It seems
my dreams
can't keep
well enough
alone

it's been
months since
I've thought
of you

and you
show up
feeling like
home

the dream you
is better than
the real deal

he makes me
think I
should go
back to sleep

the dream you
has never
left me

it seems
I can't keep
well enough
alone

you only love me in my dreams

tonight, i stand still,
all but well and slain by your
widening grin, with hair casting
ill-sketched shadows across
your cheek, out in the street, under
these humming lamps. under
this enveloping front.

some moment my head reeled
reveries of pretext for. still,
here i blink,
so unprepared. stuffing my
belongings into a tramping
pack late at night. laid out
on the couch arm. nothing knows,
now, i'd rather see you than
anything. careful footprint
placements. we got time, yeah.
still, honey, i'd trade magnitudes
of it up, for just just just a
handful extra seconds
skirting your gaze.

still,
honey, i'm atypically hopeful;
trembling here. i'm lit up
like you couldn't believe. i'm
on fire and kept warm,
throughout this meanwhile;
undertow miles away. grass
shooting up through the
soil in the back
yard.

White knuckles, clenched
ping-pinging on textured glass.
Unfazed, he turns his cheek,
followed closely by his deaf ear.
So I stay
stuck, hopeless,
tugging on some hem,
with a relentless, gut-twisting
hunger to be acknowledged,
to be comforted and cradled,
to be lulled and hushed—
pleading him
to poke some holes in the lid of this jar.

I used to oxygenate
my blood so beautifully—
flush my pale skin to pink, press it against yours,
and breathe.
When I had air, I used to inhale so deeply.
I used to live.
I used to conquer.
I would wake myself before the dawn,
if only
to brighten his dark corners.

I used to breathe before life in this jar.
I used to catch his glances and
celebrate as the reason for his smiles.
Before life in this jar, I could reach him,
and he would reach me.
He would pick me up in his smooth palm and
hold me in my place in the sun.
With warmed cheeks,
I’d kiss him softly on the forehead
and thank him in wide, grinning whispers
for the lift.

Before life in this jar
he would never find me
gasping for the strength to
make breathy apologies simply for existing.

He would never find me enjoying
such a slow motion asphyxiation
like I do
as I live life
in this jar.

Hi, my name is 'TheWord'

and

I am unreliable and messy!
A symbol!
A figment of projected meaning!
A run-around!
A silhouette!

And how I have fallen in love with myself.

I sit, procrastinate and wonder
How my country became sundered.

I like to pretend
I no longer have a heart
but sometimes
I pull it out of the bottom drawer
and speak to it
just so it knows
that I know
its still there
and apologize
for all I have poured over it
to bury its existence
and all the times
I gave it to the undeserving
I make promises
that it will be freed again
someday
then safely tuck it away
and sneak back out of her house.

I really do judge
what I write as I write it.
Childish, boastful, self-
absorbed, morbid, pathetic,
simple-minded. You
know, the works. We all have to
be critical in
life or nothing is sacred.
N o t h i n g
m a t t e r s .
Everything will exist and
it won't mean a ****
thing.