Summer Boy

But through and from between us
there's nearly any air.
My ankles burn my elbows itch;
your hands are in my hair.
Did I tell you I can't handle
skin on skin on skin?
You make me just so worried-
but you know I'll let you in.

Loneliness Dancing

I am loneliness
and I sleep just outside your walls.
I walk the city through, waiting
for that life-shattering moment
when people just like you (my dear)
are cast from hearts and gardens.
You can walk beside me too
but three steps back and ten feet past
because (my darling shady blue)
the earth is not just open.

Nowhere Girl

In the middle of nowhere,
they sat me.
With nothing for miles
and no one at all,
they told me to find
my way home NOW.
I closed my eyes
and found my heart
and gently whispered,
"North."

The Interogation

Skip
Sk-sk-sk-
the records jump
right and wrong
can
-'t help you.
"What a prime lie you've got there,"
I say, and
pull the plug, and
break the tapes, and
scream and I am just a
fake.
You have (had?) your records wrong.
I'm not the girl who broke the law.
But tell me,
when you find her,
will you treat her this well?

Distant Darling

The feeling here and there
The mountains, icy knives through frosty pricks
and meadows, darling, with soft green grass
Here the trees are naked
and I fear to leave my room.

Raphael

I sit     examine words as cries
your voice is floating up, up
and away right past my downward eyes.
Hushed struggle from behind the door
the closet rattles on the screen, flashflash
light comes screaming on your floor.
Lion Faux! you shout, spit waiting at
the edge of your lips, and by the life in my bones,
I will not kiss. I say     correct your fatal mistake
"Fauxlion, chéri." But
the teeth are very real indeed.

Galileo

Wishing on the stars we fall
but earth is just a battlefield.
Any man who dreams so tall
has made a deathly deal.

Knots and hiding

I imagine after all this time I've spent thinking, I'd have figured it out by now. Worked the infinite knots into separate lines of logic. But all I've untangled is my fears and failures, and it seems the farther in I go, the more of them I find. I remember from grade four when my teacher was reading us that book about the boy who ran away. In his comfortingly strong voice, he'd said, "And he sat there until every last knot was untangled, braving the winds from the top of the building." I remember picturing myself up there, picking the string like meat on bones, pulling and unwinding until it lay before me, obvious and straight and normal.
The reality I face now is a lot like those winds, fraying my sanity in much the same way the wind would toss your hair. It's unwinding my logic while I work never-ending hours to pull it all together. Maybe the knots are the problem: while I think untangling them will be the very answer I'm searching endlessly for, maybe (just maybe though, because I really can't be sure at all), the knots are what I've tied together all ready, and by untangling them, I'm only making a bigger mess of everything.
What I have figured out is that reality is winding me up until the point where the string snaps, or I go flying. That my loved ones (or twos, or threes) are only being further destroyed because of me, and I'm not helping at all.
I think I have had the answers from the very start. Somewhere that is nowhere, that would hold me ever dearly. A cabin in the woods with all the loneliness I want. That's the only reality that will not hurt, and my instincts to prepare for it have been the only thing I will ever do right.
If I ever find someone who could love me enough to hide out in the cold with me, then I will be happy. Make no mistake; that is something I've been searching endlessly for too. Just...something I never honestly believed I would find.

Notes

"Don't open it unless I'm dead," I say. Every word is what you'll have left to eat away. 
And that is exactly how it should be by now, after all, what else do writers do?
That's my last chance for solace, and the last closure, for you. 

That dream again

Another dream where I'm fearless,
or closer yet to it.
Amends with my old mistakes are made
all congregating in the same general castle.
The stairs are never-ending
up and up crooked edges from wall to wall
and then the purple doorways
with over-sized metal doors.
A million broken school desks
and flutes guitars and notes.
This is the music room, no doubt.
I don't have a music class.
I leave her there, wish her luck.
And again my classes go unattended because
I don't care for their lessons much at all.
She walks me away from room 208
all the way up in the 300's,
and we rush through the halls with their glass doors
and glass rooms and teachers and lines
and tiles.
But then she's gone, because she doesn't belong here.
"Why were you gone?"they ask,
the boys who really fucked me over.
To put it quietly, with shame I say
"I was mentally unstable."
It's sad and pathetic and I go out to smoke
and the school is left once again
restored as the castle I'll never see.

I've had the dream again, you understand.
And every time I do I feel a little more sick.
But what can you do?
We are who we are.

I'm hangin' in there, don't you see...

Someone someone talk to me
Someone someone set me free
Tell me nothing's really wrong
Tell someone's not still gone
Someone someone help me out
Grab my paws, my claws, my snout
Lift the powdered poison cake
Trick the monsters and the hate
Someone someone I'm still here
My world is dark, my thoughts aren't clear
Creepers loom once they've attacked
And I fear I'm being tracked
Someone someone I'm so scared
My legs won't walk I've been impaired
Like there's something in my head
Sane's a sense I lost instead
Crazy nights and crazy days
There's no light in drunken haze
But is it drink or is this drugs?
Lions! and Tigers! and Bears! and Bugs!
Someone someone time is quick
Pull me up out of this trick
Everything's so fuck fuck FUCK
I'm so FUCK I'm giving UP

Dear

You're one of the many ghosts that haunt me, but I suppose I don't mind seeing as I did still get those last fleeting days with you. What we had was something I waited years for. Essentially, it should have been my entire world. 

Should have, but something twisted it's golden little grin, and swept you off your feet faster than the earth could open up to swallow you whole. And I'm often reminded of you in the small, quiet moments. An example is months ago, the walk I took after almost running away for the third time that week. My sister told me to kill myself, I greatly considered her suggestion. 

I know, the air was cold and I'd forgotten a sweater, something I never, ever do. And Calio...I'm not sure if that's how you spell it, but that's how it sounds. He interrupted, asking if I'd mind if he walked beside me. 

One of the nicest and most heartbreaking moments I remember, the same exact way I felt when you Hugged me. I capitalize that word because I consider it the name of one of the most important events in my life. Sure, a hug isn't really much of anything, but that hug brought you into my life, and my life solely. 

Well, the point is Calio spent the hour telling me what a beautiful girl I was. As well as asking why I was still alone. This was after you were gone, of course. 

I remember telling him that I just...hadn't found someone yet, and thinking, well I had, but he's gone. We sat on the rocks near the water and watched the waves collide with stone just below us. And no matter how nice this all was, how candid this moment...it reminded me too much of you. 

The lovely things in life make me want to cry now. 

You really have done a nice thing for me. You know that? You made everything bearable, and then you killed yourself. And no, I can't bare it at all. 

"I have experienced instances where I feel both high (elated) and low (depressed) at the same time."


Dark and dingy 
night and city
happy as it goes.
Light and flying
rope the sky in
of frowns we are composed. 


Tight together
rope around
this is to feel tied down. 
Like an ocean
scattered sailor
it feels like this to drown. 

These words say all the grief I felt when I heard he killed himself. They're telling someone -maybe someone I know, or maybe a complete stranger- that I haven't been all there, since.
They say that it's hard to forget, and impossible to remember.

But Summerland is perfect when you need a break, I imagine. Summerland is the perfect break--

of skin. Or was it air?