I try to hold back the tears,
as my phone shines in my face
I cover my eyes with my palms
to try to hide any trace of what slipped away.
I’m so tired of being alone.

(explicit)

**** my soul
        with poetry
           scream out my gracious name
             slay me with words
               that peel my layers
                and simultaneously
                                   drive me
                                           insane

finger me slowly, hotly
with just the right rhythm and rhyme
    push me past my
                 tender limits
                       into tongues of syntax,
                                                      sublime

a­lliterate my senses
   (in swift stac
                    c-at
                           o)
until my mind is but blank verse
    mess up my stressed
              and unstressed syllables
in unsung language, versed

I will speak to you in vowels
(the only sound
       I will be able to make)
as you stroke
   my iambic pentameter
             in the heat of frothed-up
                                                     ache

we are this heroic couplet, you see
        even if the meaning seems veiled
           no need for simile or metaphor
               as I feel your chest rise
                              in deep inhale

we are a natural paradox
       so many ironies abound
         discordant harmony
is our synaesthesia
     in visible darkness found

and I love this delicious enjambment
as your aura invisibly slips
                               into mine
our lines have no beginning,
                                 no end
    as we undo
          the boundaries
                      of time

Well, hey
Here I am again
At 3:48 in the morning
......Again
Just like last night, and the night before....and the night before that and the night before that and-
Well I think you get the picture
But, do you?
Some people laugh when I say I can't sleep
I mean they actually laugh and say
"Have you tried counting sheep?"
Hey....
It's me....again
At 3:48 in the morning....
Again
But if counting sheep solved my problem of sleep then
I wouldn't be counting each heartbeat
Continuing counting each heartbeat
Continuously considering counting countless seconds of heartbeats
I wouldn't be staring at the walls listening
To the crickets in the walls
And the crickets and the crickets and the crickets and the-
That everyone tells me aren't there
And I can see faces in the moonlight and....
Hey....
It's me.....again
At 3:48 in the morning.....again
And I wouldn't pace the room like a caged bird before the sunrise flutters its wings
And I wouldn't memorize the pattern of the cracks in the ceiling
-did you know the one above my head turns right every two and a half inches?-
And the shadows woven into the carpet
And the symphony of the darkness
If I could count sheep now would I?
Do you think I enjoy lying awake at night
Waiting for the break of day
Because then its okay....
Not to sleep
And my mind I buzzing like a swarm of bees
And I'm reading the book of all my past wrongs
Like a Shakespearean sonnet
Like a tragedy
Hey......
its me.....again
At 3:48 in the morning.....
Again...
And it could be anxiety laugh
Hell I wouldn't be surprised
But I march to the drum of insomnia now
The battle hewn recesses of my brain
Crying out for mercy
But there is no white flag
And
The sheep never come
Because if I could count the herd
Then I would not memorize the cracks in the wall
Or the ticking of clock
I wouldn't compose symphonies
In time with the whirring of the fan or the drunk shouting
From outside my window
Because when you close your eyes sometimes everything sounds like music
Falling harmonies and subtle innuendos of
Sleep to come
But......
If I could close my eyes
If I could count sheep instead of heartbeats
If I could stop pacing the track in the floor
If the crickets in the wall didn't keep me up
Then...
I wouldn't be up at 3:48 in the morning
Well, hey
Here I am again
At 3:48 in the morning
......Again

I am always missing out.
They locked me inside of my own house
And keep bragging about what the leaves look like on the trees.
There is so much happening
And I have far too many keys to sort
Before I can unlock the door.
I cut all the papers with your name on them into a pile and jumped in,
Fell into a dream where the sun is orange but burns so hot it looks white.

I'm a firm believer in music but haven't listened to it in years.
When the birds sing
It sounds like pebbles against the windows.

I put you in the ground the day I told someone your name.
Let it drip from my lips like a flood,
Like a dam bursting,
Filled to the brim with grief.
They say I talk about you like your waiting for me on the porch,
Like it's just a door that's keeping us apart.

They'll never understand how it can still feel like that.
How speaking your name was the closest I'll come to a eulogy,
How my heart still races when someone knocks.

They think I'm crazy
Because I keep yelling about the bars on the windows,
How you keep throwing pebbles
to me.
My mother opens the blinds
But the sun won't shine through,
Throws open the glass
But the wind jams in the screen.
My soul still feels like a room you can't air out,
Mourning is a dark room you can't light up.

I wish there were a system in my mind
that had filing cabinets and computers  holding all of my memories inside so I could just zip you away, but it doesn’t work that way.

Let your pain be pain.
Don’t hide it under beautiful metaphors or a smile.
For the love of God, don’t push it so far down that you’re walking every step on thorns.
Let your pain bleed through.
Holding onto the ache will not make you stronger.
(Believe me, it will not.)
Pain makes skeletons.
It makes you bitter, angry, and numb.
Gripping so tight that your knuckle turn white will not dilute the burn.
It will wilt your soul.
Pain does always not build character.
It just hurts.
Pain is a wound that festers.
It will wait years upon years for it to be picked at.
What do you believe will happen when it begins to bleed again?
Let the pain flow.
Let it slip out of your wounds and roll down your eyes.
Let it pour out of your mouth till your voice is shaken to the core.
You’ll thank yourself in time.