I.

Tick, tock.
Snakes on the clock. Brains. Skin. Air. Hair. Coils of fabric, and teeth.
Oxygen reeks. Stales. Pales and contracts.
Breathe nonetheless
Pull on a dress. Pull on a vest.  Step outside. Feel the wind.
Oh, the days I’ve spent-
Instantly forget.
Put on my face
Roses in a vase
Feelings cased in the closet
Filling space

Seems sometimes we’re just filling space
What a waste

…

II.

Deep breath
Rose-scent fills her head

This could be it, she said
You’re too pretty for that, he said
Black and white embroidered with red
The cold air stung her lips as she read
This stone is where I’ll lay my head
The ground is made of bones
She’s alone

…

Steps on gravel, sounds awake the night
Jump into the abyss? She might

Memories of childhood fights
Initial dislikes
Periwinkle paint sets and tights
Once, learning to draw a rose
Once, hanging onto a hose, drenching strawberries
With brother in backyard
Family is a golden memory
At least there are pictures

…

Boy
The first one she kissed on the lips.
It was a dare. Fleeting but his eyes dripped sweetness. Twelve years young? She can’t remember. She ****** the same boy, drunk, four years later. He wasn’t the first, though.
And he still seems innocent

…

Hovering tensely
At the half-open door
She’ll never feel loved again.
She said.
Aches. Heavy ferocity ready to tumble. Dread.
Wake-up song every morning in her head.
The ground is made of bones.
She’s alone.
I’ve come this far. Revs up the car. Tears down her cheeks.
Runs over herself repeatedly in the street.

…

Why so gray?
His lips hold secrets
Autumn hay-stack drenched in dryness
Cool but bright, he’s a working man with a voice made of sunshine
Her eyes twinkled hello at his fingertips’ first brush-by
Smiled and walked away
Perhaps another day

…

III.

...

Rain soaks my skin.
I was walking, computer and books weighted on my shoulders,
Lightning crossing my path
Relax
I’m visualizing math

The air is cool. The wind rolled darkness in on its back.
The storm is roaring and strobing the sky
I’d like to derive your kind
and the rhythm of my mind
From the grains of sand left behind

,

And listen to the song of the sea

.

And float in the lingering breeze
As the storm dies down
The night’s dying down
I’m counting for now,, and "you"
Are a ghost of an idea, wispy but fresh but

Unformed
Much like the memory of yesterday’s storm

...

As I was drenched in the shower I could only think about taking pictures of my memories and tearing them into a storm
A catastrophe -
I'd laugh.
I'd call it art.

This storm is ******* beautiful.

I write because I care and I'm often afraid
So here's to the start of an honest relationship.
Because it would be nice to have someone write you a poem. Nice, but not necessary.
Here's to freedom, independence, and breaking the rules.
Here's to loneliness, and getting through it.
Here's to learning constantly.
Today I'd like to write myself a poem.

I want to tell myself that the way my eyes glinted in the sunlight today was like fresh daffodils bursting straight out of the winter cold
that my smiles were contagious, soft, timeless, and beautiful
that my footsteps caressed the ground with all the bliss of triumphant, free happiness and well-wishing,
that brightness spread in my wake,
that I glowed.
that I made a difference.
that everything up to this point led to a fractured-but-still-beautiful-for-it picture
that every single one of my ideals is beautiful, that my yearning for the world to feel loved is seeping out my pores,
that someone cried joy to remember that people connect
that words leaped out of the page and helped someone connect

Hon, you're great how you are.
You're most beautiful when you're happy.
I like you better when you're laughing.
When you're in a bad mood, you're kind of whiny...
But thank God you're not perfect.
And thank God you don't pretend to be.
And life is hard, but it's better that way. So keep walking.
You know yourself better than you think you do.


These words could be whispered, or written, or sung
whatever helps you listen
alone never are you..you are never alone..never..are...never..alone.. ever
You are never alone.



Written May 3

The crack starts beneath my feet,
weaves down the street,
ends in a shadowed horizon
Bleak
I'm five slips away from some sort of leap
One breath per beat, beat,
beat.
Small steps. Indecisiveness surfaces from the stream. Time trickles.
The river is behind me, I want to jump backwards.
Flip. Finally. Face up, **** up, fall. Fail. Flail. Fight. Faster. Faster.
Whispers echo across rocks.
Whines like sirens

My fingertips are encased in firelight
What have these hands seen?
They dance so freely

Fright in the form of leaden limbs
at the center of a maze
I want the water to take me away


Spinning blindly. Take a risk? Make a bet?
What are the stakes?
Cracks in my bones, fatigued from falling.
What's gonna break?

Eyes are unfocused, the world is a blur, my mind is a haven.
Heaven is a trap.
There is no map.
There is no road.
There are no rivers, no streams, no rocks, no echoes, no moments to take with me as I continue to fall.
Time never stopped.
Time never started.
I never stood still.


Take what you will

I always somehow missed your passing silhouette
but I saw your eyes cry thunder,
saw your sweetly shivering pen-scratching-paper
in the cold streetlight

I never thought I could feel so disconnected
                                                                I was wrong.
                                                                ­For that and for other things. I

meant to share things. With you, with anyone I
           meant to do things that are worthwhile I
                         meant to find the things worth living for I
                                      meant to grasp the hands of the world tightly and never let go
I didn't want to be swayed,
and I'm swinging at the whim of drifting cobwebs


I found myself on the concrete again, tonight, throwing questions at the sky
The parts of myself worth keeping are atrophying, I thought
So I thought some more.


EVERYONE deserves love. I'm tired of scratching the snow waiting for an answer. I want the world to change. And it's not me, it's the rules that broke me. It's the rules that bent me into un
                     rec
og
niz                able
shapes.

So then Why, I asked. One word. Crumbled as the cold set in, and I cried in the moonlight.

That was when I thought of you and the things left unanswered. Mostly I use you as a way to think about myself. When I was with you, I stopped asking questions, I think.
I need to learn how to be alone. I need to learn how to be with people and not stop being. I'm raging so freely lately that I'm dreaming again of you and of the times I kissed you and the times I should have, but mostly of the time I left you...
No regrets, hon, no matter how much it hurts.


So.
Here, again. Alone, again. The apathy is back.
Sun on my back, moon on my back, cracks
in my skin. You win.

It's been a long time since I've looked at myself in the mirror and asked who I am
prodding a reflection to see how long it takes to change

That kind of thinking follows you- it preempts every step-
step-
I'm swallowing confusion whole. In a daily pill. A color for every feeling.

I was thinking about my circular habits when I caught myself there, again,
a black hole in the glass fragmented like..
children, transposed against war
myself, the child and the war-maker begging for peace
the harsh lines cut across valleys of wheat

cut me down, I'm begging the blackness, make fault lines out of my hate
across my body, slash my body, curl up and disappear into my body
take my body and teach me to float
I'll volunteer my soul in the name of love, lovers, loved, loving... forgiveness.
and float there in a dream that a human doesn't stand to realize any time soon, I'm sobbing for my lost dreams and stuck in my own memories, I mean --
I fool myself sometimes. Because things are harsh and harshness is perception. And connectedness comes from letting go. And ******, I've been stubborn since birth and I was stubborn when I knew God and I'm stubborn now I don't
I don't
I don't. Tell me what to do, because I'm tired of beating myself down


I once tried starving myself raw
and realized the hard way it was never an option
I miss that kind of numbness. I want to believe that the ones I want to see know how to look past skin. I'm - wanting - to float. I'm... wanting. I'm wanting in components of human nature lack lacking lacking love

I
never ever would have ever admitted
self in grounds of coffee. down the hatch, down the drain, downing levels of consciousness as days homogenize and fears are realized and
slowly drowning time
rationalized
mine
body is mine
body is dying, legs are dying, eyes are dying, drooping, dropping like flies fl-fl-fl-flying
to fly
dreams of flying
I had dreams of flying
I have dreams of flying and every day I'm dying


This is blackness reflected back. apathy.
warped cognition slides through me cold
I don't know how I got so old

Sometimes I spit into the wind just for spite.
but not quite.

Still...
lie still.
the stars are ripping out of your back, I don't want to look
your face is a mold I'm afraid of falling into
my reflection in the mirror, I'm afraid of bouncing back
toss me around
heart beating, heart attack, heart on the ground
head in the full-stream full-blown storm, heat shocks echoing through spaces
I've been lost inside, crawling around in the glass and crackling sound
pop, I've started to inflate, time's slowed now,
I'm so strewn out against the floor, endless down

I wrote a note to myself, you want to see it?
I tore myself to pieces
I spit into the wind
and ducked
out of sight

I spit into the wind just for spite

Poetry?
Yes, it's a place I like to hide in
Bury deep within myself so that when it's dark,
I have words

I have
I have to
I have to face the world
I have to face my fears
I have to face my hate
and the subjects of it
I have to leave when I want to stay
won't you follow..
I'm so hollow
sometimes
can't

the break between breaths
sharp blades of grass.
the sad softness that leaves an itch
leaves you itching when you go inside
the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach telling you to turn back
back..
your back is turned, don't look back
you've lost your perspective
wher
e
is

you're
so
sharp
I'd like to
think about
looking through the stars and back,
for someone one day.
I'd like
t
  o
look in
to the sun one day I'd like to sh
ow my sunshin
e too one day

I thought my dreams fell, one day
I thought I found a deep chasm inside myself that could never be filled
with broken glass everywhere
broken shards, dug into my feet
If the blood couldn't fill the void what
if love


The br
eak between gasps
is free for filling now