why don't you just stay awhile?
the mundane will go by faster with you
yeah, we forget good won't majority-trump all
save just you and I
didn't we have this conversation before?
that is why de ja vu has been gnawing at me-
it really is discomforting
nevermind that, just stay awhile
help **** time while holding my hand

-c.j.

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.

However,  our differences peaked, and the stitches came undone:
neither of us lost
but
neither of us won

-cj

you puncture every cell of me
and I bleed so willingly

-cj

Cold wars between our bodies
If kisses from better dreams
kept us waiting
Only the dim armistice we signed
(unconsciously)
divides us

-cj

Ashtrays
So that's where your casual soul lounges
Don't mind my stare
I'm just in awe
At the blatant disregard for
the facts, the proof
Hard, cold evidence
That comes from burning
your lungs
You will suffer
after those short
sparks and highs

-cj

late running in on your silver steed
ride with grace, no desire to race
harsh fences to admire with dull eyes
entry devils whisk away troublesome friends
hanging red tulips, divine nuisances
growing weary reading subliminal stanzas
yielding, or instead, risking loss,
to appear perfect

-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.

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

-cj

Oaths in the palm's memory
Grasping the tendrils
Circumstance swallows exceptions whole
Hand trembles, eye conveys
A simple beacon, resting in your womb
Speak, the law and rule must be defied
Let the promise fade as you breathe

-cj

Shadow bends, bury it before its life smothers ours
Blackening out the sun, carressing the pure snow, it's in between our fingers
(Somewhere lodged is a song title)
Sweet tastes and a naiive fever
Sleep, the silhouette will stay still because you're so young, lovely, innocent
(The bedposts will sway and rock you, sway and rock you out of, out of here)

-cj

The sad facts are once again I am alone
and that I know I am
What am I expecting?
An emergence of new lines to trace,
muted histories in old dusty books
Crazed songs set to wild dances
What is there left for you to offer me
besides the nothing you've already
given?
Apathy, maybe, or a chance to be
drenched in utterly ****** contradiction

-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

I said it but the meaning
must have yawned back
into my pillow
Every word is muffled, now
There are amplified voices
speaking horrors I do not
want to hear
So I neglect surroundings
and burrow into my inner home

-cj

always ready to tuck the darkness in so
it has no way of painting four walls,
no way of seizing her spirit

-c.j.

five thousand seven hundred miles
six hours
two continents
one metaphor that gave birth to love

-c.j.

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

My chest feels hollow a lot, so I wonder
what truths would come out of it,
they said
They had asked, what is reliable to you?
And I said, innate truths that bleed
in your chest
What makes something real, they ask
That's something I've been trying to figure out for a while, I say
So you've been in love, they inquire
So my heart tells me, I reply
I yearn for asteroid belts and pluto,
alas dreams I have surrendered,
they mention after a pause
Oh, dear rune, don't think yourself
so ancient

-c.j.

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.

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

They'd throw rocks and wait for you at the docks
And as for the devil,
at the door,
he quietly knocks

-cj

Luxuries and treacheries
disguise themselves
as the other
It's an egregious cycle
A mundane ellipsis
My head spins
in time with
wherever it originated
I don't know
if it will
have a grave
though I hope
and pray

-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

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

Completely awake, without qualms
Yet halfway to lovelessness
Pure unlike the trying music
And clear as an inkless bell
While they are striped with accidental brambles, thickets, and other cruel beauties
As I once was

Then, petrified by black and white film,
Tasting not salt nor sugar but ambivalence
Now, I remember how the foreign world rippled
The mountains shifted- they stood still
There were questions in the seafoam until
Thunder shook its pattern

However much I long to say,
Embrace me; forget the day
My mother reminds me that I am
Blossoming, young, omnipresent
With shields of sun and pieces of moon
Visible in my eyes
Which tell the mirror,
She is of age, but she is not of age

-c.j.

open your eyes, sense the sky rise
return to the origin now
if all I can ever do
is write of a select few
may the winds blow us back
to rescuing ourselves
it's a neverland
promises of youth were shattered
anyway, now we know
and I've got alot to show for it

-c.j.

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

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

I misplaced a haven that infatuated me
it melted as the thermometer throbbed
that exceptional part in the museum,
that envious balcony where we fawned
over its edge

do you see them? the shelves hold every colour
do you long for it? it's an intrinsic desire, yes, it is
it was the nirvana, the nirvana of time and its
enemies that you've just seen buried in books
return to it, return to it, you must

I'm done with tragedies, I'm done with the Montagues
see the crowd, crowd your thoughts
thrive on what you must
in the poetics of distance, it's never free
we won't sense the gaps until
some of our selves fall through

-c.j.

whether or not we fall asleep in your bed
won't cure nor break this
but how sweet it would be
to share the sheets, rest our minds, quicken our hearts
because it's safer to be tucked away
unscrutinised
the ceiling sees us, we see each other
it all feels right
as we sleep questionless and answerless

-cj

superfluous charm, only kept for a time to depart
but the mind, like a magnet, won't be freed
silence, nuance, plead
and sparklynothings oscillate in melodies' wake

-cj

seventeen candles
and a calendar of semi-regreta
prancing on the table
amidst the pure emptiness of the moment
talent bleeds for nothing
(abide with the sky and all will be fine)
red shutters on the houses
and violets in the green by the road
numbers blur into a mirage of senseless digits,
the air reminds why
days spent in fear, months wasted on heartbreak
that made everything come into place
so blow out candles, you're too old to be so shy
that boy you love is october's favourite medium
until the midnight smothers the embers,
breathe in the quaint dozen plus five fires at your lips
it's seventeen candles, not seventeen knives

-cj

can I take a picture so I can stare at you
whenever I want
you can take a picture so you can stare at me
whenever you want
it's only fair
this attraction is severe and
becoming a ringing in my ears
and everywhere else
I guess there is no way to stop it
so why don't we just revel in it?

-c.j.

What's unsettling about its premises
Learned how to make it fast and easy
Is this a good thing
No, it isn't, sweetheart
Just a shortcut to death
Or slow comatose wishing

-cj

I grab your hand
and lead you to
where we stand
between the shelves
Do you hear that,
I ask
What,
you ask
It's the books talking

-cj

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

breathing hasn't been this hard before
there are wild bells ringing within me
still my shy lungs
are quiet, then taunted with
smoke and yesterday's warmth

-c.j.

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 want to stand by you and
be simply                   there
no questions
the answers are already obvious
because now is a time
in which I don't wish to try
to be too alive
burrowing a bit
into your shoulder
and you won't shrug me off
you want simple              there-ness, too

-c.j.

Streets have even learned my mantra-
"My heart is heavy, but my will is strong"
I recall the way your eyes made everything
go still
Like wires we climb with autumn,
putting our fingers up to the windowsill
We are scared of love, yes
But love should be scared of us

-c.j.

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

-cj

to paint violent torches, eat quivering berries bent on thorns
every quaint brittle poet is mighty, strong, zealous
at each full yoke aches pure whole angst
mussed tousled everythings, draped silently on green tables with merciless baby finches eating delicacies
sipping gin and whistling - the year that beauty blasted through our roof and crumbled down onto our floors
the last part is the poison - chase it 'til it's siphoned;
may it be swallowed by a foe

-c.j.

to paint violent torches, eat quivering berries bent on thorns
every quaint brittle poet is mighty, strong, zealous
at each full yoke aches pure whole angst
mussed tousled everythings, draped silently on green tables with merciless baby finches eating delicacies
sipping gin and whistling - the year that beauty blasted through our roof and crumbled down onto our floors
the last part is the poison - chase it 'til it's siphoned;
may it be swallowed by a foe

-c.j.

Miserable, reading a newspaper, sipping coffee on the villa
Cold front omens, bluejay noise
A bank robbery, an ocean tide, the smell of gingerbread
None could make him shift or smirk
Self-importance breeded in this host, with minnow letters swimming on the paper

-cj

Would you prefer me if I tilt my head
at a fallacious angle
Would you rather I abandon my
peculiar nothings
(Would becoming a statue
unblinking and
without impetus
satisfy you)

-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

Her mind and mouth reveal:
It was he who threw the rocks,
It was he who initiated our little balcony scene,
It was he who changed my eyes from
blind to seeing

-c.j.

While he walks
the lonesome path
She sits there idle
quoting plath
ring ring ring
goes the phone
They seize the morning
but only for so long

-cj

plenty, I'm free, I'll do it myself
this strand is an obscured veil
I'm towering like a queen of combat,
I've become unshakable

so, sketch, let me write you,
send inspiration
you crave it all, I'm aware
what do you seek in me these days?
maybe it's due that we partake

this, in this moment, the cold breeze
it becomes profound
just hide your lips for a vivid fabrication
scream music and lift up the mother warmth
the hunger won't cease until the light flees,
these days

the diagonal is luring an unfilled bottle
confidence that the muted can supercede
I'll take a quill to the creature

so, come, let me reveal the world
outside of your comprehension
your hold, make it real
I'm dragging you to the café

the atmosphere, the ground,
the diamond planets, and
mother warmth
we'll dig them down with
mountain rivers
I want your eyes to get big again
they're weighed with insomnia,
sleepy with stories
your hold, make it real
I'm dragging you home

-c.j.

it was fall yet I dreamt of february air
and the waters of march
I wanted to play it right, become an animal,
obey the generals and run a marathon in roses, a garden race
before the cafe is a cathedral,
where midnight starts a waltz, hints at more modern times
the times that hold bedroom eyes, every holiday, birthday, funeral, every beat, city, every kind of splendour
that sends our hearts running wild
the times that hold such strangeness and charm, fiction,
even pigeons, even demons
I wanted to cling to the bravado; be no one's girlfriend; in a coma for six weeks; see science and visions and multiplication like a movie script, ending
I wanted to decorate each plain verse, make the grey into pink, tessellate the shapes of its inherent hearts and knives

it was fall and you asked if like empty bottles, we float
if I would change my name to ingrid
if all our weekends could echo of pleasure sighs
I wanted to embrace the atlantic, climb to new heights,
come awake

but could a schoolboy help me do these things?
could he lay beside me in the snow and call it paradise?
would he make me stare into mirrors all night,
waiting by the phone? would he make me feel like I was nothing ordinary?

-c.j.