I'm aware of my self destruction 

like Alice drowning in her tears,
    making everything bigger than it is. 

I'll wrestle a task,
               drink away the night,
scratch up my skin,
       call an ex.

I'll find a new problem

          to lose focus on my current one. 

I'll stir sleeping thoughts awake
          instead of waking my ambitions.

When there's no tv show muting my thoughts,

          no pair of eyes distracting me from my own,

I look anxiously for other noise

          instead of listening when it's quiet. 

I torment other scenarios 

that aren't this one.

My thoughts storm 

& everything I have left to sit outside 

          is soaked & heavy by my negligence.

Obstacles collect in the yard,

& I can only smile & trip over them for so long before

          everything is all at once, 

          & it all seems like a mess.

I could pretend it's fine & close the blinds,

but here they are 

haunting me 

with different faces in different ways. 

All the information you've told me,

The stories, 

the mumblings you half way intend me to hear, 

the looks I feel when we connect,

              all of these pages you've let me read 

are embedded in my heart;

& to pluck these out takes study and skill,

a special examination of not the shiny memory itself 

              but the heart it is embedded in,

how I choose to hold it there 

when starker moments are not brought to light. 

My memory plays tricks, 

seducing me with the echo of what was said.

Fantasy might creep in steadily 

the longer the time fades away,

it might make you look and taste a certain way. 

I found myself looking at pictures of you 

after refusing to for such a long time,

not wanting to remember how much emphasis 

I put on your life crossing mine.

I'm afraid of a dull protective pain 

dissolving into the cracks of your smile 

or bending with the dark curve of your eyelashes. 

I'm aware of a pain that has come & gone 

& slid thick inside again & again.

I'm afraid of an artificial light drawing me in, 

pulling me into assumptions and expectations.

               But if anything, 

& no matter how trapped or caught I feel or felt, 

I can appreciate something that pulls me out of myself,

something that points out a different shade of me that not all see.

The seas of romantic memory & passion
         push you into me again.

You word your mistakes so clearly;

         as if you knew them all along, 

         the words to our song.

As if you thought even at the time

         it was wrong.

So I listen carefully but I don't look.

After awhile the seas in my heart evaporate

         to reality raining on my head,

         to your look over at me that says "this again?"

I feel dull and you feel restless.

I pull until I realize 

        there was never anything in my hands.

You leave my touch but not my mind

where I smash words together 

trying to dissect your expressions.

I ask for & about you

& everyone asks why.

I have no answer,

        Except the rain turning into seas again;

A welcome change from a lonely calm

        I haven't let evolve.

A peace within solitude 

        seeming like a distant rescue,

But the only way I can escape you.

I used to have you in my phone
              as really immature names
like
        Fuckface
or 
        Dickhead
because what a great way 
to show that I'm still pissed off.
              How absolutely childish
to give you a name to make you unappealing,
to tarnish the quality of my experience with you
with mostly dick imagery.
But everytime I let you back in
              I felt a part of me was left out,
a compromise for what you couldn't give.
So yes,
              it's childish to have named you Penis Face
with capital letters and everything,
to show you I meant it as a serious name,
but it's because whenever  I saw your name
              I put too much emphasis on it
              I fell in love with the letters too
because they belonged to you,
an association.
             I fell in love with the promise
the fantasy of the future. 
This is how love rushes over me in such a way
            that I cant help but be swept away
                                    by the tides of my own feelings; 
             the water feels warm
& I'm tired of the day walking me around
             so I let the sensation
             of the two worlds first kiss 
                                    flow through the rivers 
                                         of my nerves.
                              I bend to your touch
& no matter how hard I try,
                & whatever you are called at the time,
          my walls become suggestions
& your laughter leaves me disarmed.

He pulls a rope you have wrapped around your mind,

        never really wanting to see where it all ends, 

                 why its all intertwined.

He keeps your ideas entertained. 

He feeds an attention you crave.

He keeps you close

       but feeling empty 

                 & wanting more. 

As long as he holds you

        there's no telling you 

 that those who deserve you 

        don't just pull,

             they unravel the rope;

strand by strand

        with the determination of time 

             until 

The dark parts of you 

        are defeated by the light you see in yourself. 

Sometimes I feel like

we were tortured lovers in a past life.

I hadn't hurt myself with the idea of you in awhile,

             then out of the depths of im not sure where;

     cosmic or subconscious,

I felt an unresolved pang for you
& maybe you knew that too. 

             I heard what I wanted
& had been waiting to hear.

You described me once as
the excitement & peace of riding a wave;

here I let it all rise & fall again & again,

though I guess we both know how it ends;

words hanging in the air,

              & you leaving them there,

words I exhaust

              because your silence weighs on my spine.

Now

We don't speak. 

We don't touch.

Ego puts on a suit and tie 

but crumbles inside. 

I feel a pull towards familiar.

I taste your words 

              before you slide inside. 

I feel you beside me one last time.

It's all in my head though

& I start to cry.

I leave the room just like you.

When I come back

I see that you've called.

Instead of pushing back buttons 

& changing my voice,

I mourn for this pain

& let this past life die. 

In a surreal way,
I remember talking about some very real things.
I remember looking at you from across the couch,
seeming like miles away,
but here all at once,
again.
You had been gone a long time
& I was just starting to end
lingering thoughts of you,
But your memory hit me 
like an unexpected sting
& then there you were,
on my couch,
Telling me you had been miles away
& you had felt that way
but you're here now
all at once,
again.

You want more. 
More
tattoos,
money,
respect,
sexual adventures.
You want more to
discover,
drink,
experience.
You want 
to be the star
but left alone.
You want
the bills to let you rest
& for the time to,
For your thoughts to escape you.
You want to go back to a photograph, 
To a boy unaware of his circumstances. 
You want to leave 
& pretend your baggage won't come too,
Although passively I'm the same way;
Avoiding my own intuition
& chasing you when you can't stay.

I think of you making pretty girls laugh
& maybe they get to see under your clothes.
Maybe your charm stretches from your tongue
& over their eyes
& vowels shake out of you both all night.
Maybe you love starting over;
the questions are exciting yet polite,
You're only knowing at a certain level,
& it's like you've never met yourself.

Jokes so people love me.               

Jokes so reality doesn't crush me. 

A corner of light 

to stretch across the room 

when the mood is dark.

Sometimes it's not appropriate;

heavy blankets pull over my head.

I anchor myself down.  

Though the thoughtful distance 

into deeper dark

is worth appreciating, 

The way up requires the right energy.

The energy to 

clear the hauntings of past lessons,

shake words that never went anywhere,

& to do this without bruising my own mind.

The energy to forgive myself

for my feelings,

So they may lift my sinking heart 

to higher thoughts.

I always had to word 
my conversations so carefully,
to find the right ones for your tastes.
I was exhausted before I even spoke.
Naturally you'd always look baffled by me
if I was upset,
when I didn't expect those answers
& I wanted to throw my questions away.

You unwillingly learn from me;

hurling yourself over the sides of my words

& I try to catch you. 

We pretend to read minds

& resentment adds to a pile

that we pick from when we're angry.

I remember you telling me: 

"You get too deep sometimes." 

But even then,
I'd rather too than not at all or a little.

          Even still,

I want to open up your chest
   & free all the lost laughs
              & good
you should've always known.