It's funny how you don't know.

All physical things must be in our head, I gather.

Because I swear when I look at you it's tangible.

Something you can hold between us,

A tight rope strung between our pupils I teeter across

Trying to dive my way into your soul.

But you seem to have no idea.

 

As if I were gaping at an oncoming car

And you saw nothing, took your left turn like there was no consequence

And somehow by not seeing it, you managed not to get hit.

But I did.

 

While you turned left and continued down that road

Towards whatever goal you're working towards

I, in the seat next to you, was pummeled.

Pummeled by steel and motor and sheer force

Going 70 miles an hour and crashing into me unforgivably.

My arms and legs and ribs were broken into a mess of bone doctors would later dread at jigsawing together.

My heart was shattered irreversibly.

 

My blood, red like a beacon, begging you to see what a tragedy had just occurred, filled the passenger seat.

And I went home aching, permanently bruised, held together by stiches and a fading, masochistic hope

That I'd have another chance to ride passenger seat.

 

And if you can't see that car, and you can't see the damage

And you can't see that tight rope between our souls

Then all that I see clear as day must be an illusion

And love is not as real as reality,

But reality is as non-existent as love.

And maybe, with any luck,

You and I don't exist either.

My skin hums with a stale leftover heat
like the aftertaste of toast
on the tounge of the palm
wrapped around a used toaster.

My hair crunches
like thin dry crusts around my face,
my cheeks still buttery and soft and glistening from lotion.

I am the transformed wonderbread
that laid and carmalized in the balmy oven.

I am warmly darkened,
cooked to a new word.
I am dehydrated with sunshine,
satiated with sunscreen.
I am happily toast.

I love you like watermellon
loves the globed cheeks of toddlers,
I love you like corn
loves the space between braces,
I love you like peach pits
love the side of backroads
where they're spit
and grow into sweet leafy parasols,
I love you like summer.

Phantom Nostalgia

I don't know what all I want from life. But I know that I want friends who have bonfires. Who sleep in tents and swim on summer nights, who make out in the moonlight and dance to music from the car radio. Who love as soft and wistful as dry strands of hair blown across still-damp shoulders. Who drain the moonlight for every ounce it's worth, fall asleep at it's last drop, and ignore the sun til noon. Who understand that their bodies are the earth and each of us is the earth and there is no "personal space", that we are all everywhere and everything and that this night, from the fireflies in the dirt to the stars above wishing on shooting planes, belongs to us.

Flyaway Hairs

I used to get mad
At my flyaway hairs
For never obeying the rules

Now I think
My flyaway hairs
Were just trying to get away
From my head.

I don't blame them.
It's crazy in there.

April Entry Excerpt

It's like, even when I'm feeling uninspired, I can usually write decent enough shit. I just never know what to write about. Which is crazy, because the world is full of wonderful things to write about. Maybe I should write about that: all these wonderful things that scream to be transcribed around me while I sit here wondering what to write about, and how selfish I am to ignore them, to deem them unworthy, not sensational enough. In these times, the problem is only that I am not a sensational enough writer to notice them.