for some reason i always write the most in january. the words seem to flow out of me --- a tsunami, monsoon, typhoon --- of words I've been aching to bleed but never have the time nor patience to set free. words that have festered in the crevices of my mind for who knows how long. words that I've kept close to my heart, like a pendant, a talisman perhaps.

and it's not like I'm complaining. writing, after being away from it for so long, makes me feel like a soldier coming home to his wife. he bears the marks of war on his skin, in his mind, in the hollowness in his eyes. he is glad to be rid of the gunshots that riddle his sleep, glad to be back home in loving arms, but he cannot shake the feeling of being inches away from death, no.

writing again is coming home, but it's not the same. there is a rustiness in my fingers, in the muscles that make this thoughts into coherent strings of symbols. there is an absence i cannot shake off.

but God knows i will try.

I know no home
no more.
Clouds on window panes
are forgotten
at night
through the shutters.

Moutains rest on the calm water
bringing flavours of snow.

Flies,  
unwanted company, dozed and silent
walk on the door frames
and die.

Are you your type of person?
Do you admire the way you see things?
Has pain smudged your brain
and inked blackness
that seeped in the holes of
the remnants of your soul
or are you still able to think?

Is your heart still yours to feel whatever you please?
to love and hate and never cease to see
the light at the end of the tunnel
at the end of a long dreary road
to find color in a black and white world?
or has the severity of it all made it bleed
blinded it and left nothing but a travesty?  

Are you still a person?
After all that you’ve endured
Is your mind still able to find
spots of light to shine
on the darkest depths of you?
or did your fire die long ago
accompanying the innocence that abandoned you with your childhood?

Do you still have your mind?
or did your thoughts become nothing but replications
of what others seem to do?
did the world get to you?
Do you remember who you were before?
when you were yours
or are you too scared to think on your own?

timing is a delicate thing. it's the difference between life & death. it's the difference between a sure yes & a strong maybe. it's the difference between a friendly glance & a look held too long.

timing's never really been my thing. I'm always too late. too late for appointments, for chances, for people. I never know how to show up at quite the right time. and I think I wanted timing to mean less than it did. because now you need the time. because your time is valuable and while I know it's not being wasted, I know it needs to be acknowledged that you need it. and that be the end. and there be no other place we go for then. and I need to accept that this could be a road I looked down and walked past. and just because I don't want that doesn't make it not what it is. or what it could be. because it is what it is. it is.

5/23/17

she taught me of new beginnings
and the healing of january
that you don't have to be profound
all the time
you don't have to be observed
you can change the storyline
but still remember that time

together we drank in nashville
to the days of virginia
swearing to return to art
when we got there
our lives were in full circle
she still believed in me
she is the closest thing
to an older sister i know
and maybe i am strong enough to say
that i don't love the person
that she let go of too

It's your birthday today. It's another point in time that I won't share with you. Even after trying, I feel as if I can't even be a part of the friends that wish you a happy birthday on your ******* facebook wall. Most of the time now I don't even think about you or I see you as something to look back on fondly. Yet I'll see a photo of you and remember exactly why I fell for you and I remember the feeling of breathlessness. I'm always stuck convincing myself that I can't do this to myself again, so I forget. I forget to think of your eyes when I look at the stars. I forget to think of your smile when I feel the summer night car breeze blow through my hair. I forget to see your body when I look at the crashing ocean waves before me. I forget to see the ink on your skin when the sun sets over the mountains turning the sky orange. I forget about you… until I remember.