DISCLAIMER:

THESE POEMS WERE WRITTEN IN THE SPRING AND SUMMER OF

2012. I AM NOT THE SAME PERSON I WAS WHEN I WROTE THEM.
PLEASE DO NOT CONSIDER THE CONTENT OF THIS EBOOK A
REPRESENTATIVE OF MY CURRENT FEELINGS / OPINIONS / BELIEFS,
BUT RATHER A PORTRAIT OF WHO I ONCE WAS.
THANK YOU.

keep calm and dont blink

1. right between the eyes

beware of flying iphones and crashing
police boxes and bright blue suits.
every friday finds the physics room whispering
tonight's the night,
and your brother always looks exactly like you but you manage
to be similar and different at the same time,
and you steal his shorts even though you hate him
that is absurd.
we all had happy childhoods didn't we, and
this is when we're supposed to be growing up isn't it
?
we have conversations in panera about the mechanics
of lucid dreams and cloning mammoths
but we run from stone angels and we run
through car dealership parking lots and we make scenes
in public places and that is absurd too.
2. let's paint our walls with faces we read about in box-shaped diaries;
paint them portal blue and funeral blue and sunset-after-the-rain blue
draw our hands on the sky that you're flying through,
don't forget to pack the smell of my skin the back
of your mind and remember to meet me in all your stiff-necked dreams.
our beds are cryogenics chambers filled with brain damage and
our couches are sticky-warm and teenaged.

here are some instructions;

how to fly an aeroplane over the seaput on your records,
adopt a scottish accent, tell that girl
with the yogurt in her eye to fuck off;
how to say i love youfind sci-fi show pilots on netflix, hold hands and
say numbers like ten into the obscure places on the back of my neck.
3. making mental breakdowns pretty is the first step
towards building your own personal paradox machine
i offer you tips for surviving long flights;
one read moby dick but don't even think about annotating,
two keep your phone close and your incubus closer,
three don't stop thinking about amsterdam,
four step lightly on the clouds (or you'll hurt their feelings),
five don't forget that you can open any door in the universe by snapping your fingers.
the key to building a paradox machine is being chilled when it's warm out but sweating
anyway, reading books about things like heaven in the dark,
believing in improbable things like cold and time travel,
lying static on couches with your heart pounding,
wearing sandals backwards and saying that you're surviving when you're living.
4. don't forget to remember to breathe.
5. every great ruler was a starfucker
and polluted with their own ambition but you
already knew that didn't you, you know all about
white whales and bathhouses and galaxies;
what if the world was like a frisbee,
flat and constantly getting stuck in trees?

and the thing we both know is that the world

is steady and plodding like a cello, and
it is love that's like the frisbee,
and so are we, aren't we,
and i guess we'll just keep flying until we
stop.

midnights
the obligatory darkness that left you pale;
washed out but not washed up
sleep-deprived and indigo but not
quite apathetic

and you made waterfalls, cascading

rivers of tropical flow and surrealist staircases;
black-clad, white-footed, with dancing fingers;
there were shadows that clung to your shoulders

and in the bone-bleached light of

various computers,
we waited on the loops inside your head and
breathed as they stopped our hearts

colossal
see what we see
on the sea there is a continent of
tea-drinkers and minor galaxies;
there is nothing left to loose

pretend to know the spilling of time and the chasing of drinks;

dropping things that made the stars
in your head roar so loud
you forgot spring and that you were ever in new jersey,
tile floors burn your feet as
you lope off to bed;

and your captive audience ate

up the crescendos that clamoured out your fingertips,
but what they didn't know is that
they are always there, pressing against your skull and
releasing them is the only way you can sleep at night

the bitter taste of questions

the bitter taste of questions
they used to be sweet,
and you'd bite your tongue to feel their blue flavor
now you bite your tongue to stop yourself from speaking,
as the sins from countless sleepless nights build up under your eyes

nostalgia blue
can you understand that
we are not what you make of us
please don't go
looking at more people with those eyes of yours,
forget all the rules but one
to be excellent to one another

choking on
well you were narcotic when i found you,
and now you are in waiting rooms with
ink pouring out your arms and
notes in your head,
clawing against your skull and
driving you fucking mad

in the drawer where you kept the razorblades,

i cut my hands on some powdered glass
leftover from the night we held hands and
drew lines down our chests
i can't remember but you said
"let's take a tripp, just you & me,
i'd be the boat and you'd be the sea"

complicated
child of the 90's,
dyed-in-the-wool ratpack baby
wrapped in latex with a harlequin smile,
bondage literally bondage
you're not what i thought you were

doll parts
wait,
there is a bird that lives on your shoulder, tied to your wrist with a piece of red string. it is
there to guide you out of the deep abyss of your soul and into bright lights and
beerstained parking lots. but it always fails you. it is blind and you are blind and so
together you stay stranded in the grinding void of the dark.
.
i remember being told that these are the best days of our lives and thinking it a cruel joke.
i don't know if they know how to remember not knowing what they wanted. honestly i think
that it probably wasn't this.
.
you're still in the abyss and you're dreaming. your wandering thoughts play a torture game
with you, scaring you awake before dragging you back down into slumber. tomorrow you'll
forget about them and do the same dance over again. but the truth is that you welcome it
because it reminds you that you are alive.
.
you awake almost viscerally. the universe is knocking at your door, and it demands to be
let in.

just like heaven

there is a magical birthday present on your doorstep but it is not your birthday and the sky
has been decidedly gray for a month. when you open the box, the four horsemen of the
apocalypse will come thundering down upon you, and the clouds will open up and give
way to fire. you sit on your stoop and pull apart the ribbon.

the big bang theory

thereareamillionlittleboysnamedmattwithbrightsmilesandwarmeyesand
onedaytheirmorbidcuriositywillkillthemlikeanukedschrodinger'scat.
youhavebeenwarned;theywillneverloveyou.

andthereareboyswithnamesliketimandtom,nameswitht'sandyouwill
never,never,neverbegoodenoughforthem.

thiswillneverstopipromiseyou.

lovesick
okay, listen
i see your hands on the steering wheel
as you point your car in a direction that is
decidedly far away from me
could i continue to walk right
through you without giving you the wrong idea?
the rising sun lands on your forearms, wristbones, palms
open and relaxed as you shift into running away
and i guess i just couldnt

through
1. were you ever told
about the astronauts?
they came making the stars
shake
with all their blue
2. everyone who has ever spilled ink
down their cheeks;
you know what you must do
to feel alive
i watch your face,
the pretty pale one that lives
inside my computer screen,
and i ask myself
what must i do
to follow you?
3. we can't
{dear soul, i wrote you this letter to tell you i love you. even as you tear yourself to shreds
when you sever your own spinal column, pull out your hair and
scream,
all i feel is love}

even if we fell,
streaked in blue down our minds staircases,
we could never haunt others
the way you haunt us

explorers
your face doesn't do you justice
when you talk you are burning
a flicker, a spark
your wolfstooth grin bobbing in my computer
you're just out of reach
and yet close enough so that i can
just brush the crown of your skull with my fingertips
a callous surface,
barely hiding honesty
and color as smooth as silk

hide&hold me dear,
in your sound, a shelter,
and the walls inside your head, screaming
speaking of the demons that keep me up at night,
the ones that run through our organs

but i keep you in my chest, next

to my heart that beats
and i will keep you on my skin,
in the inkstains that spell "i love you"
and i keep you,
i keep you,
because the lines on your hands and

my arms and our chests make a map pointing to forever;

you

explorers 2
i throw my notions of cool at the walls until one of them sticks;
you throw your notions in the air and
watch as they fall like bombs on the rest of us
"remain calm, remain calm;
stop breathing and all of this will go away"

a literal siren song unto our heads,

our brittle bones and our fiberglass hearts,
moments away from shattering
and you, a dot on the map,
a rolling ocean with sonic clamour in your waves,
seemingly calm, but waiting all the while for the boiling in your blood

explorers 3
1. hollowed out my insides,
my rough-hewn hands
grasping at an invisible morphine switch,
searching for faces that will make me
calm

2. when the stars go bleeding in all directions

and the shadows eat your shoulders, bag-winged,
and your eyes shrivel but there is no sleep,
only for the weak

3. hello baby i found you like the driest of dreams

small-eyed and tousled, ready to be adored
when he was changing me for the better,
you were waiting like a specter i only just knew of
another far-off and illogical boy to leave me
strung out and lovesick

4. my dear your heart beats the loudest

in the best possible way

let go
you're dye-stained and
tied in leather and plastic all right, and
you're not what i thought you were
you're so much more
as i go tripping, stumbling down this life-like alleyway,
there is a light at the end of this tunnel
you have seen it, i'm sure,
but you keep it locked away inside your fist,
next to your dictionary of obscure sorrows
there is a portrait of you made of charcoal
and it gives me no direction,
but allow me to say that yours
is yet another voice on my list of safe noises,
and the glow of your stars is a torch by which
i am learning to carry my heart
there is a light that holds me down at night,
there is a light that helps me breathe,
and if i cling on to it as i cling on
to entities that have long since passed me by,
maybe i can make it out of here

a bitter pill to swallow

1. keep flying and climbing those mountains, boy
drums so sharp they make your ears pop
and i'm still running
2. carry on carrying on
i'm never down
but you're pulling me in
several directions
you're no boy-band metaphor,
obsessed with the number one
but flighty, fierce,
slimboned
3. and what happened to your couch
made of errant thoughts and incorrect posture
the speakers surrounding your skull,
your hearing-loss opinions
remember when you used to
dream about me 'cause i do,
man, i do
4. swallow
those popstars, pop-punk, poprocks
and coke, and you're furry-tongued,
lost in the lights
"i've been everywhere, man, lookin' for
you babe" and here comes the bass
you spin, you black out and
you feel it

5. DID YOU KNOW

i dream about you
every second
every minute
every night
i dream about you
6. draw the symbol for nothing like this
to match the symbol for everything on your wrist
come back in time to wake your friends
it never ends. it never ends.

bodies
choking on the gas in your lungs
in fact, choking on your lungs
and organs
and hands
and bitter symmetry
tetrahedrons and false geometry
and you, you taste like nothing
but you reach down my throat to break my spine
and i will always welcome you in

visceral
i. where have you been
that i fell in love with you
the peer pressure of your fingers
is enough to make me think dangerous things
& fighting your blood-diamond eyes
ii. bleach-bone skin,
black-shadow shoulders
& your knife-edged hipbones
you're not there
just
an ocean away

eon
where were you
when they came,
when they landed,
when they took you with
rough hands
coarse voices;

astronaut boy
surfing the sun until he burst
and came crashing
down in a subwave signal
through steel walls,
glass boxes,
bloodhearts,
through

peroxide, baby
yeah,iseeyou
britishboyblue,dukeofwhiteoutcountry;
otherwiseknownasbabyblackeyes
youwouldn'tknowitbutyou'vegotapenchant
forfallinginlovewithboysincroptops
andgirlswithnipplerings
youwouldn'tknowitbut
you'rea90'sboy,boy
&athousandyearsago,whenman
firstdyeditshairindigoandstartedwearingtightpants
andridiculousshoestheysaid
"iswearbyyourpaletorsotouphold
thepillarsofgrungeandopinionatedgentlemen,
wepromisetoneverbreathebyanyone'sstandards,
ortoallowpeopletocutourhair"
hey,babe,letmetellyouaboutthegirlwhoruledtheworld
guesswhatshedidn'twearblacklipstickbecauseshethoughtitwastrashy
butshefellinlovewithaboywhohadtanskin
thoughshesaidshe'donlylovepale
baby,baby,you'reascuffedupmallratsecondsawayfrombeingsteppedon
andtherearelegionsoftonguetiedashgirlsyoucouldcallyours
but,ifonlytheyknewwhoyouwere
theyhollowedouttheireyesocketswitheyelinerandharddrugsbut
ididitmyselfwithmyownheartbeats
youcandrinktheirmilkandtastetheirskin,butibet
they'llbeplastic,babe,andibet
they'llfuckliketheblowupdollstheydrewtattoosontofeeledgy
honey,you'reaoneinamillionguy,
butthemamericangirlsonlyfallforboysnamedjohnny
baby,you'renotnearlytanenough

blood of the young

allchokeduponleather,baby
how'saboutyoulearntobreathefirst
&you'relikeaballnchainaroundmyankle
&thepullofbassinmyveins
fisheyed,deadlyneurotoxin
ineverdidlistenwhentheytoldmeofthedangersofbatteryacid
tonightthechurchisaraveyard
tonightwhenthebassdrops
sowillyou
babe,therearefrogsinthenight
andheadachesinthemorning
buttonightallthegirlsareout
withsweatontheirscalpsandbleach
intheirsmilesandtonight
ifyoudancewithmeicantellyou
thattomorrowwillnevercome
babe,you're1000degreesandbabe,
you'reonfire
pinkyswear,i'vealwaysbeenradioactive
sochokedownthatmargarita,honey,
wipeawayyourtequilasmile
youareinamerica,
whereloveisusingfirstnamesinpoetry
butthisisn'tlove,babe,thisisa
drunkentattooyouonlyhalfregret
namesinbiglettersacrossourchests
andthelingeringscentofyourfingertips
burningglowsticktrailsthroughtheair

dont ever think yourself invincible

tell me how many names you did give yourself
how many bottles, how many haircuts
i did not miss the misery
quite as much as i thought i would

i must confess i've been looking for you

but now i'd ask you to stay away
excuse me; i am stuck in the urban corner
still swallowing my tongue and choking
on all my idols,
killing them myself with a poison brewed from my blood

maybe youll stop breathing for now but someday you will start again
and oh, i used to be so capable of doing things
perhaps i was almost beautiful
but you, you dearest
make me feel as if i knew nothing
and i do
i know nothing at all
once i was a folk song coming from your radio
now i am the ground beneath your feet
that crumbles because it cannot hold you
up
any longer
when i am two weeks from twenty the gaps
between my fingers will shrink
and the distance between oceans grows smaller
and poor haircuts get better
everything gets better in the end, darling
and so, always, shall we
so
shall
we

made graves of your cheekbones (and turned to ash in my hands)

you play these dangerous games with yourself
and sometimes when you hold your bones so delicate
it's as if you know mine are breaking
i stepped over the cliff and
fell shattered on to your chessboard
and you were so careful as you moved me into place
so clever, a charming man skipping his summer stones
buried his limbs in the black soil
i was always you pawn
but i am just a stranger and
as incapable now as i was at 14
i don't mind that my words
bounce off your porcelain skull
yours only buried themselves
in my skin when i needed to remember how to be
okay

vegetarian burritos
there was a constantly repeating commercial for katy perry's movie
and other crap bands like shinedown
those crap walls made of urls and coding
once broken by your little wrecking balls
now rebuilt in force
and the 10000 people that follow are the ones bold enough to touch
to spray graffiti on the brick
let's watch as you take your reactions and throw them in the air
and let's dance in the confetti-shaped dust that's left over
breathing it in like dangerous teenagers
fully armed with video blogs and the sort of names
that are so easy to misplace
you know it's good when everyone still comes running
at the sound of your keyboard
and so you keep on
struggling through life in a world where in the time it takes
to kill a cow you can have a universe of teen tragedies at your fingertips
and the irony of all the fuck-all drenched 20-year-olds
who still breathe the same air
you just know they are saying
who the hell are you
and it's so hilarious
when his whatever slaps you in the face and leaves you heartstopped
you know it tastes so good when the hipsters

shrug their shoulders and say been there done that that you find yourself
crawling back for more

alexithymia
darling, dye me a thousand colors
you crash and spatter ink along the glass
stain the porcelain of my skin and i want
your shadow all over me
i want your bones to exist next to my bones
twisting, grasping hands
reaching for the light
pluck the stars from the arms of the night and
scatter them along my neck
running five foot ten through the digital twilight
pinwheeling sunshine, blinded in white
cover me in your skin
make my choosiest choice and
flip the record
bleed red string and tie our wrists together
whisper a tale about aeroplanes
as we watch the sky explode
just please, dearest, please
keep me, your most midnight of thoughts
wide-eyed and wondering on the edge of your mind

a roaring
and if you take me home
welcome me with a hello seattle
i am where you are
and we are balanced,
ever precarious,
on glass platforms and we are
falling
holding fireflies between our fingers
shattered like mason jars,
a scattered foretelling
that if our bones do break the
echo would remain
a whisper,
a heartbeat,
a roaring

pineapple tesseracts
deliberately obtuse, you spoke in fragments
sang songs to the ketchup bottles,
played battles with the flat earth
your blithering testimonials always sounded so sweet;
four thousand feet overlooking

there is brilliance
there is brilliance in disbelieving
promised glory in ink and wires
the curved calm of cursive stonework,
belayed in the buzz of electricity
it used to be id wait for you to move
and publish my reaction in capital letters
a firestorm of breathing
but i remembered the cold of electrons
and maybe ive forgotten you,
helpless in your toothached, stony silence
from the veins in your arms,
filled with the shock of your white blood cells
to the fishbones in your feet
pale, cold wet at the bottom
i have shed a single teardrop
a clear blood of the soul that tells
me to push it all away

to mute your glory

you remember these hallowed halls
being the fruits of your black-eyed nightmares
your bare feet sliding over malachite marbles and
it hurt, didn't it?

you used to cry out in your sleep

you forgot after a while, and
the ram-horned men became ram-horned girls,
sliding about in gauze-thin dresses
through the hollow doors of sin
and you left stranded at the center of the waterfall
a bit of queen anne's lace clutched in your palm

as you passed under the arches someone whispered

"a good man doesn't drink" into your ear
and you laughed as you ascended to the pulpit
shoeless, jeans ripped, with some leftover glitter beneath your eyes

you bent back your fingers and made love to the organ
and when the rafters shook with the force of your chorus
it was everything church was meant to be

devils advocate
satancamebacktoyouinyoursleep,
hestainedtheinsideofyourmouth
crimson,andpaintedpentagramsonyourcheeks
youbledinsilence,paralyzedbythe
voicesinyourhead
andyoudidnotexpectthis,
littlemorethanidid;but
inasacramentofchippednailpolishand
blackenednighttimeeyes,icametoloveyou
doubtlesslyarcane,themagicofyourfingertips
andtheshapingofyourwordsalongmyskin

TRUE THRUSH
and your 8-bit weapon skimmed the craters of mars
not a bang but a clatterclash of cash
registers
toga parties wrapped in an american flag, wearing your
best dan deacon smirk
smoke a cigarette your foot going
ratatattat against maroon surfaces
suffice to say the language barrier made things between us impossible
bilingual with liquor as you were
so many half-naked tea parties punctuated
by mock-not-mock swordfights and your cries of "zounds!" as you leapt from the table
biscuit brandished over my gigglefaced cries of oh dear oh dear

dragon days, fortune days

blinded ambition and the scent of triangles
you did some incredible things with my ink pen made it
race up and down my legs heartracing
just like that
blue hair blue smile bluelipped it's just your style baby
to wake up at night covered in blood
but still as gorgeous as fairy dust
to love my ever-

schizophrenic eyesight
taken crowns of thorns and
placed them where your face should be,
finding found poetry is oh so disconcerting when done by
lightless high, clouddrifting singing
darling how they hurt us
how they continue to be
wide-eyed, calf-eyes, soaking your fingers in a warm bath of my love
ever as thoughtless and innocent as the newborn sky
so forever shaking under the weight of your shrinking shoulders

TARRYING

and such a silly thing a trivial thing

to fall in love in all caps,
nonsense words and heatstruck hearts
furnaces placed in obscure corners of the room
naked eyes unseeing but with a presence like a sharpclawed hand on your shoulder
auntie says you're getting too thin gramma agrees and shoves a muffin down your shirt
bonyeyed, cheap fingers fingering
your black cargo pants that keep sliding down your hips
ever silently, delirious material you thought came from outer space when you were small
still woefully undersized but that fire inside is stoked by yoko ono
what a prize you are, a bear with a computer and just
bear with me a moment while i take your photograph young man
you are going places"

they whispered you should have seen him leave, arrogant boy inconsiderate
boy hopped on the train and never looked back, could've
sworn he saw the sun smiling him out the door
forgot your best suit just remember to fireproof your loveletters ever since
tomorrow when the poets started lying to you

mate, soulmate

doing the done things

they fucked and dropped acid until the sun rose in the west
dribbled it along her milkskin
she almost gave when he asked
babe do you know what i'm talking about 'cause i
don't either

kerosene dream

turned you up loud and you ground against my skin

had a dream about you last night, and boy were you tall
kissed me in the ocean the waves tasted like saltwater and you were the saltiest
and the best one that i ever wrote letters to
pinned your satellite to my dashboard and it sparkled like bowie
and sometimes i need to shout need to scream like the time i felt the bones of your feet in my hands
could've sworn it was you when you smiled at me from across my basement
and it was almost real

no connection

okay chaos
too soon for my cherry-scented hair wrapped around your fingers
?
not too soon to hope

junked
heart beating and you promised
phantoms in my head you promised they were you
towered like the sun and
i felt so light, did you know that,
i felt waves and your arms exactly how arms should be
felt infinite finite and dandelion veined
lionhearted is not a thing you are
felt my heartbeat in my head and the vibrations like a swell
like those saltwater surges dragging,
dragging me under

find your footprints in the sand and walk in them to prove they were there
but when i looked back i only saw my footsteps on the beach
and you're gone

mezzanine

chokeonbeetle'steeth
shiningblackchrome,waitingindrippingfearless
andohhowtheenamelrainfalls
bleedingoutyouriron
lookslikenailpolish,smellslikefate

notgivingup

ranupathousandflightsofstairsbecausetheelevatorbrokedown
butthenyourememberedyouonlydreamedit
trippedstumbledupathousandflightsofstairstoreachher
butyoudreamedit,
blind,fearless
executionhooduponyourheadlikeacrown
andwhenthebuildingcollapsedeverythingbroke
grindingthesparkplugsinyourstomach
grindingyourverbstodust

insideyou,

trapdoorsnappedshut
padlocksandicywalls
frozeoverandyou,
handoverhandoverheart
uptheladdercoldmetalburnsyourskin
climbstotheraintogod
throughsteelwoolclouds
lightningflashedstruckyourskeleton
coughedupxraysforaweek
gotsoclosetotheroofoftheworld
gotsoclosebutyouneverquite

madeit

alien home 1&2

1.
got to your house in the middle of the night,
an honest confessional a mess,
poetry up and down my arms
got to the part where you let me
in and i might've used the fastforward button hope you don't mind dear
it was wet it sure was wet
looking like the business end of a cigarette i was curling like smoke
around your head your precious filtered air
breathed in anyway and
said our hellos and goodbyes with quiet
disregarded the regards you gave
i stayed awake through all your days anyway you should've known

2.
and oh you tasted just like my heartbeat in my mouth
i forgot you broken-voiced but for the feel of your shirt
just like holding a shadow and i remembered everything you said without speaking
must've been too tired to tell you
so you piggybacked me to bed,
murmured nonsense the whole way 'cause you knew
i loved to hear you speak
your very bed upstairs where you laid me down,
wrapped me in a blanket then wrapped me in you and stayed there

didn't care that i was still soaked and

dontcha know i want you to always carry me home

SPACEY

used to breathe in sequences

different sequences than you did after you shed your skin
the frequency of nightmares sounds like a waterfall
aliens taking off in and around your skull
gone right on and through until your head explodes
thought maybe you'd sleep it off tonight
thought you could piece it together
and if you knew how you could feel a little more empty

held the cosmos in your eyes

took chances
got salt in my mouth
and a bad case of moon fever for my troubles
looked into you when
suddenly a wall of sound turned
all my bones to dust

and i saw the stars

like the whole universe was taking my hand

i heard them whispering to each other
and they all had your voice
don't know if i ever told you that
it's a sound that gives me panic attacks

i circled back round a dying star

it told me that all its brothers were already dead
and when they said their last words nobody heard them
because no one was there
i passed through a nebula near earth and
it got all over my skin and
in my air and down my throat
wouldn't stop falling down from my eyelashes
or tinting my breaths with gold

and the thing about the universe

is that it's the most profoundly sad thing i've ever witnessed
because you summed it up in a few echoed notes,
yet it's so vast,
full of incomprehensible wonders and stories no one will ever hear

10 songs

what could i have done?

we had adventures
dressed up like
polar bear summer
and winter light struck you
for a moment, glowing
in your skin
for a moment,
for a moment
we reached higher
climbing cranes, touched
the blue with our hands
color ran all down our arms
ten more songs
to journeys end
refused,
caught the contact of
your forehead kisses
shackled to the river and
drowning faster every minute

crush all humans

what a youth
lipstick diamonds
condensed to an internet mythos
and kurt cobains twisted gospel
further warped by the world-wearies;
webpage w////s,
barely literate in the flux of their own language
syntax always escaped them
if it was written in anything but spray paint or eyeliner
i talk a lot about promises,
of oaths taken lakeside;
sealed in blood whilst clinging to wavecrushed rocks
lied in your studboots with
scraped knees peeking from tight blue jeans
dirt swept hair like the wind made it so
but here; there was a legend of stars
that burned in winter clad
bleeding on the running river of the sun
while you threw stones through windows
taken by a pixilated rebellion and
failed to understand that when everything goes up in smoke
the atmosphere pays it no heed

a calling
everyday there was screaming
and a fury and the voices
clawing at my ears with your hands
your perfect fucking fingernails
shredding
my skin
lover, you are not my
lover
not my friend, no, just a piece of
pale meat in a sea of steaks
stake you in the heart, vampire,
nail me to a cross
whilst dousing yourself with holy water
and it sounds like a song by the deftones;
because i cant hear you,
your voice from underwater like cerebral fluid
drowning in the liquid from my eardrums
down,
but i never lost sight of your face
and god damn, what a face
i swear, youd look like the moon
if the moon wore pink lipstick
and hung between the ocean and the night
between my hearing and my sight,
im so damn far from the light but ill take you
standing two feet in front of me and wreathed in neon, ill take you
drenched in sweat to the sound of a heart beating,
just like the sound my breath makes when it rattles through my ribcage
as i lay, alone, in my bed,
singing songs for sex or against it,

singing the sound of your speaking voice through my skull

i found your soul in the dark but why should i care
because all i do is spin myths from my fingertips, darling
darling, you are a blur in the corners of my drunken eyes
even though im fighting sober, lover,
i was made to fall for people who dont exist
your name along my saturday night wrist is the closest
i come to the whispers dripping from your tongue
coated in liquid gold and tasting ever so sweeter than silence.