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  Jun 2016 Taylor
Joshua Haines
She kisses the boys and girls
that pay the most attention.
The boys play with vapor
and her girls play with tension.
I wish I was the only one
that she will decide to touch
but I am who I am
and, in a way, that is too much.

Sawblade-sunflower petals
wrap around an earthy cushion,
and the humidity hangs in the air
as her beige body is crumpled
and I feel too sober, pushing.

Baby yellow falls apart,
in her hair the flower starts
to trickle onto sheet and pillow,
decorating the absences
that define how hollow
she and I have felt before --
******* like an endangered species
on the killing floor, I whisper once,
I whisper sweet, "Don't you wish
that we didn't meet?"

She kisses the boys and girls
that give the most attention.
I played with vapor
and she played with tension.
And what doth she speak, O brother?

"Eternal is the damnation,
Fleeting is the mercy."
  Dec 2015 Taylor
s
if love is not for us what are these butterflies
  Nov 2015 Taylor
Joshua Haines
Chocolate colored Toms, Cool Blue and Navy, too,
North Face jacket, give me some individuality
I wanna feel ethereal; violently, annoyingly
happy. But the sky is as black as lonely cancer
without a soul mate; I know what it's like
to kiss as you erase her.

Hauntingly, melancholic instances ingrained
into my gelatin mind and
stayed.
And the smolder
from the brand on my shoulder
frayed.
I wish I could alter my reflection,
but the mirror I've bought,
somebody else
made.
South Shore
  Oct 2015 Taylor
Joshua Haines
I have swallowed so much of other's blood that I have forgotten that I have bled, too.
With the world shuffling past,
I have became transfixed with the movements of my idols,
forgetting that my feet have left footprints that have, will, and always be buried under the sedimentary memories that I waited to smother me.

Sometimes I can feel my body buckle under the weight of all the dreams I've dared to dreamt.

Under the moon and on top of the world,
I understand that I am inbetween and will always be.
Ashland, Wisconsin
  Oct 2015 Taylor
Ally
Dear you,
I wrote you a letter last night in the middle of an anxiety attack. I didn't know it was addressed to you until about halfway through, but it only makes sense that it all comes back to you. I guess I wanted to write everything that was going on in my head onto paper, to stop thinking about everything and everyone, including you. I keep saying I'm happy for you that things are getting better for you and that you're happier now but I think everyone knows I'm just pretending that I'm not in ruins that you left me for dead. I hope you think about me sometimes, I hope you remember who I used to be.
Love, always,
Me.
A hundred letters I'll never send but thousands of words all meant for you.
  Oct 2015 Taylor
Joshua Haines
We melt like aborted McDonald's ice,
on top of a blistering, gum-stamped lot,
under the sour heat of the Sun.

I'm boy wonder and you're, 'Boy, how is he alone?'

Olive-skinned cardigan, pearl pores.
Hair like ink and a jaw-line sharp enough to cut an umbilical cord.

Vintage Nikes come to a point,
the swoosh as red as the cherry at the end of your cigarette.

I watch you smoke and choke,
before calling phantoms over.
It begins like October:
The leaves fall, like your friends steps,
the bronze sweeps the air,
like the curls of their smiles,
the air is silent,
like your words as they condense and drop into the mouth of a tanned canyon.

What could they ever do to conquer you,
my dear, fantastic frenzy?
Ashland, Wisconsin

Also, special thanks to my girlfriend, for her blessing.
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