Cathedrals still speak of you-
Photographs yell our names
in every language
We occur so frequently,
and when we do,
oceans applaud

-c.j.

the first time we touched was
the coinciding of many lives
though I only felt purely my own
it may have been the crashing of
the hardest of hearts,
forming holograms that shine with infinity
but my heart felt soft as it finally reached yours,
and stayed there, finally home

-c.j.

I never could write a song
It was an unnatural endeavour, and
I wanted to, so much, but the notes
and words refused to stretch out of
the womb
Or at least knock the walls within to
give a hint as to what frivolities or
beauty I could put into the spaces
I tried to conjure up a melody, a rhyme
that wasn't wickedly elementary, but
all that came were impatient breaths
So I fumble with words and their
infinities instead

-cj

thirst hunger sleep wake breath
lips hands legs an entire stadium of masters
drink eat lay open inhale
kiss hold walk and never stop

-cj

Do you know what I wish, she asks
He waits, she turns to him with the
speed of her irregular heart
I wish I was innocent, she says
After a minute he breathes and tells her,
You still are, in your desire to be

-c.j.

Tug my sweater down, pinch the skin
that peeks, and I feel the bones beneath
that design me with edges
No roundness nor circles nor pi
A linear loveliness creates
straight shadows
I wonder if you are partial to me?

-cj

Where bodies meet, there is deceit
This insomniac rhythm has got us
between stark white and oblivion
A pillow to lay your head,
my dear cuckoo friend

-c.j.

typewriter junk
influx of phrases and phases to spell out
my fingers press the circle buttons carefully
but the mind behind it is a cluttered wicked studio
backspace those duplicate letters,
and that character-is it an ampersand or a three?
censor the rambles through the english brambles,
they seek to go home
within my nooks and books and pages
strewn all over inside

-cj

eyes witness a sharp beauty
hands bleed from wringing
tumble, wrap, secure thy veins
before your tongue gets tied in knots
speak in spite of the twisted among your teeth
perhaps an innocent part within
slows the birth of desire, the forbidden fruit
young but knowing pain, feeling cherry-stem-tied inside

-cj

are you mine or should I give up that fight
this alienation seeks to press in, it is eager to bite
jilted lovers, if lovers at all
fading like old photographs hung on the wall
whatever the oblique harangue put on,
little frames adorn anyway
lightness into lightness

just before the empty,
I ignite, I paint the stars-
and the feeling that usurps grace is suddenly over me

-c.j.

if white truths and lies
were to cover our tracks
perhaps i would not care
to look back
the snow melted as the sun shone
for some reason
it reminded me of home
in that disastrous,
orange peeling way

-cj

How grand is the spectacular NOW
Its decibels and magnitude are
larger than the last and the next.
Oh, how fantastic is the present
Taunting and freezing and plagiarising
I'd **** for another grand NOW.

-cj

Static images line the dash,
threatening a blind collision
The stranger is comatose
and the sun is red

-cj

He didn't know what sylvania meant
But I knew it had something to do with forests
Something we learned in class last year
Despite your forgetting a definition made of wood,
Your mind is growing keener than one's should
I act all dry and logical as a cover to avoid the limelight, you confess
You're failing, then, I say
You're luminous

-c.j.

passive-aggressive
submissive-combative
the sirens of your toxic spirit encourage
competition that I cannot stand for
so I fall straight back again
my blood hiking up the thermometer
to boiling point

-c.j.

Leather jacket
Sitting in her room
Sorting through old records
The dust makes her sneeze
Driving through town
It's perfect like I never knew it

-cj

I suppose I wouldn't mind waking up to turquoise skies
painted outside the window
When I'm dreaming of you,
I sing to the mirror like I am serenading a paramour
but it is nonchalant, almost fearless,
with my voice still in a tumble of organs and sleepy phlegm,
finding its way out
My fingers turn the faucet on, and the sink streams water out with the slight whistle of the pipes in the background
It's the beginnings of morning,
in the sequence that those prime-coloured skies ensure

-cj

The restroom mirrors have seen me naked
Bells ringing in warning and I wince
Do I look ok? Do I look good? Do I look somewhat beautiful? Do I look attractive? The risk in asking severs truth from fact
Becoming rogue,  I wait, I will

-cj

hello, I'll linger here and hold the land
hello, I'll linger here and harvest, as planned
return to me, we've lingered
luck ripens fast and expires at last
I folded it and I'll preserve it, I'll preserve it for you

along the dining hall into your hands
seize my mantras, presents for you
it'll be back when the rest remain
we will lose ourselves to the land

there's hearts here, there's hearts
there's visions, surreal, there's visions
there's you and me and what we inhale
it's begun, the descent
you're deprived of sleep and it's pressing
since you'll feel when you're alone and
you'll do lonely things when you realise,
it'll hit you one night

you linger, sitting, thinking about it, fervently
the lovely middle is happened and all else is old
you and I stay on the pew, always in the front
you will linger with me
linger until the final one, keep on, until the final
quaking frame, until the next arrives
until my hands grow weak
don't leave the land, don't leave it

-c.j.

We would sail as if there was but everything to forget
The anchor is the sugary mistake- clamouring for a second hour to recuperate
Heavier secrets to smudge into yesterday's eyeliner
If I happen to see something you echoed on accident, would you rush to cover it up?
I'm already having wicked visions of my own

-cj

I didn't want to drag myself along anymore
I wanted to open my eyes to this world everyone else knew about and maybe even lived in
One where the days weren't everests
One where the people dabbled in love without the consequences tied to their wrists
One where there was always a reason to be happy

-cj

I can't remember the last bath I had
Soaking in my filth, wanting to be left unequivocally alone
There have been similar instances, but none with the lukewarm water or dreaded departure

-cj

once we reach our destination
we should talk about what we want
the hotel life always suited me
the walls held ghosts,
never empty
clinging to your arm as
my voice goes viral
each little mind knows it
like a cryptic song
surely that's not where it should belong
all over, pandemic, it's spreading
my voice is going viral
no secrets anymore

-c.j.

Human
Yes I'd like comfort
But I am a restless *******
All the same
Only human
Lightheaded, nightmareheaded,
Pale musician sleeper
Just a human

-cj

I misplaced a haven that infatuated me
it melted as the thermometer throbbed
that exceptional part in the museum,
that envious balcony where we fawned
over its edge

do you see them? the shelves hold every colour
do you long for it? it's an intrinsic desire, yes, it is
it was the nirvana, the nirvana of time and its
enemies that you've just seen buried in books
return to it, return to it, you must

I'm done with tragedies, I'm done with the Montagues
see the crowd, crowd your thoughts
thrive on what you must
in the poetics of distance, it's never free
we won't sense the gaps until
some of our selves fall through

-c.j.

the hotter the water
the more it bites my skin
the less I think about
ugly conventions that
otherwise shroud my vision
a smoky vapour filters
and everything will work out

-c.j.

So last night was a full moon
and tonight is a full moon
You know what that means?

The moon is an insomniac?

No, it means it is a blue moon

Are you trying to inspire me?

Inspire you to do what?

I don't know, list all the hues of blue
and paint our lunar friend?

-c.j.

author of these clumsy fictions-
dearly yours, on all fours
fighting attacking our young dreams
from corners tight, often alight
amour, oh traveling one,
fearful darling

-c.j.

the end of the semester matched with the cold
school was plain and the fields in our eyes
were white

we wrote essays on idealism for the A
planning with spontaneity
craving the warmth made;
snowless trees or eastern timber
the evitable obscured; thick, surreal, mouths
wit turned clueless, so to pretend
almost taken for imagined oaths expressing
willed waking

when wonder expels our innermosts,
forgiving our aforementions
pure window secrets connect the maps
stretched tight over each thought

-c.j.

Who knew one could rhyme with such ease
Surely the timing was merely a tease
To plot, to spot, to tumble down the parts, a feeling of locked up spirits and twisted smarts
If this is rocket science, hand me a pen, for a career in the space field I must sign to again

-cj

infrared, a shriek oddly pleasant
walls covered with candy wrappers from the parties and holidays
flares and photographs to revel in that bitterest night, so sweet
the queen forbade us from entering the kingdom
we ignored the demand
for though we are peasants we still see in colour

-cj

men in white coats call their valentine, asking,
"are you there, sweetheart? I'm in london, watching your videotapes,"
while I sit on the cold patient's bed, wondering if I could
capture a phone call with my boyfriend, find out how the party was,
if his father has gone up in the business
but then I am chemical dizzy
and then the doctor whispers to hush my teenage mouth, that I'm only in high school
that all I do is go to the dance hall and eat lucky charms the next morning like a child
I used to believe I was a prodigy, even if all I could do was tie-dye
the medicine puts me to sleep and the white coat clad man tells my parents it's not serious

-c.j.

Cold wars between our bodies
If kisses from better dreams
kept us waiting
Only the dim armistice we signed
(unconsciously)
divides us

-cj

waiting in the apartment, sitting on the low loveseat
windows of right before the eyes,
a mirror of what encircles this piece of home
entrance, shy and half-innocent
"you look swell," will you stay for long?

-cj

bring in the party, bring in the arbitration
how else can a silhouette on her back not tarry?
bring in the secluded, request for you to connect
to her, slowly
believes only you

nothing surrounding will pay mind
nothing surrounding you
this line that you're tracing
is one stitched parallel for many
the edges, the lengths, flustering
I hope the terrors are concealed by my love

my love, love is the volatile scope of fiction
a façade to cling to when all is wrong
you come alive with pages and crooked fingers
can't you realise I'm fine?
the hazards of implying any lack of strength
just to blank on your birthday,
nothing surrounding

-c.j.

parachutes and pens, bowler hats and belts
these are our symbols, watch them mean
mysterious to whomever spies on us
ambiguous; to bring analyses hundredfold
breeds pathetick arguments pertaining to
precious, altogether perfect, brimming
hands and books
light and weight, lay and wait
these are our metaphors, see their wavelengths
a weapon, a curse, a turning of the tables
and how utterly beautiful is it that no one
will ever understand them

-c.j.

I stay up
and in the eleventh hour
I eat my pulse
to shut it up

-cj

attach a little close to-
resting lovely, so nervous
the loops secure you at my edge
above, in nooks, violet open
and shut for the sound

high and far, my light will lose
if yours is stolen
I'd hold the quarters

denser theory, buzzing fly,
straight plummet
my flighty fingers, technical shocks
designed for me

it was a shattered route
shifting sheets foremost
blustery notes tuck me away
over hushed aches, harms it
revolves around every whimper
takes my debating love across

attach a little close to this
seems years, leaves loops,
hearts burst,
stays apart
stays a fully strange one
attach a little close to a poem
that is closing

-c.j.

It rained this morning
It's very watery outside, I said
The black umbrella was my friend and the white skin beneath its shade remained in denial

-cj

She wanted adventure
and she got conformity
She wanted romance
and she got apathy
She wanted beauty
and she got plainness
She wanted sleep
and she got decibels and light
She didn't want to sing
and her voice tainted the air
anyway

-cj

May I see the rain, she asked the teacher politely
No, the teacher replied, the thunder in her voice
A frown and smothered protest
Nothing to quench the thirst but thoughts of drops, descending, bending time
A truly sad tale, to be remembered in every storm

-cj

plenty, I'm free, I'll do it myself
this strand is an obscured veil
I'm towering like a queen of combat,
I've become unshakable

so, sketch, let me write you,
send inspiration
you crave it all, I'm aware
what do you seek in me these days?
maybe it's due that we partake

this, in this moment, the cold breeze
it becomes profound
just hide your lips for a vivid fabrication
scream music and lift up the mother warmth
the hunger won't cease until the light flees,
these days

the diagonal is luring an unfilled bottle
confidence that the muted can supercede
I'll take a quill to the creature

so, come, let me reveal the world
outside of your comprehension
your hold, make it real
I'm dragging you to the café

the atmosphere, the ground,
the diamond planets, and
mother warmth
we'll dig them down with
mountain rivers
I want your eyes to get big again
they're weighed with insomnia,
sleepy with stories
your hold, make it real
I'm dragging you home

-c.j.

that summer I set fire to the books I had read before
I felt hungry and filled my body with meat and sugar and anything else good
that summer I slipped my old journals into a box, which now collects dust
I make my own memories now, they do not make me

that summer the hunger showed me so many things, I could not begin to explain them
I ate and slept and walked and read new books, and saw new people
that summer I met my love
I make my own travels now, and they complete me

-c.j.

I believe there is nothing more stagnant than the devil's work
I believe there is nothing prettier than brushing him off
be still, still my soul
do not move even if time tells you to

-c.j.

"take me to church," the con man said
and I agreed to it, as I was yet to see
his feignness, his shrouded cloud cast
over the sunny afternoon
I thought I was moving on, getting somewhere,
but I was chasing reflections of someone
I thought I knew,
trapped in a mirror's maze until winter

-c.j.

come near me again?
yes, that is what made me heal
or maybe I am too naiive to realise it caused my wounds to fester
how you ran your fingers through my hair
and kissed my neck
that august night
a breaking within
and a stitching of our threads
just the minutes concoct
this poison that will infuse my blood with the death of those willowy weeks or
an antidote, whose amber drops numb
then sway my bones to the sounds of
pure love and brown eyes in the dark

-cj

Sally prefers to be wrapped up in books,
to ignore the others' penetrating looks
cathedral bells in her head, a Catholic wedding
in the plot

-c.j.

you have to stop yourself and ask
if you possess the power to write
something true
and also something false
and if you can only do one of those
*******
you are not a writer

-cj

Morals clung to me and nipped at my shoulders more than I held onto them
Perhaps what is good and what is bad is undefined, at least in my little mind
He told me a bible on the ground was bad luck, and I laughed and squinted at pretend omens
Do you believe that, I asked when he muttered, in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth
I don't know, he said, and we knew that we both didn't particularly want to

-cj

it's calm here without the metropolitan storm
the momentum has exited that tracks my steps
it's silent, too- give me this holy place
that the minutes you carry torches for aren't jilted
what's misplaced is here, it's wired, it perceives
I can't endure, I can't sleep
I did endure in a city's centre

-c.j.