it may not be somewhere as far or exotic as Ithaca
and it turns out that a new life is never anything different than your life, except now.

the sounds of the city are just as independent as they were for you.
just a little closer to home.
and my ***** window pane is just the same as yours,
the beer cans in my driveway are just as empty and full of memories
a little bit later
but I'm a little bit younger
and still full of potential, I hope.

it doesn't feel like my jealous sophomore soul,
but rather a home.

it's not often now I wonder what could have been.
growing up is somewhat like growing into the notion that you will never have exactly what you are jealous of.
but you can always come close.

2-5-13

It's time for spring colors again,
for trees to bud, and snowy wet mud.
It isn't here yet today, but I'm waiting.

I smiled today, without telling myself that I had to.
I didn't hide from the sun.
and I noticed that the sky was as blue as your eyes.
but with a little bit less icy tones,
and a lot more love for me.

I can see stains on the window of every car.
I'm using myself as an ashtray.
The stereo is playing on, and my cigarettes long.
I'm not worried about you, or home, or health.
this is ambivalence we turned to gold.
I feel beautiful for once.
and once is forever.

I will not come back with my nails bitten down.
not even for you.

I've been listening to the front bottoms
looking at the spanish moon.

I can't rip out the part of me
that remembers a time
when things were better
between us.

and so I think,
that for a little while longer at least,
I will have mornings like this.

I have already told you;
there are sleepless mornings
when I can taste
every poison lacing my cigarette

and I wouldn't mind except
for the way that they sift past
a throat already rubbed sore
from all of the screams kept silent inside.

I don't care about Monday's weather
because I won't be here
while you're sleeping
I'll be arriving at an airport
and when you wake up
I'll be across the Atlantic

I'm skipping ahead to the part
when I come back home
a month from now
to see if anythings changed
between us.

and I'm doubtful.

but I'm going to leave that note
somewhere where you'll find it
when I'm already on my plane.
and if you read it
maybe you'll think
of how
I shouldn't try to forget you
and maybe you'll be happy
that I'm going to miss you
every bit as much as I will.

you know I sleep here more often than not;
it's not my home
but I just feel like
I'm happiest here.

dropping every vile line I needed,
I needed to keep you at a distance,
for a year.

from what little I remember,
I said too much.
from what little I wanted,
I gave up too much.

delaying the inevitable isn't working,
even though I want it to.
vain to the point of forgetting, all the
little lies I tell myself to stay sane.
in the very best way I couldn't do it,
nobody is worth feeling for again.

even you.

doesn't this mean I should give up?
even when I have before?
visiting your living room,
leaving flannels by your bed.
if only I could stick with my denials.
never admitting what's left unsaid.

I've spelled it out.

when I was younger and fresher,
a little less lost,
and could still see straight,
over the wall I built to keep everyone out.

I spelled it out.

I could still see you on the other side.
and thought about letting you in.

doesn't it seem scary to you?
everything I know would change
very few people know this
looking at you from across the room
I imagine I am by your side
never imagining it could ever happen

I called you
and I said,

"I still don't know what happened."
"but I think that it never mattered."

I could hear you breathing on the line,
picking out just what to say.
I drank a lot of wine this morning.
I haven't gotten out of bed today.

3-3-2013

screaming inside.
deaf like winter nights.
as unbroken as a sheet of glass.
blank and see through.

the lump sum of every rotted feeling.
all the things I've always known I am.
all the things you always thought I was.
all of these things,  they come out at night.
and they are not sleeping.

they make me face the many ways,
how I wanted to mourn you.
how I wanted to forget you.
and how I'm never sincere enough,
to know just what I want.

how I am hurting.
no one but myself.

I am, screaming inside.
making myself deaf like winter nights
when I am afraid to make a sound,
I'm only courageous enough to take a drag,
and then I have nothing left to take from you.

you gave me one month of happiness.
and that was it.

wide awake with heartbreak
and a stomach ache.

I'm jangling along,
in time with charms falling across my arms.
silver fade with cheap,  black dyed suede.

I'm a simple kind of fix.

running into woven traps and loose ends,
hiding from our emotions,
hiding from our daily lives.

I started drawing exit signs.

he bit me and
left a mark on the throat
I had been singing with

every brush of my hair to my shoulder
is a reminder of a stain I can't brush away

a lingering fog has hit campus
and I wonder what kind of old woman I will grow into.

breakfast is a cigarette

an accidental toast with another empty bottle

it hurts the most when it's repeated

just the mention of your name
was enough to send me into
what they thought was a suicide
but was just my sobbing in the shower
I guess I was too loud

my eyes are green, and red
how festive
sometimes I think
I have the best and worst
understanding of Christmas

tomorrow
I will
text you pictures of the asylum
wake up
in time for work
and tell you about
the night before.

it is such torture
to love you
and I do it anyways

coffee, college, cigarettes,
there's no place here to hold regrets,
but they occasionally manage to slip in for awhile.
it's nothing I can't drink away,
now that I know how badly I want to do just that.

packed away and labeled in little boxes,
dust is gathering on the picture frame,
that you gave to me after graduation.
how could we have known how little time we had?

and I'm sorry,
                          I'm sorry.

I'm not coming back for the past
it will **** me,  break me,  own me,

and I'm sorry,
                          I'm sorry.

I have no room for weaknesses now,
the spaces are reserved,  my heart is closed.
I turned to sand, and ash,  I slipped away.
where were you to save me?

I'm not going to remember you in four years,
so I suppose it's just as well.

take me home
tuck me in bed
promise me
that you'll stick around
until I wake up

thinking of you
when the sun leaves the sky forever.
we both know that we are dying.

you could find me where the city stood
while my eyes burned bright
not unlike the skyline
but I could never find you again.

thinking of highschool smiles
skipping classes and standing in lunch lines
the way you spoke to me
like a small child
that needed protecting,.

thinking of nothing but the way you looked at me
and the way that I looked back into your eyes
waiting for you to walk into a room

thinking of you

feeling like I am always feeling;
just waiting for you to walk into the room.

drag a knife down my spine
I had forgotten pain
and now
I need it

couldn’t sleep so I went out for a cigarette; contemplated the true meaning of being lonely

and it’s something to do with being just good enough for everybody around you, but never good enough for yourself.

something to do with wanting to regret a touch, a feeling, a smile. being too scared to accept a lapse in judgement.

being too self aware to just let it happen

my fingers went numb while I smoked and thought it over. the best revenge is never taking it. And the worse curse is a slow curse.

I hope you never have to end up this lonely.

I am in love
in my ****** little cobweb room
I lay in bed
look at the ceiling
and think of you.

this morning
I did not wake up
in your bed.
and I am all the much sadder
for it.

I was sitting here against the wall
when you woke up.
I knew I shouldn't expect you to know me,
and yet you did.

look at us,  how far we've come.
I know this room doesn't look like much.
you have to know,
that after all these years, I still find it beautiful.

we can leave right now,
but first I should tell you,

we were wrong.
the future is coming, and I am not afraid.

I used to say your name like a prayer
over and over in my head
sitting curbside next to a sewer drain
dropping cigarette butts into the abyss as an offering.

it’s a type of madness that I revisit
from time to time.

different names, different prayers.
cigarette butts and sewer drains.

I can’t remember what room I was in
15 years old
involuntary 24 hour hold
in the elmwood village

now I look over my yard
past the liquor store
to the the abandoned glass faces
of your darkened rooms

wonder what I would tell her
wonder what she would see, looking out

I don’t remember the view
don’t remember the way these white lines
must’ve looked fresh
red, raw, and new

but I imagine
her looking out at me

while I smoke a cigarette
while onyx tosses a stick
while walking hodge in twilight hours
while I write these words

what is it I would tell her
what could ten years offer her
to console
to comfort

all I see are black abandoned faces
in groups of three
empty rooms

ghosts of girls long dead
or recovered.