i want
big, doe eyes
     that you can't take seriously
even when i'm yelling at you
          face red, voice scratchy
at 3am
                      to leave.

i want
soft, wispy hair
       that you'd twirl round and round
telling me you *love me, i'm your baby &
                     eyes red, voice low
at 3am
                           i'd tell you the same.

i want
a nose only fit for pleasance
        that'd allow me to enjoy the roses
you brought to apologize for coming home late
                               hair up, voice hushed
at 3am
                            and not the alcohol on your breath.

i want
featherweight skin
        so when you pull me by your side
there is only a thin layer of cells between our hearts
                            noses turned, voices unheard
at 3am
                               i hug you closer.

i want
a burning ambition to make things work
        that would keep this alive
whatever this may be
                    skin tight, voices livid
at 3am
                    waking up the neighbors.

i want
to be 80 pounds again
         so you would carry me back
when i fall asleep in the car, hand clasped with yours
                             mind on hold, your sweet lullaby
at 3am
                                sending me back to sleep.

oh,
         i'm not trying to be perfect
i just want you to stick around a little longer
                      deep down
i know i can change
                      but the problem is you

could you let me have a thought can you let me have a think
in time for when
your next comment takes me to
the brink
of newly oldened short story chapter
that relentless horizon
continuing like they say it will
but always going with a promise
to break off in unforeseeable ending.

here i am on this dawning chapter and i wish i had the certainty to call it ending
because here on this edge all that i see is that
all my life principles
and rules are breaking and bending

here i am on this dawning chapter in awe
of all the system so quickly gone to dust
in awe of all the people for whom i've lost all trust
in awe of all the sorry looks i got that led me to this edge
and encouraged me to stay.
away
from the truth
i am happier, think
away
is where i don't have to hear anything you say.

so let me grow, let me grow, let me grow
further apart till you finally know
that i don't have to know
how pathetic i'm being
how much more truth you're seeing

because this is the only truth
i'll ever reconcile
and i'm going to stay on this edge
a while.

I can't write anything
    that doesn't sound slightly stupid
            anymore
                    my words haven't kept up
with my maturing. Or so it seems.

         maybe I'm just outgrowing
   the stupid words I used to use to describe
things. but maybe is also another stupid word.

maybe maybe maybe
          the word dances off my tongue. which is totally
(completely) repulsive.
        why should a word
that sits on the top of everyone's
        tongue
               waiting to strike
dance. it's a drug they don't warn you about
     ****** if you use it ****** if you don't.
        
the next best excuse
                     to 'I don't know'-- couldn't tell you how many times
i've held back because i clutched that word
     like it was a part of me.

maybe. here it is again. maybe, I thought that "maybe"
     really was a part of me. it's hard to distance yourself
from something so excruciatingly
     fitting.
there was something about "maybe" that just felt
necessary. as though certainty never stood a chance.

the worst of things being that we were all defined by our cowardice and that we couldn't stand
       the thought of being wrong (not even once.)

nobody  saying anything
with any certainty. they knew how fragile
the world was. none of us were
strong enough to deal with being any shade of WRONG.
we're all too insecure to be throwing around words like that anyways.

no sinking! you said
no sinking! in each other
no sinking! in yourself
take all the water out
and pour it in the cup on our shelf

hold my hand
while i'm listening
tears on my face still glistening
i'm gonna take the water out
i'm gonna bury it now
ditch the old grudge corpses in the sand
get these grim haunt planes to land

don't leave, don't leave, and don't make me beg
i could stand on two feet but only trust a leg
so i'll say it in words i'll say it in art
i need you so much! for this ugly part
and you said okay! don't worry! i'm here! okay!
so i buried the worry in my brain
and the scratching in my heart
i said again: please don't leave / please don't leave
i can't! bear! to do this apart!

and yet i knew in advance of the leave to come
soon you'd walk and later you'd run

so i'd prefer to do this as though it was simple fun
with my eyes closed, here's a gun

now, i can't see but you're still here. i hope
i've got a pail. and i've got some rope
and i'm gonna start taking this water out to cope

and  if you decide to leave then you need to shoot me before
cause with you gone i'm gonna feel ugly dead and more

anyways the water is all out of me now
the water went below me somehow
i wanted to ask you are you proud?
but i felt the vapor rise and i felt the form of a cloud
and i know it's gonna come down now
soon

so now i'm tipping the edge and i'm looking down
looking onto the days when the water was a crown
for every glory day i made it through, not for me but for you
and i'm close but i hold onto your oath
well, i'm not gonna drown
really, i'm not gonna drown
though my own words are heavy
and it's getting hard to hold steady
and the rain's acidic and
the water pooling below me is so ******* brown

these ugly words, let me tell you, it's not that easy shove them down
cause they burn holes in my chest
i wished
that they weren't holes from my head
cause it would've been so much easier to explain the toxicity in my lungs
if i'd been just a smoker instead

and i confused it for a dream to finally be able to step away
because like a dream it was intimate and yet far away

and i'm forgetting already

I looked back at her
it feels tight in my chest it feels
tight in my head

sing to me blue cry to me red
isn't it nicer when we look into not ahead
isn't it nicer when
we hold on instead

or so I said?

before I stretch and hit a hardrock bed
while trying to get that sweet familiarity
in-between
my fingers again

fingers that oughta brush lightly  (but they screech instead)

the nails I have, man, they're thick
and I claw and I claw until I'm sick
of all the hot day cold night fights
who's going to kiss me pretty on the ugly nights
who's gonna help me get high when i'm afraid of heights



I don't want to do this, please
remind me  that I don't

she said you do.
I won't lie, not to me, not to you
and I don't lie (I've never
lied), I've always tried
but I've never lied.
(and that was a lie too)

but she said if we open up any further this
truth is gonna push us black and blue

she said if we open up any further
one of us isn't staying
and it's probably you

and she took a breath and the air was tight again
and i knew for once what she was saying was true

‪SHE GOES AHEAD, TELLS ME SHE DOESNT HATE ME SO I STAND THERE KNEES BUCKLING WISHING I COULD SOMEHOW FACT CHECK EVERY WORD SHE SAYS‬

‪SHE GOES AHEAD AND BRUSHES THE ‬SOLITUDE RIGHT OUT OF MY CHEST HERE SHE IS BREATHING WORDS INTO MY EAR TELLING ME WHAT SOUNDS LIKE MY SLOW REVIVAL.

I AM FILLED WITH IT AND FOR ONCE THE IT BEARS NO GRINCH TO MY HEART'S FLIGHT
DOESNT PROMISE ME AN END TO PAIN BUT PROMISES ME AN END WITHOUT PAIN

SHE GOES AHEAD AND TELLS ME I CAN SEE HER AGAIN AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE IN THE BOOK OF ALL THE STORIES I USED TO TELL MYSELF

SWEAR TO ME I AM PRAYING FOR ME
I AM PRAYING FOR YOU SHE IS BELTING
PANTING
CAPPING ALL THE MORE

I MAKE EYE CONTACT SHE TAKES MY HAND AND LEADS ME TO THE MIDDLE GROUND SHE SAYS HERE THERE ARE NO FIGHTERS HERE THERE IS NO WAR

I FEEL HER STEPS IN MY OWN

HERE I AM GROWN
A PLANT WITH HER WATER, A TREE WITH HER ROOTS

sometimes you ask the right questions
but you still don't get the right answers

and sometimes the right questions escape you
and you find yourself knocking on doors
you didn't want to open

green trees
     green grass
         green light
              (oh)
fast

yellow bricks
      yellow road
           yellow light
               (my)
faster

amber hair
      amber eyes
           amber light
             (God)
too fast

red heart
    red blood
       red light
         (!)
impact

blue lips
     blue skin
          blue bed
           (I)
rush

blurry touch
    blurry eyes
        blurry words
          (love)
sinking

dizzy spell
    dizzy haze
        dizzy thoughts
          (you.)
*falling

A thousand thoughts never said,
A thousand books never read,
Youth exploited by drinks and cigars,
Attention to knowledge seems so sparse.

A thousands thoughts still in my head,
Waiting to be released, freed, and shed,
A thousand books in the bedroom drawer,
Replaced with TV scenes of blood and gore.

A thousand stones left unturned,
Waiting to reap to those who've learned,
A thousand lessons never taught,
Brain cells die and brain cells rot.

A thousand miles set us apart.
Miles of envy, frost, and change of heart.
Like a dog that's been told once too many to go away,
People acknowledge but know not to stray.

there wasn't another day
where i looked here right in the eye
to tell her i loved her

i was so scared of her
being alone in a room with her
was like going into a dark house
and having all the lights turn on at the same time

she was bitter at best, everything mean she said
came out like spit in her mouth,
but i loved it so much because it always
made me see the whole world anew

and i loved her so much,
i just couldn't tell her that
she's not the type to want to hear it
but i'm the type to want to say it
i just couldn't

you understand, don't you?
when you want to do something so bad
when a word is on the tip of your tongue,
when you're about to confess something but you find out
the person isn't so trustworthy,
so you change the subject. pretend to have forgotten
what it is
you're about to say.

i never forgot.
i never forgot what to say.
i loved her, it was always on my mind.
it was terrifying. i would think about something unrelated for
a single second of peace and then back
to remembering her and how much i loved her.
and how much i couldn't say it.

i wish i could end this off saying i told her, that
i caught her by the shoulder and looked
right into her eyes.

but when i finally realized
to say those stupid words
it was too late

i watch her pouring water out my only window
i worry if she hadn't gotten here in time
i would have been gone
i think to myself it must be hard not to drown
in such a funny shaped town

did it work?
I give a useless tug on my skin, done to reassure me
instead it reaffirms to me:

I am, again, inconsolable.

is the mask I wear today sealed on tight? too tight?
does it hurt to pretend so much?

does it seem clear to anyone else that there are loose ends I've yet to tend to? backdoors I've overlooked?
transparencies?    can they see through me?

I bare my teeth. canines, canines from the days of carnivores.
am I that carnivore? in my genes I am.

and in practice?

inconsolable, uncontrollable
barely a threat in her form.

this question comes to me under many guises:
an old man asking me: are you that of practice or are you that of genes?
a professor lecturing: are you that of cultivated identity or that of inherited form?

my concerned friends crying:
who are you?
is your mask anything like you?

and then i wake.
it's a terror turned nightly chorus.
recurring nightmares, doctors offer.

i admit i know the content of my dreams to be unfounded:
in life there are no physical masks that do the jobs my terrors depict.
no veil to hide the contours of each flawed personality, no mask to others, just me, weeping-in-the-bathroom, never-myself me

and those attempted favours to be like one another
i'll be like you so you'll like me
i'll like you because i'm like you

so the body charges on in this society like a mirror
cross your left leg when she crosses her right, fold your arms when she's folded hers, raise your hand to say hello, raise your hand to say goodbye

a kiss on the right cheek, a kiss on the left, one more on the left
this is how you show love and a greeting all at once

fold your arms over each other, this is sympathy, this is greeting, do you take comfort in this too?

so you learn to speak with your arms, and you learn to speak with your legs, and you learn to speak with your face, and you learn to speak with your head.

soon your eyes are apprentices of acquaintances, learning to borrow looks like library books, take on others' stories like they've read them end to end.

so in the middle of this process you learn to effectively say:
i see you, i hear you, i perceive you.

and in these attempted favours, at the end of your night terrors, is the parrot that they want to see. the parrot that you argue, can't really be me.

She said: wait. what are you apologizing for.
I said I'm sorry for the words
and they're never enough to tell you
about the things that I never meant to happen
She cuts me off: everything means too little
to me right now.
I said again let me say I'm sorry for the words
She puts her hand on mine
she said I understand
but if you don't go now
I will.

Look past
this is the farm we drink up

old country charm coming into your eyes are you rubbing out
light from them are you rubbing out
dreams from them

and all the color still forgives
come back when you choose to see them again

cause here the mechanical story
rubs the gears together till
they're good and churn

faster

heavy paper won't float in the wind
or drown in the water
or give me papercuts like
thin paper does

i have never put my trust in a thing as much as i did my moleskin. her heavy paper called me to come clean and divulge within.

heavy paper looks me in the eye and swears to listen
heavy paper's blankness glistens

and won't i hurt her less tonight? give her less truth? give her less feeling? more imagination too?

heaviness, she's more like sturdiness, she doesn't crumple under my weight
she doesn't mind at all
that i don't know how to start a blank slate

she keeps me in her. my stories, my fears, my secrets.
i owe her all my gratitude.

but sometimes
the more she knows the more i remember the more
i need to tear her up to forget

the sun always hung lower in september
        but high stayed the moon
      the tug of war of steady and ready    
that was to precede the fall to come soon

the lower it hung  
the higher it rose
telling me it'll fall soon
like i'll fall, soon

sweet chandelier sun beautiful and rising and painting my sky in her light
thank you for the fight you put up every night
     mixing yolky colors with the darkness ahead
and i stare at you till the sorry in me is dead
    and it feels so good to have sleep in my eyes with you singing to me in fading lullabies  
                    telling me in september
every tomorrow is our own reprise

     but it hung low, i admit
and stifling, too
too low for my own good
and i was holding a sticky sorrow in my hands
knowing about the fall soon

and the days went on with the sun over my head
   with me  trying to  stop  staring over it and ahead
i was done with it i said
   i was done with it

i can't believe i used to
think    it lingered close
because it loved me

the things i'll keep and the things i won't
and the things i'll bury and the things i'll hold
and   the things you see and the things you don't
and the things you wonder and the things you know

the worry you hide and the fear you show
the way things bite      the way life blows
to an  away and beyond
horizon-binding     no more zone to hold my roots to
blowing me far into unknowing
      away and beyond

     the furthest   away and beyond
but my name means near
          so what is here in the away
what is here in the beyond
is my new here

my name means near so
that's what i try to make

when life pushes me again

that's what i try to make

fold far into half the distance. fold far into half.
grieve less. grieve less. i tell myself what
i need and it's to grieve less.

all my comfort is  untold
unfold this concept of near till the space between your fingers says i trust you and the space between your thumb and index is how i don't
i thought i could freeze myself into this
      but instead i'm unfolding
harder now. unfolding all of it
all of my weapons on the table
there it is again that
familiar nothing and you
can't escape this and i can't
stop this
this is the space between your thumb and index but four times bigger again. coming back over again
to make sure it's harder.
to make sure it's harder to go back

good morning from the north coast
where i ran a hurricane through the wash
and hung it up to dry
before i chased a fever down a battered thermostat
to sneak a swap between its truth to my lie

welcome to the north coast
where all the older all the golder
even if it was once nightmare black
we here do have a habit of missing what we lack

where i stretched to touch the morning, to find it so closely out of reach
and did the laundry once more
drowned the daytime dark with bleach

with another voice, seasoned, worn, hurricane-ripped but not tornado-torn
fidget still in my fingers, sore still in my head, still
beginning upon a realization, only further away

drift, so it drifts, the push is a blessing
till sore turns to burn and fidget becomes seizure shake
till all good things worn out with season-anticipated break

and no break is a good break, no efficiency is deficiency, deficiency is lack
lack is no good and no good is evil

and evil is darkness and darkness was meant to be bleached
if all good-really-but-bad-really things could be survived
as lessons but to teach

and how many more? till my voice loses hold again?
till all hope comes loose? cog in the machine and the machine hates itself too?

till chapter begins with over till book reads end

till i found myself another war to tend. till the summer thins and the fall rains begin to pour

once more, it's flooding out my door

and door keeps evil but not from coming in
keeps my own mercilessness trapped deep within

and within leaves room for thought but fall leaves fall

and drown in my admission, or don't bother trying to make it out at all

and delusion is my saviour and delusion is her crown

till all my good promises became people to let down

and i love you my baby, i love you with good will
and good intention. and all the seams i tried to sew

but there was so much more you did not know

I have written about this before. About you.
About you leaving. About you leaving without me.
About you leaving without me and forgetting. About me.
Leaving without me and forgetting me.
I have written this before.

from the very first glimpse of world that greets you every sunday,
                                            tuesday
or perhaps thursday morning
the thought of an ordinary day will not dawn upon you
for every day, to you, will be as good as your first
and as bad as your last
life is your dress rehearsal
and its creatures are your cast

seated at the breakfast table
alone
   with alphabet cereal
swirling in milk
avidly spelling out the names
of all the galaxies
    and daydreaming
of sleeping under the stars

daytime means schooltime
which is synonymous with
underpaid teachers
    and high-pitched gossip
and boys with peach fuzz
who never bothered remembering your name.

the cafeteria is a habitat
which houses many
different species
of human
including the undercover poet
scribbling on a grease-stained
napkin :
the ballad of a sad child.

upon a steady return
to the undercover's residence
three things occur:
      his fountain pen is quenched
          his tears dried
and of course, a bitter realization
that his day had been most banal.

so once again the poet sets off

footsteps patting against textured carpet
   your shaky palms
grabbing layers of soft duvet
  dragging it across the empty floor
through the hallways
  and out the front door

under the stars
   you lay and weep:  safe forever
and fully submerged in the calm of the night

forever is not a lifetime
it seems
but the time it takes
for the sun to win over the moon
in a fight

i wish i could bring you back
to the form that you once held
as it fit so nicely
into my head

but instead, i find you now
in the the form you take

and i look at you
and i see familiarity
faded by the years, faded by the hurt
faded by the ridge growing between us...

and i begin to wonder if i would care to lose you
and i know just by the fact that i am engaging in this
once-absurd, now-regular line of questioning
that i have lost you

and i check in with myself at this point... if i care about what is happening?
but it is too much like hearing a dial tone

and feeling no urge to call back.

soon i said we'll be on our way
and soon you said we'll forget today. forget the way
soft-spoken half-hearted things started to mean more when they poured
out into the open air that was between us and all of a sudden we found ourselves waiting on
    the next july-day friday
when we'll be under the same summer bright
light in my eye soft skin this one bruises easy this one burns fast but
we spend enough time dreaming to make it last
dreaming back and in and out again
       soon to remember and later to forget and i'm praying july
finishes with rain and i'm praying august is a full-blown hurricane and
i'm hoping in september you'd still know my name and i'm hoping
october is not too cool for us to be cool with each other.
but so long after these dreams i cling to knowing this story
like it is part of a past i can change

being born again
every night
   his hands laced through
to the ends of mine
                    he's

being born again
         asking me what happens every night
       if it happens every  night
yes, every night
you're gone every night

i love you
but you've gone every night
          
he's being born again
and i'm sinking into dreampools of him telling me everything is fine
he says:
you're alright
he says:
we're alright

he says bury your face in mine
        bury your worries, it's fine
he says        i can't hold you forever
      but right now please can you please
let's just forget about stupid time

and again and again and again
i hold him like a summer love that bleeds and cracks
    and scabs

being born again
looking at each other trying not to cry
                            and here i am drowning
in thinking in feeling
oh how i wish i could hurt the night
how i wish i could hurt the night
        and how i wish i could hurt the morning

all of it in all its lying sunny glory
taking me and giving me a sick sad sob story

being born again
he's whispering
'tell me about your night'
being born again
'tell me about your night'
being born again

tonight there's only knuckles
tonight there's only jaws locking
before fights

but we'll never get to the fight
because i know you more every night
and you'll slip away again like you do every night

are you sure we're alright?
he says:
it's alright,
you're alright

then he's gone again
like every night

then he's born again
back again
with me again

he's asking
every night?
i'm trying to breathe—

yes.

every night.

she looked at me and I could tell
it got harder for her to breathe thinking
about what she was about to say before
she just closed her eyes and took the deepest breath and said
please
if there's ever a thing that you do     that isn't about being on a whim
or getting your thoughts away from him
        then let it be that you are the you that you are in that second
for longer than a second

   she put her hand out and laid it on my cheek
she said please, i know you don't like this
        but just hold still
she said hold still
because there's holes in me that i've been absolutely dying to ask you to fill
          and it's not that you gave me nothing it's more that i've been
trying to paint a picture of you     but i can't
       even decide what you look like
      because light seems to fall on you differently every time

she said you're mad at me
     but i don't care
    i'm still trying to memorize the little things you've told me
still here holding pieces of you that you swore
         would be in my hands temporarily
you should know
i'm used to the weight now and
i don't want you to take them back
because i'm going to be so empty without them

and honestly
after the pieces
my hands got stronger
and i want to be this strong     forever.

please don't change me and
then leave.

you say the problem
is I am ground zero
   I am the Earth's surface closest to the detonation
you say the problem is
I am ground zero
    and the Earth is at war.

I kept trying to tell you
I was made to feel.
everything on this Earth that exists without a purpose
all the ethereal
that was made for me.
    and I am made to feel.

and I feel those things.

but she doesn't care she says
what are you hiding

stop, i'm not,
just trying
    i'm trying to forget

now she's screaming

why are you behind
why aren't you keeping
yourself here
why are you always drifting
why is there so much fog around you
why is there so much fog around you

stop crying i'm so sorry

because I am feeling so much
all the time
and I am drowning in myself
and i just want to know how come it always ends up with
me on the floor sinking.

of every mistake of
every person on this Earth
and they are all
causing me SO MUCH
I don't know which one did it to me first

how many names do you have for frustration?
how many names do you have for frustration?

if it makes you happy, i'll have none.

okay okay I'll
**** it up and say
I'm calling you again
hoping you'd pick up because
all I'm ever asking you to do is to
to take all these pieces of
me and reconstruct them into something
that makes sense to us.

it already makes sense to you

You think it makes sense to me?
which part of it?
   why i'm thinking about
these things all the time
why i'm losing myself in my own mind
why i'm trying to get  back
          into what i'm trying to leave behind
why i can't admit to habit
but i can admit to loving some of that kind?

i'm still salvaging
nothing's changed
i'm still salvaging dollops of conversations we've not yet had
this is a continuation
of the love I used to feel.
it doesn't mean it wasn't
real
it's just not
here.

so you expect me to feel better?

then where were you when I was trying to convince myself that I'm too busy thinking to feel?
that I'm too busy feeling to think?
and which is worse? i'm asking you, but you're dreaming now, aren't you/

                   It's okay.
but do you keep wondering whether it's worse that these feelings don't come from me
               that they come from you and everyone else on this Earth setting off a million things all at once
clawing at earth
pulling apart at earth
     pulling apart at earth
the earth of the Earth that's always tried so hard to be my ground
and yet you all break it
      and expect me not to fall in cracks
that I promise you I tried to
fill with
everything you wanted me to fill with but
I was never a builder. I was never
able to fix anything
more than I was able to stare at it
with a longingness that never served me any good.
then yes
but now my thinking session is over- you're awake again"
you say
I am ground zero
and everyone is
going through
the same war over and over
and I'm so sorry I'm so sorry to say this
but can't you just get out?

and
that was two months ago
now you're whispering
you're caught in yourself, you're caught in yourself, you're caught in yourself
so I can't help you
caught in everything around you but
mostly caught in yourself
and crashing into waves
that are so intent on crashing back into you

always letting go of things you know will
come back for you
and pulling at moons and watching them float past you
and betting on games
and losing those, too

and even after all that
she takes my hand and says
*you're going to lose me too

horror stories muffled by pillow forts and blankets that stretch across the
vast of my beloved
room.

in hiding--
your young skin
    is shielded
  by a lonely
shadow dancing
with sunlight.

the room's symphony plays on as
a crescendo of
soft laughter
and light footsteps
cues in.

magazines     sprawled on
the carpeted-floor
jennifers & ashleys
glamorously sporting
shiny hair.

away messages
are synonymous
to x's and hearts
bordering
your
besties' names.

and these are the best
years of your life
but it just feels like dirt
to your name
being young
gets old.

mobiles in purses
strapped to your chest
"I HEART NY" keychains
dangling by the locket
that frames your blurry
picture of
him.

you feel so important
surrounded by friends
and people who
shower you with
lots of
cheap love.

you don't care
about what you don't know
and it's easy
living
when all you're living
is the lie of happiness.

incoherence, cold spoons, feeding myself off pieces of myself lodged acutely on the tip of my brain's tenderest sense

i don't have time to cope, i tell everyone
but i do make time on my own to mourn
to cry for the lost memory i used to play again and again
with obsession, with burning resolve
till every nook felt rummaged and every crack felt filled

i call it futile
because today i only remember playing it over and over again
and yet not a clue what "it" is

falling into stars, arms
they look like stars when i'm like this
they feel like bars when i'm like this
hanging onto to the ridges
like your edges are bridges
can you tell
i'm wishing upon this

so i'm desperate, and i'm pathetic, and i'm strong, and i'm a fighter
and i'm weak in my place
but i'll crawl and i'll crawl if it's gonna help me save face
and to say it finally, that i need a retreat
from this wavering woven-reality-illusion intersection is bittersweet
cause i love my broken home
called gilded illusion
but i hate my broken home
called burdensome conclusion
and i know there's a fire inside but i wanna knock on this door and say i'm home
and i don't wanna be living in thoughts alone

but burdensome conclusion hear me come hear me speak
why yes these burdens are here, safe arrived, i'm a burden, i'm a burden to be bore
i'll need a little safety security rock hard solid promise yes
and if you have some then i'll need a little more
and i'm gonna lay my head on some starry shoulder
wanna move this ugly reality boulder
just to feel the intoxication of peace again

dangling from these happy heights
no more reality centered "this isn't real" and "i can't feel to feel sorry" fights
i am sick and tired
i am sick and tired
that these loose strands want me so badly tangled in reality

so i'm going to force my hands back into my illusion once again
you know if you were a page then this time i'm gonna hang tight to the pen
feel myself trying to hold onto this chapter of the book i left lying open

thinking well, i didn't need some spells unbroken
thinking well, you ain't going to leave details like those unspoken
thinking i had been literate all my life
before i met the people whose minds were sharper than a knife

and they cut into me and i felt transition from want to need
i felt so sure that the book i was writing was one i wanted to read
until i started to bleed and bleed

and security wasn't just a blanket or a dream
it was
what i needed from now on

No, you don't know
what it feels like for me
to sink in water
because water is easy enough to tread in/
or so you say.

And how much
farther on a limp do I have to go
before you tell me
it's not too far
from here now.

I said hold me
I'm sinking
and you kept
trying to teach me to swim

hold me
I'm sinking
stop
teaching
stop
teaching
I'm sinking
I'm sinking

i began to lose myself very much like a thunderstorm
that wasn't in the forecast
that came unannounced
but in hindsight, all the people around it would say
"we were due one anyway"

i saw myself in the sudden downpour, in the grayness that
so quickly consumed the atmosphere

i saw myself in the headaches that came as the pressure dropped
in the ache of pre-emptively, and unconsciously adjusting to imminent change, even in the moments before it seems to show up

when the wind of change reaches us, it is how we brace ourselves before we even feel it, that knocks us down first

i saw myself in weary window watching. i saw myself in changes of plans. i saw myself in interrupted growth, in uprootedness, in the disheveled and crooked sprouts that i call attempts for stability.

i saw myself in the rush of people scrambling for shelter
trying to get out of the misery of having their clothes wet

mostly, i saw myself in the panic with which they scatter, in all directions
and i see myself, too, in the people who couldn't get out in time

nowadays, i resign myself as a passive recipient to the storm before it begins. i will likely get caught in it, and i accept that fate for myself now

when i found myself one morning gazing upon the city, noting
the lack of gray clouds, thinking i had found myself a respite in the
middle of the rainiest season i'd ever had

i would feel a sense of longing, for days when i could enjoy them for the fact that they are so beautiful, rather than the fact that they represent a brief culmination to the most recent torrent of storms.

when the leaves started to lose their colour
this year
i felt a sense of softness for them. because they seem to hang on so much better through so many kinds of weather. and they turn all the same.

perhaps i believed my resistance and my surrendering could never go hand in hand. but i see myself when i see change now

and i am turning all the same.

you think i don't know
         how much
         you want
             to be
            small
              thin
              (air)

oh, ­                   darling
but                     i do
i        want         you
(almost)          (nearly)
just as              much

              i
            want
            you
           with
           all the
           fibers
           of my
           bones

you                       say
you  want             to  
be        pretty  for me    
be                     skinny          
for me           strong
for                        me

i                        sa­w        
you  waste      away
from      flesh     to  
skin          to bones
to air         then no-
thing             at all

i want you to feel
ha-
ppy
but you aren't happy
till
you
aren't you anymore

i begged you to stop
but you               just
brushed           me  off
you were too far in
and              too far
gone           a hopeless
case               of sorts

it followed me around
like a rumor
until one day, lost its wings
fell into a ditch
and i looked down upon it
eye-to-eye, with its lifeless face
and i could not face it with the same bitterness i had for it
this whole time


i picked up some dirt
and rubbed it on my hands
and let traces of me mixed into the dirt fall onto it
in a way i could not let it go,
at my wit's end, or a dead-end

and even i could see that there was no use pretending we were not intertwined, from life to death

gripping times they were;
when they held me in the palm of the hour
i felt time wave me over
as i planned to pass it by.

we surfed here
      surfed to
and from
and away
like our seconds were endless
and certainly independent of day

to please myself i try to remember time in my palm than me in its.
cause its clutch sure killed me first in my wits
but i always feel that fake shell i have around this
construct crack little by little
when the staleness of my illusion starts to go brittle.

as i sleep soft nights away and outlive the hard days
dwelling on a stack of banal chores
too convinced as it is that humans are a face and life its pores

too desperate to be filled? wishing to be killed? (made for it, too.)
to cut off time, which so readily breaks.
to give more of it up, which the universe so readily takes.
till we cut it off till we reach the end of more
till we finally stop waking up from this forever chore

when we let these days go we do pretending they're wholly ours
and when we let seconds go we do pretending they're holy hours;
you give me a minute back of my time... sometimes sixty, too.
with every two seasons you say spring forward
with every two seasons you say fall backwards

is it what i know to be partial devour
when zones don't change the seconds but they change the hour

    then we stand ourselves only as we fill ourselves to the brink, till false fulfillment come
in the color of root in the color of frond
in the color of favored relationship and forced-on bond
when the grey colored it all a different picture
when we combined optimism with realism in strange hazy mixture
when we drunk till numbness permeated bone
when we drunk till white noise recaptured all pitch and tone
till the fastest hour passed till the
slowest hour swallowed
and till we fell deep into this
aging hollow

today it is love that i have redrafted
today it is a feeling that i have re-envisioned
and let myself for the first time to feel and fill

today it is slowly filling inkwells, going backwards somehow
to refill, to have voice once more

today it is being enveloped, today it is being postmarked
today it is being posted
and let so gently go

puddles in parquet
litres and litres of substance
over substance

the pail in the corner of my bedroom
collecting
collector
ask it what it keeps

it keeps the warm hope coming
in through the holes in the roof

it keeps it like rainwater

and i always dream of hope
filling the bucket so heavily
it overflows off the sides

i. worry;
buries itself deep beneath my bones
  sends shudders down my throat
plants a cluster of
        mines on the tips of my feet

ii. fear;
lingers longer than i would like
    beams and shines with a blinding light
manifests itself in the
         otherwise empty hollows of my soul

iii. change;
stands outside my curtained windows
  challenges the way i think and act
threatens to intrude at
             the most unexpected of times

spiral days running around more spiral days
we sit crosslegged, barefoot in that circle to
carefree blaze and look to each other to
find our own happy place
lost in that intensity haze
all of us so good in our blissful laze

don't start counting these numbered summer days

cause we're still basking in the sun
we're still holding onto our gun
we still don't need no one
in our blissful laze, in those spiral days,
yeah we're still clinging to our
shading ways, those pretty shading
ways we used to count the lemon streaks
in each other's hair
to fight the summer sun against the spring's in heated compare

those pretty shading ways i got a call and a compliment in
and if this was a door then yes i'm gonna go in

good, they're finally meeting
that squint in your eyes is agreeing to the greeting
yes say aye to aye, eye to eye, eyes to eyes
God, it's lovely, yes, it's a lovely surprise

and you look so hard at me before you finally say
i love the way i love the way
your eyes droop
like a palm that could form a fruit

you're weird, you know
yes i know, yes i know

don't you worry you say
i love the shimmer i love the glow

and your eyes are perfect mirrors
color pouring    all the sourness clear if there was any
all the sweetness clear if there was any
all the bitterness clear if there was any
and when i looked at you back with that face you knew what i knew
and so thank you

things in our blood things in our skin
poor vein's discarded oxygen
here you are superficial, artificial
on the surface creep
but the rumor's that you also come in deep

you say you know pain
i have never known before
what do you know about it?

i tell you what i know
about my own pain
when it is sitting with us

between the spaces of our fingers
between where you stand and i
shift

between my mattress and my bed
my pillow and my head
between the flickers of the light bulb
and the flick of a switch

the spaces you start to think you are better off filling
because at least you'll know what you're filling it with

instead of this enemy you cannot declare persona non grata
to ban it you have to know it
and to know it would be even more pain

like those viruses that trick your immunity
over and over again

you take a shot, you try to help your body recognize it, you get a response
you think you've had its disguise all figured out
until they shape shift again

so you say i know shape shifting pain
so i'm sure you know a pain that cannot hold still
that cannot get its fill
that gnaws and claws
subtly enough that
no one believes you even have pain

you say you know pain
but you don't know a pain that does not qualify, justify, speak for itself
you know a pain with a name you can grab off the shelf
you know pain that society boxes as a grievance, or a loss,
or a disability, an inability, or just don't come to work the next day!

i'll call and i'll get your tone.
but i think you'll find
my pain is the kind of pain that i cannot say over the phone.

I think too much
you said that, right?
I think too much, I feel too much
I am too much?
is it the excessive pull,
or the half-hearted tug
that starts to bug you first?

is it all the push, baby? is it
all the push?
cause i know when you ask me
plain and simple
it comes out tangled and wrong

so you say // what do you want
well, i want fair and square
but then i want to
spin you in circles
to learn my way around

you pull tighter to my hand
closeness. dizzy. closeness here closeness now. i miss it.
do YOU miss it.

God I miss it I miss you
I miss this

then you say I'm making you dizzy
always keeping that knife close around
but you hold me in those moments like i want you to.

he said:
you are the type to turn to an empty crowd  and scream
         you are my people.
look them in the eye you would and
scream YOU are my people.
and i just wonder, man, do you see people there? in the emptiness? what do you see that makes you say those things?
or is the emptiness your people. do you see people.

it's long before he asks again
please baby do you
do you
do you
do you

YES my God. YES
yes yes yes YES i see people.
in people i see the empty.
and in the empty i see people.
and here i have to turn to them to tell them
when they most feel like they don't belong
that they are my people. and with me in my
soul they are always home. and though i am weak
and i can't carry the world i can
carry these people.

you and me have our own sense of time
a night is the day's wait to turn it all off

You never told me what you thought about me, you were always scared of reducing these feelings into words.
I never knew what you thought about me, I was always scared of knowing those feelings you say are bigger than words.

i wish i fought you
harder
i wish i fought you
smarter
i wish i fought you i wish
i fought you i wish
i said things that carried us away
to the battlefield it felt like we were already on

it's been a while since I had it in me to stop talking to someone like this
probably things stopped making sense, and that's what makes sense now
I know it seems abrupt but I'm finding other things more disjointed than that
Like there's a space between what I expect to find when I turn to look at it
and what I actually find staring at me back
and I'm uncomfortable, I'm really really uneasy, but it feels easy to
call it home and be done with it. But people remind me
how good it is to forget. Funny how they think, that forgetting is escaping
when history repeats itself and I'm going to
be shocked again and I don't want to do that anymore.

before i roll on my back and say
do you miss it already
the quiet and the empty
the light without the heavy
the move without the levy
are we going to ever go back

she leaves me alone and like this i learn where to go