I am everything eventually.
I am all feelings.
All failures.
Every shade of a crooked rainbow.
I am the fog and the sky you see through it.

I will fashion a trebuchet from your hair,
and fire moonlight,
into that hazel ocean.
That you call your inviting eyes.

I could craft you like a sculpture, pretty in a dress
Could fold a paper heart and place it in your chest
I could dream up laughter that dances in your veins.
Could think of how much you love it when it rains,
I could fill you with this memory of how you liked it best.

We would make a doll of human shape and size
we would give it hair, and lips and thighs
we could give it passion, give it yearning, give it lies
It would look just like you except the eyes.

I cannot make the eyes, I cannot picture them,
I cannot give them sight, I only reflect in them,
Hazel over layered glossy white.
I will lay your eyes aside, as they are never right.
It was only my reflection i remember.
rolled toward sunset and cold as cold November.

This mannequin is my tornado, my disaster, my earthquake,
it speaks with my memories and smiles with my heartbreak,
what comes out is nostalgia and drained arguments,
I can hold it in my insomnia, can carry it hence.

It’s time we disassembled what I built,
you filled the void she left with your perfect edges.
You sat in a frame perfect on my wall in golden gilt.
Now just your memories sit precarious on ledges.
But you are just a duplicate, you are just a dream.
You are everything that I recall but not quite what you seem.

Now in a room filled with clockwork springs,
now in a room with pieces of your hair,
that make you mostly human and how that stings.
I sit idle on the bed and stare and stare and stare.
I know that with my mind I could build you, I even prepare…

None of this is healthy, none of this is real,
your memory is my doll and only I can feel,
it sitting in my hand, draining me of zeal.
I must leave you in pieces and close the door behind me,
lest I try and try again to make a copy to remind me.

Far away from here,
eyes fixed on faces that blur together,
so warm in a dark room so I imagine
burning with delight in the lack of light
So I imagine.

Far away from here
hands clasped with the horizon,
turning in slow-motion smiling
with a grin that never touches eyes
So I imagine.

Far away from here
ripping sheets and flinging memories
tasting of beer and a hint of smoke
set to a low burn and low breathing
So I imagine.

Far away from here
imagination turns to flesh and pulls
everyone else back into a hot embrace
the whole world is pressing it’s forehead to yours
so i imagine

Dreaming of a gray coffee afternoon
hoping for this thread to snap and give
These eyes will stop pulsing pictures
in unwanted waves when finally,
I am far away from here.
So I imagine…

Stacking ever higher and purposeful,
looking for the way to grown,
relentlessly building, endlessly vertical,
Shoulders shrug where Atlas shone.

Pile more bricks upon bricks upon bricks,
scrape further toward the taunting sky.
Only push further through the trees and sticks.
No wishes to float, no wishes to fly,

Straining, stern and yearning pain,
up and onward, again and again,
flogging gravity, fighting force
momentums sister, a matter of course.

Grab the sun and the suns own stars
with burnt hands with endless scars,
Strain to tower, loom and peak,
forward motion, a vertical streak.

A wish to be atop a cloud,
an urge to be where not allowed.
The secret of the tower is love and a golden key.
The secret of the tower above,
is that the tower is me.

Before I can stop myself a sigh escapes,
before I can count my blessings,
a grief grips my heart in waves.

When I saw the sun that one day on a faded bench
I asked myself, why am I like this?
Why am I this way?

The answer was a water pond. Rippling in stillness
I still don’t know what it means.
I just remember one day, one hour.
Where I saw with perfect clarity.
Where all the excuses turned to smoke.

I answered myself that day and every day since.
Why am I this way? Why am I like this?
I am because I choose to be,
I fail because I like to try,
I lie because I’m scared of life.

Yet another fingertip touches my heart scars.
Yet the gray follows me through golden light.
Yet a sigh escapes.
Turns out that pond was right.

They were all hair and love and skin,
They were everything, like ghosts and sin,
They were all the ones who left behind,
The reason for my endless sigh.

I’d throw out genius right now
toss in a dash of inspiration
I would throw everything i had at the wall
take what sticks and stick it again
I would fill these words with wisdom

I would write words that scream,
that dance and fling themselves at your mind
I would prop your eyelids open with fascination
I would learn while teaching,
preach while reaching.

I would cram a million metaphors
into sentences like crystal lattice
I would dream a universe and deliver it
frothy on the cusp of an epiphany

I would paint a picture out of syllables
I would send my heart transparent to you with telepathy
I would write everything I’ve ever known
I would stand atop a written victory of raw passion
I would write that, but I don’t have time.

My love is a bullet fired from my heart.
I cannot see it or catch it.
Only guess where its pointed,
and pray it doesn’t kill me when it lands.

About 2 years ago I froze my life,
put it on ice and gave up everything
About 2 years ago I left my house,
my pets, my life, my love, my everything

I wanted to drink,
suck the ice cubes from a million gallons of sad songs
I wanted to fail, to give up and freeze.
I saw everything I’d ever done wrong
I was a fuck up, I was a failure, I was a liar.
I could have given up then, I could have stayed in ice
Instead I chose fire

I chose to burn away those parts of me,
those thoughts of what used to be
I chose to see, to be in constant burning agony,
to become something strange.
I chose not to give up and to embrace,
this hot glowing element of change.

I beat back the urges, the cold thoughts of ending everything
I beat back and purged this stack of reasons I had to not to do everything
I beat back the endless tears and the constant urge to die
In a world full of ground based life forms, I chose to fly.

I chose fire.
To break down the tiniest parts of me into intelligent matter
to show that I was burning everything we used to have and damn her.
What mattered is that I burned inside and everything I used to own turned to ash
Ashes I kept on my bedside table and tasted with wet eyes every morning.
I drove angry and refused to crash.
I flew at the sun and refused to melt.
For the first time, instead of drowning my sorrow, I felt.

I drove my whole heart into that furnace like a dagger.
I quit drinking, I stopped thinking
I walked 2000 miles of endless rage, not blinking,
I swam to the edge of eternity not sinking
I took 300,000 milligrams of help
I had 365 sessions of therapy,
I wrote 1095 journal entries,
which is every single day, times three.
I turned everything off –
I threw it all away, into a burning new version of me.
I chose fire when I chose hell. But I chose to see.

I wanted to become something else,
my own fucking version of a phoenix with raised fists
I wanted to be the kind of person I thought about
when I see people doing it right and I get pissed
I wanted to walk through a sheet of flame,
and come out wearing nothing but my pride
I wanted to finally win. I wanted to ride the goddamned ride,
I wanted to live like a saint whose only dreamed of sin,
I wanted my life back but I left it behind me, again and again.

I chose what I wanted to be, I chose to go higher
I chose what I’d always feared, I chose to stop being a liar
I chose a whole new life, and when I could have froze up.
I chose a better way to be, to be inspired.
I chose myself, and I chose fire.

What would you say if offered you freedom?
What would you say if I offered you security?
What would you say if I held you?
If I could take back everything
If I could unhurt you a thousand fold.