It's 12:12 a.m
don't know where I am and the light isn't coming up soon
but it is morning, not night,
I guess
I have a feeling I won't be getting much sleep
but that's okay
that's alright
I'll work it out with made up dreams of you
what I hope you are and will become
(changing everyday. everything's changing everyday. can't do it. won't do it. they all look at me. good morning. good night. good morning. good night. goodmorninggoodnightgoodmorning)

she loves me she loves me not she loves me she loves me not forever, and ever
amen

you are still in the corner of vision
and you haunt my doorway
and i can see you in my lipstick and my computer and the reflection in every other girl’s face
i’ll swing around and my eyes will glow and your name will spring from my lips
only to not be you
it’s not fair,
but that’s just how it is
how it has to be
it’s not your fault that your shadow creeps around mine
or that i see you whenever i buy a stick of eyeliner
it’s not your fault that you were a hurricane and i was a house made of wood
your name hangs around still
and your eyes follow me through doors
i am ashamed of my infatuation
but i am relieved that you never knew
now i can keep you as a friend
no scars
clean
and
easy
break
i broke up
when i bit my tongue before speaking then kicked myself when i let my words spill
i broke up with the image i had built for you
the imaginary reality of you
you are a history book devoid of reality and only of pretty lies
but god lies have never been more beautiful

1.
we come across a building that’s as big as it is empty
and toss pebbles with our feet because that’s easier than speaking
and i swear we’ve had this hush before

2.
you’ve never been one for a hush
that lasts longer than the last time i made eye contact
so when i ask you what to do
as the empty building looms over us,
you only say “i don’t know where to go.”

3.
we settle for sitting on the steps
of the deserted building
and counting  how many people rush by
with their hoods pulled up
and pull our own hoods up in response
because that’s what strangers do

4.
you tell me again that you don’t know where to go
and i just kick up dust and revel in it
because this is our breakup ritual
i could not tell you where to go

1) For every great skyscraper, there are petty fingers that built them.
I wonder if we were made the same way.
They were strong enough to raise a hammer, but not enough to raise a family.
I wonder if we were made the same way.
She is cold, and he is drinking, and this is our backbone.
She is alone and he is driving home too fast because sometimes you don't have to be in the wrong place to be looking for the wrong thing.
She is afraid and he is warm, this is the beginning spark of a forrest fire filled with broken glass shattering in broken homes with broken people inside on a broken piece of land in a city that has too much rain for someone to build an emergency room in. Everyone with a burden holds their confessions in their left palm and their beggings in their right and no one ends up having enough arms to hold each other.
2) One day the whole world will be in your hands too, and you'll see that sometimes darkness can blind you worse than the red glare the sun paints your vision when you stare at it with your eyes closed.
You will be brave, you will stand up straight, you will stop being royal when people stop painting Jesus with a purple robe.
Even the concrete asks the sun to make it a garden so try cracking your knuckles a little louder and maybe you will wake up as a mountain.
3) Autumn. When you wrote secrets on notebook paper and taped them underneath benches in the city park, you gave too many pieces of yourself to things that weren't made for holding that much weight.
But you said it kept you honest and there were never any reasons for me to ask you to stop giving away the parts of you I wanted to myself. It kept me humble.
4) I am alone
5) You are October in a green dress with a black mask around your eyes and you have stolen the breathe of that day. And I hope when you are 80 years old you feel a breeze sliding on the back of your neck reminding yourself of all the times it should have snapped in half during the moments of what should have been your hanging, how it takes you back to living life like you're always in the desert and stealing innocent people's money and smoking cigarettes beside rattlesnakes.
I hope you find a beach in the Caribbean that asks to be died on, I hope you learn to forgive people harder than you can cry on their shoulder. I hope you watch a sunrise that you spend the rest of your life thinking about. I feel like for that to happen you need your feet in the ocean or underneath a rocking chair, but I would settle for your bedroom.
6) But with you it was never settling.

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

i haven't been thinking about you lately, i swear i haven't, but i was just thinking about parties and trashing myself and how anyone who isn't trashing themselves is just preserving their own corpse and i was thinking about death, lots of it, and i was suddenly hit with the realization that i am going to die [as i occasionally remember] and i had the sudden sensation to tell someone i think i am going to die and i picked up the phone and i nearly typed it all out, until i realized how he would react. how alarmed he would be. how he'd think i was speaking about suicide and try to talk me off a roof i'm not standing on. and then i thought about you. i thought about all of our talks and how i could say anything around you and you'd absorb it and yeah, sometimes you made me feel stupid, but most times you made me feel heard. sometimes you even had crazy things to say yourself and i, of course [being in love with you], ate them right up, right out of your lap. and i miss that. but talking to you is completely out of the question and he'll never understand.

when they ask him what he cares about
he’s not sure how to answer
because there are galaxies that spin freely in their own time
and time that runs in place
and places that contour in untrenched freeways
and ways not so free, stuck in trembles, that run down a boy’s spine when he isn’t sure
how to answer a question
and by jove, there were questions
honest and truly
that he wanted to ask a strange man in tattered clothes
and a young lad rubbing mud from under his nails
and a woman poking a stick under her dress
and the other men who huddled near an ember storm
but the tat of their shirts spoke plenty
and he shouldered away then
just as he does now for what should be easily asked
and easily answered
--he does not feel as clean as he is--
and he does not know where the middle ground is
or why this pause is curling black
or how to say i do not know what i want
and maybe words matter to him because once tied, he begs for a slip of tongue to resolve  
what he could not say with pauses  
and maybe pauses matter because once his words slip too far in between
he caresses every second that allows a reel backwards
and maybe he is backwards
and will never answer the question the way
he feels he should
so when they ask him again what he cares about
he pauses and pleads his brain
before he can say, *i wish to ask the questions
that will tell me i care enough.

I visited your grave the other day, and it occurred to me that I couldn't tell you how I was doing.
I assumed you're doing fine, or at least I'd like to think so.
I couldn't bare to tell you that I've stopped believing in Heaven,
I couldn't bare to tell you that I've become the soil surrounding your casket.
I sat there in silence while my fingers went numb and I swear for a second
I could feel my soul sinking into the ground trying to shake you awake,
To tell you I need you. To tell you I haven't made progress. I'm killing everyone around me.
I wanted you to wake up for just ten minutes. I wanted to tell you everything I haven't been able to write nor say out loud.
I wanted to tell you that I'm okay and I wanted you to tuck my hair behind my ear
and melt these frozen tears off my cheeks and look me straight in the eyes to tell me that I'm not.
I wanted to sit there in your arms and scream,
Because every time I try screaming, I  fear that I'll awaken parts of me that are meant to stay unconscious.
But I've been meaning to think about myself for a second and-
I'VE BEEN SPENDING RESTLESS NIGHTS CLENCHING MY FISTS AROUND MY BEDSHEETS,
AND DIGGING MY FINGERNAILS INTO MY HANDS BECAUSE I'VE FOUND AN ADDICTION THAT I CANNOT TAME,
THE SIGHT OF BLOOD DOESN'T BOTHER ME THE WAY IT USED TO.
I'VE STARTED DOING THINGS TO FORGET.
I'VE STARTED LIGHTING PLANTS ON FIRE TO GET SOME SORT OF HIGH OUT OF LIVING.
I'VE STARTED BECOMING THE TYPE OF PERSON YOU TOLD ME NEVER TO BE.
MY PALMS ARE THE EYES OF HURRICANES AND DESTROY EVERYTHING THEY TOUCH,
WHY IS EVERYONE ACTING LIKE THEY NEVER SAW THE TREMBLING IN THE FIRST PLACE?
I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT SANITY IS AND I DON'T REMEMBER THE LAST TIME
MY HEAD WAS SILENT.
IT'S LONELY YOU KNOW, HAVING FIVE DIFFERENT PEOPLE TALK TO YOU AT ONCE IN BETWEEN YOUR EARS.
I MET SOMEONE THAT LIVES A BORDERLINE AWAY BUT STILL MANAGES TO SIT
ON MY PORCH AND WAIT FOR ME TO LET HIM IN.
I CAN'T STOP LEAVING DINNER TABLES WITHOUT PUSHING MY CHAIR IN FIRST,
I CAN'T STOP LEAVING PEOPLE WITHOUT SAYING GOODBYE.
I FEEL TOO FULL. I FEEL TO FULL OF FLAMES BURNING DOWN EVERY LAST CITY IN MY BODY,
I FEEL EMPTY. I FEEL LIKE IT'S SUNDAY MORNING AND I'VE POURED MY FATHER A BOWL OF CEREAL JUST TO FIND OUT WE'RE OUT OF MILK.
PLEASE DON'T HURT ME, I'M SORRY, I DIDN'T MEAN TO, PLEASE DON'T HUR-
I have a body made of one-hundred sheets of college ruled notebook paper that kids like me used to make scrapbooks out of.
I am a collection of bruises holding up photos of a Father's fist,
My hands were only made to hold those who feel empty when not holding a glass of wine.
Some days I am full of constant negativity and feel the need to rip grass out from the earth
and throw China cabinets to the floor to say that nothing stays pure forever.
I stopped thinking about myself for a second.
I sat at your grave and said nothing.
I was going to tell you all of this but I couldn't bare to tell you I stopped believing in Heaven.
The only time I ever saw you smile was on Sunday mornings.