linguistics.

This metaphor
our language bore
to keep us
neat and clean.

Experience
a dirty mess
has no place
inside our heads.

surface

If I’m standing on sand
You’re the shift at my feet
Picking each grain
and releasing the heat

If I’m standing on rock
You’re the cracks underneath
Scratching off fingers
and shattering teeth

When I’m walking on water
You’re the skeptical cloud
Storming the waves
and flooding the ground

When I’m gasping for breath
You’re the wide open mouth
Poised to swallow the sea
full of sweet salty doubt

It’s too calm beneath
the
surface.

long gaps

I sanitized our souls
So we can’t even catch a cold
No, we can’t even catch a cold
Without dying

I called it selfless all along
But I knew that I was wrong
Yes, I knew that I was wrong
and now it's selfish

You took my words and chiseled spots
Laying stones amongst your thoughts
You laid my stones in with your thoughts
But words are always made of dust

I keep the phrases
coming
short
With no reason or retort
We’ll have to slide our souls along
To get them moving.

a while

it's been months since i've felt this fuzzy,
fucked up feeling
holding everything at an arm's length,
replay deja vu
my eyes take a moment to focus
my life takes a minute to turn
my thoughts take their snap existence
and jump ship

it's been months since this tug-of-war
called a truce
but here is this familiar feeling
pushing pulling tension tight
i guess the game is back on.

thoughts, again.

I’m swirling these words like they’re circling a drain – or better yet, the porcelain, bleach-clean shit place in my head.
If only I could pull these ideas out of their downward spiral, their terminal velocity toward the unknown…well, that’s false. I know exactly where they end up: in the stagnant, frozen, motionless, decaying person trapped inside my decaying brain.
This is my brain on drugs.
This is my brain on alcohol.
I’ll take the pockmarks in exchange for the good times; I’ll take dementia for my friends, and our drunken blackout nights.
So if I feel these concepts so strong they bring me to tears, if my drama consumes me: give me the fucking words to say it, don’t let me swirl around with the words I’ve discarded.
I’m shitting out clichés just as fast as my heroes write them better,
I’m waffling back and forth while they go for the gold.
Go spoil yourself for being so goddamned inspired,
And I’ll just sit on my see-saw with my finger up my nose.
I’m just as tortured, so give me the notes! I want the easy way out; break the box but keep it cool; mix my own brand of normalcy with a dash of uncertainty.
If you are all great, then I’m a fucking god.

vocalized

this is misplaced
misdirected to the wrong face
the wrong direction

and i love and hate
all the words i create
the dramatic, the end-all
destroy the weak

these thoughts i create
fill the words on my place
full of misguided
misplaced hate

i can't describe
the tug-of-war in my mind
find a metaphor that's mine
made from salt stains and time

from the stanzas and
breaks
breaking solidarity
into capital lower-cases
punished for crimes
not committed

should i be alone
or should you save me
live through me
create your own habits:
habit-kissing
habit-fucking
full of floods of liquid chemicals

i want more, endless words
all cliche sincerity
to pull apart this dark constant
confusion envelops me

i guess i had to be shattered
to come dragging to you
scraping knees, tearing palms
dirt and blood mixing strong

with the salt stains
the sweat drops
the tears:
a paper plaster person.

full of purpose

there's always a drought,
and i'm teaching myself to drink dust
as you tear your tears
from their humid hate
and my thick chest air catches cold
and wet, the rain, the heavy gray
the sodden, sopping, stuffed thick air
the pressure pushing on my shoulders:
i feel like rain.

waves

waves crash through your lips
remind me of your fingertips
i got you high, broke your skin
as your chest clawed and the air thickened

you're standing taller than i've ever seen
zipped perfection, named a queen
palms pushing me onto your teeth
pointed piercing reflections, perfection

as if remembering wasn't enough
i tried to put you onto paper
but the sketch was rough
and i still feel you pushing me down
you push me down

and it's hard to say
to wrap the feeling around your waist
but i'll keep trying

as if remembering wasn't enough
i'll try to put you down
tracing lines with rough edges
we're on the edge.

[insert day here]

isn't it perfect?
perfectly cliche
to recycle all our words this way
stranded on threads
clutching for a way
out a way to make me pay

and when i'm swearing to god,
i'm just asking you to believe in me
i'll start halfway to the end
just to come back to you

isn't it quiet?
quiet with honesty,
honestly you never said a word
that wasn't sealed with saliva
or of any consequence

so i'll start halfway to the end
just to come back to you
and when i swear to god
i'm really asking how to stay with you

this crawling, creeping, shaded sun
casts its grey across the room
it means too much to me,
it all means too much to me

everything cracks my sealed lines
like flexing fibers.

really

understanding what you're writing about takes the fear away.
it takes the mystery away,
it turns writing into a dissection, a definition, an evolution.