Because, we never really stood for anything. Picking our favorite patterns and mentioning them too much to prove that we always have something to prove. That we had newer, more complex emotions... and, we knew so much more than anyone should so far before their later years. And we never really had anything to show for it, other than an empty... shadow-filled room with no one watching to see if there was perhaps another reason for the position in which we would chose to sit.
      Regards are regards are regards, are our regards. So insignificant to the majority is what we find to be interesting and wonderful and worth our while to examine and explore. I was never collecting the most silent metals at the tops of the charts; but I was always known. Aware of me, perhaps not admittedly curiosity will run it's course as it has before and will run again; into forever. Into the unknowns and into the the knowns and into the maybe's, even into the what if's and if only's... curiosity will still run and run, run it's course through life and into oblivion.
     If you want to know why I'd lost all I'd stood for, the answer is easy. I never really stood for anything. Or anyone, and I never had too much to say. Before, I might have thought I had something to prove. I didn't, I was nothing. I was nobody and nobody's somebody. Today I am accomplished, I am genuine, I am growing ever-wiser. I am defined, I am real. I bloomed beneath the organic matter, where the shell of who I previously understood as myself died slowly off into the evening, or the scenic imagery of night in terms of the scheme of things. I wiggle through one stale situation and onto the fast-pace downward spiral spinal-injury prone spiral staircase situation after another. I swear onto others that I don't think of it, yet I dream of it more regularly than ever before. So long after it was as simple as it could have been; back when things were truly and fully simplified. I thought things would be different, I never thought such burdens could be mine. But they weigh in.

All the things I used to left out to be found; I still wonder now just how many times my intentions were noticed. Shaking just a little, I tried my hardest to draw out some lines - in the shape of a map, so you'd know where to turn on your way home. It's always easier to get lost when you're where you've never been before. Or where you'd never driven from at night, with the orange-frost glare from cheaper streetlights on the blacktop that hadn't been repaved in years. Pale-gray is the color you'll be driving on.
     Pale gray were the boots I left out for you. I knew you wouldn't think about them, at first. Until the color of the faux-swede ripples in the florescent lights the same way they had before, with my ankles gently crossed and leaning back unto the floor beneath, more than a hundred years old. Had the wood spoken, I know how many unfinished stories it would have told.
     So many things I lost so you could find me. And nothing ever came to show of it, aside the moments you'd remind me with the same nervousness and coy questions which stapled us before. It was never really a chore.

I'm so sorry, I'll write it again. I'm sorry I'm unavailable the way I'm needed, and I'm sorry I'm unable to do what so many people so easily do every day. I'm sorry I'm sincere, and I'm sorry that I miss... I miss what I used to long for.

I'm laying on the beige carpet; the same beige carpet that used to be white. Sort of, at least. The kind of gentle off-white I like to associate with the memories of younger childhood, and the carpet of the house my family lived in. I can only remember through small holes in the focus of old photos I've found, lying around without being framed or featured.
     I'm laying on the carpet to try and remember why the hell I let what's eating at me eat at me without crawling out of my skin. If I could roll away from it, I'd push the gearshift in the neutral position and avoid the capitol 'r' as well I'm able. Of everything I've ever truly needed, I am truly... purely scared of knowing more than anyone should have to. And no one should have to understand this mortality as well as I have learned - - learned the hard way. The hard way feels soft when it's kissing your eyes, telling you not to cry, with it's fingers entangled with yours and yours alone. And I'm alone.
     Laying on the beige carpet, without having moved a bit. But my mind will work for miles a minute, but I won't want to talk about it. In my dreams, I see this character I decided I'd hated in the third of fourth chapter of the metaphorical story fictionally written to describe this point; but he doesn't see me. He doesn't talk to me. His mouth won't move for me, I won't move for him. He's avoiding me. I'm avoiding him, and still wondering... without ever really having the chance to know if he wondered about me, and if I were wondering.
     I'd always assumed that dream sequences were for heartfelt conversations, I never had a history of having made accurate assumptions. But positive apologies, when I am deeply sorry. It's not usually, no.

I wish I had a reminder that wasn't the lack of a reminder.
And when I dwell on it, I can hear the guilt dripping from the shower-head, hard-water stained metal - slowly gathering to a pool of stagnant water. When I wake up - if I wake up again, I'll turn the shower on again. And washing it all away again. And i'm far too proud of myself to ever admit that I didn't really wish it had all gathered this way. I used to hear phrases meant to enlighten and reinforce; and now they're meaningless hope is almost all I have to use to cope with the reality I can't understand.
      I'll open a fortune cookie just because I know it will say something positive. Whether or not it's true won't matter, because it will seem to apply. Somehow it will all feel the same if I'm able to contain the curiosity, just a matter of dreams that make me bead with sweat and wake up angry and just a little confused, though I'll quickly forget it. Luckily I seem to wash this sheen away, and a part of myself nestled into what I don't want to wonder... And I can't remember enough to wonder, really, anyway.

I used to keep looking for your face in the photos you didn't take;
though I pointed the lens at you.
And you're going to tell me to stop, just like you always did.
The reflection you can't melt into isn't what sounds right for you, right now.
Time keeps passing, you'll keep laughing, but I'm ready right now.

And when you unpacked your bags, was it sad?
Saying goodbye to the dreams you had, scorning the road where it differs from memory.
Tree-hedges untrimmed and tangling the lines those high-eyes once followed when you were wondering what the hell I was taking a photo of.
And now those moments are lost and gone; other than a snapshot reflection.
And if you hate it so much, why do you keep yourself drawing maps that always wrap back around and stop?

     Pushing boundaries wasn't enough, no. You have to jump states, relocate from place to place and scorn the word "home". And still there's somewhere you need to be, to be able to be doing what you need to be doing. When studying one's dream leads to frightening nightmarish awakenings, you drew a new map.
     Under every cover you don't use to sleep with, often lays awake a brain drained of recognition. Each day is only known by the marks on the calendar drawn in his head. And there's isn't much else to prove when all you do is for showing an invisible audience that what you knew all along was right. Wisdom proves nothing when you deny the ability to wise up. It's always too much - while you can't seem to be doing nearly enough.
     I grew cold more slowly than the fall, and the future fell unto me without wisdom or warning. What you want, you know, is just something to show. And by the time you prove yourself right, there won't be a soul watching. There's no soul in your ambitions, and there's no soul in your intentions. And when he thought he'd made the right decisions, all the wrong reasons were listed. It was never above him, and despite all his wishes - he never ascended. Just a name hanging around on the bottom of my shit list.

As long as we're able to ask ourselves, and as long as we're unable to answer each other's questions... we'll always be left wondering. Just years ago, if you wanted to know why something worked a certain way - or how, you just had to ponder it. You had to ask people that might know how to answer you, and if they don't know the answer... then you just had to keep wondering.
     Times change invariably, undeniably without argument. Each moment feels different than the last; even when eerily similar... still different. When I was a child, things moved more slowly. Information, interest, investigations.... song titles, album release dates. Concert hall openings & closings, who's playing at what bar and when. Information's now instant. And no matter how hard you try to fight it, just to slow down for a moment... Just to spin the world your way at least once. It's not going to happen. It's never going to work out that way. The seconds spent worrying are wasted; each slipping more quickly than the last. Faster, and faster, and faster....

and faster.
And faster.

They say that love is the best kind of medicine,
so let me give you some sugar.
'Cause it ain't the healing that's sweet, it's the rescue.
And somehow, you can get stuck waiting for a cure that never pulses through these veins the same... Never quite the same, you know. And still, the high never seems to change. I want to dream about this differently - I want to see this in a different way, devoid of irrational ghosts of what was once obtainable, but now seems to refuse to fade. Whatever ends up being written, I hope, reads lovingly on my grave.

Honey, we all got a lot of decisions that need to be made.
& you're eyes would shine, but not like the crystal ball.
I used to pity those who were prideful, and now I'm quite proud of myself.
When you wanna slouch, I'll stand tall.
I ain't got a thing to prove, because when I do speak... my words say it all.
I used to pity those who knew only to love what they liked knowing they had,
but knowing I walked into the door when it should have been shut has shown me...
several depressing things aren't really worth the time for pitying.
And everyone can tell when you know you're wrong, I think you know this. Avoidance, and distance.. such comforts never provide you the solace you'd own; if things would stop reminding.
Honey in your tea will remind you.
Honey, don't ponder what bothers you when you're busy as a bee.
And we all have got such decisions to be made, throughout each day and when resting at night. We're told that it's normal. But I'll tell you it ain't.

     When I was younger, I used to think I was different. I thought I was special and unique, I thought things would get more simple as I aged. And I thought responsibility was a privilege. I've been wrong, and I've been wronged... and I've been sorry when I shouldn't have been. But in truth and honesty, and despite everything once thought of me; all I want is my own home and a family. A husband that loves me, and a place to call my own personal hell that pays me every week. I want to struggle, but not alone. And I want to match regrets with the things in life I must accept. I want to move forward and rip off the rearview mirror  and say 'fuck you', and mean it. I love you, I do. It's true.

What always seemed so solid, after close inspection; reveals itself as tightly-packed molecules moving more slowly past one another than we seem to be able to move. Yet never so clear as glass. Some time will come, and such paths will cross - cold absent stares and pink cheeks gently highlighting that both are aware of each body in space, in passing. It's like a repeat episode of a favored show;
     Still such a familiar storyline. Yet, somehow, it's different this time. Like the end isn't going to pull a tie to bring what's meant to be back together as such. It used to be a rush to be acknowledged in lush blossoms of words; richly entangled in nonsense, yet diligently delivering a message. As if we worked the floors in the black-and-white years of 1904; the beat would be the tapping of coded messages. Rocking and nodding and prodding for more, just working the floor. Like I'd work conversation, asking the right questions so you'd answer in my favor; to keep my self-worked in tact, to do my ego a favor.
     When the temperature drops, I tend to move up. Placing my knees on the stairs in front of me, and my hands above them. Pushing forth with all the force I am able to churn. Though the day's grown long and my will has grown weak. If it's asking too much, I'll just stay on the stairs to sleep. And I know if it were known that I were laying dead in my path, you wouldn't follow the ghosts of my future tracks; never once acknowledge that we could both know what it all meant to me.

I like the way certain scenes in movies give you a familiar feeling; like you're driving down a road you thought you were lost on... and suddenly you realize you've been there a few times before. The familiarity is a little vague at first, and then it's almost like a memorization processing through the entertainment from not quite being able to remember every detail, until it's studied.


That's a feeling I used to hate, but the older I get, the more humbling these sensations become.

Sometimes, I wake up through a fog of confusion and - despite wishing I'd slept longer, I don't mind being awake. When I dream too much about things that seemed intangible, it makes waking out of a sleep feel a little more like walking through a revolving door. I know I could get back inside, but it would take a lot of effort... and the payoff probably isn't nearly as worth it as I had dreamt it could be. When I hear sirens, I feel instantly guilty. I know it's illogical, because sirens in the distance can't possibly be mapped back to something I had done to contribute negatively. I still can't help but feel a little guilty, and hope for the best.
     And maybe, one day, when the sirens ring out in my name, someone will hear and wonder, just as I had wondered... and we may be otherwise silently connected through this.

I just hope for the best, until then.
when I wake up, or lay down for sleep. Or when the phone rings with a number unknown. Or when someone taps on the door when I wasn't expecting them too. And more often then not, I'm too afraid to answer. So I'll tiptoe upstairs and peak out the window... and the moments the creep by as I crawl upwards for the test; I just hope for the best.

Communicating like a railway track, bars once perfectly-spaced apart. So many ages ago, someone was building what we know now as an insufficient source. Information has bled into the cities via wires we never see, when we used to see ourselves moving inward. We used to watch ourselves watching ourselves in window-reflections from nervousness when we would have to talk to each-other. In public.
      It's always strange to have to accept that someone knows more about the mass inside than you could know. It's strange to accept that they learned what they knew through silent sources never seen or heard; just immediately consumed and spread over the seconds like smooth, warmed butter on dinner rolls.
      When it's time to eat, you're gonna know it's time to eat. Time to open your mouth, spread your lips to wrap around the substance so quickly we'd rather be ashamed of than excited for. When it's time to eat, you're going to know it's time to eat. And I hope to god you've paid attention to where you last took a shit.

     Everything I once thought I knew was a thing I - in some way, would hail to. Each vulnerability revealing itself through me when words would taper... and they'd falter, time and time again. Written in so vaguely, as if honesty could be a sin. So games exchange, and no one is winning. No champions exist if all feel regret, towards one thing or another. And maybe I was sorry for a while... sorry for myself, and sorry for my own denial.
      Like a corn maze when I was so much younger than I could imagine to think as now; lost for words and alone by choice. Where paths intercept and end to lead to nowhere, I can knock down the stalks and push out of the boundaries pre-set to confuse our small minds. I keep searching through the monochrome waves, and I still can't construct the strength through unknowns to find my way out through a pre-set opening.
     When the warmth shifts into cool memories, sometimes we're able to forget what it was that stapled these seconds together. Like a hallway stretching to the exit, so often I breeze by without remembering what it was I hated so much about this mindset in the first place. This place wasn't the first when I stopped and thought - thought maybe this could be the right place, and the wrong time. Or the wrong way to see the time passing. Another year, and another year again pushing space between the gap where two similar entities once hung so hopelessly; writing with vigor at such a close proximity, never to be reached no matter how much of a fantasy.
     When I have the time to slow to a stop, it's easy to notice why I'd never pulled the staples apart at all. You were never worth the satisfaction of knowing what might have been.

Somewhere, inside a time portal exists the most of the most magnificent epiphanies through memory crypts. Some so vivid that some people can't resist. So they're time-portal junkies.

I denied it to myself for so long, that I denied ever sign that was silently set, and diligently read.
I would have never admitted that I wanted to.
I would have rather not admitted that I used to love to think about it.
And now, when it's thought about;
the furthest thing from any real "love".
And you never had an answer to the unclear question.

You dare me to, knowing in fact I've never been very daring. I stretched the meanings over the truth time after time until every white lie began to sound like a rhyme, like a song I once sang when waiting. And only in waiting had I ever sang before reason gave way to meaning.
I never pulled the line back after drawn, before the demonstration I hadn't known the boundaries were made to push. And pushing, pulling to discover there are in fact good reasons why adults keep their true statements written in ink and under wraps. There's no such thing as a "fact" if you're going by definition. And if I'm defining my own silver lining, then you're refining my needs for such luck.

If it is, then it is..

If it ain't, then it ain't. And it isn't ever what's expected, written in needle-point on a rag.

What's left from saturday night, on wednesday morning. Just buzzing on the sobriety before the storm..

When I'll sink my ship.

& if it is, then it is, darlin'.

If it ain't then it ain't

and I'm not placing my bets by the marks on your face.

Because you study me harder when you're grades are fallin',

and you tell me it's hard to concentrate on her when I keep callin' you darlin'.

She ain't so fair, and she isn't aware of the fingerprints left in the dust.

Just to see if you'll notice. And if you don't, you don't.

If you don't want something, you won't.

Sugar, please listen up. You're coffee's dark, and I've sweetened your cup.

But there ain't no candy coating when the morning comes.

So it was written in a letter, sent with a dime found in the floorboard in cold months by fingertips so numb, you couldn't feel me squeezing your hand when the phone rang.

So it rang.

If it is, than it is. 

And I'm guessin' it ain't.

So it' ain't.

The truth is
The phone rings and no one would answer.
And in honesty, it was probably heard when it rang.
The truth is
Though I've written about it before,
It still wasn't written honestly.
The truth is
I might have been in love
But only in love with what once was possible,
But would have never been.
So maybe that's why I can't sleep.
Maybe that's why I still keep the secrets, buried steep
In stern silence.
Yet with no rewards to reap.

I got used to seein' you around,
when you used to sing in the depths of the radio static,
against all-waves will, this lyric will be heard.
So it's a little less profound than you though it'd been,
drunk as sin on the familiar couch.
We're watching like a film-class requirement, images moving
but blocking out the sound. And if you listen for a heart beating,
then when you're wakin' up,
I won't be found.

She sang so sweetly, what might've been a singin' telegram long ago, now she's weepin' with her words leakin' all over my pillow. Like nothing no one's ever heard before, a sobbing score to the film we directed with our fingertips, pushing aside the disinterested and forth we go from the belts that hold us to the promises we made never meaning to keep.
      It's kept, his hair, his beard... his teeth. She reminds him even when he's asleep, and he listens through the dreams of other women touching his tongue. Like a lightening bolt, it struck him that we didn't have to be here. But even when the path's been cleared and cleaned and cooled, ain't nothin' but heat we're firein' back to each remark pulled out of a hat full of sad assumptions and lacking depths - like a photo opportunity missed, he struck a chord of remembrance that - oh, she didn't wanna feel.
      And even though we reached the hospital, this ain't gonna heal. Now, I never planned a death of mine I didn't wanna die for. And it never ever existed in this fog of grated wandering-woes. Scars map the history of a person's deepest regrets, and thanks to all you've taught me, now I know when not to be placin' my bets. If she ain't winnin', he ain't stayin'.

       And he ain't stayin' long.

We can be so touchy when it comes to whips of tongues, sharp points spoken or demanding stares. It's never hard to break down, but breaking up is like murder, pulling the pieces so well-adjusted with no justice - apart from one another, like an unstoppable force of nature. And there's no blood, 'cause the heart's been stopped since the conversation died.
     I can be so sensitive when it comes to memories, especially the ones you chase, forever fading into the clouds of hopes and figments long let-go of in the wake of greater concepts. Never considered myself to be a creator, but I made the world form as my eyes see fit. Still, traveling through invisible boundaries where most soldiers often quit. Sometimes, safety is the biggest risk - which is what you mean when you said "come to me still, I won't be tellin' " next day comes, and everyone's yellin'
      'bout what they've been seein' when the television wasn't enough.


Any way ya walk, you'll be walkin' away.
Any way you breathe, you'll be breathin' to stay.
Any way you wander, you'll still wonder why.
And you never did know how much I cried.

I hear thunder, it's funny how it's a reminder, all in all. I'm used to it now, though it might always remain funny to me, what you've become to me.
The idea of greatness, the need for something greater.. You and that great sense of humor, a sinister smile.. A voice I often won't hear for a while, with a constant stare. Even if I ignore you, the image is there. Just to remember what if feels like to reach for stars undiscovered, unnamed, unseen, untamed.. yet never intimidated, in it's burning fury. I bury my face in my hands, but there's no denial. I always wish such a feeling would stay for a while.

You were pullin' the shingles off of your roof, and the storm was blowin' up to the river.
You'd tested it all before, you said. Insisting deliberate distractions from any tightly held-together matter of the matter at hand... Long ago, you'd lost your bedside manner.
     But, you don't have to keep apologizing. I don't mind if you're thoughts or opinions are rude, or crude, or even chastising. What was once intimidated now has total control. Not even the long, eloquent tease has taken any emotional toll. When the day proves to be done, still no debris-control. What's ruined is ruined as what's old is old.
     You were pulling the bits of fur off the cotton shirt, warn by many and owned by none. So it's been a long night in your best friends floor... And it's even harder to sleep when your idle dreams roll into a wakening snore; a deafening demand for oxygen, makes you wanna never let them breathe again. 'Cause you only know her when you dream.

There is a cat perched in the window seal, like the birds flying about.. his eyes resting everywhere, yet fur moving nowhere in the wake of an early morning. And then, there's a supermassive black hole in the universe. Maybe multiples, maybe millions... never perched, but a steady growing excuse in the hollow of space - so unfamiliar to our earthly habits. We tend to forget, no excuses could cause a greater regret than one humankind foolishly assuming that there is always, always more precious time.
      Like pools of mirrors, the echoes reflect each fragment of visualized flesh so easily seen, so easily yearned for and never touched. Smells like innocence, in memory. We all lack innocence in memory.

Always the soft shadow that brings it all back; noticing how after long-ago, the residual humidity from the hottest shower frail skin can stand collects silently in the same heart-shape drown with fingers, during a moment of laughter and coy admittance. Like nothing, it's all been said now. Just like nothing, what I'm doing tonight... what I seem to be doing most of the time.


Let's watch it... Every second on recording, you'll knock it. Like you normally disklike anything outside the normal comfort zone, drawn onto you; and you know the boundaries so well. Even angels from any form of heaven, standing, observe the hell you're givin'.  It is a sort let down, disappointment, or a given... On recording, every second. Each hesitation or halting of revenge, or redemption. Even longing, evermore can you read into me, I would spell each cursive sentence with my mouth- both easy to see, easy to read.

      Using a key to the world to look at aging photos, knowing that as I stare, you're aging, too. There's not much to say besides the fact that it was all fun and games, in the end. Sometimes, like a fickle shoe string - the ends remain untied and often stepped on. Stained from the reminiscence of pavement's long-walked, far left, and never analyzed more than twice. Stained from mud, and dirt, and shit, and sanity lost often-understandably when you accept every situation at face-value, as-is... left to rot in the same pile of garbage accumulated after moving away to college. You thought you knew how to drink before you left for college, too.
      It's funny how the little things stay most unchanged, untouched, and true in the television-like screening of life lived on the wildcard, chances at random and shots - plentiful in hand as unlimited in a rain of furious mistakes and poorly-made decisions. Using a key to the world to stare at a face once memorized in the dark of night with the deep pits of passionately dilated-eyes, it's funny to note the differences in the face, and not the facial expressions. Those little things, and they stay in tact. A letter kept in a drawer, meant for everything else, lacking anything else of course. Reads in a manner unfamiliar to most, but the handwriting rarely-seen was already known all too well.
     Like a movie set analysis, it's hard to understand the sentiment once handed unto you by your elders, as you grow to realize you essentially want exactly the same things. Those fucked up kids grew up to be those fucked up adults you know; and that messy room's now a messy house and there ain't no home to retreat to. The childish way one once avoided things is now the immature way one handles a mess. If this is the worst, then what's the rest?
       

stories of workin' hard & fine at the five and dime,
making twenty-six cents a load.
A former advocate of peace crimes, kickin' pebbles down the road.
I never knew a man to lack such plans,
to collect all the cans for revenue. Tellin' me of fines, and lies, payin' fees -
avoiding the institute.
Wanted those long arms in his long locks and leaving for the sea,
stories ain't shit to me.
Ain't nothin' worth a shit to me.


The next time I wanna die, I probably won't lie about it.
If you take the time to lay with dogs, you're going to smell like a dog when you stand up.
No romance novels tell the truth about love...
No old folks' homes know much about busts.
If you're givin' you're time away, I'm glad it's not for me.
The saddest part is you're wishing I wish it were free for takin'.
If there's love for makin' it won't be between the lines you see, drawn heavily from tiny pricks
in fragile skin,
so that it may be taken seriously.

Sometimes, the idea of the touch it too much. It's a inkling too tough to ignore, I know I promised myself... But myself is an idea of a diagram we burned down the day we knew this was more than just a test-run. I know I promised myself to the master, and then the master became the student. And now I'm an instructor of bad decision making, but a wonderful example of well-played faith.


Ideas are like scientific examples disproved, so well inflated with the want of truth. But in the end, someone wanted to know that they knew more than another. Just like a storm passing, the land is left to crawl over once you look to your left and realize you've been walking along, all this time, alone. So I was wary when asking of the relationship ties, what's wrong for a liar might be right for a mostly honest girl like me.

You're too lucky there's no hell for you to rot in;
'cause lord knows, you deserve every inch of burning flesh as a reminder.

Possessin' this hollow body like a curse; all fingers crossed and twisted under the weight of the car-door slammin'. And I don't know what's worse, tracing the footsteps in the loose dirt where you finally put your foot down... Is it better to regret it, or simply easier to just forget it?

If I could, I would.
If I would, I could.
If I didn't.
and I never did.
And I never, ever will.

I can't tell if I mean it quite the way it's written, 'cause I wrote it all down drunk.
Where the letters string together, there's hardly anything left to decipher, just a poorly drawn map on a page full of secretly-heartfelt suggestions on a meaningless journey to clear one's own. What isn't clean will never be as clear as the decision to ignore the filth, caked on from years of avoiding my own guilt over avoiding myself... And regressing myself, to come back to the mindset I let myself drown in with disappointment - now, what was too many years ago. I ain't never been a shining example of good faith, nohow.


A good heart will get you anywhere, a good hearted-woman will make you bleed. Like the days long-gone, you won't miss anything. Not the sound of the voice trembling in the cold, you lace your fingers into the strands that trace the outer-most corners of such a stern face; I know you're guilty of watching me sleeping. Wondering why in the hell any chosen path could take you somewhere so far out of bounds. I know you're just as sorry as I've ever been, or as we ever could be. And you're stories quit matching up after playing telephone for another hour with no one seeming to wonder why a body of such stature can't even be trusted. Why without reason and in clean working-order, a defined lack of treason could make any body possessing sanity wonder why the hell any body would bother standing at the edge of the rye.

Why such a nasty remark, with such a nasty tone, with such a nasty...
disposition. In such a nasty sort of seeking situation, where the comments leak with hesitation... as it makes anyone nervous to say to a person. If the smoke's still lingering, as it usually does, and the atmosphere just isn't the same as you wanted it to be. Fainted and re-imagined in memory, until the tiny details favored are lost in made-up wonders of what really was and what might've been, yet never was hasn't been.
      So thinking it over, and over again. I'm not much for an explanation, but fairly is how I feel I represent present contexts over pale comparisons of the past. And when you capture it in concept, you must've determined what the concept has to mean to yourself and everyone.
     Lost in the art of the wall decorations, light lightly-humming music in the background of a restaurant with drinks in hand... Just water and lemon and obviously-lacking conversation. What I love most is the excuse that there's nothing to prove.

Who you hookin' on the end of that line? With that half-smile as in-tact as the day you discovered..
Softer flesh than you had bothered to study for yourself, though you enjoy the smell of the hair more than you enjoy the smell of food, waiting on a plate in front of you. And you don't want what's as obtainable as waiting for such a relief; from hunger and other such things... Like grieving the act of deciding against breakfast with a beer in your hand and the sensation of vomit yielding in your throat.
      Still choking out excuses. It's not like I don't think I don't drink too much, it's not like I don't know... I'm impaired, and let it be. I can see clearer without glasses but with substances in pockets hidden from untreated eyes.
      I can't say whether or not it's considered wise to stuff you're money in your mattress. I sleep atop an invisible gun, becoming more serious in intoxicated laughter. It's nothing to smoke-laced smartass remarks, but steep in dreams, I'll make you dead to me. Shots always firing, yet you never bleed.. it's just whispers lost in wars, and winds. All dreams of such, such a faint distraction from phones ringing and conversations with reactions you hadn't expected... It's a story heard before.
   

The most unfair aspect to it,
after sleeping through the drive -
counting headlights in passing, one, two three...
that's incomplete. There's no two-wheeled machine grinding the pavement in front of me.
Unfortunately, forced into seeing it from this unfair, unflattering angle
& your dishonesty looks huge in that dress.
I could have pulled my own goddamn hair,
I could have cried myself to sleep. Instead I waited patiently as the hours passed...
and still you never got over such jealousy.
I never did figure out what you wanted from me, but it must be somethin' I ain't got, or I ain't givin' away these days. You just aren't getting it, all the same.

All the same.

&we're not so alike anymore.

one eye open, teeth clinched shut.
The thought of you can be infuriating, seeing your cold-stare once solid
slowly crumbling apart. And there ain't a thing to avoid in such an inviting
silence as we've introduced ourselves to -

I kept the lights shut off, because I wasn't afraid of the dark.
And I've never feared what I might overhear if my hands are kept in my pockets
& I'm trying hard to mind what's mine and only my own, yet still she knows. No one tells her and still she knows.

We all have our weaknesses.
Like the ability to be sober,
and sure.
Still overflowing with honesty, true
mostly all misconstrued.

So I call and hang up
without the chance to answer.
No enthusiasm in the pitches
mostly met with sarcasm,
and I've grown to accept
that this isn't acceptable,
if you're grown.

Such a delicate defect
you've wished onto me
still nothing different,
and I wish it weren't so.
All moving inward, intestines knotting & live-hopes rotting
and lacking much room to grow.

Advertise yourself,
make your face read well
with minimal personal belongings
'cause nothin', not a thing is attractive
with baggage.
No collateral for damage.
Just make it all seem as if life is dream.

I can hear what you're thinkin'.
I swear -
and it ain't what you're sayin.
...not because I don't care.

'We just waste time,
drivin' around the block.
Runnin' around the clock
to find the time.'
He'd say-
   to talk with her.
'Such a solid voice is a curse' -
so it lingers in verses.
And I don't know if it's worse
if I can't remember, or recall.
With a heart so tender-
words tough when I chew.

Please, stop feeding the compliments untrue.
If I wanna refuse to be a liar, I'd have to say
I just can't stand
not hearin' from you.

So the dust trail ends
where the smoke trail begins.
& there's a notification on the airwaves
of an unknown car
parked on the side of a city street -
and this is how you're forced to remember me.

Why,
why must you doubt?
You like to say you hate the way I pout
yet never hesitate
to draw a frown across my face
with nothing positive to say.
And so we'll try so hard to sleep through the time apart..
I just strive for the easy way out.


The vodka was bruning
my bottom-busted lip when
I'd realized that if I were bleeding,
I'd bleed only while deep in a dream of you.
And the worn soles of old shoes - you say
you find all sorts of things when moving out;
everyone knows you'd wished you'd forgotten about.

The night lingers on, still
& my face feels sort of numb - while fingers gently rest.
I'll knead the x-amount of square inches of goosebumped flesh.
Just to get the easy way out.

If there's snow on the ground
you might try looking around
to find out what's bringing the corners
of your pressed lips down
into the frowning position
those sweet cheeks must be
so familiar with.

If there's snow on the ground,
it might be cold
This might be why I feel so old
in comparison to how it felt
when I met you,
& you were smiling.
So long ago, now.


So -

I've been waiting for this long,
so long as I've had the capability
to pretend my thumbs aren't fumbling,
with every secret I can keep
slowly molding under my thumbs -
into lies as my silence sweetly speaks
in such violent, shocked reactions.
So.

It's a habit.
It's not hard to know if you have it.
It's bad if and when you can't grasp it.
But when you can, you intertwine
with it's empathy.
The dirtiest of purity,
dust on the mirror - still clear to see.
If you need to be
a part of me
you're going to become a habit.

I don't know if it's true or not, but it's written in my journal. The ink smears on the side of my hand a perfect representation of my misconstrued intentions as I answer the phone. How is a lady to tend to lady's work?


How's a gentleman to learn a lady's way?

Somehow I find myself wishing, not as playfully as an afternoon by a fountain with a coin in hand. But truly wishing, while holding my breathe and submerging myself into a pool of regret... wishing I hadn't noticed the difference between the steady, solid ground I'm walking on.. and the way it was made to shake. Like a volcano silently building up, I've erupted with curiosity. What happens now? That's far beyond me... There are so many things I don't know.
And, there are so many things I've learned while gone. On vacation, my time permanently on hold - it's only a matter of creeping time until my excuses are old. And it's all a matter of longing.
Isn't it always a matter of longing?

If pandora's box is opened, and the lid is set aside, then how does a person go about inching the materials back into place with such curiosity? Drunk, sick, and burning hot from the hairline on my forehead to the tips of my toes - I find myself laying in the bathroom floor again. Shirt off, clammy skin pressing hard against the linoleum floor, leaving a small outline in condensation from my body heat. It's similar to the outline left from a finger, writing words in cursive on a bathroom mirror... in the condensation left over from a shower, left over from washing off the shame of sleeping all day. Such curiosity, and I wonder what it's like to break the cycle of fever dreams, shut the books traditionally laid out and stutter when asked why I'm on such a high horse with nowhere to go.
     I stutter when I have nothing to say, and when I'm reading out loud.. from nervousness. And it takes no aggression to make a girl like me nervous. So I write my messages in cursive on mirrors, and when you wake up... Hopefully you'll notice the impressions left from my skin with an honest message. After the heat of a shower, or the heat of a drunken sickness... Both having made me dream pretty wildly.

I hate it when my dog eats the leftovers of my previously canned soup, and I have to stoop to cereal in case I get hungry again. Some people say you should only eat at specific times of day, but I can only chew food to process when the anxiety of my body wasting away under my stretched-flesh overcomes me, and I shovel something into my mouth.
      When I forgot something on my desk while leaving, I turned around in the snow outside to go back inside at get it. I grabbed a thing, and realized that my boot and left a chunk of snow on the carpet where the only free floorspace in my room leaks through. Later, without wearing socks, I stepped in the puddle I'd accidentally created in the midst of a racing mind, and reminded myself not to stoop so low as to blame myself for what my hands had nothing to do with creating.

We're in the letter business, we're in business for words. The language barrier is so steep from here, and all I wanna know is how you think of me in snow. If you know my heart is cold. If you know I'm far from old, but settled with less... Avoiding stress, being nice never proved to be best. Honesty, my only policy, is failing me.

the complexities of the human condition never fail to overwhelm me in the newest ways. Facing the world, barely alive, barely aged with the oldest soul... And I feel the moment soaring by like the hurricane winds I've missed by ignoring the weather channel. Which I used to watch to fall asleep...
As it reminds me of such simple things, such as the weather is never quite predictable. And I'm not fucked, not quite. But barely.

Some things, like tiny liquid molecules of glass will fit together in infinity, until the light reflects the rays correctly. Then all I can see, staring out a window, moving in slow-motion down a one-way street. It's the dead of winter, and I can't hear you. From where I've been sitting, there's nothing to see.
     These eyes fixate on me in a mirror-reflection in a dirty hotel room mirror. I hadn't thought of losing you, not until long after I'd finally lost myself. I never dreamt of such goodbyes, that I had this night I heard you might have lost yourself, and not in any eyes of any strangers as you often drifted into before. It gets later and colder, but your jokes ringing through my head keep my warm, or warmly pondering past existences... all of which seemed could be no more perfect than this. Then a conversation strays into an array of abrupt laughter, and so the winner sings again. At warming my heart, you're the champion.
      I wanna be staring through those slow-drifting molecules just to see your face, or hear your heart monitors beeping to a rhythm of further-knowing that you're eyes will soon open and you can hear my voice, tired from crying, saying that I love you. I love you.

It's safe to say that I'm ashamed of myself, in the most delightful ways possible.

     I'm never surprised, but I'll always lay in shock in the moments after an ending conversation and a carrying meaning suppressed behind something softly said to cover up the fact that my face is screaming, twisted up and mutilated in the lack of gentle lamplight... like a painted figure seeming uncomfortably shifted. If so many things fail to take me off guard, then what the hell was I guarding in the first place? I am five feet, six inches tall. Perhaps slightly more on a good day, but the definition for such simple meanings forever shifts in denial, and it's either certain or it isn't.
     So it seems it never is.


      Some days, I wake up forever-early in the morning after an entire evening of uncomfortably rolling around in a dreamless haze, and realize it's only a half-hour before I'm expected to be at a place. Without an alarm to wake me, I stare at my cell phone for chunks of thirty seconds at a time and contemplate how cold it's going to be when I throw the sweat-touched covers back away from me and work my life into the existing hollow of the real world. Unfortunately, though you sometimes wake up on-time, you don't always wake up in enough time.
   

I used to think of regret as such a beautiful thing, like a stepping-stone. Like a sweet sorrow, solid.
But, lately, I can't seem to see it as anything but a method for madness.
For what I truly regret is my inability to regret what I shouldn't want to.

The harder I try to control it, the more out of my control it all becomes.

I hate it when I put out a cigarette, and it continues to burn into a separate cigarett's filter catches fire and the smell is inescapable, a pungent reminder that I know how to do things with half an ass.

So it's a sitting thought, and when you start to move and walk the thoughts push onward, a tingling sensation and a hint of guilt. A sad reminder. Calendar days marked off on the wall like a ticking time-bomb full of pessimism, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Wander forth, wonder always. I wonder when I'll know where the hell I'm going, because tomorrow is a scary obstacle I'd rather totally avoid. I got paid today and my birthday is coming up, I think it's time to put something new on my skin.

For now I'm just going to get drunk and think of things I'd rather not remember I shouldn't be thinking of.

You know I want it, and I do.

You know I want it, but I can't give it to you. Because it's not mine to give, even though I'd share a million blank stares just to see your face and mine in harmony. Slow and sweet. Real and really surreal; and all the tall-tales you've heard about my short-self would seem to be nothing at all. You know I want it, and I do. I'm not a liar, and I can't deny what's true... because it's true. You have to pick your poison, and my checklist didn't include throwing it all away when involving anyone's sake but my own. It's an excuse, and the words grow old. But you kept me out of the cold, and I really liked that.

When I listen to old country songs, I can't help think about the one person who would never think about me while they listen to old country songs.

I'll put my head up on the block, will you bid on it? I know you said you'd never place your bets by it.

Every so often, I'll be doing something in my car that is making me frustrated... And a really, really good song will come on the radio. Now, I'm not talking pretty good song, or even an alright song... I mean, a really, really good fucking song. In this case, it's usually an incredible song I hadn't heard in a long time.. sometimes, for even several years by the time it hits me again. And the bass and lyrics charge through my veins like ions into fucking powerful infinity. It's truly a very electrifying feeling, as my fingertips lace around the leather steering wheel without question of where the hell I should be going. I'm going to be going wherever I feel like going for the time-being.

So I take to the back streets with the least possible traffic for a quick jam. Turn it up, widows cracked, burning cigarette in had. Yet, I'm not really smoking it because i'm too busy singing ignorant blurts of the segments of lyrics I can remember stringing together. I'm never quite sure how I forget about things like songs I love so much to hear. It's strange, I don't seem to forget moments in time... or photographs, or conversations at all. Yet I can totally sing my soul out to an offbeat eighties hit for a week of days straight, then not hear it or seem to even think about it for three or so years. Sometimes the melodies linger around situations I'd swear I'd love to forget, but I strive hard to remember. And it's very sad in it's own way, like I'm addicted to disappointment. Sometimes, even when I can, I simply won't let go. I'm starting to realize that the strings I've tied around my fingers, that pull so hard when I hear this certain song... They're making my fingertips numb. They need to be cut. Yet with a stark reminder, all I can do is stare at them as they reflect in the light of my heart breaking to the melody of this sweet, sweet tune.

I know it's asking a lot... but, I think you should try me before you try to shake me off. I know it's hard to ignore once you've looked; so I want you to look a little harder. Squint a little more, with your irises pivoting back and forth. Instead of trying to rip your attention, delve into this... Pale, young, dumb, and sensitive skin. Become a part of everything you wish you hadn't had any interest in before.



You'll love it.

Yeah, I thought about it while in the act. I thought how it could have been different... The faces, the sounds, the feelings in the moment. I contemplated it's simplicity. I had a fantasy about the complexities. Yes, yes I did.

I love every second of knowing I've made an ex-lover regret not taking the opportunity to keep me as theirs.

It's a filthy satisfaction, but I just can't deny how good it feels.

There are so many angles by which this axis could be judged, but from here I only see where one rod and another meet. And there are no pivoting points, and there's nothing to reference. It seems like only the best of the best hand manuals are written in this manner, and only the best of the best handlers can learn from reading this way. And yet even the best of the best still never take the time to read the fine print, or to find an easier medium by ways of simple exploration.



It's hard to express how you feel when you're emotions are so clouded with one another, that you can't tell them apart.

K, so things don't always work out as according to plan. I'm aware of this much already. The funniest thing is, though, that sometimes nothing will ever go according to plan at all.


     I took a twenty minute nap, it was enough to calm my stomach to the point of being able to drink some vodka and listen to kevin mix with his new controller he's been so excited about. It's only currently serving as a reminder that I'm doing absolutely nothing with my time at all. Productive or not, I'm simply doing nothing. Drink in hand, I sit and think about all sorts of things I'd really never have to talk about again. But sometimes I talk about them anyway. Like the people that I'm jealous of, and the completely ridiculous reasons why I feel that way. As if I'm aware of every reason why things never work out as I dreamed they would, but for some reason... Skin on skin is just more of a promise than you ever like for it to be. And there's this scent, this scent I can't describe exactly what it smells like. But it smells vaguely like the reminding factor that something vivid has faded away.
     Sometimes, when I'm laying down... particularly in situations where I am trying to nap, I feel my veins in my body pulsing through and around bones, muscles, and layers of flesh. It's odd, like feeling a clock move gently when it ticks as you're leaning against it. Leaning more against a wall, wishing the moments would fleet more quickly so you wouldn't be subjected to such awkward silence.

      But it's my veins, and I swear I feel them. They beat off-time in comparison to my heart it seems, or at least off time in comparison to how I feel my heart beating in my chest. Most of the time, if I think about it too much, it starts to really depress me in several ways I find it practically impossible to describe. But it's a very frightening sensation; oh the things I could have done with this beautiful skin and strong bones in a life time. And yet I feel them malfunctioning as I try to rest. So I turn, pretend there's no pressure on my calves and swallow the desperate sighs I wish I could gasp into infinity, searching always for an answer. Shrugging off, always, all possibilities.

I have a bad stomach ache. This is really fucking up my plans of getting trashed super early and falling out cold. It's a damn shame, too.

I think I'm finally in the right mood. I'm "home" as in at my own appartment, with no one other than Kevin to accompany me. And this is certainly how I prefer it. For the past four or so days, I feel as if I have had a fuckton on my mind; but no outlet of any sorts. Last night I managed to take a two or three shots of coffee flavored liquor and two beers before leaving Jax's basement in Central City, and I can't say I left sober. Though my father was still very much awake by the time I had made it home, I found myself getting about another two beers in by means of sharing secretly with kevin.
      You know you're drunk enough with you blurt out your racial slur of a password in front of a room full of people and then giggle about it excessively. Somehow, I still found everyone laughing at me. By the time I laid down for sleep, I was too tired to consider much... But I did ponder a conversation I'd had with my father over dinner, and whether or not I was allowing a certain person to think of me in a certain way; a way in which I cannot achieve thinking of the same person. Though I'd be a liar if I didn't say the consideration isn't tempting, it's maybe even sweet. But I can't comply.
     Just hold my breath, and pass it off... pretend like I'm made of stone until the coughing makes me succumb to the feeling of being a weak bitch. Sometimes, I'm afraid of being nothing at all but a weak bitch. Not even bitch as in female, bitch as in someone who accomplishes nothing but complicating the regularity of other people's live's. In a few weeks, the weather is going to start to change... And there will be a familiar smell in the air, similar to something I've smelled before, but never just quite the same. It's a sort-of reminder to remember where I was and what I was doing "x-amount" of years ago. What angle my body was positioned with, what puzzle pieces is rested against before it had fallen into place. And if you have to burn my crown because I can admit it, I still can't say I'm sorry.
     When I think about it, it might be the strangest situation I've ever involuntarily been sucked into from means of friendship, or worse. "Not now" I hit as I think about it, as I realize I don't feel like thinking about it. I mentally press "Not now" just the same as I had using my mouse and watching my screen. I feel like most of the concrete-bricks I helped mold in the past years, as well as set- have begun to slowly crumble apart. Into pieces, like gravel, and the noise of it crunching might be the only thing I hear on a much-too-longer-than-appreciated walk towards a clear head and calmed heart. Most of the concrete bricks, no names etched in, become nothing to no one but a damn memory. A snapshot, mostly forgotten as the cars push the pieces more tightly together, under the pressure of the body weight of two, or three, or more.

I'm too sober.
Something's gotta bust.

I've been spending the last two hours making a collage of Justin Bieber eating people's souls. I haven't been able to journal since new years, I should be in a writing mood.... But, I can't seem to muster anything up. It seems like I'm still in an observing mood. This time exactly one year ago, I was sitting on a couch in a house in the country... In front of a flat-screen television that had been busted in a previous scuffle. The moving SIGNS with Mel Gibson was playing, about aliens, and I was trying to pay attention though my mind kept wondering off in the winter breeze. I remember there was snow on the ground, and my car slid around quite a bit as I drove home.

The hot shower felt amazing. I was staring at my bright yellow wall and the dust in the crease of the windowseal as my phone started ringing, and a feeling in my stomach made me realize that nothing good would come of it. The rest of the morning was all bright florescent lights, tears and goodbyes..


There's a lot of stress in life. There's a lot of everything in life, and I try to take it all as it comes. And as far as pleasing other's goes, though my body may remain somewhat useless... I love all the parts of the struggle that brings me to the surface of the water. It's the pool that is continuous emotional struggle. Even naked and honest, it's still hard to overcome the waves that wash over me. Over and over, crimson and clover.

I truly think that without the internet, I wouldn't find myself intertwined with celebrity crushes. Even the most unrealistic options become suddenly available to explore with the imagination as soon as a simple page search results in option after option; all mind-numbing photos and information about someone who somehow feels relevant in your life with absolutely no intentional connections.


So far this new year has brought me nothing but intense pain, thanks to mother nature. She always has my favorite timing. Unfortunately this means I completely lack the capacity to contain full moral compassion, as I usually would towards anyone and everyone in my life. As of now though, all I'm able to focus on truly are the grinding pains in my midsection along with the intense feeling of emptiness from the striking memories of this time of year one year ago, and my mother's last short conversation we had before she left the house for the last time; in an ambulance.

Two thousand eleven, my whole body feels electrified with a sort of reminiscent sleepiness. I'm quiet, but I'm not concerned. My tedious work remains as so, and though it's saturday... I'm still ill with a cold, a bit worse today from the addition of a hangover and the dehydration alcohol is commonly known for. Though I don't quite remember much of my new years eve, I seemed to have captured quite a bit of it on the camera my father gave me for christimas.




At midnight, we wrote things that we wanted to see "burn" from 2010 on paper bags. Mine consisted of a mere six words, two as a statement and three as a collective statement. "Negativity" "regret" "disregard for family." With a deeply alcoholically intoxicated breathe, I blew into the bag and wrapped the opening shut. Seconds later, I watched that motherfucker burn until the remnants of ashes scattered and blew in the wind with the ashes from the bags of others. My boyfriend and my second father fired shots into the night air at noone, emptied guns to the dissatisfaction of curious listeners near by. Two hours of a rainy ride home, scavenging for food and joints, and putting my blacked-out soulmate to bed. Then New years eve was over. I'd closed a whole chapter of my life. 365 days down, however many more to go... I know I have to optimistic as I can be about them.