This is why I am here
instead of there.
It’s all because of you
and your twisted neck,
turning too far
just to smile once more in my direction.
It’s because of you
and your reasons,
your forward thoughts
and backwards compliments,
chasing some dream
that I know you’ll achieve
because that’s just how it works.
It would be unfair of me
to point out the possibility
of failure.
It’s because of you
that I look on the bright side.
“If not today,”
I think,
“then tomorrow.”
With you,
there is always tomorrow.

Sometimes
I like to break,
pause the fighting,
sit down
and try to think my way out of this
instead.

And I realize
that's why I feel so trapped:
Because inside my head,

I am free.

I want to give you my feelings
in a colouring-book.
Can you fill me in?
I feel empty.
I want to give them to you
in a box
wrapped with a bow
so you can open it
and see there’s nothing inside.
I’d like to give you my heart
in a song without chords
so you can hear the echo of broken strings.
I want to show it to you
in a black-and-white photograph
so you can understand
how grey I feel.
Can you colour me in?

Tripping past windows,
turning to look but missing the image
(I’m going too fast)
too slow
I’ll never make it
not like this
Heart pierced
by each short, asthmatic breath
by each spastic, hazardous thought of you
I’m late
(for a very important date)
very important, even though it doesn’t exist
(this is all in my mind)
a silly dream I play out to calm myself
running down that road with a goal in mind,
a goal ready to leave at any moment
but because this is my dream
I make it all happen
(just the way I want it)
Maybe in real life, the train would pull away
ten minutes (ten seconds) before I arrive
but in my mind, I get there just in time
to wrap you in my arms
and pull you back.

It's a silly question
I have to ask;
it's been burning on my tongue
for days now,
sliding around,
trying to get out.
Maybe I should let it go,
let my words free
upon the world,
into the air,
and never even try to care
about what happens.
But I don't think
that I could do it.
Could I really?
Could I close my eyes
without imagining light?
Could I step forward
without a hand before me?
Somehow, the answers
never colour themselves in
the way I'd like.
Outside the lines
a storm is brewing,
words are forming
and the thunder in the distance
cracks the sky open louder every day.
Can you seal this gaping hole?
Tape couldn't hold me back
for long,
just like it couldn't stop my mouth
from opening;
stop those words from being created.
Suspense is killing me,
eating me alive
as I stand here silently,
arms folded across my shrinking body
and feet tight on the ground,
trying my best
to step on every crack;
I'll break any back I have to,
if only to stay silent
one more day.

I shoved that day aside
the moment it started.
Grey skies
with only patches of blue,
internal rhyming
in each casual phrase
said,
tossed,
that meant more
than at first glance.
There were too many forced alliterations,
too many under-the-breath mutterings
cluttering the belly
of every once-white cloud.
The ground was too hard,
the world shifting
too easily beneath my feet,
and the air was too supple,
too slippery to breathe.
Not just another day;
no catastrophe in sight,
but no rainbow ending either.
And no word from you.

You are like a child
who grows younger
& younger
every day,
smoothing over lines
with the sharp -cracks- of a smile,
& swaying
back & forth,
back & forth
like the swing
in an overgrown backyard,
like the child who sits
(lonely)
on that swing
& grows backwards,

(backwards)

you regress further
with every moment.

You are like the hair that grows
from the head of the child,
?wild?
& unruly
& never the same.

Like their small, chubby fingers,
you are clumsy,
s t u m b l i n g around a dark world
that offers you
no rest
from your actions,
(& yet)
unlike a small child
who is more clever,
quieter
& observing
each moment in life,
(learning,
growing
by leaps & b o u n d s , showing
that there is hope yet for them
in our adult world,)

you cannot seem to learn
from the mistakes you make.

Each error leads to another;
like a child,
you are running in a circle,
forever chasing a butterfly
that has lost its wings.

Your toys lie
scattered around you,
abandoned,
dusty,
-cracked-
& broken.

Like a child,
you grow tired
of the same old routine,
the people you see
& the games they make you play,
(day after day.)
Moment after moment
after unplanned moment
you grow younger
until one day
you will be an infant,
unspeaking.

& then
you will be
wailing & wishing
you could grow older
& make it all up to me.