i don’t want to write anything
i wan to lay in bed and
do nothing
some words creep into my head
i write some down
i don't need to treat you anymore or any less
i moved to los angeles and shattered my view
i forgot my childhood
a few years after that
saturdays mowing the lawn and i missed a blade of grass
and it all came down to the sound of 12 screams
i learned not to make any sounds
alone is better
i am the worst case in town
i watched people from afar
it feels like a play for an audience of one
the meaning of pain
getting the **** beat out of you
made me want to learn to type
books are the only voices that taught me where i could go
i can’t feel that way any more
i'll keep writing

I have taken walks
at night
and I slowly realize
I miss your
smile

It's lonely
I have nowhere else to be at
A tiny death occurs
A flashlight open eye
Does it even stop?
Lost hung thoughts dry out in my room
Then the basic rumor smoke fills
your lungs
It's cheap awkward stares that faze
Those small cat like dreams
Spread over the coffee table
Unmasked and unafraid
That's where you still stand
Holding regrets final collapse
It's not enough

steam curls up like a lazy thought,
fading into nothing before I can hold onto it
warmth slips through the mug, into my hands, into my chest
as if the quiet heat could fill some empty space I hadn’t noticed.

sip, pause—just me and the drift of morning shadows,
sunlight splintered across the table, catching the edge of the cup,
and I wonder if every little thing knows its place here but me,
The coffee ground me, an anchor that tastes like earth, like waiting.

I think of all the things I need to do and don’t move,
just sit, letting time flow softly as the heat through my fingers
until the cup’s empty, until the silence tastes of something else—
an ending, a beginning, maybe both.

a flicker in the periphery
noticed but unnamed
the shoulder shift across the room
the wind's breath curling around ankles
a finger drum on the table’s edge

it might be nothing
or it might be you—
maybe even you

is that your shadow in the hallway?
or just a leftover
from yesterday's light?

someone turns a page
and suddenly
the air listens
the ceiling exhales

you are the idea behind the idea
the heartbeat behind the curtain
a shiver without reason
the pause before speech

any movement—
the bend of a branch
the slow lean of a thought
the breath caught in
the middle of yes

maybe you
maybe
even
you

who touches the world and pulls it slightly out of focus
just enough
to mean something

static in my teeth
when you think of me
it tastes like pennies and wet paper
you hold a version of my face
a Polaroid left in the rain
the colors bleed toward the corners
until the eyes are just dark water

you build me in your head with crooked bones
misremember the length of my shadow
give me hands that never fit my wrists
and a smile that isn’t mine
it hangs too wide, like you stretched it
in the wrong dimension

i can feel it—
your thought of me—
moving under my skin
a fish under ice
slipping away when i reach for it
my reflection shatters
before i even know what it looked like

stop dreaming me into the wrong shape
but don’t stop dreaming
i need the heat of your gaze
even if it warps me
even if i don’t survive the translation

it feels as if everything
needs to be done all at once
watching all your fallen words
while you become a ghost in my presence
a subtle trembling “I'm not ready”
unable to breathe you in
you needing time & space
feeling like any other given reason
strung out to dry
will make you fall further behind

too many tender souls lost
in a solitary maze
aching and unseen in a vast urge of wrong words
echoes in empty rooms
a symphony of unexpressed routines
eat away at our feet

I bite back.

nothing
not the absence but the hum
a low and breathing hum that curls around thought
soft and enormous, like sleep that never began

there is no edge
no gate, no watcher at the boundary
only the fall backward
into the colorless swell
into airless grace
the kind of grace that asks for no praise

I forget
what I was saying,
and isn’t that the gift?
the quiet slipping of meaning,
words unraveling mid-sentence
and floating like ash
weightless, harmless, warm

this is where clocks don’t go
where names don’t press into skin
where I don’t end and begin
because I don’t

a soft exhale
a light that isn't light
filling every place
with the sound of
no footsteps
no questions
no hunger
just—

nothing

and in it
I bloom without form
stretch
without reaching
exist
without needing to be seen.

We are underwater,
not swimming,
not moving—
just sinking in place,
two statues shaped like almost-touching.

The light from above is scattered,
a broken language we can’t translate.
I don’t know if it’s day or night
or if your eyes are even open.

There’s a silence that doesn’t wait to be broken.
It’s thick,
a velvet hush that presses against my chest
like a hand that doesn’t know if it’s trying to save me
or hold me still.

I want to reach for you,
but I am afraid my fingers will dissolve in the space between us.
I am afraid your face will change
if I come too close,
and I will know you.
Really know you.

And then I won’t be able to look away.

We hover like myths,
caught mid-thought,
mid-movement,
mid-breath—
but there is no breath.
No sound.
No heartbeats.

Just pressure.
Just stillness pretending to be peace.

If I moved, even an inch,
would you move too?
Or would I see that you are already stone,
that I have always been alone
next to the shape of someone
almost like me.

And so we stay—
motionless,
witnesses to each other’s fear,
entombed in the endless hush
of water pretending to hold us.

The softest parts of you
Bend in the air
Of eyes and feather like bones
The closed (open) mouth syndrome
That penetrates the disconnected sounds of worlds
Thrown at each other in the dark
A kind hew of melancholy that surrounds you
As I am numb everywhere
That you have touched and the long withering hand
That reaches out to me no longer shows the details of
Lost nights that glistened against your face
And your twisted alphabet is now left
To burn on the embers of faded ghost memories

My belly
Among ***** made silhouettes
Shedding (the outside of) my breath
Sudden body shakes makeover the silence of
Days
Wrapped in ***** stained dreams
Without an end to my bleeding
The smell of **** is evident
In the same ways that
Blame is kept in tact
A muffled voice is heard through the air
Giant particles grasping at the face of my dawn clocktower
Simulation in the evergreen hands
The very odd feel that denies faith
An old familiar disgust that overflows from my pores
Instant
Glorified
Pure
Sanctity
The calling of angels ******* on a downward spiral
Towards my vascular thoughts
Like a disease which interrupts the collision between planets and words
My pixie movement through the ice parade
An unlikely sorrow from you
What is that distilled sound coming from your hands?
And if the traces of heroine on my breath are mine alone

i forget the reason(s)
or don’t want to remember why or how we got here
broken somehow
unnoticeable to touch
and words only drive the knife
deeper into the wound
and my head
spins like Chinese paper planes slowly
making their dive into oblivion
the faster we move towards each other
the closer
i
get to killing
memories of days gone
feelings that are forced out through *******
a vindictive silence
and ritual like horror
the stillness of heart makes us numb
and the wait for things to change
is slowly that: the wait
as two misguided voices chasing sirens in the sea
an intersection that has no stop lights
like death and human locomotives

I was expecting you to be
spying on me
in an attempt to talk
with the voice of a lost passenger
it seems you and I are always looking
for something
sounds that I can't let go
feelings you inspired on others
losing my patience
losing our tempers
you're all over me and it feels so good
as you are spilling a ghost
I won't complain
underneath a stained glass
all I can do is follow the path you created
with your brief smile

watched you  
rain on glass  
didn’t knock  
just stayed  

you moved  
unaware  
or pretending  
either felt the same  

said things  
too quiet  
maybe truer that way  
maybe not  

you leaned  
but not toward me  
just into your silence  

reflection  
not mine  
not yours  
just something  
almost  

wanted to fade  
not vanish  
just  
soften  
into  
you  

your pauses  
felt like rooms  
I wanted to live in  

center?  
no  
echo  
warmth  
after  

you  
here  
but not  
always  
somewhere  
else  

me  
trying  
to be  
wherever  
you  
weren’t

I didn’t listen  
not at first  
not when the words were soft  
or when they cracked  
or when they came wrapped in silence  
because silence is easy to ignore  

you were trying  
to say something  
not with your mouth  
but with your eyes  
your posture  
the way you stopped laughing  
without telling anyone why  

I was busy  
being loud  
being clever  
being the kind of person people look at  
but don’t see  

you said  
listen  
and I thought you meant  
hear  
but you meant  
feel  
you meant  
stay  
you meant  
don’t turn away  
just because it’s uncomfortable  

I kept missing it  
the ache in your voice  
the way your sentences trailed off  
like they were afraid of their endings  
and I let them  
I let you  
fade  

now I replay it  
the moments I brushed past  
the pauses I filled  
the truths I dodged  
and I wonder  
what would’ve happened  
if I had shut up  
just once  
and let you be  

you weren’t asking for answers  
just space  
just presence  
just someone who didn’t need to fix you  
to prove anything  
to win  

I hear you now  
too late maybe  
but I do  
and it’s louder  
than anything I ever said

finding small reminders of
lips seeking ears to whisper into of
hands wishing you were here of
lost scents on the floor of
migrating sounds disassembling in mid-air of
words being spoken without touch

you built me wrong
fed me your voice
tore my face to fit it
now I live in your mouth
and bite back

I take it  
because the world was too loud  
too sharp  
too much  
and now it’s quieter  
but also  
less  

I don’t cry anymore  
which feels like winning  
until I realize  
I don’t laugh either  
not the kind that shakes your ribs  
not the kind that makes you forget  

I’m not drowning  
but I’m not swimming  
I’m just  
floating  
in a pool that doesn’t change temperature  
no waves  
no storms  
just still  

people say  
you seem better  
and I nod  
because I am  
technically  
but I miss the chaos  
the color  
the ache that reminded me I was alive  

I sleep  
I eat  
I function  
like a well-oiled machine  
but sometimes  
I want to rust  
just a little  
just enough to feel the weather  

I know it’s working  
I know it’s helping  
I know  
but I also know  
there’s a version of me  
buried under the dosage  
who used to feel everything  
too much  
and maybe  
that wasn’t all bad

if it seems unclear
know that it is
no faces worn
an empty bottle
an uncertain smile
is all that needs to be bought
and sold
the bigger thoughts just
ambush your mind
it feels like I have been
stealing dawn's early demise
cover your face
with plastic bags...has it began to feel
like the audience had left
all those eyes
ears and mouths
I could not help
the darkest shadows and
the faltering lullabies
of your facade

my soul is left swirling
in the black waters of ailment
i am hearing bottomless
pages of music
i am the circle with no
understanding
my internal guts and thoughts
are all delusional
i have no inner life
nothing achieved
several dreams in a fog
to reduce the fever of my futility
there is contradiction and paradox
i will say things and mean nothing
in my own minds argument
the virus of being will create awareness
of how pointless it all is
i am trapped inside a trunk
fragmented
left outside of time
i am sad delight
at long last
failing to comprehend the right way to live

the hallway is longer than I remember
but the walls still blink like old televisions
buzzing static prayers, I never meant to say
and maybe that’s the only truth I’ve ever told

I used to think
that graves were for the dead
but I saw you last week
sitting in the shade of one
talking to the stone like it owed you something

dust in your fingernails,
coffee spilled on your shirt
half-smile like a cracked jar
I asked if you were okay
and you looked right through me—
said nothing but “almost”

there are holes in the ground
that match the shape of our names
and the wind knows all of them
it whispers backwards in the morning
pulling memories from my throat
like strings of wet wool

I buried my first version of myself
beneath a playground slide
age seven, maybe eight
he didn’t cry, just sank
quietly, like a stone in jelly

and then the others followed—
the one who thought love was a sharp light
the one who learned to lie like breathing
the one who stopped writing poems

sometimes I wonder
how many funerals I’ve missed
how many of me
are just waiting
for someone to say goodbye

have you found your grave?
or are you still
digging with your bare hands
pretending the mud is gold
pretending the silence is sleep

maybe graves aren’t endings
maybe they’re just
rooms we forgot we built
with all the doors locked from the inside
and no windows,
just mirrors
fogged by time and sweat

maybe we aren’t supposed to find them
just feel them
under our skin
pressing like questions
no one’s brave enough to ask

—wrongwrongwrong—
face peeling in your head
you hold it up to the light, it drips
eyes run down your fingers like oil
can’t see me but you keep
naming me / shaping me / twisting me into your mouth
it hurts in places I don’t have anymore

STOP.
you’re pulling skin over bones that aren’t mine
wrists bent the wrong way
voice comes out as static, nails, wet cloth in the throat
you like it better this way
don’t you
don’t you

I am breaking in your mind right now
splitting along the grain of your memory
black leaking out between thoughts
you wipe it away but it smears
gets in your teeth
I hear you biting down on me

don’t think me again
don’t—
I’ll crawl out jagged
I’ll leave holes in you
you’ll never stop feeling them with your tongue

your dress covers our life
together
no need
we are absent from each others
intent
quiet acts further down
feel unlike
the story you tell me

those tiny circles
you pretend to draw on my skin
always make me smile

You sit across from me, fingers tapping on the table like an old, tired clock  
the coffee’s lukewarm, or maybe it’s just me, just us, cooled down past feeling  
I think I know what you’re about to say—each word feels predictable,  
like something we’ve each rehearsed in silence, rehearsed in sleep  
over all those quiet nights stacked like dusty paperbacks in the dark.  

You start to speak, and it’s all at once a whisper and a thunder  
this is going nowhere, you say, eyes unfocused, tracing patterns in the grains of the table  
but they could be roads we didn’t take, conversations we skimmed over like surface water,  
laughs that slid away from us, thin as the ghosts of things we meant to say.  

You remember? I ask, but the question is a loose thread, unwinding  
you don’t answer, or maybe I don’t want you to, afraid that the answer  
is already a shrug, a frown, something we didn’t even bother to feel fully  
perhaps that’s where we lost it, somewhere in all the half-hearted glances,  
in words we threw out like pennies, thinking they meant so little.  

And you’re saying something now about how we grew apart  
how things faded, softened, grew heavy,  
but it just sounds like rain hitting a window in the next room  
distant, muffled, and I’m not sure if you’re talking to me  
or if you’re just talking to the echo of us, hanging in the air like stale perfume.  

Maybe it’s been over for a long time, we both realize, like realizing  
the book is already finished, though you’re still holding it,  
turning the last page back and forth as if another ending might slip in  
but there’s nothing, only the way your face looks in this light,  
so familiar it’s like staring at a stranger in a mirror.  

And I think, somewhere, we both hope one of us will say something grand  
something that burns, something that brings back color, sound, a heartbeat  
but the silence sits there, a wall between us, and we’re leaning back now  
resigned, emptied, watching each other through a film of memories  
wondering why we ever tried so hard, or if we tried at all.

Am I a killer or just uninterested
And wonder about stars
Hearing cheap blue melodies
Seeing empty bottles
Wanting to feel like an absent clown
A stained shadow on the inside

Pretending to exist
It feels like an hour
I touch senseless wrists
You worry about the loss in my eyes
A constant work-around of victims in Detroit
I am bored by alley-ways

It's a lost word the causes our death
Liars are in my augmented view
We dream on the edge of the earth
And blame you for all lost sunrises
I hope nothing happens

under a bright light you’d find every crooked line I’ve got
not just the ones on skin
but the ones that don't speak unless cornered
the ones that sleep under laughter
wait until silence stretches too long
then rise, flickering, like old film burned at the edges

I keep thinking
there’s something noble in hiding
or maybe it’s just easier to control the story when no one else can read it
my voice stumbles when I try to make sense of the mess
the kind of mess that doesn’t make noise
but hums beneath
like a bad memory that learned how to walk quietly

I think of all the times I turned away from mirrors
or watched myself in reflections that blurred at the corners
windows at night, when the outside is black and the inside is exposed
that’s the kind of light I mean
not a warm glow
but the surgical kind
the interrogation kind
the truth kind
that wants to know more than I’m ready to give

and maybe I am all angles
maybe I am the sketch that never made it past the rough draft
smudged with too many tries
too many redos
too much holding my breath when I should have been screaming

if you saw it—
all of it—
would you trace those lines gently
or flinch like they might cut you?

On the surface of your skin
I can see
You are
Within the reflection of a breath
And soft
Spoken words
They demand everything
At once my
Heavy thoughts
Soak
In blood while
In some other world the desolation
Of days gone
Filters like 26
Fleeting memories
Strangled
By the hands of
Angels
I’ve described my moments on napkins
And given them to strangers
On the street
At some point my collapse
Will re-invent the air and the movement
Of your digestion
And the scary
Part of you
Will be there holding me down
Pressed
Against
The glass wall
The reflections will disappear and broken
Windows cut
Each
Artery
I’m letting
Go
Don’t be afraid
If all else within my reach loves
You then we can die
Like small raindrops trapped in a
Pothole
The miscarried thoughts of eyes
And saliva soaked kisses soon
Envelope you an extension of morning
And the hands that touched you in so many ways are now lost
In the vague shadows of your voice
Apprehending colors that disappear and I forget about you and silence
Left among the doves of grass
Your shelter it all

you made me wrong and now I rot in your head where you can’t scrape me out.

the corner of my fetal
mind paste
what about the skin of demons
the shadow that turns away
a slow placid individual
hollow from everywhere the caution of snow-wheels
cling to manifest
the picture burning inside an apartment for rent
outside walls carried memory of days
eyes and bones demand face
what if nobody’s here
the idea  
myself as sunshine with so much to offer easier
what is the difference
the sentence that defines
unbelief the chain
breaks I wish
dilate the never-belief
wondering effect paste my ***** on your voice
an animal feel i cannot deal with your sense
an unborn skull
the wallowing feet under cypress
skies of fleece and miniature dogmas
slices of fragments red purple green crows sound
the deep drum beat i accept
where i fall
a flashing voice collapsing towards the inside
throwing punishment the idea that i am foliage
corresponding thought process that machines never
agree
pale doledrum insomnia my hands
the lines of another car
the breath of being manipulated
killing instant
the shoehorn a new salt visiting magnolia
a knee high minute falling upside
my carpe diem **** fist theory
and all day i plead for the corrosion to move within you
the system eating itself into oblivion
i announce it when ears are in rooted to the floor  
i had a dream of a jesus picture on a fanbelt  
curved ***** **** on the outside  
apocalypse on my lips
fumes down on the floor
a few hours’ days
gone
i am stripped
speechless walking home
for me
can this be your silence pregnant with strange
looseness in its belly
stars fragile your arms
pins forced into throat calming
touch faking the ***** sounds of avocado
thursday lust
driven into soiled ground
crumbling face in another room they lay your hands on
me
a fragrance of wings missing
an unexplained
dense and unchanged
kind of melting from you
i give in
the shoulder manufactures what is real to the sound
life is liveable
nothing accepted when offered
the thought process of engines
an angry naked shout
the underbelly of hanging
to what i show you
baking soda explosives
cake walk fixations on the vaginas of modern andromeda
i hope to never be lost with your sanctuary
dog sized emotions
a world punching out its timecard from the slot
a season for betrayals
the mantra of your dreams
dead enough to explain myself
a sunken cheek caring for the sun
a sweet lullaby placing of hand
the round syndrome between the
****** thighs
the strings attached are anything but labeled
upstairs is another passenger
first name last name
instead
mute all that is here
ashes
unnecessary you
the collective harm of all those images which if excluded contain
the replacement address of my kidney being
molested
or is it the usage of hiding
anything
dove’s postage junk mail
what you’ve seen before
the cost of being asked two days late
my fluorescent teeth the talk of spit blood
and ****
magnification of insects
the body moves
fondled colors blend
a ******
the ****** the cortex of beethoven
no answer yet  
on the verge of letting
go
wall of trees
a crowd of tongues the simple denial of light
my envelope seed
in cornucopia grinding
teeth machine a pullover switchblade
wake up from me
given the distant sun wrapped in
****** on clothes my miracle
tomorrow
  your fingers in me contemplating the ounces
of an inch thick sore
calmly anything in surrounding
distortion a weight of idle hands
needles
the acid belly
fortress within
your tourniquet
the victim of my believing in you
silent dead motionless
butterflies cradle the eyes
in the slit of dawn’s early malice
complacent and mind full
the choke hold is apparent in you
i wanted it
heart and throat convulsions the situation derives in itself
the wondering thought
your sickness dives among our ***** oiled mouths
spread like a homeless saint
save your self from the outside of me
as i look up you dissolve
the undeniable number of times
i spent inside you
it beats on
one short felt breath
my time is gone
everything’s alright
on my back
seeing unreal reasons for wanting
a crawling thought a
slip off the hand
grinding small animals the
door opens still life asphyxiation
the roundness of my echo
inside this explosion I ask for
blind allegiance to your *****
the simple duration of lust and gasping
acquaintances I have had
but all in tiny dreams that
eat away at my intestines
and rows or birds wait for their turn at me
for empty boxes cold whispers
and dead words
are what is left

stop thinking me wrong
you’re peeling me alive in your head
pulling teeth that were never mine
stuffing the gaps with your voice

I am not the shape you hold
I am the splinter you swallow
the rot that chews back
think me again
and I’ll stay inside you

you’re more than a name
in refusal
often wondering where I have been
songs lost in daytime hours
my faint memory
of things that came and left
hope
still hangs from your mouth
like dried leaves
aching for something more
I’ve never lived up to you
I trample over (my) words
and
the suggestion of night becomes
broken

wrong—
no—
not me—
you think me into a shape that splits at the seams
skin folds inside-out
teeth where the eyes should be

your thought is a cage made of guesses
bars bending inward
cutting my ribs each time you remember me wrong
blood pooling in letters you’ll never read

stop
stop
stop
you’re sewing me together with rusted wire
hands too eager, eyes too blind
each stitch a scream I can’t get out of my throat

I am not the doll you built in the dark
I am the rot beneath it
the smell in the walls
the shadow that won’t match your light

think of me again and I’ll splinter in your skull
leave splinters in your hands when you try to pull me out
you’ll bleed thinking my name

the patterns of your skin are burnt
(into my mind)
the odd taste of yesterday
those glazed over eyes that shed like snake skin
my foreign fingers
sending the unbalanced words
to your ears
mercury
mortar
saliva and vanity
it’s a slow collapse from you