We are complex creatures
And we've created a
Complex society
In which our humanity
Is both provoked
And utterly stifled.

He sips at a coffee
He won't waste.
Is the milk rotten?
Doesn't matter. He's
Had that before.
Nice now, to have food
In the kitchen.

He chuckles in a developed
Version of how he used to.
Pitch rising at the end.
He's happier now
That hungry haze
Has lifted.
That dark *** fiend
Who used to tease me-
He's gone.
Or maybe stifled
By the angel.

But God,
His hugs still crush me.
Those hugs are the same.
The eyes are the same.
The story is the same.

Wretched love murmurs
Sweetly as bitter bodies draw close,
Sporadic beating of hearts,
Hardly in sync,
But the ribs touch,
His more than hers,
And her ******* flatten
As his proximity
Weighs on her chest.

Wretched love breaks,
As one returns home,
Going back to smoke
While she goes away
To the corner she's
Made in her room
And she writes wretched things
While he thinks them,
Until she tires
And abandons the literary task
She feels obligated to pursue
Under title of "ideal career"
And now he's smoked enough
To to stifle the anxiety,
Numb the thoughts;

The love isn't wretched
But only shared
Between wretched individuals

I've found a poet
Who sings
A boy
Who feels
And let's his voice
Shake in songs
About airplanes crashing
Who tells me
He loves me
Very very very very much
And-
Happy Birthday darlin'

He has dark hair
And walks on a bridge
To watch a
Bowl of oranges
Float away.

The Calendar Hung Itself-
He says.
He'll visit the band in the morning.

God he strums smiling-
In pain
Brimming with paint-
What a waste-
A stepping stone on a path.

He's showing me the song.
I have the dregs of blanket
Collected around my legs.
He used coffee-shaking lighter
To light cigarette
And as he smokes it,
The exhales cover
The sun,
But it's still staring
Into my eyes-
Burning a sun impression
Against my eyelids
In electric green.
And the smoke stings
My sleepless eyes,
So I close them
And breathe like
A fish out of water
Until I'm breathing the chords
And finally recognize something.

You'll go quite well together-
Liars with cigarettes.
Your minds lie to themselves
When the green haze
Moves across the pathways,
Telling you it's all alright.
Giving you the confidence,
Sense of security,
You need,
To maintain such a bloated lie.
I hope when this is all over
And I'm gone,
You'll hurt each other.

My pencils are breaking-
Pens have spilled too much ink
But at least I'm still writing.
The flannel I have,
Smuggling collarbones
From chilly apartment-
I've worn that all week.
There's a cigarette burn
In one sleeve,
The buttons have come unhinged
During midnight runs to the corner
For cheap chocolate
And cigarettes.
Ramen boils
To salt my appetite.
But at least I'm still writing.
I leap from place to place,
Eyeing hoods passing by,
And I imagine guns tucked away.
The sink leaks,
There's not enough sun.
I'm high on debt
And college school books
Rot in the corner.
I guess my degree
Has gone putrid too.
My life's gone dingy and dark,
Suffocated by polluted winter.
Dark circles
Tell stories
Dreams can't remember.
But ******* at least I'm still writing.