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.

continued. (old)

Isn’t it great that I’ve been able to continue?
That I’ve been able to pick right back up,
to keep your void filled with plenty of other pieces of hair, lips, and eyelashes,
all connected to fingertips that stroke and scratch and pull and twist better and worse than you ever did.
Mouths, full of disease and words with no meaning;
full of liquid, saliva and alcohol;
full of strong tongues that push in and out,
up and down,
twirling in sick little circles like a goddamn circus act.
I am this goddamn circus act.

Isn’t it great that I’ve been able to get it together?
Thank goodness for paper plans,
for letter grades that distract and solve it all:
all the problems,
all the regret,
all the thoughts and anxiety.
Thank goodness that these plans and classrooms and you and I walk such a close,
tightrope line,
otherwise I might be able to forget you.
Every time I enter that building
(that circus tent)
I know some part of it has touched you.
I know you’ve pounded the same floors with your soles.
I know you’ve touched the same doors with your elbow,
forearm,
and hand.
Every second I spend breathing that recycled air,
I know some part of it massaged your tongue,
deceived your teeth,
and jumped your lips.
Some part of it has swept under your skirt,
through your shoes,
and carried itself down into my body,
just to prove I can’t escape you.
This building is filled with you.
You are this goddamn circus act.

My greatest delusion,
your greatest illusion,
they are one and the same;
they have you to blame.
Sweep your hair, and the crowd follows.
Show your skin, and my pride shatters,
and finds itself torn to match that rip on your shirt where the nail caught,
in the space just below the last rib and above the defined hipbone that my fingers pressed enough times to bruise.
You don’t remember my touch, I can’t remember your words.
If I could see your breath,
if I could see through the paper confetti covering your face,
if I could pick out a single word,
I would trap it and tame it and keep it like those electrocuted elephants.
But all I can see is your costume on every pair of legs,
and my fingers turn to fists when I think of us,
dressed up in our goddamn circus act.

Isn’t it strange:
eight months,
hundreds of places,
hundreds of faces,
and the sun still will not touch me.
Diluted through my layers of cannonball smoke and freakshow fog machine,
light tends to lose its strength;
it tends to wallow in self-pity,
in the knowledge of its own inadequacy.
The haze that is created in its absence is thicker than any cloud,
this thing that surrounds me,
blacker than any midnight room in a basement.
It is the bastard child of light,
diluted through layer upon layer of apathy and self-deprecation;
layer upon layer of loathing,
of ignorance,
of arrogance.
I am digging deeper into this dressing room filled with hairy legs attached to spidery bodies attached to glistening fangs attached to deep,
red eyes that consume without moving.
They know my fear and they rub their thick,
sticky hair across my cheek.
I’m reminded of yours.
I’m reminded we are still running this goddamn circus act.

disorder

i can't keep thinking of this
disorder, this
sickness, my weakness,
obsession is thick.

you were silent and sweet
as your feet followed suit
as you walked in the room
and close locked the door.

the pushpin in my lips
pushed its way to your hips
and swallowed it all,
all the things i'd been holding.

the pushpin through my lips
found its way to your hips,
stayed silent and wishing.

this was all calculated,
a gameplan created
from knowing the knowledge
you'd read there before.

it's a book i should never have shown you
should have left its spine uncreased
and your spine unarched
and your page untouched

let someone else break you,
so i wouldn't be broken.