early grays choke me uncertain
numb daybreak, phantom sheets
dipping into the cool crevices
your body used to fill

your breath once tasted sweet on my lips
but in morning fog it bleeds ice
dancing transient across my tongue   
it breaks against this raw, hollow mouth

i curl into the shirt i never gave to you
frosted with empty memories --
                    stolen nights
                                           sanguine skin
     swirls of smoke escaping your fingertips
and your voice in my dream last night

someday it won't hurt but
                this morning it is chilly sharp

why do we keep writing for people who couldn't give one thought that we are spilling words for them?
dipping our fingers into ink which aches and can only write so much until the mind breaks
a silhouette of someone now who was once as tangible as the pen grasped so tightly,
yet the only thing we are now hugging are our knees to our chest to soothe this new empty space
and the words keep flowing and flowing like a bad paper cut, so small yet so fragile to the touch
blood ebbing and bubbling and spilling over, only to heal and reopen and begin again
we all have that one person, who we are so tired of writing about, and vow to stop, but how else would we cope?

I came to you
or did you come to me?
Memory may not be a strong suit
but foresight
and hindsight
and ability to see it all
is the most piercing of gazes.

It matters not if I am near or far,
you can pick me out like a white pebble
in a sea of black
like a shooting star.
Yet you refuse to see me.
Reasons do not matter,
nothing matters.
No, it all matters,
                                but...

But
that is to say she had to be beautiful,
she had to be full
of what I might have wanted...
or did I want it.
What did I want?
                                what do i have...

“Let it go,” he said.
So I release it all slowly,
like those 99 red balloons that saved
our little misled souls on bad teenage days.
Release it, and watch it float up and away
in 99 different directions,
in 99 different shades of ruthless red.
Let it go, and instruct yourself
to set fire to any and everything
it’s ever touched.
Burn the bridges, scorch the paths,
cauterize the arteries that
pumped warm blood for its purpose.
Set the fires, and let the light
from the florid flames
illuminate the corners
of your newfound smile
as you watch the embers
dance themselves
into white, meaningless ash
above your head.