new york, 1940
standing in the train station
abuzz with news of other towns and cities
all concerning the day at hand, far away from yesterday
the past puts on a vanishing act, the pieces become
"the apparition of these faces in the crowd;
petals on a wet black bough"
we shiver because we are out of our minds,
touching ghost after ghost, tickets in trembling hand

-c.j.

the sound and the fury
gorgeous repercussions
beginnings, ends, and middles
all the idyllic centres
it makes me wonder
if I ever needed anything else

-cj

Youth knew no pain, alright: it was in their bones
Breaking the inhibitions whilst pressing knowledge, yes
It was a sobering day

-cj

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

-cj

Greetings, superficial
Question with an immediate answer
While I don't mean to impose
I'd like to not be the one who goes
Sliding glass, our metaphor
Cold night versus perfect morning
Yes, I see you, I always see you
And oh, how it has troubled and
fulfilled me
Conclusions, never reached
We only know that we know each other

-c.j.

the night has opened my eyes
I see each symbol and number in my deck
from your pack of cards
when I'm small I count my total
and when I can't wake up I realise
love is not a dream

I truly fell for the boy with a thorn
in his side
I am rapt during our every car ride
"you don't have to wake up every morning thinking,
last night I dreamt that somebody loved me"

we breathe the truth without resistance
our clubs and spades and diamonds and hearts
are more vivid than before
the night has opened your eyes
please don't close them when morning comes

-c.j.

Communication shoved in the eaves
Sustain me with little scraps
Mean it, please
Love me like I want you to, please

-cj

Most of the streetlights have been broken for years now, but a few hang on, flickering every now and then
While we slept the clocks ticked a little bit too loud for our liking, the stairs creaked like little screams every time we made a step
Mornings were rather sullen, with the moon still out and Dad snoring in the room across from us
There was a fog, too, one characteristic to where we lived, that came no matter the season, and we had to squint or cut holes out of it to see the street in front of us
The school bus was very yellow and the windows were like aviators and we sat in the same seats day after day, chasing the scenes outside
We and our friends were poor, but we were alright, wearing the same jeans for three days in a row without anyone saying anything about it
Mom and Dad fought alot
We went outside when they did and didn't come home until after dark
We'd ride our bikes around the neighbourhood, see the older kids smoking under the bridge
We'd climb the old tree by the elementary school and throw dares
When the streetlights came on we started to go back
It wasn't like we were thinking about the fighting or the liquor bottles on the kitchen floor or anything, really
We just wanted to go home
And when we finally went to sleep after scrubbing the dirt from our feet, the broken streetlights went on a few hours later, and another day was happening

-cj

everyone you know calls you the tame one
like you were lost and found and were always sleeping
lessons learned: don't fake sick, muse often, ask "how soon? is now ok? am I used up?"
we go for those who could be real heroes, they say
so you cough up nothing to clear your brain and go back to sleep,
the same as before

-c.j.

the tower holds no princess, only water,
the life of these parts- without it, they'd drop dead
blues and greys of the skies don't interrupt the inner waves
they know they must only hover

-c.j.

Admiring the clock, clicking my tongue
with the pendulum and ding **** result
Musing over mahogany
or whatever the time machine is made of
In a daze, minutes are the malaise
And before I can see it
I've got ecstasy in my face

-cj

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

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

-cj

Did you need them as much as they seemed to need you?
A dire necessity that wrung me out and then bottled me up
Must you go?
Can't you linger?
Let me wrap you around my finger until it's too much
But it won't be
The friends, your fans,
they're calling, and
lone and terrible I remain

-cj

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

-cj

The clock's got that wicked angle about it,
and I guessed it-nearing the point of no return
The kind we seek in labyrinthic nights
The numbers and hands dictate, and
I follow without a fight

-cj

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

go ahead and act like
we aren't all synaesthesiacs
like the colours don't remind
and numbers don't become
we can deny our tendencies,
our clingings
as if the monochromatic
one-dimension will get
us through

-c.j.

you're full of dread, I'm full of wonder
we use our veins as portals, resembling
blue shades of happenstance

back then they were hues of black,
fierce antimatter
now I'm shuffling my cards to
surprise myself

-c.j.

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

I never could write a song
It was an unnatural endeavour, and
I wanted to, so much, but the notes
and words refused to stretch out of
the womb
Or at least knock the walls within to
give a hint as to what frivolities or
beauty I could put into the spaces
I tried to conjure up a melody, a rhyme
that wasn't wickedly elementary, but
all that came were impatient breaths
So I fumble with words and their
infinities instead

-cj

We were told to read a book about a mustached murderer
and most of us were put to sleep
by the architect's chapters
but I read them anyway
maybe just to say I did
or to more enjoy the blood and
wicked victories of the killer's story

-cj

Do you have wild theories about existence
Have you ever cried because you were so happy

I don't know-

I just want to know more about you

Maybe

You taunting creature

Goodnight, beautiful

-c.j.

while the older kids threw parties,
we threw darts
mathematics held us hostage every school night
numbers spiralling endlessly, halves unloved
halves must divide
tug-of-war, playground trivialities
kids of the wear-and-tear
worry the other kind to pray when
the day meanders

-c.j.

watch the emblem invert
this confidence is not gone
there's crime to commit
your fleet to farewell
sharp bon mot and silk
they'll capture this place
I'd save you in this moment
but in lace you'll sink
and sway once more

oh, severe, rest next to me
you've been abandoned but
you don't speak of it
finally, don't betray me, don't
you're merely a hanging novella this time

-c.j.

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

I knew I was falling when you said,
"let me take you out," and I smiled
you give me paper knees, my dear
my balance is all thrown off
each breath fills me deeper
with perfume and a cough
can any air pierce winds
dragging me from blue, even oceans
trace all imprinted breaks, my dear
may keeping pieces make you whole

-c.j.

they say there are forces beyond our control
that reside within us
oh, how their whispers escalate into screams
it's worse than it seems, this need
heart insists, "touch every inch of me,  touch oh touch please,
carress and hold, tender and sweet"
i heard through the grapevine
then diamond rhombi on notebook pages climb
over each restless thought
surrender, this is war, touch oh bleed into me,
i will lose so gracelessly
no, stand up, free yourself now
(there is a force within that knows you can win)

-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

She left, claiming her bones ached
If one believed it wasn't manifest
Nonetheless she wandered home and softly lay to rest

-cj

I don't know what joy is and I don't think I ever did
I starved for the inches
And my lengths and widths became careless

-c.j.

my friend was in love with a boy who put a shotgun to his head
and pulled the trigger and broke her heart
at his funeral someone said the reason why, the real thing that caused him to do this, could never be known, we'd just have to wait for the morning sun
his speech was bitter and I tasted lemon
the world may believe that the truth is buried, too,
but I believe it's waiting there to be found by people who care about the reason why, the real thing
because it is not a passing fancy; it is not a myth

-c.j.

your face is what they call
a happy myth

-cj

Wander, ebb and flow,
Discern where in this desert the wind should blow
There's a battlecry for convention
An even fiercer for freedom
It is the slight rustle when a tumbleweed passes

-cj

I'd tell you I love you
to the moon and back
But then I'd be
some kind of
lunar liar

-cj

pawns didn't do me much good
but friends do what they can
sure, the timing was a flattering element
but what am I
a useless chess piece
quick, your queen is calling
I'll be in the border between the
black and the white if you need me

-c.j.

It takes time to realise the danger of one mistake that fornicates
And becomes thousands of sins piled in your eye sockets
It takes time to see them spiraling out of your vision

-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

i'm the
glitch
in your
system

-cj

You concealed it
Were you ashamed?
I saw it in every thing about you
and for a minute it made me sad
You are not dimensionless
Though I once thought so
You dizzy the stars within me
but I think I make yours go still

-cj

Tightest knots swallow the air,
winter begging for recompense
Surrender the envelopes addressed
to you, give them up to the fire
Begin again

-c.j.

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.

The peace in the pieces
left from the war
Mock and spit at us
in every direction
But the veterans
look down from heaven
Or wherever they went
And tell us
to ignore them
They are wasted and spent

-cj

Thin respect veils the difference
between dawn and morning
Circles of chairs watch the small
worryings emanate from my hands
and folded arms
Routine is fallacious, and I'm starting
to think, so are you
So, without further delay, adieu.

-cj

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.

Sheer heartbreak breeds **** good poetry
And without the pain, numbness occupies the corners that bliss once nestled in
He's gone
but he is never gone from within me,
for he is there in constant pulse
like a final mantra
I utter to fetch the remains of
this existence which spins out
moments of gambling fever,
like risky love affairs I hide
in my youth weeks
I will miss and pine
for his lips on mine
were the haven I resort to
in every hour, if only in longing retrospect
It's real, it's here
This is my poetry

-cj

I believe there is nothing more stagnant than the devil's work
I believe there is nothing prettier than brushing him off
be still, still my soul
do not move even if time tells you to

-c.j.

She thought the day was done but she had just confused the moon and the sun

-cj

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.

To be carried
No footprints
In the snow
Or traces
In the wind
A travesty
Against nature
A sin against
Integrity
But I fall
And am swept up
And I do not say a word
For I know
Without these arms
Is the end of the world

-cj