unsent letters

waiting...

they say i have a letter waiting
and it reminds me of all those
i never sent
its been one of those days and i'm hellstruck and heaven bent and my fingers

come down
and let's play a pedestal game i've been waiting around all night
with this nametag sticker
trying to think of an
appropriate
name

cardtrick casanova you pretendme
in a frame
windowchild untamed smile
free form fixed on my pages
that used to be
so

white

now the minutes
now the hours
now my t-shirts
and my closet door

now my dog
and my alarm clock

are busy whispering secrets
about me

i'm sure of it

but i bite into butterscotch
can't be bothered
with anything less than
sugarslid science
where my tongue
is pierced with the probability
of tasting you

i think i'll wear white tomorrow
as a symbol
of teeth that hunger
snow that shudders
birch that bleeds in curled
exaggeration
and cotton that could never
comfort the bleeding fingers
from where it came

then again
tomorrow's friday
fall down into furious
flocks of fantasies
deadredleaves
and i stand like spring
eternalvirgin
painted moneygreen

what's cleaner than clean

they say i have a letter waiting for me
as if words were patient enough
to stand around...

pound
the prevention the nicotine burn
the aftermantafterglow
i hate
what i dont
know
about you
its been 10 days
since my last confession
but i won't
beg
this time
for forgiveness
your fingers
on my tongue
your words
in my stomach
halfway healed
i saw you barefoot
and looked instinctively
at the broken glass
you were about to walk on
me, i prefer hot coals
zenblessed rage
seeping in through my
soles
like a song
an angry song

unsent letter #97

i'm waiting in my yesterday clothes
you never said you'd come back this way
but i just have this feeling you might
its something built into the marrow
of my bloodfilled blindfolded bones
a blinding hope
no one else gets

but then again
i don't expect them to

so i'm waiting in my morning daze
coffee in my hand
2 cups
one for me
one for you
i listen for the sound of your key
in the door
i curl in your bed
waiting
for some warmth
someone to talk to at 2 a.m.
and no one listens
laughs
lies
close to me
no one sleeps inside me like you do

these are the things i hold on to
i don't have the luxury of your smile
anymore
the thrill of your back to back
barrage of sweetskilled sensation
i don't have a chance
to pour myself between your
empty fingers
anymore

but i'm waiting
inside the heart of someone new
for a sign...
for anything from you

unsent letter # 95 (actually its a song)

winter came early to this
big small town
suddenly no one was around
its the kind of thing that could bring you down...
if you let it

and the smell of snow always makes me smile
but the snow is so far away
someone sent me some hope in the mail
but it won't get here today

so what's the point of holding on
when everything's going wrong
another morning breaks on my back
another chance to move on...

but you...
you won't be there
you said
said you didn't care
threw all the pictures i gave you away

there's nothing left to say

and i read every letter i
tore through the pages
to find out where i lost you somehow
and somewhere in the papercuts and
ribbons of badluck
were the answers that i never found

and you
you can't be there
you don't have it in you to care
you said
it has to be this way
maybe we'll be friends again someday

and some dark haired new girl
she sleeps in your room
she sends me black letters
or pretends to be you

and i can't get around it
can't find the door out of here
she points you like a weapon
and we lock eyes in fear

and some nights when i need you
and i think of just calling
i think of your voice
holding me close
i think of what was
and close my eyes on what could be
and i wake up kissing your ghost

but you
you are not there
i looked everywhere
and i tell myself i don't care
i don't need you making me feel this way
give me throw me chase me
just push me away...

unsent letter #94

just don't tell him
that i close my eyes and feel you
that nothing will ever be as good
comparitively speaking

i think he loves me
its in everything he sings to me
he told his family all about me
already
when after a year
no one you knew
knew who i was

he makes me laugh
holds me
and i close my eyes
don't tell him that my heart still beats
with the rhythm of your footsteps
that i dream of the children
we were making

and i could never live in a house
on a hill
if it wasn't with you
could never build my coffeeflavoredpoetrydreams
without you next door
don't tell him that my skin is dead
without your fingers
bringing me to life

bless me

in a stainedglass stumble
you saw me tying stairs to my feet
just to bend an anchor of apathy into

a real emotion/something handheld

I

was dreaming of your body
bleeding from the hands

I

pulled you down from the broken tree
you always climb to get further
further away from

me

I love this nightskim version
(of your curled circumstances)

if I

could bleed
you’d watch the colored chalk
pour onto the sidewalk in front of your
mama’s house

that’s right - my tongue has changed shape
like an hourglass changes
from the erosion of the

kidnappedsand

it tries to contain
sand that can only scream ocean
ocean, come save me

from glass

from myself made hard, cold
and colorless

Ohyes , I will morphosize and metabolize
into chemistryset science
I will burn your fingers when you sleep

toss and turn me away

I touch you
to my forehead
chest
left shoulder
right shoulder
I bring you to my lips
one last time

unsent letter #88

dear you

i just need to tell you
that i dont have anything left to say my words
are chokedirt
stuck under my nails
i just stop
when i'm walking down the street
suddenly footsteps
won't come
and i freeze there sidewalk still
in the blurring aftermath and remember
january 12th
one year ago
when your wishes had my name all over them
i was beauty and you beheld me
so carefully

and i sit here second-hand
slightly torn
overloved underneeded
knowing my preciousness outlived
the skin it was sewn in
drowning in glorypinksuntipped days
knowing no one else would even recognize
the way my mouth moves when i have
a million things to say
the way i hide
my shape under blankets
you would always recognize the
curvingplush of my silhouette
the treble of my simmeredsighs
you
could read the barcode of my heart
and add me up as priceless

and i'm so over you
come crawling and i'd say no
no no no
i'd make you believe it
i might even pretend to hate the hazel
in your hushed and humble eyes
i might even walk away

deceptive direction

casanova castledrained i was a
moat and who could cross
who could see the depths i hide
does it matter anymore
if you lied
if you did it so
perceptively holding onto
all the right pieces of me
does it matter if i burnt in your fingers
flung into ashes and the smell
the wistful smoke
still lingers
my aftermath was trying to make
sense of the unequation of you
the false proof of angles
perpendicular
too twisted to ever come true
and i broke my ruler and rebuilt
a new science to
explain the inconsistency of your
echoes
i learnt to add up the miles
while walking
step after step
the old fashioned way
of measuring
a distance
the new radius
between the centrepoint
of a chestful of fiction
and the circumference
of something i needed
i needed to be true

and then there was one

hallelujah
mistletoe
let the devil pull these feathers
straight out the backs of angels
cry my baby
cry yourself to sleep
its not a nightmare if you don't wake up
and i'm happier
happier than i've ever been
misunderstood doesnt mean its not
better than good
you never knew how to
say goodbye
or maybe you knew too well
come globeskip with my
head on your shoulder
the rain is falling like
a sign of things to come
the night smudged up in the corners
and the streetlights calmly licking the backs of our heels
and you laugh

what else is there to say
those pins and needles
she uses
suddenly seem so far away
not that i'd let her
see me in pain
working out all the ways to hit
and run or hit and
miss
its been a monthlong apology
the moon sighed
clouds jostled into each other
like shy children

we play this game of emotional chicken
let the lions roar from below
let the queens bare their brown stomachs
i won't write a letter
you'd have to give up something
to somehow
feel me

bloodkissed wrists
that heal
look away from the girl
and her fictional face
her eyes no one ever believed
were real

the split second strategy of unspoken scars
slide into some self induced coma
and erase your capacity to feel

i'll be building this circle on a
skyblown hill
glass ceilings and swimmingsongs
the night resting on every windowsill
and somewhere under
a crossed constellation
of kisses we couldn't taste
i'll hear you laughing still...

close your eyes, now...
even imaginary looks
can kill

unsent #87


casanova castledrained i was a
moat and who could cross
who could see the depths i hide
does it matter anymore
if you lied
if you did it so
perceptively holding onto
all the right pieces of me
does it matter if i burnt in your fingers
flung into ashes and the smell
the wistful smoke
still lingers
my aftermath was trying to make
sense of the unequation of you
the false proof of angles
perpendicular
too twisted to ever come true
and i broke my ruler and rebuilt
a new science to
explain the inconsistency of your
echoes
i learnt to add up the miles
while walking
step after step
the old fashioned way
of measuring
a distance
the new radius
between the centrepoint
of a chestful of fiction
and the circumference
of something i needed
i needed to be true

unsent letter #86


pound
the prevention the nicotine burn
the aftermathafterglow
i hate
what i dont
know
about you
its been 10 days
since my last confession
but i won't
beg
this time
for forgiveness
your fingers
on my tongue
your words
in my stomach
halfway healed
i saw you barefoot
and looked instinctively
at the broken glass
you were about to walk on
me, i prefer hot coals
zenblessed rage
seeping in through my
soles
like a song
an angry song

our own dead language

so much time on my
shaking hands
it doesnt matter anymore
if no one understands
i'm too thirsty to drink from
your broken cup
i'm too uninvited
to think about giving up
i'm too
unbeautiful to belong
to a boy like you
but i bleedbrightly
and decipher the dead language
of every new moon
not that it gets me closer
to you
i'm brasslocks skeleton key
dressed up in clothes
too big for me
i'm not sure
what any of this means
but if i dreamupside down
inside out and let baby bats
scream just under the skin of me
if i laugh at midnight and paint pictures
that no one will ever see
i can fight this feeling
of being little more than imaginary
cloudless and greenblue
a meaningless moment in a mock history
its not enough
never enough
just to be...
me.

unsent letter #85
our own dead language


so much time on my
shaking hands
it doesnt matter anymore
if no one understands
i'm too thirsty to drink from
your broken cup
i'm too uninvited
to think about giving up
i'm too
unbeautiful to belong
to a boy like you
but i bleedbrightly
and decipher the dead language
of every new moon
not that it gets me closer
to you
i'm brasslocks skeleton key
dressed up in clothes
too big for me
i'm not sure
what any of this means
but if i dreamupside down
inside out and let baby bats
scream just under the skin of me
if i laugh at midnight and paint pictures
that no one will ever see
i can fight this feeling
of being little more than imaginary
cloudless and greenblue
a meaningless moment in a mock history
its not enough
never enough
just to be...

my first apology of the new year

as if i could drink you away
as if his hands could bruise you away
bleed you away
as if the music could drown outyur voice
as if the new year could leave you behind
i dumped my pockets into the fountain
wished yu away
slept 42 hours straight
as if i could dream you away
took off yur bracelet and scrubbed my skin
as if i could erase you
as if i could wash you away
i broke free somehow
from your emptiness
from his angry arms
when he crushed my cheek under rough knuckles
i could only think of your warm hand cradling my neck
his fingers clenched in my hair
could only make me remember
how you would twirl my curls
around your fingers
smiling
my eyes poured over
with the knowledge
that only a deeper pain
could erase
the hurt of losing you
shivering on a new year's morning
on an empty sidewalk
waiting for a cab
i see the black bruises
staining porcelaindoll thighs
from beneath a sparkled dress
and 24 hours later
i still shakenumb
this chair found the unseen
marks in my back
my hair left loose to
lock away the lessons
he taught the slope of my neck
and i'm sorry
i'm sorry i called you crumpled
on a bathroom floor
crying uncontrollably
when you've made it unmistakably clear
that you never wanted to hear from me
again
i don't know how to drink
my drunkmother would have loved to teach me
and my irish genes beg for the warmth
in the blood
but i'm an amateur
and it shows in my eyes
they always notice the eyes
i always smell the danger
but i digress..
a lot
i'm sorry i didnt follow your rules
my drunken mind only knew
one way out of trouble
one comfort
one number to call
i'm sorry it was you.

unsent letter #84
my first apology of the new year


as if i could drink you away
as if his hands could bruise you away
bleed you away
as if the music could drown outyur voice
as if the new year could leave you behind
i dumped my pockets into the fountain
wished yu away
slept 42 hours straight
as if i could dream you away
took off yur bracelet and scrubbed my skin
as if i could erase you
as if i could wash you away
i broke free somehow
from your emptiness
from his angry arms
when he crushed my cheek under rough knuckles
i could only think of your warm hand cradling my neck
his fingers clenched in my hair
could only make me remember
how you would twirl my curls
around your fingers
smiling
my eyes poured over
with the knowledge
that only a deeper pain
could erase
the hurt of losing you
shivering on a new year's morning
on an empty sidewalk
waiting for a cab
i see the black bruises
staining porcelaindoll thighs
from beneath a sparkled dress
and 24 hours later
i still shakenumb
this chair found the unseen
marks in my back
my hair left loose to
lock away the lessons
he taught the slope of my neck
and i'm sorry
i'm sorry i called you crumpled
on a bathroom floor
crying uncontrollably
when you've made it unmistakably clear
that you never wanted to hear from me
again
i don't know how to drink
my drunkmother would have loved to teach me
and my irish genes beg for the warmth
in the blood
but i'm an amateur
and it shows in my eyes
they always notice the eyes
i always smell the danger
but i digress..
a lot
i'm sorry i didnt follow your rules
my drunken mind only knew
one way out of trouble
one comfort
one number to call
i'm sorry it was you.