now that things have begun,
and i'm thousands of miles from everything i once knew,

i realize a simple fact that wasn't so transparent before.

dreams are one part exhilarating
and two parts absolutely terrifying.

he lifts a foot
picks at a callus on the pad of his big toe
the consequence of running 10 miles a day.
workboots in the morning
sneakers later
thumping over single-track trails in the park
teaberries and hemlock needles and cliffs
cold beer,
tired eyes
repeat.
Endless cycles
restless psyche.
24 years
and an empty bank account
it's the off season in a tourist town
and all the windows are boarded.

let's take a walk to the dock and dip our toes in the sea
enjoy those steely gray eyes.

silence and sunflower seeds
a salt-encrusted SUV
mid-afternoon-winter-sun.
she ties her fists in slender knots,
and i fiddle with the **** on the radio.

we talk about burns and
the sick scent of nostalgia mixed
with wine in a cardboard box mixed
with empty pockets,
the way crumbs and lint on fingertips can induce such ache.

as she speaks a part of me wonders at the complexity of human relationships, at how meaning between people muddles and
how moments like these right here right now separate whole centuries of time.
i think about walking through forests made of paper trees and having a knack for noticing what could have been.
i imagine her lying in bed late at night,
her mind a metronome measuring out notes of deprecation,
sandpapering all her holed up bits of pride.
i bet sometimes during those barely-awake moments
she feels like an orphan.

but now, right now
right now.
beneath a ***** windshield and
surrounded by bundled up, brick facades
she hides behind glossy brown hair
and faded skinny jeans.
she has pink keys in her lap
but nowhere to go,
and she tells me about emptiness in words she knows i barely understand.

her tired eyes throw salty fists into space.

sleepy
it's one am. and the colors are flowing
remember those lights changing in the attic,
sloped ceilings and a hookah
we sat on the floor and he stared at the doorknob,
and we discussed the width of the closet
pillows on the ground,
people on the pillows,
faces in shadows, smiles and heavy-lidded eyes
love for those friends who aren't friends but are.
love for those friends who are more.

we drink we smoke we laugh we listen to grime and dance around the tin foil and smoke and the blinds are closed and the door is locked and we have to be quiet because shh, the neighbors. and I didn't know you before but now i do because you're drunk and i don't know what i am but i said hi and you adjusted your yellow beanie and smiled at me. you make music, i learn,
and we talk and we talk and we talk

then driving, the streetlights flood,
he said it was like surfing and that he was chill and he couldn't remember and he stepped in the snow with socked feet, he lost his birkenstocks
he found his birkenstocks
he flipped his hair and his red eyes were content
and then Let it Be came on the radio and I sang the tune while my legs twitched and my foot twitched on the gas pedal and she laughed from the backseat and I wondered how wide the road was and how much air there is to breathe in the world, and then the cold felt so great
red lights flashing, stop. go. home.

i'm smiling at the orange of the fire
there's a hamster running besides me and i wonder if he is happy
they were happy,
and i forget where the money is but she slipped it in my pocket
snacks in the kitchen
its one am
drink some water,
there's always Marcie's Diner in the morning.

one--

this paper is cold underneath my fingertips
grating
and i'm shifting thoughts like puzzle pieces.

so many writers have commented on sunlight slanting
curling around motes of dust.
thousands of similar phrases:
sadness,
the flat gray of mid-january mornings,
love, hips, the night sky,
clocks.

two--
                                    
who knows how to articulate
the feeling of being a high school senior
feet anchored in waterproof boots
surrounded by a clogging,
dragging
stagnancy

three--

breathe and you fog up the glass
four flat tires--
a lit up exclamation point on the dash.
let's pull off the road
route 9, 10, 11,
numbers, letters
signs bent by the plow,
and the pavement's salted
and the trees chilled quiet
wow, look here--
a seedy gas station
and an out of order pump.

just paint me a picture of a graham ******* trail.


"you know
sometimes when i'm walking back from lunch
and its windy
i like closing my eyes
and stretching my arms out
and pretending i'm somewhere else
preferably a place with less buildings
and more trees"*

                                                        ­                       *"well said.
                                                           ­                     if that isn't a story
                                                           ­                     then i don't know what is."

honestly, sometimes i put on the lite-pop station on songza and i sit back and hit the skip button until i find the right track, and it just ******* gets to me.

it's hard to spend all your time hating things. i'm certainly sick of it.

just give me twelve minutes and i'll forget this **** as easily as i forget first-encounter names. i'll give you a smile and an empty coffee cup--recycle it, toss it in that blue bin, and let's head on home.

i like the stripes on your mittens.

i've got one now, and only one.
it's quite simple, really--i'm failing everything.

yesterday my feet rested comfortably on the bar of someone else's chair
and my eyelids slid heavy and the world seemed slow
a graph of survivorship curves glowing blurry on the whiteboard
and then words slid from behind a neatly trimmed white beard
". . . .as our bodies are programmed to die."

as our bodies are programmed to die.

thousands of miles away
one gleaming thought against a murky sky
(that's how i imagine it anyway--murky, cold,
stagnant air)
a frantic explosion of lean muscle power
and a body launching into the lake.

he was 17 and in that moment gears somewhere in this world shifted,
numbers were crunched and
some profound device processed the seconds, linking and unlinking them with an automatic, well-oiled certainty

he was 17 and the number on his football jersey suited him like wool socks on winter feet
his stride under the lights a weekly prize to all hungry, bleacher-ed, washed-up life-hunters bundled against october-night chill-streaked skies
they drank hot cocoa and he took three sips of gatorade

he was 17 and his smile
and his curls

and we all hear about hospitals but
this feels different because
he was 17 and suddenly,
instantaneously
his body was just a beep
and his skin turned the color of the walls

first the ICU painted quick brushstrokes across his wrists
then it stopped giving a **** at all

and the water rushed endlessly, heartlessly.

when I shift through memories and
find his seven-year old face in my mind, i remember a gap
where he'd lost a front tooth and i remember sunlight streaming behind his hair
it was valentine's day and he gave me a small smile and a silver charm bracelet in a powder blue box.

i shifted my feet
heard the snap of a binder closing
and all i could think about was
the oversimplification of words
and survivorship curves
and 17 years


and
and

piles of numbers spurting from a computer

and an echo of a splash.

first--

my big brother came through the door, hoodie up,

L close behind--
a farm girl,
small features
warm eyes
Bean boots and rough hands,

i could smell the cigarettes and the new cash in his pocket.

he showed me the pipe he'd fashioned out of driftwood

the one thick silver band on his left pointer finger glinting warmth from the dining room light

and in a drunken haze i wondered if there was anything in the world he couldn't do.

second--

she set the canvas bag on the counter,
and out came heirloom apples,
and mittens
and fresh honeycomb in an old plastic container,
label worn and peeling from all the hours it had traveled, and i thought suddenly and strangely
of all the times it'd been placed in bags as an afterthought, left in the backseat of a golden texas-plated '95 corolla
                                                *(an alien up here)
warming between biodegradable soaps and pottery filled with sprouting seeds,
how many raindrops it had shed sitting on the front steps of an old clapboard house.

their words taste sweet
like an uncorked bottle of wine
sipping from mason jars
the glow of candlelight on swirled wooden grains

we lay in bed
blankets tangled between us
laughter and sadness
just one more year and we can feel the time in our hands


emerson and whitman
and
wordsworth.

There's nothing like the quiet of the
world at three in the morning. It's about
a cushion-y, not-quite-fill-your-throat
kind of darkness, and it's comforting
to know that everyone around you is
supposed to be asleep.

You're alone in the world and
each breath you take is all yours.
Nothing is expected of you in those moments,
and you don't expect much from
yourself. You sit in the warmth of
blankets and stare out into the velvety
air, dreaming waking dreams about
everything you want and need, and
only your beating heart can disturb you.
And when the birds start chirping and
pre-dawn gray bathes the earth,
you can shift your position and smile at
the trees with dry lips and a welcome
sense of quiet--of the feeling of long,
winding roads and wind through your hair.

"it's been a while,"
she said with a smile as she overlooked the
foggy silence of the surrounding space.

He was a good boyfriend. You could tell by the way he smiled when he was around her--cherry blossoms and good music and the pink glow of a June sunset. His skin was brighter, his face softer, and if you peeked under the desk you’d find their bare ankles intertwined.

A mop of curly red hair--the kind of hair that confuses you at first. The kind that calls for tousling. Darker eyebrows, straight and strong on his forehead.

She had the tip of her thumb in her mouth, resting between her teeth. Aqua nail polish bright against her tanned skin. Her glasses were small and rectangular, not the thick black frames that you were accustomed to seeing on kids nowadays. Her smile was crooked, her face rounded and cheeks scrunched in a laugh, that glorious squeeze of muscles working. Synapses firing. A bony shoulder curved under a thin t-shirt.

He stared at her as she leaned over her paper, small fingers gripping a pink pen, all right angles. She wrote ferociously and his eyes beamed soft and he marveled at the size of her slender pinky. His fingers interlaced behind his head, his elbows triangles pointing toward the ceiling tiles.

In his mind he reached over and grasped her hand, the smallness of it, his palm against its smooth back. He watched as she let the pen slip to the table. The small clatter. The rustle of skin and clothes. The silence of the gaze behind a curtain of escaped hair.

There was a quick kiss, and nothing more. A curly mop bent towards a dark-haired temple, eyes closed. Lips pressed against skin, and time in the room seemed to slow, bending backwards through the sunlight floating in through open windows.

A sigh like velvet, and a grin. The tap of a keyboard across the room.

it's been a while,
and i'm not sure what to say.
things have changed
i wonder if you'll all remember what I used to be,
if you'll remember me,
because i can't remember who i was a week ago,
let alone last year.

i'm eating homemade granola
left from my camping solo
and all i taste is
the faint twang of bear vault
fire
and wet pine needles.

I want to smoke a cigarette.

I want--
to lean against a doorway, my converse shoelaces brushing against the brick.
to stare up at an overcast sky and know that gray doesn't always need a slow, mournful soundtrack. to feel the paper between my fingers and on my lips and take a deep,
deep
drag.


I want
to empty my lungs of everything they have and watch it all curl, wispy and insubstantial--
watch it disappear into the bustle of moving cars as the coffee shop door tinkles while people in pretty scarves and
pea coats and
black-rimmed glasses
with fingerless gloves
and nose piercings
and black tights covering skinny legs
hold hands and exchange knowing smiles and
enter behind me,
and cold, February ocean wind lifts the tips of my hair.

I want to taste it--those few minutes of isolated reflection. It'd be like meditation beneath an awning on a city street.

Lately I've been feeling as if everything I'm writing belongs
under the kitchen sink with all the Comet and various brands of bleach and the
rest of the junk cleaning supplies that haven't been used since
the early nineties.

Ideas are scarce,
thoughts aren't making the cut,
and I feel like I'm in a more disconcerting version of ***** Wonka's glass elevator
riding robotically in this box,
puncturing others' moments with its corners like they're
gigantic, ecstasy-encompassed balloons
capable of doing nothing more than
launching weak waves of laughter
that languidly dissipate when they reach the
hard exterior of my cage

i'm a punching bag for expectations
they throw themselves at me the way every pro athlete yearns to be in the record books
the hall of fame
to get an interview on live national television
to hold the trophy that every Jerry Rice or Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan from history has held:
passionately,
obsessively,
with a fervent, unrelenting fire.

i was afraid of my wobbling knees.
it's funny how everything gets magnified when you're in front of a crowd. One minute it's
a-okay if you trip, poke yourself in the eye, stumble on your words,
because that's normal
and you can laugh it off,
because there weren't any consequences
but the next minute
the light is blinding you--
                                      you have no one's eyes to reassure you, because you can't make out their faces--
and you're alone,
squirming under the microscope,
caught in the worst trap
if only because it's not customary to cry for help once you're there.

And your job is to reveal yourself, flaws and all,
red face and all
sweaty palms and all
through a melody,
your voice and every single one of your
indescribable, raging, nonsensical fears
(what if I throw up all over the front row? Or what if I knock the stand over, inflicting that poor man with a ****** nose in the process, and THEN throw up all over him??)
the only things slicing the silence.

It's my birthday, and I'm a disaster. I'm searching for things to say.

I woke up this morning, wanting to see the sunrise in the beautiful small-town Maine eighteen degree-darkness.

I breathed out fog and watched sleepy houses, my fingers screaming for mittens, as I laid on the salted tar. I thought about everything.

Cars drove by slowly, and I was reminded of life here, and how slow it is.  

In this world, time drips on like molasses. Time wanders through pine groves and iced-over rivers, through quiet streets and underneath clotheslines. It is never overwhelmed. It's able to bask in moonlight and live comfortably. It's dependable.

When you walk around these places, you can see the ghosts everywhere. It's like coming home.

It hit me this morning, in the shower:

Maybe we were meant
not to remain together
every minute, every day or even every year
but to be there
so that when the bad times come,
each of us knows
we're not alone.

I walk with ghosts. They haunt me every day, and every day I remember.

I remember that time when we were going to head home. It was raining--pouring--and for the first thirty seconds after our realization of that fact we were unhappy, afraid of being wet and cold. Afraid of the shadows outside, and the rivers running tracks down the hill. We were uncomfortable. We wondered if we should wait it out--let the clouds cry until they fell asleep. Spend our lives under those fluorescent lights watching raindrops chase each other down grimy windows, our breath fogging the glass below our noses.

But then, something hit us. There was the act of waiting, staring down droplets like each and every one of them was a curse against us. . . or there was the act of forgetting. Letting go. Being free. A little bit of cold and wet was no match for us, whatever we were.

I remember the sweet sound of the heavy doors slamming behind us, and the feel of those first few raindrops hitting my eyelashes, my nose, my arms (which I had freed from my jacket so I could soak up every ounce of the shower). I remember we ran through the streets, yelling out the excitement that had materialized magically within us, laughing at the echoes bouncing off the quiet houses, at the strands of hair glued to each other's faces, at the sheer ridiculousness of our lives.

I remember throwing my bag onto the ground and breathing in chilly air. I remember watching the little splashes interrupting the calm surface of every puddle, and then throwing myself into one without a second thought, feeling the water flow over every part of me, and laughing as I stared up into the sky at the droplets falling into my face.

                {I wondered what it would be like to touch the surface of a falling raindrop. To freeze it in midair and have the satisfaction of holding it my hand, as if it were a diamond}

Soon they were laying beside me, our arms creating warm connections, and we were laughing and silent and laughing again, sharing the power of everything around us.

We made rain angels in the road, and I smile every time I think about it.

And then, the hurt hits me, like I'm back outside that day, only each tiny raindrop has transformed into a shard of those stupid grimy windows. I watch as they plunge into my skin, and I'm horrified because no one is there to tell me that my tears can't mix in with the rain that isn't falling.

So here I am, writing about you before I've even taken my shoes off. I am crazy, insane, like everything inside of me is still dancing and my heart is still pounding and the music is still reverberating around inside my skull. I'm not connected to myself, but to something more infinite--the fluid world, the wind that whips leaves through night air, the rapids pulling and sweeping away anything and everything, the movement of hips charged by dancing lights. I am energy. I am lightning piercing clouds and illuminating fireworks tenfold. I don't think, I don't question. I just move. I just want.

Under blinding lights and around beats loud enough to wreck all eardrums in their path, I have figured it out--the simplicity of it. Who needs to think when they can just FEEL?
And guess what?
I want the feeling of you.

I know it's kind of crazy
but I wonder about our hands sometimes,
and how they can fit so perfectly together,
and whether the fleeting happiness
that comes from solving a puzzle
is worth the process
of making it.

I find myself
magnetized
attracted to your every move.

why does it feel like
whenever I try haikus
they become dead ends

every time I breathe
the words get farther away
tiptoeing through wind

I hate it when I can't enjoy a song
because I'm using it
to block out
the yells.
I hate it when I have to use words like a shield.

I like wool socks.
I like breathing cold air--
the way it numbs in my throat.

I like watching cars drive endlessly,
staring across an avenue at tires and shades of paint, windows and blurred hubcaps. I like catching the brief moments in time when the streets are quiet.
I like empty bottles and barriers and running my finger through a candle flame.
I like trying to capture the brief moments in time
when the house is silent.

I wonder if you realize how simple it would be. I thought about it last night; I think about it all the time. I think it's humorous how quickly I could leave everything behind, how quickly I could forget everything around here. How fast I could run away from these gray walls.
       One ticket. It's comical how solvable the problems are--the depth of the meaning of one ticket aboard any random vehicle. One choice, one idea, one word, and that's it.
       What's keeping me here? What keeps any of us here?
        I'm young, I'm selfish as hell, and I don't need someone to show me the way. It'd be like launching myself through the finish line.

I'm getting chills just thinking about it.

I was thinking of her again. I was thinking of her, and I was gone from the rest of them.
     Her life was beautiful. She was always smiling. Her hair glowed in every light. Her face shined in the darkness.
     She was gone from me in an instant.
     There are so many minutes of my life that I spend wishing for things to be the way they were. Every moment my future plows towards me, and the treadmill under my feet pushes me forward. I end up waking up every morning under my bleached sheets, the tiled ceiling staring down at me with the same uninterested frown as every day before the last.
     I am so tired. So, so unbearably tired. All I want to do is sleep.

It twirls like endless springtime ribbons
violently, though, wildly twitching
lost in midnight streaks of blue.

I just want to laugh at what I used to be
laugh at what I am today
just laugh hysterically

then do fifty crunches, run three miles,
and disregard everything that hurts.

One light
engulfing a doorstep,
reaching out dim tendrils
that barely caress the grass.
All night.

Is it superstition,
keeping that light bulb burning?
Are you calling?
                             Wind scrapes bare branches together in the shadows
Are you searching?
                             Pale pink sky behind drizzling mist
Do you beckon a lost heart home?

I'm sitting here under the lights                                                                   hanging lamps
Tile under my laptop,                                                                                    under my knees
goosebumps over my skin  
and they're laughing, talking, giggling into oblivion
over
embarrassment.

"Why am I here?"

                                                                                      "That's easy. Don't you know?"

"Who are you people?"

                                                                                      "We're your friends. You didn't realize?"

"Why do I feel like I can't breathe?"

                                                                                      "Why do you even try?"

Like I'm any of your ******* business.
You act like you care
but if you did,
then you'd DO something.
I'd do something,
if I cared.

Anger is this funny thing.
It degrades you
unleashes your monsters
destroys every semblance of you and leaves only a pit of utter nasty.

I'm like a ******* volcano of nasty, erupting with explosions like those that ensue
words like "we need to talk" and "it wasn't how you think it was",
cascading all my **** down my sides like a soda bottle recently put through the dryer,
throwing dust into the air until there's no difference between night and my hate-sky,
everything just turns
BLACK.

One:
          It’s funny to think about how messed up a family can be. Everything’s just a big facade--we all pull ourselves together to cover up the cracks. But if you really look, you can see how stretched thin we are. No one wants to reveal the shadows, the burns. But there’s so much anger. We are so taut, ripping at the seams as we yank ourselves into place, as we force back the emotions that beat at the bars.

Two:*
         There are reasons why we have our distractions. There are reasons why we sleep, why we eat, why we read, why we watch endless hours of ****** sitcoms. We don’t want reality. We don’t want the pain of confrontation, whether it be with ourselves or with another person. We live in a fuzzy world of bliss, with the third-party privilege of being at a distance. It’s nice to imagine, for a little while, that your life doesn’t exist. There’s so much less friction that way.

You're wearing too many rings,
just like me.
You're wearing glasses,
just like me. (except mine don't fix my eyes because my eyes are fixed fine)
You're calling me a Little Monster
and I'm laughing, giggling, because monsters don't exist
(except in the closet and in the basement and inside the vacuum)
and you're smiling at me and everything's gold from the fire.
You are wearing an office-shirt, with a collar and a pocket and buttons
tucked into your brown pants
almost like it's seven thirty in the morning, every morning
except it's not. It's Christmas Eve Eve, and I know that because Mama told me
because that's why Grammy and Grampy and Aunts and Uncles and Cousins are being loud in the Living Room
(which is weird because why isn't the kitchen called the Eating Room or our bedrooms called the Sleeping Rooms)
and I know that you're wearing serious-clothes because that's What Grammy Wants to See
and I've been waiting for this day for a whole year. Which is like forever.

I ask for a story and your face wrinkles a little because
I ask for them all the time, I collect them like old people collect money and bank letters and shoes
and you're getting tired of telling them, probably,
but I want the air to shimmer behind your voice
and I want to be the only one that hears it
so I beg.

And you tell me about a magic carpet you had when you were a boy
about fruit--like bananas and apples and kumquats--coming to life
about the time Santa slept late
about when dragons used to be pets and how we used to fly them like cars

and the air is still shimmering but
I'm getting sad
sad,
which I never do when you tell stories
because I'm realizing that all your stories have already happened.
They're ghosts, gone by, never coming back,
beautiful things lost, disappeared.
And you never tell me about the future
because you don't know it any better than I do
and the world seems kind of scary,
too big for me,
ready to **** me in like the vacuum.

You stop your voice, you peek at me
and see my eyes
and then you hug me
all warm because we're by the fire
and the room is silent except for the crackles and snaps
and voices coming from downstairs.

And your shirt is soft and I'm crying
hot water leaks from my eyes, falling down beside my nose
because no one knows the future and it's all too perfect right now.
And you let me go and you kiss my forehead and
say "is it all better now?"
and I nod because I love you
not that I know what love is, but it feels that way
and I'm safe.

Walking through a tunnel,
a cage,
barbed wire linking.
Scream, scream,
ache through the air,
matching voice to wind as it tosses white pine needles
through your hair, around your face,
leaves scratching dry pavement,
mixing with chinese takeout cartons
and Dunkin Donuts straws.
Everything seems heavy
boots, head, belly,
gravity strengthens and
your legs strain.
They watch you zooming by comfortable and spiteful and angry
oblivious,
curious.
Each breath forces itself shakily from your lungs and your heart beats quick and your arms strain against the bag on your shoulders and all you want to do is
RUN run run feel things disappear behind your back feel your hair lift off your neck feel feet hit pavement and muscles flex, feel your body pushing through air and emptiness, pushing forward with a goal to get somewhere. RUN but your boots are too heavy and your eyes weigh you down as they stare at your feet as you walk, as you walk,
as you walk.

Procrastination,
laying on the ground,
words fumbling through my brain like they're on some weird-*** drug
and can't help but bounce off all the walls.

Papers spread all around me,
goading me,
laughing at me,
dancing with each other and
playing twister over the square patterns
on my carpeted floor. They're my audience,
supposed to be sitting in
surprisingly well-cushioned red stadium seats,
only half-paying attention to my feeble attempts at
getting **** done. But I'm noticing this one, sitting (actually sitting!) three rows back
and two chairs down from the aisle
I can see his soft eyes twinkling in the light emanating off the
background of my stage
he watches me, amused, stern, patient,
believing in my abilities to complete
but understanding the trap.
His flat body is well-dressed, covered in straight black lines, question marks,
and capital letters. The kind of paper that means business. The kind of paper that
proves things. His blanks and spaces are all filled out:
pen under a backwards-steady hand.
With all of his numbers and names and titles he's declaring, predicting,
holding
encapsulating
saturated in my future.
He's like a time traveler, sitting there silently with
his boots and black top hat,
whispering softly about what is to come
urging success to spill from my thoughts
which are now linked together in an unorganized conga-line,
falling all over the place is if inebriated intensely,
the crazy ones even throwing up in strategically-placed trash cans.
What a nice touch.

Sweaty palms.
This is what happens
when all but one of your papers don't pay attention to you
and the one that does
is too severe and powerful,
overwhelming,
terrifying,
when that one paper
is the reason why you've been
a fervent procrastinator
this whole time.

I'm empty of everything that early in the morning. No sleep, no hunger, no profound instinctual compulsions that you'd guess live deep in the bowels of the morning, when only the least complex form of each person exists. When it's that dark and that quiet, the heart is the only thing that matters.
          I breathe, but each breath whooshes like wind through one open window and out the other. There's no substance in there; lungs don't catch and hold on. My chest moves hollowly, mechanically, as if it's some household appliance running incessantly. Like a light bulb glowing in a deserted house.
          My eyes stare anywhere, at anything, at darkness and nothingness and up through space and time into worlds where each speck of dust is an infinite entity. I'm restless, too hot under normally snug covers, my arms wanting to reach out and grab hold of something more substantial than what I have. Have you ever had that feeling? Of just wanting to reach out, out, out into the atmosphere, farther, longer, feel the power reverberating through your arm, and feel the stretch of your muscles and tendons? My cheeks burn--I know they're red.
          I turn onto my side, I stare out the window, I watch the murky orange-pink of the streetlight far away, slightly blurred by the ***** glass.
          My stress is tangible, emanating out of my body, filling the air with a cloud of decay, stifling me in my bed. I reach up and touch the ceiling, less than 2 feet above my head, feeling trapped, my temples are a newly tumble-dried button-down shirt firmly pressed under an iron. I'm aching, and it's all my fault.
          My dreams have been wispy, morning haze, almost indistinguishable from real life. Reminders.

It's early enough
things are starting to lighten up
you know that brief in-between time
when the sky is that strange,
infinitely deep blue?
And you feel honored to catch
that fleeting moment
before the slide flips
and the sun climbs
and the blue seeps away?

I don't know what to say
right now.
The simplicity of this page haunts me
It's too easy
I'm used to more options
Endless confusion
Charts spotted with lines and dots and angles
and rights and wrongs and yes's and no's
Mazes with corners and rigid edges
like life is allowed to be put into boxes
like breaths and thoughts and the surface of tears
dripping like melting glass from an eyelash
are meant to be stuffed into sharpness
without the blessing of shadows
not gradual
like
the snap of electricity through an outlet
frying all the atoms in its path.
I'm cold, it's dark,
I whisper.