Eyes trembling,
I feel the floor with my soul
And sense the madness begin to take its toll

-cj

she took one wrong turn and it made her go mad
it was dark, it was night, it was frightening
she was afraid and bit her lip,
what would her parents say?
roses bloom when a familiar road came into sight
(when half-spent was the night)

-cj

like teenagers in a craze we run into walls
point the other way
and we'll be running into the sun

-cj

belief, it shrivels the tongue
the villain precise
the pines dragged out the tune remaining
pounds the abyss that I've made
spite, it's going to overwhelm this city
when the crescent fades to black sky only
hold on, they'll never stop invading
it's greater to seek my demon
so the stems were endless
every violet a hook to warn the boy
and affection has secured you, yet
the day exhumed, we can give and take it
you began this plan
so the only thing I do is gaze
you're their defense, upright
not a thing has power to cause you to shiver
the animal and the heart
you're their defense, the animal assailing

-c.j.

once God just tries, you'll get your wish
keep jumping nearer on your weak legs
dive just under the sky, close enough to
nip nicely at your shins
keep even chase with the quiet casts
you only reach quaint everests when nothing juts under
change everything
you, yourself
just try

-c.j.

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.

you'll always venture near dark gardens,
through mazes going along eastern hills
over fences you'll explore vast spaces
made of imaginary kingdoms

until the sun quits raying and shining down,
scamper into joyous field of flowering sepals just heavenly
see the valley's dandelions sway and drift side to side
under olive trees, from vine to vine

out even further lies some open-faced southern edens,
for visiting despite malevolent heathens not going their
expected ways

-c.j.

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

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 concept is the energy
for a wild heart's beating
a concept, only an image,
whether it's good or not

lure us in, lure us close,
and then lure on
don't be convinced,
don't release it,
don't pretend it's his words

we'll cool off like red flames
in a flattened fire
I'll gaze at you and we'll laugh
in secret, just as we thought

stormy seas leading ambivalents
in their ships
now they approach,
you invite them in,
love the rush

the starving streaks have angled
to another scar
the demons run, cause me to swell
with a lovely dear

I wish to be her identical when I leave
I wish to be, but I don't wish to try

we keep our ties

I've got a song but the uncertainty restrains me
I've got a song but the chaos is muffling our sound

I've got a decision but the decisions are diminishing
I had a cause but the cause ran away

-c.j.

Storytelling has always been hard
It's a difficult undertaking for me
Are they even listening? And is this fact or fiction?
I don't remember

-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

tis fragile-
it is ruined when tugged and distorted
by thought
it is perfect, alone

-c.j.

Our angles do not meet
crossing outward, fiercely jutting lines
everyday everysingleday
my madness grows with every breath
Each tear, a cell out of place
The blankness of this space
it's bright and its a creep
It's only loving me to a slight degree
that I need
I don't want to forget the original heart that beat
As we lose youth we gain something else
an ache for the nights we spent in ****** restlessness
The blankness of this space
it's bright and it's a creep
It's only loving me to a slight degree
that I need

-cj

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.

I stay up
and in the eleventh hour
I eat my pulse
to shut it up

-cj

this is prettier than just walking
picture a few decades later
this is prettier, you're an image in my pocket
that I keep
you're not st. peter, my thread and spool
each stop carries us, we'll vow to the ocean
I won't let this slip
please trust me, now
the steel workings pry no entry for us
captain and his strategy will rupture like a raincloud
I suppose it's isolation, your young isolation
you dare not sneak out the house
our parents are too wrecked, inside

-c.j.

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

While the surgeon holds the scalpel
The writer holds the pen
Yet the latter might cut deeper
Into the hearts of men

-cj

grin in this gap, it's a terrible noise
noise that the nest recreates
why am I encircled by it?
beneath the sheets the shapes prepare for winter,
to **** me in
it's clear that nothing is right
let's spend tonight in peace as you fix yourself
it's obvious
I've wrung out the final tear
bits gather in, gravitate the wind like spindles
battling for the chance when
we can wax as shadows

-c.j.

Call me a morning ******
I can refract the light and mess
up your bedhead further
Concentrate on my better
mistakes
I can do my best, maybe just for you

-cj

attach a little close to-
resting lovely, so nervous
the loops secure you at my edge
above, in nooks, violet open
and shut for the sound

high and far, my light will lose
if yours is stolen
I'd hold the quarters

denser theory, buzzing fly,
straight plummet
my flighty fingers, technical shocks
designed for me

it was a shattered route
shifting sheets foremost
blustery notes tuck me away
over hushed aches, harms it
revolves around every whimper
takes my debating love across

attach a little close to this
seems years, leaves loops,
hearts burst,
stays apart
stays a fully strange one
attach a little close to a poem
that is closing

-c.j.

This nemesis recites it all
washed up
It makes me want to grab
the little black binder
from her and apologise
to the ceiling and sky and
what dwells above

-cj

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.

my life was hell, you know that
but you make me feel like I matter
maybe in luckless fights, maybe mistakes
yet better than killing yearnings
how we listen, mercifully
my chest is swelling, but in a good way
and I look you in the eyes and say

I'm in love with you, I'm in love with you
and you told me you love me, too

you have put me through both heaven and hell
and I have come to believe that every minute
of it was worth it

-c.j.

The arrow pointed west,
the heart aimed east
The body went up, down, north, south,
pacing in the corridors

Adolescent wolves chase the myth,
it is this they run endlessly for
Blocked in prisms of light,
pounding on walls for heartless dark

Under the moon they cry, and she shows
no mercy
She refuses to acknowledge her dimness
compared to her competitor

With little gleamings she tells them,
This entanglement takes place after dark-
when the sun cannot feed you

-c.j.

we lack the connection, wireless, at least
while you are in the sky, I'll be sighing
at home, glancing at the chocolates you
gave me that I keep beneath the bed
unopened, contraband- the only heart
I won't touch

you'll see the cathedrals, and winding
roads, and you'll think about me
how I cry without warning and wait
every morning for you
through the databases, at the least the least
primitive, may be unresponsive-
our mouths will move but no sound
will come out

we have our ways, we will find them
and reside in separate nations with
our eyes and minds full of each other

-c.j.

the bells rang to alert the heavens
of earth's whereabouts
watery evening oratory has tinged
allegiances to rightness blue with tears
recent tales amplify the heaviness
of every word
will echoes offer heat, take away the
ruthless blizzards, will they?

-c.j.

Sally prefers to be wrapped up in books,
to ignore the others' penetrating looks
cathedral bells in her head, a Catholic wedding
in the plot

-c.j.

Maybe I'd rather have a cold heart
than the sharp need for touch
Then my priorities wouldn't be
warmth and the soft of him
But something hard and factual
I could make a figurine out of

-cj

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

Probably not the best way to
end another day,
relying on metaphysical release
to remind myself of tomorrow
Again and again I bend
to the losing level
It is an unhealthy paradise
and I think I like it

-cj

I live my life so as to escape it
Her hair was in a braid,
Her heart was at war
Just as sullen as things were before

-cj

Forgive me if I never unleashed some kind
of sheer persona
It isn't in my interests to overexpose the
quiet half-strengths of the wallflower

-cj

I want to get drunk
It sounds marvelous
I'm tired of straitlaced conservatism
I'll inhale some smoke too and run down an unfamiliar street
Forget about the formulas and
begin to leave it up to fate

-cj

Mustn't meddle in the business of fate
and frayed ideals
Otherwise mine may get tainted
Investigate what evidence lays on the bed:
A tearstained journal, a key, a pearl necklace with a broken clasp
It's quite the scene, vast and antiquated,
but very real
Rationalise the lies, verify the vendetta
against all great art and lovers' palms

-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.

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

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.

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

he refuses to pretend-
that stops me hard in my summer sidewalk tracks
his voice creates mountains in my chest
mountains my breath doesn't mind climbing

I refuse to question the sunrise anymore
a simple talk quickens the revelation
I can make dreams bring more mountains

because he refuses to pretend
I stopped, too

-c.j.

I don't know what it is but I don't remember the
last time I just sat in silence
I don't know why I'm scared by the inside of
my mind
But for some reason I'm terrified of what could be hiding in my head
I honestly don't know
I just took out my headphones one day
and realised that I really didn't want to

Want to what, she asks

Stop listening to the outside and start listening to the inside
Maybe I'm scared I won't like myself or something

If you changed, or had new thoughts, she inquires

If I figured out who I really was right now

To which she replies,

That sounds kind of like a beautiful thing-
Everything is a metaphor,
Every song creates a kingdom inside of me
How will I make it through this life
Let alone tomorrow or this week
At this rate, I'll burst before I graduate

'Tis a burden and a blessing

And everything echoes with hope

-c.j.

Problems with pride
slighting the audience or crowd surrounding with your eyes only looking forward
to your dire black screen
where the feathers are strewn in a careless pattern
but the wings themselves are aligned to the mirrors at angles so keen they scream in impatience at the wait
letmeoutofthisbody for pride swallows me
I want to be adored I seek that and self-love, against loathing
letmeout

-cj

bliss of this magnitude occupies minarets to
unseen depths
facets of me you will always remain perplexed
over
hues spill supreme, sketch an image blinding
you've turned me insomniac, cipher love
twist the frequency of my speech
they do not satisfy, I know
twist, sound the bell
I can envision you still here
vivid strides in silhouette, fate's definition
now squandering

-c.j.

It began with casual interruptions
An innocent crush
Then the times added up
and the passions became too much to suppress
He stole her
and she let him
Dark cinema love
Illegal desperate love
Few knew the secret
Until it diffused like her perfume into all the classrooms
He was grown, she was young
That didn't stop them
And now he's gone, she's gone
But only in the flesh

-cj

lose yourself in the taste of
fierce freedom in your mouth
yell from the rooftops
how we feel
isn't just another morsel of smalltalk

-c.j.

all because a girl afraid chose to be brave-
refused to ignore her intuition,
saw beauty in every little thing,
divinity in patterns,
the intrinsic god in everyone

but you fail to ask what came before-
this was a long time coming,
and it was filled with lofty cries and
sunken amethyst days
until the girl said, "meet me somewhere,"
nice was the only word spoken to describe her
she has become brave in the face of a thousand fears

-c.j.

I'm sorry your alarm sounds like a gunshot and its murderous echoes
early morning hazards seem to be bad omens, don't they?
you flip the switch from dark to truth,
lights changing colour

I'm sorry your eyes hurt from the exposure
curtains shrugged aside, spilling the day in
through the shameless glass

I'm sorry you have to see the sunrise,
the meager clouds whispering about
birds and flight and winds blowing south

you are alive, a survivor of the night, and
though you don't deserve this nuisance of
a beginning, you deserve this beauty of
a new morning

another chance to breathe, and to do all
of the things you did before
and others which you have never thought of

I'm sorry, I'm not sorry

-c.j.

we thought we were crumpled, but
it was just the autumn leaves' disillusionment

though you said there was corruption
evident in its darting gaze
and earthquake hands

I was only price, pearls, indecision
perhaps I was picking flowers
with a numb hand

do the shards matter more than the whole?
petals pulled and tossed with precision
he mistook her for a flower

-c.j.

if you close your eyes it's just like
being in the midst of war
the fireworks puncture the sky
and follow each other without pause,
our final kisses
hurrying to make something beautiful
before we have to go

-c.j.