We cannot write silence.
The beats.
The pause.
The breath.
The way it aches
and persists

and begs that,

if only for a moment,

our consciousness is only a whisper.
our bodies,
our lips,
the air that passes through falling chests
and stillness.

A melody of emotion.
Sleeping in the quiet of a heartbeat skipped
a word lost to the wind.

The wickedness of reticence
Encapsulated in air and time.

The moment stretched too long.
Hesitation perpetuated in the grip of fingernails
pressed into palms.

We cannot write silence,
but we can try.

to find a way to immortalize emotion
to create space
in the ceaseless drone of words that speak and spin.

I cannot write silence. But I can write
tears and years
and the burn of long-stretched lies.

I can write goodbyes and hellos
And dozen ways to say
I love to hate you
Or
I hate to love you
and sometimes
I cannot tell the difference.
Silence.
The space I have upheld for myself.

I love to hate you
Heart.

I hate to love you too.

I cannot write silence.
But I know it.
and I have held it in my hand.

he avoids me as he strolls
through the double doors
of the empty hills mansion.

the home was not a home.
rather, a skeleton;
a naked vessel holding nothing,
but a half beating heart

our eyes don’t meet for hours.
you dance in bathrooms with
girls names you can’t recall.

you’ve got candy in your pocket.
it’s burning through your jeans,
crystallizing at the back of your throat,
and eating away your brain.

hi,i’m me, you’re you.
you intro yourself with your half-bitten
charm, and sweet eyes that are ringed
with sadness.

i fell in love with you then.
the brokenness was something i thought i would bend.
instead i found myself breaking,
in order to fix you.

The poet lives two lives.
One on the outside,
And one in their mind.

When you look in their eyes
You could see an abyss.

If you looked long enough
You could sink into it.

But most people don’t see it.

Take the time to read the words, though,
And you would know for sure.

The poet lives in two different worlds.

You have written your name
in the sands of my heart.
I could no more forget you
than I could to breathe.