when it hurts
but i like it

at first when you take off
the world just looks small

a dollhouse, a miniature world
an amusing punchline to an old joke
a fantasy tinged with g-force and sprite in clear cups

but as the sky darkens and the plane lifts higher

the world seems to drown in blackness
an inky clarity of night not confused by clouds
and suddenly it is as if you are at the top on an ocean
looking at a far away ocean floor
crawling with foreign creatures with all of their bones lit up
over coral reefs of light and movement
parking lots like stationary jelly fish and highways like currents
of neon veins pumping lights and cars

all of the world's exoskeleton is illuminated
and it is beautiful and movable  
it is nature's patterns played out in electricity

but the farther out you go
the more the sharpness and geometry of the roads and cities
attack the eye

and the coral reefs turn to computer motherboards
all of man's ingenuity and beauty no longer draping the world
but ordering it

into squares and jagged lines
into distant pixel pinpricks
into maps

until you're not traveling through the world
but over it

when i was young i had a story
it made no sense.
and ran on forever.

when i was young i lost a story
i didn't miss it much
it was one less thing to weigh down my pockets

i don't remember where it took place
or who my friends were in it

there was no middle or end
always a beginning

i don't remember the story
but I miss it.

this is where i was supposed to tell you
(what I was going to say)

i guess you know now that I didn't
because if I had told you these last few lines would have rhymed
would have been details into the synonyms my heart has ascribed to your name

this is where i was supposed to give in and admit
what all my little footnotes of blushes really mean
that i really wouldn't mind it if you kissed me


this is where i was supposed to tell the truth
but all i can write are lies

because this is where i'm terrified
terrified that somehow you'll read this and know
even though i didn't say anything at all

this is where i beg myself to let myself say just one little thing
just one little anecdote, just one little truth, please?

this is where i was supposed to open my own file
and read what my subconscious wrote

this is where I stay in stasis
this is where i erase this

backspace.

i've switched my dreams with reality

now during the day i dance with flying carp
and eat green tea ice-cream cake from the ceiling
and memorize the curves from your face and wait, wait
for a kiss that will never come.

now at night I'm late to class and trying to eat food with chopsticks
and speaking half-wit japanese and going to the doctors
and picking out drapes for my windows and posters for my wall
in the night i'm lucky enough not to remember your face at all.

she was not chained, but tangled
in the fur of his kisses or the stickyness of his glances
it turned her fingertips red and made her eyes squeeze
their world was a tropical snowglobe with a little boat that tumbled around their sky
and she lapped against the plastic like a tide
looking up at him with forgiving eyes.

You are not a peace coming midst chaos and despair,
You are rare, and if there quickly disappear.
You are the fear of the fear, immemorial and earthreal
impossible to feel between the tides of insecurity
the shipwrecked nativity turned to the ashes of cynicism
And yet I lust for the echoes of those ashes,
But you are not in crashes of lips or slips of Aphrodite tongue,
You are an aria not to be sung, poem not crafted to write,
You shed no light on what I ache to know
Yet, I think, I would die if you should go.