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Aug 2019 · 220
another stamp not needed
ray Aug 2019
how many times have you sat down to write a letter you knew you'd never send?

do you find them later, years later, in some untouched folder of your desk, some forbidden cigar box, some forgotten bin.
do you laugh.
do you cry? can you feel the impermanence of emotion you cemented in ink, feelings felt deeply, so deeply, that you sat down to write them in a letter you knew you'd never send.
do you still do it again, even though you're only left with more paraphernalia of unsaid words,
adding to your pile of feelings you felt so deeply you sat down to write them in a letter you knew you'd never send, and didn't.
Feb 2019 · 368
old news
ray Feb 2019
do you write her poetry or
did you let that part of you go too
Feb 2019 · 483
forever stamp
ray Feb 2019
I suppose we're just like them now
our missing letters in transit,
love that didn't make it.
Apr 2018 · 213
her spring re-thoughts
ray Apr 2018
i bask in sunlight **** as peach picked from vine,
je pense... for the rest of time,
could we align?
i've missed her hand this winter, as i've missed you,
she called to say she missed my skin too
juice falls from my eyes as i cry, they say love is blind as i long to see why,
bombs are blown into backyards by the rich world,
while we drink more and more
spring kisses me softly as i strive for my own liberation,
i thought your love would contribute to,
until pride stood in the way with his own agenda
i'm still trying to find
if it's love you sing and contain for me,
or something i mustn't fight
love is to conform to one another, not to dismantle
the other
to step down from ourselves and meet somewhere more earthly and pure in between
build the other from the pain we've produced by our own
two hands
saturday mornings are for love coffee and poetry,
analyzing our bodies for the points of stress and writing from the knots in our mind,
wrestling to relax and grow closer to our soul
i want to learn the language of the birds
perhaps we could talk over coffee if i could speak their delicate words
perhaps you and i could talk if my defenses could lie down to rest,
until the next wound
perhaps i belong only in this light
twirling my words like ribbons around heart's tension
singing along to french music wishing i were a peach in the rural east
swaying with the willows, licking sunlight, dripping into the mouths of lovers,
it is me on which they feast
Jan 2018 · 288
water worship
ray Jan 2018
your liquid song of laughter, song of love,
returns me to your arms
I long to pour the nights spent by your side
into bottle,
as holy tide
to wash and feel again
my body
   in your seven seas of love,

I leave you only to witness my own damp words and salty letters,
my palms ache, my fingers
forget their place
as they long for your own
I watch them sigh, as my eyes,
   precipitate

Perhaps - out of joy, appreciation
as I attempt to love you without flaw
falling far too short often times,
to express heart's admiration

However
the continual task could be no greater
I feel love swell in my heart upon the mention of your name
flowing in and out of my mind throughout my day-
like turquoise waters
other memories; they decay
into desert
but you, your holy ways,
see me to the end
I'll prove again, again
how you turn my veins into rivers, running
as this faucet of your heart is unprecedented
how eagerly I look to your constellation each night
and pray it to remain
as you are
I pray your current is not fleeting
I dawn to keep your voice near always,
   folded in light

Will you take refuge in my shadows? or
will you wallow when day turns overcast,
will you still find way in these grey skies,
let love rain; allow me to live in mist of your
truths, wet with the glow of your embrace?
distance cannot strip this symphony of our love,
will not dismantle, dilute,
these sonatas and floods
   as time trickles on my dear,
   you have me wholly
   writing to you only, in blood
will not ruin these rivers and rhymes
   see me to the end, my dear,
   to the end of time
Jun 2017 · 311
above
ray Jun 2017
lovers kept
perched in some realm above land,
land of black and white -
monotony -
we flow from -
to -
as grey,
shades leaking / love breathing
into body,
  but mind,
spirit - you are my heart,
collected fragments gathered thru out my day
whispering rays of light into laugh,
into cloud song
soars,
like the voice that carries, avec moi,
the one i love
something opens,
to reach him, us, ABOVE
Jun 2017 · 285
sitting loving
ray Jun 2017
the day rains
bliss eats lovers, swallows whole
the memories of the fallen,
  for,
     we fall again
  smooth edges of this path,
  sing in underwater love
  like tide,
  i
  surrender to your warmth, your laugh
Jun 2017 · 255
dawn
ray Jun 2017
dawn breaks
settles
reaches out to whisper tones of brilliance
in delicate day to day
stillness i could hope to stay
but to keep on
is to move, love, toward light round as time
as some everlasting note some
beauty,
an openness, a sign
of,
my love,
sing to me
every broken bell still echoed in kept symphony
any beat, melody
every thought of heart
need not to dance thru beauty
for you already are
Jun 2017 · 364
the lake
ray Jun 2017
breathe me in,
traces of love in my laugh
the calm you bring
something my words can't wrap themselves
  around
as silence's sound
draws me in, to crave
easiness in yesterday
even the water breathes
your name
finding way to within your arms
things i should say
but your beauty steals stage
so time gives, time takes
never wanting to break
shatter glass of this contrast
some hidden ache
retreats upon seeing your face
your hands arrive in all my dreams
dancing on skin-
rising something within
awakening some love,
some grace, i will sing
Jun 2017 · 203
for now
ray Jun 2017
this coffee-stained desk knows everything
count back my sins
is new york as afraid to let me go as i am to leave her?
i don't see solace in suburbia,
no i crave her maddening grid
noise never will stop,
dont think it ever did
the symphony that bursts the mind but heals, the speed that tweaks the soul to reveal
on scribbled yellow paper
i want to dance within this frozen may
i'll miss her most in the shards of glass that sing back the worst of yesterday
in everyday
the light, the dark;
the lovers, children in park
we're all the same as we dance on
just different way into One
lilac expansions of this holy bronx sky
stealing breath,
kissing death;
to love is to try
Jun 2017 · 201
as leaves
ray Jun 2017
does real love require plan,
when to fall and feel and all
or can we just dance
under this moon that begs me,
this mist that moves me,
descends from mountain sways from skyline
filling every space
as liquid
as ink emboldening some drown up distinction
of love and lust
a shake from my regular cold, just trying to adjust
as if i didn't have to love too late
say the word - and i shall leave,
today,
but today
something about your hands that leaves me tangled in light
kissing same mist of the unspoken
across the stars of this distant night
i want to love you brilliantly,
watch you shine, sing in your arms
risk the feel risk the fall
if love is easy is love worth it at all
Jun 2017 · 182
here we are
ray Jun 2017
she skips thru meadows with halo on head
i smoke cigarettes under skyscrapers
miles and miles
from you,
from your wide smile that fills the day, some light i look for all the while
she, making love convenient
as if supposed to be;
held my tongue, tried not to run
to be vulnerable not all easy
but her presence here and there,
next door vs new york, i don't compare
only wanted to see you dance, see you free,
live your life of anything everything, breathed in ecstasy
as i'd love you all the same
thought this feeling could transcend titles,
myself only to blame
but baby, who was i to claim?
in trying not to push away
we forget to hold on, at all
listening everywhere for your voice, your call
i set up to watch it fall
i'll try to write without burning holes in this saddened black book
cry as paul reminds, love made is love took
as April now falls into May
i'll behold all things left forgotten to say
left sitting as idle as your abandoned admiration for me
only worth what's easy, right baby?
forget about your eyes, the ache
what's some love if not to break?
Jun 2017 · 193
simple touch
ray Jun 2017
simple touch
sprinkle of dawn across this infinite afternoon
wasting breath and loving it
possession always too soon, not you
i want easy breath on this east coast
kiss the moon, dance to her tune
sing back the strings btwn other lovers in their losses and join in some silly sweet unison
stare into gently smiling eyes the gaze the face i look for, every corner
worn to be reborn
grounding not felt before
bring me back from the clouds in satan's sweet symphony,
don't want to can't lose her now, to this epiphany
Mar 2017 · 276
something more,
ray Mar 2017
looks like morning in your eyes
gentle light and easy love, hidden between lines of
sunrise and fragments of dawn,
singing some sweet song,
but yesterday's gone
i'll dream of tomorrows dressed in red
the moon's loving between all the distance,
in all its sun kissed instance,
we will dance and join hands beating
to this laced heart of mine
circling around whatever i once was
before learning these types of love
the lack thereof
what i wasn't cut out for
you light a cigarette and call as if it's 4 years before,
as if i should be yours
love rest assured
but ex-lovers perpetuate sunken habits while you awaken soul and mind
my subtle stream of sunlight
i dream of and almost accidentally tell everyone
even the sun
even my ex-lover before our call has seemed done
for a while now, and i'm still wandering chinatown as if it isn't sunday evening
as if i've ever known anything besides leaving
as if the sun isn't yet reaching dusk, slowly,
reminding my skin of yours & its gentle touch
as if you're like the rest, as if it's merely lust
Mar 2017 · 594
city love
ray Mar 2017
pulse of this city in your presence, more alive,
as your eyes,
they sing back the beauty of every building scraping sky, gently- as you
pluck the strings of heart i thought had lost
amongst the midst
of olden day,
this polluted air will miss your wide smile of streaming light, the light i watch
in golden day,
filter thru your hair, as cloud, as in the only angel whose delicate voice could speak so loud,
resonates thru my soul in sound,
the silence of your skin i'll miss
as memory, begging me to replay
over and over until
the day
your big brown eyes again find my grey
Mar 2017 · 281
you're beautiful
ray Mar 2017
like a tsunami you want to tuck into bed
settle down end the rage
leave the city for a few days
breathe in the air of these old ripe trees
and sing the song of frozen spring
a loving freeze
shake about in airy ease
dance again
let's dance
Mar 2017 · 340
dressing
ray Mar 2017
walking thru the broken garden of things you were supposed to heal,
people, you told not to rely
as if every cut stem wasn't a sign,
petal, as potential's ashes
burning away in seconds of time
drenching death in red,
quiet sky overhead, pleading pleads of why, pleads of please, pleads of try
trailing hopes you have to extinguish
never exposing tangle in vine,
essence of your core.
soul drips soil, drips wine
like every past lover you try to ignore
Mar 2017 · 209
angel
ray Mar 2017
find me the right words right melody,
hidden amongst the lovers who don't know the ending,
don't crave it like i do
morning blue
barely awake, alive to feel the day
the songs of everlasting notes beating to their laid out script in the heart
let symphony play
let it reign
until destruction beckons for the stage,
to feel it's name,
it will crash like your lover's come down
your heart or *******
let it reign
Mar 2017 · 314
& always
ray Mar 2017
they spit gold; expect
you to fall in love; maybe some do
they will, i can't
Raw is real, found between lines of silence,
not orders of gin & tonic,
not flashing lights but light of soul,
incandescent, all that shade lets in
all that warmth, in subtle gaze
we yearn for in winter
i yearn for you: most days
Mar 2017 · 218
eden
ray Mar 2017
trees sing, rejoice
in unoppressive love - A balance,
yet not plain,
i want to dance to your voice
light of morning, ocean of love,
grace of rarity i'd like not to lose
light straight to soul,
mind in moon's flow,
mediocrity in most inevitably leads
my trace of thought to you,
by hand, garden of fragrant & wholesome peace
illuminates the cacophony around me,
the loveless lack of you,
by pale warm sun body bathed
upon intertwining with your mind, radiant mind
    still felt in clouded daytime
Mar 2017 · 268
sing it
ray Mar 2017
scribbling lost jargon of love,
strung out on last weekend's blow,
roommate sleeps,
i contemplate;
wind in tunnel of the heart,
feeling life, digging whatever
happens to be next, no form
bottle freedom,
i want to feel as an occupation
cold is so old,
outdated is the mindset of feigned
intimacy, for the sake of what?
i preach catharsis to my ex lover
in his mid life crisis, pointing out my
hypocrisies,
we're all on hands and knees
we sleep on the thought of holding lovers
without holding back.
the Way you look at me,
more importantly how i look at you
Ecstasy,
how your mocha eyes thaw my loveless heart,
Beams, A cast i can see
if i try hard enough,
write hard enough -
i want to be the most natural poem you've ever picked up pen to write,
the most non-obligatory song you're ever to sing,
yet still do - in all freedom,
beauty,
light; that love's call could bring.
Feb 2017 · 289
light
ray Feb 2017
how it feels to stand under sun, within her soft and subtle reach,
her gently impressive golden cast on skin so alive one could see
beams of warmth and love, warmth that emphasizes
the shade we normalize time and time again.
Mornings to long for, breath of sun, grounding of earth: wholeness within

Pale orange glow bounces off buildings, their ashes, the past
Whispering clouds in delicate tones of sweetened contrast
between boys in black and white whirling wind that way and this
golden radiant cast we wish we could hold, keep, kiss,
Bottle into elixir and never risk to miss
Chance at distinguishing
A wind from the sun
All in knowing,
Love is light;
Unrivaled
Within  
One
Jan 2017 · 273
love like wine
ray Jan 2017
language spun in gold thread,
growing flowers in ancient worlds of love
I've lacked the feeling for,
for too long
your touch makes every other bed feel so wrong.
for years I've been cold;
yet you seem to be an exception -
in rays of unbiased love,
how could i deny your perfection?
in morning black coffee, your eyes form,
making return to new york a bit harder
than predicted,
No doubt i'll miss your warmth,
your breath, dance, song; unprecedented
See,
Bed always occupied with mere lust and
my lack of will to call back;
yet you were woven out of something other -
Radiance, light,
like wine i'd keep drinking; just give me another
Dec 2016 · 272
back to you baby...
ray Dec 2016
jazz filled rooms light up with your words and even in my ******* haze i see you, bright, mixing metaphors to magic and bringing me to my knees for some reason i don't know why, your beauty your breath your mind is a solace for love burnt in the flames i led you to, death always knocking but i'd open with you,
sipping red on a sunday on any day
the day to be alive
kissing friends kissing lovers kissing fire, love is free but she's forgotten how to see light in the wind and depth in the dark,
did i dream of you last night, spinning language in drunk love?
or was it only an overlay of hope, tracing scribbled fragments of what's to come
Aug 2016 · 709
may we never know
ray Aug 2016
is it possible to miss the potential?
to yearn for what never was,
the possibility;
what seemed to be coincidental?
the passing by of two minds, two souls,
intertwined,
or a skew by my perception;
hope overlaying my scribbled fragment of you,
what you could be,
what you may be, underlying a connection.
by constellation you were made,
shaped by stars,
away from vein;
coated, in folk music and denim
leaving me to wonder,
what caramelized your eyes
to brown & delicate thunder
deep, soft soil; richest out from under.
Jul 2016 · 246
she smells like catharsis
ray Jul 2016
the kind of dosage you swallow out of awareness
separation from your present state;
skidding, through the thoughts of
a golden wash of goodness as we
scratch at our minds for answers, pleading the back and the forth
as if it’d bring us closer to any revelation
any inner spot of fragrant, wholesome, peace
that we die for, try for,
dream about in dance
eventually coffee turns cold and you wake and you realize you’ve only been spinning language for ages and getting called beautiful;
it’s a trick,
like regurgitating our sins,
to squeeze the burden out from under the skin
and rehearse burning letters, along ourselves
the anthem to the liberation
from the coated and waxed framed guilt ridden pane of mind,
breaking a neck to watch the sky,
your vision is blurred, everything looks like its shooting this way and that and maybe all your wishes
are based on misinterpretations
still you dance your way to new york with lights as noose around your neck
strangled by life and its smooth bitterness,
the ease to unexpected accelerations,
not getting out of bed,
rummaging about a box of letters you were supposed to burn years ago,
ought to have,
else you wouldn’t be here contemplating permanence in jailed yellow paper with your cruel last name on all sides
******* my way through a calendar, how many years, just how many has it been,
crossing streets to shake hand with your burden-
your memory’s meanest friend
Jun 2016 · 756
Eldritch
ray Jun 2016
I try to find a way to a calm,
an easy breath,
wash away, they say
come home. lay it down.
I ask,
where'd he go, where'd he go
it was only yesterday
three-minute cigarettes on our break,
mocha eyes on my greying blue.
yours the rusted pier, mine the capped water
beneath

a frantic heart I knew how to read,
elegantly,
with his quiet voice. quiet stare
into today,
I've forgotten our rhythm
you turn away at jokes about my present lovers
I turn cold at the thought of you, her, new york,
you said,
you said you didn't love her
what happened to the plead?
the casualty you couldn't let slip
the phone call from 6 hours away, I'm gone,
I'm gone,
I tell you to leave but I love it,
and once you leave I'm lost.
In a trance, not yours but the lack of you
is crippling
wrenching, curious,
as strong as my steadfast belief in lovers' telepathy,
you'll call, you'll call
I tell myself on and on
in dreams of you I was too tired to watch
hidden fragments you subtly show
show
show, don't tell
May 2016 · 479
a caramel catharsis
ray May 2016
the beckoning beauty in our flowers,
your lips
the softness in our dance, your hands,
my hips
sweetness in song as your stare steals my breath
I smile, forget
all our wrongs, reckless carnage
what was to come out of catharsis--
back where we began, the love never
dies, when will I,
in your hands
your whispers
take me back, laughing meadows,
your voice was my song,
your mocha eyes form in my writing
caffeine only lasts so long
Apr 2016 · 349
raise a glass
ray Apr 2016
It was sobering;
His hands, the laughter,
The murderous sips of a love that wouldn’t last, yet couldn’t die
Just the same
All the same,
We drink on
Finding the barren path to be your saving grace –
As if I cared.
I don’t care.
I only want to bottle your anxiety until I see your smile again,
Sit on some glacier, pleading cheers to your cure,
To be your cure
To sing away your worry, delusion
To embarrass myself so much so that you may just forget your tiny insecurities,
Your teeth, hands
Without returning my love, of course
I never return
What would the wine taste of?
Love, or better yet tears?
The broken bits of your impaired heart, my awful mind,
A temptation to outdate a clouded daytime
My cold heart gets exhausting, misses our warmth
Your skin, lashes
With notes of your favorite fruit, my favorite song
It feels right, it feels right, I just want it to feel wrong
Feb 2016 · 369
spit
ray Feb 2016
nothing as reckless as a feigned indifference, reckless with a negative connotation- that is-
a pretended falseness and concealment of passion, obsession, a love….

inconsiderate of a universe’s ability to destruct, to ****** away any given scenario, to wipe clean the gravity between two souls, two minds, too much gambled. too large of a bet. high risk little return, no return.
none at all.

we bathe in sorrow hoping it lightens to laughter.
ashing cigarettes on our skin, dexterity
laziness in us all
leaving coffee black
leaving ashes paraphernalia of the love I burnt
with fists that turned cold, so cold, unclenched
a melancholy weeping for the sighs of metal breath.
an injection of remorse, what’s it quenching? what’s it worth?
what’s it asking? what’s it taking?
are we sinning? are we praying?
where’s the Dying end, where’s it stop,
tonic, what’d it tell you? did your analeptic 'screaming-to-the-ceiling' testify to the woes endured by a life on earth, a life lugged through, broken by its intricacies
we’re all on hands and knees
singing, sobbing, pleading, throbbing
it’s a beauty in the dead leaves, the Fallen I feel badly for, a reaching sympathy,
beyond what my hands express
we embody selfish bringings  
bursts of breath
balloons of noise of gasps of the lapse preceding death
is it hypocritical to enjoy the lack of closure, the abrupt ending, keeping bottles kept?
the myriad of leaving
the method to Drinking
heavy heaving
stumbling cross-legged through this party of contemplating Permanence, a greying breeding
i imagine a man heading a room ceasing noise not having to demand it no, rather whispering, whispering streams of thought of consciousness.... or the lack of it
on buzzing fragments of philosophy and rationale.....
or the lack of it*
the lack of a sounding foundation
the lack of a solid grounding of a planned pathway of a plan at all,
bottomless to the Bottom of the top of the
Jan 2016 · 290
t.g.i.f.
ray Jan 2016
the tops of our trees, the lack of leaves,
with a pulse.
there's eloquence in contrast. Contrast.
makes up the tone of our days,
the fridays we choose not to wake up for,
smelling the sweetness of our cigarette against the coffee we were far too lazy to sweeten,
but there's beauty in the raw. in the raw, throb, of a break in routine,
in analyzing the why and where,
why i'm stuck in Virginia, why father stopped paying child support,
where a drink turns to alcoholism,
where people insist on resisting to a permanence in memory. Or,
the opposite, a beg a plead to remain.
to stay.
why he begs me to stay,
more so, why i push the love in my life away
Jan 2016 · 874
'la vie en rose,'
ray Jan 2016
compilations of cold coffee cups,
dancing about in my candle-stained room
to French music from the 50's, today,
contrasting with the cacophony of construction
four stories beneath, below,
the day is blush.
rain as rosewater, fossilizes into flakes on the cheekbones, the lashes.
a quick reading of Kerouac reminds one to
believe in the 'holy contour of life,' whatever 'holy' means,
if it exists at all,
whether America is overrated,
whether i rather play in puddles of Scotland
or some foreign place,
how delightful it sounds, as Edith Piaf's
voice trances my loveless memory.
i'm cold. but we have to be.
Dec 2015 · 460
sins & shards
ray Dec 2015
in december we break
it's traditional
learned patterns in history class,
there's no nice way to feign affection for
some stupid foreign love
you do it so well
by and by, i'd rather write about you as i
ignore your calls, watching you miss me
from afar,
is a hobby.
its traditional.
to bleed or to bottle up: i shout too often
even though you're gone, i smoke too frequently
every lavender vanilla latte sings your name,
all your love, the vigor forgotten
maybe we'll drown our sins, you'll pick up pieces,
but the puzzle is always ******
Oct 2015 · 731
pourquoi
ray Oct 2015
they say write, say write, write
all i hear is 70's french music and static.
all i think of is you,
      last night i took shots until i couldn't hold a steady glass,
      remember thinking this is it, this has got to be it.
      this is how you forget.
contemplating calling you- dreaming that i did
      on, on and on
my english teacher said to write for poignancy,
i wrote on a coked out father,
sometimes i dream i see him at a grocery store, a church
he's all screams, i'm all "you have the wrong person, sir."
i've forgotten how to write,
maybe i'll call you in a year or so, maybe i'll forget
Sep 2015 · 495
"i'll explain later"
ray Sep 2015
picasso shouted your name
i left my cigarettes in your car i think
Saturday night, all red-eyes and pleads for help
funny thing is, you hate me i think
funny thing is, you came, you found me, walking unsteadily, phone in hand head in sky mind on you
that's what mattered
too high to comprehend, I was home
they say when you look at the ocean - you feel it.
like being baptized all over again,
maybe this time you'll believe -
at least as much as they wanted you to
you'll hear what it is they say salvation brings,
like a resurrection to make you feel less alone
no honey, you are alone
but I swear you were my sanctuary
I swear you still are
what's a baptism? I'm still dead
mouthing responses back to my thoughts,
I woke up this morning from dreaming about you
only to read a text, saying, you were dreaming of me too
Sep 2015 · 345
heavy
ray Sep 2015
nothing hurts worse than the cataclysmic rot in your heart
ache in your head
this burden has lips and a mouth and can speak and can shout all the things you've done to deserve the bitterness in your breath
his bestfriend's bruises on your neck
gravel on the ground fades, a grey background
father gets out of jail tomorrow, always bad news
silence has a sound and the static you hear when I'm not around, running, always running to what end? where are we now?
why's it taken you so long this time to speak up, admit you miss me,
you always do. I make fun of the parallels in history only until
they're through
Sep 2015 · 355
it's cold
ray Sep 2015
and you're stuck again, shivering
pretending to hear god
pretending he gives enough of a ****,
no,
no- there is no one.
the sound of your breathing is my salvation,
i've exhausted my resources. too many times.
some weeks i forget about your love,
last Sunday, and i showed up to see you with my neck bruised
as if i didn't know it'd lead to here,
now, reaching for someone something some high
it's always been you,
should i stay silent now?
rummaging through the heart ache, contemplating
a proclamation of everything i've ever felt,
or is it too late
tell me there's no deadline, no due date
loving each other is a ******* catastrophe
spilling emotions like wine, wine like hate
if i had one question, what the **** is fate?
Jul 2015 · 1.5k
lachesism
ray Jul 2015
back-stabbing cynical-
crumpled sailors and crinkled cramps taking
root in your left side
an intolerable frame of mind
burning from the inside out,
the outside in
the stress doesn't die out, what does,
when will i
all bruised hearts and broken hands,
the insomnia that summer brings
spinning at the clocks' demands
breathless sighs, broken ticking, sleepless nights
Jul 2015 · 479
laced
ray Jul 2015
your mind sweats from the thought of every lasting
lover i've ever touched,
every single being that's ever crossed my mind,
i'm loving my lack of transparency
everything we could be;
everything i want to be
i rather set my soul on fire than say a word
kerosene in coffee, lighters for breakfast, cigarettes
we're all crippled kaleidoscopes,
functioning in some broken type of way, some
decrepit-Sunday-morning-type-of-way;
feeling like a heart transplant
ache, it's the twelfth day
by hurting lovers we hurt our hearts
let's stop dancing with the safe side
break, they say
break, find the spare parts
Jul 2015 · 631
liberosis
ray Jul 2015
and i'm stuck shaking writing fevered poetry
with a broken pen between my fingers,
you're stuck dating a girl you don't love.
you equated your writing with some dark diary you
threw off the highway as if
there wasn't anyone supposed to read it-
as if i don't stay awake for long hours
coming up with questions
of what's in transit from your mind
to the paper,
we both know i wouldn't dare read it sober,
today you told me you loved me.
today i told you to stop
Jul 2015 · 396
slumber
ray Jul 2015
she swallows coffee like she swallows pills,
leaving behind
some strangled
bitter lipped thoughts swimming in her mind,

denouncing prior dispositions,
innocence is lost
through trial, tribulation
emotion and logic dance crossed-
legged through this party of depression

hold on, hold, on,
i can't be your cure but can't i lead you to it?
we talked about going to Michigan, New York, can't you remember?
sat on my porch with wine and your pack of reds,
you know more than anyone that i just can't shut up when i'm drunk,
i can't shut up,
i'm drunk,
you said you'd visit me in the city,
or anywhere, i need you to wake up.

he starts swallowing alcohol and pills,
to numb out, to forget, to sleep,
it's not her fault it's not her fault it's not her
Jun 2015 · 387
following,
ray Jun 2015
I woke up at a bar scene
fifteen years forward, you,
you stood the same way you stand
today and I recognized the back of your
figure the way I recognize the back
of my hand and
I wasn’t sure if the room around me froze
or I just simply froze myself, spilling
drinks like love and love like drinks
you wore the same shade of hypocrisy you
wore that day, that last day
I thought you were dead
I told myself you were dead
it went as imagined, you stumbled
over slurred words and wooden
stools and I remembered exactly why
our lines crossed quickly,
why fate didn’t keep us close for long
why I labeled you as ‘toxic’ and shelved
you in the back of my mind, for years
upon years upon years it’s been
almost 15
Jun 2015 · 379
void
ray Jun 2015
fleeting
the sound of my breath on the inner parts of your mind,
the back of your neck
the bruises of your ankles
the depth of your emotion
flat roofs, vacant hospitals, the wilting petals
of the mourner, Tuesday morning.
you awake,
screaming someone else's name
dismal ache, the gap for a heart
that you just had to fill

something snapped. i couldn't tell
whether it was my psyche or my conscious, my mouth or my
throat, my heart or my head, where is my home?
something between the degree of you and the oil i drop under my tongue to love myself
something between screaming at the ceiling for answers and waiting
for you like a child at a bus stop, the kitten in the window, the things we said we wouldn't let drop until
they did
they broke, it all went
to hell, sifting through old cut up love i found the
you's and the but's and the and's and the if's and
the birthday card you gave me on my fifteenth birthday,
the scribbled letters, the paraphernalia of the love i strangled to death
with my own bare hands and the
regretting of it a year later.
May 2015 · 355
parañoia
ray May 2015
something in you is shaking, even when you're still
it's easier to give up
and that's what they don't tell you
saltine crackers taste better than torment
and coffee better than water
whiskey better than coffee
the sunrise, isn't always silent.
sometimes it's hell,
sometimes it's leaving your ex lover a voicemail they rather sleep through than hear sometimes it's pacing back and forth on the sand,
lonely
it's waking up,
exhausted
it's gravestones taking place of land
and hearts and images and memories
blurred, fizzy moss
spreading over skin of the people we once knew
it's not so bad it's not so bad it's not so
is it the ashes that are smearing your past?
when we can't think straight
and you are just i's and I'm just somewhere
not here are we
shaking or is it the room
ray Apr 2015
summer poetry kills us now.
Lemon.
like, lemon on your tongue,
but you love it
like, and you wish i wasn't so ******,
and i wish i wasn't so ******,
it's ironic in the way we keep living
i stopped calling
i stopped praying
cigarettes on my skin, that magic 8 ball, what'd it tell you?
stop asking me why i leave so often.
but hey, the last time your horoscope got it right- it hit you
along with every shot you took that night
singe, we singe our skin, chemistry converts calories and
today my bus almost crashed. almost
it goes something like, the unprecedented laughs we hadn't heard until its over
its over
Mar 2015 · 488
"the" breakdown
ray Mar 2015
I need to stop talking about you as if
you were dead,
could it be this is the only way to cope rather than knowing you're
still out there, somewhere, bleeding
shards of glass, grabbing for
something smoother, something
more stable, but the months pass by and shred away any chance you had
you become further and further away from who you are,
from what you were,
you're a shaky resemblance of your fathers past, an embodiment
of the pit inside your stomach and you're too
afraid to be alone in the dark and
in the light and
I'm afraid there's nothing
quite as terrifying as saying you're fine so many times you scream it while
you sleep or noticing
the erosion in everything; your
ex lover, your father, the bus driver,
the mirror, the degradation of you & i
Feb 2015 · 767
brutality
ray Feb 2015
Today
I will sing my sins as if I
Hadn’t yet learned right from wrong
As if I didn’t recognize
The becoming wrinkles of my skin
The fading of preconceived thought
The fading of what we were
As if I don’t conjure up detonating
Definitions for what we depict as
Reality,
As if I don’t feel it
As if the wind doesn’t rattle through my
Bones and shake my soul and wither
Me away
You reach out your hand
I turn the other way
Chrome colored lines that intersected
At the wrong time, the wrong place in history
As if I don’t consider
Dying, intentionally
Projecting perceptions through this lens
Titled reality,
White upon the spine
Drawing images and you feel it,
The finality of your
Vitality
Jan 2015 · 411
Elmer's
ray Jan 2015
i woke up to stars fluttering around my head
and a strange operator of crude remarks,
protruding my thoughts as if they weren’t
real enough to see-
i feel dimmed. i hope you don’t.
yesterday when i saw your mother in
the grocery store, it tripped me up
my mind distracted from my sample cup of black coffee,
i lost all focus, i threw it out
i found myself 30 minutes later in the restroom
talking to the mirror
i hope you don’t, ever, yearn to be alone
every passing unconscious fragment
clouded away
i hope you still know how to sleep
without me, haunting your dreams from
time to time. don’t awake in a cold sweat
of memories glued to the back of your mind
you thought you amputated the things people
couldn’t see, the things you didn’t need.
i told myself once
i would read the dictionary
yet i never found the word that accurately
depicted the way it felt when i left you,
no, not even regret,
i threw it out.
my definitions are blurred, i can’t decipher
between heart and
head and
whether or not your name still tastes like home
in my mouth or
if it stings like the oil I drop under my tongue
to love myself and
i’m learning to walk, broken.
all bones cracked.
i left.
i told everyone i didn’t need crutches
and i didn’t need you either, i threw you out.
the irony was in the innocent way
they believed me,
i am bleeding,
i can’t walk unsteadily. a part of me missing
too sunken to scream your name any longer
a bit too bruised to pretend i’ll
ever be the same
Jan 2015 · 519
unruly
ray Jan 2015
i wasn’t made to be condensed into your adjectives,
as if “dream girl” and “broken” equated.
on what planet do the stars create grey eyes and
a name with a story, i'm
the skipping record of leaving
too quickly, abandoning my home while
the first is still in flames
Jan 2015 · 411
the vessel
ray Jan 2015
i feel the depression, crawling back up through each and every seam. regurgitating itself through my soul. wrapping its thin, sprawled, delicate-yet-violent, wrinkled fingers around my spine. slowly transfusing through my veins, transfixing itself into the roots
of my brain. it's taking me over, in the way the water enraptures a
vessel, slowly sinking to the bottom of all bottoms; a vast,
empty, nothingness; a hypnosis incomparable to any other.
tell me, how do i swim to the surface? how do i learn to find
my way? seemingly simple to those looking down upon
my wretched, decrepit soul. to look to the sunlight and
swim toward. but, what if a weight is growing over me;
something i cannot prevent. something dragging me back,
relentlessly, time and time again. a virus spreading
throughout my body,
the longer i live- the
worse it becomes.
so, further, and
further,
i sink. tell me, tell me, what is there to do now?
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