predictable

the wind whistles songs behind my back while we look at the world together. everything is so green, even with the permanent glaze that i look through, and i can see your teeth even from here. there are no words anymore for how the ground radiates comfort, and your smile. i wait and watch for the second when the skin that encases this moment frays and dissolves; i sit in anticipation for when i'll start wishing i could still hold onto every rough edge, and the disappointing moment when i feel them soften anyway and slip away between my fingers, wasted.

experiential experience

it's raining in Iris,

drops trembling at the edge of the trees,

flooding, they rush past the ducts and down the bridge,

yawning past caves and valleys,

cascading over the lip and down the edge.

the sea unleashed, but quietly done.

steady and sure

and soft.

ridiculous

i think we get out here and loose our voices all over again.

lung muscles seizing up at the impossibility of life

i think we just die a little more every day

wondering where all the padding went against the black abyss at the edge of the world.

loosening vocal chords for that last desperate plunge over the lip.

looking for normality in all the wrong places,

i let you crack all my ribs back and rifle through my organs

afraid to confront reality, i locked up all my emotions

and left them for dead in the basement corners of my heart.

they came back to haunt me instead.
monsters!

and while these grimy fingertips creep back into the brain.
for once in this life it will never be quite the same.

where in the world.

suck that oxygen down and lie as pretty as you can for me.

because i swear to god, at two in the morning,

you sound like a song i can't remember

we sit here, juxtaposed,

listening to my fears rustle around in the walls and down the stairs

and it's so beautiful i forgot how to breathe again

shedding bruises and a constant fear

i'll settle here and tell you everything i know about being in love

we'll rot away together in the face of the world.

while the songs in my bones put the words in my head

and when they sink into the paper off the end of a pen

i'll sing them for you.

pathosis

i sit in quiet corners and watch the skin peel off my hands in layers

i stare at the dark spaces between things and spend too much time daydreaming.

i divide and divide and fall apart all over again,

crying while my lungs sing drunkenly medicated melodies to the blank whiteness of the walls.

i forget every day just a little more why i do things, and crawl along the baseboards winding all the clocks back.

i go mad and the insanity stalks the edges of my pupils, causing seizures, freezing limbs,

choking, exhaling, shuddering, sobbing, thrashing, miserable.

i love you

we pray quietly at night

hoping to somehow close out the ugliness that creeps in our veins.

longing to turn off the questions, the loathing,

to turn off all sound.

just to settle instead for merely floating through it.

sucking the air into our lungs,

and crying ourselves to sleep.

watching clocks while swimming through sand.

flutter

The whole world revolves quietly, forming a sharp edged image behind the retinas. The brain shifts, and the image softens, dulls, becomes more colorful and vibrant. Hues mixing and deepening in time with the eyelids, a quick step to the tha-thump tha-thump of a drum. A click, and the sharp edges flow back, melding into the soppy color pools, blending. The nerve endings explode immediately, the hand pauses-- then shifts, hesitantly at first. A faint breath. Paper after paper is crushed miserably. Idea after idea mashed and discarded. It never comes out right. Again the nerves twitch, the brain flutters like a trapped bird. The idea bumps around between the sensory cortex and the optic lens, worryingly shifting through colors and forms. Did we get it right this time? Are you sure we got it right? The fingers tremble as the nervous system rages, unable to send the spark that will make them work again. As the beating becomes more frantic, hopelessness settles back into the base of the skull. Smug. Frustration seeps slowly into joints and tendons; the vehemence increases rapidly and the idea begins to weep and fade. Encompassed back into the sub-conciousness to drift endlessly through the mind. Remorse begins to flood into the chest cavity. Unwearyingly, the hands find the paper again, un-crumple the ideas again, and sigh. Little half peices of thought, dismayingly fragile, end up as nothing but waste.

there are tiny little fragments of a dream

embedded in my hands.

each bit a painful reminder,

unforgettable as every inch of the floor we spend hours looking at.

examining feet and shoes with a ferocity known only to books and love letters.

down, down, down.

oh don't you know,

my delightful little cherub,

that's the feeling of being sick to your stomach with revenge,

an exaggerated emotion—

fit for all our flightless fancies.

listen well,

my creeping wide-eyed child,

with your spindly thoughts and wicked smile.

my beautiful bow-legged boy.

you'll surprise your mother for sure.

you said you'd keep me honest.

but i wont call you on it.

a mere flutter of memory,

dusting over the eyelids in dreams,

murmuring through the veins.

a name,

frankly forgotten,

whispered between tendons.

or simply,

the dearest darling bit

of a larger than life day at the fair,

an endearing memento,

worried like a tooth ache.

i love you.

come home.

settling

Your hard ways and soft sentences slither out late at night,

Hidden in the corners of my books.

Whispering creaks and groans from old bones that resound frighteningly into flat silence.

Brazen promises that melt into flesh with every incoherent illustration.

Slipped artfully betwixt a murmur and rustle, they clamor to sing us a song of strange habits with lyrical inventions.

A quaint home-sick melody to soothe our young ears and aging hearts.

churning

not fitting in burns lines deep into my face,
marking more each day why I can't.
sending signals, turning heads,
s p e l l i n g i t o u t.
i refuse to look in a mirror.
i don't want to know what creeps there on hands and knees behind my eyes.

backwards

In the silence of the world, do I really make a ripple, make a hole.
Does the earth shudder for me, turn for my walking, and exhale for my breathing.
Can a small person sing louder in the dark, swim farther through sound, and slip into a vein.
Do the skies gather and split, at the brush of a word, and at a single glance.
Will a single syllabel break walls, burn trees, crush towns.
Why won't you even spend, a day, an hour, a minute.
Waiting?

rapid hope loss.

If only,
Filthy digusting words set deep in skin,
could be sung away,
with your voice.

If only,
Gruesome sickening resentment,
wasn't such a good feeling,
mixed up with promises.

If only,
I wouldn't feel so alone.
Talking to you at two in the morning,
About nothing at all.

shrunken lungs

"what happens when I can't do this anymore?"

"don't talk like that."

"look at me! I can't talk any other way."

"it's not going to happen."

"I need you to acknowledge that there's something wrong.

for the love of god, I need you to notice something for once in your life. this is ruining me."

"what was that?"

"nothing. it was nothing."

I always end up right here

Eyes translucent under the light, soul shifting around in my chest.

Doubt and regret pushing holes, creating sags,

facade stretched too thin over this insurmountable guilt.

I suppose I am healed now.

I can't help myself anymore than anyone else.

Forever ending up right here, pinned in someone's back seat.

Choked of innocence and disgusted with myself.

As always.

and then out the door, singing at the top of your lungs.

I'm sorry I can't explain it like that one day.

You soak into my bones every time we talk.

Awkward and adoring, we look away at each glance.

You repulse me with your skin and wet eyes.

And I swear I couldn't have moved even if you hadn't been dead.

I swear I couldn't.

time?

And in that one moment of realization,

poetry creeps back in.

Settling into a familiar haunt, the heart.

You're not much of anything anymore to me, I guess.

I wonder where all that love went.

It's long gone, sucked from every pore.

Skin cracked. Lips chapped.

Dry.

the same old skin

The seasons beat in my veins.

Each one requesting dominance, shuffling aside personalities and dreams.

Summer pulses in my joints and memories, a sickly sweet tune to live by.

My skin stretches and sags over an undefinable person.

Thoughts have no connection to each other as they drip down my nose,

unexplainable, unreliable, unexplored.

Fear of the unknown keeps me cornered.

dust

We lie so beautifully.

I can't even tell the difference anymore.

Every eye, lust driven, sin drenched,

Is focused on you.

I don't know who I am when I am with you.

How would I know who I am without?

fear

commitment scares the shit out of me.

but nobody is supposed to know that it didn't feel right,

when you pulled me down and asked me to stay.

smoke curling arms around legs and limbs.

nobody is supposed to know that it cut me off,

thorny tendrils wound through eye sockets and brain cells.

away

Every time we talk I try so hard to be nonchalant, 

that I end up stuttering and slipping on my own words.

You're not even someone I want to be around anyway.

Your actions and personality repulse me.

Yet I'm so concerned with what you think that it makes me sick. 

Self-esteem is for liars.

untitled

i am a mess these days father.

each prayer, i must confess, was a lie.

god comes home every night, sick with alcohol and heavy fists;

"there's only one thing you can do with a lazy wife"

redemption spilled sickeningly on the kitchen tile in scarlet.

What? You're dying a little too?

So the polar bears are dying.

Starving, drowning,

Sometimes both.

I wonder as they take their last breath,
if they have regret.


Should of evolved differently,
Should of stayed in school,

Should of taken Jemima,
to the Arctic Prom.

how do you remember...

... when you can't?

How do you remember things,

When you're not even sure they happened.
When the only proof you've got is a photograph.

Can we convince ourselves we didn't?
Can we just pretend like it didn't happen, 
That we went to disneyworld instead.
Or it was just a dream.


What happens when it's in reverse?
And you want to remember,

Do you just pretend you never forgot?

Laughing along,
Making up stories on the tip of your tounge,
Ready to reassure everyone.

lament

My sister and I, cant pass as twins anymore.

which I thought I would like.
But it just makes me feel like I'm loosing someone.

She just isn't my sister anymore, I dont like her.
She speaks with too many voices,
and spite hides in her words.
When I look at her,
I dont see a mirror anymore,
Just another person who I wont want to see again.

The saddness sort of creeps through your veins,
quietly seeping in,
till you can feel it in your very bones.

But by then it's over, and you're home.

liar liar

I would like nothing more,

than for you to write love songs.

About anyone but me.

For you to laugh and talk and tell

These things to anyone else.

But you wont.