south carolina and ohio and the blurred lines of love and something else. something worse. dangerous. all this talk of coming home. you imagine she means your heart instead of your house. she is held captive by the bounds of her past. all romance and regret. pink wine never tasted good anyway. then again nothing tastes quite like her smile. you could get drunk on her drink of choice every single night and still wake up each morning with a hangover from hell and an empty heart and aching hands. you have got to stop punching those walls. what is it with you. you and hurting things that only exist to protect you. tell us about that night you got so drunk you swore you were speaking to god. tell us how he listened. how you spoke about her candy eyes and her gum drop lips and golden skin. to look at her was to gaze upon the heavens. he understands. you analogize love making to walking into a church and getting to know each and every pew by name. he takes no offense to this. you ask him if south carolina is better for having her in its bounds. you can't quite explain it but ohio feels a lot less like home now that she's gone. you feel like a drifter. she says there are white sand beaches and sunsets you can't even imagine and entire neighborhoods swallowed up by trees. you want to tell her this broken heart of yours is beginning to ache again. as if it ever stopped. you and god share a laugh at this one. you think no one is listening but you are wrong. all this talk of being in love. she says you are in love with the idea of love but she is wrong and she knows it. so what. the million dollar question. what does it all mean and why. god, why. why her, why this, why here, why now, why. but he only shakes his head. in this he says that the answers are nestled in all the moments you mumble his name. when she is moaning yours, when you are scared, when you are happy, when you are relieved. how every moment with her feels like a culmination of each of these. you understand. you do.

There’s glass shards around my bed
And if I step out I’ll bleed again
I know this for a fact that
With my emotions still intact
I cannot make it through
So unless you’re planning to ignite
My soul and burn it in a cold blue light
I suggest that instead
You climb into my bed
And in the night when we sleep
Whatever dreams may come
I shall welcome them all

Did you see them take the green fields
one by one, now line by line on hills in echelon?

Still, holding ground held holy by their sons;
no longer marching to the smoke and drum.

Where bugler called the day to final rest,
now silence grows like lichen on the stones.

For those who gave their all at our behest,
our memories alone will not atone.

Do you see the fires burning at a distance,
and more hallowed ground broken day by day?

Each new stone laid a fading reminiscence;
each new boquet soon fading into gray.

What better way to honor sacrifice
than to pause and speak their names aloud.

Until the gods of war are pacified;
until our flag no longer serves as shroud.

all she wants to do
is make beautiful things,
but she doesn't even know what beauty is.

this looks nice, so simple, minimalism.
but is it a masterpiece?

question everything. the head is full.

what is art?
what is purpose?
what is pleasing?
what is ugly?
what is permanence?
what is thieving?

and of course there is the, "why?"

it continues.
it continues.

she thinks.
there is no answer.
simply a carousel of questions.

In light of recent self-awarness
I try my best to feel
less suffocated
by the instilled ideal
of forgiveness
and more accepting
of the primal, instinctive
need to express
what I cannot suppress

In light of recent self-awareness
I try my best to see
less of the drowning
nerve-racking
ticking
notion that is
The Moment
and more of the ambiently
serene concept of
The Present

In light of recent self-awareness
I try my best to be
less aware
and more myself.

I said your name more than I've ever said I love you
I think eventually they became one in the same to me
Suddenly your name became the most important word that would ever leave my lips
Your name, a singular word, would come to mean the word to me
And eventually
Eventually
Your name
Instead of being breathed in between the I love you's
Would soon be between the broken sobs filled with regret
I pray for the day where I can say your name without feeling each piece of myself that I worked too hard to put back together threaten to fall apart again into the mess I am now
One day
I'll be okay
And your name will only be a fleeting memory