Sometimes thoughts are like puzzle pieces cut from different molds

Varying heights sticking out from incongruent connections

Creating a landscape of bumps and grooves

Where lights seeps in and fades.

Feelings are scattered like a tattered tapestry

Interwoven with mismatched fabrics

Colors muddled within the threads

Contrasting a lack of cohesion with overzealous amalgamation.

Notes crowd the spaces in between

Dissonant chords unified only in their aversion to harmony

Establishing an economy of fickle foundations

Bracing themselves for deconstruction.

Inconsistency

I exist between old age and immaturity

Fluttering between fleeing attention

And resigned forgetfulness

Uncertainty and a vague notion

That nothing ever really changes.

A brightly colored kite

A gnarled oak overhanging a riverside

Gently swaying and creaking

Like aged bones under mottled skin.

My lips are dyed with passion

Lingering with the taste of honey

While my tongue lies still

Weighed down by heavy thoughts

Whose reminiscent nature begets woe.

Fickle foundations crumble

Swiftly shifting lines casting aside

An aside to the inner workings

Of a gently breaking heart.

Taking in stride the infantile steps

Between getting there and making it,

I walked after I crawled

Before I crawled again.

The heart aches for the unnamed song

A note beckoning rest to the weary

A tune extending silence

Where a cacophony of thoughts disturb.

Unclaimed emotions lying in wait

Just out of reach

In the outskirts of consciousness

Taunting our lives, listless.

Leave us to merely exist,

Awaken to daily monotony

While glazed over expressions

Mark themselves on faces of stone.

Corrected Correction

I removed your name from my phone’s dictionary

Having grown too tired of it trying to bring you back

Auto-correcting you into sentences meant for other people

Reminding me that you still exist outside of this life.

I would type “tomorrow” and you would appear

An electronic representation of both presence and absence

Contradictory states of existence forcefully inserted

Behind hopes and dreams for a new day.

Now you are gone

With your weightless well wishes floating with you

Trailing shadows as you pass over

Ascending into an alternate space.

Intertwined Impressions

The impressions on my mind

Are the lack of impressions in my bed

Feelings neither lonely nor ecstatic

And in the evening hours

I roll over

Longing to find your touch

To breathe “I love you” on your neck

While tracing vows on your shoulders

And memories down your back

To pull you to the warmth in my chest

Vessel lit by more than pleasant chance

Then filled with song and silence

To print your name on my lips

With overuse in laughter

And the quiet need to share my soul

To read my own, on your eyelids

Fading, projecting some shadow of myself

Between the shades of dusk and dawn

To waken to you unvanished

Returned from self-inflicted exile

And thoughts of worthlessness

Yet all are whispers and whimpers

Pathetic musings in the midnight hour

Scraping by on the way to rest.

Eradicated Musings

I still beam at the thought of you

Lungs billowing at a breath of you

Drawing you in till you dawn on my eyes

My lips ache for skin never touched

Teeth pulling at a mere echo of your name

Scraping by tastes lost in adaptation

Your words lie curled in my stomach

Whispered truths and a half awake smile

Spreading warmth and turmoil in my soul

Your eyes plead for innocence

Yet all you’ve known is distrust

And loyalty was my only offer

I cannot speak of you again.

Placeholder

It sucks to feel like a simple placeholder in someone’s life

A quick drag on a 5 minute break

A trail of ashes and your crumpled shell discarded after use

The lingering scent of tobacco mingled with sweaty regret

Perspiration clinging to their lips as they turn away

With no mark that they ever knew you

Except the slight cough when they hear your name

And the awkward shuffling to stamp out what is left of your light.

Withered Hearts

I scrape your scent from my hands

With nails filed down for impunity

Dense shavings of thoughts gathered,

Fervently dislodged, and shaken out.

Yet flakes of our regrets cling to them

Curled within my bones like worms

Burrowing between the cracks

Digesting humanity.

I scream, but my lips are sewn

With indecision catered to your heart,

Tracing loops along my tongue,

Binding fingers across my mouth.

I devour words caught in my throat

Coughed up, half digested thoughts

Failed suggestions experienced as mist

Droplets dyed in hues of pink and orange.

I run warm water over homemade scars

Gently brushing off dirt with soft cotton

Laced with fragile intentions

That sting like antiseptic whispers.

Fading marks of afflicted thinking

Entangled in my hair

Like the shadows of your fingers

Remnants of a time we felt love.

I seek to speak peace

To bind up and to make whole

To string along kindnesses oft unspoken

With proclamations of unabashed truth.

I attempt to roust the inner soul

To contemplate its own magnificence

To begin to comprehend its worth

With an appeal to heart, I nary bluff or feign.

For there is only faux conciliation

A mockery of appeasement in lies

Whispered honeyed diction dripping with condescension

Condensed and wrapped behind vacant eyes.

Relentless Restlessness

It lies curled in my stomach

Breathing words that taste like peppermint

And the musty smell of abandoned books.

It struggles, caught between sentences

Subtle variations of patterns of speech

Etched in rough vinyl and the cracks on our teeth.

It preaches acceptable failure

And forgiveness in forgetting

Yet gives no heed, nor offers its own.

It whispers sadness into my skin

Melancholy voices that creep within,

Softly marching fingertips on my heart.

It may never die

But merely sleepeth

Till the end of day draws to an end.