I am one, a particulate suspended
in an infinite collection of
breathing stardust
alone standing on
earthly surfaces.

And you are the life I began
to understand in the poetry of
your words that I long to
**** in and inhale for the rest
of this illusionistic superficial reality.

1.) I will become engrossed in the written words of an author that grace the pages of my books and the words yet to be written as they collide over and over in my brain again and again until I am able to put pen to paper or my fingers to the keyboard and pour them out into works that flow from the very back of my brain to the (digital) ink on the paper

2.) I will strive to know your every thought and your every fear; your favorite coffee drink and your favorite store that ends in a vowel. though I will make no effort to allow you into the depths of my thoughts, to see anything deeper than the same bits and pieces of me that everyone else gets just from having their eyes scratch the service

3.) I’ll wake you up in the middle of the night with my panicked screams and heavy breathing as evidence that just because they left my life didn’t mean the nightmares did

4.) I am broken, though I won’t allow myself to seek comfort in your arms; no matter how understanding and welcoming

5.) I’ll never let myself believe I am deserving of the love that someone as passionate and affectionate as you could give

6.) I will cling to your side at all times, like a small child, for my own fear of people and my crutch to my anxiety

7.) When I somehow break and come to you, I will feel guilty; no one should be bothered with my problems but me. I could not force them on anyone as incredible as you

8.) I will apologize for every minor thing, be something that’s joked about or unspoken, for the thought that a tight grip on my waist and a name, anything besides my own, will follow

9.) I am afraid of relationships; I have a strong fear in putting my own happiness into something else. A sole beacon of hope and comfort and warmth that I have craved so long in darkness and the cold glare of my exes’ new girlfriends, for whatever they might have heard

10.) I’ll never feel like I give you enough, for someone like you will always deserve more than me

-  j. b. (march 20th, 2014)

The one who walks
is tired,
she is about to lose her energy.

She moves between mines
frightened,
whenever is day or night.

A step she takes,
a lost of health,
a step she takes,
another light goes out.

Her life,
it dies
slowly around every corner.

She leaves herself in broken pieces
on sidewalks
and in front of windows.

One girl, a mine,
shivering and swearing
almost without legs
that the lighted city still looks dark.

Her who walks
almost without life
looking for a way out.

Footprints that burn.
So many cousins,
but no help.

A lost one
who found with
-and took for guide today-
the moon.

Come back loved;
come back, dear.
Come back.

If you move,
if you wrap again,
you see it rains and...

Just one last time
let yourself go and you will see
that with you the desire of continuing to live and walk
will be back.

do you ever wonder
about the difference between
looking at something
and the hallucination created
when looking past it?
if you look at your hand
it's all you can see
but if you look past your hand
there are now two of them
sometimes it's hard for me
to remember which is real
it gets me thinking
about how my father
used to wake me up
in the morning by rubbing
his stubble across my face
i spent my 11th birthday
under the assumption
that he might come back
if i drank his aftershave
like maybe if i could turn blue
if i could be his favorite color
on our bathroom floor
he would forget why he left
the paramedics were all sobing
as they pumped memories
out of my stomach
i coughed up the day the post-it note with your new address on it
burned a hole in our refrigerator
coughed up the day
the divorce papers came
and my mother
took a baseball bat to the mailbox
i've been choking on the splinters
for 17 years
it's been 17 years
since the last dinner plate
exploded on our dining room wall
17 years since my mother
started accidentally setting your place at the dinner table
17 years since italian night
at the restaurant on the corner
where the juke box
spat tired music
and like so many other things
it stopped working when you left
i guess it's no coincidence
since the juke box went quiet
that the cds in my car
only skip on "i miss you"
i've been hemorrhaging memories
for so long
and now that i'm looking back
i can no longer tell
the mirage from the truth
sometimes i swear
you showed up to my graduation
and last time
i was at your apartment
i can't remember
if the imprints of my hands
are in clay hanging on your wall
or if they were left in the mud
the day god had the audacity
to let it rain
or maybe it's like the time
i saw someone crying on a bridge
now that i think about it
i can't remember if it was me