Windows into other lives.
Don't climb out;
You'll fall and die.

Underneath the rushing world
our situation at a glance
has yet to quietly unfurl.
I am only a lonely girl
who's never had a slow-song dance
above the big rushing world.
And you, you look like you could twirl
me, and trap my heart in a trance,
which has yet to slowly unfurl.

On these tracks, there is a pearl
among the others in a stance,
underneath the rushing world.
Suddenly the train stops and hurls
you toward me. This is my chance.
I should take it. But it unfurls,

I need to say before this whirl
    I have not met you. In advance
underneath the rushing world
our love will not ever unfurl.

I can sit enveloped in this womb of a chair smoking
knowing that you would like the knowledge that I am
watching you asleep in our bed, watching the pulsing sway
of your form as
each gentle breathe you draw stirs and courses
from lung to heart to body, that hallowed body
whose skin I have touched in minutes gone, whose
lines I have traced idly with my fingers, whose
curves I have known and mysteries I have explored
(in time both short and immensely vast
and always, always the finding of more).

Behind you sleeping, through the window lies
the city eager and waiting twenty floors below
vibrant in the blanketing night, a thousand million
countless points of splendid light flickering away
that hold a thousand million countless lives:
one of whom I know one is a man who
watches the sleeping shape of the woman he
adores on a bed disheveled and beautiful, behind
her the city through the window, huge and always
the city we share (as we share this moment),
vibrant in the blanketing night, a thousand million
countless points of splendid light flickering away
that hold a thousand million countless lives:
one of which is mine staring back at his-
the whole world between us: but joined
because we love.

Should we pass each other on the street (he and I)
we could never know by looking that we shared
such colossal galaxies, nor that when
I look into your eyes (or he in hers) we find
our better angels. But I like to think that he
could smell/hear/see your body with mine
(separated by distance but together) and smile,
and he and I could know that in our hands
(his and hers)
(yours and mine)
we all hold a thousand million countless points of light.

I can sit smoking knowing that you would
like the knowledge that I am watching you,
that it is the delicate majesty of you sleeping
framed against the hard eternity of the
city in the window
that makes me feel alive; one amongst a thousand
million countless points of crisp and loving light.

scribble something
significant on a bar
room napkin; write
"i was here" on a
bathroom stall

just to let some passing
stranger know you were
there, and you were
sentient, and sensitive,
alive and suffering, and
you mattered.

I grind my teeth
clench my fists
bend my eyebrows
and scream in fits

I inhale slowly
exhale regret
close my eyes
try to forget

I sit and wonder
ponder deeply
contemplate sonder
fade completely

I am not here
nor was i there
I am a desert
barren and bare

'In this wake, where we are',
she started, always hysterically.
'Let's be all we can,
To know what we are.'

He pulled that same face.
He never understood.
Said her words were riddles,
Smack talk against some wood.

She just wanted him to float with her
Down streams of murky wonder.
Stopping at ponds, pools of shadows.
Sharing in love, the dawning of sonder.

I sit around observing everyone carry on with their single-faceted lives.
How simple would it be to be only one person? Instead, I am left to deal with the repercussions of myselves.

    It's not my fault I'm different with every person, including myselves.

Or maybe it is. Maybe there's something wrong with your brains.

Perhaps, though whatever the reason, I believe we can all agree we are utterly mad
                                                       Agreed.

How funny it is to have someone deny a characteristic of my personality. For all they know, I could be everything they hate covered in a chrome mask reflecting everything they love.
It is of this I think when one expresses a liking toward me.
That affection is vain, they are admiring the qualities of themselves.
No one, not even I can see all my selves at one time. Some come along, new to my surprise
If I were to find a being who values things at more than, for lack of better word, "face value", then I may show them my selves and we would discover our selves together.

How odd would it be to look in a mirror.
     Oh now that is too many faces to look at
   Yes, but perhaps I would discover the gravity of it all - what's holding it together.
                     Enough of your nonsense!
                                Back to work, the lot of ya!

Could not my mind have conjured this?
Could this not be all a dream?
I cannot identify illusion
is nothing as it seems?

Could I so lonely be
that I've contrived this world alone?
And everyone I've ever loved
A creation of my own?

I don't believe you're make believe
Of you I'll always ponder.
I need you real, here with me.
I cast aside my Sonder.

slit wrists
damp pillows
lover's eyes
vacant hearts
empty plates
twin beds
chinese temples
wooden idols
dusty windowsills
rap verses
closed curtains
angry candles
calloused hands
unopened letters
unsent texts
dry pens
spare change
crusty nails
dusty books
speeding tickets
broken crayons
black mascara
and more

sometimes
we're alike
sometimes
we're not

but we each always have
a story
to tell