Walking down the street I pass
a girl walking in her bundle of flannel and warmth
strut strut strut
I blow smoke from the corner of my mouth
to spare her the danger
of my second hand smoke

i stole six pairs of earrings today
while making small talk
in a jewelry store that caters to the masochistic
and now i am
pinning their wings up on my wall
to display the reward
of quick fingers
and plaster of paris smiles

i didn't even really want them
i took them from sets
i wanted to see the missing holes
and there was no bin to put them in
now i have little secrets
pinned up on my wall
they join others
that i took

i don't mean to steal things

I used to know every soft crack in her hand
and how I loved coating each one
with the skin from mine.
I would rest on her warmth
and think about how I never wanted to leave that vacation.

As the suns turned to moons, summer turned to winter
and winter couldn’t look back.

It dried her skin and calloused mine.
I would reach for her hand but
it gripped like a stranger with a hidden agenda.

Winter eventually turned back to summer but
summer was someone else.

I’m with a new hand now
who’s soft cracks attempt to fill my gaps. But
instead of giving her my skin,
I leave sand in between us
from last year’s vacation I never wanted to leave.

Look her in the eyes
With my own war veiled eyes
Look her in the eyes
Try not to shy away.

Please
Girl
Come back to me
Don't leave me
Don't let this
monster, this darkness
this
boy fitting into the cracking skin of a girl
take me over

Look her in the eyes
Try not to look away
Look and see
All the hidden rejection, the hurt, the longing, the numbness
That you made her feel

Look her in the eyes
Try not to say sorry
Because somehow
You were meant to destroy your adoptive mother
And be abandoned by your biological one

Look her in the eyes
Try not to
*Shy away

she'll walk off
and you'll walk behind,
you feel like a man
and see everything in soft focus exposure
and her walking ahead, timid and feeling triumphant.
this was your first kiss
and not your last kiss
but your most important kiss;
the foundation kiss,
the scaffold kiss,
cathedral columns holding up the whispering gallery of this kiss.

or did you walk off
and she walked behind,
did she feel like a woman,
soft, warm, and kind seeing everything is a hard focus exposure?
that was her second kiss,
not her last kiss
and not her most important kiss;
it was a mill stone kiss,
a grist lipped ground-down-again kiss,
a motel-hotel-roadside chapel of cheap kisses kiss.

and when I die
compose a symphony in my voice
transfer my soul into a violin string
and my heart into a timpani drum
as long as I can be heard I will never be
truly
gone
you told me once you would name a gun after me
if you stumbled across one that spoke in my voice
and if you can hear my name in a gun shot
you can find it again in a broken chord on a piano
because
I used to be a composer
but every melody was about you
people rest in sound waves
and it's time I was found again
just like I found you

and when I die
bury me in sheet music
and leave me under the concert hall
so that I will never go without
music reverberating through my bones
I've been told my eyes are gold
if you look at them in the right light
but if you gave me room to breathe again
they might become the color of the land
I am rushing over
in bass line
one that you created
with your own two hands

and when I die
and you hear what you have created for the first time
I hope you fall to your knees
in a spotlight
on the stage you stand
because you have just realized
that I am more alive now
than I was when I was breathing

and when I die
I will not really be dead

now will I?

I have let
my lustful mind forget
to administer the worries
that drip from my lips
and onto my hands,
where they seep
through my fingertips
and onto the ground,
which is where
all my vexing words
belonged all along.

And I have let
my little mouth
blabber for hours,
ranting about unrelated subjects
on unfamiliar ground.
These words are equitable in my mind,
but as they rest on my tongue,
I have realized
that they lack the only flavor
that society would be willing
to taste.

I have let
unrelenting consequence 
find me here,
for I am unable to control
what chaos
gushes from my mouth,
and onto my lips,
from which they just
drip.

I have let
myself repeat the most
engrossing words.
So forgive me in advance,
for I have let,
and I will forever let
my mind roam
without a leash.

But then again,
why restrain
what most crave for;
a mind with the ability
to review itself.
Well, no need to crave.
All you need to do is let,

and I have let.