warped shadow soaked,
purity bathes.
drowning the disguised,
and blunder splashes.
submerged and silent,
yet pearls still shimmer.
denial lost, slips
down the drain.

You were covered in detail,
detail I will never escape.
My dreams are spitting and
laughing, screaming messages,
and I fail convey,
reading only between the lines.

Wiping the tears from my face,
you kissed me in a crowded hallway,
beneath the jacket you held above
our heads, as the passerbys
passed us by.

Now and then, these days
drift by, carrying the secrets,
deeply entombed.
Embodied within my waking life,
sparks fly.

Only a few days after you pass,
reminds me of time,
how like sand it slips
through an hour glass.
it has been long since
I have laid my head back
and listened to the flow of jazz.
how it unwinds and unravels,
carefully, each moment to the next.
sometimes, wildly,
it dances upon a rhythm chasing
a fleeing feeling.
as if it were creating a story
with a ******,
where until reached,
keeps you wanting more.
no amount of pain inflicted
could numb me,
the free sound of jazz.
no other sound could ease
or tender any better
than the sweet sound
that sent my senses
bringing them to the heavens

"as if I were hiding something,"
you repeated minutes later
aloud after me.

the buzzing turned to hissing,
and I know that you told
me this all once before.

and I didn't have the chance to
tell you that I was not ready,
but you wasted no time,
and ignored my request to
move slowly.

at the stoplight
colored red, I screamed
and got out of the car.
Waiting and hiding
in the corner store.

the time that I realized that
you were stronger than me,
and I couldn't get you
off me for all that I tried.

heart races, neck held
against the wall.
she walks to school
with a black eye.
and I laugh, because
otherwise I'd cry.

distant ridge,
birch branches
bend within the wind.

empty, calm
and all the while
I talk to strangers
and pretend the ghost
of a boy lives on
by my side.

So, I do as I am told,
walk tall,
head held high-
and just for that,
I shall never
walk alone.

The branches bend,
some branches break.

Ridge to ridge,
the sun shines
somewhere within.

heart on my sleeve,
and I will make believe,
that the ghost of a boy
lives on by my side.

my naked body
captured still.
black and white,
grain and all.

I was young,
and you told me
it was art.

I stood in the light,
against the white
plywood board,
and waited until
the shutter snapped.

Shy and sad,
I felt no fear.

Years go by, and photos
float from finger tip
to finger tip.

Body bare, body all,
my photo still hangs
on your wall.

Walking the French quarter
with the Mississippi River next to me,
I don't think I knew what to think -
other than that it was all so new,
and I was in awe.
the Southern fauna,
so sweet and mesmerizing.
the streets flowed with life,
as the architecture towered together
above their heads.
how it gave some sort of mysterious
chill down my spine.

days before, drunk in a cab
riding through downtown
Chicago, "West Grand, please"
- I wondered if I was
feeling nothingness.

so i splash my face
with warm water
and walk outside,
door slams.
cause it hits,
like a ton of bricks,
that is when you
start to feel that
awful feeling of nothingness.

hours later,
buried under covers,
I am cozy laying by the
space heater.

death grips,
and shadows blend.
You lied to me.