I found myself on my bedroom floor,
dizzy from seven beers I stole from my dad,
thinking I could replace your memory with alcohol.
when I forgot my name before yours,
I tried emptying my veins,
but watching my blood run down the sink brought no closure.
my lips are cracked and my skin is rough;
your hands left burn marks where you touched me
and your kisses took every ounce of moisture from my mouth.
I know you're not the one I'm looking for
but I'm so cold and a fire is a fire;
I might be drunk right now but I'll still wake up
wanting to kiss you.

Silence is not keeping quiet
because you have nothing
to say...

Silence is having a lot
to say but no desire
to speak...

It was not a heart, beating.
That muted boom, that clangor
Far off, not blood in the ears
Drumming up and fever

To impose on the evening.
The noise came from outside:
A metal detonating
Native, evidently, to

These stilled suburbs nobody
Startled at it, though the sound
Shook the ground with its pounding.
It took a root at my coming

Till the thudding shource, exposed,
Counfounded in wept guesswork:
Framed in windows of Main Street's
Silver factory, immense

Hammers hoisted, wheels turning,
Stalled, let fall their vertical
Tonnage of metal and wood;
Stunned in marrow. Men in white

Undershirts circled, tending
Without stop those greased machines,
Tending, without stop, the blunt
Indefatigable fact.

**** you.

do you remember the
tidal waves my eyes created
when you said my name
like the way you said "hello"
to that girl in calculus class?
do you remember the shine
my soul lost when we were wrapped
up tightly in your utterly most
favorite blanket on my couch
as you were preoccupied with
texting that "friend" instead of
gazing into my ocean-colored eyes?
do you remember the way i would
glance your way while we sat at my
kitchen table drinking coffee while the
sun came up from behind the same
crisp autumn morning that described
my emotions to a tee?
do you remember when i walked
around my house in the middle of winter
in your sweatshirt and socks just so i could
have your scent linger on my body just a
little longer than i wanted it to because you
were completely absent from the picture?
i had always been told
that right before someone leaves you,
your entire life with them flashes right before
your eyes in milliseconds;
that right before they left you,
you would stare blankly at white walls which
served as the canvas of all of your memories
displayed like drunken artifacts before your
sunken and dried eyes.
that right before they leave you,
you start to hold onto their belongings,
hoping that somehow doing so will
result in some epiphany they have that
convinces them to stay with you infinitely.
my mother always told me that nothing
lasts forever,
and i guess it was no surprise when i woke
up on that crisp october sunday,
which was supposed to be our three year anniversary,
and you were not asleep next to
me.

{m.j.}

out of all the cities
and towns that exist in this universe,
why,
why do you have to move back into the same one as me?
was it not enough to have my fingers intertwined
with yours like the blades of grass that
grow within the forest of our minds?
was it not enough to have my eyes peer
up at you,
filled with utter compassion and flamboyance?
was it not enough to have my body pressed
up against your glass-tainted frail frame
as we lay listening to french classical music
at three in the morning?
was it not enough to see the storms that
raged among my bloodshot eyes
after you left my "i love you" without a reply?

maybe im simply used to
the idea that i would always be yours,
to the point where i forgot that
it is utterly possible to lose you.
once again,
this poem makes no sense,
just like my incoherent thoughts
that have your name written all over
them.

{m.j.}