Why would you stop watering a plant
Because a leaf or two has wilted
That doesn't make it dead yet.
Don't leave the flower ***
Empty with regret.
And if you really think it's dying,
Why wouldn't you keep the leaves from drying?

I've been thinking lately how
People are too keen to throw out
Things that aren't completely broken.
I think maybe we've all grown too wasteful.
And I think maybe you've grown too hateful.
Always on the attack, turning bitter with the winter,
I'm scared to admit this love has grown fatal.
Maybe it's just the weather...
I wish it would have stayed November forever.

Lately the people I see around
Have been all-too-focused on choking
On the ways we were told how to feel
Not all of us always let love be real.
It looks like you fell victim to the culture.

Being in love doesn't have an expiration date
I don't know who taught who that
But either way I'm tired of watching you turn around
And around, and around,
Not sure whether to go west or east.
I guess it doesn't matter,
As long as it's not with me, right?

I'm sick of you exploiting distance as a problem
Distance doesn't hold a candle to feeling
Spend some ******* time dealing with demons--
And meaning it, stop screaming at me and
Sleeping through meetings.
But most of all, understand--
That love isn't fleeting.

I want you to know that
I don't think "us" is something we can't
Be, but
I'm finally over hearing you taunt me with:
"I'm tired of watering the dead plant."

My room has become a little less me
And a little more you
You've rubbed off on things by the shelf
Memories coated in a thin veil of you.
Dust prints on forgotten things.
Goodnight, goodnight, memories
Hung on the door.

Corners found branded with your name,
Initials carved into dry wall.
Things rearranged the way you like them,
The imprint of an old room grows tall,
Overtaking what's left.
Goodnight, goodnight memories
Stored in my drawer.

The girl in my bed reminds me less of her
And more of you, you see.
Or more strictly, how she could never kiss
Me, not like how your kisses could be.
Goodnight, goodnight, girl unbelonging
Next to me.

Why did I never call you Autumn?
Your colors are always changing
And my favourite parts of you
Are falling to the ground one by one
While I'm trying to coax your pieces back together
But we're just making a colorful mess.

The neighbors can't jump in you, I'll tell them
And the wind can't touch you, I won't let it
You're mine you're mine you're
Not going anywhere no matter
How low the sun drops.
I'm not peeling my eyes away from you
No matter how cold the air turns.

When the snow wants its turn
With the ground, just hold on
I'll find a place where it's fall forever
Where you can fall onto my lawn forever
Fall into my arms for...

I like the way your breath tastes
Around the time the windows drip with orange.
I like how you can make trees show themselves.

I know why I was born in November
I was born so I could come to know you.
That must be why I hate the winter.
Let's take a vacation when the calendar reads December.

When the snow wants its turn
With the ground, just hold on
I'll find a place where it's fall forever
Where you can fall onto my lawn forever
Fall into my...

I'd like to pretend for a few more days
That you aren't the shortest season.
I want you to whisper in my ******* ear
That we're here for a reason.

You're making things too beautiful
What a tease, what a waste
The season that follows, how exceedingly dull.
Night's on my heels sooner everyday
I'm not seeing you nearly enough.

When the snow wants its turn
With the ground, just hold on
I'll find a place where its fall forever
Where you can fall wherever you want.
In case my lawn or my arms aren't wide enough.

Something about cold lips makes me warm.
Something about your voice sighing a swear
Into my neck, makes me grip the bed.
Something about you makes me moan.

Imagine me pressing my hand into your nape
And dancing down your back.
Your skin is so special
I can't pull away.
Tattoo your body onto mine,
So we can do this forever.

Play me soft, now loud
Let's make music with our bodies
Chaotic choruses under moonlight
Shaky strums finding our song
Just right.

The silence in between kisses is golden when
I can hear you begging for more.
Let me explore so I can find my favorite spots,
And yours.

Something about my name on your lips
Gets me shivering.
Something about your body rips
Me apart and puts me together again.
There's something about you
That no one else can outdo.
There's some things that you do
That no one else knows how to.

we can pretend we’re jack and sally,
simply meant to be.
but really we’re joker and harley,
a disaster bred to leave
or else just fall apart.
babe we’re always playing games
but never playing as ourselves
and in all honesty i’d keep playing
if you too are so compelled.

i remember when you called yourself
alice, strung out and imbalanced,
riding from one edge to another
with a half-hearted intention
of having your whole life tip over.
i remember replacing your self-imposed noose
with that grey scarf,
because you needed somewhere new to rest your neck.
i’d break into that old school with you again
without breaking a sweat
just to have your lips part like the red sea,
breaking apart for me.

my stomach always squirmed when you said
“London,”
always scared of your need for running
and being stuck in the mundane,
the past life of past-you,
a constant re-run, when you got recast
or maybe killed off, or our contract didn’t hold fast
and i watched you walk right out of my TV
i watched, frozen, when you passed by me.
i wanted to play peter and gwen
and follow you, fight jack the ripper
and swing from big ben every now and then
but beautiful blondes were always fated to fall again and again
as stan lee said.

do you remember
the year of dev, me in suits
and lots of la dispute?
a rough spot, i’m sure,
but worth it at the end
when i caught up your heart
as the credits rolled
dedications and dead roses
blossoming another season of love.

sometimes i think of cliched times
like prom or new years eve
and I had hoped, maybe finally a halloween
i hold old memory lane tight like its my job
i go 60 down my mind, and with my brakes, i can’t stop
the days where your smiles keep coming
never-ending,
up-end me.
i earn those split lips and some teeth
like currency.
but those days dance around my calendar
falling like rain in a California-dry July:
uncertainly.

the thing about me is i come saturated
with sorry’s and mixtapes
and i don’t think anyone’s every quite ready
for all of that.
but my mixtapes, like me
like to tend towards a surprise
every now and again.
like how you’re nancy from now on
or maybe that’s me, i’m convinced
you have to be reading my poems.
rhyming’s everything
gotta get that **** right
“she’s a wolf and i like it when she bites me.”

one more remember when
before i rhyme you to the end
remember when
we played ***** king and queen
at high school prom
i was always good at spooking the scene
but you were only really good at ever scaring me.
you aren’t the nostalgic type
so i guess that duty falls on me
here it goes:
dear diary,
my dear is as far as the late solstice sun
and the distance is far enough to wrap my arm
around the other side
of the earth, and tap her shoulder
or i would, if it wasn’t so cold there.
i wonder who she’s playing now
i wonder who she is today
i wonder
i—

’m not ready for our year to end, yet
but summer left
like 500 Days said
and we’re bonnie and clyde again
falling over each other trying to run from time.
at least we’re not sid and nancy
well, one of us is
but which one’s which?
it’s always come as a matter of circumstance
trying to pick who’s been vicious.

but you’re still my november girl
and i don’t want our fall
to end, or start.
this was both of us at our best.
leaves are counting down the days till
the sun stops burning so hot and the trees stop working so well.
on daylight’ savings do the clocks stop ticking?
and do we stop ticking too?
or just you?
can i stop ticking until winter’s bringing
spring again?
or am i busy living
in my memories, like a has-been?

snow is here and you’re not.
the winter forever.
but no broken plea for my honeybee.
the birds are far and few between
and the trees feel as naked as me.
i guess having them is a little less lonely
but it’s not fair we call them leaves
if every year they come back.
what should we call you?
you have a million names
but none of them fit on tight enough to stick.
i don’t know what they’re calling you now
but i still want to.

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.

i wanted to be more than life stuck in these bones,
but they're intent on running.
i thought i'd be content with settling down
but i think they are hunting for something.
i can see myself moving from city or town
though its hard to feel more than motionless
when about a month maybe more
is all you'll make an appearance for.
i'd like to feel more than simply life in these bones
but right now they're only good for aching.

matching socks hide away my weak feet for a while
but it doesn't take long for the absence of skin--
reminding me my brittle feet are breaking,
creaking, wary under the weight of heavy bones.

my hands feel empty.
but doctor's say nothing's missing...
i know i'm losing something to distance
you can hear it if you listen.

i keep replaying the sound of your whole life splitting
its way from mine
a misgiving sound for a while i'd been wishing
not to listen to, but i
decided to make it into an alarm clock instead
to keep me from dreaming too big, because
nothing scares me quicker from sleep.
i'm relearning how ferocious
your memory could be.

and only when you look you will see
inside your reflection--half of what you should be
not a would-be, but a could've-been
stuck with ******' half-life personalities
singing for their expiration dates,
cracking under your empty gravity.
breaking, fading, floating away from reality.
it took too many broken bones
to realize how unbroken we weren't supposed to be.

myself personally, i think there's no sense in
looking in the mirror
when i see no more beauty there.
i could let loose these slippery bones
and collapse on the floor.
and i figure to stay here a while, because
i can't sleep inside silence anymore.
city sounds don't cut it, so
i let your memory whisper faintly to me
but not so gently, more in line with a taunt
composed of words like,
"you are the thing that carved the me
out of me
so of course i had to set myself free."

but you can keep talking to me
and choke out all the mystery
this is near to death--
it's half misery, half meant to be.
it's all left me.
you haven't been living the right way
and it's left my body empty,
boneless.
it's let my body empty-out;
crooked tendons pining towards you.
a sorry skeleton, crawling,
unable to keep it in the ground.

I'd stand in the shower until the water runs dry
And there's no more drops to drip from my fingertips.
I still myself when anyone else would shiver
These moments have stopped being instances
And grown into forevers.

Let's run away from time and here
You can figure out the rest yourself.
Demons underneath us will be too weak to scream,
And I'll be too free to breathe.

Are you afraid of the future?
Nothing scares me more than a ticking clock.

Being wrapped up here hasn't been so much about family and friends
But instead something about yelling "I'm not yours"
To the walls and the doors
That have shrunk by the inches, more every year.

I see their hands come through the ground
And let them drag me down neck deep
Whispering I'm the only one and how I belong
Pulling me back into this hometown mess with a sickening song.

Am I afraid of the future?
Ask me what scares me when my time runs out.

All this time I've been searching
For a little bit of you
And a little bit of me
Singing in harmony.

But I found nothing good
In that boarded up mine,
Just rots and rinds
From a chewed up love.

And I think if I could lead you
Into somewhere new
I would've done it by now
I should've done it by now.
But you might be locked up
In this tired old town
That doesn't make a sound
With the rest of the maps.

It looks like you found another
A foreign lover
Or two
That makes I love you forever
Feel forever ago.
Oh why did you go?
Why does it feel like
I'm the one home alone?

How'd you steal away a world
And it make it seem so small?
Pack it down into your coat,
Shrunk with such resolve.

I don't know how you lost your way.

1:52, Saturday afternoon
Aunt and grandma chatting through sips of tea
About a poor couple, light perished so swiftly
Now-cold bodies riddled with ******.
I thought quietly to myself:
Did they die contently? In each other's arms?
Or did those arms instead grip
At the fading sensation of skin
Begging not to let go,
As the euphoria turned to pain
As death crept into their bones?

It's times like this, during thoughts of these,
When my mind leaves the room
And travels towards thoughts of us
And how if I had to die, I'd die in your arms
Or in bed, with our bodies almost touching,
Smiling at the lightning that dances in the spaces between us,
Can you feel it?

And at that moment of collapse
When my lungs stop rising
I'll draw in my last breath of you
That darling smell of yours, indescribable.
So I must ask,
Could that couple have possibly felt
What we can feel when we lay in the dark,
When I trace roadmaps onto your body,
When your warm breath paints words
Around the nape of my neck?

I don't know. I don't care.
It's easily just as deadly.
But there's nowhere I'd rather be
Than addicted to you
At 1:52
On a Saturday afternoon.

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.

You'll never know what songs
I listen to now
When it's late and I'm alone.
It comforts me
And saddens me.

I've never been this involved with anyone
Or anything
That can pull me back when I least expect it.

Cutting loose feels like cutting off a limb.
It was rotting
It needed to go, but
I miss it.

I miss laying in bed
And even screaming
Because even then
I held you close.

My life lately has been
Unexpected
And lonely.
There's a lot of shouting
And apologizing
To the walls who listen
Where you would listen
Once or twice

It's just another night.
It's just another night.
It's just another nightmare.

Spilled milk becomes less of a cliché
When its spreading, eating the table away
And you're afraid to wipe it up without a towel
In case it swallows up your fingers as well.

I shouldn't have knocked the glass over, I know
It's too early for the messes to start
But I thought I saw you staring in the window
Memory part of my morning routine.

Milk-drops crawl to puddles on the floor.
White created a home in pores of the wood
Erasing letters photos and poems scattered there from days before.

And the biting glass in my palm
Isn't making this house any cleaner.
And the screaming
Only makes the house sound emptier.

Words crawl into my ears and they
Settle down there.
Occasionally stirring,
Reminding me
Of things people spoke to me
And my ears ache just like the first time.
Funny,
They only stir when I'm trying to sleep.

Sometimes the words remind me that
Maybe I'm not meant to be a memory
All I've been is no more than a worry,
Spreading guilt on the guiltless.
Pleading for pity.

As if closing my eyes
Would make the taunts go
Away
Maybe the kid with tears in his eyes
Is all I'm supposed to be.

But what if I don't want to feel this way?

My nanna said
"Kid,
Don't eat a whole-bowl-full
Of sugar
Cause when your tongue's
Coated in it
You can't taste anything else."
There's so much more
Than just sweetness
To explore.
I stopped having a sweet tooth
When I met you.
I still over indulged.

I hate not knowing a dream
From a memory.
Like is that tattoo on your shoulder
Real?
You're too distant for me to test it gently.
My hand even shakes at the thought
Of its flesh reuniting with yours
Oh god,
My fingers whimper like dogs,
Begging for more.

But there's nothing to touch.

I think I've been here before
But your things are a bit fuzzy,
Like the drawings on your door
That I never laid attention to.
This night can't be real
Because it's going too well.
But I'll keep up the charade
Even though, I know, your eyes are gray
Not blue.
I'll pretend not to notice a little longer.

Maybe I should have stayed asleep.

Dreams leave me hungry for the real
Taste of you
That I won't wake up to.
I can't remember your precious voice but
Before I woke up you said,
"Moving on for me is just as hard."
But I knew that statement couldn't be true
Even from a dreamed you.

here's to the ones
who live past the pain
here's to the hearts that ache.
here's to the ones
who swim through the stains
of lonely past-framed loves.
here's to the ones
that dream.

here's to the ones
that hope for a future
a dance with the day
that takes toes from the ground.
a ballad with air
an air-struck floating found
in romance.

here's to the ones
who look for the heart
leap without looking
for the girl
and the mess they made.
i'll always remember
her flame.
here's to the poets
who dream.
here's to the words
they leave.

i'd fall without looking
and tumble into her
again.
her heart was so freezing
i spent a month sneezing
but i think i would do it again.
here's to their hearts
and the mess they made.

bring on the rebels,
her rubbles,
and both of our devils.
bring on her smile,
and how she dared to
dream.

here's to you
for daring to extremes.
here's to me
capturing our feelings
foolish as it may seem.
here's to the future.
and here's to our hearts
for living their dreams.

it blooms in your mouth
as soon as you think of it
it starts in the middle
and stretches to your cheeks
it grows feet and kicks at your lips.
you can hold it in but it
wants to spread, and
it'll press on your tongue
react with it, rub your teeth thin.
because in there,
it's an in-between
and it wants to loom, to grow, to be.

I think I have bed bugs.

And I think they might be trying
To gnaw
Away
A couple layers of skin
To show me what's really concealed
Underneath.
I think they're trying to show
That something has been
Changing.

Sometimes I think I hear earwigs
Scuttle in my hair, at night
Whispering, whispering
Thoughts best left alone, that
I told myself I wouldn't hear
Anymore.

And they tell me
There's spiders
Weaving thoughts in my brain.
Connecting memories
With feelings
That don't rhyme.
"A little torment never
Hurt anyone," the earwigs say
While the spiders are cheating me
Out of a healing sleep.

I could try to squash them;
But I don't think I'm the type.
I guess they win
They can have the bed.

They called him Grandpa, even though he had no grandchildren and was younger than most of them. And he knew it was going to be a rough one.

The ship was spitting tunes like cracking knuckles, bending under the slams of waves. The air cradled a smell of ***, alcohol curling into the wood on the deck from a fallen bottle.

Sea spray eroded at the hull, sharing the ship’s contents with the sea bit by bit. From a glance one couldn’t tell, but if you stared long enough, you’d notice the wear.

Today the sea was a slow knife sinking into the ship, anyone knew that.

Waves were volcanic today, unable to keep their excitement contained within the Pacific as they jumped into the hull of the ship. The clouds were a different story. Drunk old men bumbling about, bumping into each other as they took turns spitting electric chew into the bucket.

The wind screamed out a tantrum, ripping at the sail. We all knew the sea was a cruel lover, didn’t you read enough sailor’s stories to know?

Boots squeaked and slipped a lonely sloppy dance on the empty deck. Grandpa knew she was angry with him today. The sea, that is. He could see faces in the clouds scowling at him. Her footsteps echoing off the sky; play-pretend thunderclaps. He looked out in the sick-gray ocean, while she frothed at the mouth. Grandpa scratched the boyish stubble on his face, unsure what could be done. It was a bad day to be married to the sea.

Love is scary in the way it betrayed me
So casually, without warning
Wrapping its darling grip too tightly
Around my neck misguidedly
And pushing my face with still-gentle force
Into heavy water that stains trust with fear
It won't wash out soon.
Love sent me mouthfuls of watery kisses
To choke on in the pool
Unknowingly killing me.
But Love squeezed and played with my ruined body
And kept demanding more.
My broken body sunk to the bottom sometime after
Oh, poor Love,
It didn't know any better.

I feel those seasons changing,
flipping into brand new pages
it's a yearly arrangement.
Dear Summer,
I miss your warmth.
You're up on the sun,
Hid upon us, or anyone
and I wish I could join you.
The way you blew through August
made this December come in harshly,
and I feel dizzy, heavy, topsy turvy, homespun.

Dear Summer,
I miss your laugh.
I liked it when you liked my jokes.
Untouchable, your voice had sounded,
Built on passion, fire, and highest hopes.
Hey beauty, how did you get so twisted?
and gifted in drifting away from me with distance?
If I whispered "please" for your sounds or silence,
would I get a response?

Summer,
You only spoke up once since and told me
"Be strong," but, with all the trees
Upending, falling, rearranging,
how can I not too?
their wild roots are digging deep,
looking for you too.
My brothers said this would happen
and they meant it, they said
this would happen if I let it.
And I did.

How can I miss the heat like this
when what you really gave me was
God knows what, but it wasn't real
Love. There was something hiding in it.
Summer, where are you?
Are you homesick?
I am, but I don't know
what home is, or who.
My hair's grown long I wish you could see,
Or feel, or be
Right here next to me.

I know I shouldn't miss her warmth,
When everyone said it would be reformed
or transformed, and malformed into cold hearted
winter storms, an absence of
painful pining love horns, hugging me tight.

I guess that's what moving does.

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.

Locate I love you
In between filling hole remains
and their parting ways
this is something not quite dead but
not quiet in going away either.
It's rough to leave it at a somewhat when
hard exteriors stay untouched.
you have to shave away the edges
Whittle away what was precious and--
And dredge up a rotten throbbing ball of
bumbling nerves stuck with a steady flood
of impatience,
intent on forgetting the final-straw day
their own lives were sent mail-in changes
with marching orders for separation.
A dividing house is due to fold in on itself
and never stops at all.

Salty ocean foam burns my lungs too well
My insides lit aflame by trembling sun
Is half the feeling of living in hell.
Devil's kissing hot breathes has just begun.
If bodies are oceans mine's drying out,
My husked-out heart has been left there to die.
I don't think kindness could quench moral drought,
So don't pity my frailty with a lie.
Fill my vessel with drips and drops of fire
Beg the sea that she'll cleanse me of this sin
But no one wants to be clean; I'm the liar.
I forget, what kind of shape am I in?
I don't have answers for feeling awful,
So find peace in the message in my bottle.

You said "I don't really dream,"
That time I told you my nightmares
I didn't believe you then
But now it makes sense.
Because what could a monster's worst nightmare
Possibly be?
Maybe it's me,
Just repeating all the scary things you said
Words that sent my heart to teeter
Over the cliff in my mouth.
When you blow through sin so wildly,
What could possibly scare you?
Maybe the cracked-mirror face you wear
Stops you from clearly seeing your fears
Or maybe you've been so scared before that
Nothing else can compare.
Maybe some tall secret keeps you in its shadow,
In a permanent nightmare.
So what happens at half past four
When the room is spinning and you
Fall just short of your bed
And sink into the floor
Do you even sleep at all?
Are you even alive anymore?
I think.
I think,
That they tortured you and told you it's okay
That the world locked you in a yellow wallpaper room
Where the paint soured and curled in on itself
Like thoughts spoiled in your head from holding on too long.

I didn't quite make it to 19
Because the bullet didn't let me.
Mom, I'm sorry for the mess, I
Know I'm old enough to
Clean up after myself.
At least I didn't waste Dad's pills.

But who's gonna feed the dog?
Who's gonna feed the dog?
Who's gonna

Is my room planning to stagnate
And stop building new memories
On my walls?
Will my bed springs ever creak again?
Would friends dial my number
Before remembering
Or forget to call just like always?

Who's gonna tell you everything's okay?
Not me, not me
Who's gonna tell you everything's okay?
Who's gonna help you make it to the next day?

Caught myself playing
with fly husks by the windowsill
Trying in vain to make dead things work.
It's a pain pushing blood that's just going to
Spill.
My mouth fills with your words
but I swallow them
When there's no one else to whisper to,
Except paper-winged things
Wrapped in death on the sill.
Things could be worse
Than preaching to flies on the window,
Like when I would scream at the walls
About how they caught your ghost.
Our bedroom is haunted when I'm alone
With your thoughts, so
I might as well crack and find friends
In the bottle.
It's not too late to weave me
Into your great-escape plan,
We don't have to stay dead.
I'll take the long way or
Slip out the sixth story, because
The comforts of flying
Are the crashes shortly after
But watch me fall short
And lay down to die
At the windowsill.

Sometimes
When the sky is clear
The stars spell out your name
Or maybe your face, turning away
From me
And meeting his instead.
And on darker nights,
A small ember and smoke
Is all I have to go on.

Sometimes
The crickets chirping your name
Is all I have to remember.
Smoke waters my eyes
And I thought I saw you
Waiting for me beyond the tree line.

Cars on country roads howl
To my teeth clicking in the cold.
It's easy to get lost in the nighttime
When your memory is all I have
To go on.

Constellations wink at me
And I breathe your name
Onto the window.
It fogs the line between tree and sky.
If I rubbed your name
Onto the glass
It'd just fade away before my eyes.

I never mean to write to you
But you find a way into the silence,
The spaces inbetween my words.
If I wrote you a song would it
Catch your ear
More than my poems do?
If anyone could play guitar
Would they woo you quite like his do?

Why does the heart take so long to drain?
The past sticks on the sides like syrup.
Pause the drip. Freeze.
Let the heart harden
Hold its heaviness in your hands.
High above your heads in Gods cloudy tatters
To be heated by the hung up sun
So it expands, then shatters.

You let the world slip inside your bones.
Somewhere, the suffering of life hides
Between that hollowed rib cage, floating.
Echoing off the sides, moaning
In a corresponding murk.
Why did you let it in there?
Why do you keep it caught?

Open it up,
Let holding hope
Be more than enough
Than keeping loved ones hurt
In that thumping heart.

A heavy voice so physical
It could light the room up.
Tell me what to do, just--
Choke my neck with your voice
Drown my tongue in low whispers.
Treating me like I'm all yours--
Like I'm always yours.
Like I'm always catering to the roars
Of your voice.

Quiet sounds make their way for yours,
Spreading apart so your noises can swell.
Speak your thoughts to me,
Spit them, inspire me to move:
Weigh me down with commands
On how to look and feel.

Split them, your sounds,
And yank me in all the directions you can.
Grab me shove me *******--
Push me to the wall with your voice.
Tell me I'm yours.

Please remember me as something happier
Than the sinking of your heart
To the bottom of your chest.
I'm not the thing that pulls the air from the room.

Please remember me as something stronger,
Maybe nobler,
Than a stopwatch dangled from a fraying rope
Having staring contests with falls.

Please remember
I am not the pillow you're punching
Please remember this was not about you
And believe I never meant it to.

Tell me about love
How your mom is doing fine
Tell me about the girl from class
And how Sam drank too much wine.
But don't call me to scream.

Think of me at peace
Not someone who ran out too soon
With the door wide open.
Remember when I got you drunk
On full moons.
But don't let me occupy your mind.

Please remember,
It does get better.
You don't just get
"Used to it."

i won't pretend i'm fluent in remembering
but maybe if you put me through some
stretch of missingness
i'd forget why i'm alone.
i could fight to end up in your head again
but it wouldn't last for long, unless
you started to want what i got.

but if we're gonna do this, you better
stop breathing like that
i want to bury my heart at the sound of you
tell it to sink a ways away
so i don't have to ask you in its morse code moan
do you lo...... never mind, it wouldn't have rhymed anyway.

i have a friend who said don't hate yourself
if they want someone else
but we don't ever listen to ourselves, so
maybe that's why i ****** in a withheld farewell.
i don't know where you've been
or who you've been
or who you've been with
but if you asked me to i'd be there soon
i could be fluent in misremembering, but
excuse me for asking, voice trembling, noise severing
but i'd ask you to please pick up the phone
if it meant anything close to bettering
the crooked tangled ways the wrong roots went in deep grown.

I'm sick of scratching my pupils
To get the smudges out.
I'm tired of the days being beautiful
And not flying my way
Where's the ******* rain and the crash
Of angry thunder striking clouds flat--
Where's my god, and is she listening yet?

I remember a speech that started
Off with a scream, or maybe a plea
About letting the weather
Finally agree with me.
I must be slurring the words wrong
Because I haven't heard you sing along
Since a couple sips ago.
I'm spitting remarks at your
Wretched door, but
You still won't bring the rain.

I only go on planes these days
In hopes of turbulence thrilling us
With the way your words shatter sky.
You don't know where I've been,
Trying to fly so close to you
In hopes you send me crashing--
But you've been quiet lately.
I never realized how vicious silence could be.
Still you've been too quiet lately.

I've been praying for you--
For you to cannonball out of your
Hidden heaven, flailing,
To be swallowed by the ground,
Covered in the heavy dirt and dead dreams
You left everyone else to drown in.

I've been preying for you--
For you to let your guard down
So I can rip that ******* crown from your head.
The heretic's story never told,
Unwritten in the Book I never read.

Are you really soaked in lightning above,
Or could you be hiding
Twisting in knots right here?
Because my lord I think your tongue is forked;
Crooning songs full of love, but not convincingly enough.

I've been stunted by pain
Of dodged calls and locked doors.
Who have you been loving in there
Besides me?
I'm starving for your attention.
But I'm done shouting at the sky.
It's time we speak truth to each other,
And you say those three words
I say too much, and you don't say enough
I hate you.

Pops and cracks and a dialing tone
I wish not seeing you was a choice
But at least the real you would be better than the noise
Of your muffled message at the end of the phone
That you had choked out as an excuse to be alone.
My memory wanes with each futile call that destroys;
The empty rings grow more familiar than your voice
And the bad connection begs to be disowned.
Our last conversation is my driving thought
For calling as if I thought you'd be there
I'm holding onto things I think you should know.
Heartbeats twitch in regret over fights we fought
Impatient phone calls were your least favorite I swear,
But I'm clinging tightly to your ghost, waiting for a hello.

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.

Nightmares have a face
That breathes hot restlessness
Under my blankets.
When my eyes are squeezed shut
Trying to get that last dream
Out of this bed.
The one that I always have,
Falling through the ceiling and
Into bed with you.
The one that I always have,
Where I'm shaking you harder
Than I'm shaking myself,
But you aren't waking up.
Nightmares have a face.
It's you and you aren't breathing at all.

I'd stitch you into my side
With black ink called Forever--
I'll thread you through me wherever
And wear your name with pride.
Words in my mouth halt time and bide,
Refusing to slip out the right way ever.
Frustrating how to my lips they tether
Unless in you I choose to confide.

You taught my mind to steal beauty
And command it into word.
So I give you presents with rhyme and form
Filled with prized things stolen by yours truly.
With the power of gods and muses conferred,
I sew your name into history, Forever adorned.

Smoke has a way of
Painting hazy lines in the air
That somehow resemble your face.
And it feels like you're here.
Even when you're missing.
The smoke makes you less of a ghost
And more of a memory fondly remembered.
I wish the burn would last forever.
I wish I could look at you
For a minute more.

Nightmares have a face
A blank slate washed over
Now painted with gashes and
Bruises and tears and
Worn so proudly like a mask.
We know who the monsters are
But only remember before we sleep.

Nightmares have a face
That make me ***** late at night
Spending too much time looking in the mirror
Than I am washing out my mouth.
I'm scared to lift my feet from cold tiles
So I'll make a bed inside the tub.

Nighmares have a face
That whisper words with closed lips
And cold gray skin soaked in rain
Stifled by the dark of sleep.
I can't creep back into my bed
I couldn't tiptoe past the door.

Nightmares have a face
Filled by a shear of a grimace
That strike a cold sweat
Over every inch of me
Even with the lights turned on
Even with my palms on my chest
Telling me its okay.
Even when sliding over my heartbeat
I don't feel okay.

There's something empty in the songs
That made me think of you.
Frontmen sing the chorus wrong
And the guitar's not the same.
The sound does come
And fights to belong
But goes the same,
And slips by, it tries,
it saunters along.
I'm unsure in my mind
If they are the same songs.
So I'll try to write my own
But they don't love me the same
They don't know
How to trick my own heart
And rip it with games that
Sneak like secrets into melodies.
They don't know how
To make melodies.
I don't know how
To make melodies.

******* for making my head hurt.
I want to shake myself off
And float away from here.
I want to stop seeing and hearing
And thinking of you.

Stay away from me and stop
Sending me back to the first square
Of the board.
I don't want to keep tapping myself
Through each step of the game.

My head is dull and not here
And I can't stop seeing your smile
Wrought into my eyes
The harder I shut my world down
The more it grows in size.

You're a **** good liar
When I look at you and think
My love still might be there.
Well I don't want to be here
I don't want to be here,
With you.
We're playing tug of war and
I'm afraid to pull and pull
And find you cut the wire (again).

Some addictions don't follow your parents' definition,
Or tuck into a textbook nicely.
Some addictions don't follow pills or bottles,
Or chase them down the drain.
Some addictions follow places or people,
Always and forever, again and again.
But one thing's for certain
An addict's an addict
And a burden's a burden.

I was made to touch your lips. Of that I'm sure.

Whatever follows I'm not so sure about.
But I'll enjoy the tumble with you. The reckless abandonment that plays on your lips after the first jump forward is unforgettable.
While it lasts, I'll enjoy the drop down into the rabbit hole, where we watch days and months wrap around us.
I'm sure you'll figure out what's next when we reach the bottom. I'm sure. I'm sure...

But if you must go now and leave me hurdling through the dark, please... Let me trace your lips once more. Twice. Let me remember you well when I reach the bottom. I hope I figure out what to do. Before I meet the ground.

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.

leave all your friends behind,
abandonment.
but adamant
leaving was only an accident;
you miss us.
what took you so long?

you keep coming back
and back and back
repeating the past.
i'm growing attached again
mismatched against
your flighty love in the aftermath.

it's funny you say you love us
selling it like a snake oil pitch
but we're the first to feel the itch
of fresh baked blame
branded across our bodies.
you're always on the attack
then falling away from us
a deadly one-two
the back-to-back.

i laughed when you said you missed me:
you didn't stay long enough to mean it.
you leave your mark by
stealing places and people
or else sleeping with them.
it's your trick, it's a staple.
clutching onto numbers, waiting for sequels
but not as good as the first, right?

if playing with the world is what gets you high,
what am i?
what am i?
am i your favourite toy?
am i your favourite

you keep coming back
and back and back
repeating the past.
i'm growing attached again
mismatched against
your flighty love in the aftermath.

don't think of me like that.
a toy, a drug, a god-given fact.
a hit and then a month of silence.
and i wish i could pretend
you weren't coming back.
if you love something, set it free
or at least let me be.

you've stopped coming back
and i've unpacked the past.
like fleeting memories
falling off pages
i've grown attached again.
mismatched against
your flighty love and it's aftermath.

what took me so long?

Some days you need
The rain
To sit in your
Gutter, or
Wash the roads
clean of your plans.

Some times the rain
Ends the day
Early
And closes the sun
Behind clouds.
I didn't want
To go out
Anyway.

And on these days
The rain
Hides your own drops
From your face.
What a perfect place to cry.

What a perfect time
To say
Goodbye.

Do you hold certain moments of your life
On the skin of thought, so they stick out-
Like tiny sores.
Do you want to itch them, and pick them?
And dig deeper to find where they came from,
What made them ugly?
Digging only makes them uglier.
And scratching leaves bigger scars.
But the night is a mirror
And with glassy doppelgängers closing in,
Plucking at thoughts with bits of skin,
You can't leave well enough alone.

You are
A space
That I watched grow.
Expanding too big for words.

You are
A space
That kept things warm
During the cold year.

You are
A space
That people noticed in the room.
When you weren't there,
They always asked about you.

You are
A space
That only love occupied.
You didn't understand "bad."

You are
A space
Except now you're not
Anymore.