mother and father will break the fall
they will help me get to the far side
except they won't, they can't

father will stand by you in a suit that
lovely day, you in white
his eyes will beg, come home, dear daughter
we miss you in our lives, I miss you in my life
but his mouth will say, look at you,
you gorgeous girl, be happy, be good, love him

mother will sit in the first pew, smiling and crying
she taught you how to be good, to love
they may not break the fall, but they have taught
you all the parts of being that work and make miracles
they will meet you at the far side

-c.j.

Maybe I'd rather have a cold heart
than the sharp need for touch
Then my priorities wouldn't be
warmth and the soft of him
But something hard and factual
I could make a figurine out of

-cj

We sang in the garage in the afternoons
It didn't matter whether it was Monday or a bank holiday
We liked returning to the pieces of home and music that didn't reject us

-cj

this is my anthem of negative three
beneath the frosty pine
it is buried, underneath the tree
beware of the blizzard approaching you
seek the candles in the dark
I meant to make my mark
so you are lead to me again
is this real?
my longing and faith in august are still breathing
winds make this north, then south
but you're coming from the west and I'm coming from the east so we'll meet halfway
I'll define and rekindle this fire
and its smoke will guide you
back to me
is this real?
this is my anthem of negative three
buried beneath the pine tree
the ice covers it like
mittens on your hands
the hands that hold mine so tight

-cj

I want to go home, all of this slipping around
feels like wobbly knees and ice skates
fate is pressed in a book whose prologue reads,
it'll get you there
to think that this volume is caged under
the slab of frozen rink
inspires more homesickness,
and my eyes blink and blink

-c.j.

For we can spin, in rest, over this galaxy
No oxygen or law to sigh from
Black holes in a taunting peripheral vision
The moon is our home, welcoming and lonely
We can let the radiating lights between pretty stars
Take us there, we cannot tell whether it is night or day
(The sun never seems to tilt this way)

-cj

Writing wasn't an excuse
for feeling
Just a truer medium
of understanding
my sighs and broken
thought patterns

-cj

when one boy kisses you and forgets your name the next day,
you can be sad that day
you can
but the next day, you find that other boy, the boy who looks at you like you are magick
and learn that you are not a library book to be checked out and shoved under the bed
he will love you, remember your name, he will be there the next day and the day after that and after that and after that

-c.j.

I collected my sins in a marble jar
They were ugly
But they were real

-cj

I can feel the devil
working within
Not the world's devil
But my own
personal hell-giver
Oh, how I treat him
I obey him
And he blinds me
in return

-cj

I won't share you
not during witching hour, or rainy afternoons,
or when the moon gleams neon
to think there is another one that makes me
clamour for subliminal explanations, relief
you should know I can't always be the sweetest,
to **** maybes and what ifs must be done
you might say they're just people, we do things
together, it's nothing to worry about
but the thought of you close to her makes me
reach for my needle

-c.j.

how white lies linger in every room-
that sacrificial valentine, bleeding red
until white was gone completely
to restart the heart requires
something electric:
love

She spoiled herself
with too many songs
Most were from
the past decade
Some were short
Some were lengthy
All linked themselves
together in her veins

-cj

Mum sang like an angel
Dad couldn't bellow one note

-cj

you give me impulses
to scream and break
everything I own
I am fragile and weak
in the night I creep along
trying to find a last defense
gruelingly brushing my hair
out of my eyes
vexed and haunted by desire
call me a ***** wicked liar
then kiss me to silence

-c.j.

I didn't do it today
I don't know if
                          I should be proud
or
                          upset with myself
sometimes
                   the
                         easy things
and            the
                         hard things
get all wound up in one another
and that's okay

-c.j.

she's got you high on these dreams
cigarettes that you seek out and steal
even if she's across the universe

met through a stolen dance on the edge of seventeen
there were no coattails but she was rapt
she thought you were mr. darcy
I could never figure it out
heaven knows your self-esteem is
never going to get as high as you can

-c.j.

Until the last drop of wine is drunk
and the fruit from the trees
refuse to bloom anymore
We cannot ****** the wolf
and pretend it did not happen

-cj

her cherry lips are red in the grey
she could easily be atop a cake, pinned with
a wire, waiting on a table at the after-party
when most want wild, she prays for peace
she seeks purity when others settle for filth,
painting their souls black
beauty is her gift, beauty is something they buy
the spectrum she sees is whole, and she tries
to magnify their sights, turn them away from
the fruitless fractions

-c.j.

grind anecdotes into powder
(it's destruction time, darling)
through the pearly paper invites something divine to be written
the words we'll speak will waste away into the fading light

-cj

calm is the sea in March,
wild is it in June
combined with honeysuckle
and a major key
the disposition fared well
and escaped its fate as hell

standing solely on the white sand,
watching children with dandelion folks
and unbrushed golden hair
considering whether I craved the solar intellect,
to taste its fury

rain drowned me in April
and May did not dry me out
inside I played a minor key
that I believe played in heaven

-c.j.

I'm sorry your alarm sounds like a gunshot and its murderous echoes
early morning hazards seem to be bad omens, don't they?
you flip the switch from dark to truth,
lights changing colour

I'm sorry your eyes hurt from the exposure
curtains shrugged aside, spilling the day in
through the shameless glass

I'm sorry you have to see the sunrise,
the meager clouds whispering about
birds and flight and winds blowing south

you are alive, a survivor of the night, and
though you don't deserve this nuisance of
a beginning, you deserve this beauty of
a new morning

another chance to breathe, and to do all
of the things you did before
and others which you have never thought of

I'm sorry, I'm not sorry

-c.j.

Summer is a season of dread and poisonous sun
I shed the winter's skin, pulling straws,
hoping for the devil's snare to swallow away the weeks
No structure, only solitude and dwelling on the numbers

-cj

I don't want to be like anybody else
I'd rather sleep in between the wall
and the bookshelf
Conformity is dead to me

-cj

I have absolutely no clue what to do
Not an inkling
Logic screws me over, but
the entanglement has so vexed
the chambers of my heart
When I used to daydream, it was good
too breathe in the hopes of seeing you
look at me, think of me
Now the companion I find in you
is a stranger

-cj

You make me feel soft again and I thank
you for that
I went so long hating myself, but when
that summer came, you said the
honest things that stirred something
like happiness inside
For this I thank you, also
Months that saw me befriend cold
tiles and seemingly empty sheets
See, they are past, they are gone
You are now, you are here
Thank you, thank you, thank you

-c.j.

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

tell me what to write in my journal
give me an overdose of kisses, admire my red lips and how they speak of winter
light a candle for me, I am coming back
when we fell in the vineyard and realised you're all I need
draw my name between two points, alpha and omega
remember that you are loved despite your faults, as you love me, the more faulty one

-c.j.

beware of the dawn, beware of twilight
beware of those scavenging muses we stash away
these popes and their tales,
we held onto each other when everyone else
disappeared

bones that we are, bones kissing in the car
intertwined and anchored
sweet in the dark, we're fragments of a nova
shrugging on a poem, just momentarily

I can't choose what deserves attention,
what deserves molding, what
deserves recompense
this love is like a fog, opaque,
mistaking shapes until it severs
flawless, until it kidnaps me
until we empty the idea,
nothing so near can revel
in the static

I think I comprehend, the story is recurring
nothing that is alight can blaze that long
you whispered I had kept my crusade
possible something, possible reality
not dwindling like petals in former places
meandering on a fixed street,
this life,
it keeps us pursuing because I'm lost

scatter my tendons, clear me out
bound so unyielding, that's all I take in
let your sad fill me up
confirm that this was what you had in mind
let you fill me up
bones that we are, bones kissing in the car

-c.j.

we thought we were crumpled, but
it was just the autumn leaves' disillusionment

though you said there was corruption
evident in its darting gaze
and earthquake hands

I was only price, pearls, indecision
perhaps I was picking flowers
with a numb hand

do the shards matter more than the whole?
petals pulled and tossed with precision
he mistook her for a flower

-c.j.

you say I'm bitter
and I know I am
I'd just like to say
how wonderful it's been
feeling lesser
than everyone else
a forced inferiority
I would trade for hour-long
charlie horses
thanks for the lack of passion, boy
your apathy is especially becoming
yeah, my sarcasm's so thick
you could cut it with a knife
but let me stab our balloons first

-c.j.

he was a sweet talker and I drowned in the honey
wrote songs about what we'd wanted, disillusioned me
with a one-sided duet
used to tell me it's ok to drink away pain, that it could
fix this damage done
I was stuck in the state of dreaming, hypnotised by his
unchained melody-
"wouldn't you want it to be easier, be with someone who
treats you well?" he asked,
drawing a deceptive halo above his head
when he was the one who only wanted to drag me into his bed

-c.j.

I live my life so as to escape it
Her hair was in a braid,
Her heart was at war
Just as sullen as things were before

-cj

Nights such as tonight
the stars serve as reminders
of all the lights I haven't been
blinded by yet

-cj

Do the lusts of May compare?
Confidence mustn't be mistaken for impromptu rebellion, though we both have their charms

-cj

Nobody knows what you are thinking
except you and the thousands of yous
in that pretty skull of yours

-cj

Allison came in late, always
she loved to dance in ballrooms, too
perhaps she'll learn to waltz in time, in time

-c.j.

How disarming it is
to see someone smiling
as they walk alone

-cj

most of my cells linger in their near-kisses
with yours
the rest assume figures no one can detect
dancing carefully on new floors
and reciting those younger whims
keep no talents if love corrupts me
open my meanest October chest left
in the niche
whether you think romance allows
frailty, no one can dare determine
cast off neuroticisms, friend
and reach, trip, yearn
watch kindness' next trick

-c.j.

Taking risks didn't make her feel safe
That wasn't her objective
Wild beatings of her heart,
an adrenaline pulsing through her veins,
an undeniable sensation of being alive,
convinced her that she was
finally living
Sights, sounds, speaking without fear
It was a waking up from the comatose state she had been victim to before now
Even the whites of her eyes agreed
No surrenders necessary,
only breaths and smiles
A new kind of existing

-cj

The white flag
collected colour
once he entered
the room

-cj

blank stares and frayed jackets in a stale breeze
jumping fences because they told us not to
juvenile delinquents forced to read this book
only chapter nine
out of hundreds
the days bleed together in type

-c.j.

A wild honey orchid mess
and other phrases that swirl
in my psyche
like a crazed ballet

-cj

stay free of the weight of love
unless you find it sweeter to wait
for somebody new, foreign heartbeats
in a pocket of air or a fortune cookie
lucky molecules that match your love

-c.j.

You just wanted to be able to cry again
Earlier you were at your most miserable
I take note
He hasn't cried since June
and tears stream down my face this very moment

-c.j.

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

in september I thought there was a formula, a frequency, for
making someone fall in love with you
but then I learned to be careful who you dance with, especially the
slow dances that give you double vision
it dawned on me that I couldn't be haunted by april anymore,
that I'd have to taste the sun again and stop hitting my bumper
against illusive fantasy
**** the clown, that evil joker with smiling scars, the one that gives you creature fear
when the voice starts, turn it off
listen to the shores instead, seashell sounds for just
a little bit
it will help me close my eyes against the scene and people like you
tonight please wait up for me- do you want it all? these filthy halls?
we can't always avoid bad karma, or escape psychasthenia,
even when we're filled with loneliness and the scream that begs
of the someone, who are you, really?
you taste of heaven and human emotion but will we last through october?

-c.j.

I feel it all rippling like royal flags
within me
and when I look into a mirror I don't
recognise myself, my skin has
become so pale
blue eyes incite magic that god only knows
I can't control
inner sensations double as sirens,
piercing another likely story through the glass

I feel it all, and it's beginning to ache
so burn these flags for my body's sake

-c.j.

No façades
We're socialists
Stuck in that Shakespeare dimension
Thee, thou, thy
Do you see the cracks in the sky?
I'd stand on the balcony, waiting for you
If the doors were not always locked

-c.j.

Temptation began as a spark
And it made its way through me
All electric in the dark
It said hold me,
Hold me now
And later the words held something like
crying out with pleasure
But I really only wanted relief

-cj