When the world knows who to look for
And how to spend their seconds
What will you say when
Your palms are empty with choices?
When the clicks are in tune without you and
Their sounds know where to go
When you run to find the oceans
Have all but dried up
And you've been looking in all the wrong places
What will you have left, to call yourself?

I hate this place.
I hate this feeling,
I hate these people.
I hate *** and
I hate food.
I hate the weather,
I hate this music.
I hate that I'm afraid of death's first kiss,
I hate this air.
But most of all, I hate that no matter what,
I will never hate you.

It’s ridiculous to try
To comprehend whether you tasted
Bitter or sweet in my mouth
All these years.

My legs are on the brink of
Breaking, shattered bones from
The weight of voices.

From every comfortable slumber
and sleepless night

You are my favorite dream.

When i hear the electric strings
The strained throats
The memory of You turns into
Liquid form that bathes me.

I found myself in the directory
With pink ink
Scribbled by blood
Of mental clarity

Today, I was going to call you
I thought about it all day
I practiced what I would say to you
"hey, hows it going?"
"hi, how are you?"
"you doing okay?"
but none of these questions were about me
I didn't rehearse lines such as
"oh yeah I went to a concert yesterday" or
"been working a lot" or
"I hate you".

Today, I was going to call you
because even though I wouldn't admit it,
I was scared of your anger for not having
jumped as your lap dog after 2 days
1 day
a few hours
I know how you feel about me
I know what you say about me
So today, I was going to call you
but no matter how many times I say
"how high?"
when you ask me to jump
you'll always tell everyone
I'm a terrible kid.

so I'm not ******* calling you today.

During the most uncomfortable instances
I think back on the piña coladas and sweet cream
Still fresh in the fruit, still whole
The salty air left sand on
The creases of my eyes
We found medallion shells together
But I held my own hand then
And let the blue wet my shorts
Unexpectedly, there was nothing to be afraid of.

Coffee stains on white sheets
Only spots and insignificant
When I inhale your bare face
Into my womb, hide safe in me.

I really hate that everyone looks like pieces of you.  
Skinny hands, ***** fingernails, thinning hair and yellow skin.
Stomach acid bubbles up and the bitter taste of your lying words surfaces on my tongue.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand tall when the stench of your black stain, lingers, unwashable, even when I bleach myself to death to rid myself of your impurities, you goblin.
You have given me no satisfaction, let me live loosely,
I would crawl a mile to you, knees bleeding, pleading you to release me,
Remove the destructive fear of looking any man in the eye anymore.
You don't exist but in a stale memory of a time I wanted to go back to someday.

But not today.

How far are you willing to go?
Would you let the sharp shard of satisfaction
Cut you where it matters?
Would you let yourself bleed colors on the floor?
How far would you let your glass heart
Crack again?

I ran from the woman I couldn’t yet see
Her heart too wild, her soul too free
Lost in the ache of everyone else's touch
Fearing the depth of feeling too much.

So I stop running, though fear grips my hand
And face the mirror I can’t yet understand
Endless reparations made a mosaic of fire
A masterpiece born of struggle and desire.

But love waits softly, in shadows I chase
A quiet whisper, a tender embrace
In broken shards I start to believe
The woman I’m running from wants me to breathe.

She's alive! I gasp
Waking in the saturated falseness of my dream
I drive for hours every time
Just to see you proud of me again
Are you proud of me again?
Your tired eyes pierce my rest
And I always fall for it over and over
Knowing well I'm stuck in a bubble of lies
I'll still look for you, frantically
To tell you what I never said.

We made plans some days ago to see the food truck on Saturday. It wasnt just any food truck; it was the Hello Kitty truck. You knew I had been wanting to see it in california but we never got a chance to go. We loved going to california. The calm beauty of our vacations made everything else so forgettable. My boss gave me a paper showing me how to get to the truck. I couldnt believe it was coming to us. There was no hesitation in your agreement to join me.
We drove Saturday morning in the early sunshine. I hated mornings, but they can be bearable for the right reasons. Driving with you is one of them. We were so laughably broke all the time but it didnt matter. Money comes and goes, but time stays and turns into memories. We would find gas somewhere. The journey was 1/3 the fun. The music was the other 1/3, and the destination was the last.
Arriving, we saw displays of expensive plastic. Cookies I could make at home with love. It was a sad sight. We couldnt afford anything that was on the menu, and the line was so long. The day was warm. I looked at you and shrugged. You flashed your warm smile. I loved you. The days couldnt be that bad with you. I asked if you wanted to go to a coffee shop. You were relieved to leave. We discussed consumerism and hated the hand life dealt us. But it was okay. You taught me how to play chess in the corner of the coffee shop. They had a lavendar drink that made me think of you. You loved lavendar. We talked and played chess for hours. Everything would be okay, I always knew.

A man sits outside to watch the dusk. Scents of rosebuds and freshly cut grass arise. The blades all uniform, standardized. His chair feels cool, like the bottle in his hands. She, inside, creates his favorite dish like muscle memory, the glass door in between them. The children are safe in the shelter he has provided. There is nothing out here.
Only the mind and all of it's heavy storage. The key is always accessible, but he never wants it. Nothing has changed, but nothing is the same anymore. Inside closed eyelids are ghosts of his friends' torn up soccer ball and his father's ***** hands. They smell like earth.
The garden was bare towards the end, but once, a long time ago, he had oranges. There was everything out there.

The strongest force in nature will erode
That seemingly unbreakable
Stone, marble, mountains firm and tall.
The river shapes, carves, molds
Creating the future, tracing the past.
The ocean surges, waves alive with breath
And whispers, “This was a battle I’d always win”.
The pull is deep and everlasting
And drowning might be worth a handful
Of pebbles and skipping stones.

You're still a child
fighting the dark asphalt
to find your mommy again
she's lost you to the cold
wanted posters cloud the telephone poles
where have you been?
She asks.
You've spent your whole life trying to answer her.

A sea of sweet, bitter gulps
the truth is so far away from me
it sweeps me here like dust, I am
back to the soil
where the flowers slow dance in the place
they've always been
tough and sturdy
reliant, time and time again
with branches and leaves
and books and time
and grapes melted in my throat
help me be here, stay here
with me.

Days move like smoke
Shifting, Slipping, Intangible
Dreams that I have clutched so tightly
Have unraveled in my hands
And I wonder if they were ever mine
Or just borrowed stories
I was too afraid to rewrite
Change comes quietly
Like a tide rising in the dark
Washing away all that once was.

Some endings are not always loud
Some you don’t notice until they’re already gone
This strange middle ground
Is not the version that I imagined

I am bruised but still standing
I am lost but still walking
And when I arrive , it will be a shedding
Layer by layer
Until I am bare
And afraid
And free.

Sink your teeth into my flesh
And let my arteries explode into your throat
It once had the tune of drums played
For the day of the dead
Where we first met in the ghosts of people
Long forgotten.
I would so much rather you
Chew the muscles of my soul and
Trap me inside of your growing black hole
So that I may see the stars shining brightly
For me in the end.

Is there anywhere that I belong
Besides the empty pink room
Of my twelve year old memories?
I keep searching for the key
To unbolt the little rotted door
And let wholeness flood once more.
Maybe it was never meant for me
To know long lasting security
Without fleeing from what could be
Something to be ripped from me
again and again.

You are the silence after the rain
The scent of the wet aftermath
The earth holds its breath in renewal
I see you in the stillness between moments
When time feels less sharp
A rhythm that asks nothing
But gives everything.
The aches of the days dissolve
Like frost melting under the morning winter light
In your eyes, there is no urgency
Only infinite tenderness, a horizon of calm
You are not just a place to return to
But the quiet I carry deep within me.

I traced the shadows beneath my eyes
New hollows carved by nights spent
Waiting for a fire that never came
I drenched myself in gasoline just to
Beg you to take my light.

Once, my face was smooth and warm
Free of this scar tissue made up of
fear and loneliness
Love unravels in the weight of your gaze
Which I carry in my chest, like a
Silent cough that worsens at night.

How unfair that the world goes on
While I hold the fragile shape of
Your bleeding heart in my aging hands
And the nights press heavy against
My skin, marking me like its own
In soft, sleepless bruises.

In the quiet moments at 1pm
The world moves with my thoughts
Melodies pass through me like whispers,
The echoes of your laughter
Twist into questions that I still can’t answer.

I walk familiar roads alone
Wondering if I’m searching for you or
The person I lost along the way.
Some nights I search for memories
Like constellations in the stars
Faint, flickering lights.

I want to know what I want
To hold certainty like a flame in my hands
But desire shifts like a plague in my mind
Like the shadows that I grew to love
I hear your name from a great distance
And something else that I don’t understand.

I will stand in this space
Missing you, missing me
Waiting for the soft silence
To answer me.