When my heart beats black inside my chest, and the days I have are filled with death, and the girls I know won't walk with me, then I have my choice in misery. All the birds have died, and the plains are dry, the skyscrapers aren't lit up at night, and the city's sound sounds like nothing, then I have my choice in suffering. People talk a lot, but they hardly speak, all their voices creak in the summer streets, everybody walks but they're not moving, I try to only observe but then I start screaming.

I ******* hate the way that you look at me, your skin's so ******* clean that it feels *****, your eyes move around but you're not seeing, the way I hurt each day but you say nothing. If I tried to leave you might be happy, so I sit and be and go out at night and cheat. I would break your heart, but it hardly beats. You're my walking dead, my darling zombie.

Each day is second rate, I bore so easily. It's like the day we met ended your pleasantry. I startle all the time, you seem so unaware. I chose you number one, you chose to not even care.

I caressed you once, and undressed you thrice, you abandoned me in the middle of the night. All the time I halved, you had your own account, of every thing we did, it wasn't the right amount. Now I hardly care about the drugs you're on. I'm quoting blasphemy out of every psalm. Even the words I write don't tell half of the truth, about the way I felt chasing after you.

Sit by a river,
Inquiry about flow!

Look at sky
Think about infinity!

Travel in a forest
Look at the relationship!
Reveals, how tiny and pitiable we are

love lives in the dark
that's where it grows
it breathes and twists
until it dawns upon your horizon
you shield your eyes
dazzled by the brightness
perplexed and uncertain
wondering at the origin
love shadows you
attached in ways you cannot see
observe it for some clarity
on your own movements
just observe
without distraction

i find myself assuming the role
of quiet observer, looking around
discreetly, and with more interest
than i let on, i am transfixed
by the simplicity with which complications arise
between crooked pathways
and straight lines
of people, walking around
interacting on levels that confound me
and it makes me feel like an island
yet uncharted
sand untouched, bare of footprints
and most of the time, i like it
the feeling of being clean
unsullied by those complications
and i sit on my shore, watching the ragged ships
sail by
and the gulls circle, crying out
why?
why do we do these things to ourselves?
why do we hide the truth
and perform the lies?

sometimes, i assume the role
of confidant, of living journal
and i describe the weight of the words dropped on my pages
to nobody, because
it really isn't my place
to trivialize darknesses other than my own
and i understand, i do
but i feel lost, some days
among the black holes of people
who cannot escape their own space
their own star-flecked universes
and their planets crash into mine
Milky Way swerving out of the path of destruction
and getting lost in their dissolving sighs
and i feel heavy
with the ink of their confessions
heavy with the advice that they ignore
heavy with the simple ideas
that crowd my head, circling like those gulls
crying out
why?
why do we do these things to ourselves?
why do we confide in strangers
and never trust our own star systems
to find their way back into orbit?

i find myself assuming the role
of me, of my own name
displayed proudly on my sleeve
familiar letters that seem to betray
my transparent, flickering image
warm and true to friends' eyes, perhaps
but the spaces between the characters
are what appear to me in the mirror
not the black lines
but the grey areas
and i feel that transparency often
when i am surrounded by that sea once again
as i so often am
and the waves just seem to crash right over me
feeling invisible, and yet somehow
too visible
to ever be a part of the current, it seems
as each whisper, each ripple
each glance, each possible missed chance
each glimmering sail upon the horizon
appears to laugh at me
whether it's my sad, slow swimming
or my ragged inward appearance
that shines through the cracks in my face
it all becomes part of an image
that i see burned upon the surface of my soul
and some days it truly feels
like even the gulls are circling around me, crying out
why?
why do you do these things to yourself?
why do you even bother?