits
birthing bitter memories
Echoes that crawl and creep
when you're not looking
into the shadows
where you pretend not to know
they are

I wake up every morning
with blood between my teeth
so I keep my mouth
shut
as tight as I can
I don't want the red
in my friends' eyes
I clench closed harder
and bleed more
but then you say hello
and your deep voice
numbs my gums
and I'm not afraid
to give more than
a Mona Lisa smile

I don't have scars
I have words
buried into my skin
seeping deep past my flesh
through an innocent pen
wielded by a ruthless
broken poet

I want to run away
like my mother told me to
but my feet are nailed
to the unforgiving uncertain
concrete floor

Somewhere in the apology
I lost my direction
a nervous outpouring
commingled with red heat
In the most obvious of places
and well
my train derailed
in a flurry of regret

Shadow and sun
converge on sinkholes
who could have known
Snow could be both so
strong and fragile
to support the entirety
of a complete
and a slight
profile?

The turn of the corner
is where the rainbows
hide
learn to cut corners
(glass and walk)
you'll find transfixing
color

It's like I'm
building a house
but I don't know I'm
made to live in trees
and I don't know
stairs are supposed to go up
so I just
spiral in place
with hammer and nails
in hand
and an open white wall
future in mind
trying my best
my absolute best
to ignore the leaves
growing from the vines
wrapped around
each and every vein