In the crypt
Leaning against tombstones
The Devil whispers secrets I told him
Back to me through the marble slab
I was raised in the shadows of the dead
How will I hold the sun
When you no longer stand between us
Skeleton secrets, burying into the earth
The coffin knocks
It will not sound again
They dead are listening
They will rise

I get stuck in those moments
Like a video call with a bad connection
And I can't redial
To reconnect
With myself

I don't want to talk about mental health
I don't want to talk about how much
I'm shaking
I can type words right the first time
My throats scratching
I'm cluthing my water bottle to my heaving chest
I can't drink
I'm so thirsty
I can't stop trembling even though it hurts
My left leg usually starts the worst
Moments later my brow furrows
My shoulders tare tension
My jaws locks and it aches as I rock back and forth
And this is just me warming up
It's exhausting
And whispering "okay" in my own sheets doesn't echo well in my head
Not as much as when I part someone else's hair with my words
Anxiety is a fight or flight response and I fight the need to flee
Lock myself down
And wear out my lungs
I don't know what's wrong
Even if I did
I don't want to talk about it
I don't want to talk about mental health
How bruises show up from my own grip
While I loose my handle on reality
I don't want to talk about mental health
And the two hand hold it has on me

Who do memories belong to?

Besides, they are never the same.
From day to day or eye to eye.

The high part of the night
Is whistling
Shrill is the death of the light
Stubborn in its remorse

She was, in the marrow of her bones
The first day of spring, a full supermoon
A night young in its rising
A planet indecisive in its spinning

These are the powdered sugar thoughts in the mountains
Dusting the peaks with snow
Citrine slumber, beneath a suicidal sun
Crystal remembers, when the stars forget

I would breathe my last breath into you
And I would know
Why some say
The taste of death is so sweet

Take me
To my mother's
I will not
Hold my tongue
Your sins
In my veins
She knows
What you have done

Deep calls to deep
Do you truly not hear me
I have been silent for so long
Drifting apart
We ran parallel once
Thin white lines on the horizon
We burned out like space junk
Not shooting stars
Or candle flames or time
It seems we hold nothing forever
Whatever passes through
Our empty hands try to grasp
Seems so permanent
Are we this disillusioned
Perhaps it was just water
Perhaps we never held love for each other
Perhaps it was currents pulling us along
Perhaps we knew it would end
Because there was no true substance
Perhaps we called out to the depths
They answered us with the sound of our own name
And we were much too afraid to hear it
Let me go, we are above this, it has gone out with the height of the tide

I have learned that tools are near purposeless unless guided by a hand
Some people are like this
But that doesn't mean they are meant to be used
They can still make such beautiful things
With just a little help

Born Happy
Lived Broken
And in the end
Died In Your Arms

Do not betray the love of a broken heart
Where will it go when you break it

Scrub the wood
Hard from the floor
As if it was water

We are such small foolish gods
Playing make believe with love
When all we know is anger

Be silent.
They told me
Be quiet.
They yelled in my face

Yet try as they might to bind my hands
Shackle my ankles
And put their hand over my mouth

An indignant smile irks them nearly as much that a sweet word from my lips

Such is the way with those who have a bitter taste in their hearts

Dream walkers came to me last night
Took me to the doors of death
Angels without wings
Guarding either side of the door
Singing, "to close to the water, to far from the sun, time is flowing, it cannot be undone."
I knew a friend who passed this way once
His footsteps a path I unable to follow
I turned my palms upward
Eyes in my hands searching
"With eyes to see, and ears to hear, time is ending, know no fear."
The doors opened to me
I heard Solomon singing
The only hallelujah I think God would ever want to hear
A voice made of golden threads
Looking burnt as ash
Against the steps of the throne
I pressed my forehead to the ground
Marble leeching its cold fingers into my thoughts
This is humility
To cry at the foot of God
Aching to pour out the sins of my heart onto the floor
And not one word ever leaving my lips
Will the earth ever settle again
Dust racing for the stars
An emulsion of eternity
Scouring the heavens
I to humble to mercy
To proud for regret

The ink bleeds out of my hands
Before I can get to the paper
The floor spells out my sins
Before I my mouth knows the words

The ******* of my tastebuds should never of met you

Will we be angels too
When the heavens are emtpy
Crossroads of empty streets
Will not bear
The body of Nazareth
We remember our shame
As children
Like nothing else
What do we hold
In common with monsters
Will we ever covet
The exhibition of kidness
Not only the reception of it
Are you willing
To be an imperfect
Example of compassion
While whole human
And partly humble

You would not have to ask
The way to my heart
If you had one yourself

I am living in this body still
I do not remember what she was like
Before the bombs
When she was a beautiful city
All I know now is the ash in the soil
The stumps of the trees
The basements exposed
There is beauty in it to be sure
She will never be
What she was before

I cannot say I am sorry for her
Because I do not know her
She is only a distant memory
Like the sun on the fading horizon

We have been rebuilding
I did not know
It would be so difficult
To build new buildings
On an old foundation
So raw, so vulnerable, so exposed
I am not the one at war
I am the village after the raid
I am the city after the bombs
I am the one who prayed
That I would see the lighthouse
Before my stern kissed the shoals

Perhaps the bombs will come again
There is no warning

Sometimes I only have endings in me
And just as the buds are beautiful in the Spring
The plucking of dead leaves has its place in the world

I’m in your empty apartment
My heart two sizes too big
For this security deposit
Landlord said no smoking
You’re burning me up inside
You asked me why I came
Darling this is just where the wind blew me
I’ll be here until it picks up again
For now the sound of the water
Against the shore
Lulls me into a sinless sleep
Lately I’ve been dreaming
In black and gray again
It reminds me of you
When there was no color
To see in the world around me
It doesn’t matter where you go
Only why you’re leaving
There is only people, places
This thing we measure called time
I won’t find myself
Until I lose you
We’ve never played fair
I craved you
Like a mother’s love
You are a cigarette
Sweet on the tongue
Burning quickly
To a bitter end
I wondered for years
Why the birds flew south
Now I know why
They come back
To the north every spring
When she is ready
Waiting
Warming
Home

If you wēl not do me ròight
Donnùit do me at all
If you ærn't going to stand
With me
Let me lærn to feíl

Idle are léighm hænds
Not so a füls tóngə

There is still dirt under my nails
From digging
In damp soil
It fills in the little crevices on my palms
Small rivers between my pores

Today I feel terribly human
Is anything else so bitter sweet?
I could stare into the sun for a moment
Let his rays penetrate into my skull
Permeate my thoughts
Brighten them, enrich, soften, melt

I suppose any thought after would feel
Utterly dark
Like the soil clenched in my fist

little one
oh how you pepper me with questions
and this
this is the spice of life

Yours is a name I will never forget
Nor, am I likely to ever say it again

What secrets does the carcass of summer divulge
None greater than the barren skeleton of trees can disguise

I will follow you beyond
All that I know
Everything familiar
I ask only this,
That you would kiss me goodbye

I lay here
Beside you
Just as you asked
Pores thrumming with thoughts
Slumber, so sweet
Has found you tonight
I not so lucky
I clutch
My own hands together
Wandering down
The corridors of my mind
The carpet is stained
And every door closed
Some doors I knock upon
Knuckles white and bony
Other doors
I do not even grasp the handle
For I know what the oak hides
It is of no consequence to me this time
There is a door before me
With new locks
I will not lie
And say I do not know the key
Wrought metal is an old friend to my fingers
It finds itself
Between the fingers of my right hand
I unbid the lock of her duty
Taking all responsibility upon myself
My shoulders were meant for such
If only my heart
Be not so stale
Will you join me here
In the dark
I promise not to yell
The raising of my voice
Will do nothing for these settled beams
I only try to talk
With a voice
That has not found its sea legs
Tossing to and fro
Just beseeching to be grounded
In honesty
To be pulled back
Into this ocean of sheets
Drowned in such sweet slumber
That the moon begs to look upon
May the stars guide my soul
As well as they do my eyes

the fall has come
and the harvest shall soon be here
all this change, still I am reminded
of but one thing
of how you reap among the world
looking for the turmoil in quiet souls
so you can start their thrashing about
you thresh peace
and beat her into the floor
as though she was naught
but a nail come loose from the floorboards

You are a soulless cage
Candles burning out
Timber fingers grasping
At a bleak unforgiving sky
You wander to the dark place
Unable to illuminate
There were angels here once
"Fear not" "Do not be afraid"
Carved into the bark
Does anxiety always come before truth
Existential agony before God's bidding
If so, I am ripe, I am waiting
Prune my tree of life branches back
If I am not wick then I am wicked
I am shame bathed in myrrh
Did not former trunks
Hold the great burden of salvation
Is the cross before or behind
My lingering grave
Beckons for me
I do not fear the earth
Only where the mind goes
When the body cannot follow
What armies could kindness muster
To war against the unknown
Crucify yourself against me
The nails in my hands
Filter the light in
I am fighting a losing cause
A thousand fall to my side
Ten thousand at my right hand
Who will bury the dead
I thought only the roots of trees belonged buried
Yet coffins slip into soil
Sins under a night sky

I cant do this anymore.

Feast on my emptiness
Then neither of us will be satiated

You asked me why I was choking
I said, it was because I breathed tragedy
And you said, aren't you used it, the smoke of pain
I replied, familiar, yes.
Tolerant, no.

I have lung cancer
I have asthma
I breathe to live
But I breathe and die

I'm not ready for the world
I still need to rest

Shhhh!

          we are already much to quiet

IT doesn't matter.
Do what I say

                              bbbut

No.
              pl­ease, please just let me say
                              one thing

No. We don't want to listen.

                        please, help me

You're words
aren't important.

                           I'm sorry ... I'll just
                                 stop now

You're never
going to be enough.

                            *I'm sorry

It feels like I'm choking
And there is nothing in my throat
But I can taste the regret in my mouth
I can't breath
Can't cope
Living is hell
But dying?
She is a slippery *****

the music stops
when you need it most
singing under your breath
out of tune
hoping for miracles
hoping
for miracles
soon

You grow inside out
Out growing your skin
Like a snake sheds its corn husk past life

I outgrew myself
My passions, honesty and hope
Like a bomb in a building counts down to ten fastest
And is in an instant expired

When we are older
We will age like weeds in flower boxes on the third story
We will taste the rain before the surface of the earth
And we will dry out from the touch of the sun
Remembering how gently we craved for shade

You said you were sorry
For not loving me the way you were supposed to
I told you it was okay
Because you had never really loved me at all

I knew I felt something
When you could raise anger in me
But I could not hold it against you

I call out
Not to disturb the quiet
But to give some substance
To the expanse
My voice.
She will return to me
Though not as she once was
And not the same as she left
For time will change her
Give her depth
Oh that she will teach me
All that has been sewn into her