I know now. Redemption hangs in the balance between the fertile crescent and the great pyramids.
The Genesis and the deconstruction.
The dowsing of the flame and the re-combustion.

We're all promised what we won't find. That's why you build up hope and waste your time.
Your position as protagonist will have you looking for exceptions, but we're all just clay living in the third dimension.

Clocks twirl and sing to remind you to keep doing what you're doing, but you would anyway, so who are they fooling ?

They're just as useless as the dollar or the president, or the concept of rules to our residence. And you can't shake the feeling that removing yourself would be best.

Though you're probably right, because our stagnant plight is leading to the roots and dirt. (It's clear as day)
But no one can stomach this, frightened and ******, so with new ideals or meanings we will flirt.

Be free.

We met when your best friend was in love with me.
You joked that you were falling in love with me, too.
I laughed.
Eventually, I fell back.
And we fell together, deeper and deeper into something we never did figure out.
Now, I am here wondering
when I will be able to stop wondering when you will come running,
arms open, to tell me
"It's you! It's always been you."
And I will laugh that it's always been you, too.
Except I won't be joking.

I wrote about the frozen water on the bay that last winter to convince myself
that you are not
the only thing
I write about,
and you're not really.
I just don't think the ice will melt unless you burn it with me this spring.

And sometimes I wake up empty
and wonder at what point in the night you got up and left,
the same way I used to.
And then I remember how long it's really been.
And I remain empty.

Some nights I don't sleep at all.
I wait for the sky to change.
I name the mornings after the times I missed you most
and the stars after the nights you decided to stay.
You always told me naming a part of the sky was foolish until I named one after you.

I take advantage of the catalysts.
I test how high I can stay and for how long.
There is so much happening in my mind that it's taken over my body.
And I am involuntarily running in circles.
My body must think that if it keeps moving,
it will eventually run into you.
I haven't eaten in days
because I can't find an appetite for anything but the way you tasted.
And avoiding "reality" is ironically easier when I'm awake for days,
Because I don't have to wake up to the sharp reminder that you're gone.
And that I miss you.
It's just a constant dull ache.

Missing you is driving all night to watch the sun come up but being too busy collecting sea shells you might have liked on the beach to look at the sky.

Missing you is wishing I had the guts to jump.

Every night it all comes down to missing you from the bottom of a bottle,
or the passenger seat of a strange boys car.

And every time I end up on a busy road,
I wonder how many other passengers are missing someone.
I wonder if before I learned to miss you,
people of the past could have ever imagined
that someone like you would buy an old snapshot of their child on a rocking horse from an antique shop,
in search of an imagined, falsified nostalgia.

And I wonder if the brain takes snapshots of what should be nostalgic,
thus leading to the invention of imagined memories.
When my most treasured memories are those imagined, how will I tell the difference?

The mornings we watched turn to light together (we never did),
The nights we spent without arguing (they never happened),
The time you told me you appreciated the way I saw the world (you never even opened your eyes).

And you used to tell me that searching for seashells and watching sunrises and collecting experiences that make me feel whole arent "real life".
And I'm dying to know what "real life" is because the one thing that is timeless is that the sun does rise.
And exists.
How much more real can we get?

But where's my credibility?
I believed in us.

And I was going to name this one after you, but I can't remember your name.

Dread is what I feel when I force conversation to escape my lips

Dread is what I hear when I hear your voice, or any memory you narrate in my head

Dread is what I taste when I taste sugarless coffee, bitter and desolate, always how you liked it.

Dread is what I see, when my minds eye looks back into the nights I held you near. It's what I see, when I see your half dead eyes faking joy.

Dread is what I smell when I get into my car and smell a cigarette or a perfume that resembles yours.

My life is nothing but dread. Every night is a funeral and every morning a death.

But there's still Breathe, so most would say I'm alive. It's as if they forgot our nature and what it is to strive.

My senses shackle me to this cross, which faces a movie screen of terrors. I watch and cry, continually suffering with widows and beggars.

Shut it off, I wish I could, you see, but another fear that holds life dear, Will not set me free.

It's as if my brain holds my chain and dangles above the key. It won't let me out, with the painful doubt that I will cease to be.

But it doesn't add up, this is what I want?  An expensive life, a beautiful wife, something I can flaunt.

The hypocrisy, is like this democracy which binds us to despair.

You used to stand by and cover my eyes, give me a rest from the pain, but my wounded flesh and my horror cries left you with disdain.

So then you left, what did I expect? The world shackled you not, so I'll just remain up here, shackled with fear, watching this eternal plot.

So they flee; once beautiful narratives detached from me and took off running.
For my own sake, I eventually follow and take off hunting.

Crossing the bridge to the ocean, finding no words above or beneath their pillars or the sun-setting shades on the water in motion.

Maybe I'll find the words perched on the bridge as a little black bird, who mirrored me in a way that resonated with my soul but whose tune sang not one melodic word.

I go to the ocean, and heavy waves collapsing onto beds of sand sighed no release for me, and I leave.

Home, I paint a picture and coaxed a thousand  empty words out of it, that rang like broken records and sang to me deep into the night.

I awake to a blizzard, beautiful white.
A cold I felt I'd brewed with my mind
So I try and dive into a novel only to find my mind's waters shallow, and the pages became no more than ink printed paper.
I think myself incapable;

I look to the bottle, mostly white,
It sat on my nightstand by white papers that so longed for me to write.
I kick my head back and let the words pour from the bottle and back into me, loosening my grip, they could finally flow free.