Darling, I’m falling for you

the way the sun falls in a purple sky.

Waiting,

like the stars that dance before dusk, anticipating their chance to shine.

Floating,

like a white feather in a spring breeze, settling among the weeded grass in a dandelion patch.

I’m an icicle in your gutter, on a 33 degree day.

Dripping,

dripping with your endearment, hoping I’ll never become detached.

An old-fashioned ink pen, dipped into your ink well.

An infinite wishing well.

Welling, swelling.

Swollen with hope and filled with words and dreams I’ll never truly tell.

Sinking, so surely,

so slowly.

A proud captain on a broken vessel,

that once sailed through the broken vessels under my skin.

Red veins like in my blood-shot eyes,

formed from spending every waking moment writing empty love songs.

And now, I’ve found a reason to sing.

You’re filling in the empty spaces.

Filling,

Filing,

my sharp edges into smooth stones.

Skipping along the ripples in the folds of your cheeks as you smile.

Miles.

Your grin starts at each shining sea.

Swimming,

with my right hand in the air, proud.

Holding my heart because it’s yours to drown.

Screaming in sweet serendipity,

you are my sweet surprise. 

Darling, I’m falling for you,

caught in your tree branch arms,

your leafy lullabies cradling me as we sing ourselves to sleep.

whenwefallasleep:

It’s time you realize you were living a dream,

with clouds in the sky,

and when air didn’t freeze.

And now everything is as sad as it seems,

with clouds in your mind,

and death in the breeze.

Memories. Things I’ve reminded myself to remember. The wall of smoke against the summer sunlight pouring through the window. Lying on my back, staring upward, with two shallow pools of blue for eyes. Other eyes on me— wide eyes, although my own pupils had rapidly constricted.

The room was too bright that day; the air was too sweet. Too sweet compared to the bitter air (bitter everything) of the present tense, each breath smelling of envy, skepticism, and sourness— three qualities that I’m not sure I’ll never not possess. The room was too bright compared to the dark and foggy insides, the behind-the-scenes look at the expectation and disappointment that was under wraps. How I wish I could go back to that day and whisper some of this darkness into that room, to give my summer self a little extra dose of reality. To let myself know that this whole production isn’t just one act, and that it doesn’t really even have an ending. A cliffhanger, perhaps, although I’m sure there will be some sort of force to push me off and send me tumbling. It appears, however, that I’ve already fallen from where I’ve started— one of those slow, gradual declines that you don’t notice until you feel that churning in your stomach (that feeling that wakes you up from the most exciting dreams).

I’m too poetic for my own good. Too thought-ridden, too hopeful, too anxious. Perhaps we all are, doing anything in our power to keep our heads up. Finding our own little security blankets and falling asleep with a false and temporary sense of the words “happy” or “whole” or “safe”. Acting on impulse to feel alive. Doing things we shouldn’t, because we can and we “don’t give a shit” about what happens to us. Yet we care when we hurt. We hate it, but we ask for it. We can’t stand feelings, but we question our humanity when we can’t feel a thing. Everyone wants a little drama. We can’t take a step off the stage when wide eyes are upon us, our own pupils constricting from the spotlight. We’d rather have the curtain pulled than take a willing, final bow.

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Little things.

Little bites of something sweet.

They tie me over for a little while,

but my hunger’s much stronger than that.

Like baby steps that keep me moving,

but I’m nowhere near where I want to be.

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If I could count all the stars, I would.

Memorize every pattern,

pick out my favorites and name them as my own.

If I couldn’t feel the cold, I’d spend each winter night

taking note of the contrast between the pure, white snow

and the deep blue overhead.

Change with the phases of the moon,

sleep when the sun rises.

Paint every wall with their sadness

to always be inspired by what follows me.

Forget the daylight and spoken words,

the ellipses and ampersands that I don’t want to remember.

Tell myself the stories of the constellations

and sing myself blue with silent songs.

They can see her, therefore she’s there. She’s breathing, therefore she’s alive. Barely breathing and barely alive, but they don’t seem to measure.

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The scene: a dim bedroom with a cluttered bed. A space heater hums furiously in the corner of the room, and papers hang from the walls and flutter from the circulating air. The white paint matches the stars on the constellation bed sheets, as well as the half-written notes scattered on the floor & nightstand. The occupant? A girl in clothes that still have the tags, hair (organized chaos) tied up with black elastic. She’s whispering the words “Did you miss me?” with a melodic undertone and drumming her fingers on the keyboard, without pressing down. She’s taking extra deep breaths to make sure she’s still breathing correctly, for there’s always something wrong with her. From her aching stomach to the scars on her arms, the ones that she told everyone were from falling in a driveway. And even the little reappearing cuts on the sides of her thumbs. She’s a world away, taking pride in only what she can do— hold a tune, eat with chopsticks, love one & only one person at once— and mutilating her dignity with the things she can’t. She has a constant debate with herself over whether she’s considered a dime a dozen, or if her little quirks are an excuse to be called special. And on this night, she does feel special, in the most negative sense of the word. Like someone painted a bull’s-eye on her forehead and decided to play target practice. Such a special, special girl, with an empty room and a tired & painfully sober night as her rewards.

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They’ve revised the line between emotions and diseases,

obsessions and disorders,

love and boredom.

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“It’s hard to be the better man when you forget you’re trying.”

The December sky becomes blurred by the white smoke submerging from my lips, but clears once again. The moon is more vibrant than anything tonight, even the artificial stars hanging from the trees. A waning crescent. I imitate the phases with my hands, something I’ve done since I was younger. The wind picks up, and I shove my left hand in my pocket, and my cigarette twitches between two fingers of the right. My hair moves slightly; the tendrils once resting on my shoulders now feel like cold, black ink running down the nape of my neck. And my eyes are dry. Smoke-filled and dry, and they’ve been that way for too long. I blink them rapidly, and my lashes collide, sounding like the wings of a struggling baby bird.

I forget what it’s like to cry hard, with feeling, reason, and meaning. Meaning had never really been one of my specialties, and trying to keep composed at all times has worn my abilities down even further. I had made up my mind before that I would be the one with the “outer shell”, the calm one with a touch of cynicism. Like my numb fingertips on this late evening, it’s something I’d gotten used to after a few stabs of the frigid breeze. And maybe I didn’t care. I usually didn’t, and it didn’t matter. Because after all, out here, the tears would only freeze to my cheeks and melt away at the first touch of warmth.

Staring up at the deep blue, I sit for a moment, wondering how far I could get counting the stars before getting impatient, or even bored. Deciding against it, I take my last drag, and watch the ashes stir in the breeze. They settle in their crevices, and I settle with leaving the night exactly the way it is. No broken poetry, no dramatic revelation. Nothing new.

“It’s hard to be the better man when you’re still lying.”

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Pure havoc. The words twisted in front of me and turned red, dripping down and creating a pool of blood on the floor. My thoughts moved like stagnant water, taking me an extremity of time to decide whether the lights were too dim or too bright. I blinked the spots away and looked down. There were faces in the tile, streamlined profiles of people I had never seen before. Ants crawled down the bridges of their noses and made their way to the corner of the room. I was in disbelief, blinking continuously, knowing that I wasn’t in proper view of reality. Yet I was fearful. Afraid. Completely intrigued, but terribly afraid. I kept my eyes shut tight and focused on what my body was doing. My legs were restless, subtly leaping from the floor yet crashing back down like thunder. They were the only thing I could feel, along with my nails drumming on the tile and the little pink pills dancing in the palm of my hand. Everything was gone when my eyes reopened; even the room seemed to start fading away. I was in a dreamlike state, not knowing whether I was actually sleeping or awake. But as the words began to creep back up from the cracks in the floor, I knew it was no dream. It was havoc. Pure havoc.

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She was such a beautiful cynic, grinning cherry red with the world burning in her eyes.

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Put down your weapons. This isn’t a battle of words. I could write a whole book of insults, but I’m not just here to spit fire. You can marinade in your stale cigarette smoke and your infidelity. I’m on the edge of indifference. I’m content with the red dripping down my back, the skin cells caught underneath my fingernails. As for you, time to step outside of your sanctimonious circle and start searching for a sanctum. Because, my sweet darling, who is there to leave once everyone has left you?

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Navy rings around moon blue irises,

wide-eyed and unsure.

She never seemed too sure,

moving the westward wisps that fell on her cheeks.

I wanted to feel the weight of her bones,

the insecurity lingering on her skin.

I wanted to take it away,

to hold it as tight as she could hold me;

To keep it at bay,

so the only thing she could feel

was my own…

And maybe she could hide mine from me too.

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