December Wrists

As the door shut I quickly realized how much harder a silence is to take back, than the words I should have said.

Please send the divers. Creativity is somewhere below. Every air bubble on the surface might have been it's last breath. All of the hardest, coldest people you meet were once as soft as water. Pretty sure that is the tragedy of living, and letting you in.

Don't All Nights Include Evading Long Lost Exits?

For now her chest is nothing more than an empty home waiting for me to return. She saved my life, and I made it look like a suicide. Tonight I'm the skeleton buried deep in her closet, painting dead roses on the nerves of her neck.

Standing at the base of the fire escape shaking my head.  The last few weeks were already covered in ash like a sunken ship that nobody cared to search for. I've never used a heart like I've been using hers. I feel inside out. The reverse side of karma. A devil with a halo.

Forgive me for forever slicing at barely healed wounds. I'm only happy when I'm hurting. I can't stand who I am right now. Dripping thoughts and emotion across this keyboard at her expense. Starting fights with her just so the pen can bleed. So afraid to be alone... a gutted match searching for his passport.

I'm Just Out Of Chances

Go ahead and wipe your feet on my dreams as you enter. Pull the chain to a light that hasn't worked in years, and climb those creaking stairs that lead towards who I used to be.

Welcome to my childhood bedroom. A place that eventually became armor that I could no longer wear.  There is a chest in the corner. Crack it open and watch as it breathes deep, almost like it has come back to life.

Sit there on the floor barely breathing in all the dust dangling in the air and notice that none of these stories are ever finished... because that's who I am. Never closing the door on a fucking thing. Never jotting down the last period. Never signing off.

Mind full of thoughts, trapped by a body that can't achieve rest. Before I met you I made a religion out of leaving others behind. Keep tabs on me or be forgotten. Sometimes I miss feeling down all of the time... like it was some close friend that moved away.

I'm the Reason for Participation Ribbons

If this heart is a hand grenade then every single word you said pulled the pin. Truth be told...  as soon as they passed your lips my shoulders began to shudder at the thought of your thighs pressed against mine.  Here's to hope playing the role of my best man, trying to convince me that you didn't mean it.  Just as fast as this all began, it all came to a halt (please understand this is all over).  As we're standing here exchanging excuses every single blade of grass is coming into focus... not in a slow type of giving up... more like a dam giving way all at once.

Betrayal isn't the right word, it's just the one that rolls off of my tongue with precision in this moment. You never really understand the weight of your words until they hit someone in the chest, and by then it's far too late.

Gun Over My Heart, Hand To My Head

Check the glove compartment for a passport full of stamps from all of the places that I've missed you in. Cornfields over coasts from now on. Nothing will ever feel as much like home as a sunset with the windows down on I-88. Pulling over for no reason other than infatuation.

Cold hearts get hot nights between the sheets, or either side of the lines we've drawn. Forget hushing headboards. Here's to the tennis elbow from being on top and the rug burn from you below.

The Way We Used To Matter

I'm the hurt in your neck from the split second glance that made you look away... the reason you missed that magic moment.  I'm the pain in your chest when they all describe it in detail, and the sadness in your voice when you play along. I'm in the corner snuggling up to the hope in your heart when you're praying they believe you. Forever the balloon string just out of reach.

I'm forever clumsy hearted, and chances are I'm still awake because of something you once said. Heavy eyes might fall from this cold damp space, but it won't change the way that you are the window I still find myself behind... waiting for the moon to rise one last time, and the sun to leave the earth.

Throwing alarm clocks out windows towards Millennium Park. The shadows won't make my scars disappear, only harder to see. And it's just like me to meet the greatest thing, only to find it's heart expired at the hands of another.

The Picture Frame Clutch

No matter how alone we feel while adrift, our heads above the water will always beat a sinking ship.

Better places will serve as a fork in the road from time to time.  It's ok to be amongst the shadows of the beat up buildings, distracted by all of the romance that yesterday once held.

Truth be told, if we all had time machines we'd be crossing paths and re-routing regrets to the extent that we'd never feel a thing.

I die every night dreaming of that day in Weavers Fields... and I come alive with thoughts of you stateside.

Tried To Move On, But Can't Escape This Heart

They built a cell and never molded a key for this feeling in my chest. Locked up behind baby blues, blood red from blank stares. You are the color wheel.

It's 1 in the morning, and almost sunrise next to you. Please dust off, and place away this antique heart. Take me down every now and then... just like a snapshot memory. I'm only proud to have been on your shelf.

Passport veins. Mederma for the scars, and whiskey for the pain. Wristbands from here on out. Meet me in Chicago. We are October.

London's Calling

Am I genetically programed to return to dull pedestrian life?  Please show me something more than this. Exchanging landscapes. The soul can wrap so hard around the heart, enough to crush the best out of us all. Don't let the world turn so slow to make you feel forgotten.

I'm with you daily, in this chest of misunderstanding.... It's as if the wounds relate to a rhythm, enticing scars to hum along.

For Every Little Instant Caught In Thoughts (of) You

Catch that acronym?  Pretty sure we both feel like a song they never listened to the whole way through... like a missed lyric on a mix-tape. Here I stand.. a future king of mistakes, yet still the prince of apologies. Finally found a princess that understands this hideout heart.

I can't wait to continue our lessons in falling asleep.

Transatlantic

"This is not a turn-key romance" I said, as she flipped me off with her left ring finger.

"It's the only one with a vein connecting to the heart," she explained.

Her name was Felicity, the literal definition of "happiness," and she had me... gutted.

We pinky promised to "get transatlantic" with our hearts. Making each other let go. I'm left wondering if she's aware of the way that Lindburgh was the first to cross the Atlantic in flight, with my name on his tail wing?

You are a bubble under water. I'm a soundwave that could collapse you. The unexpected light that follows, and that science can't explain is merely the chemistry in our veins. Let's ditch the lifeguards and feel alive.

Petrichor

She's describing the smell of rain as the sun rises over Bethnal Green. I'm doing my best to ignore the time difference, and my insecurities about her co-star. I'm winding down while she's waking up, breaking me in like a hand-me-down.

Diamond eyes for the way she says my name. Her call-time's in 10 and I'm near tears. Breathing out New York as if it's the last thing in these lungs. Shipped my heart to London until November.

I'm only worthwhile in my mind when I'm bleeding from the chest anyway. 

Signing Out To Sign Back In

Your lips, like velvet... match bare canvas eyes that dream of putting clocks to bed. If given the chance I swear we could align heartbeats in precision.. at least long enough to embrace the shaking.

I've got everything packed, with the exception of this death bed that I've built for summer. What's a couple of bottles between us and the fall anyway?  Under this Manhattan moonlight I swear to dance with thoughts of you, and the way that I picture you clinging to me when the lightning and thunder collide.

I dare your heart to leave its scent on my collar now that I've been labeled the wolf in sheeps clothing.

Me Vs. My Low Latent Inhibition

Stranded in this feeling that someone I haven't even met is wondering what it might be like to know someone just like me. Praying to someday awake and find nothing more than her attempts at trying to make me feel... even though we're surrounded by a world that tells us not to.

The word "someday" could be the  happiest/saddest word in the world. It's all a glass half full/empty type of thing in my chest. I just want to make it true. What was once an effort to prove my strength has only made me weak for you.

Our Own Aphelion

Weighed down in Gramercy Park. Thoughts slowing to a single anchored feeling. Sometimes home is just an idea, not a place.

Before we met I wasn't sure how my mind worked, or if it really did anymore. I used to sleep on my heart in hopes it would just go numb. For some reason you feel like something on display out of reach. Something that has finally been brought down for me to touch. Someone too fragile for these shaking, clumsy hands.

The black clouds overhead will ultimately provide showers. So lets be the trail of gasoline, taunting the lit match.

She Is Every Reason (for) Airports

Your laugh broke my chest open like a fortune. The child-like wonder in your smile made me feel like I was holding the world inside the palm of my hand... all the while I watched you from across the crowd, wondering what it would be like to hold yours. Pretty sure I didn't touch the ground that night.

There will forever be dreams on the tips of my fingers that include tracing the outline of your head on the pillowcase next to mine..

I am nothing more than intrigued by the silent uproar of feeling undone.

J'ai Ecrit Ceci Pour Vous

Picture four ships sailing in opposite directions. North, South, East, and West. This is how my mind is pulled, inversely. I am Catherine Morland and you are the Mysteries of Udolpho.

A secret, once explained loses all of it's charms and danger. I used to be fascinated with the way that the heart breaks, but now I find myself more impressed with its ability to heal.

Who needs hearts when our eyes give us enough torment? I will continue to confide in paper, and die by the phone on Friday nights.

Flipping Coins

I've tried to put you down on paper so many times, but you keep getting up. No portrait of a person will ever feel alive until you fill in the eyes. So open them. One of us has to be the artist.

Thunderstorms are just the sound of a restless night, rolling over in its sleep. When I'm tired they say it's just the chemicals in my brain, mixing and un-mixing themselves at the wrong time. I'm just soaking up the moonlight in the window... hoping that each drop of rain is here to wipe away the broken promises.

She's In Every Relevant Acronym

Tides will come and go like the air in our lungs. You weren't mine to begin with... to end with. Though you are thought of every day. I write these words for you, in hopes that you might remember me, and that we'll never be the expanding difference between two points.

Sometimes I touch the book that you borrowed from me... looking for echoes of your finger tips. You taught me what this feels like. You showed me who I was, and then who I wasn't.

To all of the other planets, we live on a star. They look up and wish upon you and me. Even after the entire world has taken this apart, I swear I will forever write so that there will still be a part of me... left for just for you.

My Apologies to Coincidence

Caught up in thoughts of space. The way that although faint, somewhere in Neal Armstrong's head there must have been the idea of staying behind on the moon. Forever a star-crossed fugitive. Bursting out of the worlds mise-en-scene... waiting for the air to run out. That's what we are all doing down here anyway. Why not have the better view?

Longing to be between the lines of the highway again. Long live the single file life.  Sometimes love grows legs only so it can run away. For the rest of the year let's hold hands... not grudges.

The Amygdala Sessions

Trust fall out of bed. Switch off the stars so the darkness will match the mood. Go back to sleep Ryan. Ghosts are just the people you once loved... alive inside of you. Maybe next time you won't wait until the finish line to show it.

"All of that filthy empathy... for the way we're feeling"...

I guess this is the point that I come clean. The part where I admit to you that I am nothing more than a heart. Born and raised in captivity... this body is my cage.

She will forever remind me of the way that something can be so beautiful to the point that it feels like sadness. The one I would take a bullet for, became the one behind the trigger.

Go After It, or Go With It?

There is something incredibly honest about trees in winter. They’re experts at letting things go. My eyes have not seen pleasure since your eyes, and I've got a ringing in my head from when you broke my chest.

My days are spent staring at the bandages, because that's where the light enters. If you're still bleeding, you're the lucky one. Give your heart back to itself. To the stranger who has loved you all along, and you ignored for another.

 

Kerouac Says Accept Loss Forever

Follow your fingertips along a chain link fence until they get numb. You're locked inside your own heart shaped box... while I'm losing thought.

Your shirt was candy caned lines in red and white against clashing patterns, bending in and out of my understanding.  I was the rope that broke when you were mid-air, swinging.

It's like a long walk down a dark alley with you and me. Roman candle hearts lighting the way.  The only difference between a vision and a hallucination is the person offering the diagnosis. That's how I feel about us. Either way, at one point your eyes caught a glimpse of what we really are.

Look at us from far away. Third in line from the sun. As if the earth is waiting for its chance to get close and burn up the sky. We're all sitting on a star that never could.

Time Zone Antagonist

I forgot what it was... I was. Tried shaking the hands of time, but somehow every single moment in my life still bears a hole I can't fill in. Hearts are given away so minds can go crazy. I know when the sun goes to bed I'll be in mine praying for a spell to make her think of me the very same way I think of her.

The voice of reason has gone silent, as if to make sure I become reacquainted with the demons I put to death years ago. Common sense has been lost, and now I spend my days in a place in my mind that I know not to go.

Please bring back the things I lost, starting with yourself... please teach me to not be so alone. I don't want to argue with the gates of heaven anymore.

Keep Out Of Reach

What goes up must come down. Lungs and hopes included. This is a time lapse goodbye to fair weather dreams. The choir in our hearts will hum a familiar tune... in a key that only the underdogs will hear. The most constructive thing I've done, is build my life around these thoughts of her. Signed my life away a time or two, but never initialed for my soul. Lets get vintage in our thoughts, and in their hearts this next time around.

Silhouettes move faster when they have something to hide. There is something so perfect about holding someones hand on a ledge. It's like even if you fall it wouldn't be so bad.

Southport Serenade

I know I passed you on the street last week... and now I'm back in NYC in a crowded room, all alone. Resorting to being myself since everyone else is taken. My thoughts are spreading out on notebook paper that's crumpled and creased. The words aren't perfect, but they make me feel ok against the candlelight. My tie is askew, but what's the use? We all are bound to return home... just to watch through our keyholes for signs of life anyway. This isn't me.

Unfocused blue eyes stare back from the bathroom mirror. Apologetic, but not in the form of an exit. The deep black is not an option anymore. The same way that this smile is not a parachute. I would give my life to have you here right now. I can feel you when the wind dies down. I wouldn't be such an island, if I had you.

I know that soon enough the right words will find their way back to me, and that they will just spi(e)ll (you) out. Until then I'm vacant.

Intimacy Problems With The World

There are destined to be a couple of sets of eyes that are only meant to serve as bookmarks in your life. They will only exist to mark the chapters as you unfold. Highlights in hopes that you will pay better attention to the changes. Dog-eared pages to remind you at a later date.

Like the reflection I saw in her eyes for the first time in a classroom in Chicago... when all of the blood ran out of me. Before her my whole life just felt like one big apology.

There she was sitting, knee pulled up to to her chin, probably thinking of something or someone else. And that's how she will be stuck in my mind forever. We were both just two explorers in the dark, mapless and hopeless. I'm not just taking trips down memory lane, I'm fucking broke down on it for this girl.

I only know how to manipulate my lungs with thoughts of her.

All I Do Is Leave People

It seems like there is always another empty room waiting for me. Been finding my conscience in the medicine cabinet and using it to sift through the cobwebs and time capsules in my head. I'm teaching my eyes to lie while saving my voice for the big ones.

When you really think about it, words are more than just games we play with the tips of tongues. Especially when they are written down and read aloud. You and I know that the best conversations are the ones where neither of us has to say a word. So let's practice our awkward glances that will say more than our mouths ever will. Besides, if you fall down enough you'll find that getting up is what really hurts.

I have an entire world of worry under this rehearsed image. There is so much history in the center of my chest. Turn the page. What you thought was goodbye is just a disguised "'see you soon." It never comes soon enough.

Scrapbooks won't last. Sooner or later the color will fade, drip, and become a mess of memories that once were. A puddle of forgotten flashes and dead chromophil. Expired smiles illustrated under dust.

Once the rewind button is broken, all you can do is let it play through. Writing off tomorrows every time my fingers touch these buttons. Putting all the comforts and closeness in reverse just for you.

I haven't felt much like staring at a computer screen lately, reading words put to paper years ago instead. It slows my heart down.

Exit.

"What is real?... Does it hurt?"

Loving and losing are nothing more than a letter apart. I've got hundreds of broken halos just like the one you wear. Don't be so sure that I don't have my head in the clouds to keep you from noticing that my mind is running around behind your back. I've weighed the odds long enough... time to beat them. I'm not the sinking ship in the harbor.

I'm the darkness disrupted by a whisper. The splinter in my paw that you told me to ignore became infected. This tiger is tired of waking up with last nights tears in his eyes

The scars on my September wrists look more like smiles now. Settled for second best in the public's heart just so I could be there at all. Hopefully stuck in your ribcage on the way out of an exhale.

If we're still being honest with each other, I can't take it all in sometimes... the breath and the confusion. There are times when my clean conscience is only a blank stare with palms towards the sky.

"The way her knees grimaced at the wind..."

From the front porch of a dimly lit brownstone on Gramercy Park.... I found myself coughing up directions into my phone. A constant reminder that these lungs are losing their fight with the anxious heart above.

I faked shyness on the stoop mostly because I thought that was what she wanted from me, and because it's what a guy like me does when he's holding the better hand.

Our features became soft under that burst of dim lit orange, and we surrendered to the fading light in what would be our final embrace. I kissed her cheek goodbye (although she wasn't the one leaving). It was merely a formality... similar to the way she crossed herself before she kneeled in church.

She covered her eyes, as I drifted away from the streaks that watered down. She drew the shades with knots I swore to never untie, and we went our separate ways.

My good intentions somehow have never been good enough.

I know there was something before you. I just can't remember what it was. I'm just breaking hearts in the meantime.