only sliced glimpses of change,

natural in the curvature,

a mirrored frame polished to security

and color like my identity displayed,

like they were noted undertoned

and misbehaved to forewarn,

with only wartorn roses left to grow on this side

of the coin where the stars meet the sand

and become sentences and polished,

sliced glimpses of change,

to reflect inside the moonbeam crescent,

ideal identity displayed,

-

my notes’ undertones unturned stones of burden,

unworthy of screams so i half-pen the words,

erased like spit stains

and unfurled deranged scrimmages

burned to a wick,

one-fall limelight a wall with nothing left to stick,

where brash and bombastic skies

explode louder lies than anything i could inflict, while

my hair is growing and i’m blinded as the days pass by,

and i’ll be lucky if i find a glimpse,

a moment to pocket,

hold against my thigh,

a reminder that i can change, too.

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like expectation, shrouded

to infinity caved, kept in margins,

what lifelessness became,

and comfort to a fault, offline to decay,

called silent, caught on landmines sent sideways;

-

it’s generic, like home,

the sting that rings my veins,

when i hear you sing, swing your pace,

curses stretch my muscles, your breath in my ribcage,

the only pathway home through the grass like you made,

a summer angel, winter star, springing off to autumn rain;

-

where our harmony held high, my chin tucked deep below your range,

two morning dew darlings, too hardened for the forest sage,

it became blue carnage, blanketed by blooming moonlit haze,

the soonest fate to part with,

and the farthest past to recreate.

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i’ve begged for that reflection on repeat in time and all i’ve found is the space between, where the shapes read like a funhouse mirror, snapshots of life i’ve lived envious of. in the loneliest way, i’ve always been in love, never felt the absence of longing; in such an undeserving gasp it’s as if i forgot the presence that keeps me in the sky, albeit in part.

i’m losing you and i’m splitting the defense, ridding the mosquitos of cover. i’m five foot eleven, and in both my outstretched towers is all but the closest we’ve been to each other.

i’m chasing a satellite like chasing air, like chasing the concept of time, as such a simple similarity, polarity outlined, like for children, three feet and a lot more to climb. my socks are straight up, toes pointed for dismount, tread tailing out at the world record time. empty in layers, filling the room, i’m swinging the moon, begging for a sign.

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and half sleep in the ground,

as the sky would say and i’m mortified,

that mortal life confounded keeps me lifted by the strings in my back,

weaves i’ll only see when my neck can finally turn,

when my head fills with ice and atomizes,

reunites with dirt;

-

my eyes are planted to the pedal, form as destiny in shape,

my own augmented reality, cowardly,

mystifying grace,

with entropy trapped shallow as i paddled home,

all that came to be to conjure me,

an artifact i’ve grown,

and so much more still to go, minted green i bend my corners,

bolstered calls to blinding borders,

i fly freer all around,

endless as i reassign, a more pretentious pesticide to

uniformers, stripped to form the line i water thin to keep me streaming down;

-

half of me believes in fairy tales,

and half sleeps in the former,

the ties i’ve matured, books i’ve left alone,

the useless left me found,

and as the gap would say i’m borderline,

coiled at the spout with all the pouring mouths impossible to choke,

but with a silence that means more to my ears,

the cooler rising tone,

clouding up the window readings, unbreathing,

sky sewn clear with

an eternity to make up a precision to define,

spinning infinity times,

infinity to keep alive.

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more timidly defaced, dismantled too calculated

to present

a sudden master;

oh the molehills off-center,

where the cough only remembers the thin air of pennies,

the slick wretch of a stomach so round and so empty,

almost an imitation if you were, say, distracted,

of the pipes squeezing out the rest of their lives,

for a drop of mine,

to fill my cup and ring my hat, to the drop of a dime,

the strike of a needle in a thousand haystacks counting the rest of time;

oh the molehills off-center circulated,

prophesied to unwritable darlings between the sky;

oh the distance from which we face our dismissal,

a stupid standoff, fools to the end of a line,

that seems so unending and, of course, i’ve lost,

in the bat of an eye, and in this brave face,

thin cough,

i’m dismantled to a bin of parts, only blinking through heartless definitions,

the coldest vision to ever exist,

built to bits.

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i’m living years by, withered and new,

mellowed and glued to reformation, binding

what proves left to grow and to erode and gravitate,

float to less abound and coast to flatness all at the same time,

and lining ambiguously to what i decide,

like definitions and their insincerity,

and finding what it means to choose;

-

between two julys i’ve found myself slipping,

not by tongues but speaking with a curl too familiar,

to a cheek i’ve felt before,

and i’m hard pressed (as such a phrase suggests) to try and fight it too intentionally,

as what a fight it would be, to wrestle with myself,

what coercion it would take to discipline the coves that warp my view,

the estuary i’ve humanized as mine;

-

between two julys i’ve followed,

as rigid as can be, the fleeting hesitations,

left to linger and live reflected

in the lowest lap of the glass,

essentially forgotten and having all but become permanent,

attached like my nose inflated, ricocheting,

celebrating dedication to the past,

with the evidence written across my face,

dismissed and unavoidable and love;

-

between two julys there’s none of the above,

in my forever fill-in-the-blank,

bookending balloons, quiet grass growing spoiled,

to my front yard wounds, mowing over quips and coils,

trips from and to

a newer form,

a yearning to be adorned through more than memory,

a mirror, an effort to live up to time,

empiric, reflected between two julys;

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a hit piece to the storm,

doubt strung along cartilage,

like rotten flesh i’ve worn,

wrapped halfway and giftless,

you’re witnessing my crawl,

a forlorn exoneration,

evidence to stall,

to silencing nondoubters,

unrelenting to implore,

efforts i’ve set as worth spending,

senses suspending rapport,

in totality alive,

a separation to survive,

benign and unspread, a prime suspect,

an unchecked omission in time;

-

exit wound pries my shadow,

piloting my affliction,

with smile wrinkles dialing

the footsteps back home,

fit to worthless rewiring

and empty shoes, strict sequenced blues,

in form and hollow,

call log blank, on hold and

reaching for you.

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when the ice quits melting,

and i can count the light flares trapped in its prism,

limbo, at the discretion of a similar home,

in its infallibility,

and irony, at that, as a branch born to crack,

but for understandings sake the opposite of a hand,

like my fingers keeping pace and spring seasons seeking long,

where my tightest fist is empty and a disrespect to life,

just according to my role and upside down from my intention,

informing me the last of where our intonations jam,

everything i wish to know but never can,

like another way to die; enough

with all the lasting fleets

if i can just sail,

see the inlets blend and shape and separate in the changing speeds,

and reach connections that i shouldn’t be stretched between;

if i could just sail

until i hear the ice crack,

i think i would finally know everything.

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i mopped the store,

and wept inside,

listening through the blur over my eyes,

to the water washing you away,

tapping my feet,

dunking the sponge,

ringing the last drops of your love,

out to rinse the street where your prints still remain;

-

i’m trying not to be something i’ll one day lose shape of,

trying too hard to be me,

too hard to avoid the beginnings of you,

creeping into my reflection;

i’m missing the natural moments,

fending them off with too much intention,

whatever that means,

a privacy screen,

trying to be everything to perfection;

-

i’ll underdress to a standard,

speak to the sound

of restarting,

like bedsheets and circular songs,

wrapping me up like the forever days

i’ll always remember the melodies of;

i’ll choreo it all to principle,

and miss my starting queue,

just to hear the first few notes again,

just to hear you.

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throw my hat into the ring,

circling to fill the brim,

with words spilled to cover cheeks and

sheets stuffed to explosion;

i’d cut fast, slow motion,

stop holdings to trickle,

clinging to the ripples,

misdirecting the sea,

and find pieces, lose focus,

let go of what’s simple,

plunge deep to the signals

from their submarine;

-

i count paces to a pantomime,

petunias to implore,

snipped syntax and ripped tags to my ironing board,

to assume a due position,

turn anything to more,

turn evidence to identity until there’s nothing you can get me for;

-

i’d create a new language to sing to the snow,

weaken the water below,

format a philosophy set to implode,

at the slightest expression of spite,

as the roots are uncovered in swamp-murky gray,

keeping the human beings away,

keeping the human beings away,

-

because i count virginias and petunias and sunny mornings sprung

to violets and irises undressed and undone,

cogwheels in submission,

cognition expunged,

to become artifacts, scrapbooked fossils, remnants for us

to read of footsteps and paint shadows blind,

ghastly ballerina strides in sonata sway,

a memory left scattered from what was washed away,

seashells on the beach calling;

-

there isn’t a dissertation,

or an amount of honor

that could conjure the magnitude faced,

or combat a secrecy within ourselves

to accommodate such a disgrace,

but a just celebration is my only offer,

a commemoration in place,

for the outlines unfilled,

and promises killed,

mouths zipped to outfit their counterfeit graves,

-

so i’ll step,

and let their empty prints form,

furnish at my side,

trading breaths,

speaking enough to live for,

pace for pace, stride for stride.

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déjà vu in the echo,

and i’m claustrophobic in the breaths between,

gloving what i couldn’t hang,

and spiraling my way off of her balance beam;

there’s a wishbone in her breeze,

and in my memory i caught it,

rolled my change down like laundry,

and gilded the silence that pillows our mesh,

fleshing out the crawlers, flawlessly alive;

almost explicit in stride and mirror-cut in imitation,

we wore wounds woven and wasted,

cut clear and concise, to a point, sharp and tainted,

like a preview, now sat only to reflect off the glass left on the scene;

-

a state of matter turned from a state of mind reversion,

and unbeknownst to me i approached the same road and the same lane,

with the same clothes and the same burden,

and it burned into my brain,

but your name and your unnerving distance sit familiar and unchanged,

in my lungs like water, swallowing your footsteps, i’m convinced,

the black within my blinks is just the absence of your face now, carved out and caved in,

my spirit tucked away, and left hollow,

in flattened excess,

empty chest, full brain;

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and pledge to be more simplistic,

a blank slate in my stare, sheltered and clawing for distance from my shadow’s blizzard,

and i woke with the hope of the dog at my bedside and candles still burning aflame,

bent over to no one and tucked in the covers,

a pledge to my slumber i’ll return again,

and i’ll empty my stomach to ceiling fan spirals,

and promise to be more direct in my cause,

an open chasm in my voice, systemic and costly to any description i’ve wished to pay off,

and as random and hopeful sing harmony i’ll go stale and just hope to at least feed the birds,

fuel the concord from which i stole the debris, mix my own dirt in the credits,

and save face like money to buy myself free,

spending long enough for them to forget it.

-

there’s an encore looming and before you know it just like an onlooker it’s gone,

and i question a breath as a spectator, living in air quotes, trailing what you could become,

and i question the budget the post scene requires, and the reception it would garner,

if effort is worth it, or some kind of faith, to watch myself falling face first as a martyr,

swirling my head like the fan, spelling my name, claiming my social disguise,

to deceive myself, as if there’s an evidence based in the craters left behind my eyes,

to fill a void or an ocean, a memory unspoken, to follow the fan like a dog,

to be what it is to believe in, to become an encore breathing,

dreaming, to and from.

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as indifference is a chore,

like my laundry spilling over,

spinning seconds,

tumbling on and on like hours were the birds and movement shuttered,

tripped and trembled at the loss of control;

but god my head just won’t stop begging,

banging for attention,

ringing and rolling every penny into peace,

new and nonuniquely qualified in unitedness,

striping stepping stones across my ironed mess,

and betting on the breeze;

-

blowing past the piles,

to be seen but never plastered,

wasting all my pieces

and poisoning their power,

posted, pinned and pictured,

scraps unmade, nondestroyed,

redevoured,

by eyes scouting sacrifice

and nothing beautiful, weaving

thin air to meaning misted,

teething twisted and tongues overblown,

to soapbox ceilings, mounted, mystic monotone,

to something so clean i can read its history in the reflection,

fold my skin over the questions and whistle my way home;

-

but now my baggage is piloting the floor tile,

my suitcase spilling dirty clothes,

coatings redirecting

flash flooded cheekbones

and sprinkler showers, blush blooming,

rain dances, first to nine lives,

three left feet cramming sneakers divided, untied,

and refocused stares, like camera lenses clipping,

scrubbing past the grime, surveillance spies and painting by numbers,

thunderstorms and dry cleaners leading the blind;

-

but i’ve traveled new places and vocabularies too,

turned my veins blue and my bones supersized,

and still my skin fell to the grass, gasped to feel the morning dew,

showed its colors to the sun and wished the petrichor away,

and differentiated for a profound spark

from my face, a vessel levitated, separated, split apart,

from garments and heaven, anything to set the mark,

wash the dirt, soak the sentences, rinse the lines to start;

-

as indifference is a chore and i’m pale as the boxes on my chart,

the magnets on my fridge,

the cobwebs on my car,

or the keys in my pocket, fraying my cargo seams,

to eraser shavings spelling maps i once crafted subconsciously and

anything more relatable than flying fast from love,

to and all of the above the movement tumbling like the wash,

or a somersault to vault me millions of memories away,

to songs synched inside wallpapers ankle high,

what once caught my eyes as flashy skyscraper displays,

captivating me what seemed to be a final time at every age,

unknowing to paralysis, this ironic desire to stay,

held captive in my agitation, as if the minutes count the same,

inside the timer built to accent puddles splashing bullet trains,

to sneaker squeaks and sighs, and i’ll carry mine to the grave,

on my back in the mesh bag where i’ve compiled everything,

spiraling to find a reason,

every evening,

laundry day.

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coddled, cold and grounded,

fringing not enough to clear,

you’re keeping log of almost years ago now,

hinging on the tide, time spent elapsing

in the foothills, currents crashing, making space their own in case of quiet,

melting old and snapping prints,

identifiers to the bone, and

empty smoke,

voids in fire to become the brush alive,

basin coat,

brash desire strung along and stuck inside,

and wilted, uninspired and any quilted thought to bind the message

in the wind,

the questions hesitant

to pin, sing what’s magnified and bin the cusp aside

like curtains, to control, omit to a limitation,

instinctive and unfolded, caught, molded in anticipation

understated lasted quotes, fasted hope to solemn screams,

the in between, the present moment,

pure destruction,

corrupted dreams;

-

and now there isn’t so much as hope left to bend beneath your grip,

fragments kept pocketed and secrets split in case of rain,

contingencies abound and dusted ground to feed the reasons,

mainland abashed and bleeding, clusters calculated breathe the same,

as what couldn’t hold the weight, simultaneous and static,

practice pace to final flashes, chain reaction clasping graves,

to what the middles mean, to catch and release and casting carnage,

whistling to definitions strapped to peace, the only thing more harmless

than inevitability trudging the outline of the floor, where the dreams bury deeper,

cacophonies stutter to interpretation sleeping, anything for peace to be open for,

realities skipped amongst inversions rejected, and personifications to say,

the merge of misuse and what you left unprotected,

denominated,

to hold the shores empty by the day.

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i felt that movement fleeting,

time passing along, reckoning by,

non-numeric and sharply breathing,

as if hesitantly alive, half grids of imprinted sneakers

speaking inverse light flickers,

tongue twisters inscribed,

enriched to what became my fixture,

everything i whisper mine,

and what was selfless to believe to be anything but hollow,

dusted leaves, misting follows, stepping steeply behind,

keeping fractions open for impossibility,

a stride to the remainders, and keeping pace,

piecing eyes commonly,

mahogany, maple sky,

its breeze erasing clouds, translating what became my portrait,

hindsight vision, skipping towards this sole foreshadowed sunrise,

where i caught stillness by the wrists,

and in coffee filter crunch i cracked the last secrets sealed within enough,

and infinite to bend the corners not to budge,

and sing and dance to floorboard wear and neckties undone,

the dream to be everything whenever it comes.

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or conjure an audience syllabic,

when the megaphone rings and i compromise with the feedback,

to sing histories into chalk,

and wash the power lines to fire skies away,

in sparks and stride to a ripple effect on poles slicked with intention and grandeur,

self aggrandizing in the reflections,

demonstrative directions built for display,

erected to accept erraticism and cut corners, distort the blueprints to remain,

and levitate above something resembling me,

no matter how high heat rises or if i melt with my name;

-

and it will last as tough-to-find pedantic writing in the shape,

that rounds at the edges translated sharp and directionless,

to scramble and to herd the last laymen lulled awake,

by the sirens, wide-netted words that muffle, mute, dismantle to silence,

to disengagement straying to a timid unrevolution,

until a wired open jaw comes to sing the compromises,

into something so unjust to find like my own wants described in drying ink, semi-calculated and perfect timing as it may,

and as it stood to be in hardened scripts,

enough of it to say,

-

enough of this, and listen grandly,

i am static and inevitably becoming, muffled to the disadvantage of my frame,

but present only for a time i’m shredded into celebration,

outcried cracks of roaring thunder,

tough discovered,

pedantic rain.

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hold the rail to guide,

perforate the path i blaze,

and keep command, grip the stands,

frozen captive in my gaze;

inconveniences that keep me breathing,

completely to be alive,

like stars conjoined to become real,

equal shine, my appeal magazined until my face was flattened,

famous hypertrophic daze,

where i’ll become something worth having,

anything to save;

but so detached have i been hanging lately,

swinging just to brace the fall,

rejecting the wind on my shoulders, eyes staring closed,

watching all the futures i’ve shut off;

and hardly can i count how many times larger than life it seems,

the blades dividing my shadow,

misted half across my snow machine,

and skating around the corners, cuts in my breaths i shortened,

stuttered, stepping, past infinity,

reaching first before i see the ground,

stealing balance, slipping my advances,

the cleanest way down.

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sets of release, one rep on record, each, scrambling,

stresses on repeat, the deepest stretches, tension,

upkeeps to existence, limits to achieve, to live in,

what’s next to complete, anything but

much less of these.

-

much less to be pinned, bookmarked, folded at my corners and considered;

much less to know or to be known or to be on display;

i’ve been my canvas, scrubbed the indented for paint;

i’ve been my own reflections back, best to catch;

i’ve been the bait,

casted shadows soaking, sidewalk pictographs, spelling scapes, portrait bound, and

i’ve wound the shapes to set the colors cased and crowned, unscrambled and unreticent,

senses to what’s allowed, and what’s home,

what an answer could be or what we’re meant to be chasing, handed off the sheet, my checklist complete with empty spaces,

and where’s a heart to lead but everything left for me to fill the blanks with,

and keep a place to be alive,

-

like the wind on rotation, the slip on our waterslide,

no basis for where our strides keep hold,

but a print of where we tried, and became, and olden like the proof itself;

much less the shell we fill, much less the ramblings that surround it,

much less the stasis sound in the soles of my shoes,

but everything more unfounded, the sheets in which i’ve carved the route,

the ramblings where they may keep their crawl or build a vestige,

find rest in forever and forever hold new,

much less everything i hope to do.

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