What scares me the most is
the fact that I will never see you again
I'm scared that when we're old that
I will be withered by time like
paper left in the sun
I'm scared that we will be frail
with bones like glass that
will fails us
I'm scared that time will have gone by
too quickly as we look back and try to grasp
all that we had lost
I'm scared of when we shut our eyes
for the last time and then that
is it for us
What scares me the most is
the fact that I will never see you again
I'm scared

I feel the lull of the sun, day by day, and wonder if I have to

When the moon, hanging on a string, shifts the tides

and pulls me in.

Do I have to

When the screams of glittering stars fall around me

and break in my palms, slicing my hands,

and the sun and the moon beg for my face to turn unwavering

Do I have to

Body is sinking to, through the linoleum floor
Hands are raking through the rough hair
Raking down the face
Raking down
Down
Breath is clawing its way up from the burning lungs
Heart is beating to keep up with the beat of a mind's recession
And tears are heaving themselves to their deaths
And sobs are leaking out of the mouth, trying to escape through the cracks in the walls
And time ticks like a car crash happening in slow motion
And I'm losing my ******* mind, constant screaming and ripping
And I'm falling through
And the bed, and the routine, and me are suffocating
And only the man in the moon will be here to comfort me
but even sometimes he goes away too

Hands like soft sandpaper graze my skin
Leaving trails of heat like sunlight
You placed your collage of kisses
                              
                                     Here
                                                            ­    
                                                                ­           And here
                        
       Also here

Like a treasure map all over my body
That eventually leads to my raw lips
That smile because those pale purple marks
Are play buttons that let me relive that moment

The lilt of silence
exists within a room
a ceiling high and warm
the sound is rounded
as it lays longingly on the window sill
where the dust settles and the day joins in
it is dull and worn like soft leather
And when crammed into a closet
arms length and abrupt
it falls short of being anything more than
a breath

But when silence is allowed to spread
over gentle bodies
and soak deep into the wood
life feels timeless and free

in the lilt of silence

I catch myself
thinking of our plans
that don't exist
now

and like trees
I'm shaken
in the wind
of what we once had

and I fall
into daydreams
and you're there
but I remind myself
that
you're not
and
we're done
like evaporated water

and it's strange
to think that the future of
you and I
are
no
longer
you and I

but it has to rain sometime

I wish someone had told me
while I sat in frilled white socks
and a pink dress on Easter
that love isn't just
for one and only one

I wish someone had told me
that while I would fall for a few
or many
that guilt was useless
because time is thin
and people are sudden
and you can't help what you see

While I watched judges, pastors, shamans
tie the legality of love together in bows or Gordian knots
no one ever told me about the power of eyes
or how to feel about fluttering caused by another
while I'm supposed to remain landlocked with just one someone

Now I'm sick
because of all the feelings screaming through my fingers, curling them, and I have nowhere to place them, and yelling falls in the quiet because I'm guilty
guilty
guilty
of thinking about others
when, apparently, I'm only supposed to think of you

I wish someone had told me
that love is not an is or isn't
It's a maybe, how are you, do you like ramen, music, don't leave, goodbye
And it most certainly hurts
when you aren't sure what to do about the others
who's eyes are pools and who lure you to the edge and pull you in and then you lose them altogether

Why did no one tell me

What should I say?

                    Tell me about love

Love is sticky
like tack
in your mouth
clinging to the back of your tongue
your teeth
making them rot

                    Tell me you won't fall in love with someone else

I don't want to
feel it
hang from my rib cage like string,
tying me up inside
only to turn to razor wire when
when I'm done

                  Tell me what love is

It's a choking hazard
a worm crawling in your heart
making a home
and when it leaves
there's nothing left
Love is a city
full of lights and exhaust,
blinding and suffocating
It's a summer turned winter
no clothes, bareboned

                    Tell me, do you love me still?
yes.

I have been picking up more poetry lately
tightly bound in little books
ink blots on long gone trees

I hope that by reading more poetry
more lines and rhymes and colorful analogies
I could become a writer with words worth reading

I have read those books with prose
disguised as poetry, lacking meaning
and depth with such phrases like
You Are Air and I Breathe You In

I cannot stand the uselessness of prose
without thought
but I also cannot stand poetry
without impact

But I will keep collecting poetry
someone's thoughts on delicate pages
in case I happen upon someone else's words
worth reading

I run here
when things are bad

Here I am

because You are sticking your fingers
down my throat and plucking out vertebrae
until I can't move
caught in your shadow
until I begin choking

and You hang off me like a wet shirt
two sizes too big and unfeeling
I try to throw You off
but You're clawing at my legs and
pulling me down to the dirt
from the soil that you crawled up from

With You
it's like the city took a breath and held it
and I'm holding mine too
because any sudden move
and I'm thrown to the ground
and my neck snapped back by my hair

You are the monster in my closet
the beast in the hollowed parts of my chest
the voice in my head that plants seeds of doubt
and I'm done with You

But You keep coming back

I find myself holding my breath for you
when I'm down in the subway
dark and dingy
I'm waiting to see you
in between people
or through the grime and grease windows
on a train going the other way

I swallow up the air
when I'm out in the city
turning around cold corners
and blinking to change the scene
of the faces in front of me
as the thought of bumping into you
turns my palms wet and sweaty

I'm holding my breath for you
but my vision is blurry and
there's a strain going down my neck.
I hope you're holding your breath for me too

Love feels like

Sitting in the passenger's seat
while your favorite song floats out of the speakers
and They're driving with one hand on the wheel and the other
clamped delicately on your leg
and the night has set in
and the lights are fully in bloom
and the heat of the day mingles with your breath
because the windows are down
and you turn the radio up

The snowflakes
they taught me
that something so
blindingly soft
can set delicate skin alight
Causing scorched red fingertips
I set my hands on fire as I bury them
A white inferno
Because memories
these memories
are screaming at me
A cauldron of tender moments and anguished faces and plans that have yet to be fulfilled, and never will be, and brusing and dying dreams and brilliant words laced with tired tones
And I wish I could burn them, the memories, like photographs
In a blaze, they'd all disappear
nothing but smoke, a warm whisper, of something forgotten
But the snowflakes
they taught me
the pain is only present
when I stick my hands in too deep

why do i build my houses out of leaves
each house for each Name

i stand them up, fingers coaxing them, willing them to stay
knowing full well that even the sunlight weighs too heavy

but i stack one on top of the other, a skyscraper of myself
hoping it'll be different this time as it sways, a sickening motion

a drop of rain causes the rooves to collapse as i struggle to keep so many of them up with my palms, using my spine load-bearing

they are stable, my fingers braced against the walls, my feet digging into the mud, my back arched and twisted, and i tell myself it's worth it

the large storm finally grays the skies and my houses are rustling at the pressure and i rearrange it all to cover them, godless prayers

lightning crackles and burns through the clouds to impact the ground
and i can't stop it

my houses begin to flutter apart like frightened birds as i try to grasp at them with damaged hands but i miss

a flash of bright white, the sun devouring the earth, and a splitting snap of wood and facade

a tree motions towards me and my pile of scattered leaves
but the mud is to my knees and my hands are clambering at fistfuls and my eyes are wide as it gets closer

And I find out nothing you said ever meant anything at all.

Dear Moon

I haven't seen your face
in
                                            god knows how long
a while

How have you been
up there
                                                                ­ oceanic endless well of stars
in the sky

I
                                         want to die
could be better, you know?

I've just been feeling
                                                  like lint, unwanted and worthless
down lately

Tell me, Moon
                                   tell me it's all okay
what it's like to be so free

But I know your vow of silence
                                                  wood-sp­lintering quiet
ends in eternity

i didn't think i'd write about you like this
ending up here in a space that wasn't meant for you

in the beginning

i didn't think you'd end up in here as a past tense
as a memory
chalked up as a tragedy, a pile of words

as a goodbye

this isn't how i imagined
us

Hi, I'm

little girl, you're a dreamt dancer, a once hopefully ballerina, in a music box that was built at an early age.
bigger life will be reflected back to you, but not for you.

This is my wife,
This is my mother,

young woman, why are you here?
why did you let them do this to you?

I call her Honey.
We call her Mom.

"no, wait, I'm
know me
remember who I am/was," you say.

Honey! Where is...
Mom! Can you...

          , far from the path now.
a maze of thorns and always sickening surprises.

must get the dose right, must make sure the carb count is right, must check that the blood sugar is right for the son who can't do it himself.

life's toss of a coin, suspiciously rigged perhaps? superstition? i don't know, but you're cornered, back to the wall, no railing.

must do all the paper work, must support all of his dreams, must do all of the planning, mustn't have time for yourself, your life.

must continue.

HONey! I need you to...
Mom! Look at...

where have you gone, dreamt dancer?
oh, to the Graveyard.
inside the mind where wild thoughts and hopes and adventure go to pass.

no support, only frayed webbing leading to nowhere, or to venom, sister, brother, "friend".

only you now. and me I guess. unwilling, but an understanding therapist. an angry observer and a tired voice. the daughter to the mother.

Well, what the **** do you want me to do, HONEY!
Mom! Come here!

you're tired, I know. painful sleep and long nights dedicated to other people along with your mind. your body, your bones are load bearing. it's an incalculable weight when caring for others.

Insert Your Name Here:

HONEY! HONEY! HONEY!

I don't know, HONEY! HONEY!

Mom! Mom! Mom!

Hey, Mom!

I could watch the trees
every waking hour
But in the evening
when the smell of lilacs drift around me
When the spring air kisses
one if the many green fingers of an oak
And the light,  filtered and plush, lingers
Begging to stay
Just a few more moments
is my favorite
I am moved
by these Last Moments
because soon the light will be gone
and the dark will fill every curve and every edge
because it will never be the same way
again