Low

temperate quiet,
I rub my knees,
the space aches
to look behind me to so much room.

filled up with nothing,
but you tell me to dream it off,
until I need to wake.

settle through the cracks,
so low to the ground
mistaken for bits of hair or lint,
with the wind that won’t leave me alone.

Winter

It’s one of those January blizzards, the kind that remind you that it is only mid-winter and the frost has just settled in with no signs of going anywhere. I have little expectation of seeing the sun anytime soon, however, underneath the violent wind and bitter cold is the gentle landing of soft snow, piling up innocently on cars and roads. I picture picking up the unique crystal flakes, the weight of cotton, melting with one touch of a warm hand back into a boring liquid state. How the most beautiful things in nature are so fragile, like a butterfly’s wings where even the kindest hand can ruin. The outdoors unnerve me in winter, the weather bullies me into hibernation like a moody bear. I surround myself with books and sleep too much; lounging around the house in waiting, or rather, in mourning for bright mornings…

to fade

I do not have the time
to sit next to bridge falls,

but to dive in,
I would be here for years to come.

seductive scars
wash off with every current,
wearing me down,
like a stone,

soft and granite,
a fossil found later in the palm of a child,
smooth and small.

2:16am

nonfunctioning,
like sticky floors
and leaky faucets.

no one likes the
drip, drip, drip
or the stick, stick, stick,

even,
broken clocks
or open windows,
cold air and ripped screens,

no one likes the breeze
or the tick, tick, tick.

Subconscious

too quick to escape death
instead I find,
breath, slow and mangled.

like all the men behind me,
unraveling like yarn,
the memories,

each with their own set of,
eyes and hands
and the will to strangle it,

out of me
only to long again,
and marry the pain.

Prologue

heavy morning,
behind the curtains sit,
my cat, relaxed
and grey.

don’t start,
the burn won’t hurt
if you sit up straight.

tell me I won’t
see the bottom of my pitiful stomach,
swollen by drinking lies.

he said he would,
but didn’t.

tucked away nicely,
enveloped in snow and icy roads,
strangled by telephone wires
and a dull dial tone.

Schizophrenia

a brain of equations,
a map of
hidden treasure
found underneath
the texture,
paranoid and calm

Float

the city
smells like a fishbowl,
holding tiny, silly fish
with guppy lips and open mouths.

you and I in the moss,
creating bubbles
swimming across from lake to lake,

what will they say,
when you bring me back to your cave
of rocks and rubble,

my heart will drown with the rest of them.