anticipation

i can never anticipate
the weight of your lips on my shoulder
and i fear another touch
when i hear another breath
bringing oxygen to your blood
and blood to your brain
and your hand to my chest
and your lips to my face
and those words leave your throat
fitting neatly around mine.

Beautiful same

When I feel rain, I think of you, standing cold and shaking under rare mountain grey, and I held you. Jackets and scarves and t-shirts and flesh came between us, but we pushed them aside to make room for those beautifully symmetrical chest cavities like puzzle pieces. Warmth spread and that numb happiness filled my eyes, watering in the wind with pinpricks of falling sky, and I saw you force your chin toward the asphalt, unwilling to make our contact complete with your eyes, frightened of the consequences. I watched rivers form beneath your hair, pooling and rushing toward the edge, daring to peek over the cliff until the inevitable fall carried them screaming with pleasure down the valleys of your face, those lovely lines. I wanted so badly to join them, to navigate your wild skin and match those pores with the soft damnation of touch. Instead, I held you as close as our fibers would allow, imagining an ending that never came, one that will not come, though years have passed and floods have risen. When I see rain, I still think of you.

Resolve and Apathy

Perhaps you could just come back?
Try on regression for size
And see if spite and regret
Haven't nailed holes in your resolve.

Perhaps we could wait in the rain?
Take photos of rainbows
And try to ignore the inconvenience
Of lingering love and apathy.

Perhaps you've changed since then?
Taken steps from my photo finish
And pushed into your own new negative
With unfocused eyes
And blood-blurry tongue
Feeling your way back to replacement.

Cloudless

I watched you drip through the clouds,
Distorted.
Twisting at your descent,
Your turns condensing a futile fight against the invisible pull,
Riotous gravity with no patience for serenity.

I watched your light attack the ground
so long before contact.
And upon collision
I saw your wandering mouth heavy with screams
Gracefully form with the dirty street,
Picking up dust and ashes from cigarettes so long extinguished.

I saw those eyes melt into beautiful blue asphalt,
Wet with disdain and desire
And I saw that skin
Fold and split along birthlines,
Spreading wide and innocent among the rest.

If your fall was one of many,
Your destruction held unique.
As I watched you fall
And break by your own device.

crawlspace

okay, I’ve let myself out

And wait for the door to close

before I turn around

If I try to return

Press my nose to the door crease

My ear to the peephole

My eye to the handle

And hand to the ground.

pray to the porch at night

my plank angels bless me till sleep

and if I wake in the dirt

I’ll remain

If I wake in the dirt

I’ll remain.

Watch for the cracks in the crease

the fissuring concrete

stays solid, asleep

as I dig and subvert and tunnel through dirt

lay my bones below bedframes

and stare into crawlspace.

Looking straight to god

Through springs and floorboards

Staring straight into grace

Under floundered foundations.

A permanent solution.

I'm working through the week
For two days I won't remember
And I'm telling myself
It gets better, it gets better

I'll start a new family tradition
drinking through the pain
I'll introduce my children
a way to numb the day

When you're staring down a question
sure don't give it all
Keep a secret kept behind
Keep yourself a place to hide

the smoke will cover
As you run away
The story will hold
If you hold its gaze

I'm working through the week
For another night I won't remember
And I'm telling myself
We're getting better
Are we getting better?

nostalgia

I'd like to remember
the broken glass
Looking back fondly
on slamming doors

Isn't it funny
the time we spent learning,
memorizing the details
of our Skin,

Our Sins,
our day-to-day life
just to let it all go,
let it flow out our minds

Like the rush of blood
that follows the thrust
of a knife.

left

i'd love to leave you frozen
i'd love to leave you there
i'd love to leave you forgotten
i'd love to leave you there.

i'd love to leave you alone,
but my mind keeps you close
i'd love to let you go
but i need your summer smoke,
i need your falling snow.

weight

Your weight's been lifted off this state

but you're not as gone as I'd hoped

I can feel myself

embracing the chaos,

consuming the loss

So swallow it like a lump in your throat

Choke back the tears, 

and let yourself go.

These lines

lead no one to nowhere

You're drifting in oceans alone

Inside this new resolution

to stay up until you're afloat

You're piecing together

patterns to call yourself home

And I can feel

I can feel you over me

but not like an angel, 

you've never had wings

So meet me where the rocks

and pills turn red

I'm fighting to burn

this into your head

but you're the breath,

pulling me in,

staining your lips.

And I can feel

I can feel you over me

but not like an angel, 

you never got your wings

I'll drag you away

piece by piece

Until you forget about me

I'm the ashes that fall

into the street

Destroying the ground underneath.

let's pretend we know how this works

Do you remember
when I confessed to you my dreams
the ones that were tearing me
at my seams
the ones that were pulling out the threads
of sanity
the threads of stability

Do you remember
anything?
Do you remember
anything at all?

Can you recall 

the fall
that night I screamed myself to sleep
the night you should have left
but I felt your head pushing down the pillow
I felt you stay with me

Do you remember
anything?
Do you remember
anything at all?

I’ve left plenty behind
a dirty tangled mess
of broken people,
blurry hearts
memories that don’t exist

I just can't remember
anything
no, I don’t recall
anything at all.