Your words taste
as sweet as candy
and I catch myself
cutting them off.
My lips pressed against yours
in anticipation. How could
anything be as sweet as your
smile, your voice, your eyes?

You smell like ***
Between happy covers
Stained with our joy and love.

I love you so much
That when I kiss you
I’m smiling.
I put my hand
On the inside of your thigh
And brush accidentally
Against a trail of slime.
It’s like a snail
Crawled up your leg
And left a path
Of my sticky love tears.

You look at me and giggle
And soon like an STD
I catch it too
And we laugh like a pair of happy idiots
In each other’s arms.

Wait.
Stop.
Just gimme a sec.
When did my feet leave the ground?
Because last time I checked
I was down,
down there,
there on the ground.
I was calm
I was clear
I thought I had found
a chance,
myself,
I had just emerged now
from a tunnel so long,
so dark,
beats me how.
Wait.
Stop.
Just float right here.
A cocoon just cracked,
and I have a strange fear
of the butterflies
flappin' 'round in here.
'Cause I'm still just a tad unclear
When the hell
did my feet leave the ground?
I've been swept up
when I just came down.
And aren't views supposed to be clearer up high?
'Cause my vision got hazy
Now that my head's in the sky.

I have this note.
A little note
on yellow paper,
with a young man's signature.
I keep this note.

I have this note.
A blank note.
Yes, there are words.
But they are empty.
Nothing from the heart expressed.
Over and over, I read this note.

I have this note.
The only note.
A single lasting artifact
of a romance gone by.
Yet still, the note survives.

I have this note.
A damaged note.
Ripped in two;
like me from you.
I keep the pieces of this note.

I have this note.
A months-old note.
Scribbled, signed & torn; mine.
A cold reminder of harder times.
But I cannot come to trash this note.

I'm drumming my fingers
on the outside of the car.
Keep your hands busy, Charlie.
Don't let them wander across
the space between your seat and hers.

You've got this smile
poised on your lips
like a mousetrap.
Tense with hesitation
and a million neurons
firing thoughts through your head
that I'll never get to know.

Light up that cigarette, Charlie.
Keep those hands busy.
Let your eyes wander.

i'll tattoo these emotions across my wrists
because they're choking me all the way through my skin
wrapping around my veins
tainting my soul like a sick liquor

and no one will understand this suffocation
this slow sort of cancer spreading along my neurons

the numb stage is over
my smile now appears
but it's warped and it's deranged
just like the scars i create

i've been crying for hours
and there's no end in sight

and my nerves are exposed
innocent words
cut to the bone

i climb higher and higher




i topple over the edge