I almost thought to close my eyes
And rest my head before I’d have to start another day without you.

But you, the Flower Queen who embodied all of the poetry I was struggling with,
You took my mind as you always have.

You wrote about missing me
And the song that is only shared by us.

It still tears me up...
I’m still blessed to ever have found you.

I always wonder how you’re living,
If your life has gotten better without me,
If you’ve prayed that I’d get better,
Or if you’ve hoped that we’d talk again.

I miss you terribly.
I’m sending you all of my good thoughts,
And I hope that you’ll get them
And know that I’m sorry
For not holding our bond more carefully.

We got so familiar...

And now,
I only wish we could again.

There's a conflict of interest
And it's conflicting with perfection
And reason.

Distance would make this
All too simple a decision,
If it were a matter of choice,
But it isn't.

It's a matter of my split
Affection.
It's a game of amazing chance
And weighing out lonely nights
Against the opportunities to luck out.

There are outcomes that I
Can only dream about.

There are bigger aspects of life
That might as well
Not even exist,
As I am blind and ignorant.

There's a case to be made
For experience, I'm sure
But I, surely,
Am in no shape
To make it.

Carry me out
Of this hellhole.
Take me
To your side of heaven
Where life is long
And beauty is so much more
Than skin deep.

You understand me,
And you comprehend life
On my wavelength.
You can crawl under the surface
And tear out the wires
And you can make the clock
No longer tick.

I'll never doubt you.

We're cut from the same cloth
Only your strands
Were probably more expensive.

I'll wait outside
Of your side of heaven
Because admission
From this distance
Is ridiculous.

There's no reason to try.

32,000 feet above the lot of you and examining the strands of cloud, looking down and wondering just how safe I could be.

When can you start to discount coincidence as no such act of random encounter,

Instead start to look at fate and decide that this is a risk that needs taking...
///
Cutting through the grounds of sacred legislation and mystic men in Brooks Brothers suits,

So far from Hollywood, but matching 1929 *** appeal and romanticized images of gilded ghosts of America.

How do you keep all these agendas upon the people who claim to be the freest on Earth?

You making your living on collective barriers—

Has never stopped me from taking to the skies and leaving my confusion in the clouds,

All my worries absorbed by the cold cotton ***** I have no option but to soar through.

As always, you want to sidestep the pain
And let it take residence, staying there until it rots,

You say you can’t face what was once effortless
But the most effort you ever invested in
Was mindless cruelty
That very easily could have killed me.

When I start to forget it,
I miss you despite the circumstances.

But it’s been ages without you
And it’s not as painful as it was.

I hope you get better about compassion
And less hung up on vendettas.

Maybe the blossoming of the new year
Will change you completely
And no one else ever will want to **** me like you do.

Visions of mystics that I surely didn't see,
But genuine was the mother of an ancient love—
Funny to think of it all marred in equal parts spiritualism and consumerist *******,
And all of them ignorant to the Kansas City memories they conjure.

Russian Duchess of Glory,
Chilling precision behind every turn,
And here I am cracking a joke because I can't even waltz.

Anna Pavlova,
Can you see yourself in the full scope of your beauty tonight?

Can we both stand to be witty,
Or find it easy to live past thirty?

Why is it always more elegant in the moonlight,
Regardless of the action,
From East Europe to the sad blue East Kentucky...

Have you once looked me in the eyes to judge how honest I've been in reading your history...

Oh, Anna Pavlova,
If you only knew that beauty would hold weight in modern reincarnation.
///
Still I wait for your autograph.

You who I dare to look upon through seldom borrowed books.

And if you pay regard at all,
To any of this, that is,

Then how much will you take hold of,

How long can you maintain your balance...

And are your pirouettes more acts of orbit

Or simply spinning out and away from me?

I'm shifting away
From this higher state
Of understanding
And distorted reality.

I'll be gone by the morning.

When I'm reduced to crawling
Out of the safety
Of these painkillers,
I hope the breeze is subtle,
Your words are kind,
And I slip quietly
Into the great perhaps

I hope the greenery
Can wrap around my daydreams
And cut the psychic pains
Right out of my eyes.

I haven't been discreet
That I've always sought
To prosper.

I've looked opportunity
In the eyes,
And I always seem
To falter.

I've been building barriers
Along walls
That I forgot existed.

How do you expect me
To claim to be okay,
Or resemble the image
Of someone
Who has their **** together?

I hardly expect
Any miracles of you,
So why do you expect
Any compassion from me?

Love seems seldom placed
In the heart of opportunity
Or convenience,
And my advances will all falter
As they've all been in vain.

You'll never fail to falter
When you have the chance
To be humane.

You'll default on your promises
And forget the fact
That you claimed you couldn't leave me
If you tried.

We all took that vacation,
Coated in nausea
And sleeping pills.

I could no longer feel the pulse
Of all of our November mornings.

You'd grown accustomed to me.

I was ordinary now,
And my acquired perfection
Had turned to rust.

I was stifling your creativity,
And you could no longer see the beauty
Of the world that surrounded you.

Calliope had all the reason
To rejoice and weep.

Like the sun never shines
For very long in the winter,
We only ever wrote an excerpt
To the novel we started planning
During our first summer mornings.

I'll go to Bristol
With love in my heart,
Pure intent on my mind,
And gin carving out new interpretations
Of my reasoning.

And I have no time at all
To make sense of it.

The muse of poetry gazed into the eyes of Athena, Goddess of Wisdom,
Walking through the books for inspiration or simply to **** the time.

I found myself happily at ease knowing I had love in my heart,
Love among the words of dead poets and dead Roman Emperors who dared to dream of philosophy,
But it was thoughts of treason stirring beneath the planks which built the staircase,
Winding five stories up and you in your feminine near mythical beauty.

I spent a short time in the library where I thought back only a minute on Allen Ginsberg's infatuation with the human construct of language,
How I would yell my lung's capacity of air out and scream at the stoics for their wasting of their one chance at emotion.

Will it ever be helpful to better learn the placement of the Swiss Alps, mountain line of scars on every globe, when I'd rather trace the placement of your spine, holding you in place, keeping you sound in your structure...

Walk with me through the centuries of words.

Don't just lay above me wasting your day as I'm sitting here wasting mine,
Wasting money that neither of us have to spend.

What time do we have between here and England, to return all this art to London?

Morning Glory has come to nightlife Kentucky.

Calliope, you've matched my curiosity.

I've become a slave
To the open road.

I'm a vagabond,
A rambler,
And everything else
You'll tell your daughters
To stay away from.

I'm a heartless gambler,
Or so I've been told,
By the countless girls
Who only knew me
By a passing glance.

The impression I'm playing lately
Looks a lot like the reflection
Of something you've never liked
About me.

I can't blame you.

I don't like myself,
And this time,
The blame is all mine.

I've been thinking to my habits
And how one in particular
May very well
Be rotting my liver.

I'm a cognac ******
Behind the wheel,
And on the open road,
I have no reason
To slow down.

I talk a lot,
And a lot of it sounds
Like I have you in a stranglehold.

I can't hold up the facade tonight.

I must admit,
I cannot bear you tonight.

I don't want a memory
Of anything you ever did
Positive, negative
Or in the limbo in between.

Love is all I had for you,
Even when I saw the cracks
Forming in your armor
And I knew you could not love me.

I knew you were finished,
And tonight, it's all I know.

I should have never said a word to you.

You were a calculated surgeon
Who paid no mind to anesthesia.

Your hands were in the fire too.

We both knew we were hundreds
And hundreds of miles from each other...

But I was willing to run the gauntlet.

I wanted to bear the burden of time
With you alone,
And you said it was of no importance
Any longer.

How dare you.

How dare you lie to me
For this span of a hundred days,
And trade books under the sunlight
Because you knew they were safe
In the possession of the one you held dear...

You could turn the most caring man
Into Savonarola.

Young girl, songs lamenting the American condition,

You are the catalyst of sexuality.
You are the tar on my fingers that keeps me writing.

Clear in your heart, paradox is the word and I am the scar,

You're too afraid to come outside,
Bombs won't break through your kitchen tables and plexiglass.

Far too much shelter, this is a movement I can get behind. Starting to crack. Starting to scream.

The motivation now: breaking out of mediocrity.
///
At least I'm better than those guys, I must continue to assure myself.

I might be the loner,

Underwhelming boy who will never serve his country,

Yet I don't go around breaking things that aren't mine—

Urania may have pulled my strings like a puppet,

But I snapped her sanity.

Witness one more time
How I am forcing my own hand.
We are burdened by the dilemma of sight
And I see you at every turn...
I'm buried beneath the quality
You told me I'd never achieve.

Depression has felt like
Gymnastics here without you
On the other end of my phone.

When did being obsolete
Require such a high degree
Of technical mastery?

I'm holding my head up still
Because ******* and moaning
Won't stitch up our schism
And you told me I was not
A priority to you...

I've got to admit
That's a statement
That I'm growing quite sick of...

And if I don't matter to you,
After continued comprise,
I won't continue to lie to myself
About my preference in geography,
And I'll let my conscience step back
Into where I've walked recently...
To where Angels can glare
Without scoffing at the arrogance.

The season has changed
Since I wrote a story of letters
On just how inspiring you are.

But it's been about two years
Since my balance first failed me
And left me breathless.

Suffocating has been an absolute privilege.

/TRUE CONFESSION.

Frozen by the recent cycle
Of all these current events,
I am still and silent
As I revert my mindset
Onto you.

Was it ever really a question
Of where my affection belonged?

Then why does the melody
Sound so wrong now?

/ART.

You look at how I meant to deceive you
And you admitted there
That I was your harmonious blacksmith.

We lied about how okay we were
And we acquainted ourselves
With similar thinking...

I never intended
For this to be so obvious.

/PEARL FISHER.

Our exteriors cracked open
And we pried out the pearls.

The world was built on the backs
Of those meaning to strike it rich.

The lottery is rigged,
And I was never in the loop.

Such a sad state to stare upon it,
As I'm splintered at my spine.

It's never clear where the path diverged
Until you fall off the plain of reason.

I mark my calendar with the date
That I first admitted my thoughts.

I couldn't convey
What I know only in feeling.

/UTOPIA.

Offered up here before me,
Like a sacrificial lamb
To personal salvation,
I must face the demons
I gave way to in the past.

The evils I should have learned from
Now look like philosophic musings
On illuminated manuscripts.

My conscience is void of peace,
And the stress is turning into a disease.

My nervousness exists
Alongside your game of chance,
And I'm not sure if it's a wager
I have the sanity to take.

Luck has never been on my side,
And I know how bad
I can **** this all up
At a moment's notice.

It's encoded in each strand
Of my DNA...

I'm not meant to survive this.

Drove her car into a river just to spite me,

Saw Christmas ornaments among the garbage and proclaimed that signified her life,

Who with no immune system at all contracted every disease around her,

But upon my asking if she was sick announced, "Actually, I'm Alex."

Told me I was less than gallons and was not wrong at all,

But I'm pumping about ten pints of blood in hopes that you'll continue to do the same.

Sprung from forced pleasure
And the repression of my stress,
Half conjured and half spawned did the perfect angel I cannot move past throw me into ecstasy when I gained knowledge of her detail,
How real she truly is.

Weak do I fall,
Curves adorn your lips...
You had no fault,
You were right in catching on to my myriad ulterior motives,
I was only wrong to doubt your abilities.

Where does beauty end,
And where does it begin that I'm filling you in, and you don't have to try?

It's blurred as it's been for months and it's time I realize
That you were only ever as real as you were tonight.

Brianne will save the bees
In crusade and nothing less,
With sun as holy catalyst,
Her mind is clear as Crystal—
Eyes on the hive,
Ears to the future of ice cold pale urgency.

It's all in your hands,
All of the food and each holy blessing.

Vast scale over the east or midwest...
Don't let me keep you from your breadbasket.

The children are going hungry because I can't stop my rambling...

It's all adding up to the fact that I'm halting production.

Where is she, in her impeccable timing and charm?

She's gone to roam the Earth,
And all its great civilizations left to conquer.

She'll sing at the throne to become Empress of African empires

And keep me waiting.

It's shameful to think about the stuff I've cried over recently, and the things I saw of her while intoxicated,
Her beautiful face and the words of a woman who'd grown both petty and sad.

It sounds familiar.
It makes me want you more.
///
Is 1:30 too early to get ****** up?
I have nothing better to do.

Where have you gone,
And have you lost the plot on your journey from Cumberland River to Puget Sound?

I hear you're the Queen of Seattle.

I hear Eastern Kentucky has a long history of intoxication,
Blessed with unbelievable quantities of prodigies and savants.

Shouldn't it be a sign that they all leave?

What would either of us scream tonight,
And why am I so worried about it?
The hypothetical situation I imagine
Is always an argument
Because I keep it realistic.

You wouldn’t come back to make things easier,
Change your ways
Or make up for the past,
But to yell at me one more time
To get thrill that you admitted it gave you.

Because you said you knew I wouldn’t leave,
And you left me wishing that I had.

Closing in on what looks like new
    beginnings.

I'll listen, momentarily, but do the same for
    me, because I'm starting to develop an
    independent sense of worth.

Isn't it a strange occurrence, with this warm
    air, that you told me that the weather
    would never change?

It will change by definition.

We each sell ulterior motives, the prices
    vary, the markup may look sinister, but all
    is considered to pass things along.

Profit isn't your only agenda, or anyone's at  
    all, with the world trying to get ahead, and
    I too... manipulative.

I'd rather not be thinking about your
    shattered mirrors, promises, and
    friendship on the first hours of my  
    adulthood.

The Flowered Bearer told me that livers hold
     importance — I'm inclined to agree.
With that in mind, restrain yourself from
     pouring your toxic filth into me.

Not tonight, at very least.

Were you simply a ghost, walking your way from coast to coast,

Spreading beauty like the sunlight and being the apparition of striking perfection…

Unreal how you made me curious,
But it’s pretty face, brains, gentle inflection,

Same equation as always.

God blessed Colorado when he placed you there, and laid out retribution by way of your departure,

But their lack of fortune is my insomnia ridden insecure daydream.

Because you sat next to me,
You sat in all your undeniable conquest of Eastern Kentucky,

And then vanished back into the crowd.

There were innumerable days
Of waiting on my fortune
To magically change
And for love to seem
As if it does
In all the movies.

But honestly,
That's *******,
And I don't have time
To sit and wait.

It's a losing battle
To honestly hope
That my dream girl
Will rehab again.

I'm done playing games.

I'll walk out the door.

Today,
I grow the spine
You swore I never had,
And reclaim the heart
That I swore would collapse
Without you.

If I have to be the one
To break our promise
So be it.

It's time I started
Being happy
For me.

This is the last time
I will ever write about you.

You've basically won
Since I'm sitting up
Thinking about you.

So horrible to think
I probably did love you.

I was enchanted and I was vulnerable.

You couldn't care.

Well, I'm finally drawing the conclusion
That I'll always care.

I'll always care
If you're hurting in some way.

I'll alway hope you are.

You deserve it.

I'm well beyond the point
Of caring if it's cruel.

I want it to hurt.
I want you to drown.

Get caught beneath
All your self righteous *******
And struggle for air.

I'm begging you.

Get dragged beneath the current.

If these are my last words
I don't want one to be unclear.

You're a *******.

I think you're a cancer
To any decency
That may exist on Earth.

Narcissism wouldn't be the least
Of your many worries
If you cared to reform yourself,
But you don't.

You hold yourself so high.

You are higher than God,
But so numb to reason,
Half as ****** to sanity
And void of mercy.

So get caught beneath the current
Of the blood that my heart
Is pumping without you.

It never needed you anyway.

You said my art was verse,
But I knew my art was you,
It was simple, it didn't rhyme,

It didn't need to.

I spill out my thoughts every night...
I do it to chronicle everything we say to each other,
The tiny interactions that are thawing my heart that I'd rather not forget.

You see, my brain isn't made like yours,
And there are gaps in my past.

Like Michelangelo did carve his marble or Rodin did shape his mass of bronze, I shape my words so I cannot forget these steps that I take,

One by one with you.

I interpreted Rembrandt as Sadness.
I interpreted van Gogh as Suffering.
I interpreted Titian without Sincerity.
I interpret you simply as Love.

You are art, you do not know.

I don't remember all the paintings I've seen,
And if you are to fade along with them, I'd prefer to fade as well.

I want to hear you
Speak in Greek,
For it's the language
In which Aristotle
Tried to formulate tragedy.

Aren't the troubles
We sometimes must endure
More the classical variety
In this age of technology,
Yet the Julian you turn to
Is not the Apostate...

I don't prefer any former residence
That I owned along the rain.
Tribulations will drain our coffers
But I have insurance implanted
By way of teal dream in your eyes,
So I'd like to ask you
To not go looking for pain.

Optimism isn't always wasted time.

I'm bearing down on all that binds us,
And I'd wager we're both cultivating
Our gardens now.

Will you stay up with me
Under the lights of the greenhouse tonight?

Color my eyes in to reflect yours
While you collect your concerns below.

Just don't scavenge the pain out of our fortune,
Like I know you could.

I couldn't bear to hear you speak in Greek
While my heart's on the altar.
Don't you see that I was always
Absolutely a dowry for the taking
And I was tarnished every time?

I never thought that I too
Was worthy of love.

I never knew that there existed
The magnitude you achieve,
Which is why I never want to read
Your magnitude in the context
Of seismologic destruction.

I couldn't bear witness to your holy carnage...
But **** you'd be good at it.
Aeschylus would weep at the fact
That he never wrote it in detail.

You would speak in Greek
With your own added touch.

But it's all in speculation
That I don't want to live to see.

Could I ever write you
A truly holy sonnet
When I was forged
So far from Heaven?

Could you cry for me
While I could gather the teardrops,
With the lone intent
To flood the world again?

Can we ever know purity
Without a little harm?

Must I cleanse the Earth
Of everything
I can no longer care for?

Carly's eyes penetrated Hell
And cast me back
Into sanity again.

I'm standing on my own again
And by only her accord.

Let's make the world
A little smaller...

Whisper to me anything at all
That you could find meaningful enough
To discuss through the cover of darkness.

For the first time in forever,
I'm whole once more.

I'm venturing deeper
Into your enchantment...
This new labyrinth I've found
That I only aim
To immerse myself in deeper
With every setting sun.

I can only hope
To grow like moss
Around your careless daydreams
And take hold of even the smallest bit
Of your brilliant brand of curiosity.

Middle Eastern snake oil turns to Middle Eastern alcohol, and the venom you pour in will flare up your crystal eyes.

Don't lie about your cancer.
Don't tell me you're okay,
Because I know **** well you're not,
And now... I'm sure of it.

I knew you to be serious.
The shadows whispered "Tempest".
I trigger these warnings, and I have to confess that I should have confessed my love in the light glow of that restaurant.

I would scream my love to God,
But now I scream out in the air.

Still, it seems I'll write to thee,
But so blind now, Calliope,
But you knew it was you,
As you led me back into that bag of ***** tricks.

*****, *****,
Mischievous to put it lightly.
Calliope, I know at least a few secrets
That I'd bet you're still hiding,
I get no closure from screaming so loud,
Awaking nature yet no one to hear me.

I want you to scream back.

I am deserving of my Holy Litany now, am I not?
Just look how arrogant I can become
With a few stripes via ballpoint pen.

Strange that I sit here now,
Bathroom early morning of same hotel where you once did think to please me, First Love.

Now you sit in Orient soup shops thinking about your life plans somewhere I do not belong.

Have these three years healed any wounds for you,
And are you the reason at all that I'm scared to fall in love?

I'm running out of trips to Louisville, forgotten friend.

Do either of us now think of beauty on Wednesday night teardrop prelude?

We talk to fill a silent void,
But never more.

It speaks volumes.

Glad to have made contact.

Loved to intertwine within those blue eyes, months before we'd fade with the particles of our memory.

Plato's spirit saw the snow today.

It purified the Earth again, while I was emptying out my stress.

Insurance and assurance were synonymous today.

It's so quiet in the harbor.

The ships stayed in and we all sang choral melodies against the mast.

The air was crisp and so were you.

Perfect atmospheric conditions on the hell-side of Kentucky.

Still so framed as promising
Even as the circumstances have changed.

Universe back in spirals,
Your eyes back in crystal lattice.

There is a particular way that the rain falls, gravity in mind when it does — severe,

When I'm reading rounds in between your lines.

You sit on the throne of the new regime.
Broke the idea the kind to be cruel is true when etched in stone.

De Stijl Darling.
Dutch Babe.

You stage this art-fiend Heaven,
Hypercatalyst blood into reality.

Handful of sudafed,
Your effect is the same,
When we shot through your canopy,
Sun on your hair —
Natural illuminated manuscript.

I hope you've latched on to me.

/LETTERS.

I've been spending
So much time
Writing letters
To the people that we'll be
In the future,
And I've accumulated a pile
Of letters from the past.

When you're writing my letter,
You'll lace the paper
With *******
For all the self destructive
Tendencies
I've been flirting with
Since my infancy.

/REFLECTION

-There is no reason
To burn the letter
I wrote so many times
To the Orchid.

The time for hurt is over.

My first love,
And truthfully my first heartbreak.

So many questions
I could still ask
That I still do not deserve the answer to.

I only regret the times
When our minds were focused
On malicious intent.

-Daisy got her letter
Probably a dozen times,
So there's not much reason
To spell it out.

There's no reason
That things turned bitter.

There's hardly a reason
For our break in communication.

You taught me about longevity
And trust through hardship.

I cried at your castle,
And I fell on your sword.

You broke me.

Your true lesson was solitude.

-For the third girl I could write to,
You're simply not worth my time.

To leave me the way you did,
To consider you my poetic muse
Would be too much of an honor for you.

Don't consider this poetic,
Consider this me clearing up
Any misconception on how I may feel
About you.

You occupied my bed,
And then validated my views
On dishonest devotion...

If you may be wondering,

*******.

-To the girl formed from
The perfect, highly unlikely
Serendipity of the wind and the rain,
Whose beauty makes the northern lights
Look so normal...
You have no idea how much I love you.

I can't tell you how many nights
I've sat up thinking about you,
Or having my heart broken by the idea
Of you,
But I can tell you
That no one on Earth compares
To the way you seem to radiate.

It was an absolute honor
To share the atmosphere you occupy,
No matter how this life might play out.

/RETURN

If you come to forge my letter
And lay it on my deathbed,
Write to the shell of a poet...
Address it to a man
Full of regret
And hoping the future
Will somehow bend to his will.

It's all I have,
And that illusion
Is all I can create.

Mercy was on your mind
When you marched me to the guillotine.

My affection fell short
And our future wasn't good enough...

For you could not love me.

For I cannot blame you.

When I'm looking through the pinholes,
That adorn the ceiling like scars,
And I take a deep breath
To hold it in like the supernova
Of a dying, burning star...

I'll learn how to feel again.

I'll shake off the morphine
That you coated me in
When the curtain came down on our future
When the sun fell black
On St. Crispin's Day.

For you could not love me.

For you are not wrong.

You look upon me
From your high ground,
And you fill me full of spades.

I'm crushed below the amazement you inspire,
And and you're grinding me into dust.

I will cease to be in this enchantment.

For you could not love me,
So I peeled back your veil.

You've grown on me very symbiotically.
You've entered my blood stream.
You've raised my heart rate.
You've shown me a crystal lattice of beauty in your eye sockets.
You've convinced me I'm so much more than the average emotional man.
You've shoved the silver spoon into the jugular vein of the patriarchy.
You've never seen your potential in any mirrored distortion.
You've heard my idea of the conceptual us while I was vulnerable and sitting in your car.
You've become my sentimental 3am worries.
You've taken on all my meanings of wonder.
You've absorbed your fair share of sunlight and in your kindness have shared it with me.

On the crest of the water and looking at the mainland...
God, I hate the beach, so I'm floating in my bathtub.

Cool climate, no sun...
Most importantly:
No sand, no social interaction.

Appreciate the small things and it'll keep you comfortable,
Or at least farther away from anxiety.

I have a looking glass (because sometimes software is a *****) and you really make me want to stay indoors...

But I have two major cities to see in two weeks
And frankly, I have no time to feel bad about you,
Or for myself.

It's time to start floating and breathing above the water,
Because there are no sharks in my bathtub,
But dozens in my shallow mind,
And it's time to drain the pool—
It's appropriately spring cleaning once again.

We are on the path to greatness,
Living now in the full stretch of waiting,
Knowing that something is distinctly different in the shade of our dreams.

How will we lie down and wonder about the human condition with clusters of expensive stars decorating our bodies?

Will the fame change us—

Will I find you buried under your silk and pearls, as you took the pleasantries with you to end your suffering, and the world taking note, being still for a moment.

I hope to never deliver a eulogy on the theme of pale fire that could not sustain,

And I hope to find the means to stay under each other's skin.

Else, there is no point to this deranged endeavor,
And we just as well should be forgotten.

Am I the reason you’re so silent now,
Truth be told and not your version, or mine, of the truth,
Write the same poem again
Or tell me, in truth,
That we’re both worth saving,
That you ran for a good reason.

Will you stay gone forever this time,
And is it any different?

You wouldn’t know how much’ve change I’ve endured,
Or the shape of my beard anymore
Without you to convince me I should shave,

I’m healthier with you here, believe it or not.

I hope you’re safe,
No matter what I wrote.

I wish you’d say hello,
If nothing else.

How do you avoid the trap of a cosmic blonde,
Intellect twirling and coated in subtlety?

Has anyone ever existed in more eloquence,
Perfecting all you care for in heightened precision?

It seems you sleep in the studio,
Next to my mind,
Throwing off the perceptions any on-looker might pull out of your air...

Defenseless, no matter, to get caught in your charm.

At the forefront of this new wave of substantial beauty.

Thinking I'd outgrown this sort of nervous musing on my late nights,

How could I have known I'd fall under any spell so suddenly...

And in my delirium,
I realized it was probably an old expression from a census,
And that I too have an unborn sibling with consciousness surely floating in the ether of what comes after death.

Maybe I will come to collide with what would have been companionship and instinct,
Or maybe I'll meet with oblivion like the dread on the end of a needle,
Quick and not at all as bad as anticipated.

If sin is what bars me from enchantment,
I challenge the legitimacy of our creation by perfect being...

Have we ever considered that God too has made mistakes
In giving us the capabilities of genocide...

They say we are flawed experiments of an immaculate design, in the shape of a flawless creator,

Ruling every instance of ****** as an act of iconoclasm.

Where do the sins ends?

What voice should I let entertain my thoughts tonight?

I've settled on that of unborn souls never guilty of hatred, preconceived bias, elitism.

Tonight, I lend my ears to the innocent
Who will judge me by my merit alone.

What better time to admire the rapid bloom of countless species of flowers I cannot match a name to...

And a few that I can,

But the same land which facilitates our growth has sectioned each plot to keep me away from the plants to which I'd harm.

There's no melody behind parasitism and this pollen isn't treating any of us well anyway,

Yet beauty is so timeless,
So radiant—
Too many questions for the roots that hold you steady.

I.

The road to forgiveness
        is how we will all travel
        through our damaged perception.
The road of our youth-laced mistakes
        began long before Springfield,
        but let us never forget
        that lesson in interaction...
The laughs that would accompany
        our philosophical musings on the order
        by which we all arrive at consciousness,
        regardless of the fact that I would not
        arrive within my allotted time.

I'm more glad than you know
        that apology was even an option.

II.

Unconditional, even.

Burdened now in knowing that I am absolutely
         the beast of sin,
Taking the role of God as I planned to drown  
        the only person I used to run to...
Attacking the "Demon" I've built up in my
        head...

Carly, Carly, I'll just address you directly.

Free now from the paper prison which I vainly
        hoped would absolve me,
Selfishly throwing infants into the fire of tender
        memory,
Throwing down the IEDs, planted all round the
        ballerinas who would listen to my fake  
        stoic cries, mind lined with my own  
        intellectual elitism.

III.

Hypocritical as I read the Sutra in my bed.

Who was I to **** you after we spilled all of  
        that starlight into each other's ears over
        telephone signals?
Who was I to shoot down the look in your eye
        after all the genuine maintenance I made
        under your guise?

"I can't believe you're real"

True with different tone color now.

So thankful you weren't hesitant in returning
        your missiles to the silo.

And now,

Finally...

It is time to live.

Tell me, girl,
That you're coming home,
And that the stars we wished on
Won't be falling
On our heads tonight.

Tell me I'm not meant
To cry my eyes out tonight,
And that tomorrow
Is going be better
Because you'll be coming home...
And back to me.

Sessile and connected,
I'm sat here to ponder—
To draw the parallels
Of my own roots of understanding
And touch, once more, the slumber
Which heartbreak does not send.

We should only gauge our maturity
By the scope of the circumstances.

All things glowing,
Yet all by ourselves.

Landscape void,
Yet setting all but bleak.

You squeeze the hand of love
Sometimes in thinking
You can teach a tighter grip—
Deciding that carpal tunnel syndrome
Is sure to fade...
That writer's claw grips just as tight.

It does not.

The sonnets, I could not recite,
But sighed at the single fact
That it signaled my memory fading,
And so too might all the flowers.

II.

The buds that haven't grown
And won't.

The dark I've both loved inside and cursed,
The central city which accepted the trade for my soul.

All drifting now.
I hope you cannot relate.

You'll recognize it all in waves of belonging.
I'd bet they'll pass us by.

III.

Where has the plot gone?

Slung the ink from well to wall,
Because this Earth is completely canvas,
And all the Earth will feel it with great objectivity.

From cries of heartache
To cries of triumph,
And extremism in both,
And with joy lying off the spectrum,
All to behold.

Nothing moving forward
As we choose to read in lefts and rights
And restrict the privilege
Moving only backward.

Time travel is simple,
Don't you do it with thought?

Restoration to my smile,
Reduced me to dust.

IV.

Not my call and not in fact,
With strong mind to senses
The world was very teal.

Looked, felt,
The aura,
All distinctively teal,
Just as gentle and forgiving.

No mind to the fact that you've done wrong
And been terribly wrong
Toward the center of judgment.

I'd posit the scales
Are already in balance,
And I'd advantage you greatly
On the weight of your hope.

All in harmony,
Yet the water receded.

I must confess, I'm awful at predictions...
But you broke my calendar stone,
Tolled the bell with no rhythm
And never did you discourage it...

Of course I'm guilty,
I've found it in my nature
And I've been worshipping in your temple...

Excommunication carries the feeling of death.

I'm a heavy philosopher when I'm drugged up, I sing The General Specific in bed with the Elf Queen.

How many thousands of times did we make awkward eye contact,
And then receded out of our shells
To both ponder our crises with Sufjan Stevens sad verses falling out from the ceiling.

I've fallen directly in love with life in the nighttime.
///
I'm sure that there was some cloud of fog when I slumped out from your room.
There was a physical haze I was trapped under
Trying to feed you harmony, melody and restore your confidence.

Reading your signals, it says your words don't match the hurting in your eyes,
And that scares me.

In reading the Russian legend of the Snow Maiden,
Doesn't she have to melt in the summer?

It's the delicate balance of nature that ruins any hope I conjure,
But with the temperature dropping below freezing
I'd just as well preserve my happiness
Until I can't control its thawing out
And imminent disintegration.

That, of all things, can wait.

There is a curious case of nature
In how it seems to recede with the winter.

It's all fine and colorful,
Sun washes in,
Feelings are vibrant until life is halted,
All is still and time is waiting.

Guessing in your mysticism,
We were in harmony on that wavelength.

Where has the communication gone?

Do you know it's Christmas time?
Do you know I'm aging
   and in that fashion, feeling my weight in years?
Do I need to remind you my contribution?

Is my fault, my burden now, that I am not the charitable
   entity that I once appeared?

I am tearing at my stitching, I cannot expand my portions.

Cut me some slack,
Ease up on me.

What is this,
I'm not naive,
Or at least as naive as you must think me.

How under my psychotic depression are you painting me
   to your handler this evening?
Am I the next to go?

I know it's approaching Boxing Day, and that fact
   has not once brought me comfort.

This restless spirit is turning into anxiety, I'm scared,
   and you're indifferent.

This is grave, and I'm not blowing this one
   out of the slightest proportion.

This is killing me and I feel so replenished.

Sent me to the cabinet for some overpriced wine,

Bottles upon bottles, for if we can't sleep we might as well celebrate.

But it was martinis in the bathtub, your throat burning, you thought it would drown the fire...

Your legs would cramp for hours after, and there's nothing I can do to help,

It's typical and expected.

What can I dare to now term creative expression, with your flower contortions now causing you such pain?

Yet I've been called an artist, but it was Sugar who was dancing with such grace tonight,

Either by design or intoxication.

You say I’m biding my time
Here, five years behind you.
Well, love, my world has changed
In pitch and season
Fifty times without you.

The time has gotten lost
Along with the details we had in common,

The spaces between struggled conversations at midnight,
Just 9 o’clock for you,
But always the time where we’d exist,
And exist,
And exist as one unit
Terrified to think that we’ll wake up tomorrow
Under a pocket of uncertainty.

Youth is a good excuse
For all these decisions
I keep making.

Apparently,
Rumor has it,
There's a signed permission slip
On the inside of my desk
That's kept there for consent.

You can hardly claim
To know what you want
When you're this early
In your life.

They always said
I take my waking slow
And I'm really
Hibernating on this one.

Big dilemmas...
Ringing church bells,
And the weddings
I thought would be accompanied
By cards
With my name on the inside.

I don't want these
To be the things
I destroyed in my youth.

So let's get drunk on the fact
That we have this golden chance
To ***** up and start all over.

Let's all get drunk
On the beauty of youth.

Slid my hand down the gentle back of memory,
Entering back into the realm of vile yet given consent,
Weighing the risks of tasting the salt on your lips and knowing that it has already bitten me in the ***,
Feeling sick to my stomach for knowing this is the most adrenaline I've had in my life...

And isn't that sad,
But we'll consider that in late night/early morning mid-April, and not now in hotel sensuality.

It's dawning on me early because my hand is cold
En route back and thinking heavy about everything between here and Independence.

Forward three years on and it's all still a mess.