i got a new pen for christmas
and i love it.
it glides over paper
like a cosmic match,
its perfectly pigmented partner.
but i have the same notebooks
and i write the same things
dreaming the same dreams
with a new pen in hand.
at least your name
will be just a little bit more beautiful
as i trace it once more,
tear out the paper,
crumple it up,
and start again.

I found you first
in meteors splattered against the
skin of the barren night sky.
I found you  
in the grains of sugar
liquefying joy on my tongue.
I found you next to me
my bleary eyes opened
I blinked
you vanished.
Now I search for you
ripping out every page of my favorite books
stripping away the keys of once-grand pianos.
Now I search for you
I pass the days lying in the street,
looking for a face like yours
through the windows of
cars that drone mindlessly by.
I don't sleep; someone must
scrutinize the sky
in case you make your fiery homecoming
but every second without you
steals you further from my memory
and sometimes, with my eyes closed, I wonder
if you were ever really here at all.

we'll glide into the next decade
like we own it
skating on razor blades,
twirling knives like majorettes
what is there to be afraid of?
you leave a funny taste on my lips,
like nightshade or something i wasn't
supposed to eat.
i like waiting with you
parked in your car by the bus stop,
talking about pseudo-psychology and
goodbyes,
which one is real and which is a
scam
it's 2 a.m. now,
and i'll be up again in 4 hours.
that's just enough time to
listen to your favorite album
and tell me what you dreamed about,
and catch the bus before sunrise.
i haven't slept in –
oh, i don't know.
i've been up with—thinking of—
you
the idea of you
and me have been up all night,
waiting at that **** bus stop.
the unholy voices whispering to me
sound just like you.
they—you— make my head spin
when i think too hard
about who you are—
are you my punishment,
some divine, poetic justice,
for an act i've committed?
am i to be driven insane,
tantalized, eternally unable to eat or drink,
with food and water just out of reach?
maybe so, but maybe
insanity is letting
someone like you
disappear.

i sent my dreams
downRiver, into your open
mouth. and i stood there,
shell-shocked by the sight of
you,
wondering what it was like to really know
you.
i watched your eyes close,
as the sunset silhoutted your sweet curls.
i exhaled a silent prayer, and hoped
the wind would carry it into your lungs.
my heart pumped blood into
the River
my body did not know
how to swim. so i stood and watched
you,
drinking in the world, without
any idea that it was my
blood that tinged the water.
i wanted to tell you everything
i wanted to scream
i wanted to touch you
but you looked so peaceful,
floating like you were
born to defy gravity. i could not
disturb you and ever forgive myself.
so i knelt where i was,
letting the saltwater trickle from my
face to join the River,
as it took you far away from me.

This existence is but a breath
vapor drifting past the lips of
life:
a Secret kept obstructed,
eclipsed by perennial paradigms
mutinous Mobs snuffed
out by the wind
a broken Hourglass, the
Sand seeping through the
cracks in the door
the Dust on the floor,
flattened by footprints beyond
differentiation
a Conflagration quenched as
soon as it catches
by the swelling tides of time.
Whether we're cursed or
self-destructive, our
affinity for chaos will
unravel our transcendent, twisted cataclysm before
we ever know our
beginnings and endings.

in the light,
the mirror was never as kind to me
as my mind's eye when
the shadows swept in
when my pupils expanded and the
blackness spidered in my veins
and i painted vines atop them
so the light might
smile on me again
instead it pierced my sordid skin
showing its squalid, shameful state
it broke my bones and tore my tongue
i scorned its heat
and stumbled into the cool, black night
to feel my nerves numb once again
to cover my new unholy scars
slapping self-indulgence to my skin
as it stung, i ignored my muscles and
continued to do what i do best —
run

deep midnights in the jungle
the air thick with our thoughts
we twist and tangle vines
between us, binding
bone to bone
we drink the dew drops
from the leaves and
weave their stems around our fingers
our swarthy skin, stained with soil
the kiss of nature on your thumb when it
brushes my cheek
we press our bodies
into the trunks of the towering trees
and taste the bark between our teeth
this is our labyrinth, and i
long to get lost with you