Rain

Rain
(Written June 11, 2011, around 6:00 pm.)

And suddenly,
I became aware of the rain on my own face.
A drop on my cheek,
A drop on my lip.
And I thought...
Would you even notice?
Would I be beautiful to you in the rain?
Was I ever?
Does a raindrop on my lip mean anything to you?
What about a raindrop on hers?

Parts of You

(Written April 19, 2011, 11:30 pm.)

Do you remember the parts of you
You forgot to take as your hurried out?
I keep them on my window sill,
People often ask what they're all about.

I smile and cringe and smile and say,
They're mine for just these moments few,
You'll be back to claim them any day
To give them to someone new.

Some of me is drowning in wine.
A little of you is still mine.
And the more the wine gets through,
The less I think I have of you.

Sometimes when I'm looking away,
I could swear the sill slowly moves.
And I wonder then if my mind's at play,
And I wonder if some of you disapproves

That I still talk to the tiny slivers
Of you that you left behind,
That I still breathe the slightest shivers
Of things no longer in your mind.

So while some of me drowns in wine,
I know a little of you is still mine.
And I shudder as the wine gets through,
At giving up that little, too.

Silver

(Written April 16, 2011, 4:00 am.)

I want to eat silver,
and chew on a grain of the past.
I want thought to end,
and never to forever last.

I want to bite into dust,
and split every grain.
I want a tactile welcome
into the essence of pain.

I want to consume the air,
so soggy with wet shattered dreams.
I want the nullity of life
to be as dense as it sometimes seems.

I want to swallow beauty,
and fade into a silent tick.
I want a second, a minute, an hour,
and a cruel merciful temporal trick.

I want the light you breathe
to be what I always see.
I want the kiss of your teeth
to be the final stroke of me.

Broken and Swimming

(Written April 16, 2011, 12:30 am.)

broken and swimming
in pieces.
a mind floating passively
to the smoky abyss of the future.
a heart struggling to return
to the shore of the past.
each breath paid for
from a finite resource of bubbles
that rise
to the surface of the present.

broken and swimming
in little pieces.
a void carried along
by the current.
a memory of existence surging,
fighting,
by a fraying thread.
something like desire
trying to discover itself.

broken and swimming
in infinite particles.
the sand and the sea
lost
in each other.

(Untitled)

(Written February 23, 2011, 12:20 am.)

Chop me into pieces, and pack me away,
For today is a day I do not want to face.
You can put me together some other day,
When life can offer some semblance of grace.

I am broken and dead, but can't seem to stop breathing.
You are the sun; you could hide me in you.
You can burn me alive until my heart stops teething
On this feeling of insecurity and darkness and gloom.

And if I were to vanish or disappear or cease,
I wonder the world wouldn't thank divine powers.
The timid termination of a toxic tease
Celebrated with cigars and whiskey sours.

Bryant Park Fountain in the Winter

(Written January 24, 2011, 10:18 pm.)

The cold stupefies and mollifies.
The water smells of lullabies.
Some of it dries and some of it flies.
Some of it rests and some of it tries.
The ice codifies a whole body of lies.
The numbness is a bittersweet surprise.
The light breaks its darkest ties.
The air tastes of frozen goodbyes.

Together

(Written February 10, 2011, 11:40 pm, at age 23.)

Together is overrated;
The you and the I were baited.
I try to be you and you try to be me,
And all we feel is catastrophe.
You leave and I think it's right,
Because I have sense and a friend by my side.
Then some conversations feel unwhole,
The silences clang and take their toll.
I shatter and I wonder if you even cracked.
I am steeped in all I always lacked.
You are distant, and I know I am glad.
I am confused at my panic and my sad.
How do I cut off the insanity?
How do I learn what it is to be me?
You are away and I am glad,
You are removed from the manic and the mad.
You deserved better, I always knew;
You deserved simple, honest and true.
I deserved passion, inexorable belonging.
I deserved it all, all of nothing.
So you are gone, and I am satisfied,
That though I am broken and have not cried,
You are not mine and are not meant to be,
You lacked the words and I lacked the melody.
If only I could break my thoughts apart,
I'd know you weren't ever in my heart.
Because you are you and I am me,
And together is utterly unnecessary.