All of the
baby clean
lovers, teens
in Paris with
their purple
spotted necks
rosey cheeks
and cigarettes
reminded me
of how many times
a day I used
to fall in love
with someone
new

and now

I feel so numb.

I’m not
Drunk anymore
Not ever
And I used to worry
That would
Take away a spark
I thought I had
No more feet pressed
To pavement in early hours
No nighttime
Sunburnt love
No more fires
I don’t want to put out
Poetic lush
A prophetic  touch

I used to worry
And I still do

when birds begin to
lose feathers
they sit
in red
they wallow in home
in nettles
and leaves
and hair from brushes

they bathe in
bones
and rosewater

This is to the moments that will be
but never were.
To the skyscraper dreams that stand up above us all
just to remind us that we really are small,
that even when the world stands before us it's you who makes it fall,
and mostly that you can't save it all.
This is for the waves of good,
not for the infinity of bad.
For the dreams that our nations youth once had
For the rubber bands
and my little heart strands that snap the same,
and the possibility that we can capture the moment when life is most clear.
Stay strong and carry on because you aren't the blame.

ruffled curtains
and thousands of
cigarette butts
inside carved containers
lined up
stacked
in rows
crumpled into
callous faces
swept up
and uncovered

pusillanimous
hearts
and heavy lips
skinny coke
cheeks
and art
degrees

this performance
has been
your best
piece yet

Dreams of running in tunnels of sand
And burning cop cars
Making glass
A call and response
But the cry is never heard
Sand makes
Mass
In our self contained
Timers
But how long have
Some folks been
Waiting for just the
Toe to ground reaction
From white folks
When cop cars
Make glass
And white heat
Makes violent
Gas spitting at
Peace
When will I be
So old to see
Any change?

Sink teeth
like ships         in my hands
                             one moment
                                with you
                                   d r i p s
              through conscious
coughs and
carefully
                climbing
                carbon

i want you
to drink me
   like smoke
      ribbons
through
your straw
in my neck

won't you
carry me
until you
forget?

However
Any prose,
eloquent
it may be,
Is inadequate
In describing
Why one's
Heart beats

When I think of you
I think of
Bergamot
And flowers
And the artists that
So carefully grow them
To be pressed into
Pages
Protected beneath
Gentle words
And the clouds
That linger
Soft on
cold Sunday mornings

and
when I think of you
I soften too

It’s blue hour
And I’m looking at the
Bird house
On the corner of flat shoals
Paradise plants
And like
Twelve cars in
The driveway

It’s a specific type of hot
The ten minutes before
The sun actually sets
And silver halos everything
My sweat makes me a little
Too cold to feel comfortable
And I think about the
Long sleeve
Denim I left
At a one night stand’s
House, uncomfortable,
I hope he knows
I didn’t leave it
For any reason to come back,
Just that I’m forgetful,
Fraught with impermanence.
Although I would
probably
Come back too
You know
If I was wanted, maybe,
A whisper of affection
Or if things were different,
If I was different

Anyway
It’s blue hour
And with everything that
The silver halos
I can’t stop staring at
The bird house
On the corner

Somewhere
Deep down
I know you need
Our love to stay
Small and bruising

The gold touches the tops of the trees in atlanta
Pekerson park smells like
Elementary school breakfast
Nostalgia
steamed in a bag
My tire is flat
Again
The guy says you
Can’t plug a hole
On the outside
can you do it from the inside?
I don’t know much about rubber
but I know I’ve bounced back
Enough to feel like
My blood could just be air
I am sure though
That’s not true
Because I can feel it thicken
Early in the morning
In the crisp mundanity
Of finding honeysuckle
& blackberries crawling
Along shady fences
In the Atlanta south
the gold is still just touching the tops of the trees

a window
with finger prints
and nose prints
from kids who
press their faces
to glass
and write novels
in the condensation
that collects
from your display
your body
their home
the place
the endless
question and answer
they want to know
your anatomy
your brain
they want to pick at it
like the three
day old scab
that sits just above
your brow
from being
attacked while
walking home from
the bar

but no!
oh god no!
they don't care about that.
they care about
whether or not you'll keep your *******.
as if they are their ******* to decide
they complain you're unnatural
they complain
that god made you this way

What I want to know
is where the
     *******
in the bible
does it say your body is a
                                             cage?

Eloquence lost in the wind
Dissipated like smoke
Trickling down your chin
My eyes roll back into my head
The burning builds throughout my body
And I'd rather be dead

You know,
That live fast die young *******.
That's me.

In the end there was no depth
No talk of life in whithering flowers
Or "I can't stand to be without you"
Only ambiguous dialogue
And love lost in nights spent alone
I melted onto your skin like wax
Scarring your memories of me
Into a malavolent **** that lies on your left wrist
But blood is not something I can handle.
Not when I've seen that blood in a hundred different ways
Pushing and pulling me in and out of what's natural and not.
Because in the end there was no we
Just a you
And a me.

i don't want to be
your inbetween
but i don't mind
staying in between
your sheets
skinny
loveless
laying in
spoon fed
lover's lies

i don't want to be
your inbetween
but i don't mind
keeping your company
on cool nights
cold lights
i don't want to be
your transitioning
queen

and just because
you don't want to
lose me
that doesn't mean
you get
to keep me

Your breath is sweet
like cherry blossoms
your words, branches
casting patterns of shadow
and light upon
me
a symphony
a song
a poem
a love note
kept away in
the top drawer
of a dresser
aging
waiting
to pour out
into some lucky
heart
to be pumped through my veins
like music
like a dance

never have I moved
with such love.

he's a mouth breather
         with thick thoughts
               sinking in his brain
        and a tide that pushes
       him out
      then pulls him back
     again
He's a tongue tied
            trickle of conciousness
                  and a cigarette stain
Naturally numb,
                         jaded,
                                 and cracked.
                                    Broken goods
                             and no way
                         to revert
                      back.
A product of pressured pleasure,
the American man,
for he is a mouth breather
born into a can
             soaked in sour
                    preservatives
and sent off to
school in mom's minivan

Talking about sheet cake
And its plasticky persistence
How it holds to the roof of your mouth
The way words carry abundance, multiplicity
And the way roots dig into the ground
Comparing our years
In a wealth of cigarette butts
And saw dust
And new leaves on the plants
We’ve grown since
Ducking under wet branches
And building into ourselves

We’re older friends now

I've always been a lover
the kind that dives in to the deepest
end of the pool
it's easy to empty
the contents of my lungs
to sink
further
not really knowing
if this water
is safe

and now looking up from
the bottom of you
I've decided
it's time to
come back up
for air

"I understand that your skin was soft and this is how it was supposed to be
but I'm still sorry" he waded silently through the crushed velvet waves
This made me think of all the skeleton keys
and the flowers just inside my walls, things buried too deep
I thought about how I wanted those things to stay hidden
Probably until my late 20's when I'll look back on my teenage years
And see every mistake in brightest light I can
And the corners of my mouth would feel warm, I'd smile.
"I take responsibility for what I've done... For what we've done.
I don't hate you, but I don't think we should really have any sort of relationship.  Just because I've accepted what happened doesn't mean
I don't feel my heart sink when I think about it, and it's been
What, two years? I don't know when that's going to change... or even if it will."
I replied struggling through quicksand that was far too familiar, but for some reason completely different this time.
He understood why I wanted things this way
We parted with a few simple words wishing each other the best.
And that was all.
But oh how badly I wanted things to change.

Low flying planes and
The bruises on my legs
Not sure where
They’re from
But I can guess that they’ll
Fade bluish black
Then yellow out
Like the tobacco
Stains I’m sure you
Have on your walls
From smoking in
Your room when it’s cold
It’s too cold
And I think for the first
Time in awhile I really
Feel
Alone
Like how it could
Feel maybe
In space
Or under cool
Dark
Water

Crawl through clouds
watching
carbon carrier
sheep
Stumble through
designated dreams
timely turns
at at least
45 degrees

thick smoke
stacked in rows
behind
white fenced faces
and feigned
spaces
There are
two heads here
in four odd places

Cover cracks
with coils
heart tangled
royals

Blue like the jazz in your finger tips
                 the kind of somber tune that lingers on your breath
Like smoke stuck in the over grown hairs falling out of your ears
      and the 5 o'clock shadow thats grown from black to grey
              over these past few      
                   years.

There was velvet on that monarchs back
         she was drinking irish whiskey          and had a hollowed out voice
The past is gone
Except for on your tongue
Dancing in your mouth
from the top of your spine
to the root of your brain

The future is in your sheets
I'll leave you alone
I'll let you sleep
But you know I'll sit at the foot of your bed
Just to see you wake
         With diamonds in my eyes
                     and blue     jazz          in                   my                               blood.

Shaking hands
Not to be confused with
A meeting over
Four cups of coffee
Cream & sugar
The bridge between
Lips and a
Bitter water you
Grow into
Sometimes intolerant
My hands are shaking
Over caffeinated
And wet from walking
Down Moreland
Touching everything
I can

Drunk in a DUI checkpoint
And I'm counting
How many drinks I've had
And the hours I've taken
I'm counting breaths
And prose I've written
How many of my own
Words I've bitten
I'm counting how many
Times I've felt this sort
Of hurt
And how many times I've felt as reasonable
Is worse

I'm counting how many stars there are above
And the city of fireflies that I almost wish I'd never heard of

lips curled in
tucked beneath your
feigned half smile
fraudulent face


if there's anything
i feel i know
it's that always
& forever
consistently find
another place to go

melting
in warm waters
wasting away
to sin and bone
with you
and letting
life ebb
out of my mouth
gasping for
air
in the most
passionate
of ways

There is something
about your
fleeting fingertips
and the way
your mouth curls
resembling
how i
curl myself around
you

and your hands that
Are full
of doubt and
apathetically
****** dreams

There's something
about the way
Your smile
makes me feel

And the
way you hold
your cigarettes
to your lips
that reminds me
of how
you
sometimes
hold
    me.

"you don't have shoes on"
poetic lush and the
fires i've always wanted to start
heels dug into asphalt
that's been cracked
by the trees in my
trash filled front
page
front yard
where I yelled
at you in
drunken rage
i wasn't all that
wasted but
my frontal lobe
gave out of me before
it could really let go
of all the
toxic treated
brain stuff
keeping you
at arms length
from me
throat painted
with a dagger and
i'm starting to see
that it's for a reason

"you don't have shoes on"
and i'm trying to be better
and i love you


please don't go

blue eyed and built
with barriers
that are so silent
you'd think that they
were made with
ghost bones
whispering willow
says I love you
late at night on
a cigarette strewn
porch
and i can
believe and be
patient
because you make
my head so heavy
when i'm close
to you.

I hope fall is
being sweet
in the cereal isle
& making playlists to
pick pecans
off the ground
in Brownwood Park

lips to the path
between shoulder
blades like
fingers to
moss
& the dissection
of your dialect when
you say
hello

My feet
Are numb
And I can't
                                   Stand
         the deafening
Sound of
Sweet sounding
Nothings,
The bitter
And blank
Tingle of
White noise
That circulates
Rooms full
Of people.

Pressed flowers
Like pages
Of the Bible I’ve never opened
But weighs heavy on my back
Southern strains
The belt
The weight
All pressed
Flowers
In pages

Because your hair smells like incense.
Because your body is just a cage for your mind.
For your spirit.
Because when you are broken, you know you have clay.
Because you think in poetry and pictures.
Because you know just over that mountain there is life.
Because you are you and you know exactly who that is.
You are beautiful.
And don’t let anyone tell you that just because your hair smells like incense…
Don’t let them say you can’t be the beauty over every mountain.
in every tree,
under it’s bark,
overflowing in it’s existence.
You are that beauty.

This is not a poem.
This is my dedication to a man who touched my soul and gave me the gift of the most valuable knowlege I have ever gained in school.
I do not know how to explain Mr. Fowler in a paragraph and I feel as though any representation of him in just one small paragraph would be inadequate.  However I will do my best to share with you how he impacted my life my ninth grade year.  Ninth grade is a major transition year for everyone.  New people, new school, and still a little bit of that middle school juvenescence.  I was no exception to such awkwardness (as much as I'd like to believe I was) and Mr. Fowler inspired me even on the first day.  He had a passion for biology and even more than that he had a passion for dispensing his knowledge (as well as his own meandering thoughts) to his students.  He expressed his love for his work to us often; mostly just sprinkling it over his enthusiasm for a lab or whatever we were doing that day.  I may not have had an ideally left-brain thought process as you would wish for an honor biology student and yes I did struggle but Mr. Fowler would not have ever left me behind.  However he did not only touch my life academically.  For three weeks at the beginning of my second semester in high school I was absent due to depression, cutting, and bulimia.  My mind was at war with me and I told my parents I needed help.  They checked me into a rehabilitation center for the next three weeks. While out of school North Springs was not easy to get in touch with. In fact they didn't even answer my mothers calls to get my work until I was finishing the program and coming into school the next day.  Due to my school's lack of organization and incompetence I was three weeks behind and kept falling further and further.  I was supposed to be put on a plan by my school to make my recovery less stressful and to help me catch up.  That did not happen either.  My school didn't even count my absences excused despite the hospital notes… Two months passed and I was even more behind and growing more fearful that I would have to repeat second semester until I went to Coach Cushman and Mr. Fowler.  Mr. Fowler offered me support and I will never ever forget how kind he was too me.  He told me we all have health problems but that doesn't mean we can't move forward it just takes a little confidence and work.  He let me come talk to me whenever and gave me passes to stay after class.  He has a beautiful mind and a caring heart, and although it was severely hard for me to reach the level of understanding of the material that I had missed not only in biology but in every other subject I passed.  I cannot express my gratitude towards him for I may not be a tenth grader this year without his help and patience.  My condolences go to his family as well as the family he has with the North Springs staff.  I would also like to say that though Mr. Fowler may not be with us in a physical realm he is still here with us in spirit and one of the many lessons I believe should be taken away from his time with us is that you should love your work.  If you do not live for what you do, you are simply doing the wrong thing.

All you are
Is a sweet sting
Of everything that
Might have been

I was dead all along
Predisposed to be a waste of wheezing breaths
I am the **** of the earth
Growing from ***** roots
I will always be the mutt,
the *******,
the runt.
Never will I reach heaven,
And never will I be at the top;
The cream of the crop.
I was born this way.
I am an addict.

the universe is one room, one pocket of energy
and it's expanded void
just like life is made of two cells,
star dust, and waves of orange and pink
and a sickening red
burning into sun like grapefruit
oxidized and covered in incense
skin only stays smoke
torn by time and time because it's torn
useless is the same
sometimes I feel real, but I usually see out of myself not through my eyes
it's almost
like my blood isn't in balance with gravity
sometimes it pushes up against my skin, expands too fast for force,
towards the stars
which is where we all start
and all start to end.

"get better"
pictures of an exhausted illustrated sun
pulling itself up over the horizon

i wonder if the sun ever has struggles like these

I want nothing to do
with your salted earth

Maybe my words are too thick
Maybe I call you out too quick
Maybe my stucco sticking dreams
Aren't all that I really mean

Maybe my perspective is rotten

You make me
want to lay on
park benches
and watch the
sun flutter
down through
the leaves
casting shadows
on the ground
which is only familiar to me
the moments you
are not around

To live or to die
To do what's natural
What's right and what's wrong
What's ******* and what's not.

A sense of self worth
Something I can't gain or lose
Something that's just gray
Not black or white

Folded gently in the thickness of the wall
Polar emotions surely will mark my fall
Until life is nothing, nothing at all

You're carved thin
and I'm built round
You're everything I wish to be
and I'm everything I wish I wasn't
You're not rough and
You're smooth but not slippery
When I just fluctuate between the three
and I hate that I can't match the way your pen spills onto your paper
and how your feet fit so perfectly when mine are either too big or too small
When I get sick
You do too
but people actually care.
When we speak I feel an inadequacy that is too familiar
I love you
It's just hard to be static
No...
It's just hard to be beautiful.

At the grocery
Mouth covered
Hand in glove
Hand to cart
Bruised fruits and
The power
The melancholy
Of a man leaving with
Only flowers
That won’t ever
Grow again

tiles
stacked in rows
of 3 or 4
dust and hair
collected
in a gallery of
memories
like finger
prints on the wall
from the time
you touched
so much more than
the front gates
and with love
lost
I cannot find
comfort
no safety of warm fires
and no protection from rain
just

my empty stomach
full hands

i'm a waste
more or less just breathing space
and if you can't tell
by the exhausted look
on my calloused face
i've been here
and i've been there
songs so sweet
so soft like summer
air
subaqueous slumbers
in hell so bare
looked in the face of
love and was told
she did not
care

i told you

I've been right here
and I've been over there.