you're full of dread, I'm full of wonder
we use our veins as portals, resembling
blue shades of happenstance

back then they were hues of black,
fierce antimatter
now I'm shuffling my cards to
surprise myself

-c.j.

we're hollowed out and it's blissful
perfection in ice-cube form
the credits are rolling and you speak as if
words burn your tongue
take me to those places you used to only
like going to alone
oh, vast and relentless is our trouble,
and we love it

-c.j.

it's only a universe between us, you whisper
it's unlike anything you've ever laid eyes on, this world
the figment has arrived, the close leaked onto
the blank in your book
why did it twist you like early winds swallow the woods?
thought it could- there's a part looming, and you're unaware
are you sitting there, watching the clock until I meet you?
clutch you wholly, singly

the middle is here
you give, you take
vain subject
mutter it and it'll manifest itself

we can remain in the present if we surrender the past
the wayward flowers for pleasantries bought
the fearful and selfish in the hurricane, latching onto
lost dependencies, onto last echoes of ourselves
of a beginning- it's superior to the ******
it's only the universe between us, you whisper
peaks in your chest make you cold
peaks in your chest make coldness dwell

-c.j.

not now, young one
beam and I wish the decay twists well inside,
not to her preferred suffering
continue, you're just doing as you're told
the experiment reveals it all, but I'm not
faking and you stay here despite
the streets being mine
and mine means out of your hands,
to be let down by a spiritual façade
wolves on the edges, the floor begins to higher
you crave compensation, you've received it, now
nothing distracts the mindless, so continue

-c.j.

they kept you there, they assumed they were
your refuge
I caught everything on tape, I'm changed because of it
everything, ever person, we appear identical
they ran from you when you were dangling,
not a person recalls your face
and now they've left and the moths, they flutter,
and you fall

I press you in, I yank at your elbows
I will remember these limbs yanked in futility
I'll keep you with me as I'm dangling within
I dangle but the sun always rises
I'll keep on tossing every coin I find
I'll toss them and take a fortune

now everything is grasping at straws, attempts to rescue
the grasping straws will deliver you from the devil
and when the sand rests on the ground again,
we'll deliver again

there's a figure in the fog
it's a triangular face that screams of bad luck
which become towers and ideas deliver in
sweltering scenes
it will knock you over as you fall asleep,
dangling
it's dangling, dear
the sun is risen

-c.j.

this is prettier than just walking
picture a few decades later
this is prettier, you're an image in my pocket
that I keep
you're not st. peter, my thread and spool
each stop carries us, we'll vow to the ocean
I won't let this slip
please trust me, now
the steel workings pry no entry for us
captain and his strategy will rupture like a raincloud
I suppose it's isolation, your young isolation
you dare not sneak out the house
our parents are too wrecked, inside

-c.j.

grin in this gap, it's a terrible noise
noise that the nest recreates
why am I encircled by it?
beneath the sheets the shapes prepare for winter,
to **** me in
it's clear that nothing is right
let's spend tonight in peace as you fix yourself
it's obvious
I've wrung out the final tear
bits gather in, gravitate the wind like spindles
battling for the chance when
we can wax as shadows

-c.j.