The room around me is filled air that feels too tight like ***** hose when I’m on the very edge of going up a size.  You’re sprawled on the bed with the duvet scrunched under your face and between your knees.  Glasses rest by your alarm clock and I’ve woken up before it.  The hands are unreadable and I make another note to go to the optometrist sometime soon.  

I sit up and stare at you, the worry lines relaxed.  Twenties are when wrinkles start and sometimes I can see yours growing on me.  I see the sunlight drift over the planes of your face, touching your stubble and the patchwork skin you’ve worried on your lower lip; for a moment, I’m reminded of the last time my teeth caught on the slickness of your bottom lip and I smile.  The plywood box spring creeks under me and your eyelids flutter and I about face.  Somehow, sleeping with someone, being in love with someone, namely you, doesn’t give me the permission to drink in the naivety present in your morning rest.  Your arms around me in all the nights before didn’t excuse me from invading your space in the first moments of this day.

I stare out the window at a train passing by.  It’s better to stare at graffiti-clad cars I’ve seen a thousand times before in this railroad town than for you to see me watching.  You watch my frame fake interest in the engine outside and I feel the corners of your smile grasp the edges of my matching pajama set I picked out specifically for nights spent next to you.  I hear you call me cute and tell me good morning and I feel the blood rise to my cheeks as I realise you’ve been awake this entire time.

Hello, my darling.
After your first year in your third decade, how are you holding up?
You know, the Berlin Wall didn’t make it to it’s fourth decade.  Almost, but not quite.
That’s a thought, eh?
A monument meant to separate and contain for the rest of eternity fell before it was 30.
How will you, an entity just as singular as that wall, withstand?
Your odds aren’t very good.
But, then again, Reagan doesn’t have much sway over you, you’ll survive.

When you drink a glass wine to mark the passing of another year, take a sip for me.
Let the red wet your lips and pretend the thick taste is me.
Swallow hard as it slides down your throat and fall in love with me all over again.

It’s your day and the best part is that it lasts 29 hours because I’m five time zones away from your drizzling island in the east.
When I wait for you in the airport terminal one month and two days from now, I shall check the schedule fifteen times in the ten minutes I wait, gaze fixed on your flight number and "arriving on time" beside it.
I will watch “Love Actually” for the fifteenth time this month the evening before to prepare myself for the impending reunion and the waves of fulfilment that will shake my knees when I feel your heart beat beneath my hand again.

But for now, my love, drink up and make merry with your family.
One day, I will join them and trade my four seasons for rain and a warm drink with you in our own flat where photographs from our adventures sit, well-placed on shelves, windowsills, and countertops..
But for now, celebrate your life and remember the way my kisses feel when you’ve just woken up after a night of being held against me.

My shoulders are delicate
But don't assume that
Fragile
Means "Nothing".
My trapezium is a mountain
And my shoulder blades are devastating tsunamis.

Amber waves of pleasantries wash over me
Enveloping the cynical tsks in a sickly sticky scent

April grew heated
and cooled
and worked herself up
until blasting to smithereens
and giving way to the new birth of a new day and a new May.

when positive and negative charges
attempt to mingle
there is a massively destructive reciprocation of emotions,
often ending in a flash of light and nothing.

Lungs expand and contract and the diaphragm is pulled and pushed
much the same way that a boat is tugged by the current.

I moved my chair
into the sun,
hoping I would benefit from its celestial grace

and I hoped I could move myself to do better.

I have sculpted my skin
into mountains and valleys
letting my veins be the rivers that carve away the rock.

make some discovery
expunge it
be gratuitous
protect faux austerity
usurp spirits
know the world is veiled
& ebb out
lest they rue you
in the morning

Ebbing
Flowing
Endlessly repetitious
wearing down
the soft shells and hard minds
riding along it's currents

the sea never rests,
forever tearing away walls
and wood
and metal
from the flesh
of men who do not respect it.

I.
The wretched house
looked upon the sea,
with sagging sashes
and peeling skin,
preserved in the shade
of it’s brand new neighbors.

II.
Subatomic particles
and Mother’s pantsuits
were never quite understood;
after the vexation
they became necessary for no other reason
save for they were simply interrupting existence
and had to be accepted.

III.
Twin-pack printer ink
is only distinguishable from
the cat in the tree
by one feature:
one of them didn’t make the evening news

A lightning bolt is thrown
down the gullet of a moon fish
electrifying the flat body
and sending it soaring
to replace the drifting one above.
the vacuum commonly associated with space
will usurp the lightning from the slippery throne
and the new moon will bloat to fullness before deflating,
just to be replaced again.

A force from the deep
may bubble and roll the waters
before quieting
and snatching the frightened souls from the sailors
to charge the lightning that strikes the moon fish.

The fillings in love's teeth
House frank words
That love's tongue wraps in plain packaging and seals with simple curiosity.
Love does not treat these things
As gifts given by a god.
Rather, love imagines them as everyday praises given to a god,
Recognizing their simple ness and crafting them into strings of orations to be worn around wrists and waistlines in case you feel that you are not beautiful.

Most of the time,
I find it difficult to harvest
the proper words from the curve of my neck
where the skin dips down
and shakes hands with my chest.  
The fine hairs raise and fall,
the color of wheat,
exhaling what others want and inhaling what I need.
In,
out,
in,
out.
Using my primitive tools,
I rip
the necessary parts of speech
from my throat
and use the so called precious arterial mud
that is equatable to manure
to fertilize my lungs
so that although I am dead,
my voice
is
not.

Sometimes,
I can pluck
proper phrases
from my eyebrows;
I can hunt them
through the tall grass that sits
upon my livid plains.
I imagine my pencil
is a spear
and try not to look
when the graphite
pierces their pure bodies,
killing the meaning
as yet another mediocre artist
paints them upon the lines of his notebook,
wounding
the effect words have on the world
because if they are used too often,
they mean nothing at all.

Occasionally,
my ink pen
forms a circle of deep blue
into which I can cast my line
and retrieve the perfect letter from a sea of ephemeral pieces.
I am merely part
of a larger industry
that traps
the delicate curves
of spines
and sharp points
of serifs
nestled between ascenders
and shoulders
into nets
made from blue lines on bleached paper.  
I desperately cling
to the descenders
that hang past the edge of the cliff
because by God I will not die
even if it means shooting something as beautiful as that
which I rely on to keep me afloat.

However,
there are times,
when that is too much effort -
too much exertion required of my small, inadequate equipment,
I am left
to abandon the ink-laden sea,
to discard my fields of words and phrases
in search
of a way
to pull the plug
at the bottom of the bathtub in my brain
and watch as the opaque,
grimy,
filth-ridden water circles
around
and
around,
exposing things
I never knew were there.  
In those milliseconds
where the contaminants drain away
and there is complete transparency,
I find what I am looking for
before I am even certain
what I needed in the first place.

Anxiety is not
Only sweaty palms and racing thoughts

It's thoughts and thoughts and thoughts and thoughts and thoughts and oh my god I need to stop but I can't because if I do what if my world stops too?

Anxiety is not
Finishing things
Because there are things and things and things and things and
That need to be done and you can't just stop at one.

Anxiety is depression's friend
The friend that springs you out of bed fifteen minutes before your alarm, wrenching you from depression's arms and shattering your sadness.
But upon impact with the floor,
Your feet are cemented down and your goals are just out of reach because god you have the will power and you swear you're trying but why can't you be perfect and perfect and perfect and perfect.

Anxiety is the feeling
That pushes and pushes and pushes and pushes and pushes
Until it pushes you over the cliff
And you land amongst the lives anxiety has claimed that litter the bottom of the canyon that surrounds you and stops you from achieving what you wanted because god forbid you're actually trying.

When I
Am in a manic
State
I cannot
Form complete
Thoughts
And usually forget things
That

I feel
Extremely alive
But also dead
Completely immune
To
Pain
And
Defeat
And

My mother
Says to take
My
Medication
But
It doesn't help
Me

Food is useless
It doesn't...
Stay...
Down.

I can't
Go outside
Without screaming
And
And
And
What was I saying?

I am afraid
That if
I step
Incorrectly
The pavement will shatter and so will my foot and I will be unable to

Father mother sister brother
Help me

The color of a slightly tipsy tongue peeling my resolve from my own is that of a winter morning
-- clear and concise in its purpose,
Sending signals to my brain, which, in response,
Transmits slight shivers down my spinal cord,
Raising the fine hairs
Along my smooth skin
--the same relaxed, whispy, ***** that covers tense, terse, and trembling muscles.

The sound of a shirt being pushed
Out of the way;
The sound of pants already crumpled,
Settled,
On the carpet my mother cleans.
That sound that represents
Everything I've ever wanted from nothing
But can not accurately depict
Anything I've wanted from one thing in particular.

Because you are special and
You make me want
And
You make my body tense and
My words short and
My lips loose.
Loose so as to open and receive your secrets given
In
False
Drunkeness
--to allow your breath to absolutely fill
My lungs
As you drag me down beneath the surface
And into the dark.

We are not blind.

Our nerves spark in the darkness,
The area devoid of any light source
save for those that arise from the
friction of skin against skin
and mind against mind,
Ideas crashing and banging together
As they
Escape
From our mouths
During our futile resistance to anything logical
Or rational,
Our selves piloted by the thought of
Unfathomable numbers and equations
That led to this moment
When our bodies feel everything
And our minds feel
Nothing.

We are naked before the eye of the God neither of us believe in.

Words
words to say
words to say for those who possess a quiescent soul
vibrations forming into susurrus breathes,
spun by Love.
Love is an oxymoronic, overly celebrated,
seemingly sempiternal happening that is eternally ephemeral,
lasting
a
very
short
t
i
m
e.
Love speaks with words that no matter how
dis-joint-ed
sound wonderfully euphonious -
a sonic euphoria
a billet-doux made from absolutely nothing
but
the very
rawness
of being absolute.
Love is a little more than
chimerical.
Love is a clinquant aubade that requires redamancy.

redamancy.

Love requires love to exist in it's eternal shortness,
to exist
in the mere seconds that are allowed
to exist in the ephemeral time frame of a blip in space
of decades and decades that no one will rememeber and that will not matter to the masses
and
will mean
absolutely nothing to everyone else except
for the one that is awake enough to look directly at
Love.

I am so hungry
For new words and new musings
I’ve tired of mine.
I’m always starving
For the sweet sounds of your tongue
I miss all of you.
I’m lusting after
Your late night curves and comforts
You, everyday.
I am craving you
The peaceful quiet after
A night of laughter.
I am in love with
You you you you you you you
You you all of you.
Do you understand now?
That I’m tired if all this?
Hearing myself speak?
You are so quiet

The pavement is full of spurious persons,
Training each other to pretend they're eclectic,
Using differences to assert the vilification of mankind.

Cross from them stands the truth,
Perspicaciously watching
The hedonists
Be not heedful,
Listening to their speeches full of trifling, inconsequential consequences.

A furtive plan snakes from the mouth to the ears of the truth,
Manipulating it to bolster the lies.

The belief that everyone deserves rights
Akin, alike, homogeneous, to the human nextto him,
Is brought down with the laud, the praise, the inception of the end.

I want to be your dreamcatcher
And keep ahold of the insults meant for you.

Dreamcatchers don't catch dreams

They catch the things that keep you from having them.

Blasted together
in the wake of dead stars
New life is born
From celestial suicide.

Say goodnight
Drift into star dust dreams
It fills your mind
it's you after all.

Your hands came from andromeda
Your eyes were born from hera's milk
Stone exploded for your legs
And gasses mixed inside your chest.

You're gonna die
You're gonna die.
Nothing can stop your inevitable suicide.

Say goodnight
Drift into star dust dreams
It fills your mind
It's you, after all.

My love takes more effort than you wanted
An unrequited hard nosed emotion
Look, the navy sky, white stars i counted;
i set my imperfect plan in motion.

i love my love, so perfect, pink, and clear.
In my mind, this perfect fantasy thrives.
Your mouth is open, your eyes not here;
Can't hear me beg to intertwine our lives.

Reality is not my specialty;
i dabble in the land of make believe.
Fantasy is my own reality;
In my mind, you won't turn your back and leave.

You refuse to see the pain inside of me,
The words you say are harsh reality.