It's difficult to see anything without
Watching how specifically light dances
Which way the clouds are moving
Voices tepid, brushes on canvas

Noticing the severity in a word
Underlying meaning in unkempt rooms
Bones, steel, fragments of sentences,
The blood-red rose in bloom.

Lyrics the cells wasting in my skull
Personification the melody in my veins
Clawing at meaning in a meaningless world
Skeptically observing unadulterated pain

Ripping apart the flesh of grammar
Feasting on the perhaps and what ifs
Strolling down the graveyards of potentiality
Heart whirring through malleable to stiff

This is a poet's mind,
Scattered as the winds reverse
Beautiful and dark as the new moon
Scarred, beaten and perverse:

A blessing assuredly, albeit a curse.

I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.

talkative dolphins, computer mice, and you & me
they're all things that click
your smile and stupid honey hair
they're all things that stick
in my memory like clichés and glue
like how I'm stuck on you

feelings and ridiculous bright eyes
they're all things I'm distracted by
also when we laugh so hard we cry
while I'm trying to pocket the sparks that fly
because they're unsuitable
but apparently immutable
just why...
why why why why WHY
why is it you
why does it have to be you

because the sinking feeling has sunk
that even if I was drunk
I wouldn't be able to tell you
the things I try to drown in fried food and old jazz songs
like how I've felt for so long
always trying to ignore it
as I awkwardly store it
wishing we'd explore that
you're the only one
that causes the stuttering and heart fluttering
and the poem's sputtering as the rhyme scheme cracks
while my feelings attack
and so much of me wants you...
and your stupid honey hair
to love me back.

A stranger stares back through the mirror,
their eyes cold and unwavering cause my unnerving.
The soft skin of my cheeks, looks like gnarled wood
The curvature of my body begins to flatten,
archaic versions of my self rise to the surface of my skin.
Each iteration of my self begins to cycle across my body in the mirror.

The emotions, temperament, thoughts and feelings of past selves,
percolates through my consciousness, leaving traces along the way.
A splash of colorful emotion lingers in my cheeks giving them warmth.
The soft memory of lips on my skin bubbles through me.
My skin tingles as each thought bursts at the edge of my existence.
This is to be expected of ephemeral emotions,
their transient nature becomes clear as the colors they once provided
fade to black.