He had two scars on his wrists,
To remind him of the past,
And how important,
Yet fragile
Life can be.
He used to live here,
In the city,
Before he left
And headed South,
In search of something
He never really wanted to talk about.
Maybe  it was something
That wasn't really there
At all.
I remember listening to
Him talk about the possibilities
That awaited him,
I wonder if they're still out there
Waiting
Endlessly for him to come
And turn them into
Reality.
I hope they are.
Somehow, he always
Found a silver lining,
Always managed to relate
To my sorrows
While also making them
Disappear.
Now he's the one who's gone,
And the pain is still here.
Maybe he was too busy
Helping other people find their happiness,
That he lost his own,
Or maybe he finally found what he was searching for
And it was too much,
Or not enough.
I always think about
What he was thinking,
And how I couldn't tell
That something wasn't right,
Maybe it's because
I felt the same way
Too.
Except that I'm still here,
And he isn't.
Replaying all our late night conversations,
It doesn't seem quite real,
That someone who understood so much,
Could feel so alone.
Our conversations are gone now,
Lost in the no mans land of
Old text messages,
Hour long phone calls
And the past.
The only memories I have
Are too real to ever
Evaporate,
Yet even they
Couldn't escape his departure,
And now they lay there
In the deepest corners of my mind,
Tainted by his absence,
Giving a whole new meaning to
Past tense.

Losing you is like waking up on your 18th birthday,
And feeling no different than the day before,
Yet knowing that something inside you is taking its course.
Week after week, gradually you become older,
In a way that can't be measured by years.
You mark out your calendar as if keeping record will stop time from driving you mad.
Birthday dinners, doctors appointments, and important obligations
Peak out from under black scribbles and abstract musings.
Moving on is when the page is full and blotted,
And it's time to move to February.
We're fated for that kind of closure, I think.
The past months aren't any less real or poignant now that they've been pushed aside,
But they can't affect me like they once did.
Missed lunch dates and last minute schedule revisions
Don't mean anything less than when they were happening,
But their significance was left, crumpled and blacked out on the face of January.
Stuck in the distant space where past months vanish.
Holding on is when you accidentally write 2012
Instead of 2013, and have to quickly distort the two
Into a three, before anyone has time to notice.
There's no sentiment attached, instead it's a testament of broken routine
And nothing more.
That's how losing you feels.
There's no wilted rose or breaking waves
To symbolize a heartache that's no longer here,
Those sentiments of emotion left along with you
And the cold, indifferent agenda of January.
I tried to fight it off as long as I could,
By pushing you into a corner of my mind,
Almost impossible escape,
Holding fast to the memories we share,
Convincing myself it wasn't over,
That there was still hope,
That I still cared.
I was never afraid of moving on,
Or losing you,
No, I knew that would be inevitable,
Beautiful, almost.
Instead, it was no longer caring that scared me:
My capability to shut off all emotion,
With the switch of a button,
Obliterate all of what we had.
It's too late now, even these words fall flat
Against my self made wall
Of gentle indifference and time.
Soon February will fade to march,
Leaving January buried deeper beneath the fabric of closure.

Do you ever wake up at six in the morning
With a deep, sour pit in your stomach,
Feeling like your life is going nowhere?
Splat,
Expectations snowball out of the realm of reason.
What makes sense,
And the course your life is taking
Don't add up with each other,
Pushing and pulling until you realize that maybe
You're just another **** up
Without enough ambition,
And common sense that only comes out
In a muddled after thought
When you're bundled up between the covers
And the darkness of the night.

There are far more painful things than loneliness,
Like being surrounded by the deep,
Gnawing feeling that nobody quite understands.
It's hard to escape, this  ambiguous notion of longing
For something that isn't quite there.
It always shows up, rubbing up against the edge of causal conversations, late night musing and crowded coffee shops,
Bearing it's ragged head in the reflection of silver spoons and tap water.
It's easy to lose yourself in it all,
To forget the subtle way you shuffle your feet,
And even the final vowel of your name.
These things seem so miniscule in comparison
To the wide empty feeling you get
When surrounded by a crowd of all the wrong people.

Expectations flood my lungs,
As I heave and gasp for breath
Beneath a shrouded cloak of
Proper etiquette and
"She doesn't have a mean bone in her body".
Flailing and shouting aren't options,
I'm not capable of that.
"*******" was a fluke,
I cant feel that way- not me, not here,
Between high standards and low tolerance levels.
You shouldn't have to explain yourself,
It's natural that I should understand.
Emotions are for the weak
And unpredictable. It's only natural,
If you're afraid.
Hold your breath and count to 10,
And hope what's gone is here again,
For the world is a place of mice and men,
Thrown deep inside the lions den.

Missing you is like a tornado in Kansas
Tumultuously whirling past barren grass lawns,
Shattering the glass windows of old, forgotten
Convenience stores and local barber shops,
Twisting and teasing the warm, summer air
Until it finally gains momentum enough
To come tumbling down upon unsuspecting
Rosemary bushes and rusty metal fences,
While I'm sitting here,
Trying to make sense of how I'm supposed to feel about it all,
On a beach somewhere between Monterey and San Francisco.
It isn't that you don't exist, or that you aren't occurring,
Destructively whirling your mixed intentions
Across the pavement
That once gave way to my strange, unrestricted heart.
It's not that I don't care about you,
Or that I don't notice
When you make your presence all but unnoticeable,
But, maybe I don't see you anymore.
You're sentiment can't reach me here.
The harsh tornado winds aren't quite strong enough
To blow across my indifferent face
All the way from Kansas.

Trust has lost its potency.
Words clumsily bump up against meaning,
Groping for reason the darkness of good intentions.
Clinging to the old wives tales of sincerity,
We hold a hollow pedastool above
Or weary, aching backs,
Hoping for someone to come and relieve us
Of our empty obligations.
Atlas has long left his perch,
The world slowly tumbled off his sinewy frame,
Shattering upon the cold hard face
Of reality.
Language has lost its clarity,
Muddled with distorted alliances
And miscommunication,
It's flails hopelessly, gasping for air
Before plummeting back down
Into the deep water of tragedy
And modern day relationships.
There's no room anywhere
For carefully constructed prose,
Or spontaneous laments of passion.
They've all been pushed out
To make room for something intangible.
Something not there enough to grasp it,
But real enough to trace its
Shadowy silouhette against
The cold hard walls that encompass
Innocence lost.