You slid to me
with ice on your heels,  
flame on your back,
the wind in your face,
and the stars in your eyes.

It's a scritchy scratchy situation
made from a wishy washy connotation.
Shift, shaft, shake the muscles beneath my skin.
You crick crack creeped to corner of my grin.

Broken with a kiss, and sealed with a sigh.
You remain my favorite little white lie.
Confessing that I don't know why
I will write about you until the day that I die.

You pretended; I embroider the delusion
with every hiccup of a heart's confusion.
Remember, child, what you can't see?
I won't stop, I still fancy that fantasy.

I pushed you away, but you threw me out.
I was your trash; you were everyone's treasure.
Internally screaming with scarcely a shout,
all in all, the torture was my pleasure.

Backtrack back, to this and our state.
A slip of strength but not a slip of the tongue,
Because like destiny and the idea of fate,
I stopped believing in you when I was young.

So I stole your
ice for my heart
and flames for my belly,
because it's windy in my head
with your stars on my mind

I screamed to this man,
creating fists with my hands,
and my heart just ajar,
"You will never understand

The way the wind hits me harder
and the waves crash into me with more salt.
The way colors are filled with laughter
and the warmth crawls through my skin.
The mud is my mirror, I'm a child of the dirt.

Happiness is fickle friend,
coming and going as she pleases
with no notice of the way darkness
clings to my back with a claw full of poison
tempting and tipping toward my tongue.

There's been a fire in my belly
for as long as I can remember,
twitching and tingling up my spine
leaving her needles in my neck
to **** away at me like a leach.

And how love incandescently dances
in and out of my chest without care.
The way she dangles my memories
relentlessly taunting and haunting
as she sews my skull to the sky.

You could never understand." I cry.
He held my heart and I knew it was a lie
when he promised me peace and said,
"Let me try,

Of course I noticed when
he placed his hand next to mine on the counter
(a little closer than accidental).

The hand that once made my soul swirl when it touched me.
The same hand I watched rip my heart from my skin
and crush it between its fingers,
while mine frantically fumbled and fought like fiends
to prevent him from slipping through them like sand.

I knew that hand better than the back of mine.

So I pulled back and pushed away
any of those memories before they gained enough strength
to pick and pry and wrap their prongs around my neck.

But by the time I realized what I could do,
I could already feel them on my throat.

I would relive goodbye a hundred times
if it meant I could have back the few moments
(before you said it)
where I could feel it under my skin,
that I was still under yours.

I often wonder
what I could accomplish
that would you make you realize
everything I have done
or ever will do
is for
or because
I once knew
you.

I am aware that it is harmful
that I consciously convince myself
of the comforting fantasy
that he is just an old friend who I fell out of touch with.
That somewhere he is living a life:
Following his dreams,
Falling in love,
Making strangers smile.
That I will see him again,
in a crowded bar,
or at a backyard birthday,
where we will catch up like we do
and he will be there and the world will be right.

Then it will hit me.
In the midst of mundane daily details,
If I let my mind go numb for the smallest of seconds,
reality will rush in and engulf me
and scratch on the back of my skull
and crash through my chest with more mercilessness
and more weight
than I knew the world could carry
(it is far too much for me to carry).
I am forced to remember
why the night feels a little more black
with one less lighthouse
to remind me where home is.

But sometimes I blindly smile.
Because how lucky were we,
Peter Pan’s lost boys,
to have had such a brilliant brother
to have lit up our sky at all?

We drink. We love. We drink to pretend we have love. We fake love to feel loved. We know very well what we are doing. We have no idea what we are doing. We gather in groups. We push outsiders out. We know very well what we are doing. We can’t get a hold of what we are doing. We hate each other. We hate ourselves. We hate outsiders. We love our lives. We very well might hate our lives. Stockholm. We drink. We love. We **** ourselves.

We slosh through days. We get sloshed through days. We could be certain that we love the way we slosh through sloshy days and pretend that we have it under control. We have it under control. Do we have it under control? In thirty years there will be a phenomenon. We will all drop dead. We will all drop dead and we will think back to this time when we hated how much we loved our lives because we loved the very lives that allowed us to hate each other and wish we were the outsiders. We push away the outsiders. We are killing ourselves.

Then there are those who are unaware. There are those who might be naïve enough to think this is how the rest of our lives will play out. There are those who believe that the rest of their lives will consist of sloshing through sloshy days and pretending they aren’t killing themselves. And then there are those who very well might have the lives that allow them to slosh through, living and dying because we are killing ourselves. Peter Pans. They will not make it to thirty years before dropping dead. It won’t be a phenomenon at all. They will **** themselves. The outsiders will live on.

We do not know what love is because love is sloshy. Love is sloshy because our minds are sloshed. We pretend that what we feel is love. We pretend that these people are our friends and our lovers and they watch us **** ourselves and they **** themselves and we are all dying together. We are dying for love. We are dying to live. So we slosh through our sloshy days seriously not giving a **** that we are dying. Seriously giving too many ***** about what others think. Seriously ******* around. ******* around is serious business. ******* each other. ******* up. *******. *******. *******. We are killing our plans. We are killing ourselves.

We know very well what we are doing. Except the few that have no idea what they are doing. We live in the moment and pretend not to notice that in thirty years we will all drop dead and the outsiders will live on and love because we kept them out. We kept them out and saved their lives. They resented us because we ***** up and ***** around and ***** each other but we never ***** them and it saved their lives. We resent them because they live. We pretend we do not resent them because we think they don’t live. They don’t live like we do.

We pretend to love our lives. We love our lives. We think we love our lives. We do not know what love is because we are *******. We do not know what love is because all we do is *****. We do not know what love is because we are dying and we know very well that we aren’t well, so we hurt each other and pretend that it is the outsiders we hate. Pretend that we don’t envy them because they aren’t dying.

Some will get by. Some have plans and money and parents to put their screws back where they belong, so that their bookshelf can hold up the book of their life that was written for them. They will live on and slosh through their lives and make money and make babies and make fake substance. They will get married and get jobs and get divorced and get depressed. But they will be rich. Their lives will not be rich. They will be rich but they will lack richness. These people will have everything. These people will have nothing. I will have nothing. But I will have everything. If I do not **** myself the way that we are killing ourselves.

Why does time ***** us over? Everything is changing. Everything is staying the same. People are sloshing by with their sloshy minds. It will remain this way. The way it has remained this way for as long as we can remember it remaining this way. We have terrible memories. We have wonderful memories. We have these memories and then we have some memories that we cannot remember. We will get by. We will get out. We do not want to get out. We do not have a choice. Do we have a choice? I need to get out.

We do not want to leave the lives we hate but love because we are sloshing through and pretending we are rich. We are not rich. We are salty. We are salty and messy but we are happy. Are we happy? I am happy. Sometimes I am happy. Sometimes I slosh through my sloshy life and wish it were over. I never want it to end. I am the some that are naïve enough to have hoped this would last forever. We are the Peter Pans. If we never grow old we can never drop dead and blame it on the time when we hated that we loved this sloshy exclusive mayhem that we call life. I survived my youth, I will get out. I do not want to get out. I hate the love I pretend to love because I hate that I love it so much. Stockholm.