She told me
I reminded her of LSD.
I always changed her world
but it was guaranteed that
I would leave.

I find myself reaching for heights greater than my own
Scaling obstacles, like the decaying crumble of buildings

every inch of me searching for something to hold on to
Some sort of purchase to bring my tumble to an ending

and give me a moment to pick up the pieces

I am Striving

To be the man you once imagined I would
Trying hard to dress the part of your eyes reflection

To improve upon that young girls idea of what it meant to be a man
To stand a little taller in hopes of procuring the stars



I am Striving

To turn back time
To climb on to that roof where whispered words were exchanged from trembling lips while the summer stars hung bright above the trees and
Listen
Listen to the sharp intake of breath as we both suddenly realized how far we’d fallen
Not knowing that we had climbed so high...
Never knowing what it meant to hit the ground


Our impact shook the world

I am Surviving
The earthquake that cracked our foundation

The unmitigated mess I’ve made of our moments
Me left staring at my fragmented reflection, wondering how I got so far off track
 


I am Surviving
One day at a time

One foot above the next

Climbing over shattered summer rooftops
Trying to clear the pieces of the home we built

Searching for where my road begins

Still not knowing what it meant to fall so hard

Pinned my stomach to the sky
Strung it up with tinsel and filament
Carved kisses into my sternum
With elastic lips.

I can feel you fading from me,
Morsels creep away,
Nothing holding them there
Any longer. I feel less sad.
It is somehow worse.

You had long since left.
Where did the memories
Of me go when they unstitched
From your head?

My heart beats
Like a stillborn child
Against its mother’s womb.

I am an uninflated punching bag
You have hair like chocolate fire
And a sun inside your face.

I stared as hard as I could,
Burned your chapped lips and brow
Into my retinas, you left
The ghosts of your arms
Around the back of my neck.

I, petrified,
Pretend you are a still-life
And paint you onto my eyelids,
With faded ink from
childhood picture books.  

My stomach is a canopy
Of starless sky pouring half
Digested everything
Onto the robins in my chest.

I see you and smile,
But maybe you missed it?

I am going to a movie
With a girl who wants to kiss me.

I am gathered up inside
All of her arms.
She cries to her friend
In the backstage bathroom.

I do not know how
To make the words happen.
She finds me beside her
And her mouth is on fire.
I wish my hands were holding
The soft of her cheeks.

She says:
I thought we were going to be together.

I know I have a heart,
Because it is trying to leave me.

I washed my hair for the first time in three weeks and
learned to stop walking on tiptoes
                I am the bitter taste at the back of your throat.
Some nights, I turn on every light in the house and sit awake picking skin
from my chapped lips
               I am full-circle and puncture wounds.
I wanted to be the girl to wear her heart on her sleeve but
my armband was embroidered with a *******

I was misinformed. Romanticised.
There isn't romance in 4am shudders, in skin stuck to the teal sofa or the sweat between my
shoulder blades. In yellow stained fingers nicotine or black stained lungs tar.
For protection, I tried pouring a ring of salt - and found myself
sitting cross-legged on the floor
rubbing salt into my wounds
           No ritual can protect me from myself.

I wonder when Jenga became a metaphor for my life
Piece by piece,
I am being stripped away
Just so I can keep playing this game
One by one,
They are taken
Leaving me off-balance and unfocused
I wonder how long I can keep going
*Before I fall