Humanity i love you because when you're hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink and when you're flush pride keeps you from the pawn shops

Here is where we give our toast, our glasses clink and we laugh through our teeth. Here is the dawn of our obligations, aren't you so delighted? Winters are warm, summers are sweet, we are happy little people in a big world.

Everything's gotta euphemism, so why's it still taste so bad on our tongues?

telescopes

I drink coffee like it's water and run like I'm invincible. I forget to eat, I get angry when things don't go according to plan. I am impatient, I am loud, I have thoughts that run through my mind so continuously that I want to scream sometimes. I feel colors and I taste the weather, I am not proud of my compulsions and unwilling to follow doctor's orders. I hate the height that others envy, I drive too fast only when the road is bad. I am not a daredevil and I will swear up and down that I am happy. I like the cold, I miss being warm. I make my bed daily even though it's never really messy. My hair isn't always in place and I do not wear make up, I still want my mom when I'm feeling under the weather. Kisses aren't contracts but I feel like I give a small part of me away anytime I share them with someone undeserving, and my favorite sort of bath is unclothed and beneath the sun. I love the beach, I want a house in the mountains, I'm going to build a boat one day just to say that I did. I could live in a room made only of maps.

Enjoy your fish bowl, this soul is far from lost.

You drew your sword, I drew upward on your puppet strings. Rosy with embarrassment, you hang your head as you realize you've never known what it was like to have the upper hand. You are so pretty, your story shall be told in the most vibrant of ways, but you have never quite been more than the ring you leave on the coffee table once you are gone.

mango trees and papaya dreams.

i'd dance along your jawline, you'd swim through my hair. i drew all the prettiest pictures down your hipbone whilst you uttered the sweetest melodies in to my ear. we built a fort of tangled sheets, night fell upon the adjacent wall in the form of our shadow as my back reflexively arched. you were sticky and tasted sweet, the room was a lively cream, your body felt the liveliest of pinks and reds. you were soft and rough, you were kind and coarse. you were tangible, you were mine. you existed in your most beautiful form, beneath me and the stars. it was raining, it was dark, my memories are so painfully bright.

hopenhagen.

Hello Tweed Jacket, I am supposed to know you as I shake your hand and smile solemnly over our mutual loss. Hello Cheap Lipstick, I am supposed to love you as I hug you halfheartedly and glance awkwardly at my feet when you mention our mutual loss. Hello Fake Teeth, I am supposed to miss you as you pat my shoulder and we share a funny story of our mutual loss.

We acknowledge blood as warmth and affection, pretend to feel nostalgic for the days captured in wrinkled photographs, and smile fondly to strangers who are supposed to mean a great deal to us because they are blood.

keep your last name

and your coat on.

we're better together when an ocean's between us.

dispassionate

My head is a windmill, though the nearby stream feels disappointingly empty. There's little inspiration to be found in the margins of textbooks, there's no quality time for counting stars or cozying up to our own eye lids these days. Autumn come with sympathy, come with grace. Autumn come with peace of mind.

It's time to go.

these walls are paper thin and every one hears every little sound

Jude Law and Novocaine, he likes cigarettes and she likes her lovers rail thin. There's a subway passing by tonight and they will hitch a ride for reasons we are not privy to. Some people live for simple pleasures, like the outline of their ribcage when they're fresh from the shower. Their most interesting function is that of allotting punishment, even if they're the ones deserving.









I bet the sky is lonely. It's the soundboard for everything wrong in the world, from wilted flowers to dead grandparents. Reaching out via see-through wisps to grab on to the tips of birds that are heading towards sweeter scenery, it can never really join the party and wouldn't be invited anyway. It rains when we're ready to celebrate and is joyous on our saddest days. I bet the sky is so terribly lonely.

"They pull a knife, you pull a gun. They send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue. That's the Chicago way."

Dripping wet from a shower that could've lasted the entire day had you any say in the matter, cold toes meet colder tile and your skin is graced and covered snugly by a burnt orange towel. Scented pine cones allow you the pleasure of fantasy; lost in memories of a mountain you haven't seen in years, and the regressing detail of a face that has since shared breath with so many more suitable partners.

Paper cuts and fire trucks, lincoln logs come tumbling down and and the sky is lit up with the flames of celebratory bon fires. Every thing's coming together, everyone's growing apart. Give in, let go, we all want out; what I'd give to get back in. Flip the pages, set the score, all things come with a count down and pass with over exaggeration - there's not a single holiday that won't come around again.

spy work in the graveyard

rum and coke

and dizzy declarations

of fleeting feelings and

frivolous desires

while dancing with

your shadow.

mirrored silhouette

tempting my finger

tips and taunting

their journey

down your spine.

oh, what an

expedition.

sporadic thoughts for worn and weary

sharp tongue
wobbly legs
split ends
callused hands
nervous kisses

counter top ring from coffee mugs left sitting too long. cold and stale, these tales have been shared throughout the ages and evolve only in face and name. it always ends the same, crawling to bed and a mental portrait of better days ahead. those coins you tossed will never meet the fountain. always dreamed in color but forgot to stop and smell the dew.

now to make up for lost time.

golden locks of flirt and fury.

the season's style is simple and stale; torn comic books cover a carpet that wouldn't catch your eye anyway. you breathe softly, you ask me questions of where i'm from and how i feel and i wonder why you speak in tongue. you're the shakespeare of these barren tree trunks, and i am passerby who could count all the other places i'd rather be headed.

hot like wasabe when i bust rhymes.

cinematic film lines these thoughts, daring to push further and enticing the dramatics. everyone's a poet, everyone's a critic. is everyone dancing on these egg shells, too?

skin like that is just begging to be touched.

we'll share an adventure and pretend it was all for the sake of art.

thrill me.

In wake of my death there will be no statue, no book to recall the life I lead or collection of sonnets to share my beliefs. There will be no crowds of candles or expensive bouquets in effort to weakly demonstrate affection for me or the radiance of my presence. Days will pass, close relatives and friends will move on. No one will sit idly by in green fields of sunflowers and think of my brown hair in the wind, nor my tongue upon the tip of my own nose in an effort to catch a snow flake. Life will continue with no more than the faintest of ripples for a minimal crowd, and I will face my fate and deeds with a full heart and the simplest of legacies.

But I know there's a boy who's in love with a sand box that has my name carved in to the side. I know that when he sits upon his swing set and stares at his mother watering daisies, the only time he can get her outside, he thinks of me and his yellow room and being an air plane for the first and likely only time ever. He will remember learning to use a paint brush, and having kisses to his cheek when his knee was skinned. He will remember someone who reminded him to wash his hands before eating and was so excited to see him that she twirled him in the air. He will know, for once in his life, that he was the most exciting thing about someone else's whole summer - that he is an important memory to a girl who will forever feel blessed to have met him despite his bitter shyness. He'll grow up, and either become or reject the life he was brought in to. He will leave his own, likely minuscule, legacy to leave behind one day - more than a decade after myself. I hope he knows how it feels to change someone's summer, to let someone be an air plane. I hope he knows we talk of him often. When we visit this summer to check up on him, he won't remember us exactly. He won't run to us, hugging us and screaming for joy the way we know he will secretly want to. He will smile shyly, wave politely, and go to his sand box. He will remember when the sand was fresh and we took our shoes off despite hating how it felt between our toes just so his sand could stay clean, and he will remember the wind upon his face the only time he could fly. That's enough. The day that I die, that will still be enough.

bye bye blackbird.

I live beneath skylines, my job is that of burning bridges. Broken cobblestone lines my way from here to anywhere else; my dreams are a Sepia tone of there's got to be better than this. I want to see the world and hold all my favorite possibilities in the palm of my hand. From a phoenix on my shoulder to a dolphin beneath my waist and every color of the ocean surrounding my adventure, I wish to taste fire and smell warm rain within a jungle that at any other point in my life would be terrifying. It's neither realistic nor what ever could've been expected, but say you'd be tempted to come along for the ride and I'll rest easy for the first night in months.

last chance to lose your keys

There's the warmest of bodies next to me and I am resting against the headboard of a bed I have not found comfort in for too long. The drapes are open and I wonder how many people are out there counting stars, wishing they were anywhere else with the warmest of bodies next to them. I know that I should be appreciative for the attention and the comfort, but I feel out of place and exhausted from the race taking place in my head - I can't block out images of a particular set of lips or a particularly crooked smile that I would kill to be the cause of once more before dying.

When he wakes he will be lonely. He will slide closer and pull me towards him, asking questions of where I've been and where I hope to go. He will whisper words of past lovers and how this morning was the best in a while, and I will daydream of one who knew when distance was best and the beauty of a simple sentence and the faintest of kisses. When it comes to words, less is more. And when it comes to love, I often choose the door.

buddy holly

there's a silhouette to be traced by your eyes, to be explored by your fingertips. there's the most innocent of moonlight to be met beneath, silk clouds rolling above the heads of two birds wishing for love but settling for less. there's warm breath and cold fingers - shaking with the anxiousness of a dozen unrealistic expectations. there's a shadow reaching out for another, a pair of chapped lips dancing with the softest of collar bones. there's no rooms for lambs nor time to hide beneath the wool of what your parents told you; two shadows meet for a dance and get lost beneath a tainted moonlight.

"I do not believe anyone can be perfectly well, who has a brain and a heart."

i sip tea with the greatest poets of our time!
i've sailed along the most exotic islands in a yacht i built by hand!
i've read every mainstream holy text in every language known to man!
i have a greater understanding of the human race than the greatest prophets the world has ever known! i outsing doves and outrun panthers in the depths of jungles unexplored by any living man! i am alive in ways no one else could ever comprehend!

i am small small small and wish wish wish i could be so so so much more than i've ever dreamed dreamed dreamed.

i call you love.

nothing more than the faintest scent of autumn; cider and maple leaves and all the browns and golds you ever tried to count in my eyes. i'm overcome by the memory of a man-made lake in the middle of nowhere and two shadows tracing the contours of one another's palms because they've got nothing better they could imagine spending their time on; the sun is falling and his chest is rising from the hefty breaths of two shadows becoming one. the moon whispers its' salutations but neither hear - the birds sing goodbye above the tree tops in the distance but neither notice - there's nothing more than two shadows becoming one by a man-made lake in the middle of nowhere, and i am overcome by the reality of four walls surrounding me and the absence of both cider and one who counts the colors in my eyes. one becomes two and shadows become memories and autumn becomes a part of the past that keeps me awake at night, wishing for one last walk or palm line to trace.

put your money where your mouth is.

hey stranger, sit with me and have a chat. we'll sip from our mugs for a while and pretend we can detect the taste - i have nowhere to go and you've got nowhere to run, i've seen the look on that face a few times before.




sometimes life feels just like a song.

hush.

people exist for various reasons, and i believe no two people exist for the very same reason. right now someone's having their first kiss, their last kiss, their wedding kiss, a goodbye kiss. someone's dying and being born and for some, it's happening at the exact same time. this is the worst day of someone's life; this is the best. today someone will experience more excruciating pain than they ever have or ever will again - today someone will be irreparably traumatized. someone's indulging their vice for the last time. someone's getting divorced. someone's lying to someone else, and someone's telling the truth. within 24 hours everything worth feeling or avoiding is experienced across the globe, by different people and under different circumstances - they will handle it individually and uniquely, the same as they experienced it; some won't handle it at all.

i like to imagine all of the things that are happening around the world when i go to sleep at night. i wish i could say that all of the exciting parts about breathing and interacting outnumber the sadder and more disappointing parts of life, but i don't know if that's true.

someone somewhere is counting down to the most significant thing in their whole life. whether it's good or bad, it's coming. they can't stop it, and they don't know exactly where to go from there.

we're all so small.

i burn (out) with the best of them.

a
tisket
a
tasket
we
all
fall
down.

sweet morning dew, we've always been the best at licking our wounds.

kick off my shoes and back with you, my silver lining's pure gold and spelling out spring time by the country side - bathing in daisies and the sound of my name along the lips of a jay bird.

the broken record you never wanted to hear in the first place - it's so nice to dream when you'd rather crawl out of your skin.

your golden spoon is melting between your corroding teeth.

when one door closes, another one opens. it just so happens you took my heart with you through the last one.

i'm a time bomb, the ticking of a clock that's aching to stop.

everything's coming up roses.

my calendar's bleeding and i feel the laughter rising in my throat. watch the days fly by, i laugh and weep with the best of them. let's lose our way and remember nothing more than our daily paper, read the comics and burn it for warmth because we'd never bother cozying up. sound like a plan? meet me in egypt; i'd swim the nile if it meant you'd ever consider tossing a bone.

seashore.

ebbing in tease, begging you to chase and rising with laughter at the failed pursuit - it touches your feet not because you are worthy or capable but because it chooses to. it could take you over, it could carry you away, it could swallow you whole and make you vulnerable victim to the few who are strong enough to dwell within. but it chooses to let you float, returning you to the shore at the end of the day and ebbing in farewell, covered by fog. you wish your heart could be in such control, you wish your dreams could fall in to place not because you are worthy or capable but because it chooses to. you wish your natural course was as simple as the teasing sea, but instead you go home and crawl in to your cold sheets for another night achingly aware of how alone you are.

...and not in the form of half-whatever-wins.

I sing with bluebirds, I run with the antelope. I scale mountain walls and dance at the top - I've read all the classics in every written language. I am wanted in forty two countries for wide-scale protests I passionately believed in!


I believe in dreaming, it's all I've really ever known to be my own. People falter and change their mind, but when I close my eyes I'll always be a super hero meant for greater things than you or I would ever be able to dream up - thus the absence of my long-deserved book. Everyone's something of an epic proportion, and I'm finally reaching out for my own lime light. Thoughts and soul and laughter, the greatest things in life are resonating within us.

Anne Morriss, A Starbucks customer from New York City. She describes herself as an “organization builder, restless American citizen, optimist.”

The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating - in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.

I am a shadow, my act is that of the follower. I dance in your wake and sing your praises when you're feeling slightly lost. I am a jay bird, I skip across the morning dew and rest outside your window until you're tossing and turning with morning grog. I'm your morning paper - go on, count the newest death toll. I'm the dust beneath your boots and the sound of "your barbaric yawp", I am the hills that you've metaphorically climbed and the worst joke you've heard in the best of company. I'm in everything and I feel like the owner of nothing - I am lacking, I am yearning, I am giving away all the things that leave me feeling incomplete. I'm a wanderer, the hiss in the back of your mind that refuses to let you settle. I'm a pusher, a fighter, an excuse for all the malicious thoughts that cloud your mind when that particular individual passes you. I'm the cracks beneath the pavement that plague your superstitutious tendencies, following you throughout the day after you've stepped across and over and finally on top of me - accidentally. I'm an accident, I'm a beautiful accident with everything to offer and nowhere in mind.

lull; storm.

She pretended it was lace, that she was tracing the letter of an invitation to the greatest party anyone had ever thrown. Jay Gatsby would be put to shame, her imagination mused. In truth, it was the coarse paper of a cheaply constructed funeral invitation. She'd get dressed up nonetheless, burn it later and pretend she'd been worth a better announcement. Here lies all my hopes and dreams, the actual friend disappeared from her mind and was replaced with what her life should've been.

cozy up to me, let's see who can spit furthest.

Turn the page. Rip it out. Break the glass. Crash. Hear the crackle of the thunder? Pop snicker break boom rattle - EVERYTHING IS FALLING APART! - my head is caving in caving in swallowingmewhole I'm screaming tearing falling wearing dying gone gone gone!

I LIKE TO SCREAM AT TRAFFIC LIGHTS WHEN RED FEELS TOO SILENT.

(walking) nightmare on elm.

Sauntering off after last kisses laid on rosy cheeks, bodies scatter through out the city and fill the streets. Some leave by sea to make the journey home while shadows of lovers wait helplessly on docks, willing themselves to turn and walk away. What's gone is gone and I am inclined to believe it will remain so, Moon states as both fact and grievance. We are inclined to agree, whisper the Stars. Go home, Shadows, go home. By the time the shadows find their voice, the night itself has gone to bed. They whisper to Nothing, We've lost our way. Not surprisingly, Nothing has nothing to say in return.