how to apologize
to the air
that I breathe
for the fear of loss
that costs
everything
when this grip
that grasps
forever
is so suffocating
when your ears
have grown tired
of these
sad songs I sing
see, panic
and I have spent
so much time
alone
that fright forms
my features
etched its shape
in my bones
and while
I long to make
my heart your home
all flaws
in design are
completely my own
I'm awkward
I'm anxious
but I'm also
all yours
for the rest
of the years
my dust circles
this earth
and though I know
to you it must
seem quite absurd
I hope to rebuild
on the strength
of these words
said
she stood on your dock
in black pearls,
and nothing more -
wet feet
and the asian dream.
you loved her
but
when the snow fell
on the dock,
the following winter
you couldn't
remember why.
As the Venetian
simplicity of romance
wilts; we shift,
like light.
There are no nouns
for what we call
'it'
in minds auto-trained
to forget, we kiss -
the
unspoken language
caught between our lips.
As it happens
I am a coward, disguising
emotion with envoi's, and
somewhere
between my tongue and
your lower lip
'it' lingers.
There will be no caged fingers,
no tendons finely tuned to A from tension.
There will be no clenched teeth, gritting rosin,
to make the final singing note growl.
There will be unwinding bed-sheets,
hands slowly releasing the tuning pegs.
There will be slowly sliding scales
as the four limbs loosen past playing.
There will be a simple, quiet exit,
not to ovation, but to a hushed audience
who anticipate an encore,
even though it is uncertain.
lists and listlessness by YouInventedMe, literature
Literature
lists and listlessness
Each name I mark down is a list.
I write every single word
I intend to promptly forget,
making sure to underline
the important parts.
These are the things I really meant to say.
You'd smile and feel
the way you were supposed to.
It's all so simple.
These little plans of mine
are drawn up and drawn out.
It's too meticulous
to be destiny
and too ridiculous
to be enjoyable.
Would you even feel it if I crossed you off?
I have that power you know.
(That and more.)
I could rearrange you.
I could erase you
completely.
I could kid myself all night,
but I could never let you go.
Uncoordinated Longitude by Le-Petit-Tatou, literature
Literature
Uncoordinated Longitude
When I picked up the phone she told me that she missed the trains
and the way the rain smelled in the summer.
I scratched a pattern in the table with my thumbnail. I stretched
the phone cord between my fingers and said I was sorry.
She asked what I had to be sorry about and I told her I didn't know.
I twisted the cord into a clover shape while I remembered
her laugh when we picked up the penny off of the tracks, tossing it
back and forth, watching it catch the light and throw it back.
She asks me where I am and I know she does not ask where so much
as why.
1.
After the revelation age
truth and fiction
bled into some dead
inconsequential mess.
The wisdom of wind through trees
is missing
and raw beauties
cannot be perceived.
My veins are filled with formaldehyde
bones brittle pottery.
Vacant
my synthetic self.
2.
There's nothing living here
really.
I am just empty windows.
I fell out of myself
in little salty pieces;
a dripping hourglass.
Now it's just a matter of
tying loose ends
before dying;
pouring concrete into key holes
and searching for the closure
that lingers in ink wells.