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

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

Pencils tapping, stomachs grumbling, silent, empty lessons
This is the school soundtrack

-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

Why is she in the picture?
Futile reassurances, as my mind still aches
Throat theatrics, doors open the cage when bells dingdingding
Bitter halves spill down my core
Swallowing pride tastes like acid
It's all I had to defend myself, a weapon to put in front of my heart
(Fear unadorned with sweetness, just sharp stiffness)

-cj

songs of a funeral, possible recovery,
a grain of salt
the river saw me that night
it keeps its word
so I won't have to be shoved
under the bright light

-c.j.

how do things, seasons, change?
surely a tilt of an axis cannot fully explain
these transformations
but read into it and eagerness to stay is
wild and unwavering
also the sun sort of fries the sorrowful,
but only when they're under it the ones
above are comforted with delights we
cannot comprehend
is this all there is? work and no play?
or play and no work? is there ground to
tread or a scale to measure
or are these worn out metaphors just a
lifeline to sustain such a heartbeat as mine
or hers or yours

-cj

you could say I have an addiction
to obsessing over
every square centimeter
of your existence
but that's not wrong
it's no legal infraction
to be so immensely captivated
by the shadows on your cheeks
and the dizzying inflections of
your voice
surely I am not crazy
you are
for being so ridiculous
and impossible
to forget

-c.j.

Mum was good
Dad was not bad

-cj

Only too quiet for the loud ones to hear- an unfair thing to keep from those deserving
No guilty whisper to set the two apart, no disaster to detect, yet how about the sun, and the world, and every person who has ever breathed?
That is something to think of in the unspellable dark

-cj

It rains alot this time of year
Paranoia soaked
Was it a mistake?
Despite an interlude of an overbearing cloud mass, gallons from the atmosphere,
Accompanied by harrowing hallway whispers of wilting hopes
It's all forgiven now, justified and crossed out
Now the winter sun can penetrate us further into bliss

-cj

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

-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

Whatever floods the veins, the poet said, excuses the faint and the young

-cj

The girl who sees through their games
The lies thick like ash but fragile as spiderwebs
She falls prey to their snares
Because she is human
And therefore weak
And vulnerable
She is polluted with the alluring smoke clouds of harlots mania wine & gold
Her eyes are darker in this state of blindness
A trance, an illusion
Her heart knocks on her mind's door
And she swallows her pride like the spoonful of medicine & no sugar she is fed by reality
But her heaven, her home
Is truth & light & purity
And it is within her again
Returning
And filtering out
The toxicity of
Frivolous cataract-inducing filth

-cj

Mingling secrets purified our intentions
If only plans stayed in the margins
My stupors play with yours
In our printed world

-cj

The songs that don't force you to feel a
certain way-I like those
They give you something and your mind
swallows it, whether it taste bitter or sweet
It is yours

-cj

Like a devil's advocate
I listened as deep as apparition
licked the fictional dust
falling under the self-written
mantra's power:
It's not my fault

-cj

Waste nothing, want every little mint and lozenge in the shop
Forgive everyone, seek vengeance on all
the sidewalk cracks since the start

-cj

The dark is your enemy
Only the obvious and optimistic can be trusted
Say farewell to the subtle, the underhand
The bright and brighter sun and such will brush up the secrets once hidden and the mouth clamped tight will loosen,
Semi-transparent truths seeping out

-cj

to invent something, one becomes obsessed with the one real altering "what"
inventors spend summers and springs in their attics
attempting mad tries concerning a last ambiguity
being wise does not always work in said theorists' formulas
madness breeds brilliance, but one botch will torch onlooker's perceptions

-c.j.

All she does is talk
Do you see the practice in her mock
genuinity
'Cause I can
Maybe she put you in a trance with her
plagiarised poetry and false inflections
When I was standing there, my arms
crossed, my mouth agape with eternal o's resounding from it

-cj

further along from that friday
early, late, is it just a ruse
craving the past, i was brave then
verbal nerve catalyst (heart beats wild down staircase)
are we the same,  impartial neighbours,  somewhat lovers
walking past each other in silence?

-cj

irises are blue,
pupils are black
from lover to lover
the colour changes back

baby eyes smile,
light reflects feeling
coming closer to learn
the life of the girl
you are seeing

-c.j.

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

over the years the line "this dream is, this dream is in a telescope now"
has meant something but only lately did I realise what it means,
at least, in one facet-
the ideals swirling in my head, these things I think I want, these stories and scenes that infatuate me until I'm speechless-
they are far behind now, not because I changed my mind,
but because I grew up
and it takes a telescope to see them now

-c.j.

the good thing about love is it has this speed, so rapidly hemorrhaging the skin
to dye the eye take a peek in the scope
a prism, spectrum, cycle of bursting shades
it's no trick, darling, beauty is decked in these striped halls and passageways
fasterfaster now, light must go, to meet its fragile fate
(it meets your eyes and lives through you)

-cj

It induces physical reactions within me
i.e. lurches of the heart
I decided to be happy again
And not live in limbo

-c.j.

Enter, seize the catalyst
It's a battle and a friendly conversation
Smile and you die, sword and you die
All because of the footprints she left and the echos of platonic laughter still here

-cj

Cut into rubber
then young skin
and like a ******
I bled
a lake of lustless blood
rubies liquefied into
the agent that has me
reeling & paling
I am a stupid little girl
who hurts herself
at each opportunity
like these knives
are tempting rumours
to spread
instead of duties calling
work, work, for the day is ailing
and the worst is neverending

-cj

Cathedrals still speak of you-
Photographs yell our names
in every language
We occur so frequently,
and when we do,
oceans applaud

-c.j.

thirst hunger sleep wake breath
lips hands legs an entire stadium of masters
drink eat lay open inhale
kiss hold walk and never stop

-cj

Where bodies meet, there is deceit
This insomniac rhythm has got us
between stark white and oblivion
A pillow to lay your head,
my dear cuckoo friend

-c.j.

After this perjury
I desperately compress
material to my antibust
and think of the pearls
in the ocean
and the nothing
residing in me

-cj

Is it a crime
to want to
be near you

Is it a felony
to want to
hear your voice
all day

-cj

Until now your science has been mere evidence
Essential maxims blew hard scores
into my ears
Negligent, the stark truth remains

-cj

Obnoxiously optimistic and
anticipating a firework or two
And all I had to do was flutter my eyelids
to get a peek, to exchange for strength each littler thing that said, "I am weak"

-cj

In fading blue you told me,
"as the clock ticks slow, my heart slowly flares,
knowing that I'm in here, and you might not
be there"
Now we rest in beige and cream,
as I remind you that "any fight is
a spark of life"

-c.j.

Breaking the chapters into sections
Breadcrumbs of fractions
For little peeks of a story
They speak so much truth
And they fit so nicely in my palms

-cj

eyes witness a sharp beauty
hands bleed from wringing
tumble, wrap, secure thy veins
before your tongue gets tied in knots
speak in spite of the twisted among your teeth
perhaps an innocent part within
slows the birth of desire, the forbidden fruit
young but knowing pain, feeling cherry-stem-tied inside

-cj

they are waiting for something good
can work erase the bad?
kids eat mudpies and cry "mushaboom, mushaboom"
there goes the fear they once had for the wild
now it's become a phantom limb

-c.j.

enough damage has been done
send our condolences to yonder sun
its yellow mask to beaches bask
killing purity as it stains and sinks down in
so hard to love but impossible to despise,
this overbearing sphere of flame
dismiss us to the caves and underground places, tis unright to see all the faces
that tilt up to gaze but turn sideways, a myth of blindness intercedes
ingrates people children users misers lovers keepers sleepers
(oh, grey skies, will the sun die with us?)

-cj

typewriter junk
influx of phrases and phases to spell out
my fingers press the circle buttons carefully
but the mind behind it is a cluttered wicked studio
backspace those duplicate letters,
and that character-is it an ampersand or a three?
censor the rambles through the english brambles,
they seek to go home
within my nooks and books and pages
strewn all over inside

-cj

Static images line the dash,
threatening a blind collision
The stranger is comatose
and the sun is red

-cj

it's a **** arena, isn't it?
the contenders sense it, too
you spectate while I battle
this out
onto bad intellect swings
the blade
tracing scandalous imageries
into corrupt teeth
isn't it a devil's game,
one we cannot win?

-c.j.

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

-cj

is it a second chance or the twelfth?
the stars around my heart are fighting again,
sparking up the little adolescent muscle in my chest
because the danger in metaphors caught up
with me and they convince me I'm not living

in the real world, I bite my lip
I walk alone

but when I think of you
my heartbeat-
you take it away

these faulty stars know ways to go and stop
and start again
but they are still only juveniles

the twelfth chance spins into the thirteenth
so I let go of my lip and slow down or
run ahead to meet you
and my heartbeat becomes me

-c.j.

hello, I'll linger here and hold the land
hello, I'll linger here and harvest, as planned
return to me, we've lingered
luck ripens fast and expires at last
I folded it and I'll preserve it, I'll preserve it for you

along the dining hall into your hands
seize my mantras, presents for you
it'll be back when the rest remain
we will lose ourselves to the land

there's hearts here, there's hearts
there's visions, surreal, there's visions
there's you and me and what we inhale
it's begun, the descent
you're deprived of sleep and it's pressing
since you'll feel when you're alone and
you'll do lonely things when you realise,
it'll hit you one night

you linger, sitting, thinking about it, fervently
the lovely middle is happened and all else is old
you and I stay on the pew, always in the front
you will linger with me
linger until the final one, keep on, until the final
quaking frame, until the next arrives
until my hands grow weak
don't leave the land, don't leave it

-c.j.

The restroom mirrors have seen me naked
Bells ringing in warning and I wince
Do I look ok? Do I look good? Do I look somewhat beautiful? Do I look attractive? The risk in asking severs truth from fact
Becoming rogue,  I wait, I will

-cj

We would sail as if there was but everything to forget
The anchor is the sugary mistake- clamouring for a second hour to recuperate
Heavier secrets to smudge into yesterday's eyeliner
If I happen to see something you echoed on accident, would you rush to cover it up?
I'm already having wicked visions of my own

-cj