Rain pummels against the pavement of my skull.
So loud is this silence, like static on my tv.
White noise floods the every corner of my brain.
I slide out of people's lives as quickly as I come into them.

how many Junes will
run me out of home
how many summer nights
undefined in their destinations
ending only
empty-handed, no stories itching to
leap from our tongues
exasperated
dried out from heat
that hangs from the sky
like the skin on our backs

we wait
until September turns his back to us
until the leaves trail the ground
until I am too
left barren
laying in these streets

dark nights
push me face-first into
a new year
cold.

how many months
will phase me
until I start to see the world
bloom
instead of fold?

The ruins between my ribs held us static
We were parallel lines that were never coincidental,
A could-have-been intersection that ceased to draw itself
Just before the point of tangency.
You told me it was I who stopped pursuing you,
That it was I who fashioned these rusts in my own gears.
Apathy was my choice,
Until I saw the concern that lay beyond your hostile mask
That left me wanting for the unknown.

and there are so many words but i cant get to them.
cant hold on enough to figure out their meanings,
to find a sentence that makes sense.

and there are too many words that come rushing at me,
to take me to a better place,
but my feet are rooted to the floor
and all i know is that i am missing out.

and then the static takes me again, until it doesn't.
and i am a repeat of nothing and everything
until i fall apart at the whim of the words,
that i don't understand why i simply cant listen.

If I am
ever left
to rely
on a
diet of medication
and
tv static commercials,
unplug me
and
donate me,
being a
crash test cadaver
is at least
useful.

10 at night                                                                                       the wind is piercing, relentless
the moon shoots through the window like a bow and arrow and
                            shimmers off of the oil-on-canvas painting of a willow
                                                                                                  hanging by the door
you’re throwing a few t-shirts and your favorite pair of ripped levi’s                                                                                   into the coffee-colored backpack i gave you last summer                          it was your birthday
                                                                                                            god                i don’t want you to leave
flip over the record             and please             stay
                                                             until it’s finished
but            you            can’t
                                                and     i know you have         so much         too much         to offer  
   your unmatched compassion      the way your eyes glimmer in an instant when a bird
                                             first takes flight              
you have been here through  my best and worst        have seen me radiate shades of pale blue
                  and for this i am thankful
  
though i’m neglected from my thoughts              left fidgeting through a barbed wire fence
         realizing the shocks are all i’ve felt           in weeks           months
                                                                                                                                i must let it be

so i lie back             soak in a lukewarm water filled cast iron tub             trace the rim of it with a
          shriveled finger                      
                                                               and let it be          
                                                                                                           as i remain static

i first felt confused.
everything seemed to slip between my fingers
were they even my fingers?
now i was completely terrified.
this sense that everything was foreign like i've never seen these surrounding in my entire lifetime.
i didn't
couldn't feel myself.
my
it
those fingers.
i saw them move as fingers do, but they didn't seem like my hands, my fingers, my flushed palms.
it felt surreal.
even the people i knew seemed unknown to my eyes.
it gave me this churn in my stomach.
a churn that screamed "danger".
but why?
don't i know these people?
i should know how they act
how they talk
how they walk
how they move.
but when i saw them talk
when i studied how their lips formed around words
i heard nothing.
there was no familiarity in their voice and the words they spoke from their mind to their tongues.
it sounded
like static.
like white noise.
the nothingness that's heard in a room of complete silence.
i felt like white noise.
that fuzziness; the pins and needles kind when you haven't moved in hours.
i could've brushed it off.
maybe tried to refocus my brain into thinking that
"yes. all of this is familiar. don't be so dumb."
but i couldn't.
all i felt was bile in my throat as i internalized my imminent panic.
it was settling there in the pit of my stomach all because
i couldn't recognize my own voice.
i couldn't recognize their faces.
i couldn't recognize where i was nor could i recognize why i was there in the first place.
what was my purpose?
why do i wake up, go to school, come home, sleep.
why do i do these things that give me little to no substance in my life?
this regular schedule
of constance.
that's what caused this white noise.
the white noise that pressed anxiety and stress into my chest
making it heavier
making it harder to breath
making it worse.
i hated it.
but i couldn't do anything about it.
this white noise.
oh, how much i despised the thing.
but
all i can do is revel in the moment until it passes.