birds sing to birds,
and the insects hum along,
through the small holes in
dry dirt or rifts, in the tree
limbs.

I am awake, in repose;
sense scent of my skin losing water,
I am alive, in this indolent glade.
I am wearing cut grass on my back.
I am made of distraction,
but trying to lose it.

I am still, like the winter;
but as many miles across as
the forest can bear my weight
of bark and root, stone and
hoof, I am the environment my
senses tie together.

I am the life and decay,
pulling each other, like taught strings;
having no need for meaning,
I've become devoid of reason.

I am,
that is all I need.

I am.

that was the summer
I tried to fall in or out of love
but my heart's all used up and
I
can't do anything right

swam placid through last night, or today, or is it all the same and continual? anyway, i found myself curled up in a lounge, alone, by a great fire. small, hidden beast i, frozen-still stars floating through, wondrous lopsided flesh against the ground; cradling tiny empty warmth, just where i wanted you. & smile. thunder through birdcries through dawn. wanderlust aching me out to the waves, threshing and soft, held at the hand of heavyset horizon. & think about miles. & fake smile. sometimes, our own oceans get rough. i'm so proud of you, though, keeping afloat. got home and muesli and songs and coffee and trees and ah. breathe. set utterances on the seabreeze. sent north n' west.
knots weave fine cycles in my head, like time around treestems. drifts of ocean mist, over inlet ridgeline, roar silent swells over the day. slow procession. slept enough for the both of us, trying to find you, immersed in soft clouds; dulled and fantastical. everything brims on the edge of everything else. a couple sparks away, in a small town somewhere, raining half the time, caught up, tangled in songs & sunsets. smiling gently into the light. i'll call it dawn, sooner or later, but still imagine your radiance, in stead.
bleary eyes and tiresome channels of blood but, small circling sparrow on the horizon, light through leaves, rivulets of smile bleeding up my cheek.
time's strange hands curl round and tie cycles; here, i was but a small chip in the woodwork. some little sharp snag life'd carved out, to grasp nothin' but air. but, somehow, the same air takes on resonance within the hum of my chest, tubelamps ever aflicker, and im sat staring, dead on, into the firm couch-material, trying to calculate the speed of sound from you to i. 'cause i swear i heard the impression of soft lips inch up next to my frozen ears, and in breath let wash warm reprieve, up and over me, and yes i am sad and terrified you too will fall into aches (which is explanatory for my perhaps often with-held-ness) and fold, just as terrified, away. never disallow one self's happiness, though. regardless if the meaning to it seems absent. just learn how yr smile works. and i hope i'm a crease, like sometimes you are the light pouring from my eyes. folding away. sometimes, you are, too, a smile brewing in the corners of my lids.
dreams form light clusters around my weary head. felt really strange today. inexplicable sadness, in the most beautiful things. saw you in people. little parts of you, everywhere, in voices and eyes. enough to fill me to the brim of connectedness. all these effervescent bubbles, so close to shimmering enough to be you, but never, ever you. much as i wish so. would if i had changed time, today or ten years. fabricate this daydream, i now weave slow on settling fingertips. the shock and sting of knowledge. your eyes. sweet smile. and the acres we've still got to pad through, stifling breath floes, changing stories at the tip of the stem. soft touch as dawn breaks. ghost, i know.

Because you slay me with every pinnacle of triumph and ruin, oh mechanics. You rewind, even in progression; you tell me all the words to say, in which sheet set to lay. You hold my severed head on display, for the entire universe to witness.

And my demons are like butter knives, not sharp enough to draw blood, but that still doesn’t stop the hurt. Or, worse.

Spent summers beneath the trees, winters beneath the weathers, years amongst all that which I will never understand. So, when you gave me your hand, I said ‘aye’, for I was never sure anyone would want to realistically be mine, never convinced my tiny heart was anywhere somebody could draw their line and say “Stop. You don’t have to say a word.”

As good as asleep in the crowds and mobs and downward cast eyes, three abreast in some channelled breeze, the main streets are the ones that mostly step on the tender part of your foot.

You know where I am, though, at least in body. There’s always the mind which never follows, which instead chooses to wallow in ‘what-if’s, vague references to reverence at its darkest moments. Because blind faith will get you nowhere and I have no reason to believe in anything, save the fact that I have this idea in the back of the recesses of my most null-set mind; and did you let the angels tell you lies?

That you’re not coming home tonight?

Well, you could rest in these sheets of mine. I guess they’re not the best, but I won’t tell any lies. So don’t
cry, don’t cry. The saline runs through all the gears in my chest, and over the season you’ll keep pulling what’s left, ‘til all I have is not an ounce of this mess, this beating arrhythmia I try hold dear ‘twixt my ribs.

So call me accountable, I can shoulder the blame. And ‘cause I’m never quite sure if anyone else would want to do the same, all I ask is that you remember my words anytime you hear my small name; just remember my lips and love of rain.

For some god built me on plans it kept locked up for so long, as it never did quite figure out where it went wrong; and so now flows through my lips as I utter my songs, as penance for all moments in which I am never strong.

So I keep confessions locked inside my book, I keep its wry disregard at length of arm’s crook, the broken blood carriers and my eyes it shook, said “Son, don’t you worry, for today you are your own hook” I replied: “Oh, wonder and majesty, I’ve done you oh-so wrong, and for what? The sake of singing sad songs?” “I knew there was no answer before you came along, I knew not of your virtues nor the day, eternally long.”

So, don’t you dare take not a single of my words, for whatever I call mine is already gone to the birds,

to the birds,

to the birds.

i sit in a back-row seat view and
build up neat rows of cells
to sit, blurry-eyed, and watch
regular coils, wreathes,
noting degeneracies in the
way anyone whispers
1.12am secrets; in my sense
of pre-packaged sanctity:
no matters could be more
unimportant than these i keep
in ever-revolving displays,
to pluck out whilst heading
somewhere or anywhere -back home, i guess,
where else do i go?-
and anticipation wouldn't so
much as slightly glance a
warning, again whispering:

"you'll never get any better than this.
you'll never get any lower than
this afternoon the moon will suspend
itself in the sea and
you won't even care enough to watch."

further out, i am
ankle deep and
my eyes are stuck shut.

got
snowed on whilst walking. as if
everything froze, i, too, turned
to ice, within a moment. and
then fracturing, split and
scattered; forgetting the world,
lost in existence. a foot hit the
pavement once more, and trees
and streets revealed
themselves. and again, life was
static and stone.

all at once, things come crumbling
together. a step in every direction,
rightful empty dissolves to leave,
in stationary hollow, itself:
presented representation. no
point left unscathed. the exact
same moment the water started
leaking down and out the walls. a
series of equicardinal trackmarks in
the snow. over the bridge we shift
momenta. wheels turn. nerves
coupling. a flood laps at my
unfurling fingerprints. water
rises like swallows nesting in the
marsh of my throat. try as we might,
turn of position, matched glance, precession
after next, the swell silently engulfs the woodwork.

blood curls through these beds, as beautiful as the water running over;
waves distill through smaller wash.

a larger scheme spreads its lips. the teeth
play quotient to tree limbs. a schedule unwound.
caught the sun with smooth hooks.
everything changes from here, or stagnates at a
shifting viewpoint. but, from this glowing angle,
i could mistake you for ordinality or
plain daylight. i could
fall a little
further
down.

instead, all translates in bold motion,
binding fibers of dissolution,
morning hues
through the dark.

one day, you will fall out of my life,
and I will never smell such sweet smoke again.

the world will reclaim you, and make us
strangers, as we were born, once more;
and memory will never do you justice,
as your face becomes static.

you will not be a part of me, anymore,
just a faint echo I hear,
from time to time,
when I recall the concept of loss,
and all the time I waste, doing nothing.

one day, I will wake up,
and forget to remember
that I don't want to forget you,
the curvature of your lips,
or the way you try not to laugh,
and how it escapes, anyway;

it will be the same echo,
I slowly become deaf to, as my ears fail.

but, I don't want to lose you,
please.

I've already made too many strangers.

three minutes sixteen seconds,
******* in, sharp coils of
losing faith,
breath run down,
someone else's apologies,
we build or built castles,
for the wash to reclaim, smoothing out the creases.

our efforts are small, our steps are juvenile,
but, like all-consuming shades of night,
soon, this will blossom and grow,
soon, we will be but memories,
all endings, farewells and tired eyes.

dance of days, head as a twig, to pass the time away. tendrils unfold and try not grip too tight or loose, to never lose or choke; sometimes feeling the low roar of blood rushing through flow-spaces, held in prepare and transparency. in these moments, there is a fine tapestry we were woven upon, gestures lain side-by-side. sayin' all the same words, in distinct& ruffled tongue.

cold snap, and there's layers again. cycles run circles and somewhere, at the back of the room, there's an utterance: "funny, that". and i wonder if i'm hearing my voice or just seeing my own breath. it echoes in the corners, out between shadows. my left eye's been twitching, but only as ghost. i carry out the honours after, only by some gnarled sense of capitulation.

but that's life.

thought breeds fear breeds hesitation breeds inactivity breeds regret breeds sorrow breeds this second
lying against the wall, heavy paint consuming terminal strands
ink stains on two-dollar offwhite notes
whose words are these?
not sure.

this second breeds disappointment breeds apathy breeds hopelessness breeds fatigue breeds long sleep
rivulets make short indents, slipping clockwork makes little difference                                                      
words by heart fall from cracked lip skin                                                                                                      
whose laments are these?                                                                                                                                
I understand.                                                                                                                                                    
and wish I didn't.

nights under canopies under
stars, obscured,
the light pollution pouring down
coastal highways from big
cities, where the
big kids play baseball, or banker; or
cloud cover pulling over
a static blinking light,
a never-moving flight crew, as
seen from your veranda,
but

i ****** up.

and, now,
the sun won't rise,
the stars won't shine,
the moon is just a piece of rock,
just more of the same.

so,
if it's broke,
don't fix it.
don't fix me.
don't bother waiting.
don't call.