Suicide seeps loosely from your lips-
Leviticus could only carry so much
Weight before the heavy words
Laden with your December-white
Morals and twice baked ideals,
Dragged him down to live with the lepers.
Sputtering out half delusional
Laments to your ever present savior,
Your words drip over the crisp white
Lines, creating muddled phrases
That you eagerly inhale
Off the top of porcelain toilet seats and cedar pews,
Because self loathing is natural
When repeating the mantra:
Only sinners can be saved.
Your frail arms, bent and convoluted over
Your tense and righteous face, inadvertently
Form the sign of a cross,
Casting a shadow on the sharp corners
Of your thin, puckered lips.
Sacrifice and repentance chase your vulnerable mind
Right off the deep end, and into the 3am abyss in which
You are perpetually present.
As you speak, your eyes catch glow
Of the searing flames that taunt your every thought,
Like embers, alive with the hot, igniting presence of the past,
They search and scan my face,
As if begging to be understood
In a language made up of truths
That only float
When they're dead.

It's easy
To stay inside
When you're
Busy
Getting lost
Within
Your silly
Mind.

I carry you with me,
Woven
In between
The frayed
Ends of my oversized
Sweater,
And the
Hollow pauses
Of conversation
Saved for thoughts
Too sacred
To be revealed.
I carry you outside of me,
Like the thin layer
Of frost
That dances lightly
Before collapsing onto the
Ancient windows of
My two door Oldsmobile.
I carry you above me,
Your presence as big as the
Wide open sky,
Yet also as unattainable.
Reaching above,
My fingers stretch out to grasp
You, but instead
Are met with the vacant
Feeling of air
Drifting between my
Clammy palms.
I carry you beneath me,
Supporting my
Staggering steps
As I drag my heavy feet across the
Uneven ground.
I carry you with me.
                                                                                   MB.

What is time?
A constellation of fleeting moments,
Loosely strung together,
By the hands of an indifferent god,
Like far off, iridescent stars
That long ago, lost their deep
Luminous glow to wishful thinking
And withered souls with nowhere to disappear to.
Swallowed up by the dark, subtle indifference
Of the vast ominous sky,
They desperately glisten, lamenting
Their distant remorse,
Flickering out only to reapper, as if they are trying to escape
The nagging, elusive truth
That they too are nothing more than a hollow echo,
Sounding out across the abysmal space
Between the seconds that fall dormant
Against our empty idea of what it means
To feel alive.

There is no honest answer.
Worlds fall from our wind-chapped lips
Like marbles, heavy on our tongues,
Hitting the ground with a muffled splat,
As we fumble on all fours trying to retrieve them.

There is no honest answer.
We push and shove our muddled consciences, unprotected, into  a dark alleyway
Full of lost chances and half hearted embraces.
Until there is nothing left but a small hollow pang in the bottom of our guts.

There is no honest answer.
Openly, we ask others what we are too afraid to ask ourselves, even in the private of our own minds.
Truth sits at the bottom of our flouncy ideals and broken promises,
Like the last drops of 2% milk,
That only come out of the carton once it's lying face down on the dumpster floor.
There is no honest answer.
                                                                                   MB.

Religion brought me tea at noon,
And taught me how to pray,
To God, and birds, and indifferent moon
That holds the world at bay.

Heaven came to me disguised,
Beneath the heavy drone,
Of millions of silent prayers,
Pleading to be left alone.

I heard the cries of anguished souls,
Lamenting their fate,
For penance costs a heavy toll
To walk the narrow and straight.

I found my heart laid out to dry
Upon the chapel floor,
As saints and sinners passed it by,
Too busy to implore.

I paid my dues at Sunday mass,
And sold my soul last June,
Because infatuation with the past
Brings even the pure to ruin.

I heard the angels singing out
A sad and passionate song,
As the world shrunk back in pious doubt,
They continued on and on.

I fell into a rabbits hole,
Full of all that isn't,
I accepted Him to make me whole,
The most righteous kind of prison.

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.

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.

Eyes closed,
The heavy drone of
What If
Heaves through my
Frozen ears,
Beating,
Beating.

Aphrodite rears
Her luminous head
And cries out
Beneath the slow
And steady
Thumping presence
Of How Come.

There's too much time here.
Space that needs
To be filled.
Reason
Is stretched thin,
Cracking at the center
Like the walls of
An old tool shed,
Canary yellow
And peeling.

There's a peculiar feeling about emptiness.
Like hundreds of misshapen rocks
Have all been carelessly dumped
Into the cavity which should hold
My red, pulsing heart.
It's not obnoxious
Or tangible,
But it lurks somewhere right beyond
I love you
And I miss you
And I don't care.
Like termites slowly devouring
An old pewter coffee table
Left on the corner in front of a tall
Decaying townhouse.
The legs slowly deteriorate,
Revealing their soft fleshy wooden insides.
There's no warning sign for this kind of
Isolation.
No tell tale symptoms
Or home made remedies
Of honey and camomile.
Flashing neon lights
Flicker and fade into the
Heavy night.
And symmetrical posters
Don't illuminate the pathway to loneliness like they should.
Instead,
It just creeps up on you when you're least expecting it,
Between casual conversations
And vulnerable moments of passion.
You can't stop it,
Or push it into a corner
The way you can with guilt
And premeditated promises.
It's too disfigured to be shut away in a symmetrical closet
Or empty dining room.
It's the absence of understanding,
The congested feeling in your lungs
And heart
And stomach,
That comes when you suddenly realize
No one understands.
It's unpredictable in that way,
The sudden realization,
There's no telling when it will spring upon an unexpecting moment,
And devour the innocence of longing.
But when it happens,
When your whole world feels frozen,
Stagnant and stuck between the cracks of reality,
And covered with a thin veil of dust
And failure,
When your throat is dry and chalky,
Full of almost there sentences
That dance in the chaos of your desperation,
You'll know.

Howl
The indifferent wind caresses his skin as reality fades into the distance,
Gradually, the frigid air becomes heavy and obvious in its presence.
His feet, firmly placed on the edge of the cliff, flirt with frostbite
And the idea of plummeting down into the soft unkown.
Howling into the impartial wilderness, his echo pauses
Before reeling back to slap him, as if to make sure he’s still alive-- still present.
The animals lay silent to his tortured wails,
To his lonely laments that carry an entire lifetime in a single, hollow ring.
The high octave of his echo loses its urgency in the redwood trees and jagged cliffs,
Frantically bouncing off canyon walls as if to wake up the slumbering forest.
His fragmented howls cut through the thick silence, only to fade out once again.
Lost to the obsolete language of the downy finch and blood red maple leaves.
He sounds his tortured cries to drown out the beating of his heart,
Unleashing his insecurities and regrets to the indifferent world.

Sanity and the cold wind brush against his skin
As gusts of common sense harshly dry out his eyes.
His feet, firmly placed on the edge of the cliff, flirt with frost bite.
Howling into the wilderness, his echo pauses
Before reeling back to taunt him and slap him across the face.
The animals are silent to his tortured wails,
To his lonely laments about being misunderstood.
They only hear the high octave of his echo,
And run for cover amidst the canopy of weary redwoods.
He pours his heart out on that ledge,
Unleashing his insecurities and regrets to the indifferent world.
As his echos come back and caress his red, restless face
His surroundings begin to dance and swirl together,
Creating a new kind of understanding,
A new form of exceptence,
Of peace.
His howl sounds out into nothingness,
Booming its vibrating echo between the trees and birds and streams.

Liquid silence flows between the cracks,
The awkward pauses and terse remarks ,
Of our cordial conversation.

My lips fumble as words  scratch at their soft corridor,
The taste of discomfort and failure is salty,
Yet reassuringly human- alive.

You didn't do anything wrong,
Your perfectly placed hesitations and irony
Fell stagnant in the bitter pool of my expectations.

You couldn't help the way things went,
Self sabatoge danced sweetly on my lips,
Fates sticky web couldn't hold back deliberation.

Being with you, in this room,
Is the epitome of wide open loniness-
The kind talked about in books and eulogies.

It's elusive presence envelops me
As sentences fumble out of my mouth like gravel:
Unclear and unintentional, too genuine to matter.

I'm not sure how much more I can handle,
How many perfectly sane stories I can to listen to
Without spilling off the brink of sanity.

It's not as bad as it seems out here,
There's something charming about being utterly alone,
Something unexplained and unattainable
In this wide open loneliness-

I heard a knocking in my mind
Against the cedar door,
Beating, beating as if to find
Something worth looking for.

And as the rhythm proceeded,
The sounds faded into the wind.
It was gone before I believed it,
Yet it stole something within.

I heard the footsteps tread away,
A soft and steady pace,
The shadows cast a murky grey
Upon the would-be face.

Dragging a prisoner's remains
Though no one left the room
For the bounty came from within the brain
And all it's splendid gloom.

Thick green trees surround the powerful river,
It's current pulls me forward as small, smooth pebbles lap at my toes.
Somewhere in the background, children are shrieking with summertime bliss,
Making loud splashes into the crisp, cool water
From the wavering branch belonging to an ancient tree.
As I wade forward, warm brown mud oozes between my toes,
Unleashing a murky film around my perimeter.
The sun relentlessly bears down on me,
Calling out to my budding freckles beneath my olive skin.
Sweat droplets begin to form around my brow,
Sweetly trickling down my jaw and mixing with my river-wet body.
I close my eyes as the warmth encompasses my being,
It's as if I'm given a single bucket and told to fill it with all the wonders of the river-
I can't.
Then splash- it all comes flooding back to me,
Drowning me, filling my lungs with your presence.
I wasn't expecting you here,
Amidst the laughing children and the current.
It hurts too much to think of you, but it's impossible to let you go,
Not now.

I'm not tired, but it feels so **** good to close my eyes,
Letting the thin veil of flesh spill over, cradling my senses.
It's dark out, so there's no red-orange reflection from the harsh, burn-out of a sun.
Just the nakedness of my eyelids, and the musky scent of twilight enveloping the room.
I only feel alone when my eyes are hidden beneath my veiny translucent skin and soft blond eyelashes.
A safe haven from memories and obligations,
I'm not tired but it feels so **** good to close my eyes.
My half meant promises lament in the daylight, and darkness still  isn't enough to chase them off,
Not quite, at least.

The windowsill is slightly dusty,
Just enough to push absence into an idea.
There's a lone cobweb, only recently abandoned.
The screen is popped open, and a small breeze escapes the thick velvet curtains.
Nothing's changed.
When you were here, there were still cobwebs
And traces of dust,
And velvet curtains covering busted screens.
Nothing's changed outside the window, either.
There's still a big, dry lawn
Full of imposing weeds and lavender.
The flowers are blooming now,
Their fragrant scent comes in through the window,
Imposing it's presence,
Existing.
Nothing's different for the cobweb,
For the screen,
The curtains,
And the flowers,
They aren't affected by your absence.
They didn't mourn your passing.
For them, today's another summer day,
Another day to exist,
Carry on,
Survive.
No matter how much I tell them,
Scream at them,
Beg them to listen,
They don't understand me,
Or you,
Or us.
Past tense doesn't bother them,
It doesn't tear at their souls
Whenever "was" replaces "is"
Or "knew" replaces "know"
They're too preoccupied with the present,
With existing,
With life.
Their lives didn't stop when yours did,
And now they mock me
With their oblivious,
Unaffected existence.
Dead, in their own way.
Memories dance about their lackadaisical corpses.

From the past, my heart has bounded
Into the darkness, future allowed it
To grow and thrive in a stagnant fountain
With memories and parasites soaking it, shrouded.

Until the day when words grow weary,
And passion and pain express themselves dreary,
I must continue my profitless query,
Allowing my raw, wrestless hands to steer me.

For the past has a sweet and sticky smell
Resting in the heart of it's contunuous well,
Screaming and thrashing, beckoning me to sell
My soul to myself, in this bottomless hell.

The deal has signed itself through omission,
My very existence, the rim of permission
Creating the pull of art and submission,
Filling my mind with artificial ambition.

Darkness never boasted exposure,
Instead it's wet walls comforted closure,
Repeating misguided love over and over,
For luck is for pennies and distorted clovers.

My pen, my temple, my rusty bronze chains,
My lifeline, my mother, the noose from which I hang,
My disguise, my outlet, the scrawled figures of my name.
Nothing hurts more than having to refrain.

The rough caress of memories is too much,
Too stale,
To obvious
For your name,
Your scent,
Your causal way of existing.
Lines dedicated to you,
Eulogies dedicated to you,
Tombstones and sentimental quotes
Etched on bare, mournful flesh
All dedicated to you-
They aren't real enough,
Honest enough,
Cruel enough,
Beautiful enough
For reality,
For your existence.

It's not falling in love that scares me,
It's the falling out of it.
You know, the feeling that creeps up on you,
Like a tear in nyolon stockings, or an old knit sweater.
Not a big obnoxious ****, but a tiny run that eventually dismantles the entire garment,
Leaving it forlorn and impossible to wear.
Tossed aside in an old wastebasket, only to be taken out for reminicing.
We're destined for that kind of falling apart, I think.
I know it isn't fair, but it's inevitable,
And the more we try to avoid it,
The longer we pretend it doesn't exist,
The harsher it becomes, catching us off guard.
Slowly infesting the shadows of our doubts,
Until it takes over, leaving us naked
Face to face with the unwraveling truth:
Nothing that lasts is beautiful,
And nothing that's beautiful lasts.
For, every time "I love you" is uttered,
The fabric between us wears a little thinner,
Exposing our flesh to the unforgiving coldness of leaving.
Making us vulnerable in the worst kind of way.

Once I threw a rock
Into a river,
So I could watch it
Fall.
Then I left,
But the rock stayed,
And made me feel
So small.
So now I never
Go near water,
For fear of getting
Wet.
And as for the rock,
It lays there,
Drowning.
And still, I can't
Forget.

Midnight was made for broken hearts,
For lying awake with the lights off,
And retracing memories that never happened.
It's easier to love when you're alone.

Midnight was made for the broken hearts,
For whispering forgotten promises,
As if uttering them will drain them of their potency.
It's easier to love when you're alone.

Your bottom lip is quivering,
As if the moment is weighing down upon it.
Hold it in, darling.

Your hands are intertwined with your tattered sleeves,
As if the more you fidget, the less you will feel.
Hold it in, darling.

Your eyes are taking on that glassy look,
The one always followed with silent tears.
Hold it in, darling.

Your voice is beginning to waver,
As your words run into each other, fumbling out of your mouth.
Hold it in, darling.

Your gaze is fixed upon an insignificant crack on the wall,
As if staring at it long enough will give everything less meaning.
Hold it in, darling.

She's telling you that there are people who care for you, that you aren't alone,
As if they could ever truly understand.
Hold it in, darling.

She's asking you how you feel, she want's you to talk about it,
As if saying how you feel would make it any better, it won't.
Hold it in, darling.

Somewhere between the onesided conversation, some sort of closure was reached,
As if you even opened up in the first place.
Hold it in, darling.

Now you're all alone in the cold, small office, getting ready to leave.
As if you had been present in the first place.
Hold it in, darling.

Don't ever let them see you cry,
Save your tears for the middle of the night,
And until then,
Hold it in, darling.

Every time I try to write about you,
I can't.
I want to say something,
Anything,
About you.
And I want it to be both beautiful
And sad.
I want it to ****** your image
Onto the paper,
I want to reflect your very demeanor,
Through my words.
I want to create a prose
So touching,
And harsh,
That all my other works
Wither up
And become stale.
I want to taste you,
Feel you,
Smell you,
Hear you,
See you,
In my writing.
And then,
After it's complete.
After I have exhausted all my capabilities,
After you are vulnerable,
And raw.
After my name is scrawled at the bottom left hand corner,
And yours, at the top, centered.
I want to take it in my hands,
Tear it into a million tiny pieces,
And throw it into the fire.
Watching it burn,
Slowly,
Yet only for a moment.
I want to make this feeling I have tangible,
Only so I can destroy it.
But it's still thriving, right out of my reach.
And every time I try to write about you,
I can't.

We've murdered "Goodbye"
With our ball point pens and summer vacations.
Now all that's left of it is a shell,
A crater created by etiquette and empty promises.
We've stuffed it full of double intentions,
Filled it with unspoken "I love you"s, and "I'm sorry"s.
Our fear of leaving has left its muddy handprint
On the innocence of closure.
We've dragged it by it's syllables,
Drawing out each letter until the sound becomes muffled and obscure,
The very epitome of all it stands for.
Goodbye should be whispered in the final moments of one's presence,
Not proclaimed in shopping malls and late night diners.
The more we try to save it,
The further it sinks into causality.
The deeper that we engrave it,
The more goodbye parts with reality.

"There are two kinds of things in life,
Those I hate
And those I don't care about."

She chewed the lid of her coffee cup.
Wrapped her fingers up in her sleeves.
Nervously.
Talking too fast,
As if afraid if she thought about what she said,
She would no longer to say it.

She talked about Africa.
It was one of the things she cared about
/hated.
"I don't understand how they live in such poverty, and we can just sit here drinking coffee."

Her companion asked her what she would do, if she was in their situation.

"**** myself."

She said softly.
Unaware she was whispering.

"Not that I want to **** myself now, I mean I don't care enough to do that. Besides I think I would be too afraid."

She replied, even though only silence had followed her first answer.
She turned her attention to the now tattered sleeve,
Of the cold coffee.
Looking at it as if it had all the answers in the world
Tucked between its cardboard grooves.

"I think I think too much, about not thinking"

Silence

"I mean, the more I think, the more depressed I become. But if I try to stop thinking, I become depressed that not thinking is the only way to happiness and..."

She stopped talking.
Aware that some things are better off in your head.
Probably afraid that her listener would disagree and force her to elaborate.
Afraid of what she would say.

The rest of the car ride was silent.
Full of casual small talk regarding the clouds, and how sales are always better after holidays.

She fidgeted with her sunglasses, the coffee cup still on her lap.
Her mouth remained partially open,
As if she was about to say something,
But couldn't bring herself to making any sound.

The car pulled to a stop at the mall.
She got out, hesitating for a moment,
As if to pull herself together.
She took a deep breath.
Unconscious of what she was doing.
Tossed the coffee cup to the ground.
Then walked off to join her friend.
Pretending to care.

You're broken down.
I understand.
For I was once like
You.

You've given up.
Been dealt your hand.
Nothing that lasts
Is true.

You've lost your way.
The North Star's faded.
Now city lights
Guide you.

You're all alone.
Inside you're head.
Feeling that death is
Overdue.

There's nothing much,
That I can say,
That wouldn't come off
Faded.

All I can do,
Is think if you.
And hope that your mind
Makes it.

Tonight's a night for going out.
For red lipstick, a shade too dark.
Don't be nervous my dear, they'll all love you,
As long as you remember all your lines,
And don't forget to smile.

Tonight's a night for going out.
For wearing that new black dress.
Don't be afraid, you'll fit right in,
As long as you remember not to eat,
And don't forget to smile.

Tonight's a night for going out.
For splashing your face with cold water.
So no one will notice you've been crying,
As long as you remember to hold your breath,
And don't forget to smile.

Tonight's a night for going out.
For unlit cigarettes and etiquette.
They'll understand you when you speak,
As long as you remember to keep quiet,
And don't forget to smile.

Tonight's a night for selling your soul
And don't forget to smile.

What is life but an accumulation of fleeting moments
That are too soon banished into the realm of yesterday.
The sunset isn't prejudice towards the night,
Instead it welcomes it in all it's faded glory.
Don't get caught up in the process of thought.
Give in to all that beckons you,
For time is only relevant in retrospect.

Can you hear the cry
of the emptiness?
"You're pushing me
Out"
Can you
Feel the pressure
Of the open sky?
"Darkness is pushing me out"
Is the horizon still
Hidden
Behind empty wishes
"Save my soul from
Superstition"
Can your senses
Awaken
Beneath the rough blanket of
Life
Or does it suffocate you
Gradually
Pushing you
Out

Life's ****** up
Our generation's biggest concern is filling up that red cup
Cuz we only speak out when we're getting served but we're fed up
We're trippin over our wishes cuz we were told to keep our heads up
Caught up with superstitions cuz we ran out of good luck
We're stuck inside a cage built up by satisfaction
Our conscious swallowed the key to the lock, call it desperate to a fraction
Yeah our thoughts are divided, our priorities are split
Too busy calculating how to not give a ****
We're embedded with the mindset that you can't lose if you quit
Our opinions sold out yeah we're morally ******
Cuz going with the flow garuntees open doors
So give in to your social addictions
Swallow it down with a smile and call it moral affliction
Don't worry about the obvious contradictions
How you feel and what's real only increases the friction

The moon shines bright tonight
Above the ruined town
But moonlight can't hide the night
As darkness dances down

Fear fabricates factious fragments,
futile for fulfilling faded fantasy's forlorn figures.
Few find faith from forecful feelings..
farewell forces fugitive faces-
forging faulty formality,
finesse fights failure for fame,
fortifying forgotten promises.

Do the seasons know they're changing
As summer fades to fall
Do the leaves notice they're fading
As the wind sounds its desperate call

Snow encompasses the sidewalk
But beneath it, remains pavement
Covered with residue of faded chalk
Vibrant before winter claimed it

Beneath the leaves of autumn
Lay withered shades of grass
Hidden and forgotten
A reminder of seasons past

Yet soon the frost will pass
As will the month of december
For time is seen through a foggy glass
Much easier to experience than remember

So paint your fields will daffodils
Crowd the dusk with light
Open up to the subtle thrills
That only know day and night

Lose yourself in the moment
Yet don't forget to remember
Life isn't merely a seasonal component
Trapped inside a perpetual ember

Structure and conclusions
Are no friend of mine
For the precision of allusion
Does not correlate with my mind

I’ve lost you beneath my words, my dear,
As similes drown your voice.
I’ve murdered you with metaphors,
You left me with no choice.

I’ve remembered you with language,
As I recreate what you never said.
I’ve painted you with prose, alas,
Holding you captive in my head.

I’ve carved you out of daydreams,
By whittling away at the tangible.
Everything is always what it seems,
As long as it is deemed manageable.

Oh, I’ve set free you’re emotions,
And the feelings which you’ve evoked.
By drowning you in the ocean,
Of the language which you provoke.

© Meka Boyle

The stars don't shine as bright tonight
As memories cloud the air
Beneath the darkness of the night
They reflect your hazy stare

The scent of death is a curious thing
Sometimes it is upon one long before ones final hours
Yet other times it doesn't appear until long after ones last breath

But when it appears, there is no mistaking it
Despite its similarities with longing and forgetting
It has a subtle distinction all its own

It comes in the dark of the night like a thief
Stealing ones innocence and erasing any signs of hope
Leaving behind a skeleton adorned with empty optimism

Maybe if we pretend we can't smell it, it will pass us over
Leaving us prey to it's scarier half, called life
Whose smell is faint yet highly sought after

So douse me with dreams and kerosene
To trick the ghosts of the darknes
Because life and death are not what they seem as they see who can pull me farthest.