it smelt of cough syrup and cinnamon
when it came to visit in the dark hours that followed the chime of the grandfather clock
the scent lingered on every article of clothing he once had his fingers on
and crept under her nose as she lay there on her side
eyes open, hands steady
and she swore that she could almost feel it under her skin when she outstretched her arms like a bird
the scent turned into a feeling that stayed for 47 days
each morning morphing into a night, each night a new beginning
each beginning signaling for her arrest
held captive by the four walls that housed the scent
and every day she was reminded
there was no cure for fixing the void
except finding another to take by the hand
and using him dry until he could no longer be pushed around
each new one entering in,
another chance to touch the contents in the room
one more opportunity to leave memories and association with each item they picked up
and when they left,
she stayed in her same spot
surrounded by memories and names and faces and associations
that smelt all to similar to cough syrup
and she was knocked out.

this isn't a poem. this isn't some well written piece of literature that will be quoted underneath photos of our depressed youth of America. this is me jotting down my thoughts at 9:26 p.m. i sit in the darkness of my newly decorated room (i needed a change of scenery, so a make over was in place) and i wonder why you don't like me. maybe i'm not specifically upset as to why you aren't interested, but more so why half the guys i pursue look the other way. I'm sitting here, dear reader, and i realize that it isn't the sad songs that make me cry, but instead the dead silence that crowds my empty room. I wonder why you didn't take me when you had the chance, didn't sweep me off my feet. I've annoyed my friends with the constant talking of you, it consumes me. i don't understand why my own two legs are strangers to the rest of my body and why they can't hold me up sometimes. i passed English 1101 with a 99, and yet i can't seem to find the right words to string together and form a sentence to utter out of my mouth. my mouth won't form the right shape to pronounce the few words i can muster. when someone asks me if i'm ok, i cry. I'm in mourning, i hate the snow that packs the sidewalks. you weren't mine and that's hard to process. it's like i have found my soulmate, but my soulmate doesn't return the same affection. sometimes i feel that i am seen as only meat for boys of all ages to circle around and toy with before they viciously devour. I am eye candy, i am known for nothing other than my appearance. when i write, i am my words. today i went to an abandoned house and i felt sadness surround me, along with the scent of musk and moth *****. i bought a goldfish and it died because i over fed it. i care too much about things and they die.

L I M B O
an L for the longing
I for the "I'm not sure if this is where I need to be"
M for the minutes of waiting
B for begging the stars above to let me have you
O ; the single letter that escaped my lips as you turned your back
and walked directly into the next willing participant's embrace

I look at you, I look at her
I run
I run until the air in my lungs evacuate when my bare feet kiss the gravel
I run until I am unable to see you in my head
I pause
I wait
and I continue running, for you are still there in my head
I run
my arms punch the breeze that fights back at me, I punch as if it were the environment around me that took you away from me
I run until night divides the day
and drapes me in velvet black
My hands on my head, I spin around, pulling out my hair like a mad man
out of breath, but knowing it's not from the running but instead from the absence of you in my heart
I crash to the ground
I keep my eyes shut as long as I can, but whenever i'm met with the darkness surrounding my thoughts
I see you, my soft light
I keep my eyes shut until your image forces me to open them
and look up at the empty night sky
and all I ponder on
is why the stars have abandoned us.

Unfamiliar to the feeling
not entirely sure what's wrong,
but knowing that there's something missing
from my once wholesome life
and it's like i'm finally discovering myself
a period of rebirth
but now the clock has warned me that it is 12 in the morning
I am reminded of how you are out there
and how I don't know you
but how I desperately want to
and why I am a writer and all I do is constantly write or think about what I want to write about next but all of a sudden it's midnight and I can't find a way to string the extensive words of our English vocabulary together to somehow
SOMEHOW
expound upon why the simple touch of a stranger has left me feeling so empty, but how at the moment when I reached my fingertips just far enough that they could brush against your side,
I felt wholesome again
I don't know what makes humans yearn for another human to complete them and how we feel lonesome when in the company of the bitter silence that meets us at the end of a partnership
Or why I have a million and one things I could write about
instead of focusing again
on the loss of someone I never got the chance to know
and yet I choose to torture myself with seeing you in dreams
smiling at a girl
that is not me

Lars lifts opens the toilet seat. The hinge squawks and he mimics the sound with his mouth. A dumb smile folds out on his face like someone unrolling a beach towel. He sits without dropping his pants or underwear. The cops are just about to leave through the screen door. Maggie offers a departing sacrament of right out of the oven of crispy flakey Pillsbury biscuits. They wave their hands parallel to the ground refusing. Maggie pulled the biscuits out too early. The bottoms are tan and dimensional but the tops are sloppy. They look like they have a glaze but they don’t have a glaze. They are pasty but still hot to the touch. The pan is hot. Maggie is wearing maroon oven mitts. One of the cops gets his foot snagged on the throw rug. They walk with their heads down but don’t notice the curled edges of the throw rug. They notice a black pug named Roger instead and nearly avoid fumbling over him. The cops scatter outside quickly like ducklings crossing the street. Lars’ dumb smile lingers and he laughs with a shushing lisp. He reaches between his legs into the toilet bowl. His hand disturbs the water. His nose is bleeding. Maggie closes the doorwall after the cops leave. The cops left the screen open. Maggie reopens the doorwall, closes the screen, shakes her head, and then closes the doorwall again. The kitchen is humming with improper wires. The light is electric pastel blue. The linoleum is too ***** to sleep on. Maggie’s ******* can be seen through her shirt. Lars wipes his nose with his arm and shoulder. He is hunched digging into the toilet bowl. He pulls out a baggie with a twist tie on top. The baggie looks reused. Maggie enters under the frame of the door and her lips roll out like a beach towel. The ******* in the baggie is very very dry.

the rain fell so i kept my head down
chance alone piqued my interest and
through water-logged glasses i saw
him sitting on the front steps of an
old Lutheran church built from stone
in 1886 if the proud sign on the front
lawn was to be believed

the oak doors were chained shut

it's been four years since i asked myself
what would Jesus do
instead i wondered
what she'd do in my shoes
so i offered him my last slice
of Karma Kollision and he said
god bless you and i replied
stay warm
this world is cold

placebos like religion
might work miracles for Atlanta's
rich white mannequins
but sugar pills can't fill
a broken man's empty stomach

I'm scared for the boy to leave.
The roles have reversed
and this time I'm not the glue.

I am the watery, salted sap
seeping from the trees that eternally grow
in hopes of reaching
their love,
their sky,
their life.