she wrote about love,
as if she'd experienced it.
in truth, all she knew
about love came from
Neruda and Yeats and
Nicolas Sparks. the
only love in her life
was the unrequited
kind, but she wrote
about the loves that
lasted, or faded, or
blossomed, as if she'd
ever seen it happen,
and wondered if any
of the poets she so
admired had written
about fiction, or if
they wrote love as
they felt it -- but then,
who, happily in love,
has time for sonnets?
who writes, unless
for the vain belief
that words can fill
a void?

The skeletons of clocks will always haunt these hallways
And I can never remember anything you said to me
I suppose the problem is the rope around my neck
Never mind the fact that you’re the floor under my feet
Maybe I just hate the idea that everything I touch here could become a memorial
All for a lost soul who never learned how to properly read a map
But I think I’m just scared of my candle burning out before its lit
I’m tired of the silverware tied to my wrist and the paperclips under my fingernails
We walk on eggshells and all we ever do is **** our own young
You hurt me more than anyone and my lungs still bleed everyday
This is not on me I blame you both for it but not for the tremors in my hands
I still remember that hospital room
And the twenty seven hooks that held up the curtain
Those condescending looks stick with you
After all I’m just another stupid kid spilling his guts all over your floor
I still remember that the part that hurt the most
Was when they took all the pain away
And I think about that a lot more than I should
Maybe that says things about me that I could never tell you
There are a lot of things that I have trouble saying
And I’ve never been fond of needles
Or the bed they told me I was meant to sleep in
This is not my own creation I know I didn’t work for this
I was aiming for the church bells and all I hit was the flagpole
Can you still fall asleep without my skin these days
Do you find yourself lying in bed reaching towards the ceiling
Almost as if you could cradle the stars in your hands
Because I do and I like to think you’re doing the same
*~W.C.

It's been raining a lot lately.
I still think about you
more than I probably should.

I guess some things don't change.
I guess some things do.

How did we ever confuse the birds with the bushes
We’ve kept the birds wings clipped
And the bushes are running rampant
Yet we still wonder why we can’t understand anything
Like how gravestones roll off your tongue
Why the matches fall from your fingertips
And how your name has always reminded me of the gallows
The monsters under our beds have voices like shattering glass
And I know it makes it so hard to sleep sometimes
You told me to keep all my skeletons in the closet
Because I shouldn’t want anyone to read the signs that hang around their necks
I know to never look at them unless I want to see everything I ever died trying to find
And when I wake up in the middle of the night
With the tremors haunting me like a car crash
I always think I’m back in that hospital bed
And I’m sorry that I cannot control what escapes from my lips in that moment
I swear to God I’m not afraid of the dark I just don’t know what I’m fighting anymore
Entangled in the bushes that we left to grow unchecked
While the birds without wings watch me struggle with what I’ve made
Strange how its so hard to breathe without the sun
*~W.C.

Does that book still burn on your shelf?
Or have you stuffed it under your bed,
its pages torn, still smelling of cigarette smoke
with a few coffee stains.
(Mine rests next to Tolkien).

Do you flip through it once in a while?
Noting the words you marked,
once full of meaning.
Are they empty now?
(I found empty words in my copy).

Do you take care to avoid
the covert letter under the jacket flap?
Or maybe read it, and wonder
(I regret writing it.)