I fell asleep with a pen behind my ear
is midnight your cliffhanger, too?

-c.j.

fire rides down my spine because I'm angry
but there's this strange attraction between
my being and yours that extinguishes
the flame
have you tried collecting rainwater in a cup before?
this is what this is like- my hands hold this
overflowing vessel, and no matter how much it
may seem in vain to keep standing there, spilling
the water, fueling this endless cycle of fullness
and almost enough, I can't stop looking up at the sky
that bears the gift, transfixed

-c.j.

The glass house that
contained Debussy and
sleepless inhabitants
with graduation caps
in rows and columns
put me in a wintry trance
while I longed for fictional relief

-cj

I want to be more than the withered branch
left from the rose's home
hurricanes stir the wind and foster this season of fear
briars, thorns, violet eyes
(remember me from our divine start)

-cj

like a black top grinding into my head
in a swift, soft way that hurt me all the same
then my chest, how it pinched with lovepine
if I'm making sense or not
I don't care
I just know this pattern evolves
and checks me into this hell
where I dwell
on the unrefined me

-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

memories from the basement DC:
pacing to find a signal, daydreaming about you,
stepping out the glass sliding door,
hoping the open sky could give me something
locking myself out in the cold dark November
night, rolling my eyes and muttering, "I can't find entrance,"
and feeling beyond clueless as I walked past the cars in the
steep driveway, thinking,
this isn't something you do for just a crush

-c.j.

the screen reads
private caller
I answer and it is someone real,
not a robot this time
you're surrounded by your friends
I can hear them as you say,
"it's not you, it's me"
I hang up,
a moment of quiet
then all my bells are ringing

-c.j.

Perhaps I have gotten too comfortable
and I imposed this curse upon myself
I truly am an accelerating *******
It is no surprise that the good and
bad have blended
into a formula
I incessantly choke on

-cj

Imagine the entire universe in one book and you flip to a word on a single page and you find my name
Would you ignore me then?

-cj

One lightbulb is burned out
The other two taunt it for lacking what
they flaunt
I still don't change it

-cj

quiet these days, she needs a little peace
sleeping until noon
no motive, no moon
dance until the glass breaks
and you find someone to join you
we've got all our wants
and I've got my needs

praying to the dawn
you're London and I'm Leeds
slipping out of time,
running out of reasons
to show up
we've all got intentions
and I forgot to mention
I've got needs

-c.j.

platonic autumn, I'll never forget it
the waxing cold and waning patience-
the other whom I thought was timely
and exactly mine
escaped his cell in a right way but
turned out to be a criminal, he who
stole my heart and planted his ideology
in, writing little novels recalling the start

he escaped because I let him
and you, you were always there
you were there when he wasn't
warning me against falling for the
notorious figure, the superficial god
letting me speak and listening to my
rambling about my stupidity once
it all became clear, the awful hoax
autumn became winter, when I was
with you most

the clock in your room reads six thirty,
never moving, but of course, time has passed,
and fooled and mesmerised and changed us,
and everything

-c.j.

who needs you to pour the milk into the bowl?
a little stranger with a growling stomach
she hasn't been here yet
when she does I'll hold her and sing her lullabies
little hands, soft, and her hair is dark like mine
I think I need her, too,I think
she's elsewhere now
when she comes I'll kiss her and whisper
sweetness into her ear
yes, I need her
I can't wait until she gets here

-c.j.

the devil we know will chase us until we get there
until the last page
(he stirs up all the rage)
back home there are no beds warm enough to
sustain us
worse, there is no wonder
english became devilspeak and there is no way
around the despicable revelry
so like ink we bleed, pages thick
at least until satan's clock ceases to tick

-c.j.

no matter what you're told, that colour will
always speak volumes to you in the same way
they don't say all this could be yours, but hues
and shades of the sky rest in your blood
hearts like ours beat with the atmosphere,
despite everyone's changing flows,
we stay sensitive to the sights

-c.j.

I pull your arm and drag you
into the lone corner
where none can see us
what is the matter
is it something I've done
neither the former nor the latter
there's another who replaces me
and when I try to describe what I feel
all possible witnesses are rescued
from such a raw opening of my darker side

-c.j.

swallowing pills just to feel alright
despite the fact that we stayed up
all night
flawed and mistaken
what we thought was true
turns out to be fiction
and all the people who were our friends
are now so cruel
is this what it is to be a restless youth
all reckless and unable to focus on
the lines ahead
swallowing pills just to see the light

-c.j.

am I dead yet
is the sky blue still
I'm waiting for it all to go black
a hopeless pitch nothingness
anything but what the prior days
have streaked into my conscience's stream

-c.j.

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

At times when the bell rings
the desk clutches your joints
in a locking snare
Others, the siren lets
your skin sail away
at the speed of light

I think I've got you in the palm of my hand
(Lost in bleak visions)
You care I care
**** it, everyone does
Grab me and pull me under
I'll gladly surrender
I will be in the palm of your hand

-cj

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

-cj

any number divided by itself is one
it's two of us on the run, running for cover
as gods left and right and up and down yell
"take it or leave it," our pulses triple
to the number we divided by itself

-c.j.

Humans roam the earth
They think they own it,
They know everything
No doubts, but fear prevails
They are the ones who run things
around here

-cj

Waking up, ******* love
Giving up all I once held out for
Breaking down, crying out
Lasting long for the short route

-cj

Whatever combines against me, I guess you're welcome
It's not like I can change anything now
So far into fate
It's too late for mad modifications
At the bottom of this low, emit some highs
Just for me to cross somewhat gracefully

-cj

Some say it's just a song
But to me
It's an insane little fragment of me and some of you, the heartbreak and absolute madness I created from my bitter yet not fruitless experience

-cj

This is the explicit edit
of a memoir written by
a girl no one thought of
as a survivor
or a victim
or even
a liar
But a secret-keeper
she was
Folding the halves into her journal
and risking it all once more
Even if it inevitably made her sore

-cj

Surely this is a malfunction
Since when has my mind allowed
such turbulent tranquility
It is unsettling
But I must say
how nice it is
to stare out at a sea
in which my hours
have not drowned completely

-cj

Does the aching beauty of it haunt you
in that pleasant dreamsome way
Like the facets of a diamond we carved to make this moment infinite, if just for tonight
Were you happy
Are you still, even if you're wanting it again again again again (today- tomorrow- next day)
And if you are
know that
the beauty aches for you
and is haunted by your presence
every waking hour

-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

I am not Sylvia but I know sadness
sometimes I can taste it, still on my tongue
that omnipresent lump in my throat
the murderess in love, oscillating to the music
of speechless ignominies
tastes can impale you, slicing knives acting
as tonsils
knowing sadness, I know her
and of course, after all this time,
she must know me, too

-c.j.

What you think you will never do
or like or become
can infest your mind
and invert your prior beliefs
to the icy caps
you wanted to avoid
You can run but
hiding only exposes you further
Naked and dignity
shoved elsewhere
This is what you thought would
never become of you

-cj

He looks elsewhere when he talks & thinks about it
and I want to gaze in this way
for a while
The magnet of something
The poles are just the cores of us as humans
But the hands forcing the pull apart
are the ugly fingers of legality

-cj

we won't go home immediately-
it's not like we seek cheap thrills, but
the urge to get away is indomitable
and tonight, we're going to run

finally, my saviour, finding me in
sweet disarray, and me doubting,
thinking you're not the one

but the night was not a mere visiting-
statue after statue felt our hands graze
their marble, heard us repeat, we won't
go home, we won't, not yet

-c.j.

rumours spread that medusa has starry eyes
the kind that embrace the others' before turning them to stone

-c.j.

Sea of consciousness, waves
down then lift
words sound foreign
the light unwelcome
delving under then up
realisation is an ocean rock
against your skin

-cj

Learning
A routine of early hours
Spent in the same place
Day in and out
With textbook patterns
And papers and exams

~

Learning
What is supposed to be
Working to make home lovely & clean
And running through fields
And skipping stones
And swimming in the lake
Pointing up at the birds that fly by
Reading the stories we want to
Sometimes only looking at the pictures

-cj

voices lower, eyes cast themselves down
to seize, to choke, to drown
death is an invitation and we cry and smile sadly
when it comes in the mail
(oh, how the envelope suffocates)

-cj

I dreamt of dissonance
Chords perfection could not match
I slept in the contradicting harmony of it
Playing the same keys over to make sure
it wasn't sheer luck
that began the vivid melody
in my brain and through my body
I dreamt of dissonance
And now I hope to forever

-cj

A simple creaking sent my senses into
this deprived frenzy
I am sorry for my sanity's flight
to the non-fiction section
But I can't help but be where I am
meant to be
Here in our beautiful fable world

-cj

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

-cj

That girl who claims to know you snuck a word into my book, thinking she could stop my heartbeat
How vengeful, I say in monotony with the endless excuses for a ringing bell
It's funny because her success is halted by my gaze and your reluctance to look away

-cj

the world without pillows is a world dreamless
destitute waiting and insecure pacing
wild, wise tempers
the world without dreams is a world joyless
deadened weight along icy ports
while work thrives elsewhere

-c.j.

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

you see, it's hard to be A
C wouldn't be with A
B wouldn't be with A
you C, it's hard to B A
B didn't care
C had black hair
A wrote all day and night
you C, it's hard to be A

-c.j.

History means to disturb us in horrible violet sequences,
bringing out the spots and toils of the inevitable past,  
creating this haste to escape

-cj

though you are faster than me,
I find beauty in the slowness I embrace
you tell me we are only strong when
the winds are weak

and you caution
occasionally the sun burns too bright,
and his brilliance is frequently obscured
but you tend to shed light through
your prism, despite lacking shameless retrograde

you say what lies beneath the ground
is deceitful, and o Rose, you are planted in it
and then I saw a peculiar violet light

-c.j.

Let's make things fun,
I whisper
and pull you to my chest
Your breaths are getting heavy
as we slowly undress
Our lips, ribbons meeting
Our heartbeats, swiftly fleeting
Until the clock screams and I see
the white of my ceiling

-cj