Where do I begin.
It's been so long since I've been so close to the end that I could smell the earth around me.
I think I've been playing both sides of the field so long that I can't differentiate between a graveyard shift,
and a cold dead sunrise. But I wouldn't know the difference between differentiating and diffusing dreaming
Dead dawn rises opening up this world
Dead dusk down on a twitch throe, circling the fence around my collapsing line of vision
Sorrow and ***, the two things I like best that I want less of the more that I get.

If I could go back...I would have kissed you on the river. I would have shown you with tenderness, what it is like for your life here on this world to be wanted. I would have given you what love feels like beyond the shade of fear of loss, the ultimate gift I would keep on giving.   And then I would've stricken you with my oar until your beautiful body no longer broke surface intentionally. It would have been the gentleman's way of settling things. Instead I chose the dreamer's.

I've been in camouflage, hiding well from you. hoping to escape within the community of a seemingly functional
system.
Found it hard to keep my cool when utterance of a simple name or phrase could throw me into breathing lasps,
When the sight of a single stone upon the ground could be a city in the sky, my last gasps are playing and
rewinding and then playing, and rewinding, and then playing, and rewinding and then playing, and rewinding and I'm laying down the sheets upon the floor, because the bed reminds me too much of the perfect story memory     I'm
                             alone.    In a
                                                   building.  In a
                                                               ­              desert. In a
                                                               ­                                  deadlocked staring contest between me
and my reflection in the moonlit water memories that make up all I am were was are is will ever ******* be
If you can't escape in a ******* dream then where the **** else am I gonna go?

I've wasted my life, observing, becoming less a part of all the things I spend time looking at.
                   Removing myself from the final edit.                Hoping somehow,
                                                        ­                                         That total abstinence,
                                                     ­                                            From your world,
                                                          ­                                       And my worldly desires,
                                                        ­                   Will
                                                            ­                somehow
put                                      ­                               Me                                                               ­                                      in
                                                              ­            CONTROL.



Love is about control for you.                                                             ­    I believe in you.
                                                            ­                                                       I don't know if I believe in control.
It doesn't matter if I believe in love.

Someone please just see the justification for anything I do.            I am begging for a partner. I have no one to observe
                                                         ­                          me.

If I seem hellbent, please...I am merely driven by demons to an end I would have no means to reach if I was...


left alone...

I don't know what it is that gives you the nerve or the will to live in my presence any longer.
I don't know what makes me hold on so tightly to your soul in this world either.
Truth is, you could have easily gone away last night and never come back...but I engaged the reaper in fisticuffs and told him there could be only one.   Needless to say he was a little confused.



I've broken a promise almost every day since the day I said I would never leave you.
                                         And I've thought about you every day since the day it was too late to realize I loved you.
Why then, can't I let you go? Out into the night. Where you belong?
                                               You have my permission to die, but only over my dead body will you find salvation.

If we live in a world where people build walls out of their morals, then I must be some kind of ******. That might explain why I talk to plants.
But I got really good at climbing from hangin' 'round you, and I also got real good at runnin', and eventually I ran away.
That was years ago. And I just now learned how to stop. How to stop running, and smell the flowers. There's so many flowers, and all they want is for you to stop running and enjoy their presence, even for a second.


but sometimes to survive, you have to pick the flowers for later, in case you run out of food, in case you run out of run and need to dig yourself a nice little grave, preferably at home, and set the flowers up on top. Sometimes you have to feed off of others as a reality check that you can still make things move and that you can still move people.

Every time I ran away from home, it was nighttime. And I'd get about a quarter mile down the road and turn around to find you hot on my heels. When I'd get about a half mile down the road I'd always turn back.
                                                                ­                                                                 ­                                       for home.
I'd lay in my bed and think about dying and say, I don't want none o' that.  and then you'd dig your nails into me really hard to remind me that I was mortal.                                      Everyone was born to live.
                                                           ­                      Not everyone lives to die like you.
                                                            ­                                                                 ­                                  You'd say.


I laid there for many years. Thinking about what you said. It was hard to figure out because I couldn't tell if you'd really said it or not. And you always watched me thinking.                 ...what were you thinking?
I've decided.


              It's not practical to fight any longer. As time, the only father figure I ever had, has shown me, all good must come to an end.                   Though I'm not sure how this world will survive without you, and though tears have flown free as the world's waters as I've written all of this, and though you are the closest thing to a God that has ever been mysterious to me...I have decided.      and I have Realized just how important it is for one to die
                                                                ­            
                                                    ­                                                                 ­                                                         at
     ­                                                                 ­                                                                 ­                                           home.


What you don't realize about me is,                for me...


Home is in other people.

























                                ­                                             and i ran away years ago.

Dawn's withheld in a single breath
The somber call of a lonesome crow as he mourns the waning light
Begets ripples in the frozen lake
And everyone forgets a moment after
And I forgot the moment passed

We drank to the life worth living
And no one's left still breathing
To live while you were leaving...
All the birds have stopped singing

Twilight broke the morning tonight
The sun cannot bare to light us any longer
I walked to the waters edge to pray for strength
I turned around and beheld an entire world of
Silence, Sounding so valiantly
The Elegy of my return
I have since forgotten the melody

Oh forgive me, I have stopped singing your song
Please believe me, I did not see you for what you were.

The moon hung low, and watched me from right outside my window.
I couldn't sleep. Thousands of ways to die played like films reels on two dark red walls behind my eyes.
Excuse me, thousands of ways to be happy appeared like holograms as the light shone through my window.
And I saw now.    And then I saw now.    And now I see now.          But not now.
I see a flickering spotlight darting around my room. I'm giggling.  
...I'm giggling?
I think the last time I giggled was before I knew what the verb giggle meant.
Oh little light...you are fooling me into thinking I am now someone I am not anymore.                    I'll watch you. I'll watch you like the moon watches me.    
Now I'm seeing...these things I think they're called memories.
I'm remembering the journey I took once...and you beside me, sharing every moment.

And now I remember the fallen ones.
The Green One, the mother.
The First One, the father.
The One Who Looked Like the Sea, the son.
The One That Got Away, the antagonist.
The One With the Broken Back, the lover.
The Two Who Nearly Drowned, brother and sister.
The One of All Hues, the adopted son.
Why do they come to me now? I know where they all lie. I laid them there.
Perhaps I wasn't ready for them to be memories yet...but what could I do?
What the hell could I have done?     They told me, it was time.  They had to go.

  Like they had a place to be that wasn't with me, and it was urgent.

They told me this was my world now...and I didn't know what that meant.
But now I think......................I see you.          You're as restless as I am.

Look at you. It's like you never even stopped journeying.
                                Through life, through death, you didn't care.
                                                
                                                Sometimes I wonder what goes through your head.


You seem to see something I don't, something behind the scenes.
Something that justifies living here. On this God Forsaken Rock.
Sometimes I feel like you're inches from figuring it out...then the next moment...
you look as puzzled as me.

If there is a God...first of all he needs to get away from my window.
He needs to stop making me see things.    And he needs to stop making uncontrollable circumstances that give me a reason to believe in him.

I'm not in tears as much as I was last time.     Last time I saw God.
He told me to start the rapture.            He told me to do it on May 21, 2011.
And I cried, and I begged him for an answer. And he just watched me cry.
And even through the tears I made the promise to do it.

And I broke my promise...I couldn't do it.          
I couldn't understand, I looked around and saw so many beautiful people.
And I looked in the darkest places of the world and I still found such beautiful people.
And now I realize...that maybe....maybe life is beautiful....maybe life has made them beautiful.      And maybe they deserve something better already?

I failed you once...hell probably more than once. But I'm gonna do anything I can to make it up to you.
Oh, little light.
It's time to quit your restlessness.
The sun is rising.
And the visions are going
to the other side.
We can follow them there.
But first you must rest.


I need this to be my world now.

You're sitting there.   Under the chair.   Staring at me.    Like years, and years, of what I'd like to call our life.   Your green eyes are like...the woods.    The woods we grew up in.    The woods we came back to.    The woods where we met

and where we will leave each other.    For a long, long time.

These woods are full of Huffy bikes, and tennis *****, and summer ski trips, and deep lake diving.     These woods are where friends are lost, music is found, first love finds you a hundred times, and nothing gets done.

I know you're thirsty, but you won't drink. You're sick of drinking.    I try to tip the water up to your lips, but you turn your head. I beg you, "Please, just do it for me."    You take one sip but no more.    If I could breathe life, you'd find me kissing you.    If my tears could heal, you'd find me sobbing on your forehead.    
But I don't want your last memories of me to be sadness, so I turn my head away, and use every fiber of my being to pull out a smile for you.

We raised each other.    and not once did you not come when I called for you.
We saved each other.    and I don't want to think about life without you.
We fought each other.   and you always came back into my arms.
I    love         you      .     and I don't want to have to bury you.

This is not a hopeful poem.
                                                  This is hardly a poem at all.
                                                  This is based on true events.


I can taste you in my mind. Even in memory you're sweeter than anything I could have presently.
        and        I         will           follow        you       to           the         brink


My New Year's resolution is to finally talk to my dad! I've never gotten to know him but I swear I'm gonna get him to open up to me! I know things must have been awful for him ever since his daughter died. Parents shouldn't have to watch their children pass away. But I'm going to talk to him about it when I come home for the summer!

Hey, how are you?
Doin' good, stressed from school =/ but good
It's just a lot of work and I get homesick sometimes.
I would visit more but gas is really expensive, I'm gonna try to get a job soon.
Yeah, they're raising tuition soon too, but I know I gotta do this for my future.
We should hang out this weekend when I come home.
I understand, you're busy with work and school and stuff.
Well let me know if you're gonna be free. I won't have much to do.


the best friends are the ones you can talk to about the most random ****, and the most serious ****. Like you know you've got something real when you guys stay up all night and can't sleep, and he can't sleep because he's thinking about giant bumblebees and Halloween costumes, and you can't sleep because you're thinking about a girl you love but are distraught over, and you can just go off on either of your thoughts at random and be completely comfortable. I'm so glad I know....


I have been hanging out with the most amazing girl. She plays guitar and she sings and she's so good, and she's beautiful, and she paints these awesome Indian looking paintings, and she just makes me feel so happy every time I'm with her. She's really sad a lot of the time though, and she's really shy about talking about stuff that makes her sad, but I'm gonna work on it, and hopefully she'll tell me about her life. The best thing about her...is the things she does tell me, it's all the truth. It's the most truthful talk I've ever heard out of anyone. I think I'm starting to fall for this girl, she's truly really realistically literally amazingly beautiful.


They had separated five years ago. He really did follow her to the brink. And well beyond. And she loved him the whole time. But she never went back to him, she was too scared of the brink that she couldn't let herself follow.

He watched his daughter take her last breath. And he was silent. He drove home. In silence. He took a beer from the fridge and swallowed it in silence. and another. and another. and a shot of fernet. and another shot. and a piece of bread. and another shot. then the bottle. every shot he finished and hurled against the wall. unfeeling. until there was nothing left but a sea of broken glass and a pale face. He had more children. he forgot how many maybe to make up for the empty spot where she had been. maybe because he didn't want to wear a ******. more wives. he forgot how many. he forgot what countries they lived in and how many he had. He almost forgot he ever had three daughters. Then someone asked him one day...it was a boy...blonde, blue eyed, pale...like she used to be. The boy asked him what he felt.         He couldn't answer.            
The last thing he remembered feeling was the coldness of glass on his lips, and the fire in his throat.     that night he tried to feel it again. only this time it wasn't glass on his lips. It was metal.   He tipped it up to the back of his throat. And took the shot.


One time I went to college
To get a cool degree
And get a sweet-*** job
And make my parents happy
But then I realized
I missed my life back home
I missed some girl I loved
And here I felt alone
I figured I'd go back
And try to work each day
And that's when I found out
I'd have no place to stay
To my parents I was just another source of cash
That would keep them comfortable in their old age
And if I wanted to follow my dreams and my heart
I'd be stuck on my own without home or wage
So then on my spring break
I found out something sad
The people that I missed
They didn't want me back New Story!

We spent an entire summer together. The moment after I first said I love you I promised that I'd spend every waking hour that I could before I moved away with you. You were sad and happy at the same time. And we partied every night like it was our last night, destroying bottles of *** like we were ******' pirates. Blasting our music and singing like we were at war with our lungs and our ears and our throats but it felt so GOOD! I remember when I got banned from the apartments, I'd sit out in my car and just wait for you. Because you still had to drink. You had to numb yourself because there was too much inside you. I remember after I'd drive you home, I'd lay in bed with my best friend talking about how amazing you were, and how much I loved you, and he'd tell me how happy he was that I was finally happy for once.  I remember the night I found out you and him had slept together once. It hurt. But that was before I knew you, and I loved you both too much to be mad. I remember the night you ****** him again. And you watched me cry, and you were speechless. I remember when you told me you loved me, and I believed you...but you said you were free and it was beautiful, and you wouldn't give that up ever. I didn't believe you were free, and I never intended to shackle you. When you told me you loved me your words held no truth, but when you told me other things, your eyes were screaming I love you. I know you love me. I know you've told me more than you will ever tell anyone about yourself ever again. I remember talking to my best friend about how much he hurt me. I remember that being the first time I had ever wanted to fight someone. I remember him saying how much he loved me more than anyone else. I remember when you ****** him again. And again. And again. I remember the night you were 10 feet away. I remember the blanket you gave me the day before I moved away. You said I needed something that smelled like you.
That blanket...is in my closet. Underneath all my suits, and my other blankets, and my didgeridoo where I can't see it. Because it scares me. It scares me how much betrayal I can feel from an object, and how much I really really really just want to burn it or get rid of it somehow...but I can't.

PEOPLE ARE SCARED OF EACH OTHER. I know her past but not her present. She knows everything I think in the moment, but nothing about my life outside of her and I. I used to feel perfect with her. I probably still would. She won't come close to me now.
**** this ****.