Would you prefer me if I tilt my head
at a fallacious angle
Would you rather I abandon my
peculiar nothings
(Would becoming a statue
unblinking and
without impetus
satisfy you)

-cj

I grab your hand
and lead you to
where we stand
between the shelves
Do you hear that,
I ask
What,
you ask
It's the books talking

-cj

Don't call
I'll probably
just start
murmuring something
about
nuclear weapons
behind my
clavicles

-cj

Isn't it great
Never catching a break
and reaping what you sow
Even when you feel you're
denying what you know
My lips are sealed
but my throat is exposed

-cj

it's
crowded
in here,
the thoughts
said
in the cage

-cj

I sent ships
and letters
with black ink
Return my
fleets and
pale sheets
My heart
longs to
harbour them

-cj

for some reason
taking a book from the shelf
and opening it and reading
a sentence
feels like picking up
where we left off

-cj

this melody screws itself
an unlikely candidate
supposed this was the start
of another debate

-cj

you deserve a level-headed, logical girl
no, not me
I am psychotic, dear

-cj

the sound and the fury
gorgeous repercussions
beginnings, ends, and middles
all the idyllic centres
it makes me wonder
if I ever needed anything else

-cj

The difference between ******
and socio
I play dictionary
Then saunter off to my
pre-meditated shrine
to become,
     become,
     become

-cj

your face is what they call
a happy myth

-cj

Exposing a little more skin than usual
just to feel that slight AC breeze
It's neither summer nor winter
nor autumn nor spring
And the cold is caught in each cell
and the heat refuses to come out
of its hiding place

-cj

i'm the
glitch
in your
system

-cj

you called me wild
i labeled you sane
we prayed to the same god
that someday we would
stand together in the rain

-cj

Sordid promises keep me
coming back
These columns see me
in my submission
If only they could
hear me sing or
laugh when something
happy involves itself
with me

-cj

Contents of the lockers lay in a pile
A flask, a Marlboro box, a thousand
textbooks, pills in an orange see-through bottle
One item, unique to the others,
is a notebook
Full of confessions and Sexton and Plath
Sad yearnings and accounts of complete moments
This notebook
Surrounded by the cigarettes and concealed ***** and mathematical equations
Shows the other world
within this world
That spins in time with this world
But gives and takes
for lovelier sakes

-cj

I stay up
and in the eleventh hour
I eat my pulse
to shut it up

-cj

How are you?
Pre-happiness or something
Explain a bit?
I'm disordered
I have a song that might make
you feel better
It's absolutely beautiful
Divulge
(I will unearth this)

-cj

The days were going by so fast
for a while
The metronome tickticktick got
caught on the wire
Now I cannot discern lust from
true desire
Instead the time congeals then
blends into potpourri
The kind that ills the mind
but is nothing I do not already know

-cj

A day refuses to go by
without punching at my flesh
and cursing my silhouette

-cj

if pain speeds the art
pierce away, pierce away

-cj

What I cling to are wicked traditions
These ruthless rituals
Oh, they are merely
What I cannot live without

-cj

Cold wars between our bodies
If kisses from better dreams
kept us waiting
Only the dim armistice we signed
(unconsciously)
divides us

-cj

He asks
what do you mean
and I say
I don't know
I'm a poet

-cj

the idea
that it would never end
scared me immensely
but the idea
that it would
also catalysed a fear in me

-cj

Converging into one line
and the concept of fairness
mingles with the immature tendencies
above it all
I am divergent
I drift
and I am singly afloat
I jump from skyscrapers to survive
landing in that same spidery net
that I think saves me each time
I descend through the cruel air
Dauntless-
What am I
Did I spill my blood for this

-cj

I'd tell you I love you
to the moon and back
But then I'd be
some kind of
lunar liar

-cj

i'm willing to bend the rules
melt the plastic standard
'cause i never was good at
living anyway

-cj

Adding up the rhymes and reasons
Something about the air reminds
of softer seasons
All in all the lines might betray
or stray and exit with a bow
It is all worth it, anyhow

-cj

Eve confirmed that apples are sweet
The banishing sin is,
as well
Until the aftermath divides
birth from life
and all is bland and empty again

-cj

This nemesis recites it all
washed up
It makes me want to grab
the little black binder
from her and apologise
to the ceiling and sky and
what dwells above

-cj

Sincerely hoping you are not
an illusion
Some figment of my
more idyllic imagination
You are art, you are music
You are colour and you are sound
And how I long to lean in next to
your ear to whisper,
Love knoweth no bounds

-cj

Even if it all is a dream
It is not just a dream
Not merely a vision of some sleepy sort
that vanishes when sunlight enters my
eyes again
I clutch the stories and they whisper
themselves back to me as the day goes

-cj

If I ever wrote a novel
I'd dedicate it to the person
who snuck into my brain
as I slept
Convincing me that this is not
a hobby, not a chore, not
leisure, nor fun
Telling me that once I think
I've finished
It's only just begun

-cj

While father comdemns socialism
and mother thinks I am doing fine
I lay awake like the pattern goes
Rewinding my lies
and rubbing the truth out of my memory
until all I know
is the need

-cj

Subtleties are the vacancies today
Each stop sign is an encouragement
Stripped of pride, I am so sorry I lied
Entitled to saving or something, even now

-cj

When I said we really need
to let her go
I wasn't talking about me
Did you think I was
Either way
We're both delusional
with hints of sugary intellect
resting in our bones

-cj

you've probably laid awake
in your bed late at night,
unrealistic notions
bunching up in your nerve endings
at least that's the
impression you give

-cj

You've probably bought her a rose
and she squealed like it was the
single most important moment
of her life
Had you bought me that rose
it'd better have been black
It would be stupid to say
I wouldn't reciprocate the gesture
So I'd run my fingers in ink
creating something trying to be
as emotionally effective
as a flower

-cj

Love was either cheap or too expensive
and I didn't want an excuse nor a luxury
Just something real

-cj

little miss no-one
where did you go
under the stairs
like a sad novel
the family is
at the table
forks in hand
ready to indulge
while you
wish the
desire
away

-cj

I'm split in two
I'm half happy
and half blue

-cj

Don't communicate
You really should see that
it's too late
Don't look for me
You deserve to
gaze at the one
who cares
Don't remind me
of the past
You can't be that slow
only to become so fast
Don't worry
You have bigger matters at hand
beside my masochistic quicksand
Don't talk
Can't you realise
You shut up and throw the key
from out of the lock
into the sea
I said would love us more
if we would stop wishing with coins
and living on dollar dreams

-cj

Stealing minutes from the hour to
summon some vain power
The fan blew, and mother knew
The facts were sad and blatant
Stay here, avoid the temptation
Resist it with every atom of your being
I am a skinny thief
Collecting weekends just to feel relief

-cj

This instruction manual is
a recipe book for disaster
But we all crave a little excitement,
I suppose
So involve your eyes with
the cramped story's pages
If only to see how this world within works

-cj

It's hard keeping secrets from you
But I am too sad to tell you,
right now at least
I'm scared how you'd react
and I don't want things to change
I want to freeze everything
Make it stay still for a little while
Though the delusions in my head
will continue to multiply

-cj

Lust is thick in the air
once again
A summeresque temptation
builds like an intimidating tower
You've laid the foundation,
never thinking it would
amount to anything
Vicious desire eats at your heart
as you step forward
I warned you with my tired gaze
But like every other time
You were stuck
in your frivolous haze
Your virtue in my hands
I think I've held it
for the past few years
for the both of us
Or so you wish

-cj

I am blind
Not the blackened eyes
Hollowed out with a spoon
The worse kind
Seeing each angle
in the street's shadows
and the hesitations
in the walls
Frantically searching
for something to feel
Or whatever once
enlightened me
But those mercies have died
and like the young teeth through which
I've sadly lied
The light, the candle, the dripping wax
Solemnly blend into my oblivion

-cj

Hopeless virgins curl on the edges of the centre
of what all the talk is about
How vain it seemed to be sinful
and get away with it
But how lifeless it is to live
without shocks and sparks

-cj