I dreamt of travel disruption last night
and haven’t woken up since; know that though,
a whole ****** of crows hidden along
the hemline of a coat was not the
reason I was late, nor were black stamps spat
out through mirrored windows, panes unmoored from
frames in the wake of two late goodbyes: one
said at a check-in desk disguised as point
A; the second, central, wrapped around an
orbit of children where they now lay.

This news- again, it is news- is an air-
bag of ears, of interviews, listening
so we don't have to, colouring pallor
in post so the ghosts of aftermath do
not go unnoticed when we believe it
may not of have happened.

I'm going to buy out the sky right of
tragedy and skywrite,
                                     vandals of companionship are not tolerated below this message, or above.

Start not—nor deem my spirit fled:
  In me behold the only skull,
From which, unlike a living head,
  Whatever flows is never dull.

I lived, I loved, I quaff’d, like thee:
  I died: let earth my bones resign;
Fill up—thou canst not injure me;
  The worm hath fouler lips than thine.

Better to hold the sparkling grape,
  Than nurse the earth-worm’s slimy brood;
And circle in the goblet’s shape
  The drink of Gods, than reptile’s food.
Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
  In aid of others’ let me shine;
And when, alas! our brains are gone,
  What nobler substitute than wine?

Quaff while thou canst: another race,
  When thou and thine, like me, are sped,
May rescue thee from earth’s embrace,
  And rhyme and revel with the dead.

Why not? since through life’s little day
  Our heads such sad effects produce;
Redeem’d from worms and wasting clay,
  This chance is theirs, to be of use.

a message to every person who's name still echos in my mind and makes me shiver.

1. you were the first to give me a purpose. my body was small and your hands fit me almost as tight as your sheets. you were lost, and found home in the curve of my neck and the touch of my tongue and every story I dreaded to tell. you were a headache that throbbed in my teeth and crept down my throat. but I had a taste for a different type of pain.

2. you were nights without sleep for fear of the dark. you were the monsters in the closet and the dust along my bookshelf. you were The Calm Before The Storm that made me wish I was landlocked. you were venom in my veins and rope burns glowing along my throat. I've never believed in God but I pray for your victims when I watch you play life like a vicious game, and I still hope for your salvation.

3. you were a test I knew all the answers to but still proceeded to fail. you taught me to crave everything that was wrong. adrenaline has become the new form of oxygen. you are speed and I am the streets and everything inside of us aches to be free of the roles we are still forced to play. the lines in your palms are more familiar to me than my own, but you never let me hold your hand.

4. you were red in a world of black and white. I watched you fall like waves at my feet and I felt you pull back over time. you were the tides, you were the new moon covering me with shallow darkness, silent as I stumbled in the sand. you were the whistling wind pushing my hair over my eyes just so you could have the chance to pull it back behind my ears. you were salty kisses and warm skin, but you were too hot to touch.

5. you were a fairytale I so desperately needed. you gave me purpose like 1, sleepless nights like 2, had the same name as 3, and held thoughts as loud as 4 but a mouth just as silent. you were a thunderstorm in a four year drought, a fire in my mind, a force I could feel and never see. you held flashing lights and warning signs but I only squeezed my eyes closed even tighter. you are the scars along my wrists that show me I am so, so fragile. you are the suicide note waiting so patiently to be read, a reminder that I am not the only one who doesn't want to breathe anymore. but I would die for you.

It is three years ago now that the boy first saw the girl;
She had smiled at him and he melted for the very first time.
He thought her eyes looked like caramel and her freckles like little sprinkles on her cheek.
She thought she could lay forever in the folds of his chest and that his hands were as soft as flour.
The boy realized he used to be frozen and he felt himself thaw each time his fingers graced her leg.
The girl told herself that if she could just stay locked in his eyes she’d make it through.

It is one year ago now that they questioned their relationship;
The girl felt loneliness in each breath she took.
He thought being apart may be good for the two but still kept a framed picture of her at his bedside.
She thought the last time they spoke he’d been too quiet and wondered if she should go knock at his door.
The boy loved the girl and felt himself ache with missing her what she used to be; what was she doing right at this moment?
The girl loved the boy and lost herself in the confusion of it all; what was he doing right this at moment?

It is a month ago now that the boy and the girl went separate ways;
Not a day goes by that they don’t think of one another.
He thought that the girl became too engulfed in her sadness and hated himself for not being able to kiss it all away.
She thought he no longer loved her and cried more than she ever thought a person could cry.
The boy realized that his love lacked the strength to patch up the cracks that blew through her and even himself.
The girl hollowed out but knew it would be okay because sometimes affection and sadness are romanticized in all the ways that make love a staggering piece false hope.
And oh, did they hope.

your beauty is so
overwhelming
that i want to open
multiple tabs of you,
crash my computer
with curiosity
and overwhelm capacity,

in the blue screen that follows
i unscramble coding language,
and spell your name and
traits that i admire,

in that moment during restart
staring at the black of screen,
thoughts of 'us' are interrupted
when i see my own reflection.

there was
  a time in my life
when i didn't know
that
gin
existed.

at some point
   someone put a
gin and tonic
  in my hand,
and i said with delight,
"this is so refreshing!"

i bought the
cheapest gin
i could find
until i heard
snoop rapping
about tanqueray
and i thought to myself,
"what the hell is tanqueray?"

come to find out,
it is a delicious
gin, in a classy green
bottle with a red stamp.

how lovely!
things were just getting better!
i love limes, and
in no time,
a lime version of tanqueray,
"rangpur" arrived,
and i discovered
DIET LIME TONIC

life seriously couldn't get any better.
let's look at the mathematical equation, shall we?

gin=refreshing=limes=tanqueray=snoop=all around good times

marvelous. let's fast forward a decade.

gin=tanqueray=tears.

i honestly wish
life was not this
way and i
could go back
to the way
gin used to be.

and here is the
point i'm
trying to get to -

i'm so blah ...
   so u n i n t e r e s t e d
so unfocused
     that the thought
of going into a store
  to get tonic was
too much for me to bear.
seriously.

so.
i'm drinking gin. with ice. and a little straw.
i have limes in my fridge,
and lime juice.
i looked at both of these items,
and could not summon
the strength
to move either
from the fridge to
the counter,
let alone my drink.

the next step on the road
to the river styx
is gin with no ice and a straw.
then just gin in a glass.
then just gin straight out of the ******* bottle.
then i would just eat the beautiful tanqueray glass bottle.
that seems to be the jist of things around
this place (by "this place" i mean earth) in general.
it's entropy. pick one of the definitions -
i'm pretty sure that poetically any of them apply.
personally, i think
heat death
sounds the best.