how many minutes since
the world ended?
my ears are buzzing with
your words
"wait wait wait"
but i'm thinking, it's
now or never
so i jump because
it's long over
and for the first time i
erased the words that were written
not so set
in ink, not so stained
and today is
yesterday's tomorrow, so
please don't tell me that
everything will be better in the morning.

with every twinge of pain you try a little harder to figure out why you care so much. for the first time in months, you're reminded of what it feels like to get physically ill from jealousy. worry wrapped around words you're no longer allowed to care about. this new world of responsibility pulls you back at every turn. you miss the care-free feeling of irresponsibility, the comfort that comes with having options. it's unfair, to think like this. as if it were better before. do you think about trading it all in? you tell yourself, for just one day, just one week, but then you remember how hard you worked for what you've got. and wouldn't it be a waste to see it all just go away?
i can smell you here. in your clothes, in your book, in your bed. in your sheets i stretch and curl, they're smooth but there's no warmth in your absence.
a question hangs in the air. unsure of the exact words, but the idea is clear. i need to know what you think about all of these things that shouldn't matter. i need to tell you that something happened today that's never happened before. i need to tell you that i'm not prepared for this. that it was never expected. i'm terrified that i'm not meant to know what it all means.
the source is the comfort.
the comfort is the source.
i keep trying and trying, but the tears won't come. my eyes stay dry and my lips stay dry and my hands stay moistened slightly. behind my face there's a lake and under my skin there's a body of water and it's so much so much and i can't make it leave and its drowning me inside. and i think if you opened my mouth it would come right out, but you're not here and i can't find you where are you? where are you? i just keep wandering lost through the trees and where are you? and where did all of this water come from and why does it hurt so much? and is it love, they tell me, but they don't really because no one knows. and how does no one know, they all pay so much attention to everything else or is it just a secret i'm so good at keeping? and do you even know? i tried to many times but the water just kept rising.
so many nights spent apart together. i still don't understand. let's go back to where we started. i hate going back to where it began.

i curl up in the spot where i last saw you sleep. i'm the first person to do this in all of history. no you're not, they say. people have been losing loved ones for centuries, i guess. but no one's ever felt this before, i'm sure of it. i don't move for days. the fabric is still warm from your body or is it mine? shadows on the walls come and go, sneaking around in silence. people talk about you, ask about you, trying too hard to be nice. i don't like talking to strangers, you know that. i need you here beside me, you were always the one who talked. i'm just the one who smiles, i just smile. i smile again and again, my lips quiver, i nod my head. i can still hear your voice, a long-distance phone call. my room, my bed, my car haven't changed. it's as if they don't even know you're gone. i want to scream at the walls, i want to tell them don't you notice!? don't you even notice he's not here? but the words come from my eyes, not my mouth, and they're tears instead of sounds.

i have this memory. you're wrapped up in the sheets lying in bed and the bed is next to the window and the window is open because i'm smoking even though i shouldn't be and you tell me i shouldn't be because i am going to set of the alarm but the only alarm that goes off belongs to my crazy roommate in the next room who wakes up at ungodly early hours of the morning and thats where we're at because we drank so much i couldn't sleep without getting sick and you knew this and made me stay awake and so i made you take off your clothes because i was hot and you did it even though it didn't make sense and as i smoked you played with my toes one by one and told me how they were beautiful and how i was beautiful and i just hid behind my hair because you sounded like you loved me and i wasn't ready to be in love or even just be loved because my wrists were too skinny and the only time i'd ever read vonnegut was for school but i was always reading books about fucked up teenagers that found freedom or love or just felt okay and in the end that was enough and when i finished the books i always felt like that was enough and i guess thats how i felt that night like it was enough and maybe if you loved me it would be too much.

i swear i'd live in your mouth if you wouldn't laugh me right out

i want to kiss you. i want to steal the warmth from your lips and use it to comfort my own. i want to feel your passion and your anger and your hurt and if you feel pain i want to bleed. i want to cease to exist. i want to be a sole pair of lips entangled in yours, a pair of hands holding you down, fingertips that touch everywhere twice. i want to be the breath on your neck, the hint of moistness lining your collar, the shivers sliding down your spine. i want to feel soft and i want to sneak in and build up inside you until its so hard it almost hurts. i want you to swallow me whole. i want to seek refuge in the folds of your tongue and hide between the teeth that make up a perfectly manufactured smile that sells a million empty heartaches a day. i want to take hold of your words, just before they've been said, and keep them all in a jar for myself. i'd sacrifice the world hearing your thoughts if it meant i could wrap myself in your voice, a blanket keeping me protected and warm. you're selfish, you'd try to tell me, but before anyone could hear, i'd weave it right into my skin. i don't care what the words mean, as long as they're mine, i'm dependent on hearing you talk. i get sick to my stomach when i just think of your name, bursts of flame dancing over my bones. even when you're inside me, i can't get you close enough, i need to push you under my skin. i'll never understand you unless i become you, but you don't understand either, you just keep whispering iloveyou iloveyou iloveyou.

It was something I shouldn’t have been doing, and I guess that was the appeal. With the second sip I felt warm, and with the third I began thinking about the way we act when we just let ourselves go. How everything is better. How we get along so easily. How we just plain treat each other the way we always should have. We can’t remember what it’s like to not smile, and if we do then we cry so hard we start to hurt. By the time we hit a dozen sips, it no longer bites and we no longer taste the sarcasm, selfishness, or hurtful intent. We start to explore the warmth around us, finding comfort in entanglement. With the last sip our bodies have linked themselves. Feet to thighs, noses in necks, fingers interlocked. I honestly think that if our skin stopped touching, even for the slightest second, you’d disappear into nothing and I’d never see you again. For the rest of the night, I’m constantly checking to make sure we’re in contact, but you barely notice. You take me around the room, pointing out everything in sight, your eyes as big as a child’s. You keep insisting how important everything is, almost leaving me behind. I crawl into your safe place, but I’m getting lost inside all the folds.

my hands hold eachother tightly, pressed between my legs. i have to hold them back, lest i break the rules. i am not allowed to touch you. they told me last thursday. "no physical contact." you're dying, they said, you're contagious. on the phone, i just knew they were lying. but when i saw you, i could feel it, i could smell it on your breath. it smelled like the ocean. you make plans for when you're better, you have no idea what's going on. "i can't wait to hold you again," the words leak through your teeth as you smile. antibiotics, they told you, to be taken twice daily. but when you weren't looking they told me the truth: methadone. it slowly kills the body without pain. opiates, their defense, he'll be happy this way. i let you run your fingers over my jeans, it doesn't count if our skin doesn't actually touch, right? you want to kiss me, so i place saran wrap between our lips. your mouth is still soft, but it's lost its warmth. i sit next to you in the car, your skin is pale next to mine. i've got your ring on my finger. "you have to give it back once you get one of your own," you laugh. i try my best to smile. i don't think i'll ever take it off once you're gone.

a fight we've long since forgiven

words fell from your mouth like rain drops
as puddles collect on the floor
i can barely keep up with the speed they come out
you're at about a thousand or more

i try to focus on the counting
ignoring the message they bring
and as each one hits the cold, hard cement
i begin to notice something

your words fall apart at contact
leaving new ones to be found
your reasoning's lying there broken
thoughts scattered across the ground

the "belief" that you give turns into a "lie"
and "truth" turns into "hurtt"
all the little things you say
can't be taken for what they're worth

but all the strange reconstructions
are patterns of my design
realization returns them to original shape
allowing droplets to intertwine

so i pick up the "L" from longing
and the "O" from revolution
the "V" i take from vulnerability
and the "E" comes from coming undone

i hand back the new message i've fastened
a token (i hope) of peace
the raining stops and your smile comes out
and for once, silence puts us at ease

i had another "episode" driving home tonight. you know, one of those where i'm on one part of the road and then the next thing i know i'm at a different part of the road much further down but i can't remember driving the space in between. the doctor calls it "continuous selective amnesia." i wouldn't call it selective though, it's not like i choose to forget things. my mom said she wants me to quit driving, that maybe she should get me a bike instead. do you really think thats a good idea? i ask, what if i forget to peddle? she didn't say anything, only crossed one arm and put the opposite hand on her cheek: her worried look. i shrug. no one will really joke about it anymore, not since the "incident." [when i was 13 i went for a walk around the neighborhood, and then suddenly i was standing in the middle of a train station. with no shoes on. and a gold medal for first place in the Azalea Festival 10-K around my neck. my brother had to drive three hours to come pick me up.] no one's really sure about when it started. i used to get in trouble a lot when i was younger for things i never remembered doing. i just thought my brother was very clever. it really hurt my marks in school too. these days i don't care much about school, and i'd be lying if i said i didn't cover up my apathy with my disease. when i bring home a bad test, i do my best to looks sad about it. my mother just nods sympathetically and my father cooks my favorite dinner.
but i digress. the reason i'm telling you this is because i need you to believe me. i need you to understand. i can't let you leave here thinking i was just making excuses. when you came over that night, through the back gate, it was so cold in the middle of june and you had on that sweater with the chemical burns. i was sitting on the porch swing and you sat down next to me. you kept looking at your hands instead of me and thats when i knew something was different. you looked at me with such innocent eyes and then suddenly you were on top of me and we were rolling through the grass. and you have to understand, that i didn't understand.