I sleep on white bed sheets
with the windows open
so the breeze can brush my face
and the rain can fall on my lips.
I sleep in the gray half-light that
washes the color from my walls.

My skin is bare, fingers tangled in
the blankets, hair drying in the
same air that dries the dew
off of the leaves.

Get drunk on dreams
crumple the sheets
ice packs and underwear
poetry, bracelets, books.

I sleep with tearstained cheeks
swollen eyes and a runny nose
and bite marks in my mouth.
I sleep with a heavy heart
and fingertips on fire.

Dizzy, fuzzy eyesight
and fantastic scenarios
played out like film in my head.

I sleep in the warmest
and coldest room of my house.
I sleep under quilts and blankets
curled up against the cold,
and I sleep naked
with the air warm against my skin.

I always sleep with a book
at my bedside
and the drapes opened
so I can see the stars.

I sleep through sunsets and sunrises
and lightning that cracks open the sky.
I sleep through delicate snowstorms
and hazy summer smoke.

I sleep by myself
and I seize the quiet
as a moment of my own,
not shared
not secret.

I sleep for life and rebirth
and tranquility,
for peace and second chances.
I sleep for mornings.

Dear *******,
How dare you call me an attention *****?
How dare you tell me you understand?
Tell me,
Do you know what it’s like to look at your reflection,
And turn the other way, ashamed?
Do you know what it’s like,
To know you’re you,
Down to the last hair,
And hate yourself for it?
To stare at yourself, to look into your own eyes, to try to convince yourself that it’s fine, but in actuality it’s a cover that you’ve learned to wear everywhere, that you’ve learned to love, because when you’re in it nobody knows?
Do you know what it’s like to walk everywhere, terrified, because you feel people looking at you like you have a giant sign that reads “DEPRESSED ANXIETY FAT UGLY NEVER ENOUGH SO KEEP WALKING”?
Tell me, do you know what it’s like to look in the mirror, force upon your face a smile, knowing it’s a mask that’s been permanently glued to you by your own tears that could never show?
No, you don’t know what it’s like to wipe away your smudged makeup that you’ve worked so ******* to cover up your tearstained eyes, your cuts.
To apply a new coat, to paint on a smile that’s only real in dreams.
You know, they say dreams come true but forget that nightmares are dreams too.
They tell you the monsters are under your bed when they actually scream in your head.
You don’t know what it’s like to feel lonely in a crowd, to know you’re not wanted.
To hold and rock yourself because there’s no one else to.
To realize that you’re all you have and doing your best to hide anyway,
Do you know what it’s like to want to die?
No.
You don’t and you never will.
But I do.
You don’t know me, or what I’ve been through.
So don’t ******* judge me for it.
Sincerely,
Me

I think I started writing you away before you were gone
I wanted to make sure I could let you go before I did
I wanted to feel numb when I pushed you away
so I wrote
I put you on pages,
typed chapter titles for every single time you looked at me
I wrote until you were a novel,
read you until you were no longer novel,
and put you on a shelf so I could start waiting to forget about you,
a memory trapped in unused synapses

and after I shut your final chapter
but before your pages had started to collect dust,
I realized what I had done
See, I had taken each word from within me,
harvested my heartstrings, plucking them and mixing them to make ink,
The pieces of you I kept in my heart
sat as words on a page, aging
while my heart, once strong, felt too empty
and cavernous to beat under the weight of the sigh pinning down my chest

In all of my preparing
I had forgotten that I am human

I forgot feelings aren't like a fountain
there's no faucet you can turn off to keep them from
running through your mind
no way to stop them from flowing
back through your mouth when you try to
swallow them, mixed with ***, in your best friend's basement,
days after you forgot that you can't turn off a rainstorm
you can try to catch the raindrops in a bucket
but the bucket you'll need is big enough to drown in
you can try to hold out an umbrella
but if the wind is hard enough
you're still going to end up cold and dripping,
tearstained and shivering
waiting until the sun comes out

I forgot that I can't control the weather,
or anything other than myself for that matter
The end of a storm doesn't equate to the appearance of a rainbow

I realized that just because my fingers twisted around yours until
they melted together doesn't mean you'll forgive me
and that you left tattoos on me that only time will fade
and we're both going to be mad
I found out that
every song that ever reminded me of you doesn't cease to exist
I have to re-watch movies because they're different now, somehow,
and just because my hair is probably still all over your clothes
and I talked to you every day
and you gave me months of memories
and thinking about you is gut-wrenching
doesn't mean that I won't spend days praying for patience
and hoping for healing because
***** it, letting you go doesn't mean I don't miss you

Little child, be not afraid
The rain pounds harsh against the glass
Like an unwanted stranger
There is no danger
I am here tonight

Little child
Be not afraid
Though thunder explodes
And lightning flash
Illuminates your tearstained face
I am here tonight

And someday you'll know
That nature is so
This same rain that draws you near me
Falls on rivers and land
And forests and sand
Makes the beautiful world that you see
In the morning

Little child
Be not afraid
The storm clouds mask your beloved moon
And its candlelight beams
Still keep pleasant dreams
I am here tonight

Little child
Be not afraid
The wind makes creatures of our trees
And the branches to hands
They're not real, understand
And I am here tonight

And someday you'll know
That nature is so
This same rain that draws you near me
Falls on rivers and land
And forest and sand
Makes the beautiful world that you see
In the morning

For you know, once even I
Was a little child
And I was afraid
But a gentle someone always came
To dry all my tears
Trade sweet sleep the fears
And to give a kiss goodnight

Well, now I am grown
And these years have shown
Rain's a part of how life goes
But it's dark and it's late
So I'll hold you and wait
'til your frightened eyes do close

And I hope that you'll know
That nature is so
This same rain that draws you near me
Falls on rivers and land
And forests and sand
Makes the beautiful world that you see
In the morning

Everything's fine in the morning
The rain will be gone in the morning
But I'll still be here in the morning

Down through the tomb's inward arch
He has shouldered out into Limbo
to gather them, dazed, from dreamless slumber:
the merciful dead, the prophets,
the innocents just His own age and those
unnumbered others waiting here
unaware, in an endless void He is ending
now, stooping to tug at their hands,
to pull them from their sarcophagi,
dazzled, almost unwilling. Didmas,
neighbor in death, Golgotha dust
still streaked on the dried sweat of his body
no one had washed and anointed, is here,
for sequence is not known in Limbo;
the promise, given from cross to cross
at noon, arches beyond sunset and dawn.
All these He will swiftly lead
to the Paradise road: they are safe.
That done, there must take place that struggle
no human presumes to picture:
living, dying, descending to rescue the just
from shadow, were lesser travails
than this: to break
through earth and stone of the faithless world
back to the cold sepulchre, tearstained
stifling shroud; to break from them
back into breath and heartbeat, and walk
the world again, closed into days and weeks again,
wounds of His anguish open, and Spirit
streaming through every cell of flesh
so that if mortal sight could bear
to perceive it, it would be seen
His mortal flesh was lit from within, now,
and aching for home. He must return,
first, in Divine patience, and know
hunger again, and give
to humble friends the joy
of giving Him food--fish and a honeycomb.

If she asks you
If she asks you who I am, tell her. Tell her
because she is not starting a fire for an explanation but a confession.

If you tell her I was just a girl you dated
for a couple of years, she will only give you a hard time.
The hundreds of photos tagged in your outdated profile and the stack
of books with our names written will be her allies.

If you tell her I was an old friend, she will only hear
half of what you say. She will recall how you looked at places
with a tinge of regret and a shade of nostalgia. She will remember
how you skipped a certain song ― a reminder of something you’ll find an excuse
not to tell her every time the car radio is on.

If she asks you who I was, lie a little,
because she is not crossing the line for answers but for assurances.

Don’t tell her how our lips played with poetry and how we dared
to dream under the light of the taciturn satellite. Skip the part where we
fought dragons together and how we named each other’s scars.

Reserve the fact that you still keep the letters, notes, old restaurant receipts under
your drawers and some tearstained thoughts at the back of your pillow. She doesn’t need to know
why you reread past conversations or why your mother mentioned me at the family dining table
just to ask you what I have been up to.

Finally, if she asks you who I was to you, tell her you love her. Put her in the limelight
because she is testing you to pull the trigger pointed at her

But you won’t. Instead, you will tell her she’s beautiful to compensate
for the words you never had the guts to tell me. You will tell her she’s a keeper, for the hell of it.
You will tell her a poor research about human cells being replaced after seven years so that one day,
I will leave no trace on your body.

She will then forget that you mentioned my name while sleeping. She will wash the lipstick stains
on your bedsheets and remove the extra toothbrush in the shower. She will ignore the way you twitch
every time you hear a familiar author or my favorite curse word. She will fill the spaces
of your fingers and plaster kisses at the holes of your chest. She will replace every scent of me
with her own promises, insecurities, and mistakes.

She will do this. She will, because when she asked you about me,
she knew I was the ghost of the house. And at the back of your head, you wanted to tell her
that the ****** no longer need saving. But by all means,
darling, she can try.

—

A. A. Dizon

Life is like a random array of perfectly sculpted moments.
I stood in a moment of silence reminiscing to the tune of the wind, in the glimmer of the lights in the distance.
My life, is like a photo album of assorted moments :
The first time I met my best friend ; the half afraid,lost baby gazelle look she gave me.
The first time she cried, that big eyed girl.... Tear and kohl stained cheeks, embarrassed eyes and my hushed tone : this too shall pass.
The unexpected confession of a shy person in a soft voice : I had to stalk you a bit for this, she sketched a portrait of me for my birthday.
The awkward hug and we will see you soon, I can still remember my grandpas face red and holding back tears.
The bear-like side hug and a kiss on my forehead, it was an understanding from the older brother that I never had, thank you for meeting me.
The drunken slurry "you know more than most do" from the friend who isn't a friend anymore.
The feeble hug, lingering soft fingers and a goodbye promise to meet soon, from the grandmother I miss a lot.
Those wide eyes,the feeling of respect from the sister who means the world to me.
The all-too-soft goodnight kiss from a mother on a particularly bad night, she stroked my hair an said that she loved me.
And the pat on the back and a tearstained hug , the words "I am proud of you" from the father who is the centre of my world.

People have aesthetic childhoods.
With parents that understand and cuddle them when lightning strikes.
I remember the teddy bears in my bed,
and how they smelt of mum and dad,
how I would hold Odettes ear with my finger and thumb,
my head ducked under cover in fear of an alien tickling my toes.
But now the teddies are placed high up on a shelf
away from me, out of reach.

When I realise the ear isn't in my hands,
I look around and see the dust at my feet,l like I'm down at the bottom,
I look up,
my family are at the top
and the red cord of family love bounding us together is thin, and I fear we are soon to have a disconnect again,
When I make it to the third or fourth level
I see their faces grinning with pride
at their daughter succeeding and waking up before noon,
and I say something funny to lighten the mood,
but I tumble lower by one or two
depending on how fake the laugh I hear was.

I sit in the gravel and wonder.
I don't understand why I can't touch them anymore because I'm like my mum,
we're both alike,
and I'm like my dad,
we're also alike,
but I feel lost on a planet when I meet their eyes,
like I'm somewhere I shouldn't be,
I wallow in the dust for days, until I feel
them prodding me with a stick from the top shelf,
asking me when I'll finally reach the top.
Telling me that I'm seventeen now and that I used to be on the sixth shelf when I was sixteen.
How I used to do so well with my homework,
and I would get great grades,
but now I get dark stains around my eyes,
and a tearstained face,
but from their great  height, they can't see my shoulders shaking,
they just see me carrying my baggage,
too heavy for my small frame to handle.

I force my way up the mountain,
until I see their faces,
they smile and I tumble right back down.
I feel like screaming;
LOOK AT ME!
I AM HERE!
I EXIST!
I AM ON MY PLANE,
AND YOU ARE ON YOURS!
but however hard I do scream,
the wind picks it up and carries it away,
and all they hear is;
'Look at me, I'm on your plane!"

They smile.
I tumble three.

Feeling her heart pound with the quickness of her breath she knows that she has found her long lost brother.  Her eyes shining with excitement, not knowing what to expect from him, scared that he will turn away and leave her again.  Holding her breath and quietly walking over to him, tapping him on the shoulder with her index finger, slightly shaking with fear.  Her brother turns around and smiles.  The reconization dawns on him and his face burns with fury of being discovered, by his own sister nonetheless!!

How could she, he wonders furiously!  He had left home for a reason and now she has come to take him home he is sure.  Well, not this time, she
won't.  In his heart he knows she means well, but he can't go back.  If only she knew why he couldn't.  Gritting his teeth he tears out of the bar, leaving his sister looking after him with tears streaming down her face and calling his name.  He couldn't stop; he had to get out of there so he wouldn't have to hear her crying.

She slumps down onto the stool that he was sitting on before he decided to leave.  She had traveled so far to bring him home safely and he wasn't about to let her!  She knows in her head that she should leave him alone; yet in her heart she couldn't just let him go on living without knowing that his family was there for him no matter what kind of trouble was, but she was going to find out, whether he wants her to or not!!

Shivering from cold and anger, he walks through the streets hoping that she won't come after him.  He loves his sister, but if she ever found out about him she would never love him the same way again.  Feeling wetness on his cheeks, he furiously wipes the tears away, cursing at her under his breath.  Feeling hands on his shoulders he whirls around ready to fight his attacker but stops short when he realizes whom it is.  He was looking straight into his twin sister's deep blue eyes.  He saw only love and affection, not anger or
hatred.  How could he have ever thought that she would desert him?  She was his twin and she would stand by him through think and thin.

As she stares into her brothers eyes, only feeling love for him hoping that he will say something or do something to let her know that he wasn't going to run from her again.  With her tearstained cheeks and teeth trembling from the cold, she gently takes his hand and caresses it with her fingers looking into his eyes pleading to him to let her back into his life.  His hand trembles with cold or anger, she can't quite figure it out.

He catches his breath as she takes his hands while they shake with the confusion of not knowing what to do.  He draws in shaky breaths and extends his other hand and strokes her cheek wiping the tears away from her eyes pleading with an emotion choked voice to stop crying.  She nods and says that she will try only if he stops, making him smile, for he had wiped his tears away and her still knowing that he was crying on the inside.

She slowly offers him a smile hoping that he will open up to her.  When he gently strokes her cheek, she feels his fingers shaking, now knowing
not from anger, but from love........

Last someday I told him you know soldier you gotta stop saying please. You gotta pull the punches like get off your knees and onto your head and roll away laughing in cartwheels. Get your shoes shined your collar pressed your dogs walked, your **** ****** by women who will tell you they think you’re a riot sort of. Gotta stop counting the ghosts in the hall and the pills every week and the calories burned and the blessings. Eventually you will learn to tie your own **** tie but you’re proud of rolling your own cigars, you’re proud of remembering to water the calla lily on the windowsill. You’ve forgotten most of what you’ve read. You can’t remember the news from yesterday or was it the day before did one of the neighborhood kids get shot or did we go to war again, maybe it doesn’t really matter. Haven’t had a fruit juicy enough in six years and you gotta find a tropical country where the papayas and the sunshine make you melt into puddles and you are the rainy season, you roll ominously overhead. You think you’ll stop staying at the Ritz-Carlton on business trips, you think you’ll check into the Super 8 at three forty-two a.m. and when you open the door the ashtray’s full and there’s *** caked on the wall. When you go to the bar you keep forgetting you want a shot of bourbon or maybe a double of Scotch and you order a g&t; instead. The clouds stay grey and the sky stays tearstained. You remember playing tennis and skinning your knee when you were seven, you remember grinning the widest when you had lost your front teeth. You don’t own a single photo album. In spring when the flowers start to bloom you think you ought to have a daughter so you can read her Maurice Sendak. You’ll get shampoo in her eyes and she’ll be cross, and she’ll only forgive you when you tell her that story your college friends are all tired of by now. You have those thoughts and then you remember to wash your hands. But I said yes gotta stop being a yes-man because that turns into I do and then where are you, on the altar with the sacrificial lamb and a woman and when you slip the ring onto her finger and say this isn’t funny she says you’re a riot sort of. You wanna make it here, then you better learn to eat the locusts and ride a camel and not get angry with the scorpion in your underpants. You don’t get angry, you gotta squish his head between thumb and forefinger before he manages to jab your pecker. You are fifty-two. You don’t feel fifty-two. You don’t feel anything other than maybe an intense dislike for carob bean. You were told to be on the lookout so I said to him I said.

I fell in love
with you for a minute
on a stranger's couch
funny
whip its
with a derby girl
a shameless makeout
sesh
in front of another
lesbian and a couple
strange bodies
disconnected
poetry
and some ***** in
a plastic cup
stolen metal chairs
in various colors
her braids
her shaved head
a symphony
to my defeat
I'm half-way out the door
but I can't get up off
this couch
she's taking my key
and pretty soon my car is gone
my so-called girlfriend
leaves me tearstained
voicemails
but while you're
here your lips
make me forget
every promise
I made this girl
she said
where you go I go
how quickly we forget
when we find ourselves
in the arms of another
and just like everything
else the promise disappears
an evaporated drop of
rain from the side window
of my re-poed car
I need to get that ink off
I need to get inked
to sober up before A.A.
to eat before this adderall
eats my insides
I want to feel a
lot more full
a lot more *******
full
say goodbye
you never knew me
a $2 bus ride
takes me where
I need to be
freezing hands
and the itchy
scars I sliced
into my arm
in the wrong
place the wrong
direction
I was never right to
begin with
a text message at
2AM "stay safe"
that's the extent
to which I'm cared
for
and that's good
enough for me
just so long as I
can afford smokes
and the key to
my car is safely
under the mat

An arm hung across the rubble,
draped like a broken swan neck,
decorated by intricate patterns of blood and dust.

I couldn't have known who the arm belonged to, but in that moment
I was sick
to my stomach
with devastating surety.

Those were the fingers that had twined through mine in gestures of
love and
desperation,
painted my arms
in strokes of comfort, and of loneliness.

The palm that had confidently gripped a weapon,
and had carried groceries
into the house.
Palms that had pressed hopelessly against rain-washed glass and
gently
against tearstained cheeks.
Those palms that willingly cradled my uneasy heart.

And the arm.
The arms that stretched into
the sparkling star-strewn sky,
the grey and
pouring rain,
the sun-baked air rippling in waves across that embrace.  
Arms that had wrapped around a struggling body
with grim purpose and
aching heart,
softly beneath a wiggling puppy and its
pink kisses,
easily against the warmth of my breakable ribs.

I saw the broken swan and I felt something heavy,
maybe my heart,
slip from limp fingers and
break
into glittering shards
decorated by intricate patterns of blood and dust.

She fears that she'll drown in her tearstained diamonds,
or expose her rough skin to find no more vermilion rubies.
She becomes a ruined landscape as she
brushes the black jewels out of her matted hair,
even if her emerald eyes aren't tough enough to withstand that pain.

She dreads for the moment when the world
will not accept her own beauty.
Why can't she understand? Why can't she realise?
Though she holds the rare jewels of a king,
no one shall buy those cursed gems.

Load your ***** clothes. Separate your colors from your whites. Try not to linger too long on the shirt you first met him in.

2. Add detergent, only half a cup. Fill with cold water, watch as cerulean galaxies form right before your eyes. Realize just how much of you is not you.

3. Fill with warm water. Start spin cycle. Press your ear against the machine, hear its prehistoric roar rumble through your bones(now your shakes have excuses)have it envelope your senses until you assimilate into history and star stuff.

4. Jump when the buzzer goes off. Brush yourself off and hastily transfer loads into the dryer. Persevere when the wet clothes weigh down your arms more than thoughts of him, of his smile, of his laugh(****)

5. Set the dry cycle for another hour. Try not to think about your homework, remember that he's in your chemistry class, bite your head off. Sit on the dryer, close your eyes, pretend you're on a space ship shuttling through the atmosphere, through the Earth's orbit, on your way to the moon or Venus(****, you think of him again)or Pluto. Salsa on Saturn's rings, fall through Jupiter, turn stars into sticker on your skin, add pulsars, neutron stars, and quasars to your scrapbook(even if you don't scrapbook)

6. Return to Earth when the dryer shouts beneath you. Fold your shirts. Try not to think about the way his cheeks and face folds how he buckles over when he laughs, or how you did that first when that stupid statistic about how people like to mimic the habits of their love interest(***** science, if i can't explain my feelings, neither can it)comes to mind. Don't even look at that ******* shirt, toss it to the back of your dresser. Tuck sleeves left over right. Shove away thoughts of tucking stray tendrils of hair behind his ears, the feeling of his soft hair beneath your fingertips, how he cradled himself into your arms when he gets embarrassed.

7. Hang up your dad's formal shirts, your brother's tank tops, your mom's blouses. Blane your fatigue on the time of day rather than your depressive disorder. Blame your depressive disorder on your tendency to box yourself in and hold your own head underwater and struggle to breathe.

8. Accidentally close your eyes too long but just long enough for your mind to project  slideshow presentation of him standing off to the side, lingering for someone you wish was you (but it'll never be you, you know this like you know how two opposite symmetrical particles annihilate each other upon impact, a fatal encounter)

9. Throw back the tearstained shirts, socks, and boxers into the dryer. Set for twenty minutes. Almost forget to change the lint filter.

10. Stand there, numb and wet-faced, as the machine rocks, focus on the shaking of the tumbles to remember where you are, who you are.

11. Realize how often you lie to yourself(it doesn't take a genius to recognize a pattern)(remember Matt, Jamie, Julia; all fatal encounters, the stray neutrons in your equilibrium)Realize this is self-destruction. You are matter searching for antimatter, the particle searching for your antiparticle. You love the pattern(you're a routine-loving virgo, after all; you live for periodic patterns)love the cycles like the seasons. Like Persephone taking summer and spring with her every year, you are both Hades and Demeter. Cherishing new companionship, mourning the loss of your heart and soul.

12. He is the bull, you tell yourself, and bulls trample. Bulls stomp and wreck and dance and fly, but bulls are wild and untamable. Bulls don't belong with China-shop girls with scorched tongues and thumbs and an affinity for loving supernovas and jackhammers.

if he asks who i was to you
glance sideways & lie a little
exaggerate my mistakes &
laugh with him about my shortcomings
then feign bewilderment at the question

if he asks why you skip that song every time
lie a little & say it doesn't play all the way
through anyway but don't
tell him it was our lullaby for the rainy nights

if he asks how big it was
don't hurt his self-esteem
lie just a little bit & tell him
i had chapped plump lips carved from **** roast
a long curved nose like the scroll of a violin
& a heart like a busted squirrel cage
but omit the weeks we spent sprawled naked
on peyote friction furniture digging
our toenails into the floor

when he asks you what you're thinking
don't hint at the nostalgia
buried in your eyes & throat

if he asks what you're writing
on the edge of the bed first thing in the morning
lie a little lean down & kiss him
but never show him the dream journal
you stole from me & are keeping
as your own now

if he wonders aloud how you got those scars
after months of seeing you naked
tell him a little lie & never whisper
the names i gave them that first night
when i kissed your whole body

don't ever show him the tearstained
underside of your pillow &
act like you've forgotten my name
when he claims you say it
in your sleep most nights

if he corners you after work one day
& demands to know who i was
distract him
tell him you love him
& **** him right there in the kitchen
so he forgets to ask about the extra toothbrush in the shower
or the old flannel work-shirt hanging on your side
of the closet that smells like nothing he's ever smelled on you before

when he forgets your favorite flower
on your ******* birthday just shrug &
blow him in the car on the way to his parents' house
so that he never wonders about
your finger on the trigger of the gun at his head

let him fill the spaces i left between your fingers with his fingers
let him plaster the hole in your chest with new promises
let his toned shirtless testosterone replace my warm soft flesh beside you in bed
let his brass belt buckle be more comfortable for your angelic head
than my bare waist
let him replace the lingering scent of my insecurity with the new stench of his over-confidence

eventually he will learn to ignore the way you
twitch when he says my favorite curse word

eventually you will forget how my
bare feet used to tie into yours on the sofa

Six years old
My pretty box
of pretty things
a little girl's collection
a pebble, a purple sequin, a lock, and a sticker, pencil leads, and a rose petal I found on the ground in the rain but I ran back to save it.
Precious things
Collections of the young will always remain a mystery to the jaded adults who grew out of simple happiness far too long ago
Then one day
My box slips off the counter
and I search desperately in the carpet for my pretty things
tearstained face and choking on sobs
not my pretty things
not my pretty things
I find my pebble
I find my purple sequin,
my lovely silver lock,
my special sticker,
all three pencil leads,
...but my rose petal
is gone
except for a couple crumbling dried pieces of it
on the ivory carpet
and the rest of it could be anywhere
I can't find it
it's gone
it's gone
my pretty, pretty rose petal that I loved so much
that I saved from the rain
...but sometimes even if you save something... or someone...
from the rain and love it for a long time, when things fall, you can lose them forever, knowing they are crumbling and not whole anymore
but you can't help them
What you save and love,
you can still lose.

Repost if you had a box of pretty things when you were little.
Comment and tell me what they were, I love to read comments :)

At corner of midnight
I'm an ache in your bones
stepping out to say good morning
to morning,
there's dark streaks on the street
(what is it?)
flashing into my face like
the blood pouring from your shoulders and your elbows
and it's real
(stab my ribs stab my skin I wince at the sight and these things I can’t get away from my head falling to the ground in the street, to my knees on the streaks in the street
close my eyes)
I can't say morning now that it is night
these are things I cannot allow to leave me
because they’re (somebody has to remember, someone, no    )
twisting my veins into dying matches
(a, its killing me, though it is)
making me remember
And I remember the urgent black hushes and
trees
drawn towards heaven like the hands of martyrs
in a word november         air of desperation
black lines
flashing across me cold like
the ashes that
ate you up but couldn't steal
your face from me
I wish they could
as there's bits of glass on the kitchen floor
I can't move them with my head
or my heart
A glittering array of threats to scream into my ears
(smashed lines o my hands my face my ears o what have I done o the blood
on me is yours the blood pouring from my
hands I am a murderer)
this glass gives flashes of light they reflect your silent moments
bitter and tearstained tumbling knuckles
(these walls won't be pierced)
, you're whispering and I choose not to hear your voice
I choose through fear and that moment alone
is enough to die
but there is this too,

You were someone who breathed
and looked into mirrors
(they shatter now to meet me)
A little boy who sat outside and watched the traffic
outside of that house in the city he misses the one with the garden his mother tended
(she's gone and left him now she's gone and killed
died)
A boy without a coat in the snow saying to us that his hands are blue
but he has no need
A man who woke up and had to shave
to be presentable to himself
who stood by a church yard waiting for the bus
imagining a muddy new grave in a life passed
(one with my name on it. how
long? how beautifully short
no matter how beautifully short)
in a church yard by a spot where the bus stops
A boy drinking wine
drunk to shame the halls of mind of diligence of strain
***** on the carpet
You were a man smiling walking between the river and the
lawns which you are not ever to walk upon
smiling at a scrap of paper clutched strangled by broken knuckles
dreaming of Russia
A man who would leave and not say goodbye
no not goodbye no
N    o            good
night.

One purple flower blooming for every day someone should have said
I love you                                   /iloveyou
for every time I smiled while you cried
every time I smile now
For every night that passed by
the sad man
who fell asleep wrapped in imaginary arms around
a still cold body (to dreams that sicken waking hours)
for (every night I can remember./o the things I should have said, I the murderer) his nights that went un illuminated by one phrase, two words to a soul,
(an open sky
to the earth and
the length of time                                /two last words spoken noiseless to bleeding ears laid against the floor
to the distance between this heartbeat and your next,
to your last)
two words reached into (stretched strain to broken light)    
infinity

goodnight, starlight

I could only see through altered sensory

Clearly drowning subconsciously
Open wide beneath dark clouds brewed consciously

The familiar breeze that once calmed me

I no longer feel

She only qualms me

The mentally numb have become physically sick
I can't stand the rocking on this ship

So accustomed to life at sea

Flashes of lightning dance with me
A tearstained deck under my feet

I loved the taste

It smelled sweet

The salt and the sweat
All of our heat

Will you carry on
Over open water
Will you go
Toward the rolling shore
Will you fly high
Ever rising spires silent skies
Rush of wings brings you home

This is the moment
Smile and cry
Goodbye
Will you leave me for ever
Little girl no more
Sail far from this troubled shore
Broken wings can’t fly with you

If I could be your light house
Shining bright for you
But I’m only the mirrored darkness
Reflecting torment we go through
One faded image shattered
By the stones thrown from passing years
Bruised and broken on the highway
Washed away by blood and tears

Will you carry on
Through windswept waves
Will you go
Til you find your way
To a harbor safe and dry
Spread tearstained wings and fly
Until you find your way home….

Leave me lost
I stand sentinel
On this troubled shore
Alone
© 04/01/2006
For buffi and beth

I arrive at your doorstep, flowers in hand,
To surprise you on this beautiful day in June.
Your birthday, and the perfect day to take you out,
Could there be nothing more excellent than this?

I ring your doorbell and stand there for a minute,
And then you open the door,
Swollen eyes and a tearstained face.
Darling what's the matter?

I try to console you,
But you only push me away.
Saying that you are sorry.
Whatever you've done, why should I be mad at you?

I attempt to hold you ,
And then you begin to scream
At the top of your lungs.
How long did you say it was since?

I am confused now,
If you say that you eat double now,
And that you and I brought life here,
Then why should you be sad?

I do not understand,
And you begin crying again.
'It is the product of another man!'
And now I wonder why?

I understand now,
And I am frozen dead in my tracks,
I drop the flowers and walk out the door
Do I dare look back?

I can hear you crying behind me and I drop to my knees in your front yard.
For hours I sit as your wails die down,
You bring out a beer for me and a soda for yourself.
And I ask you 'how long?'

You reply with 'only a few weeks'
And to follow I ask who.
Somber, you cannot remember,
Only that you were not willing and could not recall much.

We gaze unto the stars and what a whirlwind these hours have been,
Conversing until dawn.
And everything remains calm as I carry you back inside,
Sleeping in my arms.

On your bed I lay you,
And beside you I stay until you are deep in slumber,
Peaceful and the flowers now in a vase.

I touch your stomach and I can nearly feel the life within.
Life jumps beneath your closed eyelids.

Considering the circumstance, I cannot think of a better way to spend this June day.

I will let myself cry.
I will let myself sigh.
Sorrow will overcome me.
And my sobs will shake me.

I need this now and then,
I just wish I could predict when.
My doubts and worries creep and creep
And then I sob until I sleep.

My mother wonders what’s gone wrong.
My lover holds me and sings a song.
People try to soothe my doubt
But I just need to cry it out.

It might be hormones, or it could be the heat.
All I know is that the cycle will repeat.
In a month or two I’ll be crying once more,
Shaking and sobbing in a way I deplore.

But the morning’ll come and I’ll crack a smile,
And I’ll be back to normal for a little while.
And then something’ll happen and I’ll feel my eyes sting,
And I’ll turn my face down and curse everything.

I’ll hate the world for a night or two
And I’ll hiccup and sob and feel so blue.
I’ll try to feel good in my own skin,
And I’ll try to keep out of the loony bin.

And then once again, I’ll feel just fine.
For a long while my eyes will shine.
I’ll be happy and confident and I’ll love you all
But in a few months, I’ll have to fall.

Even now my cheeks are wet,
And I’m writing things I might regret.
But tomorrow morning I will wake up
And, still tired, I’ll fill my teacup.

I’ll act as though nothing has changed
Though the night before I acted deranged.
I’ll clean my tearstained pillow case
And I’ll rejoin the human race.

Until it happens one more time.
And then I’ll write a nursery rhyme
as my sorrow overcomes me
and my sobs relentlessly shake me.

Tearstained cheeks and a broken smile
It's what I've been wearing for quite a while
Because I'm just so **** confused
And with you I can't say I'm amused

"I like his friend," I say with a guilty air
I'll send us to ruins, no surprise there
My days will be stuck in a funk
While yours will be lowly and drunk

I wasn't made to break hearts, you know
With my hands on yours, I'm taking it slow
Who knows, maybe I've got feelings left
But I think they're gone in a blonde theft

As I sit and ponder, all the fears just swirl
And with a sad song they pour out of this girl
A few tears and a wide array
Of pictures, memories and a few great days

I've remorse for the times I've not been true
And all the faults I tried to give you
If this does end, I hope we're both happy
It was never you, it really is me

I move through the world
And I want to give
Like a soft rain.
Quiet and gentle,
Never demanding, never harsh, never desperate.
Like breathing
I want to give
And it falls over everything like a shimmering veil.
It is unhurried and strangely detached,
A love that floats lazily down to alight wherever it may.
Most of the time
My need to give is like that.
I have made it so.
But
Every so often I turn and see someone.
I trip and fall and quite by accident I SEE.
And suddenly it courses through me like lightning.
Suddenly the earth cannot accept the light that roots me to it,
Reaching its crackling fingers outward for ANYTHING that will survive its touch.
Unsatisfied and violent with motion, it doubles back and sears through me
Filling my veins with molten silver.
Do you know what it is to love something so completely
That if you were to ever touch it it would powder to ash in seconds
And everything you saw to love
Would catch the wind like cinders?
When I read as a child
That at the smallest level we never TRULY touch-
Our atoms repelling one another by magnetism-
I wept.
And I could still weep
For I have always known the excruciating sensation of "so close",
I was born of it
And the sobering understanding that to touch
Destroys.
Oil paintings, butterfly wings, tearstained cheeks-
My fingertips are weapons.
I have been kissed and thought,
"Unmake me."
I have loved so hard that,
Desperate,
I held my smoldering hands against my stomach,
Willing to burn to keep my arms from seeking purchase.
Oh, all hands are weapons!
And I have held them,
Felt the heat.
I have kissed palms,
Clutched them to my chest and tried to burn away the space
The maddening space
Between my skin and theirs.
If I had my way
If I knew I wouldn't leave equal scars
I would cover myself with the handprints of people I love,
Let them change me.
Let them make me.
I am gentle
Because inside I am chaos.
I am soft
Because inside I burn.
And every time I
Don't
Brush my fingers along the cheek of someone I worship,
I count it as an act
Of unutterable love,
To hold back such tender violence.

Melrose street had a quaint little house that sat perched on the corner.
The inside was bare and small and plain,
the dust in the air hung still, motes visible in shifting sunlight.
I would bang open the back door with a clatter and run
past the swing-set to the gate dividing my yard from the next.
The girl there had hair the same golden silk as her dog’s.
And I’d scrape my knees on that fence more times than I could count.
There I would play, I would climb her trees and then
drain the sweetness from all the honeysuckles in her yard,
the summer air enveloping me in its heavy embrace.

Heritage was a new housing division,
many houses under construction stood empty, just skeletons.
I’d walk through the layout, a throat coated in dust
and sit on the roof as colors faded from the sky.
It was in those streets that I broke my wrist and
my mom did not believe my pain.
My parents fought hard and often
about big things and about little things
and this skeleton house was no longer any home of mine.
Inside, the walls reverberated with every cry and
the holes punctured the once smooth interior,
and no matter how much **** wall putty was slathered on
you could see the jagged shape of imperfections,
the tearstained cheeks that never dried.
A constant reminder.

“Foreclosure” was a term I was unfamiliar with,
I just knew that the paper taped to our front door
meant we had to leave.
So we grabbed our items and began the trek from one
cramped space to the next, a multitude of changing environments,
never being able to stay in one place for more than a year.
And my parents no longer loved each other and I didn’t know why,
A rumpled love note with a lie, “I love you for always and forever”
the only evidence that hate wasn’t always in their lives.
I began to miss the sunny days of my childhood.
Of scraped knees and honeysuckles when everything,
Including the dust motes, were in place and comprehensible.

Each day as the evening starts to set
         The ache builds in her chest
   She knows that she must go to bed

She hugs her tearstained pillow close
           When no one is around
And cries for the one she loved and lost
        And screams without a sound

          Others see her in the day
         And think she's doing well
       But every day as evening sets
           She enters her own hell

     Time hasn't healed her pain at all
             Or quieted her fears
         So every night, alone in bed
         She sheds thoes silent tears
                            ~af

Mustn't meddle in the business of fate
and frayed ideals
Otherwise mine may get tainted
Investigate what evidence lays on the bed:
A tearstained journal, a key, a pearl necklace with a broken clasp
It's quite the scene, vast and antiquated,
but very real
Rationalise the lies, verify the vendetta
against all great art and lovers' palms

-cj