morning light is always the most beautiful
there's a kind of tenderness that borders on pure naivete
an inexperienced fracture of grace that
unfortunately the sunset does not contain
although i am never awake for it
i am acutely aware of it behind closed eyelids
There's an optimism I've never felt on the creases of my palms

i wish i could explain to you
how boring that art gallery was
i can't remember what color shirt i was wearing
there's a lot of things i'm only half there for
i'll drift to nowhere precise and my eyes will get that faraway glow of a look and you'll think i'm in love
but it's just my inattentiveness to stay in my body for long
i'm less devil may care and more jitterbug hiding it's own epileptic seizure

i guess it's all about forgetting things and then trying to find where you put them
sometimes you stop looking altogether and come to terms with the fact that some things want to remain lost
morning light is always the most beautiful

Anything can
look like a poem
and sound philosophical
simply by moving
the words on
different lines.

Am I doing it right?
Is this
really
talent?
Art?
Effort?

I think I am trying.
Really, I am
I go back and change the order
and I break lines
where it sounds right
But it does not take me long.
Not at all.

I try to be
intentional
and call it natural rhythm.
Instinct and style taking over
I alternate between
agonizing every detail
like When to Capitalize
and publishing free form poems without looking over them twice.

How is writing supposed to feel?
Should I labor?
or should it flow?
Or do I get to decide?

I think the things I talk of
mean something
at least.

But am I just
pretentious?

fooling myself into thinking that
using common poetry formats
somehow makes my work worthwhile?

We cannot write silence.
The beats.
The pause.
The breath.
The way it aches
and persists

and begs that,

if only for a moment,

our consciousness is only a whisper.
our bodies,
our lips,
the air that passes through falling chests
and stillness.

A melody of emotion.
Sleeping in the quiet of a heartbeat skipped
a word lost to the wind.

The wickedness of reticence
Encapsulated in air and time.

The moment stretched too long.
Hesitation perpetuated in the grip of fingernails
pressed into palms.

We cannot write silence,
but we can try.

to find a way to immortalize emotion
to create space
in the ceaseless drone of words that speak and spin.

I cannot write silence. But I can write
tears and years
and the burn of long-stretched lies.

I can write goodbyes and hellos
And dozen ways to say
I love to hate you
Or
I hate to love you
and sometimes
I cannot tell the difference.
Silence.
The space I have upheld for myself.

I love to hate you
Heart.

I hate to love you too.

I cannot write silence.
But I know it.
and I have held it in my hand.

i've hidden a note in an old library book that i never returned
i ripped the sleeve off and wrote my name in red permanent ink
it smells of oak wood and dust
i felt a warm guilt that i haven't felt since i was 8 years old
when my shoe slipped on dog ****
and i went into class with muddled shoes that smelled of underdeveloped intestines twisting
i think you would understand the embarrassment
the itching sting that my chest surrendered to when everyone asked where it was coming from
this particular note was written in a momentary relapse of admonition
an answer to a question that wasn't answered
will you look in the rubble, where i told myself to stop talking about god all the time
the moon never replied to my letters so i drank my weight in wine
and when i woke up the sender's address was swindled between postmen whose hands were too crooked to open the mails slots

I'm a shameless liar
Thoughts
lost in translation
(Softly)
consumed by the fire
Trying to see through the haze
exhaling is dire
I cannot seem to find
My Telephone wire

So sorry if I seem quiet tonight,
the trembling in my voice
Shaking lips and broken words
Are worth the itching in my tongue

I try to wake up, Only
to find, I was never
asleep.