I miss you
like there is a hole in my chest.
I can't breathe, 
because the pit in my stomach has sprouted roots.
Tightening,
Crawling,
squeezing so hard
as if my eyes will glaze over.
losing the ivory and blue
for shades of red.

Blood drops down my chest
Leaking, 
as if my heart was missing.
Weightless 
Like a free fall elevator
bouncing on the floor
dancing for the devil
seeing how long I can wait
before I die.

They say you can still feel like you’re drowning
With your legs
Firmly upon the ground.
But there are no memories
Floating from my eyes,
No happiness,
Only a missing piece
A life jacket
Tangled
Dragging me back into the darkness.

There's a ghost in my brain.

she tells me secrets

about haunting strangers.

Twisting my thoughts

she whispers deep breaths,

holding my imagination captive

I lose myself in her words.

Its all around me.

surrounded,

as a desperate plea

crystallizing my eyes

clouded

foreshadowed misery.

She lifts the veil,

drawing together pieces of time

lost in-between the glances.

a mirror-

fill of reminders

pulling myself away.

She switches my brain

like static on the radio.

fuzzy misconceptions race

too many memories,

breaking my senses.

I hear it loud and clear:

please meet me on the other side.

But she won't let me go

They said “choose to be happy.”
Like a switch
To be turned off.
As if I could find a time machine
To another time
When I was chasing stars.
Running barefoot
On beaches
In-between breaths
Waves of memories
Crashing,
Pounding,
Drowning my fears.
Or a melody on the radio
That could lull me to sleep.
Then discover
A guardian angel
To remove the storm clouds.

Words float like notes
An orchestra of what ifs
Rise
And
Fall
Unreachable.

Doubt is anything but easy
When you cannot choose
What to believe.

Denial is a heavy misfortune.
Born out of terror,
She drags her feet like branches
Freshly cut from an oak.
Created by the air-a fire blasts her home
drunk with fear, shame, and obligation.
She's a bastard.
Not because of no parental control
But divided.
Encompassed by another world
Where stars don't burn-they move
Churning focused strongly upon empty faces.
Gracious time between movements
She runs faster, longer, and more determined
To be released.
Longing to let go of these feelings
The past holds her like handcuffs against the wind.
Pressure unrelenting, suffocating
It lingers like burnt hairs.
Creating marks on her body.
Wounds.
Opened-over and over again.
She whispers to the air
"Why"
But it can no more answer her
It can't remember the meaning
Or the feelings.
It needs to end.
Lifting her body across the rocks
The barriers,
The stars,
She lifts the weight
and throws it to the sky.

I walk brick by brick down city streets.

Bouncing soles between sunlight

Soaked in defiance.

Reaching,

My body slowly shifts.

Faces turned from each other

Hands that never meet

Fluttering-

Closely kept within pockets

Gripping cell phones

Avoiding the present moment.

I smile,

Looking into the abyss

Arms embracing the open air

Shuffling steps-

Walk to run

Run to walk.

My legs slide among the ambiguity.

Taking the lead,

An open dance

surrounded by strangers-

I am at peace

Alive,

Humble,

in this brief glace

of life.

I walk
I run
I fly
Trying to remember the times
when I didn't want to die.

I want to remember you
in all of your glory
and all of your pain.

You were stronger back then.
You embraced the future
like a window.
An endless supply of mountains
which have been mutilated
into a door
stopping nothing from leaving...
but from others
coming inside.

I hold the thoughts of you above me.
Looking down on me in disgust.
Whispering like the devil
in my ears.
Telling me I'm going to
fail,
all is lost,
you will get no refund.
Return the damaged goods
on the sale rack.
The expiration date is no longer valid.

Its the distance of memory
I hold.
Like a string....connected to a kite

Pulling down your sleeves
To hide the track marks
Which look more like
A rollercoaster of lines
A wobbling tattoo up your arms

This isn’t a feeling
Attempt,
Or moment.
This is trying to break that cycle
Hurt we all hide.

Shelter those racing thoughts.
Whom meet no one at the finish lane.
Just as insomnia meets QVC
We want to buy happiness for 9.99..
But we can’t afford the shipping and handling.

We no longer know how to breathe
Without choking on irony.

Your hands shake in the cold.
Waiting for the next move..
Wondering if it will be for the better.

I reach for solitude
The way a rock tries to not
Hit the bottom of a lake.

You can’t hear it,
The sound is demolished by
Cracks
Holes
Losing the lining.

It was like everything had stopped.
A dream within a dream.

Broken
Tossed along the shoreline
Awaiting the breath of life.

I can no longer hold my heart.

It’s quarantined,
Isolated,
Deprived.
Sinking within a dull melody
Bouncing further down
The rabbit hole.

How can you breathe?
How can you believe?
How can you live…

Heartless?

I’m the magician’s assistant

Behind the curtain
Moving strings
Attached to papers.

I can make it rain

I can make it snow

But it’s only an illusion.

Just as a fountain of memories
Each trickle bursts
Like flames inside my eyes.

It’s like a million questions
Yet to be answered.
Whispers of melancholy
Pulled from a black hat
Covered in a handkerchief
Blown,
With a mighty wind.

Rushing,
I run towards the leader.
Waving his wand like a
Windshield wiper.
A hypnotic metronome
Before my eyes.

I am powerless

I move the curtain
Switch the boxes….

Suddenly
he stops moving.

I am lost
Without control.

Drag your memories underground
So you can’t see them again.
Pretend they are buried
Like your cat
From when you were 8.

They are decomposing
Fractions of silent grain
Waving in the wind
On a cold summer day.

These shifting layers
Each creates bedrock.
Your feet shake
Between the colliding moments in time.

Compressed weakness
Controlled desire
Complete lack of emotion.

You no longer remember
What’s invisible

A new brain

Grieving for a death that never happened,
Wishing for a place I have never seen,
and longing for a beauty
thats always been in disguise.

You've dealt me a hand of empty cards.
the rules are now unclear
so I fold
underneath the uncertainty.

Compressed air
drains through my knee caps.
Whispers from an explosion
stamped with fear.

I'm searching for my finger print
across the shadows.
A delicate balance
playing hide
in
go
seek
with my senses.

I have never yearned more
for this completeness.

Please show me the way.

I try to remember before this.
Like when riding bicycles
& playing in sandboxes
Were commonplace.

When you took photos
Because it was fun
shaking plastic.
Not showing off
The free time
That has already been taken away.

I try to remember the plastic jewelry
Tightly bound paper
Melted clay
Pinched together sooo tightly
On a piece of string.
its taken away the patience
& creativity
Replaced by instant gratification.

I try to remember that smell:
Fresh
Sticky
Wholesome
Oven cooked
Hard work.
But now-
It comes right to your door.

I try to remember how the paper felt
When flipping through poetry books
Laughing
Crying
Remembering the voices
That carried the words like songs.

But I’m staring at a screen
Not a human.

Technology will never replace
What I’m trying to remember.

The world is full of options
Like a drive-thru menu
You have to make them quick
Or else the opportunity
And yourself
Disappear

I remember waiting
Hours on end
Planning
Scheming
Developing
These options.

So much more painful to think about-
Then to choose.

Like a sunny day
When you are stuck inside
Or driving in the rain
When all you want to do is run and hide.

I wish I knew the easy way
To decide.
Instead of always having options,
lingering within my mind

Paradox
Adventure into the great unknown.
I can’t read her poker face
Because I can barely read my own-
Instructions,
To turn my brain waves
Into sunshine

Lying
Sink inside
kcab
words.
Drawing lines in the sand
Quickly, she says
We have no time to decide

Gracious
She whispers.
But I do not understand
the music
from her heartbeat.

illuminated
the door becomes a window.
It’s still unclear
She sighs,
Closing her eyes.
Flooding my senses
Like watching the rain fall
As she walks away

I was born an adult.
the tubes tied around my feet
holding me to stand.

I was never meant to crawl.
I grew like a tree-
never dead on the outside.

Ashamed of my insides.

but crying was for the girls next door-
jumping, smiling, giggling...
whispers from a keyhole.

I was always spying on them.
The ones who could see
the sandcastles
& rainbows.

But I was too busy
filling cannons with my emotions,
Hoping they would hit the moon.
Blocking love
with responsibility
using empathy as a mask.

Afraid,
I am still hiding in the tree trunk.

Waiting for the roots to let me go

The great mistake

The great mistake
Came from inside her hallow subconscious.
The darkness was a friend,
One she could rely on
For many things.
But this time it couldn’t save her

She wandered,
Pretending nothing had changed
Blinking at the rhythm of her heartbeat
Dancing with the muscles in her legs.
But it was the silence that broke her

Breaking like the wind
Her arms froze like porcelain.
She couldn’t remember it;
How to escape this feeling.

A robot obsession
Thoughts coiled
Through her ears
And down her spine.

A mass was growing.
Fracturing
Morphing
Depleting,
Her strength.

Was this death?
Or was this growing up…

The government runs like a machine
Out of gas.
The frequent exasperation's
Whisper into gears
Of the human mind-
Desperate for air
That is no longer polluted.

I pull back.
The moments between
Clarity and confusion,
Floating.
Words run dry
Imprinting the desert.
These Empty steps
Let go
Deflating sanity

An empty box
with rubber
Screwed into the sides.
Deaf attachments
Linger,
As if
Tools of shame,
sorrow,
And hope
Are no longer left.

Chugging,
Smoking,
Vibrating,
The machine continues on.

I watch,
Eyes watering,
Teeth chattering,
Waiting…

To stop the machine

I’m drowning in your eyes.
It gets deeper, each moment
Splitting seconds
Dropping the hour glass-
Into a black hole….

Warmth spreads.
A blanket of security
Pulsating-
Like a sunset over the ocean.
As far,
As wide,
As strong,
..I can feel you inside

The focus changes.
A narrow angle
Shutter-
Fade
As the box closes….

I can breathe again


Please open your eyes


I need the strength to survive

Quotes from Sarah Kane plays:

"You've fallen in love with someone that doesn't exist"

"Now I have found you I can stop looking for myself"

"If I die here, I was murdered by daytime television"

"Black snow falls

in death you hold me
never free

I have no desire for death
no suicide ever had

watch me vanish
watch me

vanish

watch me

watch me

watch


It is myself I have never met, whose face is pasted on the underside of my mind


Please open the curtains"

I suffer through this
Drifting among blasted plastic
As if the atmosphere is bleeding-
Blue lines
That touch too deep.
Like baskets,
Woven from the inside

I cannot breathe here.


You break me,

Dissolved from these acid words.


I suffer through this
Where apathy no longer has meaning
Picking apart my brain cells
As if popping bubblegum-
Fucking my eyeballs.

You have broken me
For the last time.

This hour glass contains
Heartless entropy.

I suffer through this
Only to find the emptiness
You contain….

And no longer will give to me

Distance magnetizes the moment
Breaching within my mind.

I promise to wander only so far,
Soo long…
Enough so I can run back.

Such as a broken rubber band,
this beautifies feelings
into material action.

Pieces float
Off waves.
A wire vibrates
As if I can sense the earth move
Shifting constellations into my eyes.
And each slowly burning out
Like a wish.

It’s gone

There is no glamour left

Surrounded by fear
I dance,
Creating flames of desire
An island
Which has formed inside of me.

It’s only a destination,
Something that has yet to be found.

I’m trying to remember
Where to begin

Your eyes are an unspoken credence
pale crystallized flourishing spikes.
watching memories stolen-
crumble
like innocence.

8 turns 18
as you fall down the stairs
blinking.
in this delicate breathing
you are no less beautiful
than you were before.

societal depth as circumference
the skin is breaking
a tree branch,
carved into boxes.

vision is nothing without power.
the blistering force
of tornadoes invade the unconscious
rearranging what little is left.

for a moment-
nothing.

your lids drop.

I try to remember,

yes

it was me

Pull the shadows from my skin
taking nothing out of something
as if a small child
uprooting a plant
too soon
from the depths of my brain.

swelling,
my eyes draw rain
deep as the bottom of the ocean.
as the viens curve down my neck
trying to plant myself
back inside.

Now I somehow know what it feels like
to be empty
without missing a piece.
to be broken
but already healed together.
and to be naked
inside layers upon layers
of heavy cotton.

this darkness
is talked about in stories.
but what they don't know...

..its been here all along

He told me to be passive aggressive
Holding a gun to my head.
I dropped
Tomatoes,
The seeds arraying into diamonds.
Like blood-
Oranges when punctured with a knife.

My nature was bruised,
I had nothing left
But millions of tears
Collected within leaves
Above my head.

The only support I had
Was the branch-
Holding me like a soldier
Passing weapons of fruit.

I reach into the golden sky,
Shuffling around the hope
Trying to find the solution….

Grasping at things in this world
Can only yield two results:
Life or death.
I have chosen something more.

You stole my words
Like a slender kiss upon my skin.
A Fabrication of my memory
Of love.
I remember you,
But only the way you moved
Each finger down my neck,
Fishing for my heartbeat.
An echo
Canvassing the distance
A million miles
To-
the next breath.



I read your lips
Like sign language
Spun between my hips.
We run far enough
To find that
We are back-
Stealing words
Such a dance we have learned
Too many times.



I wait,
The distance strengthens
As our words drown into
One another.
No longer can you steal
Something that joined
Our soul.

Sometimes I look around and see all the stereotypes of my generation.

In a local coffee shop, I like to watch college students.

One is the typical annoying girl, talking very loud, using many hand gestures, and very, very insecure. She is having a colorful conversation with an Asian American, whom, one can easily tell was adopted by some rich white family out of pity. And yes, I am making this assumption because two tables up are two real Asians, talking only with themselves. Behind me are the artistic types. You know, the ones who work minimum wage jobs, and complain about the 50’s and 100 dollar bills they have break. Discussing which upcoming movie they should see because it is supposed to be the next hip thing.

Then there is the fat girl talking to the happy couple. You can tell that the whole third wheel is getting to her, as she pretends to enjoy her moments in conversation. She secretly wants the guy across from her, but he is too shallow to see her true beauty.

And gracefully is the musician, going from table to table listening to stories, looking at old pictures, planning his life as the attractive man with mediocre guitar skills. He is a natural blonde; never see them get into any trouble in Hollywood.

Then there are the two that say nothing, just checking their cell phones periodically in a trance. The all black attire works for Goths; I don’t think it does well in this sense.

Each states that they should not eat, but does anyways. Bone thin, waiting to sneak back to the dorm room and purge silently while listening to an ipod. Giggling, the retro tight black pants squeeze more brain cells loose, as there fingers do the walking into an elaborate text message. All of a sudden, one looks angry when making a phone call. The serious face, the popped out eyes and the rising volume trigger me to look away. Making eye contact is forbidden…maybe my generation has changed.

I work with children with disabilities, and currently reading a book about Autism. A quote from the book inspired me to write this:

Autism




Motionless,
He speaks millions of words
Without a single sound



This “fantastic ballet”
Studying tiny facets,
Interactions,
Pieces of a puzzle
We can only dream
Be simplified.



Your presence is not known
Until a tap, note, or bounce-
Slides across the window.



The door,
Locked so tight
So dark
So strange.
A sparkler on the fourth of July
Lights the way through
A keyhole



But you can’t get in.

alcohol

Pale pink hues,

The glass carves tear drops.

Spin the bottle.

Feel it flowing in her veins.

Three times more,

waiting for the release.

She hits the floor.

Wishing she could remember

The words,

Drifting

Above her mind.

Like a marionette

He lifts her limbs.

Dancing,

The vibration drains her.

All she remembers

Is an empty glass

standing on the table.