teetering on the edge
of empathy and indifference
i attempt to cradle
my concept of humankind, giving it
sips of water and bites of fruit -- i
want to believe
we are all
more capable than we seem;
our output needs to surpass our ambition
to "do good", for practice
will surely steer
a gilded
and inevitable (im)perfection.

sometimes
i feel angry
simply plainly
contempt for
assumptive people
greed
jealousy
a lack of empathy
i, too,
struggle
but this is
fist against the pillow
swallowing brick-shaped tears
eyes burning
i forgot to
blink
contorted face
a lemon of
a realization
i am trapped
wholly really
unless i choose
to remove myself
from
the equation
i can't
i can't do that
i have so many
more lives to lead
words to cherish
esteems to encompass
and so
i cry
because remaining
willfully ensnared
aches
nonstop

i got high and masturbated until my hands were sore
a midnight breeze wafting through my room, the smell
of incense awash
i thought of you, of course i did, your fingertips
resting gently on my shoulders
kissing my cheek over and over as i turned to an ocean --
it was something in your eyes,
the way i could stare into the pupils until
i thought i could see through to the bits of you
behind your skull; i floated
inward, tugged and pulled, back to the place i was born,
to the place inside my conscience where
everything i've ever known resides.

breathing in the cooled and speckled air, evaporating into the trees above my head - maybe my reality is really my heaven; maybe i'm thousands of light years from myself; maybe i'm here all at once.

there is a place called violet beginnings
beneath the shoulders blades
i breathed upon -- weavings of honey, lavender,
and soil -- gripping my expectations of life like reins;
watery half globes form from my thought of absence
and the feeling of my legs sprinting
through dandelion sweeps
and wind caresses. there is a way
to abandon these memories, to strip yourself
of any lost feeling, a coined exchange
for the desire to find something easier to stomach.
there is a way to render yourself motionless; i
am looking for the ignition.

there is someone inside my head, reminding me of the sacred
lips, eyelash, one pupil slightly larger than the other,
mesmerized by bite-sized working villages
i will shroud you when i can
i’ve felt the irrefutable joy of knowing where to step
and the cigarette in the eye, the ice and defeat
curled hands around my ears, sobbing
for not knowing myself
who among us has not felt this – or rather –
who among us has felt it but denied the time
to reposition
trusting myself to open the door quietly
grabbing anyone’s hand in the dark
i wake up encased in my own sweat
what am i afraid of
what am i afraid of
what am i afraid of

i jump from the buildings in my mind for you
plummeting downward, grazing the air flow
with my knees breathing in to levitate
i swallow delicate poisons, the glistening remnants
of a realized reality coating my teeth
for you i am combing my memories and trying
to be better – the two-way street kind – and
i think i like myself better when i’m with you
and then some, candy kisses in my bedside drawer for later
i crawl through small round windows of faith and forgetting
subtly reaching for the microphone
knowing i’m going to shout about how i love you more
than melting into the dim orb glow of christmas lights
strung above my head / as i floated to sleep
in my grandma’s warm-breeze soaked florida house
my brain waves heave with moment-based flickers
but this all goes without saying.