We were infants
Trying to stand
Trying to talk
Seeing the world for the first time.
Six months and we grew
Learning, discovering
Looking for purpose
But still stuck in our minds.
One year and we were children
Believing we knew
All there was to know
But still filled with wonder.
Finding the first sadness
Peace in companionship
Hope for the future
And somehow life inbetween.
Two years and we were adults
Each others' first
"Happy," used so often
"Love," thrown back and forth.
In the cracks, underneath
Darkness spilling
Pain and confusion
Joining but tearing.
Three years and we were dead
Hope gone, innocence lost
Liquid life had taken ours
And pain was all it left.

But I am not
I live. And I realize that
Love was something you never gave,
There was no we, only me
And we did not live, or love.
Rather, I did.
I do.

I know you want to be independent
and make yourself happy, but
I want this to be a partnership;
we both make each other happy
but we don't need each other to be happy.

his life lies at the bottom of the bottle
a glass body entrapping his soul
one by one, his giggling, gaudy girls
grow up into graceful adults
clinking glasses full of candid celebration
toasting their tranquility into theater walls
as he stands up to take a shaky step
toward the door, toward his girls,
the glass bottle drags him back under

Yes, I salvaged you like a sunken treasure,
But you didn't realise, I too, was beneath the circling waves when I found you.
Without you to save,
I may have stopped swimming long ago.

If I was a work of art I'd be a poem
but just a blank white sheet of generic notebook paper
and you would be a symphony
which sounds pretty beautiful
but I never really liked Bach and
I never really liked Beethoven and
I never really liked Mozart and
I never really liked
myself

but
ohmygoddidIlikeyou
like Da Vinci liked Mona and
Dali liked

l
o
  n
   g

d r i p    i n g
          p
brush strokes depicting surrealist scenes and
Picasso liked Cubism and
Van Gogh liked his own ******* sadness and a tub of sunflower-yellow paint and that girl
he sent his neatly packaged and not-so-neatly severed off ear to

though
I suppose
artists are supposed to hate their art
with a burning self-depreciation sort of self-determination or
at least that's what I got from
Plant and Lydon and Cobain and
every other shooting star rock-and-roll phenomenon with their name engraved on a plaque somewhere
and a drug problem that procured a thousand cigarettes now just as burnt out as they are

but here's the thing
you aren't my art
you
are a breathing
walking
talking
self-portrait that sputters to life every morning
with an accent on each note

like I said
if we were art
you would be a symphony
but the orchestra
is crescondo-ing to no end now and
quite frankly I am tired of all these high-pitched violin marcatos and
I am losing myself in the repeats and
I am just wondering when the fine will come

like I said
if we were art
I would be a poem
that was just an empty piece of drab old paper
much too conventional and clean and
empty
to be appreciated
but
I guess a beginning in the form of an empty sheet of paper is all
Poe and Frost and Plath and
Auden and Silverstein and Dickinson and
Shakespeare and Bukowski and Cummings
had in common
anyway.

It's funny:
Until now I couldn't imagine dependency on substances.
I didn't know how to imagine addiction.
Couldn't imagine a Routine in Smoke

But for the first time I got just to the edge--
went only a bit beyond.
And then I forgot.
I forgot to worry
my head like a puff of cottonwood
I didn't even have a backburner on
Simmering the responsibility
the inability
the fragility
of my self.

When I woke up it was back.
I had worry rushing to fill my head because it had
to make up for Lost Time.
and i wish i never had to stop Losing Time.

For the majority of my life I've been cared for by my parents.
Now i'm all alone trying to do this on my own
Fending for myself
Got me feeling stressed out
Popped to many Xanax
Bout to pass out
Just hit the couch and i'm startin to black out
How many did i do again?
I think i lost count
Stomachs feeling week
Feelin like i'm at the peak
Don't wanna come down
I'm so sick of the frown
Depression at its worst
Thinking that im gonna burst
Tired of being the clown
Now im searching for the crown