Tingling dread,
Hear her toothless gasps
Feel her creeping behind


Instinctively turn and embrace her
I love those dead eyes

At best I'm a mess
And at worst my brain's numb
I can never tell if I'm
Melodramatic or honest
I don't think it's just one

Stop tugging at my cheek muscles.
Did I ask you to?
We both know how every pull
Pulls more stakes over our heads.

Are they really there?
It's hard to look up to check
Since your eyes are down here

There won't be applause when it's all figured out
The scariest part
Happiness must come from within

A warm cup of self-fulfillment
Sipped without reservation
Tiny happy decisive droplets of unfiltered choice
Coffee so late is so good

It beckons inspiration,
The old psychic creature that wanders eagerly into empty bottles and evades the capture of contentment and discipline
One must exercise patience to glimpse it when the environment is brightly colored;
Joy is a camouflage to the unbroken
True,
I am unrelenting


The passing clouds give way to brilliant night,
The city beneath is a flattering mirror held to the possibility offered by the stars
And this vessel slides simply between

Though there will be a descent,
It will not be a free fall
If before there was fear of the vast expanse above and beneath,
Then I don't remember why.

The first few times we knew,
Honestly
There wouldn't be an exit.

At least, I knew.
There is a somber acceptance that comes with experience

I am already trapped,
Now the panic sets in as something illuminates in the distance;
The one thing we knew would be waiting
Smiling sympathetically.
I know I'll need it.

And now that I can see it,
I think I want it.

It's taking all my self control
Not to text you while you're forgetting me
Letting you know how beautiful you are

Last chance for revenge
First time spilling blood,
If only vicariously through the turn of wheels and the windshield's broken knuckles

If not for these fraught deliberations of unbridled rage
A tormented poet could be momentarily famous;
Artistic outlets can't pull a trigger.

She watches through the window
Terrifying premonition
Avoidable or irreversible,
Nameless intelligence stalks its target
At second glance evaporated

Hidden in mind
Gleam of unsolicited thought sinks a predator's claws deeper
Witness her briefly in ropes and knives
Constant awareness of an ageless virus


She's here now.
Sightless, breathless, eyeless, tongueless
She doesn't move or eat
Broken skin, observe freedom through the cuts
Her stillness offers forgiveness
No longer terrifying,
Premonition becomes option

I longingly reach for her

Jolly antlers
Curling happily like fingers do
Adornment of a stranger's imagination

Funny toothless braying
A beautiful accompaniment to the white rocks
"Ting ting"
The bell strung from your neck joyously speaks your odd truth

Tender plodding of new hooves,
The scabs of your retelling leave their own interpretation of your metamorphosis
You may be reconfigured
But you are complete
My little reindeer

To hide,
Make opaque the details
Sympathetic outlines
Obscuring what I should be feeling

Imaginary traipses through
Verbal scenery
Clutch your denial between your legs
Drink it while I'm not watching
Mouth agape, skin pulled tight by your truth’s fingers,
Another hot gush of “denial” arches your back and forces shut your eyes
You aren't watching either

We're blurrier than we were.

No definition,
What we are exists in 240p
I'm straining my vision against the harsh grain of a flickering lcd
I'm watching the most important part of your story disappear into sporadic outcroppings of dead pixels
I'm grasping an empty metal frame and begging until I feel like screaming,
“I can't see you anymore”

Sometimes I think I shouldn't.

Emotional stranger
No words to voice my stress
You will not hear
My foreign thoughts
We speak different languages now.

I've been awake for a while.
You have been in stasis.
A bitter slumber,
With burning dreams

My scalded thoughts writhe,
Frigidity is so tempting.

Am I ahead or behind?
I lost interest in this crossroads,
Years before you approached it.
You will stand and search and see,
Finally,
That in this flashy intersection of bodies
There is nothing to explore but what you've already seen in your head.
There will be nobody to talk to
But the corpses of those that never moved forward.

I have felt so much more
On this dusty two laner--
Without the distraction of the blinking lights,
Without the screaming of the thought police,
Without a lust ridden billboard selling supposed truth--
It is so much easier to see the horizon.

It is far more beautiful
Than flesh.
And is more eternal


I would see our fingers
Intertwined like you would see yourself
With as many people.

If that is truly what you want
And this is truly your stop
Maybe it's time I unclench my heart
And let you wander;
It's four in the morning,
And I'm exhausted anyway.

I hope by the time I fall asleep
Your ever-shuffling feet
Will let you find home.

My brother, I wish you the best.
Hoping this drive is easy on you,
Hoping the friends are good,
Hoping you pass,
Not just the test to become
A practicing personal trainer
But to become somebody new.

My brother, I wish you the best.
I wish you solace,
I wish you solidarity,
I wish you would not leave.
Not just here,
Because I certainly wish that too.
But I wish you would not leave me,
Because where you go I want to go with you.

My brother,
I wish I could skip the months
Because a day at most is what I am used to waiting.
My brother,
I wish you could miss me like I will miss you
And I wish for you never to understand
Not out of shame for myself,
But so you can become all you can.

Friends give you their hand so
One day you can let go.
I pride myself on my grip of stone.
There are other people,
Other places to grow old.

So divided,
The state of my heart
My splitting head aches from the fissure, it is cracked open.
I am proud to know you,
And I know the potential your new home could hold
And therein sits my dilemma,
Wedged king-like between the two words ruling my mind.
The throne:
Friend.

Future;
The crown

Because you are so firmly embedded in my past that you couldn't be
Torn out
By a riot or a ****** or a stateline.

But,
You tore a hole out of this town,
Be sure.
I'm sure I'll trip on it,
When I'm stumbling around,
And I'm sure it will hurt.

I just hope
You read those books I gave you,
And my coffee ends up staining the pages.
Because that kind of symbolic permanence is one of two things I wish for.

And my brother,
I wish you the best.

How many words
Arranged for you?

How many hours
Awake because of you?

How many kisses
Given to forget you?

How many times have I given up?
I want to say many

How many lies
Have I told myself?
:
"How many times will my heart break?"
"How many ways will I lose?"

How many of them
Will your soft truths erase?

How many landings
After falling out of dream-state,

How many dreams
Allowed me to caress your face?

I have suddenly emerged
From long
Restless
Hibernation.
My cells even,
They scream for you,
Shouting out endorphins

You make me feel like a child
Because only children are able to feel pure,
Unabashed,
Uncomplicated happiness
The way you make me feel it.
Only a child can lose itself
So completely as I do with you
And only a child would be so eager
To run towards something pretty;
With untied shoes,
With legs not fully grown
And not yet often used,
With an unsteady gait,
But a focus so clear it could only come from a head higher even than the clouds,
Knowing what tripping means
Knowing what falling feels like
Knowing fragility,
And not knowing what it is to care.


How many poems
Have I written you into?

How perfect must a piece be
To start to color in
The picture of you
I've written?

How many adjectives
Must describe love
Must describe laughter
Must describe honesty
Before I can see your eyes glowing in my work?

How can I summon these words
And more
To let you in on yourself
While your fingers run through my hair?

How can I speak?

You make me,
You make me,
You make me stutter sometimes because I'm so caught up in how sweet you are
And repetition is so sweet when you're a part of it
And no matter how many times I say your name,
It will never lose its flavor.

I am more for you
And, somehow,
I am the same as I've always been.
I am more aware of myself than ever before,
And less self conscious,
Because you bring out the beauty in things simply by allowing your own beauty to be with them.
It's hard not to feel worthy of something
When something so wonderful
Doesn't even give you a chance to wonder if you are.

How many chances
Have you given me?

How many times will I fall for you?
It doesn't matter,
Because every time I do,
I remember
Just

How easy
Falling for you is.

Art:
Bending or breaking a set of rules
Until the broken system
Finally resembles you.

Hey, where did you go?
You have such a beautiful voice,
And though I've never heard it,
And I've only ever read it,
It always sounded so wonderful through your prose.

I miss seeing your thoughts.
I think I've read you,
Straight through,
sEVEN times at least.
It's been since February that
You finished your work from January.
I want to know your mind again.

You started
Me.

You told me I was good,
A shock after my first attempt.
It electrocuted my doubts,
And saw sparks bursting from my creative capacitors.

Then you told me to grow some *****.

Well...
You can't change everything.


Then you said you wished somebody would write you the way I wrote her.


Hmmm...


When I call words to mind
And haphazardly plaster my paper with them
They're really just scattered collections,
Lessons in literature I've unconsciously taken from my favorite authors.

So,
Really,
You're already in every poem I write.

My favorite authors are the minds
That create bodies for themselves
From the bodies of their work and skill.

Well,
When you write,
You embody the poem.
All I see in those lines is your hand,
Back bent over your thoughts,
Wringing perfection from English.

Point is,
My poetry is already partly you.
But why would you want
A poem of you
Written by somebody like me
When your own poetry
Is more you than I could ever hope to be,
And when you are such a brilliant writer anyway?

I dreamed of love
A drowsy girl
Awakened my sleeping thoughts
With burning memory
And the inertia of hope
Unexpected,
This sudden pull of gravity in my mind
Has sent me tumbling back to consciousness.


Gasping,
Cold plastering clothes to skin
Wondering
Where did my warmth go?
I miss those imaginary arms
That kissed me easily
More surreal than our fantastic surroundings
Less beautiful than her trust in me
Just as perfect as anything dreamed

Her name was Erika
My name was a blush and a hello
In the beginning.
But by the end,
"I'm so happy."

We climbed through windows and laughed about nothing
We played with wolves
We walked, we walked,
So many hills and not an unsure step.
I met her mother, she met mine
Both were so proud of us.
She made me useless things that I treasured more than practicality itself
And I could feel her pride when I hugged her for them.

Shy at first,
Sitting on a bed,
I asked her
"Where are you from?"
She mumbled,
"I don't know."
I said "that's not from around here."
She hadn't taken her eyes from mine. Now she managed two words:
" I'm lost."
And suddenly, I knew I was lost for her too.

We met for the first time in a hotel with no purpose
But meeting her has become the only purpose.

Though I wish so badly to go back to sleep,
Something vital inside me is more awake than it has ever been
Now I will keep my eyes forever open
Until I find her warm embrace once again.
And when her smile buries itself in my chest
I can finally close them.

The older I get,
The more I understand

How little I know

So why does it feel
Like I'm already much too full?

I miss the person
Whom I called many things
None among them,
"Mine."

Never quite naked.
Never quite close enough,
Because we were never
Comfortable enough to be either.

All because from the first collapse,
I had no problem calling myself
Any terrible name
Any thing but
"Yours."

So I reflect,
My ancient mind
Clinging to the time,
And the change,
Confusion,
Eruption!

The only thing I have ever felt
Wrench my heart
apart
And pull my head together

And the only way to define my youth.

The only word to describe


A tragic emotion;
The only thing I ever got to call
"Ours."

How we reflect
To construct eternity;
Gazing at stars.

Street lights
Building the same obsidian glimmer
To light the world.
Not so we can see,
But so when the stars gaze upon us
They can see how gloriously bright they truly are.

Don't worry.

I'm here to tell you what you need to hear.
And it's not what you thought you would hear,
And it might not be what you deserve to hear.

Don't worry, it's me.
You don't know me well, but
You should know that I am kind.
I am gentle, and I think about you in that fashion.
My thoughts are not barbed wire,
Nor clear sky.

When I think of you, I think this:

You are foolish.
But so was I,
For years
For the same reasons as you.

And nothing can judge you
But the years,
And the years are nothing if not judgment's mirror.

Lonely years.
I would write poems of hate.
I tattooed my life onto the skin of so many notebooks.
Letters only exist on paper--
How badly I wished my depressing poems would be emblazoned proudly on my soul for all to read.
How cold I felt when I realized nobody wanted to get close enough to see them.

The only tattoos my mind bore
Were freezing outlines of emotions
None of which could burn hot enough to melt the ice they were etched into.

Then something magical:
Neurons. Synapses.
I realized that my mind is not a metaphor.
My mind is not a tangled mess of hyperboles and adjectives.

My mind is not poetry, and life is not scripted.
Nobody's brain is made of prose,
Much as some would like to believe.
Depression is not more noble because it is written well.
And if you have written it, believe me when I say that the way it flows when it is read aloud makes no difference either.

Do you understand?
Here it is, simply:
Step back if you find yourself a step too far into the world of the over dramatized.
Burn your depressed poetry.
It serves no purpose but to remind you of the state you are in.
It dwells in your long-gone years without thought of any future unless that future is your past relived until your future's end.

Poetry is not a coping method.
Poetry is an excuse to linger,
And "coping" is a very poetic way to euphemise that fact.
I have found this out the wrong way.
Poetry is as addictive as alcohol, as drugs, as depression.
They all go together well.
And they don't like to let go once they've started to hold hands.

What I'm saying isn't "stop writing."
What I'm saying is that if poetry is an excuse to linger, you have a choice.
What i'm saying is I hope you choose to linger on joy before you dwell in sorrow.
Because the longer you stay somewhere,
The more it feels like home.


Try to grasp the idea of just stopping,
Letting every idea go
And leaving.
And not coming back for a long time.
And doing it right now.

Realize:
1. The longer you stay sealed inside your mind, the longer you'll have to live with only words as company.
2. Words make terrible company when they're written in sadness.
3. The stars don't give a **** about words anyway.

Be like the stars.

Be with your friends. Make yourself laugh. It'll be hard at first. Then it will be easier. Then other people will be able to make you laugh too.



And one last thing to you specifically,
To you, the person reading this,
The person wondering silently,
The person I've been writing to this whole time--

Realize:
I don't know you.
But I love you.

This is not a joke or a ploy.

I love you.

Somewhere out there, there is somebody that loves you, and it is me and I am not afraid of it.
Find me,
And I will love you openly.
Because if you have the strength to find someone you don't know, you have the strength to find yourself too.
And then you won't need a stranger's love anyway.

My friend
I wish you could know my mind, but
Understanding you would push away
Keeps me from letting you inside

It’s quite the mental irritant
If I get close you’ll grow distant
But even if it’s not your intent,
It’s enough to force my mental defense

And I know you don’t want me to be far
But I can’t get close just to watch you fade.

I’ll stay a phantom
So you don’t have to be one.

Perseverance will not work this time
Because time is in short supply
Departure will soon arrive
Absence will slowly invade my life

Embrace never felt so desperate
Though desperation isn’t a word that fits
No, it’s a quiet determination that makes us stick
An unwillingness to part without this.

I’ll always miss the nights
You were burning in my life
Like the incandescent indigo light
That kept me company when I would write

Every moment slides like a dream.
Your gaze floods me with memory
Our first words float back like a distant melody
Singing all the reasons I’ve ever had to believe in anybody

Your smile brings a strange solace.
Your simple happiness
Is the push behind my lungs as I think all this
It makes you worth the cardiac risk

You won’t read the words I wrote
But somehow I think you already know
As long as my heart beats in this world
You will always have a hand to hold

I had a dream about a mask
It was terrifying.
The mask, I mean
I don't remember much about the dream.
The masked man ran around,
Tearing through town,
Taking vengeance on those that had cut him down

Everyone knew he wouldn't
Couldn't
Maim another
Because though through his mask
He became another
He was still a person
Just a person with his soul scared silent
His spirit sealed shut

His mask's mouth was sewn up
Like a doll that had misbehaved,
Said,
"I love you"
"You're my best friend"
Without having its string pulled to say it

The man,
Or rather the mask,
Was chasing a group of kids
Who had threatened a girl
That was very dear to him.
He pinned them down but couldn't speak,
So he bit off his own lips

Suddenly his speech wasn't deformed
And his vendetta didn't matter anymore
He threw himself to the floor and
He wept
He wept tears of unfathomable joy.

Then I woke up
Knowing as I gasped for air
That the dream had passed.
But when I reached up to my face,
I could still feel that mask.
So I started,
Layer by layer,
To peel it back.

She thinks she is the kind of beauty that many worship.
All thin figure,
All dark eyes,
All nails that leave marks on your back and
All her lip biting and soft moaning

She thinks her beauty is a set of curves
She thinks her beauty is legs
Hips
Suggestive submission
She thinks her beauty is just talent,
She thinks her beauty is just an act
She thinks she's average, and her beauty is just made up

But her beauty is her eyes after the make up has run off.
They glow the sweetest, lightest green
(Her favorite color)
When the mask of mascara melts in a scalding hot shower

Her beauty melts you the same way.

Her beauty is the way she melts into your arms.

The way she talks like she doesn't care who listens
And listens like you're the only one that ever listened to her
The way she can say two things with one word and mean both of them.
Her beauty is persistence.

She would rather **** Superman than marry him
And I have no doubt that she could do either if she wanted to.

Her beauty is paying rent when she is already gone.
Her beauty is talking to the new guy when nobody else does, just to make sure he has someone to talk to.
Her beauty isn't in wanting to come in, but in her want to stay.
Her beauty is freedom seeking a place to tie itself down,
Her beauty is love for the sake of healing,
Even when the love isn't there.

Her beauty is the way she gives her faith to every good thing that comes her way.
The way she loves her dog.
More so, it's the way her dog loves her back.

The way her grandmother loves her back.
The way her friends love her.
The way a complete stranger can feel warm for days,
Just by meeting her for minutes.
The way nice guys have a real chance.
The way that she gives seconds chances to everybody,
The way anybody would risk humiliation to have one.

Her beauty is so deep that people can't climb back out once they've fallen in.

She thinks it's her ability to make love that's beautiful.
But I want her to know,
So desperately,
It's much simpler than that.

She is beautiful because it's so **** easy to love her.

Brotherly love, never fades
Never lose sight of the moments you create
Monuments in memory
Dedicated to all things blanket-made
Childhood games became our names,
We were molded by the pretend we liked to play
But we were never pretending
No
Imagination wasn't too far away
We've been knights and cowboys
Superheroes defending,
keeping our home safe
Like in our heart of hearts
There was nothing there to hate
Nothing to hurt us except the villains we would slay

Then the day crept up on us
Finally forcing the icy touch of separation
Sixth grade, everything changed us
Seventh grade we were distant,
Eighth grade we almost gave up.
Thought we grew up but we grew apart
Looking back on how it happened almost breaks my heart.

My brother was just coming in
Just another middle school kid
On the bottom of the pile
And I was on the top
Looking down at him and his friends
This is when innocence ends.
He just wanted to hang with me and Wes
Wanted it to be like it had been
Wanted to be closer than close,
Wanted to define brotherhood again
And I should have let him.
But instead I left him.
A sociopathic ******* is what I am.
Like an idiot
Like a nothing I know how to explain
I just pushed him away
Like an opponent in the ring,
I kept him at arm's length
In his moment of ascendence
I kept him stationary

We had always made each other friends
Sharing buddies like they were ours to share
And nobody but us had the right to care
So when he got to school, a strange foreign place
And introduced his new friends with a smile on his face
He expected a reception better than what I gave him
No pride or excitement for him in the words:
"Go away."

God.
What did I say?
I watched as the smile widened.
He thought I was joking and he shoved it aside
He has always been the kind of person to keep trying
But when we got home that night I saw he was crying
Mom tried to explain:
"Honey, your brother is a different age.
He's going through things
And you'll do the same
You probably both need to find other friends anyway."
And he saw me standing in the door
He raised his hands to wipe his tears away
Then he got up off the floor
And he asked
"Why don't you want to hang out with me?"
I will never forgive myself for saying
"You and your friends are annoying."

And for every time he said "Please?"
I said no.
Until he didn't talk anymore.
I felt nothing.
Not until he left, saying
"I hate you."
I heard those words echoing into everything,
And I swore
I wouldn't be a bad big brother anymore

Somehow,
We got through.
Somehow.
Now we're still brothers
But I can still feel the distance I put between us
From all those years ago
And now I wish night and day that I had never said no.
I don't know if he remembers
But to me every image is so vivid
Every word we spoke is like a curse invoked
Every time I turn off the lights
I'm haunted by the same ghosts
Of two brothers on a trampoline,
Smiling,
Dreaming up castles and moats.
They turn to me and we lock eyes
And somehow I know
The enemy they were fighting all along
Was the thought of letting each other go.





Dedicated to Trevor,
T-Man
Always at my back
And always in my heart.

I love you.

You're the best brother I could have asked for.

Everything I know about you
I am devastated with attraction
Everything about you
Is what everyone hopes to be
How can I hold you?
How are you real?
...here?

All I know is somehow when I'm trying to live
You're always there.
Just before my last footfall
You are the end of the sidewalk
You are just around every edge
Watching from angles
Who do you thank for your halo?

Since I remember you have
Held my arm just a bit tight
Have held me so close
But gentle;
Cautious

I'm doing it too.

But since I remember,
Every time I've seen your outline in a doorway
It's the only thing not standing still.
In a world of deafening noise,
Your voice is the only thing worth listening to
You are the only person I'm quiet for just to hear
Because maybe me hearing will heal you like hearing you heals me.

Sweetie,
There are so many struggles
So many struggling
Everybody is hurt when they have to tackle their life
Most of us are scared because it's coming
Whether or not we like or we see.
I haven't been close to anybody in years,
I've lived in uncomfortable distance
Trying to squeeze happiness from safety
I want a reason to serve you
I want just one thing
I want you to know me.

I'm going to try for you.
I'm going to try so hard
I'll be your reason to endure
Because life is scary,
And nobody ever told us it would be.
Lets be the ones
To tear down the walls in the fake
Worlds we've made
Since I remember:
I want you to be the one in my arms
When those worlds crumble
I want you to be the one crying with me
And together we'll make smiles
Because in the end life's ending,
And you're worth living for.