sunset mountain

I've watched the sun set from this spot for eight years, and it's always different. The codependent theater of my mind is showing double features of fools scrambling to the top of this rock. I see myself lighting a victory cigarette. I see our heaving chests grasping for oxygen. I see my hand in yours, inhaling your hair as it spills down my chest.

Tonight the sky is clear, smearing through Eastern Blues to flickering Western Reds. There is a sense of acquiescence in the fading vibrancy of these dying summer colors, growing paler as the world turns to winter. Last month I stared through the wildfire smoke at a sun the color of red rocks, and thought of you.

I'm scrawling these memories across the flattest stones I can find. This place is for drafting commandments, but I'm distracted by the view. Everything beautiful looks like a set of paintings, carefully wrapped in plastic and sitting on a shelf.

breather

I’m miles beneath confusion,
inhaling water to keep myself down.
Down under shimmering light,
like a plastic-wrapped sky
I’m inhaling water to keep myself down.
Surrounded by pressure
that’s blurring my eyes
I know I can’t leave,
not sure when I arrived
But I’m miles beneath confusion,
with weights on each side
So I’ll fill up my lungs,
with conviction and purpose
Rest on rock bottom,
try not to float free.

remote

I left the light on, as if you were there. It was hidden out of sight, nudging its warm orange glow toward my feet, shading my bed in grayscale, bleeding through my eyelids.
I felt empty without white noise, estranged from the shadowy corners and their flickering dance.
My chest grew tight. My thoughts grew loud. The shadows left their hiding places.
I inhaled just enough to push you out of my lungs and into my bloodstream, but your scent sank into my pores, burrowing beneath my skin.
I remembered I was alone, and turned off the light.

cheers

I run my fingers through my hair, catching every snag and ripping follicles from my scalp. I feel release as they give way, thousands of minor victories over the small portion I control.
Eventually the capillaries in my nose will break, and I will be labeled a drunkard for all to see, unfit for public consumption.
Here's to another year.

Moving

I'm sitting surrounded by nicotine and snail shells, dried and emptied by the summer sun. This is how I planned July, wading through chaos and sinking into self loathing, alone with nothing but my own indecision. I've got a hollow chest that resonates; I've got a heavy head that slides down my neck under your weight. If I could erase these nights, I wouldn't. I need the scars, I need the reminder, I need the memory to keep me moving. 

performance art

This is happiness, standing in spotlights on a warm summer evening, sweating through my cotton cage, anticipating the moment you cross the divide and press your skin against mine. This ideological pretense sets the stage of jealousy, abandonment, and rejection; dim the lights and take your seats, we’re about to begin.

This is refined intoxication turning to slobbering drunkenness, growing my fingernails to scrape and hollow out your vessel with passive indifference. This is performance art, throwing fragments of my damaged skull to the audience; pay attention, you could catch a souvenir.

My lines begin to falter as words turn grey, aiming for white noise, stiff static statements. You’re the last one to leave, spine pressed against the wall, crossed arms and curved hips settled into a position of patience. There is love lingering on your lips, gaze unwavering, tonguing the soft contours of your mouth, mixing saliva with desire. Breath comes in shallow shakes, echoes of lust flowing down your throat, the injection of intention met with observant apathy. I feel your heat radiate.

I am lit up with love and drunk on mistakes. My monologue continues long after you’ve left, and I speak to hear echoes, to feel safe, to record my loathing in the harsh light of the stage. This is the smile that remains on the ceiling while I’m waiting for the lights to fade.

Happiness across an ocean

I'm sitting on a windowsill, a downward slant thirty feet above pavement. The muscles in my legs pull me back toward the bedroom, self-preservation kicking in to keep me alive one more night, another day to cross my fingers and hope my head's on straight. There's so much beauty around me, there's so much I haven't seen, there's so much I've been a part of lately but I'm looking at the sky on the other side of the world and trying to convince myself I deserve to be here.
I'm sitting on a windowsill, with my feet hanging over the edge, and I feel the nerves traveling through my toes telling me to go back inside, drink more wine, go to sleep and think about it tomorrow, but it's always a sudden tomorrow and I'm still on the edge and I wonder when I won't be.

skin

The bumps along my arm aren’t due to the weather, 

they’re braille pages of panic and disrepair, 

bubbling to the surface. 

For every weightless smile of pride, 

there’s a ten-ton look of disappointment. 

For every good deed, 

there’s punishment. 

These bumps along my arm are scattered braille sentences, 

stolen from the book of blind heredity, 

and I’m ready to retreat. 

For every sun-scratched line, 

there’s burning anxiety, 

trapped in someone else’s pastime. 

My jaw aches from chemicals 

dissolved in the throes of stupidity, 

in the name of chasing escape 

and ignoring my blood rising to the surface. 

Pretend I can’t see the frustration in your eyes,

close my own and read the future on my forearm.

Summer

You can see the heat through the window, the way the blades of grass vibrate in the wind, signaling satellites and waiting for a savior. Waiting for the water to keep their youth, push away the inevitability of decay, feed the future. The tall ones huddle in tiny clusters, recognizing their importance over the stubs, but yielding to the choking presence of beautiful weeds. There is a hierarchy in everything, the only variable is the violence required to establish it.

transi(en)t

What if I threw myself onto these tracks
Would the track marks match your arms?
Would I feel the same sense
Of relief and content
Or would I end up chasing a ghost?

And what if god picked me up in his mouth
Would I be baptized, would I be saved?
Would it count the same
As holy water on a babe
Or am I chained to my shame?

What if I keep my eyes set a year in advance
Would my pupils go white in the moment?
Could I follow your movement
Like Braille for my spirit
Or am I only chasing a ghost?