Spilled secrets,
spreading;
        a glass of water
dropped on the floor.

I have days so low
I wonder if gravity is depressed—
maybe his tight hugs
around our ankles
were not enough
of a connection,
so the Earth trembles
until she splits
and gravity drags us
to her burning hot core
In a way we all are like gravity
pulling each other in
hard, fast, recklessly
desperately wanting some
perfect planet
to see our
inner-most core

Yet why must we bring each other down
to let each other in?
You don’t have to choke me to hug you
You don’t have to shovel away my surface
to see what lies beneath
I’ll show you
layer by layer,
I will shed my surface
and shine brighter than
the stars of the greatest magnitude.”

Trapped behind the bars
of a bare loose leaf prison
no key, just a pen.

Laying down truths handpicked for the youths
Don't pass judgements between tooths
Stay all about the sooth-saying
We're all screaming instead of praying
That's why we lose so quickly what were steadily gaining
Don't assume I'm playing when I trip you up
With unexpected grease too slick for a slipper
Servers appreciate a big tipper
But don't break your bank to eat and pay no thanks
Don't knock a gender when you knockin boots with someone who's dead at the roots
Don't go down the wrong way on a one way street
If you're gonna shuffle gotta lift up your feet
If you're cold go out in the heat
If you're old get ready for what you're about to meet
I've stayed silent for so long
Speak up before the moment's gone
And you're reaching for something intangible
Because you felt it was intelligible
Don't suppress what makes you you
Cause there's no one else who can fill your shoes
Don't overthink your thought
You only end up killing that truth you sought
Don't detach yourself, just rewrap yourself
Around peace and harmony, it's good for your health
I'm delirious but are you hearing this?
Sleep's for the weak when all you want to do is weep
Sometimes it's all you need to treat the disease
An escape from your predetermined reality
When you're unable to comprehend what it all means
Remember, loving one another is loving You and Me

i wanted to write about the wolf in my chest.
how it is hungry with claws extended, tongue running over it's teeth.
i wanted to write about the thunder in my bones.
it's cry shaking the ground and waking you from your sleep.
i wanted to write about what makes me deathless,
my flesh iron and teeth sharp.

i did not want to write about you.

i did not want to write about the fire you started in me,
that you ran from as you called yourself "brave".
i did not want to write about how there are stones in my throat,
or how exposed the space between my ribs had become.
i did not want to write about the phantom limbs i feel when the air is still.
i did not want to write about sitting in your passenger seat while driving in the dead of night,
mercy in the form of twisted hands and my head in your lap,
like it was that easy,
like you had become comfortable with the cold.

no, i did not want to write about you.

because if i do not speak your name,
if i do not romanticize what was,
i can bury you the way i have before, the bodies piling up,
your name on a tombstone.
maybe it is because you are young and i am tired.

i did not want to write about you.
i have written like this before.
names and dated times to remember when i felt this vacant.
i did not want you to become another page in this black book,
or another reason to believe i am being punished,
my trust in god deteriorating effortlessly,
you sleeping soundly in your bed.

i did not want to write about you, so this is where the verse ends.

I love you is not a mop you can use to wipe up the messes you made when you left.

Please stop coming back,
When you don’t stay for too long,
I can’t take seeing you,
But not seeing you there at all.
My heart still longs
For the feelings you used to give it,
It still searches for home,
Even though home is not in you anymore.

My hands are still searching
For the feeling of yours holding them,
For the intertwined fingers,
The squeezes of love and reassurance.

My mind is still wrapped up,
In sleepy three a.m’s,
In mumbled “i love you’s”,
In sighs of happiness.

(I think I fell in love in the back of a theater
foreign languages on the screen-
mourning dew in your eyes.)

Empty bars encourage the best conversation
in the dead of winter
when nobodies feel the most alive.

they order Irish coffees and Old Fashions
to remind them of the
grandfathers they never knew, while we talk
and covet the ****** hair of exotic men.

(I always awake feeling close to you
and then go to bed
disintegrated by distance- by need

love is always easier when your face is numb
having mistook the blemishes its supposed to hide
for forbidden fruit within the promised land.)*

there's a depressed bartender talking to
a manic patron,
reminding me to visit my parents soon.

Who’s that man in the black coat?
He always gets off the 11 p.m bus
and whenever we’re two *****
brown and ripped seats away
I can distinguish the smell of smoke
in his hair and the rain on his eyeglasses
Every time he sits down two *****
brown ripped seats away from me
the yellow neon lights
stuck on the roof  that he has to avoid
by bending, catch the rings in his beat up
calloused hands
I can see his fingers holding an overflowing moleskin notebook
and I am yet to approach him
about his name
when all that fills my conscious is the question
concerning the stack of papers in his hand.
                                                                               *p.e.n