Upon your return,
I will be gone with the breeze,
never again seen.

It's too often in this life when we pretend
that every deep-end is a wading pool
and every fool with a dream
is a philosopher in disguise;
because we weave lies into silk and grieve
every time a tree falls with no-one around to hear
but we still appear to fear our past paths
more than our futures.

We live in a world built with false pretenses
and barbed wire fences,
but we still make wire cutters for every time
he mutters of freedom reached our ear.
We make the road ahead clear
with a You Shall Not Pass mentality,
swapping between dreams and reality so fluidly
it seems that we will never truly wake again.
If I could make amends for everything I've done,
I'd take a pass,
because sometimes you'll only be sorry
if in the process you look like an ***.
But everyday, in the looking glass,
I see a man just a little older than the day before
with the worst day behind him
and a new one in store
and a future no bright, no-one could even try to ignore.

My poetry is hardly crowd control,
but I'd like to think that winter night's stroll
through my mind wouldn't be hard but it would.
Because even the urge to do right and do good
gets lost in translation
and each radio station is broadcasting spells
and each songs just a hermit crab in an already used shell.
Am I expected to enjoy that?
I'm not better, but anyone better would crush them flat.

I digress, I suppose what I'm trying to say
is that this sorry mess of a love story
has gotten to a gory conclusion
and I can still make magnetic fusion with the ashes left.
It's hard to carry on when each footstep leaves behind
a memory people can use to find you,
but my heart can still beat black and blue
and I know that I'll have a place
no matter where my road takes me to.

Here it comes again.
The stinging of the nose and eyes
that gives rise to tears rushing,
color flushing out from the recesses of your face,
the airhorn that signals your heart to start to race.
All of the ****** secrets in life, all at once,
become painfully clear.
As if we are in a car with no brakes or wheel,
we do not feel
as if we can steer off this crash course.
Like a dead horse that nobody will stop beating,
your weaknesses begin retreating
to the most obvious places in your body.

This is one of those times
where depression becomes less like an ailment
and more like an obsession.
Leaving you smashed
on the sidewalk of your life,
just trying to hold on that extra while longer.
If it's ever been a question
of who's weaker or stronger,
then it clearly has been a losing hand
since the begginning.
You're not winning this one.
But we are the victors, us who managed
to survive ourselves.
To dust off photo albums off happier times
off forgotten and ignored shelves.
We are still here
and the end to this suffering is near.

Just hang on.

I told Halie she was beautiful today
And she smiled and said “You’re handsome.”.
I could tell immediately that there had been miscommunication.
I returned that smile as if I could ever hope to mirror the beauty of hers’ and changed the subject
but honestly, she was missing the point.
‘Handsome’ refers to features that are aesthetically pleasing whereas ‘beautiful’…
‘Beautiful’.
It’s a word I try to avoid defining because I don’t think I know enough
but just talking to her…
Putting our foreheads together instead of our lips,
I feel like I could write a bible about what that words means.
I see more than anyone has seen of her yet.
Sadly, herself included.
I love you like a blind man, Hail
Where it isn’t your body that keeps you in my mind,
It is everything you are to me.
You are the symbol of innocence, even after all this time
I still find myself searching for words to say
that could do you justice.
Now I wrote a poem for Amy because of her looks.
I wrote a poem for Megan because of the pain she caused me.
I never wrote you a poem, Hail.
Maybe I was afraid my words would fail
To describe in detail the way your fingertips strike my nerves
as flint strikes steel and throws sparks
into my heart.
I want to let words fall out of the front of my face
and land at your feet
as if they would have any semblance of coherency.
When we’re touching, I can’t make words.
I can’t rush to my first line of defense against the outside world
because I don’t want to be defended from you.
People hear my brazen declarations of love and I know
They’re thinking exactly what I’m thinking.
‘In the grand scheme of my life, our relationship is the blink of an eye’.
But if I can make you one promise
and if I could only make you one, this would be it.
I’m going to remember you, girl.
Life is the tide that washes over the sand castles we've built together
in this sandbox we call an adolescence,
but I promise you that I will always remember
the times I laid my heart bare
for you to see how much I care.
I promise upon this fluttering pulse
I’ll always be
Your something else.