I am a warped vinyl left in the sun
by your careless hand.

My voice has become so warbled
it's no wonder you can't hear
all of the times I screamed "I miss you"
into that tin can microphone
so many songs ago.

The surface noise has grown louder
than the instruments
and now I know why
you never dust me off
the shelf and play me anymore.

"I see you everywhere. I see you in sentences inked blue on a crumpled paper napkin, in cars and buses caught in a traffic jam, in the perfect swollen shape of the moon. I see your image in the face of every person I meet: when the cashier hands me my change I am reminded of your long calloused fingers, when I pass by girls with tattoos on the nape of their necks I remember how it feels to kiss you there. Every laugh, every flesh, every smile is you trying to steal my breath away. I think: this is the opposite of forgetting. I scatter your memory to the empty winds, put you inside the pockets of strangers, force you to haunt me like a ghost. This is how I survive your absence. This is how I keep you, darling, so that you may never leave my world again."

The child fell in mid-July
When he held three rings
Rippling out from his bones.
His knew smiled a toothless
grin that dropped guts & goo
While the child screamed
Hoping that mother would set
Down her dishes and break
In half her paint brush. He hoped
That mother would stitch him back
Together. A scarecrow wears a costume
Of a strong superhero three months
Later with the help of rubber bands
And metal barbs.
The child fell in mid-July &
Left a scar but not a bruise.

i’ve kept your letters stored in a box, labelled
'reasons why you should never trust people
even when their actions match their words’
and i open them every once in a while, to remember
the reason why i let myself go in the pursuit
of something better, something better
(which i thought was real happiness until i realised,
a world without trust is a very, dark place.)
but a world with empty words and meaningless
promises is equally dark, and a world in which
you were no longer by my side was the darkest
world of all.

you are cigarette sticks just lit,
you are a fresh wound on an old stitch.
a disorder spun out of control,
watching as madness takes hold - clutch
breaks - what happens next - your
life begins to unfold. creases form like
scars that never quite leave, mistakes
we break, we drown and we bleed.
i can't live without them is the greatest
lie: love kills you from the inside out,
toxic chemicals rampage fire through
your veins: hooked, hooked, hooked
lined and sunk; funny how we continue
to live with it only because we die with it.

Watch this
You mumbled deep in slumber
Took your hand
Unzipped the skin just beneath
Your occupying ribs,
Slipped four fingers behind the walls
Of your cage (what does it hold
Does it protect or alienify?)
And wiggled them between the bars
Look at what I can do
I almost have it all figured out
If you tried
So would you

Johnny remembers the barn
He kissed his first cow in
It burned down two years ago

Johnny holds his head low
Pointing towards the floor
Pointing towards the door

He drinks homemade grape juice
And thinks about how odd
It is that we crush small things

And drink their blood

Johnny does not want to be crushed
He does not like the sinking feeling
He gets when he thinks about

The grey silo that still stands
By the dark patch of grass
That won't grow back again

He wishes the clock would stop
Talking at such a steady volume
Johnny has trouble sleeping

Ever since the barn burned down