How can you cut the string

When we were CABLE cars?

You bound to the west coast

With no CONSTRAINT

A free man at last.

The DISTANCE has gone to your head

And I'm no longer in the EQUATION

Our love the unfortunate SACRIFICE

To the alter of your dreams.

I'm INCAPABLE of seeing your side

The way you QUALIFY your time

Your silent tongue abandons my name

Like I don't exist anymore.

PAT my head, so patronizing

And swear that we'll be fine.

You PRACTICE pretty PARAGRAPHS

Write empty prose

The cliché thoughts that TUMBLE

From your mind.

But they are not for me.

Generic and DEMOCRATIC

Just vague enough

That any girl could apply their meaning

To themselves

What were we?

What was I?

Do you mean to PROVOKE me

With this silence?

Is this some kind of test

Of my faith?

I BAN thoughts of you from my mind.

Abandon the DESPAIR

And all the memories

that are guilty by ASSOCIATION.

I PREDICT that I will forget you soon

I could SQUASH the beef

But I don't want to.

I don't have a forgiving GENE in my body

And hating you brings me comfort

The PROSECUTION rests.

It's been seven years

So don't come back

I'm fine without you now.

I only remember

the silly little fragments

of the way we were.

The sock hung on the door

To the scandal of our neighbors

The polaroid camera

The key to that first apartment.

A little hole in the wall

The headquarters to our conspiracies.

The books on Marx

Because you fancy yourself a socialist.

Your boyish charm

And smile that could win an award

Turned so easily into a weapon

Always used against me.

I'd greet you with warmth

Each Sunday I'd dine

With your pretentious friends.

You'd bow to their opinions.

But never lower yourself

To meet mine.

You’d never stick to just me

Your options abundant

Too wild for a chain, you’d say.

For every fight, I'd write a treaty

I'd give you my charity

I always fought for peace.

What part of me

Did I not devote to you?

You were rational

Cold.

You always made me feel crazy

And emotional.

Like a child.

I kept cutting out parts of myself

To fit with you

I hate the me I became.

I cried on the cold tile floor

When you left

I was too close

To realize it was a blessing.

I am a writer.

Am I a writer?

When do I go from a writer

Who waits

To a waiter

Who writes as a hobby?

I'm not a waiter.

Why'd I say waiter?

What metaphor am I trying to achieve?

That's it --trying

Always reaching

Never grasping

Always just shy

Or this close.

No awards, no accolades

No recognition

No published work

And I'm thirty.

Not an ingenue

Not a new voice

Not a brilliant prodigy.

Thirty

And my book is still half written

And my poems are still trite

And naive

And irrelevant

Ever increasingly irrelevant

Because as I grow older

I fall ever away

From the people, to which

I long to relate

I am a writer.

Am I a writer?

Sometimes I wonder

Because I feel like a writer

When one line of brilliance

Hits my insomniac mind

And I cannot sleep

Until it's written

On any scrap of paper

To be found

But I wake up in the morning

And that sentence, so profound

Is gibberish, it makes no sense

Am I a writer?

I write a new word

But I hate it

The old word was better

But no longer fits

I feel like that word

Never right, never fitting

Always searching

I think I lost my generation

Or maybe it doesn't exist

Because we're all consumed

With chasing fleeting

Fragments of the past

That we hold nothing

That's just ours

I am no voice

To that generation

Because that generation

Is voiceless by choice

Everyone has their own drum

And they beat to their content

They don't need a guide

So why do I still

Feel this need to fill some void

That if I write for long enough

Or say enough

Perhaps I'll find some meaning

They'll find some meaning.

I hold that flickering hope

A candle flame

I make believe it's a torch.

And then I'll swear that I'm done

I'll blow out the flame.

I'll give up forever.

And then I'll wake

And I'll pick up a pen.

Dance with me

Beneath a crystal moon.

I know that yours

Is blood red

And my midnights

Are your mornings

And the very fabric

Of space and time

Has wrapped itself around us

But I hear the melody

Of the stars

Beyond the silence of space

I hear your song

Your beautiful voice in harmony

With the crashing of ocean waves.

And my feet move, despite themselves

To the rhythm of two hearts

You make normal

Some magical thing

And you make me

Normal

I never thought that could be.

I enjoy the sunshine now

I always swore

I was overcast.

That was me. And that was that.

And then there was you.

With you it's easy.

I'm not trying to be

The version of me

That I think you want

You're not trying to be

Vague and interesting

To keep some sexual appeal.

I've been down that road

And I know where it ends.

But our path is laced

with golden bricks

And it's beautiful

And permanent.

I've never felt such permanence.

Stability.

And light.

All the things they tell you

Are boring

And sexless

And dull.

Those stupid twenty-something fools

Don't know what they're missing.

They think there will always be a you

They don't know that you're hard to come by

Rare

And beautiful.

Those girls will always love a shadow

A spectrum, waltzing away

Those empty men, a dime a dozen

And they always think

They'll fix them

and make them stay

I once was them

But then there was you.

Who watches old reality tv

With me

And doesn't mind

My color commentary

Who laughs

When I get carried away in a bit

And comes along for the ride

When I weave a tale.

I've been down bitter alleyways

Fought wars no one should fight

I've loved the spectrums

While hating myself

I've made every descent

Into darkness

And then there was you.

And everything was light.

When you grow up

You can be anything you want.

A simple lie.

Perhaps, even cruel.

But necessary.

Because the very soul

of our existence

Belongs to what comes after.

Our children must believe

That the world is wide

And full of wonder.

It's often not.

As they find out with age.

The world can be cruel

And hard work does not always pay off.

But tell that to a child

The truth

And they will never wonder

They will cease to create

To dream and to build.

And the world will fall away.

The marvelous dreams of childhood

Mold into something new

Something tangible and real.

It's not the same wonder

And it's not without sacrifice.

But it only exists

Because our parents once said

When you grow up

You can be anything you want.

what becomes

of the word unsaid?

where do they fall away to?

if matter is neither

created or destroyed

then what of words that matter?

that die away on tongues

important words

swallowed out of fear

or coercion

or even worse-politeness

they linger in the blackness

of the mind and soul

they leave a searing mark

upon the silenced.

unforgotten thoughts

turn bitter and cruel

hearts once gold with promise

imagine a dark ravine

full of everything

we meant to say

or would've said

or will say, once we find the time

all that empty promise

and defeat

and destruction.

such a place, i imagine

would rival even hell itself.

They never warned me

that Neverland was an illusion

Built out of the clouds of a child's wonder.

He had an easy way

A simple laughter, an outstretched hand.

When we were young

I seemed so welcome

The world so warm.

But true fire cannot be built

on illusion.

You cannot create

A world out of clouds.

I longed to grow and build

a world together

A true world.

He could not.

He would not.

I had to abandon him in the end.

I could not stay

And become who I became.

And he could not go.

"I don't ever want to grow up!"

he declared.

His laughter light

His world unworried.

Just hold that happy thought, Peter

I lamented

as I left him forever.

please don't wash up on my shore

my heart's not haunted anymore

i threw those love songs to the sea

so don't you dare return to me

please don't anchor in my bay

darling, you could never stay

and i don't want to sink back in

those blue eyes i lost way back when

so please don't settle in my port

i have found a different sort

the kind of love that's evergreen

the kind not afraid to be seen

so please, enjoy the sea

you always longed so, to be free

but don't touch back to land

you made your choice.

i'll make my stand.

i'm not standing on the dock

with your picture in a locket

i'm not waiting on that shore

for a lost sailor anymore

so please don't step onto my sand

as if you'll ever understand

you broke me into fragments, dear

he picked them up and held them near

so i will settle in his bed

and wash you clean out of my head

enjoy the view at sea, my dear

as i enjoy mine laying here

You STRING your words together

The WARM melted BUTTER of your VOICE

Drew me in.

You were older.

I was too YOUNG.

A naïve CLOWN who still believed

in love at first sight

You weren't SHOPPING

for permanent

I was no PRIZE

You made sure to remind me

My SKY was bright blue

Before your tables turned

Those storm clouds

Over us.

I melted like soft CHEESE

At the lilt of your LAUGH

A mouse CAUGHT in your trap

You shouldn't look a GIFT HORSE

in the mouth.

I got greedy.

I was too needy.

You didn't need me.

Were we even TOGETHER?

I was AFRAID

You were my first

I spent so much time

Trying to BUILD

Castles in your wasteland

But when things got too HEAVY

The THICK, thinning out

You left me

With just empty BOXES.