rather

I'd rather have this memory than her hair on my chest.
I'd rather have this ghost than her sweat on my lips.
Rather have your perfect everything, than her simple normalcy.
Rather have my fingers grasp the air where your palms were, than have hers pressed to mine.
I would rather feel you
than give her tongue and my lust another second's thought.

It is comfort.
It is knowledge that your existence is simply, beautiful.
It is quiet, soft, lovely, delicate, sweet, creeping love.
The kind you do not notice until you see her silhouetted against the snow
and your body aches.
Your heart responds, suddenly awake.
Your eyes translate the image into a blizzard of thoughts,
matching the flurries, stacked piles on the ground.
The same flurries that catch, contain, and reflect
a thousand bulbs that cover hair, eyes, lips that are turning.
Connect with yours.

flinch

you flinched, and:
the shimmering grey curtain that had slowly lowered,
velvet soft,
over my pounding eyelids
ripped back and i could see you,
naked, exposed.
i could feel us naked,
exposed.
and i think of your eyelids fluttering
in time with your breath,
your lips sucking gasps in time
with each flex.
and i've ruined you now,
two missteps - the end.

otherwise

are you watching me yet?
i wouldn't be here otherwise.
am i convincing you yet?
i haven't even tried.
i really am stuck, aren't i.
we really are fucked, aren't we.
who knew i was walking into
a goddamn spiderweb, cluster of strings
when i started this.
not the kind you can tug to make me follow,
but the kind that are sticky, sweet,
and fucking infuriating.
i'm ripping them out of my
mouth, but they've dried me up.
lips crack with nothing left.
cotton mouth with spider fangs,
i've sucked us both dry.
we really are fucked, aren't we.

wednesday.

i'm panicking.
my eyes are in constant motion, and my joints are blizzard-white. i wonder if i will run out of air soon, with the way i'm gulping it, more like shoving it down my throat. straight to my stomach, clenched and waiting, skip past the lungs entirely.
i'm panicking.
what's that? what's happened? my lips are sandpaper slabs, and my tongue is a battle axe to cut. cut all the dead skin, dead from all the air i gulp. wide open, waiting. answer, please.
how would you like your list prepared?
i was never very good at sunny-side up. i've always been more of a scrambled kind of guy.
count the theories. the speculation.
i am panicking.
you're certainly getting your revenge right now,
you threw me in the dark, slammed the door, turned the lock - that wasn't the key breaking, was it?
can i leave now?
at least turn a fucking light on.
please, don't make me say please. just turn a light on.
this manic panic, it attacks with strength.
this attack, this battle axe to cut.
how would you like your list prepared?

sunday

and your fucking hypocrisy never ends.
you just want to hold onto as much pride as you can,
don't expect me to follow.
you can keep your "distractions" and i'll keep my
numb.
hello, bottle.
hello, kiss.

maybe i can morph in the mirror.
maybe i can be who you see.
you can keep your distractions, i'll try to keep my
sanity. i should have kept my
distance. and kept you out of my bed.
you're beautiful. you know.
i should have kept you out of my bed.

i'll rewind my fingers, put those buttons back together:
zip you back to decency. place me back, before
vulnerability. you keep your distractions;
i'll try to keep up.

i give too much already,
i need to hold back.
i want to break you.
you don't need me, i'm just a fucking challenge.
you don't need me, i'm just full of surprises.
i want to break you. your ego is a challenge for mine,
and he's been sharpening knives, throwing glances your way.
catching glimpses of lists - can you find where you fell?

keep playing the victim, i tend to believe you.
at least you've taught me the best lines to say.

blur

i get worried on nights like this
for your skin and your sweat and your kiss
that gets scratched on my eyelids and keeps me up
keeps me awake. keeps me awake.

i get lucid on nights likes this
with the smoke and the haze and the blossoming bliss
that presses upon me, relentlessly strong
shaking my chest, shaking my chest.

there's

/// edit 02/17/2018: I recently revisited this old post and considered deleting it. Despite the fact that I recognize it's problematic (or downright shitty), I think it's important to trace my personal grown over the past eight years. (Young, dumb, 20-year old Allen...you didn't "turn" your ex lesbian. Get over yourself.) ///


a cloud of smoke, and all i can think of is summer.
i smoked more substances (more times) than ever before.
i lost my mind, multiple times.
i destroyed a guitar.
i tried to get used to being single, and i made full use of my newly acquired relationship status.
i tripled the amount of songs i've written.
i recorded an album of eleven of those songs.
i kept my best friend close, for thousands of miles of driving.
we put those miles on my car, and his.
we drove delirious, hair flying, screaming songs well out of our vocal range and sucking down energy drinks just to stay awake.
i had sitcom-worthy experiences, some of which may or may not have involved too much alcohol and too little clothing.
i lived a reckless, sleepless, horribly unhealthy, early 20's lifestyle.
i spent thousands of dollars on nothing.
i experienced girls i had always wanted to.
i broke so many damn driving laws.
i hurt my ex-girlfriend so bad, she turned lesbian.
i drank myself better. (i'm still using that method.)
i developed an affinity for wine (cheap wine, of course.)
i dug myself into a nice little hole.
i followed her to a secret waterfall, a secret treehouse, and i felt like i was a kid.
i watched those fires burn from the freeway.
i could see them for so many miles, and i wondered if they were really "controlled."
i saw a cloud of smoke.

a while

i live this haze,
a blur of days
sliding fingers up your arms
and then you're gone
my unwashed face
hair i can taste
breaking pieces off the teeth
i grind away

how many drinks before the day goes dull?
i'm overheated, running flames
dripping acid down my throat
to suck the liquid from my brain
and bring me closer to suffering for you
i live in my black and fucking white
wouldn't grey be nice?

keeping tongues inside our mouths,
kissing tight-lipped, fully clothed
and nothing confuses; nothing hurts
remember six feet down? i'm going deeper,
as i grind away

we live this haze,
with weakened legs
i'll crawl the forty mile way
and then it's back, disintegrate
forfeit this shitty frame i've made
no, wait - i'll fucking wait,
and drink, and stumble through the day
rather have this poison to myself
than a life with you.
rather forget my name
then give it to you.
on display: my black and white
but wouldn't grey be nice?

i don't usually wear rings.

I’ve molded around this ring. Cheap, even free – you found it, you said, and wondered if I wanted it. You knew I never really wore rings. I took it, why not? I kind of like it, the boring, pewter-grey color of it, with scuffs and scratches already in place. It was a pair of shoes that was sure not to cause any blisters; someone else had already done the breaking-in, walking around, given it a taste of the average finger before mine. Left hand, middle finger: perfect. I kissed you and said thanks. And our new addition, this ironclad connection of ours, settled onto the base of my finger.

And it stayed there, pressing into my skin, as I told you I wasn’t sure. I nervously pulled it off, put it on, spun it between my fingers, as I tried to describe the darkening collection of fluff and air floating around my grey matter. The wandering words whisked out of that cloud just in time to explain: I don’t feel the way I used to. But of course I still love you! I made sure to inject that sedative, straight to your chest, just in case my mouth was getting ahead of my mind and I needed a reference point to come back to. The ring settled back onto the base of my finger. You didn’t sleep that night.

The indent around my finger stayed there, as I drank away our telephone fight. The grey ring clashed with the clear bottle, I thought; probably better just to take it off while I handle this. I pulled it off, put it on, pulled it off, and set it down on the kitchen counter. I remembered you on that counter the night our roommates were gone and we’d grown bored of the bedroom. The bottle didn’t fit on my hand nearly as snug as my monochromatic associate, and besides, there was simply too much to drink for one man and a thirsty ring. A voice, attached to a body, had floated in the kitchen after me. She offered to help, and a glass of liquid jumped eagerly to her lips. As we drank, we contemplated where the evening would end. The ring, my ring, rolled one large, pewter eye at my slurred persuasion. We left the room before it could change my mind.

I played a game of horseshoe with ten bony, knuckled stakes while you screamed. I won almost every time, imagine that. Sometimes, the muted choking sounds fighting through the now-black collection of fluff and air would distract me, and I’d ease the sandbags on my eyelids to cautiously glance at you. The grey horseshoe would take advantage of this break from concentration and fail to make its way successfully onto a stake, plummeting to the carpet. Then I would have to wait for you to breathe long enough to retrieve my game piece. It’s fine, see? Just a ring, no damage at all, no need to worry. You wondered how I could do this to you. Isn’t it strange this ring only fits on this finger? I wondered who wore it before me. Your throat gave out, but your tear ducts had more to say. You didn’t eat that week.

chew

a mouth full of tiny destroyers,
to a bucket of boiling acid
on the way down, what remains
puts up a fight, digs in for the
push, pushes the blade into the
pulsing cavern, warm subway to hell
but, when it finally fails and falls,
oh, that is just the beginning -
it sparks!
the acid lights this fuse,
a quick creation, a lovely runner
sprinting through the red and blue avenues,
any of a thousand.
any of a million.
they all lead back to the top
ride this river,
run the writing red lines.
pound the bliss
into my fingertips.