I shall compare myself to an unsharpened pencil
Brimming with potential to sketchingly write.
Yet,
All of it unconveyed,
Encompassed in my receptacle—
So long as I
remain unsharpened.

You are blue
Your companionship has long since gone away
Your words come slowly if ever
Your interjections have no meaning
Your passion is a doused flame
Your decisions are unfair
  
You are bronze
Your shine is lackluster
Your potential is untapped
Your enthusiasm is misdirected
  
You are rust
Your intellect is a-waste
Your trust is broken
Your mind is now clouded
  
You are brown
Your ear is unsharpened
You coughs are unnatural
Your friendship is valued even yet
  
You are orange
Your ethic is admirable
Your company is comical
Your life is my soaps
  
You are yellow
Your face is but fair
Your skin has blemishes
Your actions not so demure – but yet
  
You are red
Your actions are fuel for my fire
Your intentions are good but the crafted hands left wanting
  
You are Violet
Your pain was great
Your color is of love
Your solid perseverance is for me
  
You are White
Your brilliance outshines mine
Your patience burns as fast as light
Your opinion flares as bright as magnesium
  
Black is not found
Deep down I have looked
But came back wanting
  
Is that naïve?

I ***** stanzas -
I spew literary clutter
My poetry is aimless
The words all muddled

I write unsharpened
The point pressed pointless
A fire smoldering with no tinder
The universe questions its existence

It's a Thursday night
and I'm higher than I've been
all week.

The boy told me this was the good stuff (as he does every week) so I took it on faith that he was exaggerating.

Two blows later
and I can barely read the late Mr. Vizzini's words.
My body feels warmer than it has
since November of 2012,
and my face is itchier than my last year in Boy Scouts, circa 2008.

The walls of my room seems a lighter shade of purple than the have in years
and my carpet is not as stained as it was this morning.

Old Polaroids of my parents' wedding are tacked on my wall,
and in those pictures my grandmother is the most beautiful women in the world.

Thank God for muscle memory,
and thank God for compulsive *******,
and thank God unsharpened pencils,
and thank God for everything else that my body knows how to do and everything that I can see in my room and put down in this poem.

There is no purpose to this,
but today I asked a friend of mine
why she is always looking at the sky
and she told me because if she looks at it long enough
it isn't the sky at all.
It is her
and she can speak to herself
and she can thank God for compulsive ******* and ****** science fiction literature.

It's a somber feeling
when the winds of autumn come slipping through the gaps
under your front door.
They sneak in, like the smell of unsharpened pencils,
and slip on like new jeans bought for the new year.
It is during autumn
that life truly starts again.
Summer's sleepless nights
give way to the October winds
that make you twirl and dance in your kitchen
with windows wide open.
It roses your cheeks with the mornings of November,
warms your soul with the mouthfuls of coffee
on the August nights when your books have not yet been creased.
And as your highlight the texts
and the memories of friends' faces lit by orange fires,
remember that autumn is your season of purpose;
Its winds promise the turning of new leaves;
its day promise new adventures,
And its chill will rattle your bones
and awaken the sleeping siren
that summer always leaves forgotten.

She says throw out the dishes she says go to sleep she says
we’re definitely getting older everyday you’re getting older
everyday she says how does my skin look she says where is the moon
she says no she says buy me a water, unlock the door for me,
the bus is here she says I’m ten minutes late twenty fifteen thirty
thirteen the astronaut is here and he’s about to leave without you
goodbye rocket ship she says I’m a rocket ship she says you’ll never
be a rocket ship she says your face is tarnished ruined like
knives left unsharpened like blackberries creamed on the walls remember
the deathwalls

she says look at us

we’re talking in rhythm now.

They said your name on the announcements this morning, but you weren't around to hear it.  
They spoke it just like anyone else would, but the tone they had was all wrong.  
The curves in the letters of your name -much like the curves of your hourglass figure- did not drip off the announcer's tongue like they should have.  
They were summoned from the front of their brain rather than the inkiest depths of their heart.  
They said your name flat, grim and thin like dull graphite.  
They read you prayer, but I'm not quite sure what it contained, because the moment they spoke your name on the announcements this morning, the floor rushed up and up and up until the crack of my head met the vanilla scrubbed tile.  
The room blurred and the room buzzed and the announcer continued to talk in his unsharpened pencil rasp, and I hoped and hoped and hoped some more that they played our song at your burial.

I.) Bodies of

Open lakes are naked
Their secrets,
Rub like salt.
How did one get here
What seized the labour of hands.
Do we deserve to know.
Do we deserve to know the extent.
Do we deserve to know the extent of our own subjugation.
Knees meet dry earth.
It's dry where we forget to water it
Not that it needs water,
Salt finds form
In our negligence.
Arid insincerity spoke of more.


II.) To follow

We left.
We did not need to stay
A dry sterile whisper kept us there
With it's pleas for us to leave.
The trust of invitation,
Burnt holes in our wings.
Untrust of warning,
Had us leaving without our things
I don't know which is better.
A departure announced drew heed to soft cartilage.
Unsharpened curfue split bone without piercing the skin.
The expression of self.
Callous wanderers knocked at no doors;
to accept rejection.


III.) Reintegration of being

The want of murmurs in wanton misuse
Kept us foraging for lust,
For more,
For inability in casualty.
We waited for forest to arrive,
Bare earth begged of no candour,
Trees deny script.
Unclenched hands greyed over context
As purpose gave none where some was due.


IV.) What the stars offered

A quest unrelenting bends bark in fervour.
Do we know why we left,
Cold hands hock at swords needed to keep slight wrists in check.
Or where we are going,
Our aimless pacing finds direction in blind eyes and guided hearts.
All the dust settled, buried in puddles like art.
And the thunder was there
The thunder never knelt
But we listened
To listen was the choice.
A brief connection with the sky
Through it's reproach
It implored for something more,
Only upon deaf ears.
Was earth all there was to rain on?
We thought, as the stars spat on us.
Celestial offering in cleanse not spite.


V.) Love

Maybe that's why we left.
To trascend our own ideas of love.
Innocent foliage made the path harder to see,
But easier to tread.
Gentle arches hug mounds of green
Like finger tips kissed by yonic flesh.
To remember the conception in contact,
Was to recognize our own affirmation
And any word intended for the ears of the unknown.
Blood is replaced where word is love.


VI.) Relation to self

To stay or leave was not the choice
The distance from anything was illusory.
The real choice, was acceptance of self.
After the end of our disintegration,
The dry heave,
Leaving without hesitation;
We are not without ourselves.

He treasured every inch of her skin
As if he was responsible for putting together her body structure and curves
Every detail was well thought, a result of numerous hours of unsharpened pencils and sketches
He has done this before, maybe even to the point that every stroke became less and less meaningful
When he wasn't preoccupied, leisure consisted of admiring buildings, edifices and towers that touched clouds and reached skies
He contemplated and wondered if he would ever come up with a design, so great that it would represent perfection
During nights when he would close his eyes,
He imagined a bare lot with overgrown grass, enclosed with trees
He pictured the process of construction, men moving back and forth, drenched in sweat,
And heat that showered on them like hovering bees
He never knew what perfection looked like, no matter how many times he would lie in bed at night with closed eyes
But she came to him like an idea, an inspiration that walked through the door
Yet he did not recognize that perfection looked beautiful in lavender
Nor did he know that she loved soft rains and ice cream during winters
He did not acknowledge such existence until she tore down her walls for him
And she became his favorite sketch, a structure he would always keep building
An assembly of the most appealing interior, countless hallways and staircases
A concept that needed more explanation and could not be written, spoken or expressed as blueprints
She became his favorite design, and a treasure he valued way more than any of his work

He loved her.

n.j.

I had a dream recently,
where you were *******
me,
and it was so ******* hilarious,
because you were awful.


before waves, I used to imagine you
being the one to anchor me until the chains
ripped my skin to bone.

before sun rays, I used to think you
were the only one who could make my flesh
burn and peel and never ever heal.

before alcohol, I used to get foolishly drunk
on you. and you. and you.

i was a hunk of fish being hacked away by a
unsharpened butcher knife.
the hunks and guts splattered all over the apron.

you used to say i was beautiful,
and i guess i can’t believe it anymore because
you ripped my spine out only to place the bones
wrong and walking has never felt the same.

this dream never made sense, like the rest of them,
i swim through them with too much salt in my lungs
and the ocean keeps trying to drown. Drown. Drown. Me.

see you again, in a dream, in a wave, in a lie.
the thing is, i sort of want you inside,
but i only know you’ll crash.break.rip.stomp.
and my skin is already mangled