I make my way upstairs
Then wonder why I’m here
I started with a purpose
Now it’s not so clear

I find myself mid-sentence
As I draw another blank
With God as my witness
Happens more and more these days

I struggle in remembering
When I started to forget
Was it now or perhaps then
It all began to slip

I’m introduced to someone
Shake hands with a smile
Hate to say but forget the name
The moment I turn around

If you have a secret
I’m the perfect one to tell
It’s not that I can keep it
I just forget things really well

4:21am,
and I’m not sure where the hours went
Wondering if it’s worth it all,
all of the wasted time spent?
Struggling to keep myself around
Plummeting deep into the ground
The line I crossed is where I’m bound
A game of lost and never found

4:32am,
and I’m not sure when it started
Wondering if I deserve it all,
whatever left me broken hearted?
A shallow rise for a deeper low
If I swallow lies then I can’t let go
It’s always yes when it should be no
But I reminisce what I used to know

4:43am,
and I’m not sure how it ended
Wondering if I divert it all,
will I come out the other side mended?
I hide in thoughts buried in my head
Live inside the plots I made up instead
I can’t revive when I know I’m dead
And I won’t survive in the life I’ve led

4:54am,
and I’m not sure if I’m myself again
Wondering if I revert it all,
can I go back in time before it all began?
I knew it’s wrong but it felt too right
I grew so strong but I lost the fight
Intertwined with the depths of night
It’s where I find just a glimmer of light

The silence is deafening when it makes a sound

My daddy passed away today
Though he died a long time ago
Brought a monkey back from Afghanistan
That killed our once happy home

There was horror in his eyes
Which really was no surprise
I hated what that monkey did
Every time he took a bite

My mommy died the day
My daddy passed away
Left an emptiness in all us kids
That will never fade away

Have to wonder what was going
Inside my daddy's head
What that monkey took away
And what the war behind him left

Of this once a happy home
It's hard to understand
The day my daddy went to war
And brought a monkey back from Afghanistan

nights taste like earth and I pray to the god of grass
when I look at you I wonder if the stars remember their combustion
I wonder if the stones have cried out their lunacy
and who and what will remember
who will know of my
biography
I have only the feelings, their broken cycles in my body
my hands resemble a tree
they're caressing themselves too much in the wind
our fear is not an imaginary cage or an ego shaken by shivers

sometimes
you're tired of love like a marathon runner.
It's good, you say to yourself, when the walls are silent
when you're not ankle deep in doubt
I love you the best I can and that's a trivial fact
like an empty street where no one remembers the meaning of sadness

when I watch you dwell sometimes outside your skin it's hard to keep my tears in balance
then you turn around and your body knows the meaning of tenderness as the morning knows the promises of an edge, of a forgotten soul or maybe of a lunacy unheeded

when I have nothing else to tell you
I'll write a poem or two
strange words for a strange world
as strange as the last day of a year
we need new clothes for thoughts
to dance anew the horror, the splendour

Ours is something
To be explained away;
I love you
But– I think to myself.
I love you
But– there will be a day I do not.
I love you
But– I do not know what love means.
I love you
But–

You gifted me a vase
Rose, iris, baby’s breath, chrysanthemum
In purples and pinks and whites
They wither quickly
Alongside the spider webs in my closet,
They crack and brown
Buried in the darkness of thick winter blankets,
Hidden within the folds
Of that green dress I wore
They rot.

I stay awake until
The old clock ticks in silence,
Sound bouncing off empty corners and into the abyss,
I unsheathe the vase from my closet and hold it up
To the yellow-orange ceiling light,
Blinds drawn tightly,
Damage control;
“Live, please, live. Just a little longer.”
I press my nose into it,
And baby’s breath becomes hemlock,
Iris into nightshade,
Chrysanthemums now oleander,
And the roses–
Stay roses,

I press my nose into it,
Tears replenish dried water,
Feeding the poison,
Dying, slowly, in darkness.

I love you
But– this cannot be love.
I love you
But– I have not sacrificed,
Have not pained or labored or suffered,
I love you
But– If this is love
Then what have I known?

Ours was something
Of swimming pools and summer air,
White boy indie guitar,
Art museums and coffee,
Flowers, book stores, paint drops on your cheek,
It was leather car seats and upstairs lofts,
The frantic finding of fabric
As doors creaked open.

I bury my face into purple roses,
I swear they smell of you,
“I love you, I love you, I love you,”
A million times,
“I love you, I love you, I love you,”
Until the words melt
Into a meaningless sludge,
No one to hear them,
Sound bouncing off empty corners and into the abyss,
I love you
And–
I am leaving you.