Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

It's getting better every day.

I needed a business card.

Oh yes.

Through Neptune

This started, this descent from skyscraping cliffs that laughed at us like bullies; the plunge that romanced my viscera into my throat; my bleeding feet kicking violently, anticipating the bleak concrete ocean that rioted against the black rocks below covered in green moss tweed. This leap from stony edifices into sea salt vapor, fingers laced with your fingers, screams raveled with your poetry recital. This story of love and two self-catapulting kids, started December 17th of last year. 

And it ended nine months later, on a bench in between brick buildings. Where I fell to the sidewalk and crawled up between your legs; wanting to claw through your jeans; wanting to take some skin under my fingernails as a souvenir. Where you just stared off in any direction that wasn't me. And my throat just ached, alveoli seduced by flux. I was taken under the boardwalk current and the last thing I saw was you looking off saying "Can we please go now?"

Undertow, looking up I saw you walk off with a girl who wouldn't stop crying. You offered to give her a ride home and that was the last time I saw either of you.

My body caved through Neptune's body. I bypassed nights we told the world to stop so we could have each other in my mother's car. And I saw myself hand you a mixed CD that I had spent 5 hours working on, and the way you kissed me like no one else was looking, like no one else mattered. I watched your fingers thread through my gloved hands. I saw us sitting on your bed while my car ran outside for two hours because neither of us could stop talking. 

And then I watched while I carried you to your car from the Ranger because you had gotten too drunk to walk. Then the night when I had too much to drink and you got so furious with me you left me in your bed alone. When you were sober and we'd lock arms in stroll and you'd pull me back when I went ahead of you. Nights we went out to dinner and you'd explain to me why my jokes didn't make sense, or times you'd flat out tell me "That wasn't funny. Nothing about that is funny." 

Times you got upset and just left me at that bar when you were supposed to be my ride. A thousand incidences I did something that was all my own and you'd peer over and mention how unimpressed you were. How you would get annoyed with me when I couldn't be the life of the party, how you scolded me when I found conversation with people outside your social web of friends. I watched you walk me around a brick building and set me down on this bench, to tell me you couldn't keep doing this.

I woke up, coughing up salt water. Dug my ripped up feet into the sand. And for the first time since we leaped, I felt the Sun.

The Lack Of

It's been so long.

Pull up your bar stool, let me tell you the story of a girl and boy who were in love.

Let me tell you the story of how she lost herself in him,
his ego,
his status,
his constant attempt at fixing her,
and how much it pained him (or didn't, can't really speak for the kid)

How he left her
due to issues that were out of or in her control depending on which
party
you were speaking with.

Let me tell you how
she felt.
Let me tell you how
she didn't feel
      anything, towards the end of it.

And tried to make up for that lack of elation
in constant sobbing and
days spent in bed.
-Right up until the minute he said
"I just can't do this any longer"

Let me show you how she salvaged how gorgeous she really is.
Tonight, I'm going to show you
exactly
what euphoria feels like.

Tonight I'm going to propel
the kind pining you've only
read in
poetry.

Why?
because I'm fucking good at it.

I Just Need To Get Some Sleep.

Pinpoint on the horizon. If I can't sleep in this apartment, if I can't sleep in this town, then I'll take any undiscovered dirt road to get to that place that isn't here. Where is my quoin of slumber if it isn't in his basement? If it isn't in the nook of his neck and ribs? And so, I grab my camera, deodorant, and that piggy bank I bought for him the day before he left me.

There's this tapping. A lepidoptera metronome. Moths are aimlessly diving into my windshield. Suicide bombers with dusted wings, I can relate. A glow from underneath the seat made by my phone that keeps telling me I'm never really alone. And his voice narrating the car scene that says "They're all just trying to get into her jeans".

Winding through aphotic composition and yellow paint, wielding the steering wheel over chaffed paths, where doleful women have worn through the crust and cement. How many daughters am I following? How many marred lovers have cast off and sailed through this chop sea of blizzard posts and highway? How many made their way back home; and how many walked plank?

An hour later I pull over and toss my body into dirt and red pine needles. Load my lungs with smoke and just stare up into the ink and salt. Lose myself in the cold and cricket chorus. Contrive myself in the thought that I could expire here. I could be vital here. And I can inhale, feel how tangible I haven't been lately, exhale, feel the universe implode and explode simultaneously. And somehow, despite the cosmic blight, I am serenaded into the deep unconsciousness that I've been coveting.

Morning.  I wake up in the debris of outer space. I could scream for other survivors but they'd probably just eat too loudly, walk too slowly, and bitch about their jobs back home. No, I'm content with being the only thing alive. I raise my arms into the blue and try to shake some dust from my wings. That's when my nostrils ache of "home"sick. The deodorant I grabbed...totally his.

The nice thing about being broken up with is that you were probably pretty satisfied with the relationship right up until the very last second. For you, it was fun the entire time.
If you're leaving someone, you've most likely been mourning them for awhile.

I had a lot of fun.
I just feel like I've been hit by a train.

At least we weren't born in North Korea.

Stage One

A thousand shades of hair

and kids all about your height

wearing death masks and new school clothes.

I leaked through torsos trying to get to you.

This Human Body brine.

Rooted crux

A stage where I watched an orchestra

casted with crow’s feet

liverspots

and dementia.

A maelstrom

made from limbs and gossip

pulled me under

and into the blue drink

I sunk.

On the concrete bottom

I saw you

copper quills suspended in cobalt current

and your swollen mask

you were pressing your face into.

I made you promise me

newsprint made a mistake.

and you recited back to me

overlooked facts of the scene and body

laughed because we were the only ones

clever enough to figure it out.

But when I asked you come back with me

you shook your head no

and I knew

under your death mask

I wouldn’t have recognized you.