A stroke in the night,
A splintering of the heart,
It was four in the morning,
But the sun already fell apart,
High past noon — 
You told me you would be here soon,
3pm and the moon stopped by,
Asked where you were, 
And I couldn’t offer anything but lies,
Eight in the evening,
Spilled into insanity,
By the cusp of midnight,
I was as healthy as I could ever be.

touch
touch
touch —
ache and don’t resuscitate
lost boys without a clue
of who they are or
what to do
strumming chaos through chewed fingernails
a ballad violence couldn’t bare.

a labyrinth. a maze. twists and turns and paths that won’t illuminate. spun into spools, threads that disorient. eye of the needle but i know only pinpricks. fog shines clearer than the future. i rather sink into the soil than dare take a step.

//and how much can you really know yourself?//
memories deceive and the soul retreats.
and how well can we know another?
(it’s so much easier.)
(it’s so much harder.)

store your memories and emotions between the chords and the motion
of waves that sync to our histories
better than anything words can beat
drown out the world in a lyrical tapestry
salve your wounds with the chorus

we all sing in sorrow
how melodious the sound.

who knows where the river takes us. who are we to know the inflections of routes set in stone.

all aboard, we must go now. into the mist, into the unknown.

sandpaper arms have roughened me up with bruises,
brushed and scraped and whittled down,
so i must stitch back together shavings and shards to recreate a new me,
discard this body and upgrade 2.0,
resilient and resolute — strength is not being impervious to pain but rather withstanding it.
can you stay soft and open when the world runs cold and cruel?
take off your armor if you want to wear the badge of bravery.

and what is even real? i am superimposed onto this world but drifting off in a different reality. and what is memory? we recall and recreate to a breaking point and the past is altered irrevocably. so who am i when i reside in a plane outside of here. and when the world ends we remain in the echoes of etched graffiti. caves in the mind and a chamber of perception. rest, we will board in the morning.

comparison is the thief of joy,

and we rejoice in envy,
pouring ourselves on scales to measure against everything we could never be,

barometer of change,
(i could never look the other way),

pluck feathers from the wind and hold your cap close,
there is a storm coming in,

and when lightning strikes,
we must blame our own evil eye.

play a tune on loop
record stuck on repeat
mind pulling receipts
balance the weight on your knees
ignorance is bliss
so write over these memories