I bathe in sandalwood to keep you all over me. I beg for your weight, giving your limbs permission to crush my limbs without having to settle for dreams of phantom bodies on top of me. I ache. To be kissed. Fingertips, matches on my skin. Your touch, sage to my negative mind.

I’ve been resurrected. I dance on walls, and forbidden fruit hangs in haunted bedrooms. Will I ever be a fantasy or will I wake up sweating, clinging to my own sheets?

Sitting in the kitchen, hanging with my family

Laughing, cracking jokes; they make me so happy

But I walk away from the table and now I feel empty

I just wanna cry

I been reminiscing all day, thinking about those who have passed

Thinking about Bear and Dan because we had a blast

Wishing I could turn back time and live in the past

Time just flew by

I want to be alone but I want a hug

I want someone to notice but I don’t want to speak up

I hold it inside but I don’t want to erupt

I don’t know why

I have no motivation so I lie in my room

Instead of doing what I love I begin to think through

The past, my life, and my inevitable doom

I’m not ready to die

I didn’t feel like this until two days ago

What caused this; I’m not sure I know

I feel empty and I don’t know what to do

I just want to be alone

we were laying in white

white sheets

white mattress

white skin

passing a cigarette between us

and despite the smoke

your apartment smelled like dead roses

and i felt like a fallen petal

i realize that the cigarettes will kill me

but maybe one day so will you

you're a murderer

in a lover's disguise

you're that much more dangerous

you could rip my heart out

and i would help you

i'm not suicidal

just a hopeless romantic

but perhaps

that's the same thing

Laughter. It was what I most remember. We were both children. Playing in the sandbox, laughing when we'd throw snowballs of  sand at one another. I remember birthdays. Times where we would both sit outside the apartment porch and enjoy a slice of cake together while the rest of the children played hide and seek.

When we grew older you would lead me outside to the roof and we would just lay there. Under the twinkling night sky that would glisten and light up our dreams. Dreams about a future where you and I were happy. It was picture perfect. You did not know it back then but I loved you. Did you love me?

I think about crazy summers and our first kiss as we snuck out into the night sky, playing another game of hide and seek with our friends; even if we were too old to play now. You took my hand smiling charmingly leading me with you as we ran. Feeling free and as if the world was ours. And just like that. With only the stars to watch us we kissed. I thought you were happy with me at your side. Where you?...

I think about those times when you would sit quietly beside me and look out into the sky without a word. There was a look in your eyes that squeezed my heart so hard it felt like an old prune. When my hands reached to touch your face you would smile.

I'd missed the signs. I'd missed the signs of you pulling away from me. Pulling away from us; pulling away from life. I could give excuses of work, too much going on, not enough time or care to pay attention. I can't blame you. I know I can't blame myself and yet; as you lay in this hospital bed all I can do is weep at your side.

I can't find the will to leave you and it hurts knowing you would think leaving me was the answer. I don't understand why you wanted to leave this world. But I want you to stay. Leaving me to find your body after an overdose on sleeping pills ;that I did not know you had, it was like a part of me was taken with you in that moment.

I don't know if you'll make it. I don't know if I'll be able to help you. But I will stick by you because I love you. And I will always stand by your side. Love is about taking in the good and the bad. 

"Please. Stay."

Screaming stomachs starve in every sense.

Eager eyes consume their fill,

watering parched mouths.

Salvation lay among flaked clouds.

No mote of mélange dared widely wander.

Downhill flight stumped in hole or rut.

Fugitive castaways make the best fodder,

bobbing in merry cups.

Sweet rain plumped what obscured heaven from the bunch.

Temperate bounty unfolds abundantly

under the stroke of a cold edge,

tracing lines to stifle shrieks.

Reprieve dribbles out of the gate,

finally free to make its sweet escape.

Blurred in the

Periphery of my

Sight

Was a deliverer;

Hidden in the

Crowds of my

Mind

Was a hero;

Praying in the

Shadows of my

Heart

Was a savior

That would

Tame

The panicked pacing

In my soul

And

Give me a

Soft pillow to

Rest

My

Head.

I sat down by the river Styx

enviously eyeing the floating gold on bloated body.

They need it less I figure,

prying coins from lips sewn shut.

The living bore Charon's heftiest toll;

double on merciful days if they wished to return.

Hollowed pits follow me into the depths

beyond Dante and past Perseus.

Little is more familiar than the inferno,

certainly not the beautiful wealth seated on the surface.

It is not the heart beckoning from beyond the veil,

nor avarice showing its hand when pockets jingle.

Every brush with death's reward is reason,

anything to keep me going.

Life infallibly gives ample reason to leave,

yet it so stubbornly clings.

   They walked together in silence for some time. Jaleel in his head, and Chante, wondering what was going on up there. Usually, she needed to drag him out of his apartment kicking and screaming. He hated leaving his place given an alternative. More often than not, she only got in touch with him when she went there. Yet, here he was, as if without a care in the world.

   Jaleel was too busy focusing on what was ahead to allow his mind to wander off. Perhaps it was that desire which continued tugging him through time to somewhere his pursuers still called home. Had escape not been the main reason that he remained in the cold despite its affect?

  Before, his body had difficulty controlling its overachieving temperature. Following the departure of most of those he held dear, Jaleel’s body refused to retain any heat. His only option was to fully embrace what was left, and leave everyone wondering how he survived. As extensive as his time travel was, Jaleel knew just how many would make it through the day. Jaleel had no time to waste on those temporary fixtures.

  Names Jaleel would rather forget call to him from the tombstones they are etched. Depending on whom you asked, they were all either lost friends or victims of his. A couple of them might have even been where those groups crossed paths. For Jaleel, they were some of the many roads he followed through time.

  Chante observed him wind his way through the stones to his most accustomed kneeling place in front of one. Of all the graves here, he annually visited this one first. When she asked about it, Jaleel would smile and reply,

“The woman in white who brought darkness to my life.”

  Most found those cryptic responses to be evidence of his madness while they just drove her mad. Not mad as in the way most thought him, but maddening in how she thought it showed him more sensible than most of them. He grieved his loss as if he lost a part of himself back then, like an amputee with phantom pains. Generally, others dismissed their wrongdoings and emphasized those committed against them. Jaleel seemed to accept responsibility for his actions along with a few perpetrated against him and wallowed in whatever blame anyone placed on his shoulders. A rare spark in a world growing dark.