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

inevitably waking up to a black sun, the eclipse is stuck
news channels don't even mention it anymore because
it's been this way for a while, now

sunshine became shadow- the smart people said we should just turn
night into our day, with the moon as a replacement
the world cannot revolve around a dark star, so the world chose to be nocturnal

we adapt constantly, we still are somewhat comfortable, but all
of the flowers are gone and we've turned to animals for their meat
desperately as the goods of the ground die out

pale arms and legs are the norm, and we ration our electricity in case this never ends, in case the sun never sheds its selfish cloak

we are managing, but there is no such thing as thriving, anymore

-c.j.

like a mouth camouflaged among the trees,
I was undetectable among the others:
silent, hidden,
no colours to catch the light

-cj

Mum wasn't me
Dad wasn't me

-cj

These happenings couldn't dissipate
Love wasn't water
It could not evapourate, become another form
It just was
Terrors arose from our fingertips,
Storms in closed palms
Shifting diamonds, flightless constructs
Every sun we saw screamed of destinies awaiting
Oh, there are no parallels- only jagged almosts

-c.j.

does waking down hallways ever seem like a sob story waiting to happen?
too often their eyes divert to dusty corners
lights shine a little too bright
and the ominous "not" knots in all vessels,
each and every one
it's as if the slices of misery were incorporated into the rainwater and scratchy stereo in the vicinity of the heart, bleeding out

-cj

Dance to your heart's delight, divide hate from your true love, if you think you have one
Tell her you desperately feel her within you
(How we aim to bring souls to truth when we ignore it ourselves)

-cj

elongate the hair strands, comb it downward to enhance its lengthening,
humour it with red, autumn colour
make it beautiful

multiply the diameter of my eyes
enlarge their oval spans,
darken & thicken the lashes that adorn the pupils & irises
make them beautiful

shrink the nose, straighten out its flawed slant
carve out the dead skin cells that reside in these pores
cleanse, make whole & alive
make it beautiful

white pearls for teeth, collect the stones from the sea, the clams in the bucket, saved just for me
for I have always wanted an enticing smile
redden my lips & tell me to pout
so the kissful temptations will surely start
make that beautiful

plant my bosoms in the soil & water them so they may blossom upon my fruitless chest
or better yet
toss them & roll them in flour
sugarcoat the skin
& cover my heart again with the ****** flesh you molded
make them beautiful

take this waist & spin it like a top,
watch the extraneous float off like air
skim shave settle once the slim figurine I desire is real before you
make that beautiful

these thighs are indescribable
charlatans, at a price
not for sale, but for myself
they weigh in differently at the times & places & ways that they either belong or stand without a name
make them beautiful

don't forget to look into my window blues,
gaze at me in a trance
because I don't really mind if they're from before or after this transformation
you are what the sun is to roses & what rain is to their roots
& when I kneel down to water her petals, red white pink
you whisper to me,
"make them beautiful"

-cj

everlyn is sitting in front of me taking the test and I can't help but think when I leave in a week there will be new dreams and I will be both young and old and everyone will sing happy birthday even friends of friends whom I've never met
but then everlyn's pencil drops and so does my cloud of thought

-c.j.

Opening doors and closing them once
glimpsing what is on the other side,
a cowardly move,
but we are all guilty, holding the ****
we grasped too tight, sweat still wet on our
hands and fingers
Someone else autonomically preparing it-
a relief, perhaps? or a burden? Only time
will tell, spill its secrets without a hint of
shame 'cause the virtues personified daily by thousands of sullen dreamers just fade
incrementally till the blank nothingness of
it all stuns us into silence, leaving crowds,
multitudes, curious, breathless.

-cj

don't run in the streets, now
you are no longer a child
eighteen years past nineteen ninety six
is what you are
walking a line drawn for that
seemingly eventual someday that is today
don't run, not even in your mind
for if you trip and fall, you'll be left behind

-c.j.

Lovers measure it with months,
and it is strange, concerning themselves with something so fleeting and insubstantial
Time does not define love

-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

Homesickness
the sheer vulnerability
cornered by the shelter of lovers
My kin and the clouds
chestfulmindedness
green pillow furrows the mature feathers in my hair

-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

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

Perhaps we were too young
to understand the implications,
but too old to ignore them

Oh, infatuation-
how it smothers us in violet flame

Soft is the sound of me leaving,
yet within these walls echoes
something loud and wicked;
it inspires blood

Your endless holiday will not leave, however,
nor will you miss the allure you possess
You undressed the concealed beauty of me
I had thought plain

I had no idea what I was getting into-
mania with fainting spells
at just the wrong intervals,
and unrequited love,
and all the ire therein

Despite this, I hear, always,
"Entire cities shook for your sake, darling;
the least you can do is smile"

-c.j.

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

-cj

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

-cj

you murmur into my shoulder that I am an angel
your lips tracing my collar with wanderlust
time is dancing, inside, outside, nearside, farside
while our eyes talk, our instincts are waiting for a war
expecting something to go amiss, yet we still speak
into each other's skin:
"you walk in beauty,"
as we dance alongside the clocks

-c.j.

Apparently if you have a hard time
you are a statistic
If you make a mistake
a rather large one at that
You are stupid and foolish
This is why you and I
We fall asleep with songs
playing into our many voids
Crammed with empathies
better than what we are
told on the other side
of the spectrum

-cj

In the closet is a cipher I know fairly well who hangs up my coat for me and asks how my day is and I say fine
It's strange because the faceless have countenances particularly memorable, like this one
Its edges were faint grey, and the dark corners of its figure were not as harsh as something too real would seem
The most wonderful reason for this friend, this mirage, was that I was alone without it, an incurable loneliness that originates in my bedroom, with the meager window the only reflection of something different, of hope
It was dangerous to leave home, to stop touching that doorknob, knowing that each day it would only get harder to depart
It gave the kindest farewells, some in writing, with its ethereal script, some in French lullabies or quiet whispers of luck
Now, I reluctantly withdraw
I will most likely be coming back

-cj

Ceaseless scheming, a poetic hype
Mind exalted but body waning from
Strength to keep adorning a lyrical feature
Shut the curtains, it's oh so dark
And how you dread the morning
Slink away from your further pondering
And be captivated by the inside of your
Eyelids, for now

-cj

Beauty changed that spring
No diamonds, no pretty ring
Skeletal symmetry and a weird disposition of who I am now-
Is she someone I knew yesterday?

-cj

What makes a girl good
Sleeping alone, a book under her pillow
Raising her hand to answer the question
Smiling, no tears to dry
Singing, no trembling detected
Well, she is good
But she feels nothing

-cj

You can't scare me away with your paradox talk against wolf's law or the dogma
I've been through worse (it's a chain, it's a curse)
Regardless of number or name or position
Here I am again alone with him in my mind and periphery
Burning up with that fever but I'll escape it somehow
After all his face his arms his voice is the only memory I'll allow

-cj

we should go down this street, it's been awhile
and allow the hatred to cover you, eventually
we should go down this street, it's awhile since
the last time
we should rest and speak to each other and
unwind, cease the hurry
just return to who we were, eventually
we should go, we should see something like beauty
these roads belong to us
it's possible to become the other people
grasp the ends, leap in from yesterday
these roads belong to us
these are our ultimatums, and for the best
may you take the wheel?
witness us in the white light
inquire my whereabouts
return home, return to longing
these are our origins

-c.j.

falling is a sensitive subject
from heights, from depths
any level cripples me
may a catching lover deem
the descender worthy of rescue

hurt from scrapes, not scorn
bleed from thickets, not from his thorn
ascend as if falling is the most
comfortable lawlessness
down toward desperate words of rope

human from the start, naïve since birth
falling, tumbling, nearing the floors he's touched
and again, in full integrity, missing
the core of the earth to land in
someone's arms

-c.j.

Send me letters soaked in futile reassurances
Check the box saying yes, I love you, but
I don't think I can
Send me your condolences, sever my
fingers from your wrists
If you must
Release myself from you,
release yourself from me
A relentless cycle of tortured romance-
we wither together

-cj

stop me if you've heard this-
a day in the life entails clairvoyant sights
authorities accuse us, they say you break the rules
you lied when you told us that we didn't set the place on fire
(you started it with your minds)

-c.j.

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

-cj

I want what the renowned writers brag of
The sleeplessness, pacing, but it's there, it's been there all along, it's just breaking out of its host
Eyes rest on the bruiselike crescents beneath them
It's the life that the story is stealing from its teller
But the death never comes in full, because that's when the end happens and feeds relief to the writer's veins

-cj

"forever," I say when you ask since when
have my eyes been so deep blue
you reveal that they have a bit of violence in them, or violets- I couldn't hear you very well
when we kissed, the flavour of your lips, I thought felt right
you jangled your keys as we walked to your car
it gets better, you say about the album we're listening to on the stereo
and it does, it does

-c.j.

they kept you there, they assumed they were
your refuge
I caught everything on tape, I'm changed because of it
everything, ever person, we appear identical
they ran from you when you were dangling,
not a person recalls your face
and now they've left and the moths, they flutter,
and you fall

I press you in, I yank at your elbows
I will remember these limbs yanked in futility
I'll keep you with me as I'm dangling within
I dangle but the sun always rises
I'll keep on tossing every coin I find
I'll toss them and take a fortune

now everything is grasping at straws, attempts to rescue
the grasping straws will deliver you from the devil
and when the sand rests on the ground again,
we'll deliver again

there's a figure in the fog
it's a triangular face that screams of bad luck
which become towers and ideas deliver in
sweltering scenes
it will knock you over as you fall asleep,
dangling
it's dangling, dear
the sun is risen

-c.j.

at this point, curving bases
the lightless scene preceding stillness
shields that space, that tremour, that wind
hurls you into the night
joy, 'twill expire soon
and this youth in the back harbours each shred

the rejected one's poison
and the price of indifference
I recognise you, cunning, hovering pixel
a synthetic existence trailing my fringe
if you've kept up until now
you've perceived naught
presently this is your realm
witness it vanish
machine keeping me
machine locking me
and everything happens
and it all recurs

the moral erodes but the madness reigns
you careless creature, surrendering yourself to us
the only thing we own is our recollection

-c.j.

Eyes have minds
that our brains cannot always
reign over
They widen, smile, darken, well up, roll
They give us away with the batting of lash or lowering of gaze

-cj

It's just thoughts
superfluous packaging
included with this veiny pink brain
circles taint my skull with their patterns of travel
to **** them is to vanquish my spirit, my own life
until they are released from their cage
and written, or whispered, or etched
all between my ears is lovely chemical chaos

-cj

The grey ghost
shuffled in between their aces and queens
ignoring you amidst their gamble
Was it ever any different?

-cj

The sound of rain and the gaps between home and tomorrow
I don't feel like myself, I say
Yes, no, prettier than the get-go
May the twenty-seventh
The best day of your life

-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

Double red left arrow and the emotion inside is visible
Music deafens the nonexistent but reverbreverbreverb
All in stereo, the truth, how I cope
Tell my mother because I won't

-cj

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

-cj

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

-cj

I am aware of April marching toward me
and yes, I am scared
at a red light I tell him this;
you're strong enough, he says,
clasping my hand tighter

maybe, but I wasn't then, and somehow
an anniversary triggers it, and I can feel hell close
beside me, behind me, or ahead of me

I am strong enough
I was strong enough to change
and now I refuse to be a victim of circumstance
last year's methods were deadly and I am done
come, April, come
you won't see me fall

-c.j.

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

-cj

Who was this disorder
A nameless face
With such deep gravity
That struck me in hours
and pentagons
He's a man, she's me
Isn't it
Whoever it is
I'm brandishing a knife
for you

-cj

But I tried, I tried so hard, and for nothing
Cheap, wasted, no returns
Not even a pretty little compensation
What did I expect
Your head was full of air when mine was abuzz with dictionaries

-cj

what glows when the pupils pale?
what tucks in when the edge has left?
the fly is motionless without the mold
I'm motionless without a murmur

all I'm conscious of is you
you know I can't evolve
under desks it's a sweeter scene
and all your near ones, they hug each other
and your others are having the time of their lives
they're making pies and exchanging letters

the smallest ounce wrecks the balance
basic phrases are waxing general
we're mirrored but juxtaposed with a figure
beneath the microscope
I beg, no improv
the earth is wicked and fringes, snickering

all I'm conscious of is knowing that
we should purge the fictitious parts
we will purge that, purge this and this and that

-c.j.

But, mother, this isn't what you said it would be
I cannot turn the corner without a monstrous swaying;
Doubt overwhelming the nooks and crannies of this body

-cj

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.