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.

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.

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.

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.

The days where your smiles keep coming
never-ending,
Up-end me.
I earn those split lips and some teeth
Like currency.

The moon is a cold place to stay
But I go there any way.
When the sun sets
It's where I spend my nights
It's where I drift out of day
And out of sight
Clear into the fictionless dark.

On the white
I steer into scripts of stars
Where I don't have to sleep at night.
I'd rather have this than any answers.

My love,
I'd been looking for answers
But I haven't found any, just waiting
For weightlessness
But the moon is heavier than I thought.
My blood is coating what I want to forget, but
I think my mind is heavy set on
Keeping my memory pale.

I don't know where to build my future here,
I've knocked on every door
Homeless and stuck with fear of
Finding country sores haunted with
First date ghosts and empty parks fighting against
Thoughts of you.

White whales in a man's empty sea
Full of sinking cabins in ships
That sailed out to the sky to say goodbye.

The star-skies are my empty ocean,
Ready for wreckage and I didn't guard my heart for waves, I...
I didn't scare my heart with tales of
Dying far from home.
I have nowhere else to go
I have nobody else to show
How blue the whole world looks
When it's just you, your ocean and the sky.

Have you ever watched the sunset come around,
Forgetting to include you?
It makes the horizon a blank enough place after,
To forget land for a day or two.
I want to forget it all with you.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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?

there's an enemy sleeping in the skin
that i've been wasting in
there's a day or two a week i don't
get anything done but thinking
about
when you dialed into nothingness
you knew it all along;
you can't know anything at all.
some days feel like a revelation, but
you knew it all along;
you can't know anything at all.

you talked to pete and kate,
you talked to mom, to god,
and even alice in the backseat
but you left words pinned to the scene just for me
croaking about the summer the world sprang from my lungs
still yourself with love and
guilt and void
i am the holiest of unholy thoughts
gravitating toward your tongue.

banished from your front door
and there's no one standing guard
around your bed
while they're disorganizing drawers
like it was folly how it was before
i see your embrace unfurl in the lazy lawn
i'm stuck behind.

weeding retrospection out and shying away
leave no room for unpleasantries.
memories fog with care and
abbreviate
stow away the wilt and pain
and the grass that lies above you is
sleeping through the rain.

something scattered in you grows
and weaves and blooms through tattered clothes
i thought i saw or perhaps mistook
your shadow flying on the sidewalk
but maybe i'll just read you bend
gently through a blade of grass
and that's just fine too,
stay yourself and send me something green
here every summer, again and again.

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.

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.

if you don't believe in God, then who are you talking to?

what's there to believe in? god is real, but i don't believe in them anymore. what's there to be faithful to? god isn't faithful to you. when you see them make up new rules and change old ones. usually they don't tell you either.

more delicate than judgmental, but not in a sweet way. god is an unravelling, your feet falling apart on the concrete. god is making your car sick. and you too, you're sick. and you're losing weight, and not in the good way. you're not getting better yet. god is a guilt that god invented. god tells you how to feel. god knows how they want you to feel. don't stare at god for too long.

god is multiple people and they can't decide which one they want to be. god will pick the angriest one most days, because it works well and avoids your questions.

god is serving you up dessert shaped like a coffin, and saying they don't care about your allergies. god is telling you to keep the lights off and turn the music up so they don't have to remember it's you getting them off. but you're the only one who gave god goosebumps and held them while they wept. remember that you held god while they opened up like the sea, and you figured this would be a good place to hide your love. nestled in between two walls of water, even they didn't know it was put there. it's still there, i don't think you're getting it back.

what's there to be faithful to? i'm faithful to you, dear. I say it to the room. The pen. The empty plates and mugs. I say it to the stale air hanging around the side of the bed that still smells like god. it's growing fainter every day.

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.

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.

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.

March winters last longer than we thought they did. there's spring-stop angels a story higher, spitting icicles off your rooftop. But we're busy. we're never growing up. March is too long.

We sit in bed alone chanting **** this body **** this body I
Hate this ******* body. And then the light's up. We belong in darkness. You are the dark but I belong in darkness. God said Jesus please forgive me but I need this body more than you do. Did you say that too?

I watched the last time your eyes grew dim and shut down in front of me. Like an old machine rusty-churning for you only once more. It's just clockwork, just churning. On and off. Just the churning, barely. Nothing more. Lights down, on and off. But we were in your room and I was the one who had to go home.

I noticed you had a bruise then. And I've heard it's gotten worse. Every day it's taking over. The romantics say it's heart-shaped but I know it's just trapped blood. And it will get bigger if you fill it up with problems.

You didn't even have the heart to complete your own mistake. And now my mind is just you in a bubble of darkness, in the land of second chances. Stay there. I think it's easier to kick someone out when you have the home field advantage. I went home. I hear you're on  your way up top.

maybe we will never grow old. When you get up to the roof will you tell the angels my name?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

i've been watching a lot of movies lately
not that that's anything new, just
wanted to let you know. Maybe,
you've seen a couple of the same ones.

i've been tearing up a lot around this time
though not for anything worth worrying
about, just sneaking in stories before bedtime
about love and laughs and hurrying toward
getting old.

it feels like we're all focused on getting old.

it feels like we're running toward distractions
to forget about the future, but isn't that
what mindfulness is all about? but
still it doesn't feel mindful it feels a lot more like
misdirection. maybe
maybe im doing it wrong.

these past couple nights have felt a bit too much
like misdirected repetition
playing the same notes twice
writing double, but not really going anywhere.

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.

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 wish i didn't feel like I rhymed with you.
like two words supposed to be together
side by side,
in the same sentence,
or else in adjacent lines.
maybe even one apart,
for an alternate rhyme.

we at least belong in the same stanza
or even two consecutive ones,
separated by an empty line.
surely there's space enough for you and I
in the same poem, i'd imagine,
with only a few letters in between
serving as a distraction.
i'm sure the poet would see fit
to put us right by one another,
seeing how well you and I rhyme together.

******* 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).

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.

used to be time well-spent, finding
a kindness in you every day reaching
for me, sweetly. Saying "sweet" it
always sounded like a pinprick or a
puncture.
you were always louder, clapping like the
thunder slap cloud sound of lightning
pulling away from the ground.

there used to be room left to breathe, but
now the minutes march by days, slip by
neatly under the door, tidy, like they were
never here at all. you were hardly here at all
anyway, and
i ask the time to stay
but all i get from the clock is a look away.

you're worried you're feeling wanted,
or worse, tired of looking at me,
less out of habit
than rehearsed. sharp objects in your eyes aiming
for mine. i fall apart in there,
under the gravity. god knows
you don't have any feelings, i know
you feel everything at once.
i want to go where you go when you
turn the other way.

hurling month by month
just past my ears. your heart won't be
around for long.

make room too late,
you're a wild bronco train car crashing in and
i'm not building paths fast enough,
you're not slowing down.
so look away
i'm sinking your june and july into the ground, curtain
calls you to roll the nicer things away.
Time, drink up your wasted
Time, take it
to go.

used to be time, well-spent
see your smile, all day.
i thought we'd meet up soon but
the time's just walking away.

used to be room to breathe
but now the minutes leave like days
i ask our time to stay but
all i get from the clock is a look away.

you're worried you're feeling wanted,
or worse.
tired of smiling at me, it hurts.
i wanna go
where you go
when you turn the other way
i wanna see the things i know i cannot see.
sharp objects in your eyes aiming for mine
i fall apart in there, under the gravity.

it could've been time, or space,
could've been time for space
but i can't tell you that when you
keep tossing and turning away.

the clock's stopped counting past today
all i get is your look away.
the world's falling after me.
there used to be intimacy, but now
it's all coming down on me

i'm keeping faith in long drives
to change the seasons faster
belongings plastered to a car
with a penchant for disaster.
i'm gritting teeth to the taste of leaving,
seeing, breathing in things
i never ever really ever bothered needing.

wheels start to tumble just a couple states below
a preparation in the daylight for another night eloped
cans snag on the bumper, rattle and tattered
we forgot to cut them or else they
just weren't ready to untangle and
I don't think Virginia is for lovers anyway.

i gotta work my head less
keep my brain thin of thinking
but no one belongs here more than you
tucked behind my ears
isn't that silly

see the sun sipping up your face across the room
7am morning in yellow county
not quite where i would like to be.
i pray for blindness, minus
you, i am a slippery *****.
i am the king of dogs lying
on the floor. and i don't remember
you used to breathe so loud.

do me a favor and ask if you need some air
in yellow county, the romantic wilderness
where lovely things go to fail.
you said do me a favor and ask to ******* yourself
you'll be so much better but i was never
one to wreck things well.

six years ago, i saw the moon for the first time
and i'm sorry that i never really stopped looking
on the road to yellow county.
i gotta work my brain less
but you got what you get
and i think you made my head sick.
when that trip was over i was still moving furniture
out of yellow county and i guess i still am today.

skin broke
bone cracked at an angle
you watch thoughtfully as my arm bends
and i'm still feeling thankful.
your eyes hold tight, and steady
my ears are thumping with a tremor
this isn't a one time error
this is merely an example.

i'll just push on through
cause what else can i do
pretend i saw the lightning-strike
turn hard around a sycamore
i'll meet you soon at
lover's lane, for a quarrel.

i'm holding down but there's no
ground game left
the sky is tossing and turning and
i saw the lightning bend
around a sycamore, i think
i can't feel my teeth
am i doing this right?

adrenaline
burnt by bylines
takes my mind to the moon and back
fears giving way to days
dripping like years
shove a fist in my death-crammed jaw
pray to wake up safely
ignore the crack in the sky
pray to wake up safely

something nice about a day job
to get away from it all
something about long sleeves that are
nice enough to cover yesterday
but i can still hear the thunder slapping
with my busted ears.

i see
your hard-to-hide bark-ribbed arms
wrapped in dark sleeves,
they've slipped away from here.
push your face farther into his chest
pretend in her trust is a safe place to rest
lay in his bed, recovering.

and outside meetings people click on,
quickly, with motors cranked, ticking:
"cleanness slapped with black so fast
and wrapped in a blanket called disaster."
torn up wrists and IV veins,
you say
"clear off from me,"
feeling halfway between
a photo folded too many times
and
stale painted-dead air curling off the world.
Barely holding on,
We're sometimes not there at all.

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.

i am not in love with crisis
i just argue to maintain
a sense of leaning, loving,
learning
moving on never felt the same.

what if every leaving wasn’t
of the mind
this ending doesn’t doubt
the autumn-summer line
I am just a mirror, rediscovered and contained.

brittle, bagged, and mixed up bones
the rooms of the house
only make the hide of homes.
gutted kitchens don’t need trash stains,
dishes, fridge reminders to explain.

palm in concrete, initialized
unknowing tenants stumble past
the drying ground
this house is not a holy respite
it’s for learning soft goodbyes.

every night is on my mind
keep on moving every year until
we just might grow
from all the places that we’ll be
To all that places that we’ve known.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.