No longer being friends with someone is sort of like dying
You cease to exist in their present tense
The only thing that brings your name back to mind is nostalgia or reflection or memories
So when you tell me that you no longer want anything to do with me
I understand
That my existence has begun to stretch and tear yours apart
You cannot tell me that my death will rip you to shreds
How could it
You’ve made me a piece of your past
If we are no longer friends
I am technically dead to you
So why should it matter if decide to stop
To stop existing on any field
Because if i'm going to cease to exist in your world
I’d rather completely quit existing as well

When I say that you smell like graveyard I don’t mean it in a negative way
It not an unpleasant smell
Not in the slightest
Its familiar smell
One that i can recognize from a mile away
And go “Oh there she is”
It's a smell that i look for in your t-shirts or jackets
The ones that i steal from you to keep until the next time you get a year older
Because hey
You did it
Maybe things weren’t good
But you did it
You’re here
Your smell is one of the few things that’s kept me alive when i'm on my own
A graveyard smells like earth
Like an accumulation of grass and dirt
You don’t smell like earth but in a way you do
Earth smells damp and dark and occasionally fresh and clean at other times
Earth is home
In a way you’re home too
I look for you in crowded hallways
I find you in empty jokes and silence and whispers
You are a two in the morning text message
When my life is falling apart over the same girl
The one who no matter how many times that she rips my heart of my chest
I always end up letting her come back and do it again
You’re there when it’s almost night time but i just can’t be in my own head anymore
You’re there even when your own life seems to be crumbling in your hands
Sometimes i can’t tell that i’ve done something to upset you
Just that you seem to refuse to look at me
Or that there’s silence
Which isn’t necessarily abnormal
But this kinda silence isn’t comfortable
It’s like being trapped in a blanket of what did i do this time
I never want to have let you go
I never want to have to lose you
If there comes a time where i begin to wear away at you
I can
You’ve become such an important factor in my life that i can go if i need to
Because you’ve been through so much and you deserve anything
Whether it’s a galaxy on a string or your own personal constellation
You deserve it

Trembling fingers dancing across piano keys
Making a melody out of the ruin before them
Stringing together thoughts and lines and notes
With planned out motions to their smallest component
These same fingers desperately wish to rewrite their own design
To piece together a brand new composition
They know better than to hope for something other than ivory

the first time you said I love you was on Valentines day.
On the way back to my house, on a winding street lined with pine trees
You said it as a joke, and that's why I laughed

the second time you said I love you was when we were on your living room floor
vinyls upon vinyls with the wrapping all around us
this time I just ignored it and gave a tight smile

the third time you said I love you it was attached to a quick goodbye on the phone
I hung up before I could react and dropped to the floor right after

because how the **** could you ever love me and not know about the planet of skeletons I have in my closest?
you never seen my bad days or my worst days
you don't know the way I light up and the way I fade away
you don't know the voices in my head or the numbers on my arm dialing a phone home
hell, you don't even know what that means

you can't love me because you don't even know that I'm a planet
you can't love me because you don't know that I gave up being a human a long time ago
and you can never love me because you'll never understand why

I love him
I tell myself
I know that
We will be together forever
I don’t believe that
We could be separated
My thoughts tell me that
He’s the love of my life
Sometimes my heart lies and says
I could live an eternity
Without him
Like my friends say
“We’re perfect for each other”
And you can’t tell me
He’s not the one.

Now read from bottom to top.

She’s so cute I wanna eat her face,
like I’m high on bath salts,
she’s vegan,
but takes my tongue like a cannibal,

eat your hearts out Haters,
cut my ear off and send it to her like Van Gogh,
ear off a part of the big picture,
or rather painting we’re painting she gets the first stroke,
we’re wild like animals untamable all in all the time,
into the deep end head first Geronimo cannonball,
Black Swan dive she’s gone alive,
the Pied Piper the Eyed Viper the venom & the antidote,

and I quote a quote I wrote myself,
“She’s the answer to my prayers”, the reason and the hope,

she’s the answer to my prayers,
and I don’t even pray,
okay actually on the low I do pray,
and I’ve seen a lot of amazing things but I’m still amazed,

I’m amazed,
and tomorrow isn’t promised today,
and tomorrow never comes,
but she comes and when she does she comes in waves,

I’m in a daze,
honey glazed and lovely crazed,
my bed’s a mess haven’t made it in days,
bed’s a mess but when we’re together we’ve got it made,

so perfectly misbehaved it’s insane,

lost myself then found my self all up in her maze,
and usually I’m not religious,
but she’s so delicious I must say,
thank you Lord or God Amen to her I give all thanks & praise,

and she’s so cute I wanna eat her face,
like I’m high on bath salts,
she’s vegan,
but takes my tongue like a cannibal…

∆ Aaron LA Lux ∆

Venice, California; 2018