You ever have those days when you'd rather take the long way home?
With headphones on
Ignoring your heart beat
Trying not to crack like promises and iphone screens...
Well honestly,
You ripped the spine off of my notebook paper skeleton and crumpled it into the shape of your fists until it was nothing but a broken haiku:

What is love without
Lighting matches in the dark
Drenched in gasoline

You wear the whites of your eyes like flags when we touch
Like giving up is an option
And I'm trying to rewind the cassette tape memories to the beginning when smiles decorated our faces and I didn't know your full name or that you love orange juice and comic books
We're just kids in love with following fault lines to their breaking points and drawing assumptions on sidewalks while it rains. Raised on etch a sketch commitments that fade when shaken
We have no connection to the word 'stay'
**** the Christmas lights in your eyes, they don't stay up all year like I had hoped and I wore red lipstick to stop myself from kissing you and you stopped gelling your hair back like permission for me to massage your aching head, knead out any leftover thoughts of 'slow down'
But that was centuries ago and by centuries I mean lifetimes ago and maybe our souls have agreed to meet in some silent studio where you paint me abstract on subservient canvases and you'd feel like Salvador Dali as you melt clocks on my wrist to leave our moments up for interpretation...
We will not touch again, we had our last hug and the bass of our pulse has weakened so the memories don't keep us up at night
They have become elevator music in the back of our minds because we don't want to forget the sound of 'I love you'
Like astronomers falling in love with a blank sky, darling, it's in our nature to chase after the stars that chase after the moon that chases after the sun that chases after the world that chases after this idea of love.
Lets fold our empty spaces into intricate origami haikus like...

We ran out of glue
Stationary paper cranes
We burn down in flames

hands and legs and grapefruit iced tea.
sundays and mondays and shy fantasies.
clouds and winds and whims of the sea.
shutters and sun shards and stunted beech trees.
laughs and teeth and birds on the quay.
music and silence and soda on knees.
words and wool and soft middle c.
bare feet and icing and admission fees.
grass and flies and something set free.
cardboard and colours and things all in threes.
skin and lights and whole worlds to flee.
yellows and noon stars and
longing
to
be.

some days the pen shakes
some days the sky shivers
and i can't see the moon bathe the backs of my hands
but i'm still okay.

some days my sight blurs
some days my breaths burn
and the eldest trees fall in the eye of the storm
but i'm still okay.

some days your lips still
some days your tongue slips
and maybes screech like harpies at the gate
but i'm still okay.

some days our minds fall
some days our space fills
and blackness towers and stabs in our skulls
but we're still okay.

sort of.

silence in the stirring;
i lie awake for no reason at all,
missing intangible things:
home
happiness
healing
and you.
most of all,
you.

and it's easiest in darkness -
the deep absence of day,
the still wake of the night -
because then i can imagine it,
then i can forget
that i'm not allowed
to love you
at all.

People always say
how dreams do come true,
how wondrous it is
to be submerged into visions
that belong solely to your mind.

What they never speak of,
as if trying to forget,
is that dreams of wonder,
dreams of light,
can turn to darkness.

Suddenly, dreams of a perfect world
become the horror that we try
so desperately to escape.

Yes, dreams do come true,
but what no one ever tells you
is that nightmares are dreams too.



                                                                                                                    (w.n.)

i know i already wrote two poems tonight,
but i just remembered how
last night at 2am we were sharing a tiny blanket
and when i started to slightly shiver or shift,
you tucked the whole blanket around me
(five minutes later I heard your teeth chatter)

If you are uncomfortable when you look in the mirror,
keep in mind:
We spent thousands of years
trying to convince the earth
she was flat.

We wrote her maps as evidence of the things we saw;
and she believed them.
She cried tsunamis, and had earthquake breakdowns.

Keep in mind: the Sun never gave up hope.
The earth will keep spinning and breathing
the star-dusty space void of encouragement.

Next time you look in the mirror
and second-guess your potential divinity,
remember you will keep shining and living.

Because the Sun is out there
believing in you,
compensating for lack of the human capacity
to treat each other empathically.

You don’t need proof or approval
to be exactly what you are;
Eventually everyone will see
your infinite beauty.