Home is where the heart is
So I guess she doesn't have one.
Circling points on the map
Doesn't get her places.
Only empty drives
And moving on and on.

Running places to hide from mistakes
Accounts for small breaks in changing faces
But doesn't change a thing like
Cutting pages from a book of goodness
And pretending the world is worth being reckless.

But drowning in far flung fears is easy
It's treading stale air that isn't.
Drawing on the same breath for years,
A suffocation, imprisoned.
Stripped of dreaming and stiffened with passing seasons.
Home is where the heart is
So I guess she doesn't have one.

She doesn't remember this place
Or this name, or this face,
Because it all blurs together
Into something so forgettable.
Onto another town
She doesn't care to know
And treating people
As if they're something borrowed.
To keep quiet, and do as they're told
And erode time away for her.

Escape is an exit away, but
Fleeting thoughts keep her chained to the highway,
Riding until the road dries out.
Home is where the heart is
And I wonder if she'll find one.

I let my eyes unfocus
--Late at night--
To give them a break.
I let mint-speckled skies
Double
When I stop paying attention.

I don't wear socks anymore
--Because--
I'm tired of pretending
To feel warm-
Warmth walked right out along with you.
A billion layers
Only bring me a cold sweat.

I might acquaint my head
--Brashly-- with the wall
Because
I can't relearn how to
Fall asleep.
I wouldn't bother trying either-
You're going to be on the other side of my pillow.

I might as well
Learn to play
--Guitar--
So I can make these words hurt as much in my mouth
As they do in my head.

A painful obsession with impressing
Is controlling me.
Tickling my throat to move,
To beg for your attention.

I'm far too worried with
What sounds better,
Hey or hello?
Or is hello too stiff?
Maybe hi...
There's no words I could write or say
To undo that last goodbye.

But figuring out
What to say
Is wasting the entire night away
And you're already leaving
And I'm still, already choking
I'm so scared I'm
Bumming a drag or two.
I thought I said I'd stopped smoking.
I guess it's hard when smoke-filled lungs
Are right at home with thoughts of you.

I wish I could let the impression
That impressing matters
Swim free.
But I'm caught up
In a dead sea
Of thickening greetings
Thought up too quickly.

Yeah love is like fire
But what they don't say is
It's connected at the hip
To tender wax
And must be carefully kept.

They don't teach you in class
That you're born walking on
A bed of hot coals
That threaten crackles of heat
Upon verdant soles.
Your parents never told you,
Your life is on fire.

I bet you didn't think
Blue eyes were deceiving.
That they burn hottest
With a flame worth keeping.
There's a reason we crave light in the dark.
There's a reason I crave you in the dark.

Playing with fire is natural
Why did it take me so long
To discover that?

Some people erupt from under the stars
Soaked in drizzling nighttime coats, and
Draped inside and out with magnetizing mystery.
They swallow a captive gaze
From worlds away.

Some people shine with something darker than dark
And all eyes shimmer with the sight of them
Even after
They’ve turned the other way
At a mile a minute.
Some people were designed for attention left in mark.

Some people never grow weary of gravity
So it lends more force, correcting disparity.
A lung-occupied chest could cave inward,
Easily,
Living under the same roof with that
Beautiful magnitude of breath.

Some people live in between pages--
They’ll never have to sleep, like we all have to sleep
Always dancing on the teetering edge of day
And night.
Somehow still swimming
In the blur, between beginning and end.
Some people blown into existence are scheduled to be statues
Some people lost too soon, like you,
Were made to be immortal.

christopher
you can't be so cold all the time.
half your face is always eaten
by hair, and
you've been ignoring phone calls.
christopher--
i miss when times were simpler.

you're keeping wild ghosts
slung 'round in bare sheets.
she doesn't even stay around long enough
to be called company.
every time back in bed is
a thousand naked defeats.

christopher,
your kind of loving is unbreakable
blossoming gentle
but unerasable.
you're sometimes delicate i know, so
i won't let you grow
paper skin so thin
cut by a shallow remark.

in all fairness its quite unfair
to think you don't belong here
so let us prove you do.
you're coming out with me as soon
as you unlock the door.
don't risk cutting yourself
on razor thin mistakes
that don't stack up.

christopher
always giving doesn't make you weak.
there's something glowing in your optimism
and how it survives burning alive each night
twisting up from lost ashes at morning's light.
don't let it taper away with
words on a page.

do you remember that time you
threw your keys in the street
and slammed your foot through a cabinet?
i've never been so scared for you.
do you remember driving home drunk in the fog,
stomach torn up with disgust?
i think you know it wasn't worth it
i think you know she wasn't worth it.

christopher
your life doesn't amount to some long con
i think you found who you found
for a reason
i think your life is more than
dreaming about old demons
and feeding dead feelings.
please believe there's reasons
for you needing the people you needed.
christopher--
i think you were made for picking up
Our pieces.