When youth widens in greeting,
the only thing to do is shy away
to the hushed corners to avoid the petrifying ache
Yes, it's lonely, and it's cold, and there is no hint of anything like hope, but the shapes are comforting, in their reliable geometric beauty
After all, this was fleeing the wrong figure, to achieve the right
The solemn, purer, incandescent one
This is why terror is a small sacrifice

-cj

Terror shreds through several of my skins
and I let it
No use for combat
Killing oneself takes more than one killer other than oneself
Punching holes into the artery
Somehow speeding up the process
Slow the life, quicken the death, upset the cycle, complete the task

-cj

He never said goodbye, she never said hello
They exchanged talk, soundwaves from encyclopedia pages
Wandering into each other's doors and out, unintentionally
Noticing the chipping paint and bald nails but mentioning nothing to preserve the friendship
He longed for her skin, she pined for his mind
And in every spiral they missed the count or forgot to look
And now they read they sorriness of it all in a book written by no one

-cj

It was just a phase
Only the succubus scale taunting hour by hour
With the porcelain throne to kneel to,
My god to worship on the floor
Only a deterioration of beauty, the desire for bones, satisfied mirrors, emptiness
No true happy moment, just strange pleasure from the purge
Temptations were the deadly pattern, and I was the self-made victim
Yes, it was a phase, but it was not only a time out out a year out of my life
It was me, running around outside of this building, trying to get in
Or maybe I was inside of a box
Trying to get o u t

-cj

He reaches for tomorrow, the ominous book on the higher shelf
She pulls out something quaint and familiar to rest her head on while she writes the next seven months in cursive
and intermittent print

-cj

He calculates, she commiserates
He walks to the car, she muses over the stars
And like clockwork
They miss and find and remember
Kiss and rewind and hear the thunder all in each other's minds without trying

-cj

He roams the city, she sits there
What a pity
He sees every light, every street, but justice does not shrink
For she sees every memory, every song, like film placed in her eyes that she couldn't push away

-cj

The closeted fear is all superfluous now
Attention is not a favoured curse we ignore because we think we've seen something bright and terrible that has changed the way our hearts reply for the rest of their beating

-cj

"The next time we wander near I want you to collapse."

Is she blind or simply blindfolded?
Remove the cloth from her searching eyes and move in to lightly press your lips to her forehead before the day is gone and love rumours to be dead

-cj

While he is a scientist
I am merely myself
Feeling gravity take me to his side
Restraint has never been this hard
In the meantime he thinks and blinks
And I stare at the last card

-cj

What I've loved has gone pale and shrunken to ice on the road
It didn't even say goodbye-
But I guess we're all in a hurry

-cj

It takes time to realise the danger of one mistake that fornicates
And becomes thousands of sins piled in your eye sockets
It takes time to see them spiraling out of your vision

-cj

Without the premature velvet hanging in my eyes,
A sweetly still curtain
My mind would witness far worse events than the vivid imaginings of its own

-cj

The sky mocked yesterday with its pastels, holding back the stories of the heavens and hells only right behind the blue and the frothy clouds

-cj

Thoughts held me captive
I wanted to end it all
Happy, sick, in between
I was mess and only death
would clean

-cj

Blue messages in white envelopes
Disguised as blackmail, gorgeous letters
I fret over the foolish parts
You attack the rest

-cj

He left
He said, it's over
He had to catch a plane
He ran to another
He stayed,
which was the most troubling of them all

-cj

They had a free spirit that
windchimed between them
One I hadn't seen before now
A crowd cannot befuddle them
A chaotic floor cannot fool them
into thinking all is lost
It is all here

-cj

Cinematic bustle, a line of greed and full pockets
I'm a novice, please don't expect too much

-cj

Call me a morning ******
I can refract the light and mess
up your bedhead further
Concentrate on my better
mistakes
I can do my best, maybe just for you

-cj

It is not a shock how very
liar-liar your monologue was
Filed with copied and pasted
reassurances
Don't you think the things I do
are for a purpose other than to
No, you're right,
I am confused, ripped in the
wrong spots
But everyone has a story I
suppose

-cj

human:
an insult, an excuse
a beautiful reason

alive:
undead, fevered and pulling on IV's
grinning in spite of the news

it's a wild way to live,
with a function

-cj

Earthquake tremour in the body
like unexpected feelings they
just show up unannounced,
Imposing, it's rude
Seismic startledom

-cj

That naughty concept time
caught a first-class ticket
We were ******* anyway,
babe

-cj

Money doesn't grow on oaks nor pines
Coins aren't cradled in the vines

-cj

As I pass by the little houses of envelopes and packages
Whose doors are letting in the ugly neighbourhood air
I cannot refrain my hands from closing it shut
There's a common distraction and a sweet bruise to ponder
And look, another unsafe mailbox over yonder

-cj

Good morning, young one
Take a look in the mirror
to see if you're the same
as yesterday
Unsure, unkempt, unwilling
With blanks in your eyes
Except when you gaze up
toward the skies

-cj

There is no use denying it anymore-
I am crazy
My body whistles and sighs into the vines and lashes over my eyes-
And I hope it never stops

-cj

Did you need them as much as they seemed to need you?
A dire necessity that wrung me out and then bottled me up
Must you go?
Can't you linger?
Let me wrap you around my finger until it's too much
But it won't be
The friends, your fans,
they're calling, and
lone and terrible I remain

-cj

Voids to fill, lines to occupy, a boat to construct, people to please
And then there's more
Me
I have to be me
I said I was confused and they said they understood
I said I wanted to be alone and they tried to soothe me
I said I wanted them to leave and they came closer
I said no and they said yes
I said something else but it was in between my sheets and the window woke me

-cj

All of this in one mind plus thousands of other cares penetrating me and I lay in bed, but the tears won't come-
I'm too empty
They come eventually
The will to live has undeniably left me

-cj

while you are dancing
her hand in yours
and the black night spirals around
I will be in the dark
with your name over my heart
and an oversung song on repeat

-cj

Our fates tied to
an omen pretending to
a plausible line of
old flavours and
drunken sunshine

-cj

Everything's different and yet the air is still too quick and my head continues to spin
Becoming, freedom
My relentless ambitions
Yet becoming free was the last thing I'd ever be

-cj

This is the world without love, without lust
Without longing
Without tears, without screams,
Without secrets
And it is boring

-cj

I have only an existence that stretches from once of my quaint horizons to the other
Look through to my centre
It's my core that does my bidding
Though sometimes I get chancy and let my fingers do the ***** work

The first one, all night-black and chalky, tumbles down the road as I have fretfully done since August and January and all the months in between
I travel alone

I never understood what the other words meant but somehow they worked because now I stand out of breath looking around and I see thousands of ambiguities I had mistook for typos

-cj

She left, claiming her bones ached
If one believed it wasn't manifest
Nonetheless she wandered home and softly lay to rest

-cj

Mum and Dad told me I'm worthless and through my teeth in my silent style I agreed and went to sleep only to return to the heavy brick grey of the gems

-cj

I feel a clench but I will ignore it
All I desire now is sleepy oblivion and a refund for the past
Insane, out of sorts, I'm a klepto for concepts

-cj

There is no name for this
A blanking emotion that fondles each nerve
What I have left to say is
I'm sick of it
I'm tired of neverending nothingness
I want to run
Because I always knew I would

-cj

At the start I am sewed up
At the end I lay ripped open, blood and thoughts for all to see
And after all this time I know this is what is supposed to happen

-cj

Chronological expressions
Eyes widening, the lovely pits I fall into
Your downcast gaze, when I am weakest
Chronological interior
Giddiness to restlessness to insanity
It ends up the same every time with the bittersweet and bliss somewhere in between

-cj

Sidewalk cracks and ladders don't scare me anymore
Black cats in my path and shattered mirrors have effect no longer
But the fortune cookies and the occasional green light give me some kind of hope, somehow

-cj

I rush into the middle and sometimes to the end, ******* off any chance of an epilogue
You can predict the preface easily, lack of joy in the soil, sunlight retreating to the enemy, a reversal of virtues
The centre is frantic, usually, wouldn't you say, with its superstitions interwoven with the conventions, a drop or two of irony
But the end- how abrupt

-cj

What you do to me isn't happiness
It is something else entirely
And oh, how it tortures me

-cj

There is no reason to hang up your coat
if you are just going to pick it up and
wear it again
So stop your concessions and far-reaching
hypothetical frettings
Give me a maroon bite on the neck
to prove that you're human
like me

-cj

I never could write a song
It was an unnatural endeavour, and
I wanted to, so much, but the notes
and words refused to stretch out of
the womb
Or at least knock the walls within to
give a hint as to what frivolities or
beauty I could put into the spaces
I tried to conjure up a melody, a rhyme
that wasn't wickedly elementary, but
all that came were impatient breaths
So I fumble with words and their
infinities instead

-cj

Yesterday reminded me of late summer
When I was half-lonely
and wholly sick with lust

-cj