I once landed on my wrist so hard the bones came jutting out my skin

Only pins could manipulate it back together

There was a rocking chair I held above my head until I dropped it on my face 

A seventy year old hand binned the flesh to a faint scar 

A basketball rolled and every ligament in my right ankle was torn

Plaster held it in place so time could rebuild

On a dare I held my hand flat over a flame to watch a candle burn out

The ointment cooled the charred appendage   

I never cried

Your words burn behind my eyes

Soldering my heart into a straight jacket

I haven't found the doctor with tools to fix that yet

there was something flowing in my bones

and i'd like to find words to give it meaning for you

but odds are you wouldn't know it if you heard it

and the things i never understood before are talking in my ear

rearranging fates

forgive me for all the time i didn't know i was waiting for you

i always wondered if you knew

The butterflies opened their mouths wide and swallowed me whole
I felt it here, there and everywhere

And I'm putting this here because I think you might be someone that understands letting go of the ropes with the burns of holding on still stinging your hands.  

Lost things in my head

To save my heart from reviving that place

I played the radio loud to drown out your sound
Your voice is locked inside my head
Changing my direction just to out run your face

You were a couple of lovers ago, I'm still thinking about you

When you first looked at me, I lived a lifetime in your eyes
(Keeping faith is hard when logic says move on)

They don't write songs about girls from .........
(so/but) this ones for you
(and there's a (light/glow) from your town)
(lights the sky for your smile/keeps my eyes from seeing your smile)
(close my eyes tight (trying) to keep you out/
No matter how (tight) I close them to keep you out)
Your smile is imprinted behind my eyes
Begging you to let me go

Your passion eyes and determined touch
Show me more then this my love
You still belong to me
I'm dying here, thinking of wasted time
Why do you leave (these/this) story unfinished
And there's (no/not a) perfect
But for a moment you were mine
And that was close enough for me

You are my art of getting by

Falling asleep during the day, when there's proof of life

Alone at night I stay awake

Every time I close my eyes I half believe I won't wake up

Unfinished Things

She hates the early mornings
But loves the smell of coffee in the air
She'll tell you a story with faces and voices
But can loose the point somewhere along the way
She makes the whole room laugh
With a straight face and a bottle in her hand
Reads you the poems of Neruda and Cummings
Like they're her own
There's a ring you never gave her
You knew you'd never keep her with a cage

And it's nights like this
When words of her linger in your mind
And every choice you made
How you let her walk away
Memories of the last night
All the firsts she gave you
Feelings you only felt for her

The beaches of California, the streets of New York City
Everywhere you've held her hand
You tasted her lips on a train out of nowhere
(Ended up/got) lost in the hills of another country
You chased her through a park in Northeast Oklahoma (just after noon)
(Got) hidden away in a bed made of sheets (just after noon/in her apartment)
All her dreams she told you
With an accent she whispered in your ear
And you've known since you first saw her
You'll always remember finding that face

And it's nights like this
When words of her linger in your mind
And every choice you made
How you let her walk away
All the first she gave you
The memories of the last night
Feelings you only felt for her

You were her protector at midnight
When the (demons/nightmares) dragged her down
Her faith in her own doubt
Chased away (one) too many chances
(Sometimes) she'd talk to you through sunrise, (just) to avoid (the pain of) waking up
She never let it go, a past that broke her soul 
And all the scars she wears (are/)became the evidence of (her) survival
You're of the few to see her something beyond skin deep
She packaged herself in ribbon and lace

And it's nights like this
When words of her linger in your mind
And every choice you made
How you let her walk away
All the first she gave you
The memories of the last night
Feelings you only felt for her

There's days you have moved on
When silence fills your heart
How the things you chose
Finally let you go
Her last goodbye
Memories of that first kiss
Everything you still feel for her

Always for her

The thing is, what is hard to let go of for people like you and me, isn't that they didn't care. It's that they didn't care the way we wanted them too. They didn't show it the way we needed them too. It's never quite so clear as to how they can hurt you so bad and seem to be so untouched by it until the day you mimic them by destroying another's heart. Then something clicks, it was never about you. It was that she was so lost in despising herself at the expense of knowing how to express love.

You don't know there is a me in the world

And maybe that will always be true

But I hear your tears from here 

And I can't explain why

Yet I wish I knew 3 reasons to make you smile

I've spent the initial wave of pain in hiding

Bandaged the puncture wounds

Stitched the shallow cuts

There's deeper ones that time will mend but never quite heal 

They'll never know the memories you fall asleep to

When your only choices break your soul

Being dragged away on dug in heels from everything you want

The hallow in your gut from the loss of faith in all you hold close

I remember not to remember

But the tears forget to forget 

The Things of Change

It's ghosts and shadows
Hints of dreams and faded memories
An affect patterned into my senses
Laying there in wait
The impending build of something unknown

Please don't let her know she still occupies my heart

The train shutters across the rails all night
Sleep clinging to the walls, awakened with every bump
Speeding is irrelevant on guided tracks
Every shadow is visible as far behind as there is to look
Watch for miles ahead with every glance
But there's no view to see beneath your own feet
Such a mighty existence to be so alone when filled with people

1, 2, 3
Jump
The fall will hurt
But the train won't notice an empty seat
And you shouldn't be staring out windows your whole life

7/19/2012

There's a tangible feeling that I can taste on every single bud of my tongue
A moment in time when you see the way she looks at her
It's sitting there
Right there, below my collar bone
Expanding fast enough to expel any breathe I try to gasp onto
It's caught between lifting as a balloon to skies unseen and sinking down to capture fire inside the chest
Close in tight to fend the ache, chase away the rush
She has taken the air and made it too big to (hold in/breathe)

Explain how you can need to be free and want to be tangled up

Give me explanations I long to hear

Not the realities you puff into my eyes

I fast from you in dangerously mindless increments

Bleeding the memories from my wrists

Choice is no option

And I'm following the high road where the (swells/peaks) invert at random

There's a comfort in something I haven't found yet

That more then anything else is what I long for

Endless longings for nameless places

Don't worry about getting lost inside, it's no better out here. The answers aren't out there, even if you have to go there to get it

...

The day always feels like night
And night, it never feels like home
This was redundant long ago
Now there's just endless stories flashing dark
Behind sightless eyes

(I really don't believe in absolutes as much as they are in the things I write)

Not all of this means something but all of it explodes from that silent part of me, and I have so many things I'll never say out loud, but I can scream my anthem with calloused warn fingers, it's the running pressure to give my pen a voice that leaves me scrambling for validation, I'm hiding in a triple word score, proof that there's value twined in my heart.

I want to show you the ocean

When you don't know me anymore, know I'll hear the hint of you in wind and waves, and I'll feel your breath in the rush of a swing, regrets only exist with memory, so don't look back, it's the existence of more that keeps us searching, paint me the words to tattoo the sky, let go of the stars I chased for you, use the rope's scars around my neck as caution marks of withered faith, Hope is off chasing a phoenix of gold, and she's fingering the whole in your heart

does regret exist for something you know you're going to do? 

Your words can't hold me together anymore

I can't tell what you want from this

I doubt that even you can

There's no going back to before

and I still fantasize about futures but I don't believe anymore

There's effort in place now

I'm biting down on those words like I haven't said them a thousand times

I need them to mean something to someone

I've told them all

But none have honestly said it back

I'm deflecting for you

Hanging on to my facade 

But I'm still shattering into pieces

Crumbling into sand

Does expressing love mean anything

When you doubt the functionality of a heart