A question mark is our eternal punctuation
Under our initials added up to an undeterminable sum
Green lights were once desirable
But that red was much too fast
Fiction, we're surrounded by fiction
And books are so loud
But we are quiet
And we are real

-c.j.

do not date a girl
who writes.
she will internalize
everything,
carve poems
into your eyelashes
instead of
kissing them,

she will analyze you,
calculate age
from the rings
your coffee cup
leaves
instead of refilling it.

she will memorize
the way your
lips curl around steam,
but not that you
take it
two sugars,
no cream.

she will read your
palm instead of
holding it
against her chest.

she will not
blink
when you leave,
because she is
already
romanticizing it.

There are still bad days.

Days where it’s easy to forget that a world exists outside my bedroom.

Days where the moments in-between each breath feel like an unmapped ocean and no one’s really sure if there’s land on the other side.

Days where I’m not sure if there will be other days.

Days where the calendar smiles coldly and says, “yeah, you wish.”

Days where I’m not always able to keep the fire inside.

Days where I burn.
And get burned.

There are still bad days. And I’ve seen better days. But I’ve also seen days a hell of a lot worst.

So I’ll limp my way through the bad days with a bucket of water for my burning heart and an extra roll of duck tape for my tattered appendages

Because at least now there can be good days.

Days where I can look gravity in the face and stand up straight.

Days where I remember my name. Sometimes I even say it out loud.

Days where I can let the dust settle on the noose.

Days where I remember why I didn’t go quietly.

Days where I can see it.

Days where my eyes wander upwards and the sky almost looks like it did before it fell down on my head.

Days where I pick up the needle and find another part of myself to sew back on.

Days where I think about other days, and what they’ll be like when they get here.

Days that I love.
And am loved.

So yeah, I’ve seen better days, but I’m getting better in the face of the bad days.

Because I don’t lack the vision, it’s the method that I always seem to misplace.

But I think I’ll be able to hold onto it...
one of these days…

Left out in the cold
             in the cold
Left out in the cold
             in the cold

He used to be a fighting man
              in the cold
              in the cold
or in the sands or
              in the cold
              in the cold

in the cold, in the cold
left out in the cold
in the cold, in the cold
left out in the cold