Don't ask me why my hands are shaking when
the rain just put out the last
of my cigarettes and i can't find my
keys because i misplaced them while looking for  the dark green lighter i found last night
in the wet grass of the house you said goodbye in.
I'm becoming shorter of breath the
longer I stand here
and these cobblestone skies are closing in on me and God knows this is the last place
I want to be stuck
Pick any house on the map
and I'll tell you what's happened there
and how many beer cans I crumpled
in the musty garage
or how many times my hand has grasped the doorknob of a bedroom
I'll tell you that the yellow house on the left side of 163rd had me laughing until I no longer
thought I was in my body
and I'll tell you that
the yellow house on the left side of 196th
had me wishing I never existed
at all
Inside white walls I took too many hits and
the smoke built up on the walls so thick
I had no choice but to stay
the night in your arms
In between wooden panels and a seemingly impossible staircase you kissed me
up
every
step
and going back down seemed like a sin
i absolutely
could not commit.
By now I am in an all too familiar place
to be feeding off old habits
so I break away from those bitter lips
and I run out to the same woods
I've seen a million times-
And I know that this is what makes this home

Your name is pulsing  through my veins but
I've lost the ability to bring it to my lips-
ten thousand people wouldn't care to say
it right out loud and
I'm watching you walk away knowing
my life could be so much different
**if I could just ******* say your name

I don't know what I'm saying but it's 2:04 am
and I just dry swallowed the last
of my sleeping pills.
I'm not sure if I want you here
but I'm not sure I don't
I wake up with glimpses of you when
I close my eyes
And even though I think I
I left you in my dreams
You're here-
Sometimes I wish you would stay there
because I can't stand waking up and feeling
your absence when I never had you
in the first place.
I'm driving in circles and
screaming out your name
FEEL IT
JUST FEEL IT
Tell me if you thought of me when you saw
your father smoking his cigarette and
if you laughed when your glass hit the floor
or if you stomped all over the broken pieces
until they became a part of the ground.
We're lying in the basement and
I'm unfamiliar with the anatomy of
falling for someone
but I can hear the way your breath
is shaking and the uncertainty
is strangling me

They say I'm too young to be this full
of the world
but really, I have no room left
because you see
I fall in love a thousand times a day-
I saw you double take the leaf getting
crushed under your fathers feet and
I think you felt sorry for it
The breath cut short before a laugh
And the quivering of a mouth when you don't know whether you should laugh or cry.
You might as well slam me into a brick wall when
I hear someone sing
and today I walked by a man with a guitar and
felt the wind get knocked out of me//
it was the most heart wrenching thing-
he had your hands
and lately I've noticed
when you see me you no longer have
to catch your breath and if you want me to say
i'd do anything to make you stay
you'll be waiting
the rest of your life

I would tell you I can't go to bed because
hell is loving you in my sleep and
waking up alone
and that i'd rather never sleep again
than to live through that

I would tell you that every time I open my mouth
I want you to shut it
with yours

I would tell you that you have
the kind of glance that could crack
a ribcage
and make it feel
like heaven

And I know it sounds cliché but
your breath is the water that floods
into the roots of my stomach and grows
the daisies being kissed
back into you

If I had a lover I would call these
nauseating churns
"butterflies"

If I had a lover I would think of this
infection in my head
as "you're the one I can't live without"

If I had a lover I would tell you
being lovesick
doesn't actually make me sick

And if I had a lover
I would need to learn not to **** myself
in the process

I remember sitting there
with your hand
resting upon my leg  and
the warmth beneath it
was enough
to heat the whole city
And I thought to myself
this is it, this is it, this is it

**that was it

I'm finding it rare to breathe
with ease and you see
it's nothing new-
  my days with you have flooded into every dream and every word that I speak.
I've never been good at math and I hate
that I love it in the way
the curve of your back
is congruent
to the angle of your mouth
and it fits perfectly
into the ellipses of my beaten lips
r u n n i n g
only gets you so far when the world
is round-
I'm sorry I have to leave
because my words don't form
when those rousing fingers
are tracing secrets into my thighs
and you don't know this but
writing is the world that wholly
consumes me
and maybe it's kind of
an esoteric thing-
But I must live without love
because they say
if you can't be the poem,
B E  T H E  P O E T
besides,
haven't you heard
all the greatest loves
are the unfinished ones?