It's easier to stare at the people you want to be
than to actually work towards being the person
that they're so carefully showing off.

Just like pretending to listen to the dribble
slowly pouring out of the attention seeking addict,
and daydream about kissing
or having them say what you want to hear
rather than whatever it is you're avoiding.

Calling people names, all the while forgetting yours.
There's always that hesitant moment before you respond,
like a woman who learned the wrong names of colors
and she still can't get them right, even after six shots,
shots to her head, too many blows,
there's something about her, she's too sweet.

I've been spending the past year awkwardly avoiding eye contact
and very (almost too) comfortably  staring at a (wo)man's crotch.
My vocabulary seems to be shrinking as I dump out all the silly words
and try to avoid the ones you can't say infront of kids.
It's not like I can use the ones that are supposed to mean something,
those are all used up, and I'm not one to follow the mainstream,
I'm not even a fish.

Cat.

Milk.

Where were you at 4 o'clock?

I need daylight to be over
so that the octupus leaves in my back yard can breathe
all the dogs left them swelling and burning for daily bread,
daily milk, and last calls to board the plane.
It's really **** hard to understand what the person on the intercom is saying when you've got stalks of corn growing out of your ears
imitating how rough and useless everything that comes in is
how it's just sprouting out and some people are going to get hit in the face if they don't realize that personal bubbles are more important than an inhaler, at least at this point.

The ball in my mouse has fallen out and now I can't seem to get anywhere, drinking bottles of cough syrup to try and feel the sickening sweetness of your kiss, when all you really wanted was to be someone else. The lion painted on my shirt tells me I'm wrong for paying attention to the little things, like the color of your sweater and if you made it or not.

I feel like I'm following a snow storm in a bathing suit,
which makes it awkward during interviews but my mom tells me I need to get a job and start thinking for myself and thinking about others because I only have one brother and he might **** himself soon.

Teachers don't seem to realize that my answers sound like my mouths full of peanut butter and they don't know that when I turned 9 I used to smear it on my skin and let my dog lick it off. I hope that doesn't ******* off as boring or twisted, but I've got enough cough syrup to know that my lungs will stay inside my body, even if they're all chewed up digesting in my stomach with the rest of the things I said that I wish I could take back, with the rest of the tongues that fumbled and mumbled phrases that made me look like a tobacco spitting uncle from Tennesse.

it's not that I don't want to see you anymore,
or that I want you to grow up and be something more,
but I'm not the same person I was before,
I'm starting to lose myself and I feel it seeping from the very core.

Life.
It's like a black hole or a star that burnt out,
it's scary and not as beautiful as it was when I was a kid.
People are getting better looking, growing into themselves like marijuana plants.
These women have vertigo and not enough time to walk where they need to be, so they asked me to go to the store and they paid me with dinner, I sat at the table in a rocking chair and wondered why they had so much hair on the floor.
it wasn't like we were having a bad time
but we sure didn't know how we got to talking about ******* and cranberry juice.
All the while I felt like saying something meaningful,
but I knew they wouldn't get my jokes and I knew that my sarcastic tendancies would get the best of me and we'd be in a grinder full of bugs and rocks and all of those things we avoid when we're afraid.

I could feel my teeth wanting to break as I chewed my food
and clenched my jaw at the conversation.
The woman to my left said I looked like someone she knew,
I said,
"You do know me."

the words came out like a siren of warning,
I had gone too far.

I looked at my hand that held their fancy spoon
my reflection stared back like it didn't know me
and I could see my eyes turn away and I could see my hand on the door ****
but what I couldn't see was the woman,
who followed me home.
the woman,
the one that knows me best.

August motionless
like a deep sleep.
One long deep breath  that we took together
exhaled with images of green and blue,
sunlight dancing heavy on a water’s surface above my head.
The sound of slow heartbeats in a warm room filled with open air and drifting light.

Your voice,
whispering aloud to me the words of your favorite authors,
the weakest wind pulls the curtains into the room like phantom arms reaching out for us
from the wild expanse
that spreads away from us outside, just outside.

Expansion to be consumed, to be found out
to find the sun and let it fill us
before it falls away from the earth
before we shut the windows at night
before we wake up.

Walking up away
through green forest away from our nothing
to that lake laying there in the rocks staring at the sun
with an empty face
shattered into a billion silent sparks.

The heaviest moments of September
glittering in your blue eyes
as they slide
and sink
into cold depths of memory.

We are
up late in the static dark, and we are
together
laying in your bed perfectly still,
our limbs filled with movement
Pressed down onto the floor with the weight of imperfections in the air.
Hands and face
filled with blue blood
a silent grin.

can’t sleep

So
we go
our laughter stumbles out into the dark
pulls us out, as we follow currents of sound.
The wail of atmospheric jet planes, lonely crickets,
the boom of empty 3am freeways
a chorus of ***** angels
brings us to stillness.

Laying in the dirt
stars arch overhead from the bottom of my chin to the back of my neck
emptiness like falling
and if you close one eye

you whisper
against
my skin

you can reach out and touch them
so I try it
it feels like nothing

And with a glance,
time shifts
the earth tilts
your silent face,
open to mine.

I like to wear big hats
and old, funny shoes.
I stand in front of the mirror and  pretend
I am Daisy from The Great Gatsby
and I say
"Tom,
I do not love you,
I do not love you,
I do not love
you."
Then you call me.
We see a movie and eat Chinese food
Because you say you like
sweet and sour
pork.
I never liked the
aftertaste.

long awkward stones
embraced by warmth and red
crowned by two imploding sapphires
often walks into the scenes of my dreams
through the seams splitting
pried from my mind by the fingers
of my idle time

I call it she
and it knows
what evolution has done to me
how those green hands of change
lend her the ability to be seen
in my dreams
and that sapphire-eyed ghost
that i call she when i'm not around her
is becoming
more and more
its own entity

i want to pull all my hair
away from myself
i want to be
alone
i want to stop
lying
and she's still trying
to go to sleep
and i'm still trying
to wake up

If you are around me,
and I've been drinking,
start drinking,
keep us on the same plane, friend.
Otherwise all we are going to do
is draw lines,
you'll say something like I lost my ****,
I'll say something like you never live,
same circle every time.

I'm going to cut the dense night to ribbons,
and you are always invited to join,
but don't sit and criticize while I lose my mind,
lose it with me,
keep it on the same plane,
otherwise in the morning
I'll be guilty,
and you will be a friend short
of making a name for yourself.

numb shaking fingers
limbs curled tight into fragile ribs
on a sheeted bed without a blanket
blue icy diamonds closing one last time
from the world
and an exhale
wet watered cheeks
a little shudder
a peaceful                    sigh
                      terrified

this is how I imagine you dying
alone
way too far away from me

“I’m trying to change.”
“Say it again.”
“I’m trying to change.”
“Keep saying it.”
“I’m trying to change. I’m trying to change. I’m trying to-”
“NO. YOU’RE. NOT.”