have you ever believed
in something so blindly
so genuinely
that the moment you realize
it isn't true, something inside you
changes forever?
i wanna tell you a story, see
seldom do i ever
go swimming in drinks
deep enough to drown in
but when i do
i speak in tongues
about things that none
of my memories
are allowed to talk about
like that christmas
at the isthmus
where my girlfriend
plucked a conch shell
whiter than gods teeth
out of the sand
held it to her ear
and stopped time
that day she was a shade of blue
the could've made the ocean sick
see, she loved to play jokes
when she held
the sea shell to her ear
she gasped, called my name
and said "i want you to hear this"
i said "yeah, right, everybody knows it's just the same old sea"
she replied "no. not this one. this one is special. listen. theres music in this one"
she handed me the shell
like a promise she couldn't keep
and i held it to my ear
with all the potential
of seeing shore
after being stranded
at sea for years
only to hear
a tired dirge of silence
spill from its emptiness
i guess she didn't know
how desperately
i wanted to hear it too
because ever since
something inside me snapped
now sand pours out
of every post card i open
i hear seagulls
in telephone static
sometimes i have dreams
where i bury my hands
in every beach
i've ever been on
and exhume this graveyard of noise
every time i try to sleep
i spit up fishhooks
and i guess i'm obsessed
but maybe
if i hold my ear
to enough vacant things
then i could have back
the time stolen from me
since it happened
maybe they would get it
if they knew what i wanted
when i blow out birthday candles
maybe they'll find me
face down in a wishing well
i watch eternal sunshine
of the spotless mind every day
pretending i can forget too
because this sea sickness
has followed me for years
because yesterday
i walked into a music shop
and all the pianos broke
but the only thing
i can think to say is
*do you know how bad
a memory has to be
that you fantasize
about forgetting it?

i saw you at a concert hall with your new lover
and every violin hit the floor with one harmonized crash
i went home and
shattered every picture frame but
the glass only cut your name in my skin

something inside me snapped so clearly
i can still hear it loud enough to wake me from my dreams
like a slammed door
a gunshot
the phone line clicking mid sentence before you can say goodbye
the silence after you watch the last piece of your house burn to the ground

it snapped so violently
i swear the whole house shook
like a head on car crash
a lightning bolt
a hurricane knocking down a tree

i didn't think it could be worse than the night on the porch
when you kissed me hello
and your hands smelt like rubber
now there’s the pain of you leaving
and the pain of you forgetting and
i don’t know which is worse

how do i accept i was just another house to you
while you were my home?
i was your temporary tattoo while
you are engraved in my skull

i used to feel like a house without windows in the middle of winter but
now there’s no house at all
and i’m outside your door in the freezing cold and you hold it open for a minute or two then
*slam