i am becoming whole with a cause and he made me believe that there was a reason for everything. i met him in this life, two weeks after i couldn’t fasten the rope in my basement, two desks to the left, one back. quiet boy with soft smile, head down, leg tapping. picture me one desk up, two desks to the right unknowingly sitting metres away from the truest human being i would experience thus far. the human being who would introduce me to new genres of music, run through sprinklers with me, sit talking for hours smoking full packs of cigarettes, walk through forests, introduce me to genuinely hilarious people and help me experience the true beauty of not being okay. the human being jealous of music and the broken people that made it. the boy like his father; or so he tells me every time he’s drunk. stop looking in the mirror, trying to find darkness where there is none. light another cigarette, we’re all going to die someday. drown in your own self hatred, the water’s warmer in the deep end and i’ll help you keep your head above the water if you promise to float beside me when the sun rises again. once he said he’d **** himself in every universe he experiences without me and yes maybe so but even with me in his universe i wonder if he means it when he agrees that we should stay. i hope he stays. sweaty-palmed handshakes, aching and aching he is as soft as the skin beside his eyes when he smiles. why try to act so sharp edged when your heart is made from all things gentle? passionately broken record boy, repeating the same things over and over again under the influence with undertones of love for others. the love he’s unable to show towards himself. i see the way his shoulders curve downwards on the worst days, trying to make himself smaller to fit inside some new definition of “lovable”. the only person to ever tell me i was easy to love and prove it. i don’t know if i’ve ever thanked him for that. passionately broken record boy, appreciating my art and leaving me to wonder if the words we’ve shared after midnight had the same effect on his heartbeats as they have had on mine. sometimes he looks at me innocently but not so innocently because i’m sure he’s held my gaze long enough to see everything i’ve been hiding. i’m never really sure if he’s joking or not. about life and love and wanting to die. i want to tell him i love him in the way i love every person i’ve ever lost, like i sleep with my shoes on in case there comes a night i have to chase after him. he is the sum of everyone he has ever loved minus the drug addictions and prostitutes and stab wounds. it scares me that despite cold skin his presence keeps me warm and i am warm, i am warm, i am warm. i have never felt so warm and secure and void of anxiety within a friendship before and maybe him entering my life as carelessly and beautifully as he did was one of the reasons for everything. i genuinely believe it was.

passionately broken record boy. i didn’t meet him in the past life, two weeks after i fastened the rope in my basement, two desks to the left, one back. quiet boy with soft smile, head down, leg tapping. picture an empty chair. one desk up, two desks to the right, never having the chance to know the truest human being i would’ve experienced thus far. an empty space of a person he knew of but never knew.

but in this life i did have the chance. i got to know HIM, not just a tragic biography. not just a tragic suicide told enthusiastically by those who ached to follow. i knew him. i know him. five months after i couldn’t fasten the rope in my basement we were staring into the stars in comfortable silence and i finally believed that there was a reason for everything. i am becoming whole with a cause and the cause is him.

The sensation of
Your hand in mine makes me feel
Like it is all right.

My stomach drops
when the car goes down a hill.
I feel like I'm falling,
but not in a bad way.
Like a sort of drug,
or midnight shot of tequila.
Warmth floods
my body.
Everything's okay.
If you hurt yourself first,
others don't get the chance.

All I can give you
is my empty heart,
my hollow love.
Like a glove,
it wears thin with time.

Beautifully broken,
barely belonging.

I want to live, but
I want to crawl inside my past.
Personal history
will set me free at last,
regardless of what burns my tongue
as if it's on the cusp of being said.
If I find my womb again, well,
good enough for me, I guess,
that I will have won.

I want to live!
I want to crawl inside my mind.
I haven't found dogs that write scripture
for all that I've searched.
While I realize it could be,
I ask myself, "How long will you toil
in the name of agency
all to find
someone to take your shame
and make it palatable?"

Trend is set from continued action
My inaction left me numb and blind
The trend is set that my earthly distributors
May take of me as they find me if I'm turned off
The trend is still the same as the dreams
My grandparents had for a better world
Trend toward full automation

Fine for '56
What am I doing now?
How do I live without
knowledge?

My distributors and keepers
kept me wet
in their fluids
using my blood
before but

They will not win this war.
I commit myself to sit and reconnect.
If a hand offers me happiness,
I'll ask, first, Which conglomerate?
If my choices seem chiseled
In the mint of coins
And the choices fit perfectly opposed
I'll remember my nose and sniff
Out the metals that fund this war.
I'll ask then, Whose coin is this?

And it's not ungrateful
When those with all the excess
Try and rule the world
Because of how bored with
What Is they've become
And exactly absolute

Well, what if
I decide there's no war?
Well, what if
I bow my head and take a knee?

People of my same society will laugh at me,
And chastise my every thought before
They say, for sure, "It's just how it works."
Then either crush me from high
Or forget me and play State of Decay
Until they forget how much they're worth.

I hold.
There is no war.
This is not a game.
This is our Existence.
Fragile at best.
This is beyond
Humility.
This is actual
Neglect.

Your poetry is like cinematography in my head.
How do you do it?
How do you point the formatting like a camera,
like you’re panning for gold,
and discovering something precious
so deep and real
just with the position of your italics?

I told you this,
and then you reciprocated,
saying,

I, on the other hand, use word choice
I listened and heard your intention
I choose and commit to one
like an undying promise
imbuing that choice with all the meaning I can.

You tell me you noticed,
and I suddenly had no words.