i know
that it is easy
to feel mediocre
and alone.
but at 30,000 feet
the world is so small
that you can count
the waves of the ocean on your fingers.

do you know
that it is hard
to let you see
what i've found?
breathing is easy
when you are above the clouds.

our love is trapped in the clutches of time-
seized in a moment,
lost in my windpipes,
i am busy catching your breath.

we can cut through the atmosphere.
meet me by the moon
to listen to the morning murmur.
i can only offer you so many escapes.

it's too hard to fix you.
why shouldn't i hide
if i am the bad guy?
and all you want to do
is say goodbye.

i etched eternity into your cracked skin.
i traced familiarity into your bruised bones.
but i am not a savior
nor an angel, it was
merely good timing.

atlas did nothing to deserve this.
even the divine must suffer
even the divine must fall
under the weight of the world.

all we have is each other.
asphyxiated and astringent,
each kiss is an exchanging exhale,
and our lungs convicts.

we'll dig our way out together.
i have only hurt you in secret.
i have only hurt myself in stupor.
but i tried, at least i tried.
i am trying.

You tell me how you float in your dreams, falling asleep at the foot of other dreamers, and how you leave, tip-toed, back to your own world.  You tell me how your life isn’t real – how it can’t be – not yet. You’re twenty three years old, armed with a short haircut and a ukulele, plans of the west coast. You wonder when your life will begin. You tell me about the way you yearn. How you crave the real. Harsh wind against cheek, passion enveloping your nerves until you can feel your body explode with anticipation. You are moonstruck, dizzy with lust of reality, delirious with the call of dreams. Too impatient to wait, too forgetful to begin. But one day, you will wake up to the water poured over your head that clears your eyes. And you will take a step and the sun will be rising and you will realize that you are ready to sing again.

I remember the day
That I fell in love with you.
Like the sudden, soft realization
Of that first raindrop when it lands on your face,
And you look up to the sky,
And you think to yourself,
“Oh –
It’s raining.”

Words are supposed to free us. But I feel trapped - my thoughts cannot be expressed through writing. I feel like I’m being suffocated, buried underneath emotions I’m supposed to feel, underneath appearances I’m supposed to keep, all whilst striving to create beautiful combinations of words in my mind. Why should we connect our energies, wasting thoughts, faking tongues with meaningless conversations and shallow understandings?
I’m covered in ugly curtains. My room is too cold and smells like you and I am nostalgic, I am forgetful, I am lonely, I am bitter. I am always holding my breath.
I don’t ask for much. Car rides with the windows down and I can’t see with my hair in my face and the air is cold and it smells like cigarettes and it feels like it’s four in the morning but it’s still 6 PM. I’m only looking for the people whose dreams always glow together. And I’ll stand there quietly until I can close my eyes, puff out my chest and somehow slide myself inside the niche that I so desperately want to belong.

intoxicated,
in toxic, aided by the
complicated
mass of excitement,
stinging indignation,
a spark of skepticism,
a spider that crawls up your neck
whispers tiny white fibers in your veins,
spins a web inside your brain.
the ability to change has always been hard
nothing can stop the lightning from striking
the sky – a blue so
beautiful, even in the implications of how
i can’t comprehend the emotions that follow me,
crawling in the shadows
darting, sparking, when i look behind
it’s never something i can quite find
on my own, on my phone, checking, checking, checking
what time is it? what time is it?
when is it supposed to kick in?

i can see my muse when i close my eyes,
hidden and tattered, fallen behind
some amorphous blob of human pride

sleeping with a corpse,
it’s too late to find
something that warps
with my mind

america, land of the free,
where your dreams fill up to your knees.
****, that’s a little too deep for me.

i mean, i guess i’ll always just be ‘okay’
because if we all stand up
then we’re all the same anyway

it’s never been this hard to keep up appearances.
you aren’t supposed to forget how to ride a bike.
and i can’t have out of body experiences
because i never quite know what i look like

It was some saturnine tradition. We were always watching the sky whisper, a summer storm chanting to the sleepy lake. Sing me to darkness, a soar towards death, frantically grasping beneath a blue spring, your mother, and his arms. I didn’t dare look. Peeking between fingers. Gasping and heaving, the sun set below to the places even you can’t see. The sky became blankness, a space that fills and leaves you empty. It consumes you, starting from your toes – pins and needles – past your shins, your wrists, your cheeks, and finally over your head.

Breathe easy, I am here.
But what have I become?
I am painted over,
Discarded, caught between your mattress and sheets.
A part of the monotony
Trapped in your cacophony

The cure, now the cause
No time to pause
My flaws – you’ve changed
Or have I?

Count them.
Each second clings
Sticky, like the mud that you
So desperately scrubbed from your skin
Sore, like my heart, arms folded
“I’m cold” across my chest

It’s something
I feel
I
should
know
how
to
fix.

But I don’t want to let go.