Nothing is real.
My heart weighs heavy with
Your misplaced sorrow
And distorted vision of
Life.
Who am I to tell you
That how your feeling is
Wrong, or unnatural
Or harmful.
The words,
Which tumble
Thoughtlessly from
My lips,
Fall into a shallow pool
Of "I love you"
And "I'm here".
But, I'm not there,
In the dark
Twisted canals of your
Volitale mind.
Ears pressed against the speaker
Of the fogged up screen of my iPhone,
I beg you not to do it.
You can't.
Not now.
It's too soon.
Something is taking it's course,
Slowly building up momentum,
Weaving in and out of the
Warped and hazy
Picture
That is your life.
Don't hide from it,
Or claw at the fabric of existence,
Trying to escape it.
Embrace it.
Nothing is real.

I cannot write about you,
Because you don't matter.
Your presence smudged across my
Pale forehead
Like the faint Thursday morning remnants
Of a lopsided cross
Painted on by a solemn parish member.

I cannot write about you,
Because you were never there.
Your words landed
Soft and heavy,
Dissolving upon my tongue
Like thin, crisp flakes
Of communion
Placed into eager outstretched hands
And wide, gaping mouths.

I cannot write about you,
Because you didn't see me.
My half whispered laments of
Despair and something close to
Heartache, burnt out
And sizzled
Amidst the constant wavering glow
Of a hundred uniform candles.

I cannot write about you,
Because there's nothing to say
That can express the emotion
Or lack thereof
That comes with closure.
The tall, ornate cathedral walls
Hold fast amidst the winds of time.
A testament to an old religion,
Forgotten and misused
By it's devoted and deluded deciples,
Who drag their weary feet
Up the tall, crumbling
Stone and frankincense stairs,
Yearning for something
More than what this poor,
Decrepit world can
Offer to their deprived hands,
Stretched out to the kingdom of God
In desperate reverence.
I cannot write about you,
Because there's nothing to say.

I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.

Reality has a funny way
Of wrapping itself into a tiny ball
And plummeting effortlessly into
Our wide, gaping mouths
As we raise our luminous faces
To the vast and forgiving skies.
Or spinning itself outward
Into the weightless shadows
Of the wind which beats down
Upon our pale, vibrating chests,
Creating a rhythm that swoons
And capsizes with the wavering
Translucent strokes of the ocean
Upon the pure, unfiltered sand.
Life is too much with us,
As we push our weary feet
Against the all encompassing ground,
Dragging ourselves across
Stormy sidewalks covered in
Old wrapping paper and chewing gum,
Bristling park lawns
Littered with budding clover and popsicle sticks,
Smooth, linoleum floors
Full of traces of the past
Kept real by shuffling feet and 104 degree fevers.
As we continue on,
Through city streets, childhood playgrounds
And hospital waiting rooms,
We carry a little bit of the world with us,
Hidden away beneath forgotten promises
And diluted memories full of
Passionate illusions.
Time is too real to face head on,
So instead we package it up
And ship it away to the future
In the form of 99 cent greeting cards,
Faded blue jeans full of pocket lint and sentiment,
And nine to five jobs that circle endlessly until we can no longer bear it.
It's only in the dark of the night
In between warm, downy comforters
And the slow steady glow of
A dull, canary street light
That it comes to us,
Sometimes only for a moment,
Before it evaporates again
Into the mundane complacent
Lilac and honey fairy tale
Which is life.

I do not miss you in moments,
But rather the lingering space that lies in between them:
The soft "nn" sound preceding "one mississippi"
Falls stagnant as I attempt to count out measurements of my grief.
Your presence is too large to be condensed into the language of time,
Hours and minutes limply droop over each other,
Until nothing is certain besides your existence.
Two mississippi, three mississippi,
I slowly drag out the syllables in a subtle defiance to your untimely exit.
Your time isn't yet over, I've kept you alive,
Pushing air into your crumpled lungs by counting sheep.
The moments in which you fell are recycled here,
Like stale air in a small cement cell,
They propel my time forward the same way they stopped yours.
I do not miss you during desperate sentences full of almost there prose,
But instead during the white space that runs between each line.

Four mississippi, five mississippi.

Shrieking, all-in, nothingheldback laughter
Beats up against my skull,
Thudding, thudding.
Is this happiness observed?
Pools of wrinkles gather underneath
Squinted eyes,
Little silk kimonos crumpled at the foot of a bed.
Laugh lines fold and expand,
As if they are their own organisms,
Breathing in and out with the rhythm of life.

Somewhere else, there is crying,
***** feet and bruises the color of wilted pansies.
Undisturbed, they vibrate to a different frequency,
An isolated rhythm.
A symphony of cornflower and charcoal,
They dance about in a sad song of neglect.
Far away from the loud, booming laughter.

Oh, sunken eyes and sullen brows,
How have you not yet changed the world?
Thunder your despair,
Push up against the merriness and chrisanthimum bliss.

Our feet can't hold us down sometimes.
As old, worn out memories lash at our pale bony ankles.
Forget me, I've faded off into another world.
Our arms can't reach our eyes sometimes.
The harsh white light of the morning bears down on us like dull rusty razors.
Lose me, I've lost myself one hundred times before.
Our ears can't tune out those distant cries,
The wind oozes in, slapping up against silence.
Ignore me, I long for what you cannot give.
Our spines can't hold us high much longer,
As they slowly droop into angles meant for brooding.
Forgive me, for only then can you let me go.
Our hearts are slowly losing rhythm with the world.
Life has become to harsh--the future too shrouded by memories.
Leave me, somewhere in the past, with all the sweet nothing's and clouded laments to the unrelentless Gods that weave together beneath my toes.

Youth has lost it's sweet seduction,
Yellow lemon heads have grown hard and sticky,
No longer resting upon our eager tongues,
But instead gathering lint in forgotten pockets.
Dreams of astronauts and ballerinas
Only exist in dated children's books
And hospital emergency rooms.
There isn't room for foolishness anymore,
Not here. Not now.
Childhood has shrunken into a tiny ball
That would fit perfectly into the hands
Of anyone brave enough to grasp it.
Yet, instead it has rolled off into a corner somewhere,
Out of the reach of subway tickets and smart phones and deli sandwiches and fake leather boots.
Sitting there, stagnant and unnoticed, it festers in the disregarded possibility that is life.
We all grow up and forget this,
We fall into the routine of tooth paste and parking meters and 160 character love notes,
We forget about the astronaut and the ballerina and the president who all once lived inside us,
We shut them away in our minds and starve them,
Only giving in to their innocent requests in the dark of the night,
Where time and responsibility dance hand in hand in blissful oblivion.
Ashes, ashes we all fall down.