i hum to myself these days
your regrets and your mistakes
and i don't write this to place blame
but you
honestly
were nothing but magical thinking
and wasted time
can't get back the hours
so instead i use them
to understand
that some people
you just can't get

holy shift
you are a mess, darling
no longer my darling
i happily hand you off
to yet another one of your broken limbs
and sing a solemn hymn
quietly under my breath

"thank god, there's nothing of her left"

It is here
I was so blind
To realize
You have always deserved it all

in a dream
underwater
i realize
the advice
i never gave myself
would one day
haunt me
it is here
now
that i cover my ears
open my mouth
and swallow the words
whole
heavy

You'd like me to believe
all your lines of repents
But you've got a mind that needs
needing
So you'll never learn a thing

the night brings your name
carried against streams of
conscious thought
it is here I know I am better off
it is here I wish you saw

Loving someone
Is work.
I take the thought into my hands
And run it through my skin.
Until the words fall out
And mold
Like clay
Into dissertations of sound,
Into solemn hymns
A soft prayer.
I will repeat all night and morning
Rituals of romance
Rituals of present tense
Rituals of
I am not afraid of the craft
I was born already loving it

Laying in
Another town
In a solemn bed
Not my own
I realize
You were never
My own
To begin with
I salute to the sky
I once believed to be endless
And nod to the rhythms
I felt long before this
Singing softly
Mouthing in numbers


A  N  G  E  L  E  S

I say mama
I'm blessed
but I'm a mess
that a woman has made me
and if you were around to see
you'd be ashamed
one, two many times
i've knelt on the floor
head to the boards
moaning her name
followed by the strange sensation of
"why"
for whole nights, i wept
i could only do that
i loved her
i loved her hard
so much in fact,
i couldn't keep much else in my life in tact
everything else fell apart at the seams
as my eyes
they never strayed
from the blonde parade
that was roaming inside of me
and now,
i lay down with the sound
the noise has died off
but the silence sticks around
i dwell
in moments when i am alone because i can
and when i start to get sentimental
i am reminded
that i could have never been her girl
never been her man
never been more than what i already am
time has no table
love has no line
and we've got nothing but time

in my head
a frozen
still
image
of the girl you could have been
and the girl that i actually am
it all lines up
between wounds and gunshots
but i was always the only one left bleeding

the body
lies
on the bed
you helped build
staring at the ceiling
mouthing lyrics
to a song on repeat
i can lay here all night
i'd have no problem with it
and sing the same words
until they fell from my teeth
hitting the floor
as softly as they came

you
always
were in front of me
but now
i'm finally seeing
you
my
darling

a new year for you
old fashioned
i'll lay my head in the lap of you
and think of years past
and these years,
they pass
stand by as we grow
into
new

give me
the night
to lay in
i'll wrap my arms
around the hours
until i swallow the age in
ageless or aimless
are we now?
i can't keep my head in this
so instead
i gaze out
and fade in
bow out
because the body is tired
of repercussions
give me anything
to feel sentimental
over
and i'll adore it
like i've never known
love
before

darling
you are no longer
my darling
because you've a head full of other
darlings
yet, you still won't admit it
you'd rather lie next to my side
and sleep in lies
but why don't you lay next your truths
instead?

G R I D

mark it up
laugh it off
it's a toss
this game of once overs
i've run over
the scenarios many times
in my mind
long afternoon of hours
daydreaming of you
and how soulless our song together is
it's not that we don't have intent
it's just the combination of two sad lines
don't make one thing right
and i want to be ready for once
to look something in the eye
and believe in it
and you know
with your love
i never could
and you never wanted me to

i look at you
in a different
way
even your face has changed
how could it not?
morphed into something aimless
just for the sake of tainting
blonde dream
you died in streaks
wondering where it was you left
faith in
burial
now it's seen
even the sky
mourns you

4th of july. you haunted me but now i thank you. you gave me what no other Holiday could. you showed me truth. you showed me ruin. you made this heart of gold turn into stone and then back into flesh. ready for something good, ready for something new.

we will never see eye to eye
you, on the other side of this country
could never be mine
and rightfully so, i do not want you
it's taken me a long time
to get there
to feel a void
to not let my mind get to there
nowadays,
it stays
still
so still
like i've always wanted it to

babygirl
thinks she can
fool
a fool
which is tempting
but i know better
you lost these eyes
a while ago
when you went for another's

time goes slow
against the backdrop
of another bedroom
another wall
i cling to
i was surprised with how welcome i felt here
i want to live here for a while
and discover
all that
i looked over
(you)

i cannot wait
to lay
and daydream
in bed
and mouth the ceiling
with your name
and swell
in your generosity
your perfect
imperfect
lean
that is now embedded
in my teeth
and *******
just think
with what little
has been said
how you consume
every part of
this bloodstream

take me up North
take me West
to Monday afternoons
tangled in you
soft skin; aimless
i will count your teeth
with my tongue
and read you stories out loud
with your head in my lap
or your chest on my chest
two palms, the pulpit
where we can undress
the rest of our sins
and finally make use
of them

we spent the night together in mid-air; suspended
i saw the truth before my body hit the pavement
i saw the outcome;
i whispered "maybe we've made it"
you held onto the time where it reminded you of another
time
like a trophy
our prize
collected in between waves
or
s i g h s

nights
where you end up on me
in me
all over
better to be consumed with the body
before the brain

parallels and cycles
i am your cycle
soft motion of the tongue
then; gone
and you hear me
an afternoon where you own me
i took your collarbone
and swallowed your chest
hid beneath my teeth
kissing years on each eyelid
the entire time
saying;
farewell. i mean it
now.

come be my crutch
darling
lay me down
or lie beneath
and sleep
swimming
in anger's defeat
while we
drown
in a soulless song
knowing this is
what it feels
like to
grieve

my grandmother
once held my hand
many nights,
she would explain
the process of loving
and i would simply nod my head
to justify
the heartbreak i've always felt
as a young child

my father
once held my neck
against the bathroom wall
possibly in his anger
possibly in this love
and told me that
i looked ugly when i frowned
and i would simply nod my head
to cancel out the sound
that came from him
(smile)

my mother
lost a lot
at a young age


and you
you bring all the
blood line memories
back
with your reckless love
that has truly wrecked me, love
now why you'd go ahead and do that?

i'd like to move past
what time has stood still
for me
and turn my head
to your weak demands
of denial
and thoughtless pounding
on my chest
it hasan't broken yet
but it's bound to
if i stick around you
and i'm ******* stuck on you
just like the others
line 'em up
1, 2
i don't want to be the third
but darlin, i'm infinity
when it comes to loving



(you)

i want calm
not to be
just another number
for her to call
when she is feeling
alone
but i allowed that
so pay the consequence
of allowing yourself
not to make sense
and when will i
hold myself accountable
for letting in
what is not healthy?
for what is not kind?
for what is not right?

these days
i'm not afraid
cautious, rather
maybe you could even call me timid
because i learned not to love hard
not to waste excuses on what's not given
falling through the cracks
of a lie, of the living
i may as well be dead to you
so we could create a rhythm
with our apologies intertwined
on our tongues, split in mind
we'll never progress
darlin
we're just stalling the momentum.

thank you
for your absence
it reminds me
of why I had to leave

i sit here
now
with thoughts
in a line
stacked
i like them that way
refrain
an endless longing for your teeth on my wrists
so that you may get
it in
argon
all along
all gone

I wake
and I cannot help but
wonder
who you now wake up to
if anyone at all
(the mind is trouble)
(the mind is trouble)
(the mind is trouble)

She says
She listens
To Patsy Cline
To pass the time
And I wonder
What it is
Now
That you will
Do
To pass time

The night I met you
I drove 33 miles
Completely unaware of what was ahead
We met
And no one else existed
As your knee bumped gently against mine
And you grabbed my hand at the bar in the corner while your girlfriend talked to my friends
This fact-
This action that was once so exhilarating should have- in reality- been the red flag
I remember recording your voice
Because I knew the moment I heard it
You owned me
But now we don't speak
And soon I'll forget
How my favorite words sounded

I sit here
In this ***** bar
With you
And we talk about my last attempt at love
And my god
What a failure it was
You- you were always so available
For a short time
And I was caught up in denial and grief
For a shorter time
And now we share ideals over Mexican food
And I hold in
The very thing I would love to say to you
But darling
I won't
Because time seems to never be on my side
These days
Or maybe my entire life
So, instead
I'll think of you
As you sit in front of me
Never knowing
Or maybe you already do

It's okay
To do without
When it's providing
Nothing
Within

like a child clung to you
out of knowing no better
but i knew better
i always have
yet i still stuck around
out of habit?
out of desire?
out of love?
"still don't know what love means"
that ******* line gets me every time
because i live that dusty pain in his voice
when sung
and you and i darling
were a song not meant for singing

you being you
unable to look truthfully at
yourself
unable to admit
your addictions
denial
or position
you being you
act horrible to me
and it's hard to not take it personally
but i know
it's because you don't like yourself
right now
but i did
i did

i left a hair tie in your bed
under the pillow you use to rest your head
are you rested now?
i tried so hard to love you
even when it was not allowed
and you
fought the walls in which you lived
i know you are hurting
i can't imagine the race inside that mind of yours, darlin
but i tried
and i'm tired
of seeing you battle the one who cares for you
so, cling to the sins you haven't committed yet
while i try to look forward
because
forward is all
i have

drunk as hell
in my head
i lay
with arms wrapped around you
it is there
you can be
everything
we would like to be
it is there
only

i wonder
where it is that you go
when you leave
out of mind
elsewhere
repeating
your same behaviors
i've never been a fan of
the outsourcing of details and denial
so, if you must
then please leave
darling
and stay gone
because i'm tired of
the wonder
when it's not longer mystery
it's exhausting

my roommate is crying
down the hall
i hear it
and i know
why
because he is gone
and it's not the fact that he is gone
but because
we have thought
about leaving too.

you and i
should never leave the bedside
stuck to my left hip
i carve petals out of your rib
and finger the emblem
of knowing
this is love

if i am more than god
you are the title i worship
see, i never learned faith through desertion
but i learned to love a woman
who lives like the ocean
swiftly
gently
my body breaks into and over
what waves you create
what love you let under
i drown in the thought of you
enough is never enough
when it comes to learning
you
you
you
speak through me
in many tongues
i want to lap my mouth around the center
of what it is that could make us better
and swallow it whole
leaving the stem
as minor evidence
of how
i fell
in love
with a deity of a woman

if i'm a whale
if i'm a rarity
as you claim
well, then i say
that you my darling
are enough for me to want to stay
right here
in this moment
always
wrap my wrists
in your reverence
wrap my heart
in forgiveness
with your blonde strands
embedded in between
my teeth
in this mind, in this heath
i beg of you to tread through this blood and bone
where you will find
devotion to you
alone
lone
lone
just a silly girl
who feels a lot
who has tunnel vision
of piercing your soul
like you've done
to my own

the day goes blank
as i stare ahead
but can only see
the mouth of me
grazing your skin
empty promises acting as teeth
caught in between
ending
and
leaving
run this memory
all over me, darling
down to the dust of doubt
while i make love
to the pendulum of our love
when i say
i see beyond it
in my way
i mean to say
i see you
and i will always

you
you were always
checked out of your skull
and i
i was always praying
you would never
finally
go.

a constant
head check
of lines that i recite
well, pull them out of my mouth
darling
and lap my tongue
around every apology
or lie
and swallow the stem
i want to be yours
but i want you to be mine
oh, well
then
what does that entail
now?