Quiet sincerity
and a deep brown stare
I like sitting here with you
engrossed in our philosophy
where will the conversation lead
that I could foresee wistfully
but a practical short time reality
pervades
so I am content with you before me

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

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

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

What's the impression you got?
I got that you were impressed
and now you're gone
so I'm confused and
abandoned

She has blood in her hair
the girl she doesn't know
working both ways
imagining sensations that aren't there
inventing words and ignoring old sounds
Let's give her a hand
this unwitting princess
we all want to save her voice
we all want her to see her own crown

Such a pleasant storm
hidden silent behind those curtains
of hair
I've carefully cultivated
more than ever before
But one side is exposed
so all can see the care
I've returned to taking

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

Just because I
traveled down a
new road
doesn't mean I can't
revisit old footpaths
favorite strolls
in shady memory past
New destinations
good
not permanent

I don't share this view
Not with anyone I know
maybe I have my
pen and journal
but as alive as they are
they're just dead things
so really
I'm lonely

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

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

Second time
around
here we go
or we may not
so I'll board the merry-go-round
this carousel of disappointment
expectant as always
I shouldn't be

Answer me
Answer me
You don't understand
please
these ears were made for
laughter
love
the speech of friends
please
answer me
You don't understand
what silence does to me
I'm begging you
please
answer me
anybody
answer me

lift me up
I want to touch clouds
from your golden wings
they'll melt in the rain
but the fall
will be worth the ecstasy

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

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

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

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

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

Take my hand
I'll show you how to
build a castle
with lofty ceilings
and a foundation
of curious cracked concrete
But the windows will be
wonderful stained glass
and the stairs
winding

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

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

Have you ever seen
the inside of bones?
look into your own
the red mess
impossibly deep
pour it out like a slow night
watch it closely
the fragments fall
all you are on the floor
clarity comes
once that experience of
breaking and melting
comes to pass

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

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

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

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

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

Unlikely on what ends?
How do I dream
When I never ever know
to begin with?

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

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

I'm bleeding bones
and weeping bile
everything hurts
just that much more
because you
stole my blood
and stole my tears

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

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?

Go on
Dig nails into my hands
for frustration
at their creating
nothing

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

I would tell you
to do what you want
with me
my body
but I already know
that's nothing

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?

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

Close your eyes little girl
close them and dream
Dream of a day
when all you want is what you have
Dream of a you
completely yourself
Dream of a future
you can live with
Close your eyes little girl
close them against the reality of now
but don't forget
it's what you have to get through
first

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

You're so
dry
you'll soak
any old
mean word
up

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

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

I know I should have stopped
five texts ago
I understood your silence
I knew I wasn't wanted
but
sometimes talking to a brick wall
is better than talking to
nobody at all

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

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