It's as if my body were the ocean.
Eyes of constellation,
                                     I wonder
                     what it was like
       the first time you
were so in love
It hurt.
Did you bend an break
                at your bough?
a shipwreck more beautiful
                       because unmovable
            and your blue skies clouded
Some beautiful substance, you are.
           Sometimes it's a burden.
                  Others, it's poetry

In the morning I set sail
for New York.

You believe I can't sink.
You believe I can't fail.
You believe I will be the
greatest ship
in the world.

When really,
I'm just the
greatest shipwreck
to ever exist.

f.m.s.

My skin is p a  l e
My body c o ld
     And in my chest lies a broken heart of fools gold
My re alit  y   I  on ce knew is ha z  y    a nd n on exist en  t
It's grown old
     And I'm becoming tired of being bold
And being told right from wrong
      I'm sinking softly down when I don't know how to swim
  Every inch that I further lose from possibility to stay afloat is lessening my want or need for a life boat
    Every breath I attempt to take fills my lungs with ugly pseudonyms and sends me down deeper into my lonesome underpopulated town inhabited only by fragments of once strong relationships that i held so close to me that I c ould n't  b reat h e, the relationships that kept my entire being from sinking in the first place.
   I'm drowning and I can't see what's even in front of me
       I'm a ship bound by anchor to the wrong bad habits of shedding my   blood willingly to bloodthirsty ravenous sharks in the sea of my minds eye
       This was once a safe harbor for the ones I kept close
  The ones that knew what mattered to me and the ones I cherished most
      Now its a sea full of  gh o sts
Of the people I trusted them the most
    I trusted them to not turn on me or use me like a host
And now I'm the one  dro w ning
I' m    so  sca re      d
   Now when I share my harbor it feels so
    U    n    fa    i r
        They don't understand what I risk give to let them be there
It never harbors in their heart as deeply as it does mine
     The possibility of even defining how hard it is to let these ships safely     pass through this harbor will now and forever never be able to escape  my pale numbing lips
    Only silence
Everything here is just riddled with murderous crashing waves
   Any relationship that enters I try so desperately to save
     And in that attempt
  The harbor starts to misbehave
            The waves destroy every boat or anything that floats
  Anything at all to help me cope with being so alone or the feeling of even remotely being at home.
      My fingertips are numb and cold and starting to fold and I can't feel those things I could before
I just want all of this over
N o    m   o re   dro w n    i n          g
All my life boats have sunk
    Now I'm just stuck
     All these hands and graves are grabbing at me and pulling me down        ev ery   whi ch     wa y  at  the
    bott om of the
oce an
u  nd   er

     al l
th e s     e  
    
h e   a     v y


               waves.

I wonder how long ago
were the days of lonely men
waiting for the sun to sink
so they could turn on their
little beacons of hope
their godly, guiding light.
When did they start sealing
off the towers?
Perhaps the man in the
lighthouse made a mistake
maybe he too lonely one night
and decided to drink
enough whiskey to forget
about is loneliness and
his little beacon of hope.
So they replaced him
with a machine.
They don't get lonely.

Up and die he goes
Left for the sea in her eyes
He has it in his
but he never did realize
We never saw sea again

I once set sail to a shipwreck and no one’s heard back from me yet.

Whether or not this storm can be weathered, my torn sails and bruised masts will be seen fighting the futile.
And whether or not I can come back from this, I won’t dock at familiar shores for a while.

This salty shame-filled seawater may as well be the blood that flows so reluctantly through my veins because inside it all feels the same and at least then I could give the ocean some of this blame.

I’m still made of rotten wood and rusted nails,
I just got better at sinking.

But I’m tired of throwing buckets of salt water over my head hoping I don’t slip,
So maybe I’ll take a break from going down with the ship.

So maybe I can take note from the tide and change.
Because I'm so ******* tired of trying to figure out how I wound up on this page.

Blame it on bad luck, blame it on love, blame it on god,  blame it on the price of a new heart, blame it on a bad start, blame it on the ******* weather,
But even as the water rises, I can still hear the echoing lament of a would-be sailor,
“I swear I can be better.”

I sing the song of the sinking ships that drown in the vast, dark ocean of depression I call home. They slosh against my ribcage with such force, I fear I may break entirely.

Do you hate the way
     that our magnetized times
turn us all to metal shavings--
     push and pull--charged each
day to fill up negative space
with negative attraction?
Were you repulsed when polarities
                                          changed?

Or­ was that me?
     Flipping switches
                     switching sides
                                      siding
with pivot points showing, caught
with pants down?
"Be a man now!"
          While the female end
          of the port calls out,
          "Shipwreck! Shipwreck!
               All men down!"

Count me out at minus 4
     it leaves a balance: minus 3
At minus 10, our blood could freeze
and fall back earthward; blood red snow.
Caught on the tongue it tastes like pennies.
          Tastes just like
          the metal shavings
          we become
          in magnetized times.
               Polarized
and "Family Sized." Underpaid
Overfed. Neutralized America.

Greatest country in the ******* world.

                    Right?