i'm not ready..

maybe,

as the new year comes in

and the ball drops

and screams from millions of human beings wash over me and my unrest,

i'll be transformed into something else.

something that will allow me to swallow what awaits me.

to venice...

tell me what you're listening to

as i watch you cruisin' down the strand.

your hair gets swept up in the winter air

and i just want to hold your hands.

i know you've dyed too many times

to count on hands and feet,

your technicolor breaking through

leaves me shaking in my seat.

so i made you follow me

we layed between the blades,

as the air was getting colder

and our skin began changing shades.

without the will to make a move

breathing stationary in the grass

you're keeping time according to my heart

while i stare watching the clouds move past.

my footwork symbolizes us,

more than you could ever know.

your peddling is getting faster,

my wheels are struggling through snow.

as soon as you get close to me,

i peddle fast and far away.

my mind is so much quicker than,

i could ever hope to be.

don't you leave me here,

don't you rob me blind.

with the blood in my lungs,

and the sun in my eyes.

cause i won't wait here

no, not for you

i can't wait forever

it's something i can't do

so you can tell me how long

i'll be standing here

with salt in my veins

and my head full of fear

cause somehow i get the feeling

it'll be years and years and years and years and years and years and years

i've seen your prints in the sand

in a hurricane

i've watched your branches snap

and i've felt your pain

cause maybe i'll just wait here

maybe i'll wait for you

i'm thinking i could stay here

and live inside of you

mmm. It feels so good. This winter air brushing up against my resistant summer skin. It doesn't want to change no matter how much I want it to.

I'm love how at home I feel buried under these plumes of painted sky. Beneath my layers of clothes and comforters. They do comfort. This is my true skin.

the morning after.

today i noticed that i'm lost.

i don't know where i'm going, and i don't know if i want to go there. i've realized this for quite some time, but it was just today that i noticed myself. i wish you could see the clouds. for some reason though, i'm okay with it. i'm glad i know that i'm lost. i'm coasting down this road with no end in sight, and i'm fine. i don't feel fine...my limbs tighten and my breath shortens, but deep down i'm alright.

lara simon.

just clicking through pictures, i came across a photo of myself from a few months ago. i looked at it and remembered what day it was, who i was with, what we were doing. i looked down to a comment from someone who i haven't really spoken to in quite some time. she said, 'i miss you'. she misses me. 

she misses me?

she doesn't miss me...

does she?

maybe she misses home. maybe she misses what her life used to be like and the comfort of what she used to have. now all that she has is moving from apartment to loft across the sparkling los angeles.

maybe she just wants to come home. she wants to feel some familiarity. she doesn't want to have to cope anymore. she doesn't want to drown or inhale so much that it makes her nights a distant world when she wakes up in the morning. she doesn't want to see her memories fade away when sunlight breaches her weary eyelids at 10 am. 11. am.

she misses me?

harvest.

i spend so much time trying to find a loose skull. a head that i can just place my hands on and remove. i finally found one. i found a skull that just came off. 

of course, i had to take mine off first, because who wants to be the only one with the top of their head missing? 

there was so much inside her head.

it took a few moments to get past all the blood and lining, but it wasn't that thick of a barrier. once i got inside, it was beautiful. so much raw energy just resting on that brain.

i'm speechless.

i want more of that brain. i got to see the past.

ocean drives & paperclips.

paper clips,

they hold together dreams.

dreams of all these,

flying winged things.

staple all your

hopes and wants and needs.

to watch them burn

into obscurity.

ask your self,

what you're doing here.

or do you somehow,

know the answer dear?

the skin is peeling,

from our summer woes.

the ocean drives,

the nights, the screams, the shows.

I watch as the Winter slowly makes it's way into this small town. It's not completely evident in these beach cities, but this Winter I can feel it. There's something here.

Things are starting to speed up around here. I can see it. The grass is growing taller, the people are getting older, and the milk is getting sour.

I'm waiting.

1-2

I wish that I could stay here in this bewitching hour. I want to be able to stare at my ceiling and just sit by myself. I want to sit still and just be, without having to be consumed by the feeling that time is moving moving moving. Can't time just take a day off? Even an hour? Doesn't it ever get exhausted? I sure as hell do. Or is it that time has no ceiling to stare at?

10 minutes plus

a careless gaze falling on shimmering tile lets my mind wander and do what it does when i stop paying attention. the red looks some sort of imaginative beauty, stricken by the overshadowing power of that white slump, slippery with water. blood has dripped from my mouth. from my gums. 

let this gaze be broken, let me snap back into reality and breathe again. let me wash this imaginative sequence down the sink, accompanied by the toothpaste.

i wonder how i'm going to break it to him.

i wonder if he'll be angry.

i hope he won't be angry.

i hope he'll be himself and shrug it off with a smile and careless laugh.

i wonder, i hope

does my wondrous hope mean anything anymore?

i wonder...

selfless, cold, and composed.

this energetic heart is never final. never simple. never done. I'm longing for the end of November, only to see what it has in store.

shhh...

welcome autumn.

sitting up straight in this dilapidated bed struggling to catch my breath. like a cadaver, my limp body flops down against the sheets displaying gravity at it's fullest. and as the ceiling stares at me, I get lost for what seems like hours in the patterns and grooves. the grooves that become ocean waves in a dark, unforgiving water. my eyes float across the ocean and realize their confinement as they smash into the four corners of my bedroom. 

the four corners of this small bedroom.

the four of them live beside a window. a window that breathes in alley air and reflected light. tonight though, the intoxicating moonlight floods my little box. it lights up the quarters like I couldn't dream of doing in 15 years. 

and as summer sets on the horizon, it's tonight that fall rises in the eastern sky. it's tonight all the leaves dry up and crunch under our feet. and it is  tonight that a breeze blows the humidity away from my skin, and allows a cooler face to sit down at my dinner table.

her gag reflex

press lightly and the hammers crack. they slam down with a certainty that it's all they were ever meant to do. if i could only own that same certainty...to be absolutely sure of what i was made to be or do. my programming tells me to reproduce, but it's more than that...it has to be more. 

as my fingertips grace yours and trace the charcoal laid deeply within your fingernail beds, i wish as hard as i possibly can to be put to sleep. i'm dying to jump under the covers and be surrounded by that charcoal until it slides down my throat like a thick coat of oil. trickling down my weathered esophagus only to be rejected by a reflex. 

am i oil?

i've been rejected just as quickly as my acceptance was made public. some primitive reflex must have kicked in and sent me on my way. that reflex only makes my resolve stronger. it packs my suitcase for me. it sits on the old bag in an attempt to shut it while there are clearly too many items packed into one tight little area. it closes the latches...

your reflex makes me yearn for the east coast like i yearned for you. it makes me stretch my sorry arms out and clutch at nothing but air. some feeble attempt to hold on. 

the restless wind blows through my tired fingers creating some desperate melody.

perhaps..

and even though i curse the sky for not being able to make up it's mind..

i'm quite guilty of the same crime.

however, my decisiveness is of far less importance than yours.

i have walked through these littered streets, searching desperately for some sign of reality, for something to scream to me at the top of it's lungs. something that will become so  terribly obvious and apparent that it will steal my full attention. 

something that will draw me inward in a ghastly fashion. something that will lift me off of my broken soles and pull me.

something that will let me feel it's heart beat...

something that i can feel, breathe, taste, touch, see...

something with blood pumping viciously through it's crooked veins that lay tangled in some sort of irregular, gorgeous symmetry.

some one that i can hold...

have i found you?

los angeles,

i'm yours.

i don't belong here anymore. 

oh what a charming sight.

you've always struck me as someone charming.

eloquent words and your gestures with hands.

i've got plans to tell the whole world

through guitar strings and microphone stands.

you see, i've had this crazy idea

that you and I would grow old in time

this idea's drifted through my head

it's all i've thought of for quite some time

i sit and dream in this lazy taxi

creeping it's way through crowded streets

and there's a ticket in my front coat pocket

to take me east  so we don't have to see...

and you'll be trapped inside this box here

i've taped the windows and nailed the doors

and you'll be trapped for another full year

searching for loose boards in the floors.

"you've gotta let this go now"

a phrase i've heard too many times

cause i've become so damn attached now

i've committed my imperfect crime

and now the wind is screaming

telling me to be divine

to "let this all go, briskly

and then you can have that piece of mind."

but i can see your breath now

drifting away into the darkened sky

littered with carbon, pain, and oxide

twisting up, and resembling mine

our voices clench each other

in a struggle for their rightful place

to reach each others earlobes 

they battle fearless in this empty space.

and i can tell you're freezing.

your nose will always sell you out

you start to say you're fine though,

i know you're drowning and you can't get out.

being blind.

it's back to the trite days that i'm too used to. it's back to the 6 am wake up calls after never ever getting enough sleep. it's back to back to back mind numbing sessions that we all call classes. it's time to return to the hallways, fluorescents, and dead teenagers. it happens too often that i taste a snippet of the succulent outside world but am then told that it's only one sample per customer, sir. it's too common that my wings grow back but are then made to resemble bloody stumps. it's back to the nightmare that's lasted far too long. too soon will my fingertips remember the feel of cold shiny metal, warm freshly copied paper, and the indents on desks that i've made in response to the chronic boredom fed to me 5 days a week for the past 6 or 7 months. hooray. it's back to seeing their faces around every corner. it's back to smiling when i'm everything but happy. don't you recall how you avoided stares in the halls? how i avoid your stares?

can't you remember all the boos you've read? all the pages you've turned and all of the ink made to look like little letters leaping from leaflets? haven't you ever wondered why the world you live in is nothing like the one in all of those books? you've noticed. you've more than noticed, you've strived to stay away from those fairy tales because you know that they can never happen.

i can see that wild hair whipping around your head, thanks to the december air. your fingers attempting to grab hold of it and pull it out of your beautiful blue eyes. i can see that sad face of yours staring at mine from the doorway of your home. your bare toes tap on the aged wooden floor and snap because you are as nervous as i am. i can hear my voice quiver and crack while it escapes from my throat and tells you to not be sorry and not to be afraid. (even while i am both of those.) i can see the dashboard of your car because i stared at it rather than you when we fought. i can still see everything.

a congregation

there was a strange quiet that had surfaced after a moment or two. the slow creeping pitter patter of footsteps emerged from behind locked doors, as fingers wrapped around chipped wooden frames. eyes met each other from across the street as they made their stares down the stairs and over the gutters. they made contact shortly after they had memorized the littered street... or rather, what was left of it. debris had fallen atop the vehicles that lined the asphalt one way and then the other. the metal was so commonplace on any other day. any other day but today... today it seemed so distracting and out of place. so strange to see metal beneath brick and drywall and all of that pink and yellow ventilation. all the people cautiously stole footing toward the cluttered street and the murmuring began. "what was it?", they asked. "was it another terrorist attack?", floated around from head to head. everyone pondered these questions as their attention was taken upward in anticipation to the sky. that beautiful sky... it was dyed a deep deep purple with astronomical streaks of sanguine. they blew up the big picture and were found for what seemed like every inch of the sky. the gaze toward the heavens was given by every onlooker that crowded the already crowded street. it was possibly some sad attempt to stop what was obviously inevitable. a faint whistle groped its way through the atmosphere and felt its way around to the people's ears like a blind man feeling his way down an empty corridor. there was only one way to head, it was truly inescapable. 

the high pitched falling floated around their heads and slowly pounded ear drums as if being beaten slowly... lovingly... rhythmically... as ghastly as a funeral procession. 

serenity draped over the eyes of the worried human beings like a warm blanket and extinguished their fears as they realized what they saw. and that was all that they needed.

a stroll to the pharmacy.

i could escape here... couldn't i? i could take some of the things that i own and put them in drawers. wouldn't that make them my drawers? la la la la. it's possible.
truly, i'm not sure what i'm capable of these days. i know i can break a heart, i can tell a lie, and i know that i can screw up big time; although... most anyone could do that if they wanted to.

i can take a stroll around the corner to the pharmacy. i can shove my hands in my pockets pretending that they're cold. but what is it really? am i hiding them because my skin is a picture book of who i used to be?
are these burns a constant reminder of what not to do?

my skin holds secrets in every little crack. every pore expels a piece of my past. the day that my "grandfather" was thrown out to sea. the memory of meeting him a month beforehand for the first time. the feeling of me not being sorry that he was dead. the pit in my stomah watching everyone else cry as i tried to force something to sneak past my iris. i didn't even know the old bastard. the cancer slowly ate him away, but i had nothing and no one to mourn for. not even these hands. not even the cache crawling out of my skin and finding it's way onto the new york streets. not the secrets and memories and love notes that wander around the sewers intimidating alligators.

we dressed in black.
we were more than casual.
his face was reflected on the black urn but the fluorescent bulbs.
no one there knew his real name.

let's get going.

jimmy, you might as well be dead.
he deflated a long, long time ago with that red balloon.

happy birthday jimmy. stop running.

hello, my name is christopher.

the truth of the matter is that i just don't understand. all those words that you said to me, i've tried to deconstruct them and i've tried to understand what you meant by them and so far, i can only comprehend what i think you meant. perhaps it's as far as i'll get.

everyone else either deeply understands our condition or they're merely faking it. if they do happen to understand, why can't I? they're not even involved in it and they get it. am I that blind? where i can't see what's in front of me? am i that old already? i have to confess though; from all of the phone calls that i've made to you in the past, for all the letters that still reside in my desk drawer, and for all of my apologies..

they are all true.

i pretend to be alright in the sunlight, and i pretend to thrive under clouds. you know... when the water floods to earth as if to escape some chamber that i has been held up in for ages? it flees to earth as quickly as i do from your line of sight.

in a few days i'm going to board a plane, and i'm sure that as i step across that gap between the jet and its walkway i'm going to be scared. i will be frightened but i will also be more than eager to get as far away from this place to see where i might live for the next 4 years of my little life. funny how i was dying to come home to you months ago. but you'll probably never see that part of me again. that part of me that rushed into your arms in front of camille's home. the part that held you for what felt like minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years. god i held you so tightly. i can still remember you looking at me from the top of her porch. just staring at me in silence wondering if it was really me, as if i had been lost forever. as if you'd seen my face in the crowd a million times and had learned not to get your hopes up. but it was me, and you ran. you ran so quickly to my arms. god i missed you.

you will most likely never read this, as it isn't quite intended for you to read. except for that last part about us seeing each other for the first time in a measly 7 days. however, if you do manage to trace its content i'm sure you will be a bit confused. you might even tell yourself to disregard it because you're over me.  but do we ever really get over anyone? or do we simply make our best effort in forgetting them? i've come to terms with the idea that i won't ever get over you, or have you again. it's okay if you can't do it either. we don't have to be in love, or love simply love each other. just don't beat yourself up about it. i've stopped. for the most part.

i keep looking for something to hold onto. something stronger than strong, and all the while i tell myself that i'm simply not cut out for this but yet i still continue to look. i'll keep looking and searching and rummaging through the packs of people hailing taxi cabs and yelling obscenities at television screens because their quarter back just missed the big kick. i don't know if i'll ever find someone. perhaps someone who is a cumulative of everyone i've ever loved? is that too much to ask for? maybe. maybe i just watched too many disney movies as a kid.

it's okay i keep telling myself. but i'm sure that like you, i have found out that most of the time it's not okay. i reach at straws and look desperate, but at times i just can't help myself. i'm so feeble at times, wanting love so badly but when i pull back i realize that there isn't a chance in hell that i could handle love.

you told me yourself that you loved me. you told me that you were in love with me. it made me feel so grown up. i knew you meant it. i had to ask if you regretted it, and you said no. it was such a surprise to me that night on the beach. it was one of our more cinematic moments as i recall. i was holding you in the sand. if my memory serves me correctly, we had been kissing a bit. you looked at me and told me, "i hope this doesn't creep you out or anything". how could it? i was so in love with you. i'd been waiting forever to hear it from your lips. you were so afraid i wouldn't feel the same. i didn't say anything for a moment, purely because i wanted to soak in the words. you approached love so strangely. 

then i hurt you.

let me tell you, as much as intentional as it seemed, i did not. it was not easy to watch myself destroy what we had built. and truth be told, i have absolutely no reasoning for it which i suppose in a way would make me insane. i'm so sorry that i hurt you. and i know that because of what i've done it will be more than difficult for you to ever trust someone new. 

i'm sorry.

you spoke to me tonight. you started up a conversation with me on the internet and we talked for a while. we spoke about current events in both of our lives and we hinted at things that happened while we dated. i liked it. maybe because i haven't talked to you in a month or two. i've lost track. but you did tell me that if we both end up going to school on the east coast, boston to be exact, that i would hit you up in 2011. that scared me. partly because you invited me to call, but also because it will be 2011. we will be adults.

it's the little things cathy. these small things that i blow out of proportion, subconsciously on purpose in order to keep the big things at bay.

don't be afraid. i'll be there, even after i hurt you.

i just hope that someday you'll see me there.

i love you.

this has been me not understanding

i can count her ribs, from our kitchenette window

the past blanketed me while the present dove into my ears eyes and mouth. the regulars with their cool shoes lined up at the door waiting, making small talk. i'd only been there twice and that time was equally as frightening... but for a different reason. if only i could have photographed that momentous occasion. that time when i vomited stories about myself onto the windshield in hopes of avoiding silence replaying the oxygen in the car. audio streamed through my speakers but i wasn't exactly listening. i was more distracted by the memories of car accidents swimming from lips into my ears and paddling up my to my conscious. damn... the city looked beautiful reflected in all that rush hour traffic. horns honking, blinkers flashing, and cameras snapping shots of amusing street signs.

"it should be on the left" 

sure enough.

"she sell. retail. by the CVS. Pharmacy"

i put the old record on the phonograph and let it skip around. she skipped around it. the lights galloped along; they came and went while December did the same. the lanes soon became nothing but chambers. homes for their diesel guzzling inhabitants. every once in a while, the autos could find a loose brick or two in the wall and manage to escape, but only into another home across the way. sooner than not... i was stopping in the street and saying goodnight. stopping in the street and saying goodnight. it won't happen again.

will it?

"art is meant to be seen. not felt. not heard. it's just paint. they're just words.

and fingers are for feeling, fists are for beating, scabs are for healing. and blood is for bleeding."

i'm not even good at being me anymore. there are times in life when that is more than true to everyone. and at other times, life is so spontaneous and original it's almost too much to handle. without both ends of the spectrum life is dull and painful. minds baffle me. how people assume, how they think, and how they come to conclusions. some conclusions so drastically different from the truth or from what's plainly evident. as i lay back on my teenaged bed, covered in sheets that have been eaten by moths these thoughts float through my head. they raise their sails and drift through one ear and out the other, sometimes being picked apart by my brain on the way through. the static of the television in the background is comforting as it is what i've become accustomed to at night. the static lulls me to sleep. today i drove through the marina in a car that has been in one piece much longer than it's driver. its wheels creek against the axle at with every turn that it takes. i suppose there isn't any real point to this post other than that it shows off what comes and goes from me. i try to be honest, and sometimes i even try to be cryptic but either way it's all simply things that i think about. simple things. so, so simple. at all points in time i am consumed with love. i look for it every day and i fail to find it over and over. however, by no way does that mean i'll stop looking. it's something that ultimately i want. if you know me as a person, you know that it's one thing that i'm all about. love makes me happy. love makes people happy. why wouldn't you want to be happy? because love can break you as well. you would think that a person would be turned off from something that continues to hurt them, but in the context of love humans do not learn. curious how only humans can display love. how they stay together for extended periods of time even though the relationship isn't based on sex. we could quite possibly be the only species to participate in this game. is love a legitimate emotion?

oh yes, it rains in southern california.

i can't stand it here. lately all i see is notifications of the universe mocking me. moments, scenes, galleries all featuring the art that is reopening wounds. i've done what i can to minimize the unraveling of stitches, but for some stupid reason i stretch in a way the doctor told me not to and the thread comes out and i'm exposed again. smoke stacks will always be my home though. polluted skies filled with filth. the world hates it, but to me it's comforting. i'd love to make a new home, but i hate that i'm going to leave this one even if it is over a year away. a year means nothing in the span of the universe. the earth took millions of years to develop livable conditions. the bottom line is, i'm scared. my fright is nowhere near the level of seniors though, i can imagine. some people i've forced myself to stop caring about, mostly because i can't stand to keep myself inside in their lives and them in mine any longer because of all the silly things i involve myself with. also, i think it's a dose of the real world. not many people hang out with their ex's. (i don't think) it's easier to move on by means of forgetting. don't you think? some people that don't know me approach me and think i can sing, or that i've taken lessons. the only way i know is singing along with radio disney on a 20 minute commute to torrance every morning. it's what i do. i take what i've done, what i do, and what i will do and put them into verse. and i sing them to people, in hope i suppose that someone will hear the words and feel unprecedented empathy. maybe someone will know exactly how i feel and will be able to speak with me and to me. perhaps, that's what i'm looking for as an ultimate conclusion. someone to speak to me. "the world is moving everywhere but here." isn't that the truth? that's what it always seems. but i'm living the dream. i'm getting decent grades in an above standard high school in beautiful southern california where we all live next to movie stars, playing in a rock band where i get to sing to peoples faces with sun glasses on so they can't see the shame lurking behind my eyelids. beautiful southern california.

we bleed...audio blood

trapped like rats in a box, we all scream. we scream more than bloody murder at the top of our lungs. we don't blare words as yelps for help, but as a communal cry. bestiality emerges from emaciated teenagers as synergetic tones seep through the pores of one hundred something poor confused pubescent beings. these tones gather on the floor and splash around onto laces and hightops as feet fly from solid ground to weightlessness and back again. the lights swivel as if operated by an intoxicated primate. shining light onto faces that we all adore. faces that we only long to throw words at and receive a sentence or two in return. these faces screech familiar phrases at us and we scream back in unison. we say "hey!" and we say it like we fucking mean it. no... we scream it.

hurdles holes and leaps

every day is something new in this place. but this place is nothing new every day.  every day i find myself jumping gaps that no one person can hope to leap over. and at the peak of every jump, i look down and remember what its like to fall short of a leap. every single time i get a running start. i make sure that everything looks okay, and then i begin to sprint. the gravel crumbles beneath my sneakers and it gets caught in my waffle iron grip.  somehow my feet know how many steps they have left before the edge of the gorge rushes to meet them. i put one leg forward as i crouch down to quickly spring back upward. before i know what's happened, i'm soaring over a super massive hole and hoping with everything in me that both of my sneakers will find solid ground again. i can clear my first couple of jumps without any trouble. as time flings me over these holes, they become increasingly larger. and soon enough it comes to my feet slipping and sliding on those little black rocks, struggling to push myself back up onto level ground. and here it comes once more. time and time again, i find an enormous black hole in front of me. a hole that i have had a part in digging. i proceed with a little more caution than i do with all my other jumps. i look around and see everyone begging me to "go for it!" instructing me on how to do it. i should listen to them. but who do i listen to? who's advice do i take? forget it. "i'll do this on my own accord" i tell myself. i begin to run and their advice pummels me from all directions. their shouts run through the air almost as fast as i do. they try to catch up with me and grasp at my scruff and shoulders. i manage to evade their sweaty, uninformed clutches. i make it to the edge of this cavernous problem and leap. i jump as hard and as far as i can. i fly like never before and leave al of their screams and taunts at the other side of the canyon. "i can do this!" escapes me at the top of my lungs. for some reason though, my eyes make their way to my feet and in turn the black emptiness below me. my engines seize up... there must be something caught in them. an insult must have broken a wing. i know as much of what is going to happen as you do. i spiral down in some sad spell. i try to flap my treacherous wings. i beat them faster and faster but i only fall farther and farther. this is it. i turn my head to the advice that has stopped. everything is quiet. the only sound is the air ruffling my feathers. all of their lonely eyes stare into my love sick ovals colored yellow and blue. they stare at me. they stare a gaze that reveals their apathy. i want to mouth to them "help"... but my lips are trembling far too much much to even remotely resemble the word love. as i fall, i soon meet them and we are at eye level. they don't shout to me... but they speak softly at me. they tell me that "we are not sorry. you do not deserve love." do i?

Nick was right.

im pushing against this current that is so damn heavy. because my chest sinks and my heart has now made itself known in my throat, everyday it gets harder to breathe. why is i that ones heart grows heavy at the sign of heartbreak, be it yours or theirs? why is it that you get dizzy and begin to see spots when your heartbreak is within the distance of shouting? why is it that we reminisce to no end when we break? and oh how fragile we all are. isn't it funny how the majority of us end up forgetting the plans we make when we're children? the ones that we turn our backs on... as if they are some disgusting childhood fantasy that each and every one of us is ashamed to admit to. i know that i've gone through all of these torments and although i am truly ashamed to admit it, i know that i have tormented others with these. i ask Nick why it is that we are all borne ceaselessly into the past. Questions, Comments, Concerns. they all find a way to my cerebellum and yet i continue to make the same stupid mistakes.

my footsteps travel south without my knowledge. they make their way to southern France where the two of us ventured without ever leaving the united states. where shadows crashed, and exploded into a thousand shades of uncertainty. they became what we really wanted to be. what i want to be. but i too hold onto passed years. i clutch at these people, places, things...i grip these nouns in my arms and refuse to let them go. they're locked up in boxes below my mattress... in memories that i will never share... in scars that i won't ever explain. they show themselves to the world in rain drops.lovenotes.syllables.freeways.keys.ivory.coincidence... didn't i notice that you both kept your money in the same box?

and there it was. staring me in the face. it was if anything, overly stocked. i couldn't remember its name for the life of me and then all of a sudden, there it was. two copies serving as eyes looking straight at me. straight through me. i picked it up and flipped recklessly through my the pages, my hands shaking. i made a fruitless attempt to find those digital words. to what? live some piece of my past again? to be persuaded to buy it so i could let it sit in front of me on my desk and stare at me like it did in the bookstore? no... i let it go. i let it go like i could never let this go. a post rummaged book now resides on that bookshelf somewhere in our southern France. as i puttered through the rows and aisles of white pages stained with black ink, i found it miraculous that they were once free. free of attachments and free of the binding that keeps them involved with other pages. but at one point or another they found themselves to be printed with ink. splats and splotches that in some strange way form words. words that give meaning to our lives and help us to exist and coexist. words that we clench in fist. those words that helped us learn those words. and so, the utmost obviousness reveals itself in the fact that without having something, we would never know it. without my words, you would never know that my nights blend together. aside from a night or two ago when i drove. i drove like i had never done so before. i drove North this time. and of course what was in my way but symbolism. it jumped out at me while i changed lanes and soon enough... i found myself at her front door. i didn't have the heart. i could have knocked. i could have asked. i went home.

Nick was right.

its not something that i want to feel again. it is something i need to feel. i need to feel her hands against mine. i want to look for the symmetry between us. those hands. i need to learn to hold them like she held me. i need to trace those veins and record the pace of blood streaming at 100 gigahertz. i need to find those eyes and watch them tell nerves at the speed of light that who they're looking at isn't the one that they had stared at years beforehand on that bridge. that it isn't the boy who we sat with, who brushed our hair back behind our ear, who sent us to sleep as the engines fired up or the boy who held our hands. the same boy who gave us his sweater. isn't it? i need to see those lips moving as fast as my heart. feel the air drift from them and create statements that never cease to amaze me. i need to feel the warmth of her keeping that flame lit. all of these things that keep me dreaming, these things that steal my attention at all hours. these things that keep me at an unhealthy distance from the present. this present is unwrapped. but tomorrow still bears its bows. i hope for tomorrow. at the same time, i look back at that patch of blue littered with stars. the same stars that we would try to look at through dense fog and clouds that cased the night in their impossible impressiveness. the same stars we hoped to see 730 days later. 4 months later i wait for a phone call that probably wont ever come. words that i wont ever hear... hands that i wont ever touch.

i watch the storm from the pier, with a toe in the water.

i'm beginning to feel like wire...copper wire. strung all throughout a home in attempt to keep things together. everything seems right upon first glance towards the walls, but upon double take you notice that copper wiring is hanging out of holes created by petite insects. insects that thrive off of my shield. the copper wire remembers to show its true color as its last source of defense is eaten away at by the only thing that keeps it going strong after the termites, the wall, and my wiring have disintegrated into their mother and keeper, earth. and as i watch it all come undone, i have a great respect for the words that have created this mess. some of the words i sing, and some of them i speak. but somehow, none of them in any certain kind of combination or dosage does for me, what you did. still though, i try over and over again. i spend hours on end rewriting, rewiring, arranging, composing, deconstructing, decomposing, and constructing all of my heads little trinkets. and as they pour out of my mouth and begin to take shape on lined paper, they start to resemble love sick thoughts. those that scream in a valiant effort, struggling to stay alive... never becoming quite what was hoped for. amidst this passing introspection, the bells on bikes chime as they float gracefully past my summer and winter home. and all these sounds and visions of a summer wasted worrying and being separated are hoisted by pulleys into my line of sight. flying from Minneapolis International with caffeine in one hand and a heart in the other. a few quiet hours after spending 7 days in front of silicon dioxide. viewing lightning strike the lake i sat  on. as God's hope of creating life once more flourishes in the murk depths of a place where boats cruise the surface and children splash in their wake... so in an attempt to release it all into some grotesque concoction only someone insane could dream, i try to shut my eyes. but i am not great. i cannot stretch out my hand desperately toward your green lit dock... but to her dock... both of my arms outstretched welcoming in anything they can be it sunshine or sorrow. Love or Death. these arms turn into fingers down the line. and these fingers condone misery and happiness all at the same time. Unknowingly we board a giant metal bird mere hours apart from each other both ways. Unknowingly we arrive in Minnesota and leave for Wisconsin. Unknowingly... we are caught up in the same storm. it's at this moment, i wonder how long our storm will continue on. how long will we flash lightning and boom thunder? how much longer will the two of us smell like wet cement? to no avail however. my questions are sadly greeted with weary eyes. i drift off in vain as the conscious realm of reality dissipates at an alarmingly consuming rate. and soon enough we all become nothing more than the blur of a world the sleeper sees as she or he lies down to do what he or she does best. neither of us will ever be sure how long we will go on. from rhapsodies to smoke stacks to speeches of exploding stars and far away nebulas.

you can't silence a songbird

i'm digging. and digging. and digging. and yet for some reason, i'm only coming up with memories of precocious hearts spilling their ingredients and allowing them to splash onto the already stained tile floor. while these puddles of blood, love, oil, and mechanics begin to mix there's something that shines my eyes from their heavy daze. something that i should have caught a long time ago. and because i've stolen that tone and thrown it at the mirror, i'm stuck listening to the same old songbird sing from it's cage. this bird sings and sings and sings all day and night..but she never sings to me. too modest is this bird, but she'll sing to other birds and crows. and because she sings, i'll listen.

a goodbye for goodbyes

the thoughts that cross my head. they fly, and search for some sad place to inhabit. they begin to dream themselves up and tell of their detailed accounts. a lucid being, of birth and feeling. I scrape together the remains of words that echo through this cavernous deserted high school auditorium. and all of a sudden, i'm frozen. i freeze like someone has called out "red light!" I watch the song flee from between my teeth as it flutters quickly like my heart. fluttering, flapping as if trying to escape the fate of falling onto ears of the unwanted. but they've no such luck. my artful decomposition kick starts again, the key is turned, and i'm ignited. thank God that your jumper cables can stare at me as if i'm some sort of plague ravishing and decimating your world. i can't help but stutter while deleterious syllables shape from the edges of my mouth... while adjectives drip over the beyond chapped skin on my lips. the same skin that peels daily leaving me wounded and scarred. tell me. ask me.  wonder. inquire. how far does this go? you do no have an answer, you do not always have to know. but give me some slack because this rope is far too tight. i killed you, but you're choking me. however i suppose that you've endured this same sad sack of a life. peaking at the age of 16 and 5/8. you've choked, you've drowned, you've been shot straight through your glorious.glimmering.beating.heart.

you've kept secrets too my dear. 

palpitations couldn't describe how my stomach has fallen like a lead pipe through a wooden floor, or how my throat is clogged up by the red and blue outlined cluster of love. but we're both down. we're both dying, dying of everything, dying of a figure 8. but i will not waste my breath on it. my oxygen and carbon dioxide are much better used on things of sense. but oh, it's so, so precious. the way the both of you creep with SUCH grace. and yet, this cold lugubrious morning filled with fog forces nostalgia down my throat with a falcate tone. i struggle to vacate but my mind wanders...i'm deconstructed , and oh too soon overwhelmed by the contact of opposite's lips, crashing walls of water, and fingers that some don't consider fingers rushing around a key pad to quickly tap out my excuses. never knowing quite what we were thinking, hardly expressing a thing in this deep dented rupture of cellular devices. tell me everything that you 're thinking, every single detail, your problems, the people that you hate. i'll harness them all inside of my arms. carrying the weight to the bottom of it all and letting go. i'll pour out the contents of this chipped coffee cup. and as i carry vowels and consonants around, burning a hole through denim this early in the morning. I'm deleting my figure 8.

a poem with no name

taking in breaths, sad sighs and remarks

you've uttered these words, whispered them after dark

spiraling, spinning, and swiveling sound

she proceeds to complain, mocking me, "so profound"

this shrill commentary somehow reaches my ears

consuming conversation, conservation of peers

don't trouble yourself, as my guts start to squirm

don't blink, move your mouth, sit up straight, look firm!

disappear from this place, so quick! walk away.

like fall under feet, the leaves crunch and decay

the notes fly from her jaws, and slip past my thoughts

i grope at the tone, at the color i've caught

because a sickness creeps past us, the disease of what's been

my head sinks to my hands, so sheepish, chagrin

while you hang your head high, you fire all the blame

your guns are still smoking, what never became.

what's left of the fire

the road is so much longer

without the radio

you've been caught, in every thought

my head starts to slow

the lines are passing by me

they all turn into one

extended line, made up of white

so color me i'm done

you're caught up so far away

where everything moves fast

how could i have expected 

anything to last

'cause when you cannot look at me

and when you say it hurts

that's when my feet are nailed down

you leave me so inert

my plane is falling up and down

air flies across my hand

i start to think, and cease to blink

i'm troubled once again

but i know it'll be okay

because soon we will forget

this year we spent inside our heads

dreaming up what was best

but that's okay, don't think about it

every time you close your eyes

'cause everything you start to do

will reflect how you feel inside.