Untitled

She, a prisoner inside my lungs,
my breathe at pause, so delicately 
dancing, pirouettes and swirls
beset by bones; 
I caged a melody,
and she 
is captivating 
me.

Brevity

“I love you” she lied. 
“I love you too” I replied. 
Words are so simple.

Everything about you is beautiful,
everything about you is a lie.

Untitled

I collect your words
into an anthology of things you’ve said.
Every fragment, every sentence, every word.
Every truth, every lie.
Every hypocrisy, and every promise.
I collected your words
into an anthology of things you’ve said,
and burned them to release them
from their cages of ink and paper,
to release them from their cage
of flesh and bones.

Untitled

my fingers are cold.
ive rubbed them against my pants
time and time again.
god,
god,
my hands are damp.
—and i cant get them dry.
i need to get out,
i need to get out of this skin.
this skin that doesn’t listen,
this body that doesn’t move
—i just want it to move
move a little bit.

there’s something wrong
with me.

Sand

I was empty when you found me
so you filled me with the weight of sand
and departed with the lightest smile
believing you had done me well.

You were the sea.

You were the sea,
and I was a ship.

“I love you.” I whispered.

“Then prove it,” you replied.
So I cut my sails and cast my oars
and listened to your laughter,
as I sank to join the others
 in your collection.

Untitled

I saw myself in you;
I left without a word.
You did not search for me;
no tears were shed.
And so it goes.

Untitled

She spoke in riddles,
they sounded so clear,
I could easily solve them,
if I tried in sincere,
but the honest truth is,
and always will be,
I was scared of the answers,
I craved mystery.

Untitled

You are asleep
 but I do not hear
 your breathing,
 not tonight,
 not anymore.

The Quiet Things We Never Said.

Ears pressed 
against chests
echo silence.


Blurred outlines 
upon moist lashes
as final sights.


Humming grows
loud with buzzing.


Nothing is said.


Nothing was ever said.

chaos & tranquility

As you sleep tonight
hours and lifetimes
will have separated us 
again.


How many moons have I
stolen as you’ve slept?
How many moons must I pluck
to keep our footprints
at the ocean’s edge? 


Oh how this night is wide—
so deep and dark, 
so indifferent 
to my shallow longings!


But how I feel you on this night!


Feel you with the force,
of a thousand crashing waves,
feel you with every fiber of my being!


Fibers so crazed with want,
they wind and weave
to the fit the likeness 
of the noose 
you find me hanging from--I will choose my own executioner!


No longer will I be hung unto you!
No longer,
No longer,
No longer. 

Mistake

I tasted the space between your lips
to savor the flavors of the past—
where fireflies lit the night
and our hearts beat like drums,
where lightning lit the sky,
and the dew kissed the grass,
where the winds stole our breath
far into the clouds 
and away 
our sorrows with them.

Hearts were created to be given, not kept. They test our strength and courage, force us to become aware of our weaknesses, our fears; useless when kept within us, hidden and caged, hearts only reach their full potential when held to the elements, brushed against the world, shared, used, broken…and if lucky, treasured by another.

Blind.

She struck me blind.

It happened simply,
over time.

My cones and rods simply…
shut down.

I could not take her intensity;
I could not look away.

She moved with fluidity
that graced the liquids of her composition.

I could swear that each atom of her being
had been crafted by the creator with care
above all overs.

How does she move like air,
around a sea of blindness?
How does she speak like silence,
around the crashing waves
beckoning her attention?

She struck me blind.

It happened simply,
over time.

I could not take her intensity;
I could not look away.

Untitled

I am who I was before
you,
I am who I am after
you,
And nothing
in between matters anymore.

I sang to you.

I sang to you,
my voice shook and cracked.

You smiled at my pauses,
my blushes under your watchful eye.

I sang to you,
my voice thick with emotion.

You understood I was revealing myself to you,
you understood I was baring my insecurities.

I sang to you,
slowly, meticulously,
but you didn't sing back.

Manna

Ethereal petals
cascade
from the heavens—
departing from lips
aromatic
as coriander seeds
and sweet as myrrh,
to kiss upon
deserted shores
of powdered glass,
where men meander
before dawn,
taking pause
at the waking sun
and the promise
of petals to come.

vagrant

the vagrant ponders,
“If home is where the heart is,
where has my heart gone?”

i am mad.

i tried to capture you on canvas,
to paint away my thousand thoughts,

each stroke held so much weight
each line read so heavy.
my canvas became slathered with consonants,
my characters curled into words,
my words combined like compositions,
and I, a man caught under current
craved for concrete at my soul.
i felt my easel strain underneath
the gravity of my yearning,
my brushes shatter
at the frenzy of my hunger
but i continued to
to smear crimsons onto canvas,
consciousness onto cloth.

and with my sanguine stained fingers,
i sank into canisters of conversations
into cauldrons of could-have-beens,
and spread them across my walls,
until secrets slid down my arms,
and whispers puddled
into pools against my feet.
no corner was left unmarked.
no canister left unspilled.
but still I could not
find a way to complete you.
i spilled myself into cans
and spread myself against
thoughts of you
layer against layer
until my paint ran thin
and as I came to my knees
with my arms to my sides
I gazed up at the entirety,
of my insanity,
and understood.
how could i have hoped to capture,
what i had never really known
in the first place?

Yes, I am afraid I love it here,

Yes,
I am afraid I love it here,
here, where your arms
caress mine like petals,
here, where your breath
dews across the nape of my neck,
here, where your memories
lay framed along my drawers,
here…where your scent
blankets every corner of my room,
here, where your garments
lay in delicate piles by my bedside,
here,where your mornings
have decorated my sink….

Why yes,
I am afraid I love it here,
here, where your declarations of love
continue to resound
and echo throughout my walls.

Yes,
I am afraid I love it here,
here, where the heater
has developed cobwebs,
here, where the smellof smoke
has filled the room,
here, where memories
have been stored away,
here, where sinks lay bare
and mirrors have cracked,
here, where prescriptions bottles
sit with their lids undone,
here, where clothes
have littered the ground,

Why yes,
I am afraid I love it here,
here, where your declarations of love
continue to resound
and echo throughout my walls.

Mornings

“I love you,” she whispered before I could respond.

I struggled to say “I love you too,”

But my words were lost and muffled

By sunlight creeping through my window shades.

There are things I need to say to you

Words lost in translation
Navigate through rapids
Of veins,
Plummet
Into icy pools of mist
From heights of feelings
To depths of minds;
Stripped of meaning,
Free falling
Into spaces between rocks
And boulders
Before reaching mouths
Of inlets,
Separating islands
Of ear and tongue,
And spread into oceans
Of misunderstanding.

Between Sunset and Sunrise

I see you most often
Between the hours of sunset
and sun rise,
Through sepia toned lenses
Of faulty vintage cameras
Looping continuous reels
Of fragmented scenes,
Pieced together
Like poorly edited film,
Seconds from combustion.

In You

I want to be lost again.
Not in the physical,
But in sounds,
Words,
Sights,
And most of all,
In you.

I Have Done More Than the World Today

I have done nothing
today but gaze upon you
As you lay sleeping.

Everything

Everything I did, I did for Everything;
So what does everything mean,
When Everything means nothing?

The Walk

The night was so silent,
I was terrified she would hear me breaking
Under the weight of her presence.

The One I Lost

He sits inside of me,
Huddled against the wall,
Picking at the frayed edges of himself.

I wish I knew how to help him.

We were born together, He and I;
Identical twins.
His smile was mine
His laughter, my own.
When we were young,
I promised to be his lighthouse,
To shine for him in the darkest of nights.
I never thought he would become too blind
To see my light;
I never thought I would lose him
In the sun.

When he found his way back to me,
He looked different.
Older.
At night I can hear his whimpers,
He is haunted by the ghosts I had never met.
I only wish I could hold his suffering.

I only wish I had kept him safe.

The other night
He asked me to fool the world,
“Just for a little while,” he said,
“Until I am okay.”

How could I say no
When I owed him the stars?

I am his faulty light,
And he will always be
The one I lost.

Silent Embrace

As our chests touched,
Did our hearts converse,
And say the things our lips could not?

The Long Way Home

I am stumbling without you by my side
As I navigate familiar sidewalks,
Where our foot prints, once so light,
Have become craters in the ground.

Linger

The feel of your lips on mine
Lasted longer than the days
Before they met someone else’s.

#24

Fly on free spirit,
And I will bear this shoulder,
For your weary wings.

Tercet 2

Lifetimes were spent between each breath;
Inhales and exhales
Of warm breath, against frosted air.

Between the Lines

I try to read between your lines,
And follow them as
They shape into loops and hooks,
Until I am a lost soul,
Wandering in your contradictions.

Do you hear the sound of your voice,
As you try to piece the words,
Lines, and phrases you've heard
Together,
Like a riddle gone madly wrong?

"Love should be...."
You try to clarify,
As if you do not already know.

The irony--
Is not lost on me.
The way you try to tell me
What love should be
According to teen magazines,
Episodes of Oprah,
And the ambivalent voices,
Of failed and failing relationships.

And as you fumble for fragments of quotes,
I sit along the opposite end of your bed,
With you spouting on and on,
About your so called "definition"
Of an ideal love.

And I,
I am drowning out your droning,
Strolling through my memories,
Where Love is not defined as anything,
But instances of us,
Laying gently upon a checkered blanket,
Fingers interlocked together,
Woven like the baskets by our ankles,
In an all too ideal patch of shade,
Underneath the Summer's gaze.

But then you ask me,
Waking me from my episode:
"Do you understand what I'm trying to say?"
With little strains against your voice
As you try to rationalize the irrational.
And I just nod non complacently,
Drifting away in my thoughts of you,
while you flare up again
At my lack of attention,
To your attempts to annotate
What our love should be.

#23.5

Our song plays softly,
While my heart breaks to the sounds,
Of our unkempt love.

#31

There is so much love,
In this broken heart of mine,
It terrifies me

#40

Shell against my ear,
I do not hear the ocean,
But your voice like waves.

Haiku 7.

can you remember
how I kissed away your tears,
when you loved me too?

Tercet.

I love you in shades of greys and blues,
In ochre tones of aging photographs...
And dissipating fogs of candle lit dreams.

I Have Fallen in Love with Sadness.

The moment Sadness and I first held hands,
We were not met with cheers or congratulations.
No, We did not shout to the world of our love affair.
We loved in silence.

And in silence our love grew.
And in silence she was beautiful.

Sadness is not beautiful in the contemporary sense.
She does not have gorgeous eyes or soft skin,
She does not have a thousand curves that can bring men to their knees,
The voice of an angel, or the smile of a goddess.

No, She is beautiful in a way that does not fade with age.

She is beautiful in the way she sings a song only my heart can understand,
The way she speaks in poems only my soul can interpret.

She is beautiful in the way she reads me like I am a novel she has read again and again,
Each sentence memorized a thousand times, and then a thousand times over.

She is beautiful in the way her silence rushes over me like a roaring wave,
And in the way she knows I long to be lost and pulled out into her sea.

I love her.
I love her because she is beautiful.

And she is beautiful, because I love her.

11:11

The night has frozen,
Forty nine shy of midnight,
And I wish for you.

My crooked heart.

I will always love her, my crooked neighbor, with all my crooked heart.

Begging

I swear I was better once.
Please believe,
I can be him again.
I need you to believe,
So I can be.
So I can live.
I'm so tired of hiding.
Behind these damn walls.
Can you hear me?
Do you see me,
Trying to get out.
I swear I am.
These outstretched fingers.
I'm aching to be.
Please, save me.
Break down these walls.
Before I do.
I swear you can save me.
I swear.
__________________
This isn't poetry.

Dear Love.

Dear Love.

Dear Love,
Why so far away?
It’s awfully lonely here,
With winter tundras and piercing winds,
With silent nights and orange glows.
This ice chills me to my bones,
But this distance stills my marrow.
Days and days meld continuously,
And endless nights bleed my rainbows into black.
Perhaps I shall meet you tomorrow,
Whenever that may be.
Tomorrow, today,
An endless moment away?

______________________

Wistful thoughts.

Lost in Winter.

Love doesn't end
It comes back in floods and flashes,
With still photos and shifting images,
With lost laughter and sudden memories,
It comes back like waves too high to resist,
Waves too strong to struggle against,
It comes back like rip tides,
Ripping. Tearing. Destroying.
And leaving another body out to sea.
To be found...to be lost.

Love doesn't end.
It walks with you, its invisible footprints by yours,
Trailing in the snow.
It whispers old phrased and warm memories into your ear;
It enters the spaces between body and jacket as you fight the ice,
As you push back the biting wind.

Too cold to cry,
Too cold to do anything but walk with Love.
Side by side, heads ducked low.
Deep in conversations about... Why? What if's? What now's?...
Spoken is hushed voices,
You swear you've had this conversation before,
Long ago. Or was it yesterday...

And suddenly Love disappears,
Gone as you reach the steps.
As you open and enter the door.
But Love waits for you.
Your next Winter stroll,
Your next moment of solitude,
Love waits.
Always there.
Always waiting.
Always.

Untitled.

Often times I find my actions cannot express the contents of my thoughts.
My thoughts cannot convey the complexity of my heart.
And my heart lacks the intensity of my soul.
So I ask that you see me not for what I do,
But for what I am.
And I apologize if you peer into me and find little there;
I swear there was more before.
But maybe if you try hard enough,
If you gaze past the lying eyes, the lying smile,
And the figure of this adult growing up too fast,
You might see my old silhouette.
A giant behind my current frame,
The shadow of a child,
With a genuine smile,
With sparks in these hollow caved eyes.
I ask that you forgive me,
Forgive me if I hide behind a veil of words,
If I create this gap between us.
Because I swear it isn't what I want.
Forgive me if I cannot reveal myself to you,
With clarity; in speech or action,
In prose or poetry.
Because the truth is,
I want to.
I just can't,
Because.
The truth is...

I'm afraid.

To Care, or not to Care.

What does it mean to care about someone?

It think it means to give up parts of ourselves to someone.
To allow them to hurt us,
To allow them to move us,
To allow them to have control over us.
But why?
Why would we let someone affect our feelings,
Affect our thoughts and actions.
Or... to a greater extent,
To allow someone access into our being,
To let them come and go in our hearts,
To trust that they wont misplace parts of us,
To lose pieces of us,
To steal away what makes us... us.
The answer?
Because we want to be that person.
We want to be the person worming into other peoples secrets,
We want to walk into peoples hearts,
To come and go as we please.
We want to be special,
We want to be cared about.
We, me, you, us; we "trade" ourselves.
We barter in emotions and secrets,
And doing what we do,
In this dangerous business,
We eventually get cheated.
Somewhere along the line, we make a bad trade.
We give up too much
And get stuck with too little.
What suckers we all are,
What chumps we all are.
For falling for it,
Time and time again.
For letting people cheat us.
For letting people come and take what they want,
For not charging enough,
For holding up these stupid sale signs,
For throwing ourselves out there too easily,
For giving ourselves away,
Until we're stuck with fractions of who we are.
And we sit around,
Thinking "Why was I so dumb?"
We sit around,
Lying, telling ourselves it won't happen again.
Knowing it will.
And it does.

---------------------

Here I am. Fifty percent off.
Fifty percent gone.

We.

Is everything I write or do going to be a work in progress?
__________________________________________

What are we
But individual raindrops,
Cracking the surface of reflection.
Merging echos; shattering mirrors.
Becoming one.

What are we
But individual raindrops,
Forced together on planes of glass.
Combined and separated by rushing winds.
Sliding together
Slipping apart.

What are we
But individual raindrops,
Searching for unity,
Losing to entropy,
And existing as you
...and me.

edit later.

l a l axjade (1:34:47 AM): you're no longer that like.. carefree guy anymore that does whatever cuz nothing bad will happen

Here we go again.

Dull.
That's one way to describe my life.
Where is that spark,
That excitement that separated "living"
and just "existing."


"You cannot be disappointing if you do not have expectations."
It's a sad way to live actually.
But sometimes, it's better this way.
No one can let you down or hurt you.
You are a diamond sculpture,
Unfazed by any words or actions,
Beautiful in your resolve, in your sadness.
Not moving, not changing,
You exist...but you do not live.
You are, and that is all.

I am afraid to live,
And so I exist.

_______________________________
"Is a brighter discontent the best that I can hope to find?"