swirling

i’ve seen a seasick face
that has crept up on me,
and kept me pushed down
how air shouldn’t be.

creases take their places,
on a porcelain floor,
as they turn the faucet on,
to release me some more.

i’ve seen a love so gentle,
that washes over me,
like silk stained breath,
and the gaze that i need.

fingertips take their places,
poised on marbled skin,
and every movement raises mountains
for the only one i want to let in.

old cassettes are knotted like muscles,
dust ridden film, stained with spots,
even though they were broken,
that’s not everything they have got.

the face that smiles upon them,
and the voice that trickles past your ears,
were what you loved,
and will love,
and will love.

eyes as deep as sandbars,
always pull me in once again,
but i would hold my breath forever,
just to be asked to come in,

and every alphabet that my tongue,
has strung so eloquently,
will encircle my own mind,
until i’m heavy in arms made for me.

i love you with the second hand,
every second i tick too,
and every single moment i’m beating,
i swear i’m beating just for you.

baby

you leave me with an empty tongue,

with no spiralling words.

you leave me with an empty mind,

where no images flash like carousel spins,

and no thoughts play bumper cars,

inside of my head;

except for the delicate image,

of the most exceptional face

i have ever seen.

your voice it swivels,

as smooth as liquid,

so soft, like the wind.

and every vowel,

every ink spot,

every shape formed by

your mouth of roses,

sticks to me.

i cling to your speech,

like static electricity,

and the strongest of magnets.

the melody of your alphabet,

encircles me like garlands, and

can draw diamonds from my eyes.

it can pull my marionette arms,

around your shoulders,

to touch your milky skin.

it has me.

your bones stay so soundly,

so beautifully,

as you sit,

perched,

and perfect.

the architecture, so inviting,

so firm, and slim,

but with high ceilings,

just enough room for me.

when you move,

there is nothing else,

only the shape which i fit perfectly beside.

my glazed eyes,

so watered down with love,

trail upon each step,

each jump,

each blink.

an image full of admiration.

with every hand that you spread

to accommodate my fingers,

and every limb that you stretch,

upon my body,

and every heart that you give,

to the love that needs them,

you have me.

every gaze filled with such tender depth,

that you lay upon me,

and with every word that you whisper

onto an open record,

you have me.

i have entangled myself

around your statuette figure,

with my limbs, like vines,

that will never let you go.

i have a love so strong,

that not a word could afford it,

not a breath could support it.

but may such attempts brighten,

the bluest of eyes,

and widen the most hypnotic of smiles,

and carry the largest of hearts.

i will keep you close.

i love you.

lines

lines are the house you built,
the window panes,
the door that everybody leaves through,
but do not always return through.
lines are your sides,
with the body that you hate.
and every morning you step upon a shape
to watch a line tell you
how imperfect you are.
streams that trickle from rainbowed eyes
always make such perfect lines.
such beautiful, shiny lines,
over things that are not beautiful.
lines align,
with the person that you love,
like interlocked science projects,
antique vines,
antique viens.
a line holds you up,
even though you cannot count on one hand,
the number of times
it's allowed you to lay down
and give up
and let go.
a line made of bones,
ivory lego blocks
that build you up,
like you've been pieced together.
like a puzzle.
like a scrapbook.
lines are fragments of words and letters,
written in notes,
in sepia cursive,
or stony print.
lines that curve, or cower,
to create something more fragrant
and desirable,
than they could ever be existing alone.
lines are train tracks that take you,
to find yourself,
or the one person you live for.
lines are what stab through your skin,
when you see something you hate.
so red, like rubies,
and cherries,
and fresh summer lips.
lines trace our bodies,
when i lay beside you,
and feel you beside me.
and when we move,
ours will still exist,
shadows of us that could never be erased.
a never ending line.

not.

it isn't like what you see in the movies.
there aren't footprints chasing your heels,
to stop you,
to grab your wrists,
to hold you back.
it's liquid crystals
that drip and roll with such arched vertebrae,
you would think they were contortionists.

i used to contort,
with each ivory bone stuffed into
corners with uneven edges,
claustrophobically angled like
children's faces on sliding glass doors,
and fingers bent
to degrees they should never have met.

and in my head ran a line,
that repeated like late-night television adverts,
trying to sell me blueberry plants,
or exercise tapes
that would hollow my cheeks out, but make me happy.
or planes that string flimsy plastic promotions,
that get tangled like vines when
the wind hits their sweet spot.
or marathon runners crossing their finish line,
but on repeat.
and i never crossed the finish line,
but my personal advert, cellophane banner, and marathon
told me that i was comfortable.


it isn't like what you read in novels,
or in newspapers,
or chapter books with dog-eared pages
and spines with the waxy binding chipping off like stretchy snowflakes,
flaking into palms aged with lines,
like rivers on a map, and streets in the city.
lines like the strands of your hair,
or the light reflecting
off of your eyelashes.
lines like the creases of your face when
i watch you open your beautiful mouth,
and out falls words which i never,
ever,
believed i deserved to hear.

and it isn't like the off-beige pages,
that are grainy like
unexperienced photographs,
or whole wheat pasta.
it doesn't leave your hands with a film of
past lovers, past lives,
and former fingerprints.
but it keeps ink stains, and typos,
and instead of those pages that leave you feeling dirty;
i have pages as soft as your skin,
where you carry words
on your face,
stained with everything i long to read from you.

it will never be like what you see in the movies.

black and white

sadness comes with colors

like blue and gray and black

sadness has an aura

that always brings you back

sadness carries so many words

a segregated dictionary

that knows exactly the moment when

your eyes mist over and get weary

sadness has so many moods

i could never narrow it down to one

i've let it cloud me over so many times

i can feel it before its begun

pages and pages of just one thought,

how selfish can it be?

or perhaps i am the selfish one,

for always letting it come back to me.

there's nothing sadness doesn't have

except it's missing just one thing

i have something far superior

and it means more than anything

though i do not embellish every page

with it's moods, and words, and eyes

my body carries it like my bones

and i feel it moving around inside

happiness is hard to keep

when sadness hides in every fold

but it disappears when i think of you

and i slide into our mold

happiness is hard to write about

as it's something you can't watch

but you are something i can see, hear, and feel,

and love until my heart stops

yellow bird

if you can shadow a cloud
then you could shadow me
like the imprint that’s left
or the news on tv
now my fingers are faucets
with a permanent leak
fragments and ink stains
that just want a place to be

every skull keeps like plastic
holding everything that’s left
like your liquid lit eyes
or your beautiful breath
i’m just a trunk in an attic
that i keep in my chest
to remind myself that i need this
when its only air on my neck

i don’t dream anymore
of the things i’ll never be
when i lay next to you
just like a black and white dream
it never seems to matter
to the ghost inside me
because when our bones are parallel
it means everything to me

like a conspiracy theory
i’ve polished to a tee
i only write in the air of an upset
because it’s only for me
but when hearts are connected
and my teeth get to breathe
the only one on my mind
is the one i am trying to please

deliberate anatomies

I've got eyes
With second hands built in
Watch them swivel and swing
Like a cuckoo bird, I'll sing
I've got eyes
With deliberate rings
Half moons and eclipses
That don't mean a thing

And I've got hands
With bones that can bend
And magnets in the joints
That want to extend
Yeah, I've got hands
With palms like a map
Just follow them straight
And you'll always come back

I've got a tongue
And a teeth-made bed frame
With lips for a door
A distorted privacy game
See, I've got a tongue
That seems to get in the way
But pearly bodyguards always
Make sure it stays

I have a backbone
With many vertebrae
And it curves like a smile
And tries to whither away
But I have a backbone
That you hold up so kind
It's easy to forget
That backbone was mine

You have a heart
That sits in its cage
And it beats like a drum
And gets carried away
You also have eyes,
A tongue, hands, and back
A deliberate anatomy
There's nothing you lack.

laundry television

I fell through myself
And I slid through my bones
I emptied my veins
I emptied my brain

I dropped every contour
Of every wicked syllable
I erased every page
And I washed them away

I unwrapped the steel links
They crashed through the floor

What an airless weight

For heiroglyphic slates

I unraveled every emerald
And I kept one for you
Their edges, away

But I want yours to stay

Every space that I kept
Disappeared with the wind
they all blew away
They all moved away

Now my eyelids hold peace
Instead of uneasy waves
I float through the sea
But don't belong to the sea

I used to see liquids
Now I think in only swirls
I blend with ink and water,

You make me ink and water

The night will coax you out
With a finger or a nod
And lead you through trails

That only bring you trails

I fell through myself
And I slid through my bones
But you kept me inside,

You let me inside.

play time

it's strange how a shape,

your shape, can take me

and the shape of your mouth

how i've watched it break me

and i've let so many strings

inside my skin

and they pull me away

just how i pulled them in

but i feel juxtaposed

with heavy weights, but i'm free

i carry stones in my heart

and the air carries me.

i watch myself float

away from myself

with a translucent ghost coat

i breathe back to the shelf

but a throat can only carry

so many alphabets

but i'll keep on learning new ones

until i get over this

there's a ticking in my back

and it tells me when to bend

i heard it breathe and relax

as you pulled on every string

now it's curved to the side

where you wanted it to be

and i'm trying to re-mold

what you left so unnaturally

and it's so lovely to remain

in a mattress made of sand

any hourglass would tell you

everything it can

and i would trace your figure

with the fingers that i crossed

and i'd bottle every word

that translations might've lost

i still keep a heavy head

that tries to keep up with my heart

and the ticking in my back

i can't stop it once it starts

and in the crescents of your eyes

i wonder what still swims with you

but if you're asking me

i'd love to swim with you

but my minds a constant wind storm

a scratched up old film roll

sun leaks and black spots paint me blue

already unraveled whole

writing bye bye. :(

it's been so long. i don't feel it anymore

there are people, and there's places
and there's voices, and there's faces
and there's pearled syllables
that hang around your neck
and there are lakes and many seas
and tarnished rings for eternity
but there's nothing i can be
around your neck
i'm just tired of guessing and pretending
and empty blue conversations
and wet shoes pointed inwards
when they don't know what to say
so i'll still sit on your bed
another place that i might keep
but with everything you've said
it wont be the same
and my body on that mattress
won't tell you like a compass
and your drop ins may not hold you
when you think i'll keep you up
but i will unzip every zipper
and take off every layer
of the suit that you had made me
something i should never have worn
but you gave it like a handshake
and i took it, oh what these hands made
and everything i gave it
now it's gone into the clouds
and maybe it will float there
synchronize swimming with the birds

and the parcel on your doorstep:

i hope it's what you're looking for.

finally.

Resolution

Telescopes for each eye,
Stretch them out
But I can't find
Fingerprints on anything,
Every bit you’ve left behind
Don’t tell me you would never try

I built walls
To keep me still;
Or maybe they were all for you
A place to stay
A pillow or a leg.
Can’t you just find your way?
I wish I could just find my way

If the doctor used
Magnets on you,
You must’ve been sick, too.
White coats
And microscopes
Remember you, too.
And a hospital bed
Will drench you
And I would be too,
If you’ve kept what I’ve seen
You would be too

And I’d take every minute
Of cement inside of me
If you could hold a stare
Or just a feeling
Because I’d give you my bones
Or anything you pleased,
If I could sit with your skin
Like a new puzzle piece.
You know I'd fit right in.

Your mind is like a virus
It can always find a new way in
And you cling, and you cling,
You cling, and you win
But the magnets were placed
With such strategy
That I get stuck to you
Before you get off of me
I can't get away from you

conor did you write this for me?

"Everything is as it's always been
This never happened"

"Don't take it so bad, it's nothing you did
It's just once something dies, you can't make it live
You're a beautiful boy, you're a sweet little kid
But I am a woman"

So I laid back down and wrapped myself up in the sheet
And I must have looked like a ghost, cause something frightened me
And since then I've been so good at vanishing

Now I do as I please, and I lie through my teeth
Someone might get hurt, but it won't be me
I should probably feel cheap, but I just feel free
And a little bit empty

No it isn't so hard to get close to me
There will be no arguments, we will always agree
And I will try and be kind when I ask you to leave
We will both take it easy

But if you stay too long inside my memory
I will trap you in a song tied to a melody
And I'll keep you there so you can't bother me"